Illustrations for most (9/11) of the proofs can be found below the text.

1. Change a Diaper

My first baby-sitting operations came when I was 12. Although I never baby-sat regularly, it always seemed to involve those who were not yet potty trained. Now I have a niece (4) and a nephew (9 months). No-one attempting to change a diaper is going to stop and take pictures, and my forays into the experience have either been solo or pre-dated digital photography. Anecdotes will have to do.

Anecodote A. The more recent experience occurred when my nephew was 3 months old. Remember the above comment about not stopping to take pictures? He exemplifies why. I was rather out of practice changing diapers by this time, and much preferred the chores of "entertaining" or "feeding". But by the end of my annual visit, having watched all three of my sisters (even the one who dislikes children and made our niece cry by threatening to feed her to the giraffes at the zoo) accomplish diaper changes successfully, I was ready to try my hand at it. My timing, however, was terrible. I picked the diaper change where Nephew decided that no, actually, he wasn't *quite* done defecating just yet, and thank you for providing this clean diaper but there's no point bothering with those fastenings.

Anecdote B. The other anecdote is much earlier, from when we were living in what might be called "impoverished circumstances". Our next door neighbors had twin one-year-old boys (it's always boys, isn't it?). One day, my sister and I were both sitting, for lack of anything better to do, and we ran out of diapers. Thing Two still had a diaper, but Thing One most emphatically could not keep wearing his. Neither of us wanted to find out what would happen if Thing One ran around naked for who-knows-how-long until his parents returned. Frantic searching revealed that the Things' potty-trained cousin had left behind a pair of cotton underpants. We used scotch tape and some of my sister's hair ribbons to make them fit Thing Two.

Thus, not only can I change a diaper, but I can survive the process miraculously unsullied (Anecdote A) and improvise an approximation diaper if needed (Anecdote B). Which is not to say I intend to put this skill to any kind of use in the future.

2. Write a Sonnet

I know I had to write at least two sonnets in high school, for two different classes. I was a typical angst-ridden adolescent and wrote a great deal of poetry, mostly of the "fluffy cloud" variety. I still have a small handful of poetry from those years. Comparison to my book of Shakespeare's Sonnets suggest that none of my kept attempts qualify as a sonnet, but I no attempt poetry. This poem comes closest to a sonnet. It was written in 10th grade, at the behest of a teacher organizing a candlelight vigil for the Columbine victims.

Sanctuary Stolen

"School, once upon a time, meant sanctuary
a rest from home, family, the overwhelming world
Where no death, poverty, crime, war
no sorrow, loss or fear should invade
my sheltered place of growth and learning.

Fairies stepped on yellow school buses, journeyed
into a fantasy realm far, far away
Red brick walls were cold iron to reality
And only the fairies might pass.

And then the innocent carry reality with them
in hidden guns, bombs, murder, hate; blood
seeping into mortar, into desks, into books
distance snapping into focus
as rosy glasses are replaced with prescription
Innocence breached, and nowhere is safety.

Cry, cry for the death of the children
but weep, weep for the loss of the sanctuary."

Across the top of the paper, "I light this candle in memory of Rachel Scott".

3. Balance Accounts

I keep nigh-obsessive track of my income and expenses. I prepare (thought don't necessarily follow) a detailed budget, keep copies of my receipts, reconcile my statements, look months in advance to predict what spending patterns will result in what level of affluence. I used to do this on paper, but these days do it in Quicken. The photo gallery includes the most innocent screenshot of my financial life I could find, which contains evidence of the very gradual reduction of a student loan.

4. Comfort the Dying

In Fall 2004, my mothers was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Although it is known colloquially as Lou Gehrig's Disease, the most famous person diagnosed with ALS is probably Stephen Hawking. ALS is characterized by gradual loss of muscle, including the muscles that allow you to breathe, and is usually fatal within 5-10 years. By Fall 2006, my mother was dependent on IV nutrition and feeding tube; could not stand, sit up, or walk unsupported; and "talked" by pointing her toe at letters of the alphabet on a sheet of cardboard.

