Thursday, September 30, 2004
ode to nicole
today would have been her 23rd birthday... in absence of nicole, some randomly chosen picture memories instead... enjoy:
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
apprentice
the donald finally fired someone for a real reason! pretty soon it's going to be down to just the guys :-P
more photos
the rest of the set that i started to post on here the other night can be found at:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~lpudwell/photoalbum1.html
(temporary page until next week (don't want mom to know about the new haircut til she gets here in person next week)... then it'll be http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~lpudwell/photoalbum.html
later dudes.
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~lpudwell/photoalbum1.html
(temporary page until next week (don't want mom to know about the new haircut til she gets here in person next week)... then it'll be http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~lpudwell/photoalbum.html
later dudes.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
just another manic.... tuesday?
well, maybe not even manic i guess... just long and busy.
*early class (in the context of math grad school, this means 9:50am, but i left early to pick up padmini on the way, and even earlier b/c although kristin planned to get up before me and get ready, giving me a little longer to sleep, the boiler was acting up and making horrible noises when she tried to use the hot water... this meant i woke up b/c of the noise it was making, and went down to the basement to tinker with it.... as far as class, it went ok, just faster than i caught on to things and so now i have a bit of reading to do to play catch up
*after class, my one happy spot -- lunch with roommate... we went to applebees, and laughed at the discussion in the next booth over... although i'm sad that she has a lot to sort through right now, and wish i could fix it, i know stressful situations take time and don't just go away, so if we can't magically make things all good again, it's at least good to spend quality time with a real friend :-)
*other class = above my head, meaning more catch up reading to do
*after class, i was tired and frustrated... leigh and colleen wanted to start qual studying today, but since i did my written homework but didn't keep up with reading while roommate was here, i wanted to get back on task with classes proper... in order to avoid their studying party, and just to get away from people in general, i went for a drive... it had been drizzling all day (leftovers of hurrican jeanne, and now NJ is flooding), but while i was out it finally started pouring HARD... it's bad but when i'm driving in bad rain, i suddenly think 'nicole!' and see my car veering over to the other side of road... this is an association i really wish would go away
*after driving out my angst for a bit, and not settling on a place to stop and work at for a bit, i called ben and talked for a little... he said if i stayed in the state instead of driving far far away he'd study with me somewhere in an hour, so i found a place near campus to work, and waited
*after ben got done at the gym, we worked at starbucks for awhile... 40 freakin pages of topology reading (and thus the feeling way behind in class #2 today is fixed until next lecture :-P), but that's a lot of work!
*came home to watch scrubs, but colleen and leigh are working on qual problems and i feel guilty for not doing that, but i plan to be reading differential geometry the rest of the night so i guess i just need to get over my guilt.
*finally, oh joy of joys, our basement is flooding and i still have sheets and towels in the washer/dryer down there that roommate used all week... i guess that's one of the fun things about living in an old house in a part of the country that's gotten a ton of rain lately....
done complaining... i should be working.
(note: this entry really did have no thesis/real point... so don't worry if you thought you missed one -- you're right ;-P)
*early class (in the context of math grad school, this means 9:50am, but i left early to pick up padmini on the way, and even earlier b/c although kristin planned to get up before me and get ready, giving me a little longer to sleep, the boiler was acting up and making horrible noises when she tried to use the hot water... this meant i woke up b/c of the noise it was making, and went down to the basement to tinker with it.... as far as class, it went ok, just faster than i caught on to things and so now i have a bit of reading to do to play catch up
*after class, my one happy spot -- lunch with roommate... we went to applebees, and laughed at the discussion in the next booth over... although i'm sad that she has a lot to sort through right now, and wish i could fix it, i know stressful situations take time and don't just go away, so if we can't magically make things all good again, it's at least good to spend quality time with a real friend :-)
*other class = above my head, meaning more catch up reading to do
*after class, i was tired and frustrated... leigh and colleen wanted to start qual studying today, but since i did my written homework but didn't keep up with reading while roommate was here, i wanted to get back on task with classes proper... in order to avoid their studying party, and just to get away from people in general, i went for a drive... it had been drizzling all day (leftovers of hurrican jeanne, and now NJ is flooding), but while i was out it finally started pouring HARD... it's bad but when i'm driving in bad rain, i suddenly think 'nicole!' and see my car veering over to the other side of road... this is an association i really wish would go away
*after driving out my angst for a bit, and not settling on a place to stop and work at for a bit, i called ben and talked for a little... he said if i stayed in the state instead of driving far far away he'd study with me somewhere in an hour, so i found a place near campus to work, and waited
*after ben got done at the gym, we worked at starbucks for awhile... 40 freakin pages of topology reading (and thus the feeling way behind in class #2 today is fixed until next lecture :-P), but that's a lot of work!
*came home to watch scrubs, but colleen and leigh are working on qual problems and i feel guilty for not doing that, but i plan to be reading differential geometry the rest of the night so i guess i just need to get over my guilt.
*finally, oh joy of joys, our basement is flooding and i still have sheets and towels in the washer/dryer down there that roommate used all week... i guess that's one of the fun things about living in an old house in a part of the country that's gotten a ton of rain lately....
done complaining... i should be working.
(note: this entry really did have no thesis/real point... so don't worry if you thought you missed one -- you're right ;-P)
Monday, September 27, 2004
an email
from my experimental math prof..... :-)
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:53:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: Doron Zeilberger
Subject: Well-Done!
Dear Lara,
I liked your solution to the Ballot problem!
Please remind me to give you $1 next time.
Best wishes
Dr. Z.
MathIsFun
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:53:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: Doron Zeilberger
Subject: Well-Done!
Dear Lara,
I liked your solution to the Ballot problem!
Please remind me to give you $1 next time.
Best wishes
Dr. Z.
MathIsFun
Sunday, September 26, 2004
my life in photos
i just finished a roll of film i started over a month ago... in 2 rolls of my film, and 2 rolls of roommate's film, here's 9 key pictures from the past month, for your laughter enjoyment :-)
before that, quality quote of the day:
pastor j: (after having the children who came up for the kids sermon tell about times they were lost, tells about the Bible story of the lost sheep... bringing things to a conclusion again...): and remember the times you were lost? think about your parents when they found you -- weren't they so happy to see you again?
small child in the back (very loudly and immediately): noooo!!!
pastor j (starts laughing -- to the congregation): that's our grandson here!... (to his grandson) matthew, i hope you know your parents really are happy when they see you
the rest of the agenda today? roommate, me, and paul ellis went to church, then after dropping off paul, roommate and me got thai food for lunch. :-) after that, random errands, and then we went minigolfing for a bit :-) i ended up 3 over par, she ended up 5 over -- not bad, eh? ;-) after that, lots of developing photos fun, a run through old navy where i got a much needed new purse and new bookbag on sale (i refuse to buy any of either that i can't wear on my side with the strap across the opposite shoulder, so i limit my options greatly to almost nothing, but i'm happy with what i ended up with today) :-)... then dinner at the diner with the best cheesecake in jersey (roommate was dubious it could really be as good as cheesecake factory, but even she agreed that it was at least as good as it :-) )... then we went and saw the movie "wimbledon" which was quite quality -- we both liked it a lot. :-)
and now, homework done, class in 12 hours, getting ready to crash... woohoo... enjoy the picture show ;-) (click to see full size, which might not be that different from blog post size)
two shots out the window of the plane i flew back from ohio last month:
ben and scott doing acrobatics on the new york state line sign the afternoon between qual days:
imagine you're the 2nd car in the church parking lot at 8am on a saturday morning, and out of the corner of your eye you see a 6 foot tall shadowy figure looming around the corner of one of the storage sheds across the way... just as you're about to jump and run, you look closer and see.......
i've just thought that this one was great for awhile :-P
me, and the statue of liberty, from the liberty island ferry yesterday:
me, roommate, and ellis island:
cheers! (@ the times square planet hollywood)
me and a big apple in the big apple ;-)
before that, quality quote of the day:
pastor j: (after having the children who came up for the kids sermon tell about times they were lost, tells about the Bible story of the lost sheep... bringing things to a conclusion again...): and remember the times you were lost? think about your parents when they found you -- weren't they so happy to see you again?
small child in the back (very loudly and immediately): noooo!!!
pastor j (starts laughing -- to the congregation): that's our grandson here!... (to his grandson) matthew, i hope you know your parents really are happy when they see you
the rest of the agenda today? roommate, me, and paul ellis went to church, then after dropping off paul, roommate and me got thai food for lunch. :-) after that, random errands, and then we went minigolfing for a bit :-) i ended up 3 over par, she ended up 5 over -- not bad, eh? ;-) after that, lots of developing photos fun, a run through old navy where i got a much needed new purse and new bookbag on sale (i refuse to buy any of either that i can't wear on my side with the strap across the opposite shoulder, so i limit my options greatly to almost nothing, but i'm happy with what i ended up with today) :-)... then dinner at the diner with the best cheesecake in jersey (roommate was dubious it could really be as good as cheesecake factory, but even she agreed that it was at least as good as it :-) )... then we went and saw the movie "wimbledon" which was quite quality -- we both liked it a lot. :-)
and now, homework done, class in 12 hours, getting ready to crash... woohoo... enjoy the picture show ;-) (click to see full size, which might not be that different from blog post size)
two shots out the window of the plane i flew back from ohio last month:
ben and scott doing acrobatics on the new york state line sign the afternoon between qual days:
imagine you're the 2nd car in the church parking lot at 8am on a saturday morning, and out of the corner of your eye you see a 6 foot tall shadowy figure looming around the corner of one of the storage sheds across the way... just as you're about to jump and run, you look closer and see.......
i've just thought that this one was great for awhile :-P
me, and the statue of liberty, from the liberty island ferry yesterday:
me, roommate, and ellis island:
cheers! (@ the times square planet hollywood)
me and a big apple in the big apple ;-)
quote of the day
(from one of my desk calendars this morning)
true happiness consists not in the multitide of friends, but in the worth and choice. ~ben johnson (17th century english poet)
not that by any means everything we do is be happy (there's a lot of sad and/or serious stuff to talk about too), but it's so incredibly good to have roommate back for a few days... since colleen's sister was here friday and saturday, roommate's even sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of my room, so she really is roommate for the duration of her visit :-P... it always was trouble if we went to sleep at the same time during college... and it still is... but it's so much fun to have someone to talk again to for an hour or whatever as you're falling asleep, and to laugh with... =) and who can make sense of what you're saying even if you pick the wrong words without thinking about it out of sheer exhaustion (yesterday i twice refered to a ferry we were taking as a bus, and other such random things, but i never manage to confuse her).
friday was pizza, homemade mudslides, and silly movie night (we rented "the prince and me" and "confessions of a teenage drama queen")... yesterday was new york day (on account of me having to do altar guild for one more week, we didn't leave NJ til 11, got in to NYC and noon, and by then all tickets to go inside the statue of liberty were sold for the day... instead we paid for the ferry that takes you to liberty island and ellis island, so we could at least get close up and get an incredible view... it was quality... dinner and drinks at the times square planet hollywood... visited rockefeller center, and then st. patrick's cathedral before making our way back to penn station to go home around 9pm... all in all, a lot of waiting in lines, but nonetheless a quality day.
i'm excited for this morning... last time roommate visited, pastor j was out of town, and so were some other key people that care a lot about me at church, so she visited church with me, but it was a very off week, with the deacons leading the service and many of the people i talk to most regularly not around... this week she should get to hear pastor j preach, and hopefully meet the weiss's, etc. this will be good :-)
anyhow, in conclusion.. yay for friends :-)
the end.
later dudes :-P
true happiness consists not in the multitide of friends, but in the worth and choice. ~ben johnson (17th century english poet)
not that by any means everything we do is be happy (there's a lot of sad and/or serious stuff to talk about too), but it's so incredibly good to have roommate back for a few days... since colleen's sister was here friday and saturday, roommate's even sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of my room, so she really is roommate for the duration of her visit :-P... it always was trouble if we went to sleep at the same time during college... and it still is... but it's so much fun to have someone to talk again to for an hour or whatever as you're falling asleep, and to laugh with... =) and who can make sense of what you're saying even if you pick the wrong words without thinking about it out of sheer exhaustion (yesterday i twice refered to a ferry we were taking as a bus, and other such random things, but i never manage to confuse her).
friday was pizza, homemade mudslides, and silly movie night (we rented "the prince and me" and "confessions of a teenage drama queen")... yesterday was new york day (on account of me having to do altar guild for one more week, we didn't leave NJ til 11, got in to NYC and noon, and by then all tickets to go inside the statue of liberty were sold for the day... instead we paid for the ferry that takes you to liberty island and ellis island, so we could at least get close up and get an incredible view... it was quality... dinner and drinks at the times square planet hollywood... visited rockefeller center, and then st. patrick's cathedral before making our way back to penn station to go home around 9pm... all in all, a lot of waiting in lines, but nonetheless a quality day.
