Friday, April 30, 2004

my lot

look at the margin -- the numbers are actually going up! 2/3 of the lie groups final done (no guarantee it's right, but it's the best i understand it)... now just the two hard problems to go.

as much as i complain about stress and/or complete spazz about things, the more i reflect though, the more i realize i am really happy with what i'm doing with my life... two random interchanges in the past 48 hours or so:

(1) amanda (my roommate) was up early this morning doing laundry and stuff and we actually talked for like 10 minutes while i was getting ready... i asked her what she was doing this summer and she commented "wow, i can't believe you're going all those places this summer... i'll just be happy to get a job at hooters or something". nothing wrong with that -- my sole comment is, i don't think i've ever had a friend who's aspired to work at a hooters before... go figure. we're just different. and i'm happy being my non-partying self.

(2) had called home to talk to my brother yesterday and ended up talking to my dad for 20 minutes first... there's currently just an interim director of the memphis botanic garden (where he works) and allie prescott III is more or less running the show for now... the prescotts are rich memphis people -- he's worked for all kinds of recognizable places, she's on the city school board, allie IV graduated from HS with me, and allison (his little sister) graduated with my brother... don't know them well, but recognize them... apparently while discussing garden stuff over a business lunch earlier this week, what their kids were all up to came up, especially when it dawned on them at we all graduated together how we did... apparently allie (the one my age) already owns a business. dude... i can't imagine owning a business at age 22/23. my brother commented later "well, obviously his dad gave it to him; that's how it works when your family has money", but however it works... dude. i may not have lots of money to do everything i want, but being paid to learn, keep a crazy schedule, and explore the world, rather than already be a part of corporate america... yeah, i'm pretty happy with that too.

ok, really, end of thoughts for the night.

quotes 'n more quotes

recap of the day: class, other class, pizza seminar, homework with other people in the office for a bit, homework at home, dinner, more homework, went to wind ensemble concert with eric (i actually just typed 'wind ensemble homework' and had to fix it -- what does that say???), and now back home to do more homework. lie groups final status... 3 problems figured out, 2 written up... still working on that for quite some time tonight.

that's basically the summary... here's the quotes to go with the day:

class 1 (algebra):
you ask about grades. my answer is this: i use an oracle, so i have no control, you have no control.. the fate of algebra students is written in the stars. ~dr. vasconcelas

class 2 (graph theory):
i'm saying nothing, but at least i'm saying it repeatedly. ~dr. kahn

pizza seminar:
(making fun of a theorem that's being explained, pokes me and whispers:) you are a special point on a certain holomorphic function. ~ben

homework with other people in the office for a bit:
(1) ian (erasing the board in our office, just after i had finished explaining something): look, sorry i have to erase your theory of everything
me: actually, it was a map of my part of memphis, but same thing.

(2) so let's pretend there's a bunch of dots and accents in our names so that we're hungarian and the minus one doesn't matter. ~mike

homework at home:
(in response to my angst-filled away message)
may the llamas be with you...
p.s. Bob says hi and that he misses you. He's looking forward to when you can kick him again.
~adam hughes

dinner:
(i was watching "home improvement" while i ate)
wilson: you know, a wise person once said women have to work twice as hard as men to get half as much credit.
(1, 2, 3, discuss!)

more homework:
jessica: yup, good luck. I've been starting my studying too >:o
me: studying is more like... >:o
me: =)
jessica: :-$
me: i've never quite figured out what that one is
me: any hypotheses?
jessica: when he was littler he looked like he was studying
jessica: you know, confused and nasueated
me: lol -- excellent
jessica: lips sewn shut! that's got to be it
(copy and paste the faces into AIM -- it makes it more fun =P)

went to wind ensemble concert:
*la la la* (it's hard to properly quote musical instruments)

...now more homework =P

point to ponder

algebra got out early -- yay for last lectures of the year in both that and graph theory today... so eric and me continued the rhythm discussion for a little... eric's comment,

"you know, i just woke up this morning and realized: maybe me trying to teach other people about rhythm is kinda like other people talking to me about religion all my life... i feel the rhythm strongly, but other people, like you, just sometimes completely don't get it... other people have all this faith in religion stuff, and i just don't feel it... it's an interesting parallel."