That November, I had the entire week of Thanksgiving off, and spent it at home relieving my father of full-time care duties. When we got to the car at the airport, I presented my mother with an autographed copy of "Wintersmith", by Terry Pratchett (one of her favorite authors). It made her cry. Nights were spent in her room, waking up four or five times each night to clear her throat so she could breathe. Days were spent on the sofa, watching daytime TV (Greg Behrendt, CSI reruns) and every episode of Red Dwarf. When she expended effort to "toe" me something, it was usually a request to sit on the sofa and hold her hand. When I left, I promised I would be home for several weeks over Christmas and we would "party".

On December 11th, my dad called to tell me that, while in the hospital for routine care and evaluation, my mother had stopped breathing overnight and suffered a heart attack. She was in a coma. I spent most of the next three weeks at her bedside in ICU. I was the only one of four daughters who could take that much time away from work. I read "Wintersmith" aloud, doing my best to give the Nac Mac Feegle Scottish accents. I played the Terry Pratchett audiobooks I had intended to be her Christmas present. When I did attempt to complete work assignments, I monologued everything. If I couldn't think of anything to say, I tuned the TV to shows or movies I knew she liked. Mostly, I held her hand. I was holding it when they removed the ventilator, and when she died on January 2nd.

5. Take Orders

This would be a good point to whip out credentials as a waitress or sales representative. I have neither. I do have the dojo, however. There is something mildly masochistic about paying for the privilege of having a Sensei tell you, after 10 minutes of running laps and trying to kick a 150+ pound bag across the room, to get down and do 10 frog hops. It smacks of Take Orders in the "Take it Like a Boy Scout!" sense rather than the "Follow Instructions" sense.

6. Give Orders

Go to Google and search for "domineering fascist teacher".

If you do this, you will probably find an article from TIME. But even if you don't do it, I've demonstrated that I can Give Orders, to a wide audience even. And in the event that at least one person reading this does go searching for insane teachers on Google in vain search of supporting praxis, I have demonstrated not only that I can Give Orders but that I can Give Orders which are sometimes even followed.

7. Co-Operate

In pursuit of Science, and in deference to the "publish or perish" mentality of most institutions devoted to Science, I have served as co-author on papers presenting Scientific Research. This involves negotiating for phrasing, co-ordinating whose turn it is to take what draft, and not killing co-authors when they change something back for the nth time or make other unreasonable demands.

The proof is a small section of the Track Changes process, the modern era's version of red ink. Three colors means three people trying to write one thing. Note especially where one person put something in and another deleted most of it.

8. Solve Equations

Ah yes, those fond distant memories of sitting in the high school cafeteria, neglecting our lunches as we attempted to solve assorted Calculus problems - not because it was homework, but because we were geeks in a geeky school. Or those not-so-distant days of randomly decided I needed to remember how to derive the quadratic equation.

For this proof, however, I am submitting more recent and much more esoteric solving of equations. There are plenty of clues in there as to the general topic, but the variable names are probably unintelligible in this computerize format. It's more interesting that way.

9. Program a Computer

I am going to assume, in the interest of keeping this within "everyman" abilities, that this is to program something on a computer and not build an OS from scratch. I've taken an Intro to Programming class, but it was really HTML with a touch of Javascript, which probably shouldn't count. I don't know any general computer programming, but in the course of Science I have had to program certain applications to do crazy things using a mix of GUI instructions and script. I've begged a computer sciences major for help, I've spent hours hunting down the one semi-colon somewhere that is crashing my computer, I've considered inventing some kind of monitor trebuchet after getting repeated nonsensical compile errors. Most of my work has been with a specific program, and a section of the code I had to write for it is in the photo gallery. It contains pretty straightforward instructions to create and randomize lists, the first thing I ever programmed (with much hand-holding).

10. Cook A Tasty Meal

For purposes of tasking, I decided this should be cooking a meal I had never cooked before. "Tasty" would be taken on recommendation, but then, tasty was going to be relative no matter what.