i'm excited for this morning... last time roommate visited, pastor j was out of town, and so were some other key people that care a lot about me at church, so she visited church with me, but it was a very off week, with the deacons leading the service and many of the people i talk to most regularly not around... this week she should get to hear pastor j preach, and hopefully meet the weiss's, etc. this will be good :-)
anyhow, in conclusion.. yay for friends :-)
the end.
later dudes :-P
Thursday, September 23, 2004
TV reviews
watched joey for the second week in a row. i miss the dynamics of 6 fantastic main characters from "friends", but "joey" hasn't completely lost my attention yet -- i find it humorous that one of the main characters is a stereotypical science/brain overachiever, playing the complete contrast to joey... the interaction there is just funny...
but, dude, the apprentice tonight... and last week for that matter... what is up with this? last season, i didn't always like the donald's decisions on who to fire, but i understood them... last week, i kinda see why bradford got knocked off, but then again, the donald removed one of his stronger players and i don't see any of the others quite stepping it up as strongly as bradford was... but whatever
this week? let's call the whole team into the board room to vote if stacie is clinically insane? um, dude... they didn't like her from week 1 and had it out for her ever since... not that she played perfectly, but just because she had a different sense of humor (word choice?) about things and the rest of her team didn't like her didn't seem a reasonable reason to let her go. pointing out things like episode 2 where she called a temp agency and hired additional workers without consulting anyone else -- *that's* something to bring up... firing her because she played with a magic 8 ball while they were waiting to hear which team won and their work was done... that's retarded.
scenario 1: the donald starts firing people for real reasons again, and my interest is sparked
scenario 2: now that i know these characters i'll probably finish this season out anyhow, but if it keeps getting increasingly ridiculous, after this season, seriously, i'm done.
i've been so good... done with homework for tomorrow and most of for monday/tuesday... i really am set to have fun with roommate while she's here :-) in fact i'll see her in something on the order of 12-15 hours!!! :-) this shall be a party...
mission 1: find my map of NY/the NYC subway
mission 2: pack my bookbag and get to sleep
night y'all.
but, dude, the apprentice tonight... and last week for that matter... what is up with this? last season, i didn't always like the donald's decisions on who to fire, but i understood them... last week, i kinda see why bradford got knocked off, but then again, the donald removed one of his stronger players and i don't see any of the others quite stepping it up as strongly as bradford was... but whatever
this week? let's call the whole team into the board room to vote if stacie is clinically insane? um, dude... they didn't like her from week 1 and had it out for her ever since... not that she played perfectly, but just because she had a different sense of humor (word choice?) about things and the rest of her team didn't like her didn't seem a reasonable reason to let her go. pointing out things like episode 2 where she called a temp agency and hired additional workers without consulting anyone else -- *that's* something to bring up... firing her because she played with a magic 8 ball while they were waiting to hear which team won and their work was done... that's retarded.
scenario 1: the donald starts firing people for real reasons again, and my interest is sparked
scenario 2: now that i know these characters i'll probably finish this season out anyhow, but if it keeps getting increasingly ridiculous, after this season, seriously, i'm done.
i've been so good... done with homework for tomorrow and most of for monday/tuesday... i really am set to have fun with roommate while she's here :-) in fact i'll see her in something on the order of 12-15 hours!!! :-) this shall be a party...
mission 1: find my map of NY/the NYC subway
mission 2: pack my bookbag and get to sleep
night y'all.
current away message
it's recently occured to me that although i'm always telling everyone i know how they're the super coolest ever and my heros and stuff (which you all are ;-)), that it's been months (years?) since i've had anything nice (or even neutral for that matter, as opposed to just plain downright mean) to say about myself... colleen tried to get me to list just 3 nice things about myself tonight and i couldn't do it... this can't be good.
any suggestions?
any suggestions?
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
a new look
i got tired of doing homework this afternoon (i've been working really hard for the past 3 days straight almost)... so of course the logical way to take a break is to go get the first haircut i've had since mid-june and get 5 inches lopped off.... colleen's jaw just about hit the ground when she saw me, but both she and leigh agreed the new do looks good :-)
eric commented "ok, so it's shorter, but maybe this is the oblivious boy part of me -- it doesn't look *that* different"... then again, he met me when i had super short hair in budapest, so he's seen this look before... no one else has since i've been on a "let's see how long my hair gets before i get completely tired of it" streak for the past year and a half :-P
done talking about hair... i look different... picture posted when i finish the current roll of film (sometime in the next week)
back to combinatorics homework :-P
eric commented "ok, so it's shorter, but maybe this is the oblivious boy part of me -- it doesn't look *that* different"... then again, he met me when i had super short hair in budapest, so he's seen this look before... no one else has since i've been on a "let's see how long my hair gets before i get completely tired of it" streak for the past year and a half :-P
done talking about hair... i look different... picture posted when i finish the current roll of film (sometime in the next week)
back to combinatorics homework :-P
Monday, September 20, 2004
ups and downs
i should wear my cranky toe socks more often (seriously, i have a pair of toe socks that are black and say cranky all over them, with a little frown face on each toe -- kristin (aka roommate) gave them to me last christmas so i could keep my feet warm and warn friends i was in a bad mood at the same time)
wearing them though, for the most part bad stuff didn't happen, and good stuff did instead
good:
* sarah came in this morning and asked if she could spend the night at our house b/c she doesn't want to drive back to hoboken tonight when she doesn't get done teaching til 10:30pm... i like sarah, so it'll be cool to have a guest tonight :-)
* mohammed stopped me on the way out of class this morning (i'd never talked to him before ever) and asked "so you're in charge of the pizza seminars, right? i really do want to give a talk this semester... when can you sign me up for?"... dude! only 3 spots left to find speakers for -- i like volunteers!
* i finally figured out how to do one of the two problems i was majorly stuck on and mad about yesterday -- victory!
bad:
*i've logged into my math account often enough that i'm temporarily locked out of my @math.rutgers email, and unlike the general student server i can't just change my password and fix things from my own computer... i gotta go track people down in person tomorrow to fix it -- this makes me sad :-(
oh yeah! but despite all that... the best part of today? i got a letter from my friend rita from budapest... she's emailed me from time to time since i left hungary, but never written an actual letter, so that was exciting... i love reading letters from my hungarian friends... they generally add a clause somewhere about how they worry about their english and hope it makes sense... but seriously, i love the different ways they construct their sentences from how a native english speaker would -- i think it often comes out prettier :-)
case in point? "so i'm busy, but i don't have to forget my dear friends like you. perhaps i told you that time you left hungary that u have an especially aura - i mean, you are especially special person, very kind."
conclusion? yay for friends :-)
later dudes.
wearing them though, for the most part bad stuff didn't happen, and good stuff did instead
good:
* sarah came in this morning and asked if she could spend the night at our house b/c she doesn't want to drive back to hoboken tonight when she doesn't get done teaching til 10:30pm... i like sarah, so it'll be cool to have a guest tonight :-)
* mohammed stopped me on the way out of class this morning (i'd never talked to him before ever) and asked "so you're in charge of the pizza seminars, right? i really do want to give a talk this semester... when can you sign me up for?"... dude! only 3 spots left to find speakers for -- i like volunteers!
* i finally figured out how to do one of the two problems i was majorly stuck on and mad about yesterday -- victory!
bad:
*i've logged into my math account often enough that i'm temporarily locked out of my @math.rutgers email, and unlike the general student server i can't just change my password and fix things from my own computer... i gotta go track people down in person tomorrow to fix it -- this makes me sad :-(
oh yeah! but despite all that... the best part of today? i got a letter from my friend rita from budapest... she's emailed me from time to time since i left hungary, but never written an actual letter, so that was exciting... i love reading letters from my hungarian friends... they generally add a clause somewhere about how they worry about their english and hope it makes sense... but seriously, i love the different ways they construct their sentences from how a native english speaker would -- i think it often comes out prettier :-)
case in point? "so i'm busy, but i don't have to forget my dear friends like you. perhaps i told you that time you left hungary that u have an especially aura - i mean, you are especially special person, very kind."
conclusion? yay for friends :-)
later dudes.
tired and grumpy
dude, that's the theme of the week.
i haven't slept enough since last wednesday/thursday night and last night was no exception. i kept moderately busy til 2:30am, then woke up with a start at 7am this morning and never completely succeeded in falling back asleep... this is not a fun new trend
in other news, NJ is suddenly freakin cold... but when it still gets up to 70ish in the middle of the day there's no sense turning on the heat, so at night, i'm just freezing cold
in stark contrast to saturday, yesterday i worked on homework for 9 hours straight... just on 2 problems... and i solved neither! when i started to get frustrated, ben, who's not even in the class, started working on them with me too... he claims i got a lot done because even by the time he started working on them i had a much better understanding of what was going on and what needed to be done than he did, but still, 0/2 final answers made me frustrated.
i'm that tired and easily flustered that at 11pm when we came back to my place and quit, i went to my room and started crying... after he filled my roommates in on where we'd been all day, i'm glad ben likes being a pillow... we watched a dumb movie until late and then i crashed... but still, i can't sleep right... that's not helping my already defeated attitude i don't think.
i think it's a day to bust out the cranky toe socks.
later dudes.
i haven't slept enough since last wednesday/thursday night and last night was no exception. i kept moderately busy til 2:30am, then woke up with a start at 7am this morning and never completely succeeded in falling back asleep... this is not a fun new trend
in other news, NJ is suddenly freakin cold... but when it still gets up to 70ish in the middle of the day there's no sense turning on the heat, so at night, i'm just freezing cold
in stark contrast to saturday, yesterday i worked on homework for 9 hours straight... just on 2 problems... and i solved neither! when i started to get frustrated, ben, who's not even in the class, started working on them with me too... he claims i got a lot done because even by the time he started working on them i had a much better understanding of what was going on and what needed to be done than he did, but still, 0/2 final answers made me frustrated.
i'm that tired and easily flustered that at 11pm when we came back to my place and quit, i went to my room and started crying... after he filled my roommates in on where we'd been all day, i'm glad ben likes being a pillow... we watched a dumb movie until late and then i crashed... but still, i can't sleep right... that's not helping my already defeated attitude i don't think.
i think it's a day to bust out the cranky toe socks.
later dudes.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
201:41:12
that's the final tally, now that the great CD input project is done... i added the book of CDs from my car to the mix in my computer and now i have 201 hours, 41 minutes, and 12 seconds of music on my computer without repeating a thing :-P that's nearly 8.5 days straight of music -- how great is that?
to give you an idea of the variety... most of why i put everything on is so that i could hear a more random mix of stuff while working at my computer instead of just one disc at a time... when i pulled up "all music" earlier this afternoon and set it on "random order", the first four tracks i got were:
(1) misunderstood (better than ezra)
(2) the national anthem of the USSR
(3) the battle (hezekiah walker's LFT church choir) (i.e. great large choir gospel song)
(4) hard day's night (live version sung by billy joel)
can we say variety??? :-P
in other news, pet peave of the era: people who say in relation to stressful situations "i know just how you feel"... that's a proper response to homework, to being tired, to being hungry, to being excited about a friend coming... but to insanely stressful life situations, "i can relate" and an appropriate story,... or "i know this can't be fun" or something... but "i know just how you feel"???... i don't think any two people respond to stress in the same ways, and few people have to go through the exact same stressful situations... you can't tell someone you know exactly how they feel when (a) you don't live inside their head, and/or (b) you haven't dealt with the same situation... you can empathize, you can listen, you can chat... you can't know *exactly* what's going on... and you can't prescribe *exactly* how to fix things... again, you can empathize, you can listen, you can chat, you can be nice, you can do fun things with people to cheer them up... you can't fix it all... i think the whole world is broken, and we're never going to *fix* it all per se... just learn how to live with it and make the best of it we can.
now it's really time to sleep.
night.
to give you an idea of the variety... most of why i put everything on is so that i could hear a more random mix of stuff while working at my computer instead of just one disc at a time... when i pulled up "all music" earlier this afternoon and set it on "random order", the first four tracks i got were:
(1) misunderstood (better than ezra)
(2) the national anthem of the USSR
(3) the battle (hezekiah walker's LFT church choir) (i.e. great large choir gospel song)
(4) hard day's night (live version sung by billy joel)
can we say variety??? :-P
in other news, pet peave of the era: people who say in relation to stressful situations "i know just how you feel"... that's a proper response to homework, to being tired, to being hungry, to being excited about a friend coming... but to insanely stressful life situations, "i can relate" and an appropriate story,... or "i know this can't be fun" or something... but "i know just how you feel"???... i don't think any two people respond to stress in the same ways, and few people have to go through the exact same stressful situations... you can't tell someone you know exactly how they feel when (a) you don't live inside their head, and/or (b) you haven't dealt with the same situation... you can empathize, you can listen, you can chat... you can't know *exactly* what's going on... and you can't prescribe *exactly* how to fix things... again, you can empathize, you can listen, you can chat, you can be nice, you can do fun things with people to cheer them up... you can't fix it all... i think the whole world is broken, and we're never going to *fix* it all per se... just learn how to live with it and make the best of it we can.
now it's really time to sleep.
night.
ode to saturday
so here's to being awake for 14 hours and not doing a bit of homework, eh? (oops)
i was up early on account of altar guild, and had a nice morning cleaning/setitng things up with emma, bonnie, and alexis... one thing i always loved about being in charge of an altar guild team at valpo was that it gave me an excuse to be at the chapel sneaking around nooks and crannies way early in the morning before most people were there... same applies now... it's kinda fun to be one of the only 4 people in the building, getting to set stuff up... i like helping out with that :-)
after that, i came home, did laundry and continued my fun of copying all my CDs into the computer (as of last update i hadn't entered the 20 that are usually in a book in my car... halfway done with that now)
after managing to procrastinate ALL FREAKIN DAY LONG (which i absolutely can't afford to do tomorrow), i got ahold of ben this afternoon... as per my IM away message earlier:
~~~~~
useful fact # 473 for interacting with the rutgers math department:
if you can't find ben bunting, either get scott to leave him a shady voicemail or send him a text message that starts with "ben bunting, breaker of pinky swears,..." and he calls you back within 30 seconds. ;-)
~~~~~
(ben has been hard to find lately on account of him studying hard for his second round of qualifying exams (which i get to look forward to doing in a year if i survive the first set in january), so it's tricky to track him down)
anyhow, he's had a good week of winning $$$ off of his roommates in poker this week, so he suggested we go find food, courtesy of his poker winnings, and then see "vanity fair" (which he had pinky swore last night to see with me this afternoon)... we went to IHOP, then to starbucks (since it's freakin cold outside!) and then to a 9:45 showing of the movie, which was really good, but i'm still trying to figure out what exactly it means that it ended at the point it ended at... but indeed, a quality film... i'm glad i have ben for a movie buddy :-)
now, i'm tired and should be asleep... case in point? i get home, parallel park out front as usual, get out of my car, lock it, then stare at it for 30 full seconds at least before i realize why exactly it looks funny to me... i had backed into the spot, and in the process got the rear passenger side tire up on the curb (while the rest of the car was 3 inches lower flat on the street)... had to get back in the car, get off the curb, and resettle the car into the spot for real :-P... yeah... tired...
night y'all.
i was up early on account of altar guild, and had a nice morning cleaning/setitng things up with emma, bonnie, and alexis... one thing i always loved about being in charge of an altar guild team at valpo was that it gave me an excuse to be at the chapel sneaking around nooks and crannies way early in the morning before most people were there... same applies now... it's kinda fun to be one of the only 4 people in the building, getting to set stuff up... i like helping out with that :-)
after that, i came home, did laundry and continued my fun of copying all my CDs into the computer (as of last update i hadn't entered the 20 that are usually in a book in my car... halfway done with that now)
after managing to procrastinate ALL FREAKIN DAY LONG (which i absolutely can't afford to do tomorrow), i got ahold of ben this afternoon... as per my IM away message earlier:
~~~~~
useful fact # 473 for interacting with the rutgers math department:
if you can't find ben bunting, either get scott to leave him a shady voicemail or send him a text message that starts with "ben bunting, breaker of pinky swears,..." and he calls you back within 30 seconds. ;-)
~~~~~
(ben has been hard to find lately on account of him studying hard for his second round of qualifying exams (which i get to look forward to doing in a year if i survive the first set in january), so it's tricky to track him down)
anyhow, he's had a good week of winning $$$ off of his roommates in poker this week, so he suggested we go find food, courtesy of his poker winnings, and then see "vanity fair" (which he had pinky swore last night to see with me this afternoon)... we went to IHOP, then to starbucks (since it's freakin cold outside!) and then to a 9:45 showing of the movie, which was really good, but i'm still trying to figure out what exactly it means that it ended at the point it ended at... but indeed, a quality film... i'm glad i have ben for a movie buddy :-)
now, i'm tired and should be asleep... case in point? i get home, parallel park out front as usual, get out of my car, lock it, then stare at it for 30 full seconds at least before i realize why exactly it looks funny to me... i had backed into the spot, and in the process got the rear passenger side tire up on the curb (while the rest of the car was 3 inches lower flat on the street)... had to get back in the car, get off the curb, and resettle the car into the spot for real :-P... yeah... tired...
night y'all.
Friday, September 17, 2004
happy friday?
oh dude... what a day...
i only slept 4 hours last night... didn't calm down enough to fall asleep until 3am, and then woke up around 7 (over an hour and a half before my alarm) and just laid there and thought... in short, i'm exhausted.
class, putzing around, then pizza seminar... then i talked to roommate for awhile... she had a hilarious dream last night... many details shall be omitted since it was her dream and not mine, but it ended in us visiting antarctica for fun and me bringing a pet penguin back to jersey that sat on my desk during math classes... *that* i thought was hilarious :-)
even far away, it's good to cry/chat with her over the phone... we respond well to each other... of my friends here, those who read my blog today have been super nice and really generous about hugs... ben and i went to the park to swing earlier, and then made root beer floats and watched finding nemo... however instead of the quiet being a bum night i had planned on, "no math night" visited our new house for the first time... after the movie, i mostly hung out in my room and blasted mxpx (punk rock) or p.o.d. (more heavy rock) and chatted with one or two people at a time... everyone but john just about came through at some point and shot the breeze with me.
right now, though, all the remaining people here except are playing some weird board game... i stayed away from the game and did all the dishes/kitchen cleaning from dinner tonight (yes, i'm a sicko who thoroughly enjoys washing dishes by hand for fun), and now, am keeping myself entertained at the computer until my sweet tea is done brewing...... i'm just people-d out for the night... i love my friends, but i need to interact with people one or two maybe three at a time to not just shut down... so the context of tonight wasn't the best for that.
can't wait til roommate's here in a week... then we can have fun and/or be sad together... and have weird sleep schedules together... and mostly just enjoy being around someone else who reads each of us well for once... that'll be good :-)
altar guild early in the AM... i should be asleep.
night.
i only slept 4 hours last night... didn't calm down enough to fall asleep until 3am, and then woke up around 7 (over an hour and a half before my alarm) and just laid there and thought... in short, i'm exhausted.
class, putzing around, then pizza seminar... then i talked to roommate for awhile... she had a hilarious dream last night... many details shall be omitted since it was her dream and not mine, but it ended in us visiting antarctica for fun and me bringing a pet penguin back to jersey that sat on my desk during math classes... *that* i thought was hilarious :-)
even far away, it's good to cry/chat with her over the phone... we respond well to each other... of my friends here, those who read my blog today have been super nice and really generous about hugs... ben and i went to the park to swing earlier, and then made root beer floats and watched finding nemo... however instead of the quiet being a bum night i had planned on, "no math night" visited our new house for the first time... after the movie, i mostly hung out in my room and blasted mxpx (punk rock) or p.o.d. (more heavy rock) and chatted with one or two people at a time... everyone but john just about came through at some point and shot the breeze with me.
right now, though, all the remaining people here except are playing some weird board game... i stayed away from the game and did all the dishes/kitchen cleaning from dinner tonight (yes, i'm a sicko who thoroughly enjoys washing dishes by hand for fun), and now, am keeping myself entertained at the computer until my sweet tea is done brewing...... i'm just people-d out for the night... i love my friends, but i need to interact with people one or two maybe three at a time to not just shut down... so the context of tonight wasn't the best for that.
can't wait til roommate's here in a week... then we can have fun and/or be sad together... and have weird sleep schedules together... and mostly just enjoy being around someone else who reads each of us well for once... that'll be good :-)
altar guild early in the AM... i should be asleep.
night.
an ode to feelings....
2 hours ago i wrote about how good it's been to have 2 days to more or less mind my own business and be a bum... really, especially now, i think it's been incredibly good for me....
there seems to be a misconception that i cover my real feelings with trying to appear happy all the time... maybe the degree of happy isn't always matching what i feel, but really, if i'm not happy at all... i won't seem happy at all.... i'm not set to decieve people on how i feel... i'm more determined to at least try to be happy no matter what if i can at all find the energy/motivation to be.
let's go back in time.
imagine that one day you're talking to one of your best friends on the phone. imagine 2 days later you get a call that she suddenly died in a freak car accident. imagine that every 3-4 days for the next EIGHT weeks you get news that some family close to you has lost... a father in a plane wreck... a mother in a car wreck... a grandmother due to illness... a 12 year old son due to cancer... there you have september/october/november 2003 of my life.
imagine that as all this is going on you start the most intense year of work in your life... you start out the first week, before anything non-work has happened, all gung ho to give things your best... by the end of the third month, you're just grasping for straws, hoping not to get fired or demoted...
imagine that months roll by... months of missing your friends/being sad with other friends who have lost family... months of being mad at yourself for doing mediocre work, and finally you seem to have enough space to breathe again and give things a fresh start.
then imagine things start to crumble all over again...
nearly 4 weeks ago, after 6 weeks of frequent updates from kristin (my best friend) about her mom, the unimaginable happened and kristin's mom was gone. that night, i completely spazzed out for a bit, cried a lot, kicked stuff, and let myself emote...
the next morning i was in ohio for a few days for the wake and funeral... came back and slept a few days, turned around and immediately started studying again to take the qualifying exam, then after failing that, turned around immediately again to take on 4 classes full force the next day... for the past 2 weeks of classes now, i've been in turbo-lara homework mode ever since.
for the past 4 weeks, lots has gone on in my life... and for the past 4 weeks i've felt it, i've known things were under the surface, but i didn't know how to make them come out....
when i was in toledo i was frustrated and sad... my best friend had lost someone who was the world to her, and in turn was a very special person to me... i knew it was a horribly sad and frustrating situation to respond to, and yet, i was mad at me for not being able to really really cry while i was there
i've been so busy ever since too... and people care, but some somehow seem to think sometimes that "social interaction = happy"... i know they want to help but i don't think many quite know what to do... (and don't get me wrong, i have fantastic friends... i probably wouldn't know what to do with me either right now :-P)... so caught in these walls between trying to get stuff done like homework and other resposibilities, and between trying not to shut others out completely, and not frustrate them by total unresponsiveness, and just trying to keep on top of my life in general, there's not been time to just let things out... and the walls around my feelings i don't think were quite ready to break down anyhow...
but tonight, getting myself free from homework and people for a few days and just letting myself exist, i was doing alright... then i checked my voicemail before bed... i had just one person who wasn't detered by the fact that my phone's been off for the past 2 days... it was kristin... her message wasn't that long, it was just "so, i hadn't talked to you since tuesday, and noticed you haven't been online or blogged since then either... i know you're just hiding out for a bit, but i just wanted you to know if you need to talk or if i can do anything, you know my number and you know i'll be there in a week... i care"... that simple... no expectation on how i need to feel, no trying to fix things, no trying to make me laugh... nothing superfluous... just the offer to be there... when she's the one this situation is hitting even closer to home for than me... (man, i have good friends)
and then the walls broke down... 15 minutes later when i went to bed, i finally started crying for the first time in a month... 45 minutes later, i still am, and you know what? it hurts like heck... life hurts like heck... but it's also sooo incredibly good to let myself feel and express all the crap going on inside of my head. instead of falling asleep with memories of kristin and her mom or of kristin talking about her mom in my head and just feeling melancholy like i have for weeks now, it feels so incredibly good to be able to cry.
you can't just fix a real wound by covering it up if there's still something in the wound to be taken care of first... emotions are the same... i just wish that were better understood.
there seems to be a misconception that i cover my real feelings with trying to appear happy all the time... maybe the degree of happy isn't always matching what i feel, but really, if i'm not happy at all... i won't seem happy at all.... i'm not set to decieve people on how i feel... i'm more determined to at least try to be happy no matter what if i can at all find the energy/motivation to be.
let's go back in time.