I cook for one, so meals tend not to be extensive. Instead of "appetizers", I have some kind of opener I can munch on while waiting for the rest of the meal to be ready. The meal was as follows:

Opener - Kentucky Buckeyes
Main Dish - Baked Herb Chicken over Gnocchi
Desert - Hearty Banana Nut Bread with Chocolate Chips

"Kentucky Buckeyes" is a recipe from the Three Village Cookbook, a local collection from Ambrosden, the tiny town we lived in while my dad was on exchange with the British military. In terms of cooking, it provides the greatest challenge of recipe-following. The ingredients are: "large jar peanut butter; 1 lb icing sugar; 4 oz margarine; chocolate for melting". Instructions basically go: mix first three ingredients together, make small balls, cover with melted chocolate, refrigerate". A very simple and mindless start to cooking a tasty meal, right? Wrong.

The first problem is guessing at the ingredients. Icing sugar is probably confectioner's sugar, because a search of the baking ingredients aisle yielded no other alternatives. Then I have no idea how big a "large jar" is. Were jars of peanut butter bigger in England than here? I eventually go with half of my 18oz jar, a third of a butter stick, and wild guesses at how to divide a 1 lb bag into thirds - basically, until it looked like something that wouldn't stick to every surface imaginable, or just over half a cup.

The second problem was in the proposed size. Instructions read: "about the size of a two-er in marbles - an alley would be too greedy and a one-er would be too stingy!". This crosses either a generation or cultural gap. I never played marbles when I was little, and have no idea what these words even are. I decide to just make approximately bite-size (and who is there to care if I'm being greedy?). Eventually, "ball" gets dropped as well, so there is just an assortment of ball-size misshapen lumps on my tray.

A quick taste-test (licking my fingers clean) reveals that I have created a mild, less-sticky, completely unhealthy version of peanut butter. Now for the chocolate, which comes from a pre-packaged "melt me" container and is drizzled on. They solidify after about 5-10 minutes in the fridge, and turn into a very nice subtle peanut-butter-and-chocolate finger food snack. Since I like this combination, it turns out be addictive, and yes, tasty.

The main course is Baked Herb Chicken. Specifics of the recipe aside, I've never actually tried to bake chicken; my recipes tend toward stir-fry and sauté. Reminiscent of stir-fry, this involves making a sauce on the stove (milk, chicken broth, flour, butter, and assorted spices and flavorings), pouring it over the chicken, and popping everything into the oven. The only challenge is figuring out how to turn a 4-6 person recipe into appropriate size for 1. I like sauce, so I just halved everything. The sauce isn't quite thick enough that it remains on top of the chicken instead of spreading across a pan that is too big for two pieces of chicken, so I made more afterwards in interest of sauce. Gnocchi turn out to be even easier to cook than pasta, taking far less time. Again, tasty, though in a more normal way than the buckeyes.

The banana bread turns out to be incredibly easy. Measure out precise portions, mix together, bake. Living in/near the Mile High City did necessitate guesstimating an extra bit of flour, but I've done this so often in the past few years that it turned out perfectly.

11. Fight Efficiently

In a few days I will give my Saturday morning to testing for the 2nd Degree Brown Belt (two notches below basic Black Belt). I spend a lot of time working out with people of higher rank and heftier size than myself. We do not "play". I walk away with insane bruises and assorted other injuries. If I do not properly block the punch being thrown at me, I will be hit. I block them. I get compliments from the 3rd Degree Black Belt that is my Sensei, and even from my workout partners (who are far more likely to find things I should attempt to improve than anything else). Which means I can block a punch from a 180-pound male black belt, and (usually) knock him or pull him to the ground (while remaining upright myself) despite his best efforts to resist or otherwise get away. Since I have no interest in getting into a real fight, this will have to stand as sufficient evidence of efficient fighting ability in the modern world. The photo gallery contains images of two trophies I obtained at a state-wide tournament (and my rank at the time, three tests ago).