imagine that one day you're talking to one of your best friends on the phone. imagine 2 days later you get a call that she suddenly died in a freak car accident. imagine that every 3-4 days for the next EIGHT weeks you get news that some family close to you has lost... a father in a plane wreck... a mother in a car wreck... a grandmother due to illness... a 12 year old son due to cancer... there you have september/october/november 2003 of my life.
imagine that as all this is going on you start the most intense year of work in your life... you start out the first week, before anything non-work has happened, all gung ho to give things your best... by the end of the third month, you're just grasping for straws, hoping not to get fired or demoted...
imagine that months roll by... months of missing your friends/being sad with other friends who have lost family... months of being mad at yourself for doing mediocre work, and finally you seem to have enough space to breathe again and give things a fresh start.
then imagine things start to crumble all over again...
nearly 4 weeks ago, after 6 weeks of frequent updates from kristin (my best friend) about her mom, the unimaginable happened and kristin's mom was gone. that night, i completely spazzed out for a bit, cried a lot, kicked stuff, and let myself emote...
the next morning i was in ohio for a few days for the wake and funeral... came back and slept a few days, turned around and immediately started studying again to take the qualifying exam, then after failing that, turned around immediately again to take on 4 classes full force the next day... for the past 2 weeks of classes now, i've been in turbo-lara homework mode ever since.
for the past 4 weeks, lots has gone on in my life... and for the past 4 weeks i've felt it, i've known things were under the surface, but i didn't know how to make them come out....
when i was in toledo i was frustrated and sad... my best friend had lost someone who was the world to her, and in turn was a very special person to me... i knew it was a horribly sad and frustrating situation to respond to, and yet, i was mad at me for not being able to really really cry while i was there
i've been so busy ever since too... and people care, but some somehow seem to think sometimes that "social interaction = happy"... i know they want to help but i don't think many quite know what to do... (and don't get me wrong, i have fantastic friends... i probably wouldn't know what to do with me either right now :-P)... so caught in these walls between trying to get stuff done like homework and other resposibilities, and between trying not to shut others out completely, and not frustrate them by total unresponsiveness, and just trying to keep on top of my life in general, there's not been time to just let things out... and the walls around my feelings i don't think were quite ready to break down anyhow...
but tonight, getting myself free from homework and people for a few days and just letting myself exist, i was doing alright... then i checked my voicemail before bed... i had just one person who wasn't detered by the fact that my phone's been off for the past 2 days... it was kristin... her message wasn't that long, it was just "so, i hadn't talked to you since tuesday, and noticed you haven't been online or blogged since then either... i know you're just hiding out for a bit, but i just wanted you to know if you need to talk or if i can do anything, you know my number and you know i'll be there in a week... i care"... that simple... no expectation on how i need to feel, no trying to fix things, no trying to make me laugh... nothing superfluous... just the offer to be there... when she's the one this situation is hitting even closer to home for than me... (man, i have good friends)
and then the walls broke down... 15 minutes later when i went to bed, i finally started crying for the first time in a month... 45 minutes later, i still am, and you know what? it hurts like heck... life hurts like heck... but it's also sooo incredibly good to let myself feel and express all the crap going on inside of my head. instead of falling asleep with memories of kristin and her mom or of kristin talking about her mom in my head and just feeling melancholy like i have for weeks now, it feels so incredibly good to be able to cry.
you can't just fix a real wound by covering it up if there's still something in the wound to be taken care of first... emotions are the same... i just wish that were better understood.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
dude
project of the week? copying all my CDs into my computer... after 3 days of whenever i go in my room sticking a new disc in to copy while i do other stuff,.... i finally suceeded (well, there's still another book of music in the glove box of my car, but just the music in my room is a considerable lot...
as it is now, i could turn on my computer set to play "all music" and it would run for 165 hours, 51 minutes, and 9 seconds without repeating tracks... that's nearly 7 days (24 hours a day) of music!... how completely insane is that?
in other news, i've been a bit of a bum the past few days... yesterday i had my only class cancelled on account of the prof. being out of town, and without anywhere to be in particular, just some homework to do, the adrenaline that's been keeping me going in super-hard word mode for quite some time finally had a chance to peter out... i mostly kept to myself, got my work done, and then was a bum... tonight people got together for dinner, and i stayed put to take advantage of having the house to myself for awhile... oh well...
part of my thursday night hanging out with myself time was fun though... not only did i finish my grand CD project, i also got to see joey (which i missed last week on account of not being friends with colleen's VCR) and i saw the 1 hr 40 minute episode of the apprentice... i can't believe he fired bradford... bradford was one of my favorites to win after last week, and dude... maybe this'll teach the womens' team not to be quite so petty and stupid about things?
anyhow, that's the scoop... back to work/sleep/something
night y'all.
as it is now, i could turn on my computer set to play "all music" and it would run for 165 hours, 51 minutes, and 9 seconds without repeating tracks... that's nearly 7 days (24 hours a day) of music!... how completely insane is that?
in other news, i've been a bit of a bum the past few days... yesterday i had my only class cancelled on account of the prof. being out of town, and without anywhere to be in particular, just some homework to do, the adrenaline that's been keeping me going in super-hard word mode for quite some time finally had a chance to peter out... i mostly kept to myself, got my work done, and then was a bum... tonight people got together for dinner, and i stayed put to take advantage of having the house to myself for awhile... oh well...
part of my thursday night hanging out with myself time was fun though... not only did i finish my grand CD project, i also got to see joey (which i missed last week on account of not being friends with colleen's VCR) and i saw the 1 hr 40 minute episode of the apprentice... i can't believe he fired bradford... bradford was one of my favorites to win after last week, and dude... maybe this'll teach the womens' team not to be quite so petty and stupid about things?
anyhow, that's the scoop... back to work/sleep/something
night y'all.
Monday, September 13, 2004
finding ben....
so this afternoon, scott, eric, and i were in my office (which i share with scott, colleen, leigh, and ian), and scott told me to leave so he could change clothes to go to the gym... i laughed and told him he couldn't kick me out of my office and he should go to the bathroom down the hall if he wanted privacy to change...
eric also laughed and pointed out that since the desks are like 5 feet tall (they have a couple bookshelves attached to the top of each), scott could stand behind his desk (which is pulled out 2 feet from the wall) and change there... scott laughed and decided this was a good idea and went with it
just before scott told me to leave though, we were discussing how neither of us had seen or heard from ben in a week and a half, and agreed we should call him and leave another message... so, when he told me to leave the office, i was in process of calling ben's cell (had already dialed and it was ringing, and scott knew this)... we get to the part where we should leave a message, and i tell scott he should say something on the message... the voicemail ben got was something like this:
scott: "dude, i don't even have my pants on right now!"
(muffled eric and my voices, indistinct)
scott: "seriously, i can't take care of these things when my pants are down, hang up the phone!"
once we did hang up, scott's comment was "if ben doesn't call us back on that one, i don't know what *will* get him back!"
sure enough, 15 minutes later i had a call from ben, "dude, what's going on with scott?" i made a bargain that i'd explain if he'd show up in the math building and tell where he's been, and 15 minutes more later, we had ben around again :-)
and *that* is how to track people down :-)
the end. :-P
eric also laughed and pointed out that since the desks are like 5 feet tall (they have a couple bookshelves attached to the top of each), scott could stand behind his desk (which is pulled out 2 feet from the wall) and change there... scott laughed and decided this was a good idea and went with it
just before scott told me to leave though, we were discussing how neither of us had seen or heard from ben in a week and a half, and agreed we should call him and leave another message... so, when he told me to leave the office, i was in process of calling ben's cell (had already dialed and it was ringing, and scott knew this)... we get to the part where we should leave a message, and i tell scott he should say something on the message... the voicemail ben got was something like this:
scott: "dude, i don't even have my pants on right now!"
(muffled eric and my voices, indistinct)
scott: "seriously, i can't take care of these things when my pants are down, hang up the phone!"
once we did hang up, scott's comment was "if ben doesn't call us back on that one, i don't know what *will* get him back!"
sure enough, 15 minutes later i had a call from ben, "dude, what's going on with scott?" i made a bargain that i'd explain if he'd show up in the math building and tell where he's been, and 15 minutes more later, we had ben around again :-)
and *that* is how to track people down :-)
the end. :-P
:-)
i finally found the prism i bought in prague that's been missing for a month, and now my room's all sparkly... :-D
leigh's comment? "wow lara, that's totally just the icing on the cake that is your room" :-P
leigh's comment? "wow lara, that's totally just the icing on the cake that is your room" :-P
dreamin...
i haven't been sleeping the same lately... when i first moved to this house i slept so well... more than 8 hours a night for the first time in over a year, and i felt rested... then life got a bit more stressful, and that didn't so much happen anymore... i'm currently at 6-7 hours a night, which isn't bad, but every night for the last week i've had weird dreams... i can't remember specifics of them once i get too far into my day, but here's last night, for your general entertainment:
i had a friend visiting, (but it wasn't someone i recognized), and we drove to the train station to catch the train to NYC... when we came back though, my car had been towed elsewhere and it was nearly 10pm, which was apparently when the place my car had been taken to was closing... we got there to find out why it had been towed because i had parked where i normally do to go to NY, and apparently it was just for fun because they could, and i had to pay a major fine to get it back... i was not happy.
then, our living situation had changed... all my friends from the math department lived in top floors of this huge library/office store building, and we had a 70 block drive to get to the house that was set up as a huge computer lab where we were working... apparently it was between semesters and we were all helping grade some crazy complicated test of something... the profs. supervising us were actually rutgers profs, but not ones i've had for classes, just ones i recognize from around the dept.... anyhow, we get ready to leave for work one morning and there was just me and eric in my car, and this huge freak storm comes up, and as we're about to go through an intersection, one of the big poles that holds up the traffic lights gets hit by lightning and starts rocking back and forth and eventually crashes to the ground right in front of me... then a transformer explodes, just yards away from my car... i was shaking so much i couldn't drive anymore, so i put eric in charge... we returned back to the library place and i sat down to work there where i was suddenly hounded by lots of HS kids wanting homework help.... just as i was about to pop getting tired of them, i woke up.
ok, back to now... i don't remember my other dreams this week, but they've had that general theme: series of what seems realistic at the time, but highly unfortunate situations for me, and i wake up with a headache and very not so happy... what is up with this?
later dudes.
i had a friend visiting, (but it wasn't someone i recognized), and we drove to the train station to catch the train to NYC... when we came back though, my car had been towed elsewhere and it was nearly 10pm, which was apparently when the place my car had been taken to was closing... we got there to find out why it had been towed because i had parked where i normally do to go to NY, and apparently it was just for fun because they could, and i had to pay a major fine to get it back... i was not happy.
then, our living situation had changed... all my friends from the math department lived in top floors of this huge library/office store building, and we had a 70 block drive to get to the house that was set up as a huge computer lab where we were working... apparently it was between semesters and we were all helping grade some crazy complicated test of something... the profs. supervising us were actually rutgers profs, but not ones i've had for classes, just ones i recognize from around the dept.... anyhow, we get ready to leave for work one morning and there was just me and eric in my car, and this huge freak storm comes up, and as we're about to go through an intersection, one of the big poles that holds up the traffic lights gets hit by lightning and starts rocking back and forth and eventually crashes to the ground right in front of me... then a transformer explodes, just yards away from my car... i was shaking so much i couldn't drive anymore, so i put eric in charge... we returned back to the library place and i sat down to work there where i was suddenly hounded by lots of HS kids wanting homework help.... just as i was about to pop getting tired of them, i woke up.
ok, back to now... i don't remember my other dreams this week, but they've had that general theme: series of what seems realistic at the time, but highly unfortunate situations for me, and i wake up with a headache and very not so happy... what is up with this?
later dudes.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
a quality day
indeed it was
jessica came up from philly and we wandered around that for an hour: this afternoon, my town had a "unity fest" as a community get-together to remember 9/11/2001... it had a general theme of "celebrate all the groups of people in the community and that we can coexist happily"... mostly people were selling arts and crafts, the firemen were running safety displays for little kids, people were registering people to vote, and there was live local entertainment (in particular we saw kids doing karate, a reggae group, and a modern dance group)...
then, having seen all there was to see, we came back to my house to get online and investigate our options... we both wanted to see "vanity fair" but the next time to see it was 3 hours away, whereas "garden state" was on in 40 minutes, and although i'd seen it before, i was more than willing to go see it again and jessica was interested too... i wasn't disappointed seeing it again at all :-), and jessica enjoyed it too.
after that, we played a couple games of yahtzee and then went to colonial diner, home of the best cheesecake in jersey, and possibly everywhere...
nothing extremely off the wall/flashy to do, but it was totally great, just to shoot the breeze and chat the afternoon away with a friend i hadn't seen in awhile... so major yay for that :-)
now to be good and do some work before heading to sleep :-P
later dudes.
jessica came up from philly and we wandered around that for an hour: this afternoon, my town had a "unity fest" as a community get-together to remember 9/11/2001... it had a general theme of "celebrate all the groups of people in the community and that we can coexist happily"... mostly people were selling arts and crafts, the firemen were running safety displays for little kids, people were registering people to vote, and there was live local entertainment (in particular we saw kids doing karate, a reggae group, and a modern dance group)...
then, having seen all there was to see, we came back to my house to get online and investigate our options... we both wanted to see "vanity fair" but the next time to see it was 3 hours away, whereas "garden state" was on in 40 minutes, and although i'd seen it before, i was more than willing to go see it again and jessica was interested too... i wasn't disappointed seeing it again at all :-), and jessica enjoyed it too.
after that, we played a couple games of yahtzee and then went to colonial diner, home of the best cheesecake in jersey, and possibly everywhere...
nothing extremely off the wall/flashy to do, but it was totally great, just to shoot the breeze and chat the afternoon away with a friend i hadn't seen in awhile... so major yay for that :-)
now to be good and do some work before heading to sleep :-P
later dudes.
a baptism to remember
church this morning was great -- well attended since we're back on normal schedule instead of summer schedule, rededication of sunday school teachers, plus a baptism.
only two things happened that weren't quite planned during the baptism.
(1) as pastor finished about a paragraph at the start of the baptism, all the sudden there was this crazy roaring noise through the speakers that shook the building... apparently our organ is having issues with the sound system this week because then, and once later in the service while it was on, but not being played this happened (and turning it off temporarily fixed things)... when pastor hollered to ed (the organist) to try turning it off, there was some giggling, amidst which i heard steve weiss, sitting two seats away from me whisper to his brother "no one told me it was nascar sunday!"
(2) as pastor finished the baptism, he carried ethan (the baby being baptized) up to the altar and said a prayer for him... as he (pastor) turned around and said "i present to you the newest member of God's kingdom: ethan", ethan grabbed the cross necklace pastor always has on when he's in his robe for service and put it in his mouth... people had varying reactions, but pastor's immediate response was "there ain't many things better to hang onto than the cross" :-)
the end.
only two things happened that weren't quite planned during the baptism.
(1) as pastor finished about a paragraph at the start of the baptism, all the sudden there was this crazy roaring noise through the speakers that shook the building... apparently our organ is having issues with the sound system this week because then, and once later in the service while it was on, but not being played this happened (and turning it off temporarily fixed things)... when pastor hollered to ed (the organist) to try turning it off, there was some giggling, amidst which i heard steve weiss, sitting two seats away from me whisper to his brother "no one told me it was nascar sunday!"
(2) as pastor finished the baptism, he carried ethan (the baby being baptized) up to the altar and said a prayer for him... as he (pastor) turned around and said "i present to you the newest member of God's kingdom: ethan", ethan grabbed the cross necklace pastor always has on when he's in his robe for service and put it in his mouth... people had varying reactions, but pastor's immediate response was "there ain't many things better to hang onto than the cross" :-)
the end.
discovery
when i injured my finger the other night, that was the THIRD bandaid-requiring injury i'd inadvertently acquired in the past month... as a result, instead of using everyone else's bandaids, i bought a box of my own yesterday, and discovered the coolest thing ever: bandaid brand antibiotic bandaids... the pad that you put over your cut already has neosporin or some fascimile on it... i picked up a box, and replaced the old bandaid on my finger with one of them just now, and they are officially the coolest thing ever... well at least as far as fixing cuts goes :-P
breakfast, church (this is the first week we're off of summer schedule... should be a few people around i haven't seen in a couple months while the schedule's been different :-) ), then jessica comes -- can we say excited? :-)
later dudes
breakfast, church (this is the first week we're off of summer schedule... should be a few people around i haven't seen in a couple months while the schedule's been different :-) ), then jessica comes -- can we say excited? :-)
later dudes
Saturday, September 11, 2004
the run-down
i started today with a monster to do list, and surprisingly enough have stayed focused to do most of it...
things done today:
altar guild
laundry
grocery shopping
got $50 back from circuit city
post office
caught up on a month's worth of email at 5 different email addresses :-P
paid bills
fixed the ceiling light in my room (it just needed a new bulb, but that involved finding something in the house sturdy enough to stand on to unscrew the glass bowl around the bulb and then reassemble :-P)
did 5 hours of homework (so i'm all set for monday)
that about sums it up... i'm totally not exciting, but you can SEE in my room now for the first time since i moved in.
for the most part i've not been wanting to deal with people lately... i'm moderately content cross-stitching and working on homework/fixing things 24/7 (since i haven't been sleeping well for the past bit anyhow), but once in awhile, someone manages to find me on the small bit of time each day that i'm up for socialization :-P here's today's story:
adam hughes called me on the phone while i was out running errands earlier
adam: hi lara! guess where i am!
me: um, valpo, i dunno
adam: i'm standing on bob the rock! how great is that?
me: that's pretty great -- congratulations!
adam: here, i think he wants to say something to you (puts phone down near the rock, and then picks it back up)
(resume with more normal conversation :-P)
yay for friends who call out of the blue just to make me laugh. :-)
excited to see jessica tomorrow... but for tonight, it's back to work... later dudes :-P
things done today:
altar guild
laundry
grocery shopping
got $50 back from circuit city
post office
caught up on a month's worth of email at 5 different email addresses :-P
paid bills
fixed the ceiling light in my room (it just needed a new bulb, but that involved finding something in the house sturdy enough to stand on to unscrew the glass bowl around the bulb and then reassemble :-P)
did 5 hours of homework (so i'm all set for monday)
that about sums it up... i'm totally not exciting, but you can SEE in my room now for the first time since i moved in.
for the most part i've not been wanting to deal with people lately... i'm moderately content cross-stitching and working on homework/fixing things 24/7 (since i haven't been sleeping well for the past bit anyhow), but once in awhile, someone manages to find me on the small bit of time each day that i'm up for socialization :-P here's today's story:
adam hughes called me on the phone while i was out running errands earlier
adam: hi lara! guess where i am!
me: um, valpo, i dunno
adam: i'm standing on bob the rock! how great is that?
me: that's pretty great -- congratulations!
adam: here, i think he wants to say something to you (puts phone down near the rock, and then picks it back up)
(resume with more normal conversation :-P)
yay for friends who call out of the blue just to make me laugh. :-)
excited to see jessica tomorrow... but for tonight, it's back to work... later dudes :-P
Friday, September 10, 2004
blood
isn't that a great catchy title?
it's been a long day... class, studying, pizza seminar (which went off just fine), then working on my cross stitch for awhile... none of which have anything to do with blood...
then, tonight was the annual 1st year/2nd year math grad student party... the guys volunteered for it to be at their house and i was feeling kinda bummy anyhow, so i wasn't all excited about going but scott convinced me i should... for the 2 hours i was there, i stood by the grill with mike and scott and helped flip burgers... blood comes in two ways... scott and i had never grilled before, so the burgers came out kinda rare, and we noticed them "bleeding" on the plate when we'd take them off, and have to put them back on the grill...
blood, part 2, comes from, the burgers had been frozen and needed to be detached from one another to cook... i was having more luck than scott pulling them apart, so that became my job... we got to one set that was so frozen together though that scott offered his pocket knife for me to stick between burgers and wedge them apart... i carefully aimed the blade away from me, and went to work... i was almost done when the stupid thing closed up on itself and sliced my pointer finger on my right hand pretty good... after hollering "shit", (which apparently makes a few people happy because it's one of the more severe words they generally can ever get out of me), mike helped me clean it up... it bled clear through the first bandaid that we put on it, so we iced it a little and put a second on... oh joy oh joy... it doesn't really hurt... and finger wounds do just bleed a lot (so yay for bandaids?), but i'm mostly just annoyed that the cut is where it is because it slows down my cross stitching ability greatly, which is frustrating because that's been my outlet to dealing with life for a bit lately...
anyhow, i smell like hamburger grill, and my finger is tightly bandaged and slowing down everything i do (like typing or sewing or writing), which is going to get old fast.
i have a ton of homework to get started on for next week though, so maybe the not being able to cross stitch as quickly as i'd like will encourage the getting homework done aspect of things tomorrow... i hope so, because jessica's coming up sunday (yay!) and i'm sure not doing homework then! :-P
altar guild in the morning... night y'all.
it's been a long day... class, studying, pizza seminar (which went off just fine), then working on my cross stitch for awhile... none of which have anything to do with blood...
then, tonight was the annual 1st year/2nd year math grad student party... the guys volunteered for it to be at their house and i was feeling kinda bummy anyhow, so i wasn't all excited about going but scott convinced me i should... for the 2 hours i was there, i stood by the grill with mike and scott and helped flip burgers... blood comes in two ways... scott and i had never grilled before, so the burgers came out kinda rare, and we noticed them "bleeding" on the plate when we'd take them off, and have to put them back on the grill...
blood, part 2, comes from, the burgers had been frozen and needed to be detached from one another to cook... i was having more luck than scott pulling them apart, so that became my job... we got to one set that was so frozen together though that scott offered his pocket knife for me to stick between burgers and wedge them apart... i carefully aimed the blade away from me, and went to work... i was almost done when the stupid thing closed up on itself and sliced my pointer finger on my right hand pretty good... after hollering "shit", (which apparently makes a few people happy because it's one of the more severe words they generally can ever get out of me), mike helped me clean it up... it bled clear through the first bandaid that we put on it, so we iced it a little and put a second on... oh joy oh joy... it doesn't really hurt... and finger wounds do just bleed a lot (so yay for bandaids?), but i'm mostly just annoyed that the cut is where it is because it slows down my cross stitching ability greatly, which is frustrating because that's been my outlet to dealing with life for a bit lately...
anyhow, i smell like hamburger grill, and my finger is tightly bandaged and slowing down everything i do (like typing or sewing or writing), which is going to get old fast.
i have a ton of homework to get started on for next week though, so maybe the not being able to cross stitch as quickly as i'd like will encourage the getting homework done aspect of things tomorrow... i hope so, because jessica's coming up sunday (yay!) and i'm sure not doing homework then! :-P
altar guild in the morning... night y'all.
TGIF... almost
what a week....
especially just the past 2 days gives you a good picture of me lately.
wednesday: wake up at 9am, work on topology homework til noon... brief shower/lunch/stretch break, then on to experimental math homework from 12:30 til 2:30, when i had to leave for my 2:50-4:10 class... the prof rambled and went overtime big time, so we were there til after 4:30... came home, and worked on homework again from 5pm til 10pm straight... then over to the guys' house for mike and jared to analyze my finances for me... that lasted til 11:30ish, when i went back home, finished homework and immediately crashed... that was at 1am.... let me tell you -- 16 hour days of work are NOT fun.
thursday wasn't as bad, but still... classes from 11:30 til 2:30 straight, then i took mike to the financial aid office (this had dual purpose... i wouldn't go to see if they could do anything for my debt on my own, and mike's ankle is in a brace from monday night, so he can't drive)... after being in that line for forever, and confirming that my only options are private loans or debt consolidation on account of my fellowship, i took mike to the bookstore to pick up his textbooks, dropped him off at his house, and then was back on campus just in time for the experimental math seminar, which was pretty good.... (the guy who runs the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences was speaking... that got out at 5:30, when i promptly went home for "lunch" (no time from running around all day)... eric came over and we watched a movie, but colleen's VCR is screwy so while it was supposed to record joey and apprentice for me last night, it only recorded apprentice... then i worked until midnight after the movie, while watching the apprentice, then crashed. (i figured i earned a movie after wednesday and a long day thursday as well).
so finally, i'm here at friday... one class stands between me and the weekend... well, one class and pizza seminar. i'm in charge this year, so while i've no problem with harassing people to agree to be speakers and advertising for upcoming talks... ordering pizza through the department secretaries yesterday was new, and today i need to set up the room, get together half a dozen people to go get the freakin pizza, introduce the speaker, and clean up... it shouldn't be a big deal, but it's more than just coming and eating pizza like i've done before :-P... in short, i'll be relieved when i've been through the process once.... wish me luck!
time to get ready for class... oh joy, oh joy.
later dudes.
especially just the past 2 days gives you a good picture of me lately.
wednesday: wake up at 9am, work on topology homework til noon... brief shower/lunch/stretch break, then on to experimental math homework from 12:30 til 2:30, when i had to leave for my 2:50-4:10 class... the prof rambled and went overtime big time, so we were there til after 4:30... came home, and worked on homework again from 5pm til 10pm straight... then over to the guys' house for mike and jared to analyze my finances for me... that lasted til 11:30ish, when i went back home, finished homework and immediately crashed... that was at 1am.... let me tell you -- 16 hour days of work are NOT fun.
thursday wasn't as bad, but still... classes from 11:30 til 2:30 straight, then i took mike to the financial aid office (this had dual purpose... i wouldn't go to see if they could do anything for my debt on my own, and mike's ankle is in a brace from monday night, so he can't drive)... after being in that line for forever, and confirming that my only options are private loans or debt consolidation on account of my fellowship, i took mike to the bookstore to pick up his textbooks, dropped him off at his house, and then was back on campus just in time for the experimental math seminar, which was pretty good.... (the guy who runs the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences was speaking... that got out at 5:30, when i promptly went home for "lunch" (no time from running around all day)... eric came over and we watched a movie, but colleen's VCR is screwy so while it was supposed to record joey and apprentice for me last night, it only recorded apprentice... then i worked until midnight after the movie, while watching the apprentice, then crashed. (i figured i earned a movie after wednesday and a long day thursday as well).
so finally, i'm here at friday... one class stands between me and the weekend... well, one class and pizza seminar. i'm in charge this year, so while i've no problem with harassing people to agree to be speakers and advertising for upcoming talks... ordering pizza through the department secretaries yesterday was new, and today i need to set up the room, get together half a dozen people to go get the freakin pizza, introduce the speaker, and clean up... it shouldn't be a big deal, but it's more than just coming and eating pizza like i've done before :-P... in short, i'll be relieved when i've been through the process once.... wish me luck!
time to get ready for class... oh joy, oh joy.
later dudes.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
just for laughs
here's the math department/lara's email gossip of the day.
(1) at the party last night, everyone (for the most part) was pretty drunk by 6/7pm apparently... so like mike, sometime between 5 and 7 pm jumped off the house's 6-8 foor off the ground balcony, and severely sprained his ankle... the guys decided to let him sleep it off until 4am when he woke up in great pain... then they took him to the hospital and discovered he'll need surgery... there's a lot more details i've forgotten but it's a completely wacked out story... the best part? mike, re: the whole ordeal, "yeah, i was doing it to impress women!"... um, ok...
(2) so catherine (aka new 1st year student who speaks her mind at immediately without thinking about it...) had an interesting exchange with the grad director in his algebraic geometry class this morning:
catherine: so, off the wall question: which came first, the (blah) approach to this or the (blah blah) approach?
prof.: if you were paying attention, we answered that monday
(5 minutes later)
catherine: well, i'm uncomfortable with that answer, can you tell me why i shouldn't be uncomfortable?
prof.: well, you're slouching... maybe if you sat up straight, you'd be comfortable
(for the next 5 minutes, after every sentence, the prof. apparently said "and this should make you more comfortable" or "and this should make you less comfortable")...
dude.
(3) meanwhile, while that class was going on, i was in combinatorics... aaron, a married 5th year student i've had one class with, comes in and sits next to me.... 5th years don't typically take classes, just sit in on things appropriate to their research, and combo is nothing to do with aaron's branch of algebra so... hmmm...
aaron: hi! i thought you liked algebra, not this stuff
me: um, no, the only thing that's certain is that i hate analysis... the rest is open for question... why are you in here?
aaron: oh, i decided it's good to learn to count better... we'll see how long it lasts
(pause for a couple minutes, then i notice aaron giving me a really weird look)
me: yes?
aaron: did you dye your hair?
me: um, no... maybe it changes color with the sun in the summer or something
aaron: oh, hmmm... well, if i never said so before, it's a real nice color
(4) after combo, i went to the student center to pick up lunch and on the way ran into mason, aka crazy fun friend from my budapest semester who visited a few times last year... i knew he was around and at the party last night but i hadn't seen him yet... he came with me to buy my lunch and then back to my office where we played with mind games (get the metal ring off this puzzle contraption, etc.) for an hour and a half an chatted with sarah... 5 minutes before my 2nd class of the day, andrew, even crazier BSM friend who i hadn't seen since europe, who rotates between rutgers, harvard, and some community college every few semesters, who in general looks/acts like he's stoned, shows up... hair/glasses totally different from before that i didn't recognize him at first... had a bizarre exchange with him before class
(5) no exciting topology stories, however....
(6) check out this email from eric's grandma to eric earlier today (recall eric and i stayed at her house in michigan for 2 days on our monster road trip in july)... i just about bust a gut laughing at the "thank her..." sentence that leigh came running into my room to check if i was ok :-P
~~~~~~~
Hi, Eric, Good hearing from you.
Please tell Lara that I gave her the book so no need to return it.
Thank her for turning my shower head so it really shoots heavy sprays
and feels great.
Let me know about the try out for the orchestra. Love, Grandma Adele
~~~~~~~
dude... so that's the gossip round the watering hole today... time for "scrubs" and then a movie (tonight's choice is "erin brokovich") with eric... night y'all
(1) at the party last night, everyone (for the most part) was pretty drunk by 6/7pm apparently... so like mike, sometime between 5 and 7 pm jumped off the house's 6-8 foor off the ground balcony, and severely sprained his ankle... the guys decided to let him sleep it off until 4am when he woke up in great pain... then they took him to the hospital and discovered he'll need surgery... there's a lot more details i've forgotten but it's a completely wacked out story... the best part? mike, re: the whole ordeal, "yeah, i was doing it to impress women!"... um, ok...
(2) so catherine (aka new 1st year student who speaks her mind at immediately without thinking about it...) had an interesting exchange with the grad director in his algebraic geometry class this morning:
catherine: so, off the wall question: which came first, the (blah) approach to this or the (blah blah) approach?
prof.: if you were paying attention, we answered that monday
(5 minutes later)
catherine: well, i'm uncomfortable with that answer, can you tell me why i shouldn't be uncomfortable?
prof.: well, you're slouching... maybe if you sat up straight, you'd be comfortable
(for the next 5 minutes, after every sentence, the prof. apparently said "and this should make you more comfortable" or "and this should make you less comfortable")...
dude.
(3) meanwhile, while that class was going on, i was in combinatorics... aaron, a married 5th year student i've had one class with, comes in and sits next to me.... 5th years don't typically take classes, just sit in on things appropriate to their research, and combo is nothing to do with aaron's branch of algebra so... hmmm...
aaron: hi! i thought you liked algebra, not this stuff
me: um, no, the only thing that's certain is that i hate analysis... the rest is open for question... why are you in here?
aaron: oh, i decided it's good to learn to count better... we'll see how long it lasts
(pause for a couple minutes, then i notice aaron giving me a really weird look)
me: yes?
aaron: did you dye your hair?
me: um, no... maybe it changes color with the sun in the summer or something
aaron: oh, hmmm... well, if i never said so before, it's a real nice color
(4) after combo, i went to the student center to pick up lunch and on the way ran into mason, aka crazy fun friend from my budapest semester who visited a few times last year... i knew he was around and at the party last night but i hadn't seen him yet... he came with me to buy my lunch and then back to my office where we played with mind games (get the metal ring off this puzzle contraption, etc.) for an hour and a half an chatted with sarah... 5 minutes before my 2nd class of the day, andrew, even crazier BSM friend who i hadn't seen since europe, who rotates between rutgers, harvard, and some community college every few semesters, who in general looks/acts like he's stoned, shows up... hair/glasses totally different from before that i didn't recognize him at first... had a bizarre exchange with him before class
(5) no exciting topology stories, however....
(6) check out this email from eric's grandma to eric earlier today (recall eric and i stayed at her house in michigan for 2 days on our monster road trip in july)... i just about bust a gut laughing at the "thank her..." sentence that leigh came running into my room to check if i was ok :-P
~~~~~~~
Hi, Eric, Good hearing from you.
Please tell Lara that I gave her the book so no need to return it.
Thank her for turning my shower head so it really shoots heavy sprays
and feels great.
Let me know about the try out for the orchestra. Love, Grandma Adele
~~~~~~~
dude... so that's the gossip round the watering hole today... time for "scrubs" and then a movie (tonight's choice is "erin brokovich") with eric... night y'all
Monday, September 06, 2004
on being a bum
the party of the year apparently is going on right now... i've been called by 6 different people asking why i'm not there... the answer is simple : i feel like being a bum and minding my own business, and i would really appreciate if people just let me do so without harassing me any more about it.
kinda like leigh, colleen, and i live together now -- jared, mike, scott, john, sam, and eric are in one house now too... they've been planning their labor day barbeque for quite some time... when leigh showed up mid afternoon and they asked where i was and she said i planned on staying put where i was, they promptly all took turns calling/IMing me and trying to convince me otherwise. the only one who i think actually heard what i was saying was jared... he said if i wanted to be antisocial i could come over, get a share of the free food, and take a nap in his bed, just so i'd be there, and when i said "don't take it personally, but i'm happy in my own room with a good book right now", he accepted that, with an "if you change your mind, we'll be over here and glad to see you" and let me go, instead of continuing to pester. at least there's one person who listens over there :-P
leigh called an hour ago... apparently they'd had beer pong out and running since like 4pm, and she had never seen or heard of anything like it. i've played before... with margarita mix/cheap tequila too... but seriously, if they've been drinking for hours already, and i'm tired, have a headache, and wouldn't want to be there long, it's not worth going over and being sober and grumpy just for the free food
so here i am.
i've been reading math all afternoon for the first time in weeks... i read a whole chapter in my combinatorics book, finally giving up on trying to do the exercises along the way after i got stuck on the first one for like and hour and a half... i can understand the examples they work out, i just can't solve the open ended stuff... i did solve all the suggested problems the prof gave on friday though, so i suppose that's good... he was a hard prof last year and i had an impossible time with his graph theory homework, so we'll see how this goes
i don't know what i want to do with my life... mathematically at least... i came in thinking i wanted to specialize in algebra or combinatorics... i know even more than a year ago that analysis is not an option for me, however algebra conceptually left me in the dust (because of easy grading professors who didn't make us learn the material) and graph theory left me in the dust (on account of a prof. that goes way faster than my mind can keep up)... i'm discouraged all around, and tired of stuff... but then again there's nothing non-math that i can think of being more excited about doing besides not working and that's not an option... so maybe i'm just in a blah mood all around to work through and then things will be better?... let's hope so.
next on the agenda? dinner and reading my new topology book.
aren't you jealous?
later dudes.
kinda like leigh, colleen, and i live together now -- jared, mike, scott, john, sam, and eric are in one house now too... they've been planning their labor day barbeque for quite some time... when leigh showed up mid afternoon and they asked where i was and she said i planned on staying put where i was, they promptly all took turns calling/IMing me and trying to convince me otherwise. the only one who i think actually heard what i was saying was jared... he said if i wanted to be antisocial i could come over, get a share of the free food, and take a nap in his bed, just so i'd be there, and when i said "don't take it personally, but i'm happy in my own room with a good book right now", he accepted that, with an "if you change your mind, we'll be over here and glad to see you" and let me go, instead of continuing to pester. at least there's one person who listens over there :-P
leigh called an hour ago... apparently they'd had beer pong out and running since like 4pm, and she had never seen or heard of anything like it. i've played before... with margarita mix/cheap tequila too... but seriously, if they've been drinking for hours already, and i'm tired, have a headache, and wouldn't want to be there long, it's not worth going over and being sober and grumpy just for the free food
so here i am.
i've been reading math all afternoon for the first time in weeks... i read a whole chapter in my combinatorics book, finally giving up on trying to do the exercises along the way after i got stuck on the first one for like and hour and a half... i can understand the examples they work out, i just can't solve the open ended stuff... i did solve all the suggested problems the prof gave on friday though, so i suppose that's good... he was a hard prof last year and i had an impossible time with his graph theory homework, so we'll see how this goes
i don't know what i want to do with my life... mathematically at least... i came in thinking i wanted to specialize in algebra or combinatorics... i know even more than a year ago that analysis is not an option for me, however algebra conceptually left me in the dust (because of easy grading professors who didn't make us learn the material) and graph theory left me in the dust (on account of a prof. that goes way faster than my mind can keep up)... i'm discouraged all around, and tired of stuff... but then again there's nothing non-math that i can think of being more excited about doing besides not working and that's not an option... so maybe i'm just in a blah mood all around to work through and then things will be better?... let's hope so.
next on the agenda? dinner and reading my new topology book.
aren't you jealous?
later dudes.
Sunday, September 05, 2004
remembering, part 2
Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.
Smile Big Because God Loves You and So Do I! ~Nicole Unrath, child of God, truly great friend, inspiration to many, and singer in the heavenly choir forever, :-), 9/30/1981 - 9/5/2003
Smile Big Because God Loves You and So Do I! ~Nicole Unrath, child of God, truly great friend, inspiration to many, and singer in the heavenly choir forever, :-), 9/30/1981 - 9/5/2003
Friday, September 03, 2004
remembering
a year ago tonight is the last time i talked to my friend nicole before she was unexpectedly killed in a car wreck september 5, 2003.
conversation excerpt:
nicole: wow, la, i'm actually kind of jealous -- you sound so much more settled and at home in jersey after a week than i feel in tampa after over a month!
me: i'm sorry... :-( it sounds like you have a great school though; if you keep looking, you just gotta find people our age eventually, right? God's got this one figured out, it's just hard to wait to see things turn out.
nicole: yeah, i hope so, i guess i just have to keep being patient and know God's timing is the best timing.
me: yeah, like it or not, understand it or not
those lines have haunted me for the past year -- one would hope they'd have gotten a hair easier to take hold of -- "God's time is the best time, like it or not, understand it or not" -- why is timing still such a difficult thing to handle?
later dudes.
conversation excerpt:
nicole: wow, la, i'm actually kind of jealous -- you sound so much more settled and at home in jersey after a week than i feel in tampa after over a month!
me: i'm sorry... :-( it sounds like you have a great school though; if you keep looking, you just gotta find people our age eventually, right? God's got this one figured out, it's just hard to wait to see things turn out.
nicole: yeah, i hope so, i guess i just have to keep being patient and know God's timing is the best timing.
me: yeah, like it or not, understand it or not
those lines have haunted me for the past year -- one would hope they'd have gotten a hair easier to take hold of -- "God's time is the best time, like it or not, understand it or not" -- why is timing still such a difficult thing to handle?
later dudes.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
sullen
this is my chance to vent away, so here it is:
i am annoyed and frustrated. i am tired and drained. i know why i didn't pass the qual, and i know i'm capable of passing in january. i know my fuse is short and little attention should be paid to all the things that have set me off lately, but here goes....
frustration #1: my old analysis prof from last fall semester has consistently looked right on past me and seemingly ignored me for the 8 months between when i finished his class last semester and tuesday of this week... since i failed the qual, he has greeted me with a smirk 3 times in as many days... coincidence? one of my friends thinks so, one things not... i don't know, but i find it mildly unsettling
frustration #2: just when i think i've done one thing good, i screw up... i'm in charge of pizza seminar, so i've been finding speakers, etc.... and decided to give the seminar website a face lift... the previous coordinator told me i was allowed to do whatever i wanted with the page, i should just keep it up to date... so i took the current web page that was there when i took over, and added a menu to the left hand side... today i get 2 annoyed emails, one from a department secretary, and one from an older grad student, and somehow i've screwed up how the pizza seminar webpage interacts with the rest of the seminar web page on the rutgers math server... i wrote them back that (1) i was unaware of any rules about the folder because the previous coordinator hadn't told me any (2) i was sorry for anything that i've inadvertently messed up for them, and (3) if they tell me what commands i need to put in the html file, then i'd gladly fix it... after a day of emailing around, they gave me instructions, but now someone's removed my access to the seminars webpage folder on the server.... extremely annoyed and feeling moderately belittled.... i thought i was doing something useful, i.e. making the seminar webpage easier to navigate, and here i am stepping on toes... why do i try?
frustration #3: it's been pointed out that the ONE american female student last year failed the qual, and all THREE of us this year failed this fall... while everyone trusts we can pass in the spring, at least one professor is concerned that the department is doing something wrong that needs to be fixed in the first year classes. really, i have no clue, but on a slightly different note, this frustrates me for another reason... scott, ben, and jared recently discovered that i hate being called (1) a girl, or (2) cute. it's specifically those two words i take issue with, and they can be used in reference to anyone else, just not me... here's at least a little of why:
even in high school with AP physics or ARML (our regional math team that went to national competitions), being a girl interested in math/physics, you were severely outnumbered. there was often this unspoken drive to prove that i really was as smart as the rest of the head of the class, and not just there and allowed to do stuff because i was a girl.
for my time at valpo, that wasn't an issue in the same way, but at my REU and in budapest, i somewhat felt it was -- that i needed to prove to myself that i was smart enought to be places.
similarly, now in grad school... when you apply for any math program of any sort, the following disclaimer is there:
"We solicit inquiries and applications from members of groups which have been historically under-represented in mathematics, such as women and minority groups. "
i HATE feeling like i'm somewhere because i'm filling some sort of quota. i know in the back of my head that rutgers would not have accepted any of me and my friends unless we truly were qualified and the sort of students they're looking for, but old habits die hard. it's not that i need to be all independent and the best at things... i just need to feel that i'm where i'm at based on some sort of merit, and not because i'm a girl.
so there it is... it's a twisted sort of pride thing -- i hate being called a girl, because in my mind there's still old triggers that associate it with weakness... being female is fine, being a *girl* in particular gets to me...
similarly with cute... that's another story for another day, but it has a connotation of some sort of helplessness that i really don't like... mostly it's just those two words in particular.
frustration #4: complete and total lack of motivation; i have great friends, i still love the general concept of studying math, and on most days i still like math... right now though, i'm getting my first week of mountains of homework assignments and i'm so tired i don't want to think about any of it... then again i don't want to do much of anything, school or otherwise, so it's not even that i want to get away from here in particular -- i want to get away from life for a bit... but i gotta earn a living somehow, so here i stay. :-P
i am soooo chipper today, aren't i?
ok, time to spare you all -- time for bed -- class with one of the professors that frustrates me most in the department bright and early tomorrow morning... oh joy oh joy.
night.
i am annoyed and frustrated. i am tired and drained. i know why i didn't pass the qual, and i know i'm capable of passing in january. i know my fuse is short and little attention should be paid to all the things that have set me off lately, but here goes....
frustration #1: my old analysis prof from last fall semester has consistently looked right on past me and seemingly ignored me for the 8 months between when i finished his class last semester and tuesday of this week... since i failed the qual, he has greeted me with a smirk 3 times in as many days... coincidence? one of my friends thinks so, one things not... i don't know, but i find it mildly unsettling
frustration #2: just when i think i've done one thing good, i screw up... i'm in charge of pizza seminar, so i've been finding speakers, etc.... and decided to give the seminar website a face lift... the previous coordinator told me i was allowed to do whatever i wanted with the page, i should just keep it up to date... so i took the current web page that was there when i took over, and added a menu to the left hand side... today i get 2 annoyed emails, one from a department secretary, and one from an older grad student, and somehow i've screwed up how the pizza seminar webpage interacts with the rest of the seminar web page on the rutgers math server... i wrote them back that (1) i was unaware of any rules about the folder because the previous coordinator hadn't told me any (2) i was sorry for anything that i've inadvertently messed up for them, and (3) if they tell me what commands i need to put in the html file, then i'd gladly fix it... after a day of emailing around, they gave me instructions, but now someone's removed my access to the seminars webpage folder on the server.... extremely annoyed and feeling moderately belittled.... i thought i was doing something useful, i.e. making the seminar webpage easier to navigate, and here i am stepping on toes... why do i try?
frustration #3: it's been pointed out that the ONE american female student last year failed the qual, and all THREE of us this year failed this fall... while everyone trusts we can pass in the spring, at least one professor is concerned that the department is doing something wrong that needs to be fixed in the first year classes. really, i have no clue, but on a slightly different note, this frustrates me for another reason... scott, ben, and jared recently discovered that i hate being called (1) a girl, or (2) cute. it's specifically those two words i take issue with, and they can be used in reference to anyone else, just not me... here's at least a little of why:
even in high school with AP physics or ARML (our regional math team that went to national competitions), being a girl interested in math/physics, you were severely outnumbered. there was often this unspoken drive to prove that i really was as smart as the rest of the head of the class, and not just there and allowed to do stuff because i was a girl.
for my time at valpo, that wasn't an issue in the same way, but at my REU and in budapest, i somewhat felt it was -- that i needed to prove to myself that i was smart enought to be places.
similarly, now in grad school... when you apply for any math program of any sort, the following disclaimer is there:
"We solicit inquiries and applications from members of groups which have been historically under-represented in mathematics, such as women and minority groups. "
i HATE feeling like i'm somewhere because i'm filling some sort of quota. i know in the back of my head that rutgers would not have accepted any of me and my friends unless we truly were qualified and the sort of students they're looking for, but old habits die hard. it's not that i need to be all independent and the best at things... i just need to feel that i'm where i'm at based on some sort of merit, and not because i'm a girl.
so there it is... it's a twisted sort of pride thing -- i hate being called a girl, because in my mind there's still old triggers that associate it with weakness... being female is fine, being a *girl* in particular gets to me...
similarly with cute... that's another story for another day, but it has a connotation of some sort of helplessness that i really don't like... mostly it's just those two words in particular.
frustration #4: complete and total lack of motivation; i have great friends, i still love the general concept of studying math, and on most days i still like math... right now though, i'm getting my first week of mountains of homework assignments and i'm so tired i don't want to think about any of it... then again i don't want to do much of anything, school or otherwise, so it's not even that i want to get away from here in particular -- i want to get away from life for a bit... but i gotta earn a living somehow, so here i stay. :-P
i am soooo chipper today, aren't i?
ok, time to spare you all -- time for bed -- class with one of the professors that frustrates me most in the department bright and early tomorrow morning... oh joy oh joy.
night.
... off and running
it's going to be an interesting semester.... soooo nice to not be in required classes anymore... in general the 5 required 1st year classes have an insane homework load, and most classes beyond that (1) don't assign grades below a B, and (2) are much more bearable.... now that i'm a second year, both of those facts are extremely comforting...
i had 3 of my 4 classes today... 1 i'm excited about, 2 will be ok, and the class i haven't had yet is with a really tough prof i had last semester.
the one i'm excited about is experiemental mathematics... usually you don't see those two words together... but we'll be spending the first few weeks learning how to use maple (a computer algebra program), and then learning about computer based proofs... it's in a computer lab with a cool israeli guy for the prof... some of the functions in maple are actually named after him, which i find hilarious.
had a nice drawn out lunch with sarah today... and starbucks after... i like chatting with her :-)
back to being a bum for a little bit -- i only have 1 of my textbooks so far (most profs didn't order copies and just told us today what we need), so it's kinda hard to work without them.
later dudes.
i had 3 of my 4 classes today... 1 i'm excited about, 2 will be ok, and the class i haven't had yet is with a really tough prof i had last semester.
the one i'm excited about is experiemental mathematics... usually you don't see those two words together... but we'll be spending the first few weeks learning how to use maple (a computer algebra program), and then learning about computer based proofs... it's in a computer lab with a cool israeli guy for the prof... some of the functions in maple are actually named after him, which i find hilarious.
had a nice drawn out lunch with sarah today... and starbucks after... i like chatting with her :-)
back to being a bum for a little bit -- i only have 1 of my textbooks so far (most profs didn't order copies and just told us today what we need), so it's kinda hard to work without them.
later dudes.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
yay for friends
a few quotes of the day:
Auto response from lkp 42 42 42: you may IM me if...
(1) you want to watch a movie/eat ice cream with me
(2) you want to read me a kids book (in person so i can see the pictures :-P)
(3) you want to help me light random objects on fire
(4) you want to go on a walk with me and kick every tree in the neighborhood
otherwise... you're well advised to keep your distance :-P
BlkDeth 13: i kinda wanna do all those things, just... can't.
A----Solace: Hey Lara.
lkp 42 42 42: hey
lkp 42 42 42: how are you?
A----Solace: I'm doing good. I just got back from Texas on Monday. I went wedding dress shopping for the first time.
lkp 42 42 42: oh fun
A----Solace: So how is your friend doing?
A----Solace: And most importantly how are you?
lkp 42 42 42: when was the last time i updated you?
A----Solace: Aug 15ish
lkp 42 42 42: her mom died on the 22nd... i was gone to toledo for the funeral half of last week, asleep the other half, and by far set the lower bound on the test the past two days
lkp 42 42 42: but scott, jared, and ben plan to teach "lara's going to ace the january qual 101" this semester
lkp 42 42 42: so i guess i can't totally give up :-P
lkp 42 42 42: in the meantime i gotta find october pizza seminar people
A----Solace: I'm sorry to hear that. Definately don't give up! Hell if Paul and I can do it! :-)
~~~~
A----Solace: Do you have class after that? Wanna go to lunch?
lkp 42 42 42: i have a class at 1:10 right after that
lkp 42 42 42: so i'm not free til 2:30
lkp 42 42 42: i'd go somewhere between then and my 4:30 class if you're still around
A----Solace: I'll stick around then.
(A----Solace = sarah... the one american female 3rd year student in the department... she failed the qual last fall and passed in the spring... and has had to make a lot of back and forth trips home to texas for family emergencies this year... we like sarah, because in general she's incredibly nice, but also she can relate to me right now a lot more than most people around here)
indeed... yay for friends...
and here's the final 2... poor scott:
lkp 42 42 42: lol -- i went to buy my combinatorics textbook on amazon just now
lkp 42 42 42: and the first option is to put it on your credit card b/c that's the last purchase my account made
lkp 42 42 42: you're lucky i'm honest ;-)
smswtshnn: lol, you'd better be!
lkp 42 42 42: colleen and leigh are playing board games without me
lkp 42 42 42: thye just decided they want to play twister
(long pause)
lkp 42 42 42: you have *no* response to that?
smswtshnn: what, colleen and leigh playing twister??
lkp 42 42 42: yeah
smswtshnn: haha, i don't think that ones needs a response
smswtshnn: i'm sure you can picture my face and that's good enough
lkp 42 42 42: there is no good one, but it's a funny sentence
lkp 42 42 42: i can
smswtshnn: lol
night y'all.
Auto response from lkp 42 42 42: you may IM me if...
(1) you want to watch a movie/eat ice cream with me
(2) you want to read me a kids book (in person so i can see the pictures :-P)
(3) you want to help me light random objects on fire
(4) you want to go on a walk with me and kick every tree in the neighborhood
otherwise... you're well advised to keep your distance :-P
BlkDeth 13: i kinda wanna do all those things, just... can't.
A----Solace: Hey Lara.
lkp 42 42 42: hey
lkp 42 42 42: how are you?
A----Solace: I'm doing good. I just got back from Texas on Monday. I went wedding dress shopping for the first time.
lkp 42 42 42: oh fun
A----Solace: So how is your friend doing?
A----Solace: And most importantly how are you?
lkp 42 42 42: when was the last time i updated you?
A----Solace: Aug 15ish
lkp 42 42 42: her mom died on the 22nd... i was gone to toledo for the funeral half of last week, asleep the other half, and by far set the lower bound on the test the past two days
lkp 42 42 42: but scott, jared, and ben plan to teach "lara's going to ace the january qual 101" this semester
lkp 42 42 42: so i guess i can't totally give up :-P
lkp 42 42 42: in the meantime i gotta find october pizza seminar people
A----Solace: I'm sorry to hear that. Definately don't give up! Hell if Paul and I can do it! :-)
~~~~
A----Solace: Do you have class after that? Wanna go to lunch?
lkp 42 42 42: i have a class at 1:10 right after that
lkp 42 42 42: so i'm not free til 2:30
lkp 42 42 42: i'd go somewhere between then and my 4:30 class if you're still around
A----Solace: I'll stick around then.
(A----Solace = sarah... the one american female 3rd year student in the department... she failed the qual last fall and passed in the spring... and has had to make a lot of back and forth trips home to texas for family emergencies this year... we like sarah, because in general she's incredibly nice, but also she can relate to me right now a lot more than most people around here)
indeed... yay for friends...
and here's the final 2... poor scott:
lkp 42 42 42: lol -- i went to buy my combinatorics textbook on amazon just now
lkp 42 42 42: and the first option is to put it on your credit card b/c that's the last purchase my account made
lkp 42 42 42: you're lucky i'm honest ;-)
smswtshnn: lol, you'd better be!
lkp 42 42 42: colleen and leigh are playing board games without me
lkp 42 42 42: thye just decided they want to play twister
(long pause)
lkp 42 42 42: you have *no* response to that?
smswtshnn: what, colleen and leigh playing twister??
lkp 42 42 42: yeah
smswtshnn: haha, i don't think that ones needs a response
smswtshnn: i'm sure you can picture my face and that's good enough
lkp 42 42 42: there is no good one, but it's a funny sentence
lkp 42 42 42: i can
smswtshnn: lol
night y'all.
garden state
= movie that scott, eric, and me went to see tonight... it was incredibly good.
i mostly wanted to see it because the guy from scrubs was the director/producer/main actor and the previews had some interesting imagery,... turned out to be an amazing movie.
plot?
andrew (zach braff) is a 26 year old actor in LA who hasn't been home in 10 years... his dad calls him to tell him his mom died and he needs to come home for the funeral... in the 4 days he's there, which are also the first 4 days of his life since he was 10 that he hasn't been insanely medicated for depression, he meets up with both old and new friends who eventually help him come to the conclusion, that no matter what it is, or how good or bad it is, life is meant to be felt.... after much running around with friends and getting close to a crazy epileptic girl (natalie portman), eventually andrew comes to terms with the fact that although his dad (also his psychiatrist) has meant well and been trying to make him "happy" all his life, maybe things don't need to be fixed, and maybe it's ok to not be happy all the time... that even if it's pain, they just need to feel.
(that was a circular summary paragraph, wasn't it? :-P)
favorite quotes:
Andrew: F***, this hurts.
Sam : I know it hurts. But it's life, and it's real. And sometimes it f***ing hurts, but it's life, and it's pretty much all we got.
Andrew : Have fun searching the infinite abyss.
Albert : You too.
later dudes
i mostly wanted to see it because the guy from scrubs was the director/producer/main actor and the previews had some interesting imagery,... turned out to be an amazing movie.
plot?
andrew (zach braff) is a 26 year old actor in LA who hasn't been home in 10 years... his dad calls him to tell him his mom died and he needs to come home for the funeral... in the 4 days he's there, which are also the first 4 days of his life since he was 10 that he hasn't been insanely medicated for depression, he meets up with both old and new friends who eventually help him come to the conclusion, that no matter what it is, or how good or bad it is, life is meant to be felt.... after much running around with friends and getting close to a crazy epileptic girl (natalie portman), eventually andrew comes to terms with the fact that although his dad (also his psychiatrist) has meant well and been trying to make him "happy" all his life, maybe things don't need to be fixed, and maybe it's ok to not be happy all the time... that even if it's pain, they just need to feel.
(that was a circular summary paragraph, wasn't it? :-P)
favorite quotes:
Andrew: F***, this hurts.
Sam : I know it hurts. But it's life, and it's real. And sometimes it f***ing hurts, but it's life, and it's pretty much all we got.
Andrew : Have fun searching the infinite abyss.
Albert : You too.
later dudes
recovering
an email:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lara,
You did not pass the written qualifying exams this time around.
I suspect this is due to your recent trip to Ohio as much as anything.
You scored (withheld)/60 on Day 1 and (withheld)/60 on Day 2.
Please come to my office to view your exam, and to talk.
Best wishes, Chuck Weibel (as grad director)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
that sums up my day.
i am one of 4 people my year who didn't pass, so at least i'm not alone (eric, colleen, and leigh are in my boat too but for different reasons... interesting though, i think, that we're the 4 who struggled most with analysis all year no matter what our other strengths).... the other 3 have all commented that they're jealous i have an excuse (i.e. how much non-math stress has been going on in my life lately)... i don't know if it's good, or if i'm mad at myself b/c i don't want my life to be an "excuse" when it comes to school... mostly i have problems with the word excuse i think.
let me tell you though, i have good friends...
upon hearing about the qual, ben, leigh, and i went to starbucks... they let me sit there and just be sullen for a bit, and then decided a park was a good idea... when i didn't even try to swing, leigh started pushing me from behind, and ben started pushing my knees from in front of me, so that i didn't even have to try to get going high... that was moderately amusing....
then, ben, leigh, colleen... well, pretty much everyone went to a barbeque for the new 1st years at the grad director's house -- everyone but me and eric that is... we went to align my telescope while it was still daylight, went to subway for dinner and then both went home for an hour... in my case it was to watch scrubs (more on that in a second), in eric's case to clean his room.
after scrubs, i picked up eric and we took my telescope out stargazing for the first time in months... we tried a new place, a park we'd done a lot of studying at that is dark, but also has a wide open field in the middle of it too -- perfect.... after being out for a bit over an hour, we came back to eric's house for hot cocoa
there, scott and jared were up, joined us for the cocoa, and then entertained me for a bit after eric went to bed... well, not so much entertained, but tried to get me to actually vocalize how i feel about everything going on right now... they've offered that i can crash on the boy house couch whenever i want if i ever get tired of being in a girl apartment for awhile...
apparently they both really want to see me pass the test in january too and not give up on myself... besides making lists of things lara likes to do and things i really need to stop saying to myself, when comparing classes and i commented to scott "oh we have 3 together", he responded "no 4 -- (lists the 3 we're both registered for), and helping lara pass the qual 101!"... jared's volunteered to be analysis genie, and scott wants to enlighten me about topology... ben had volunteered earlier in the day to help me and leigh if we'll teach him what a manifold is when we learn in differential geometry this semester.
right now? i feel overwhelmed and moderately bummed... in time it will get better... at the moment, lots of emotions and things going on, and i just need to let myself crack and work the bad emotions out of my system.
i said i'd get back to scrubs -- it made me laugh my head off for half an hour, so it gets bonus points for that -- but also, for the requisite "moral of the story" line at the end -- j.d. wrapped up the show with "so in the hospital, making it through the day is all about relationships -- whether you're starting a new one, relying on the old ones, or figuring out how old ones work in a new way -- friends are the only way to make it through"... i guess it applies to grad school too ;-) i'm sure glad i have friends who don't give up on me, because pretty sure i don't have the energy to not give up on me myself right now.
the end.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lara,
You did not pass the written qualifying exams this time around.
I suspect this is due to your recent trip to Ohio as much as anything.
You scored (withheld)/60 on Day 1 and (withheld)/60 on Day 2.
Please come to my office to view your exam, and to talk.
Best wishes, Chuck Weibel (as grad director)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
that sums up my day.
i am one of 4 people my year who didn't pass, so at least i'm not alone (eric, colleen, and leigh are in my boat too but for different reasons... interesting though, i think, that we're the 4 who struggled most with analysis all year no matter what our other strengths).... the other 3 have all commented that they're jealous i have an excuse (i.e. how much non-math stress has been going on in my life lately)... i don't know if it's good, or if i'm mad at myself b/c i don't want my life to be an "excuse" when it comes to school... mostly i have problems with the word excuse i think.
let me tell you though, i have good friends...
upon hearing about the qual, ben, leigh, and i went to starbucks... they let me sit there and just be sullen for a bit, and then decided a park was a good idea... when i didn't even try to swing, leigh started pushing me from behind, and ben started pushing my knees from in front of me, so that i didn't even have to try to get going high... that was moderately amusing....
then, ben, leigh, colleen... well, pretty much everyone went to a barbeque for the new 1st years at the grad director's house -- everyone but me and eric that is... we went to align my telescope while it was still daylight, went to subway for dinner and then both went home for an hour... in my case it was to watch scrubs (more on that in a second), in eric's case to clean his room.
after scrubs, i picked up eric and we took my telescope out stargazing for the first time in months... we tried a new place, a park we'd done a lot of studying at that is dark, but also has a wide open field in the middle of it too -- perfect.... after being out for a bit over an hour, we came back to eric's house for hot cocoa
there, scott and jared were up, joined us for the cocoa, and then entertained me for a bit after eric went to bed... well, not so much entertained, but tried to get me to actually vocalize how i feel about everything going on right now... they've offered that i can crash on the boy house couch whenever i want if i ever get tired of being in a girl apartment for awhile...
apparently they both really want to see me pass the test in january too and not give up on myself... besides making lists of things lara likes to do and things i really need to stop saying to myself, when comparing classes and i commented to scott "oh we have 3 together", he responded "no 4 -- (lists the 3 we're both registered for), and helping lara pass the qual 101!"... jared's volunteered to be analysis genie, and scott wants to enlighten me about topology... ben had volunteered earlier in the day to help me and leigh if we'll teach him what a manifold is when we learn in differential geometry this semester.
right now? i feel overwhelmed and moderately bummed... in time it will get better... at the moment, lots of emotions and things going on, and i just need to let myself crack and work the bad emotions out of my system.
i said i'd get back to scrubs -- it made me laugh my head off for half an hour, so it gets bonus points for that -- but also, for the requisite "moral of the story" line at the end -- j.d. wrapped up the show with "so in the hospital, making it through the day is all about relationships -- whether you're starting a new one, relying on the old ones, or figuring out how old ones work in a new way -- friends are the only way to make it through"... i guess it applies to grad school too ;-) i'm sure glad i have friends who don't give up on me, because pretty sure i don't have the energy to not give up on me myself right now.
the end.