1, 2, 3, discuss. (as for me, i think this is new discussion topic #1 for july's two-week road trip)

Everybody's doing it

1. Go into your blog archives.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

...and i quote (from December 3, 2003):

"and yeah....
this about sums it up:
lkp 42 42 42: i'm going to spontaneously explode and you're not"

(footnote: saw the above instructions in someone else's blog -- out of curiousity looked up what sentence that would be in mine, and then saw the complete appropriateness of it to this week... how much fun is that?)

the house on the strand

seriously, if i didn't make time for a chapter each night before i went to sleep, this week would drive me nuts with all i have to do... last paragraph of tonight's chapter:

"I lay awake thinking of the hell I would give Magnus when he arrive. Nausea, vertigo, confussion, a bloodshot eye, and now acid sweat, and all for what? A moment in time, long past, that had no bearing on the present, that served no purpose in his life or mine, and could as little benefit the world in which we lived as a scrapbook of forgotten memories lying in a dusty drawer..., and as I lay there, ... , I remembered how I had walked about that other world with a dreamer's freedom but with a waking man's perception. Roger had been no faded snapshot in time's album; and even now, in this fourth dimension into which I had stumbled inadvertently but Magnus with intent, he lived and moved, ate and slept, beneath me in his house, enacting his living Now which ran side by side with my immediate Present, and so the two merged.

"Am I my brother's keeper? Cain's cry of protest suddenly had new meaning for me as I watched the hands of the clock move towards ten past three. Roger was my keeper, I was his. There was no past, no present, no future. Everything living is part of the whole. We are all bound, one to the other, through time and eternity, and, our senses once opened, as mine had been opened by the drug, to a new understanding of his world and mine, fusion would take place, there would be no separation, there would be no death.... This would be the ultimate meaning of the experiment, surely, that by moving about in time, death was destroyed. This is what Magnus so far had not understood. To him, the drug released the complex brew within the brain that serve up the savoured past. To me, it proved that the past was living still, that we were all participants, all witnesses. I was Roger, I was Bodrugan, I was Cain: and in being so was more truly myself.

"I felt myself on the brink of some tremendous discovery when I fell asleep."

heh, discovery, i wish -- wouldn't time travel be nice though? a chance to fix the things you've screwed up, see the people you don't have the chance to see ever again, a chance to make different choices had you known the way things would turn out later on?

no discovery for me, just rambling... on a more "profound" =P note, quote from "13 going on 30"

matt: you can't change the past.
jenna: why not?

that's my answer =P

Thursday, April 29, 2004

just maybe...

i'm beginning to think i'll actually survive this semester... what a revelation! =P

now that i've started my lie groups final, it's slow going, but i'm finding, if i just keep at it, it's doable... that's incredibly affirming... 2 problems down, 4 to go... and the last problem is even what i did a talk on on monday, which is also a very good thing!

graph theory's another story, but i'm working on it with sarah (2nd year student) all tomorrow afternoon... so if nothing else, at least we can gripe about it together. =P

2nd to last friends episode ever, then back to work.

here, there, and everywhere

visited yet another apartment today... leigh got detained by the prof. she grades for so it was just colleen and me... it's cheaper than the place leigh and i saw sunday, but (1) the place leigh and i saw sunday had a whole extra attic we could use for rec room, (2) the place leigh and i saw sunday had a separate free washer/dryer for each apartment unit; today's place had one washer/dryer per house (2 apartments in one house, 3 in the other, all sharing) and they were quarter operated... funds going into the landlord's college fund for his 5 year old son... nice idea, but i was still impressed with the space and the *free* washer/dryer in the place from sunday... we'll see how it ends up...

thus, i'm the only one of the 3 of us who's seen every place... we tentatively voted to call townhouses tomorrow and see what our odds of getting in are, and if we can't get straight answers then to fill out to application for the place leigh and i visited sunday... we'll see how this goes...

in other news, we got our lie groups final today... 7 problems, we have to do 6... i want to knock as much as possible out tonight...we'll see how it goes... wish me luck!

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

definition, observation, recap, prediction

DEFINTION: a best friend is someone who can make your day a million times better by something as simple as calling you up to commisserate about stress for 15 minutes

OBSERVATION:... in follow up to the entry a few weeks ago about having the same enya song on for an hour and a half without noticing, and to yesterday's entry about rhythm... an observation i just emailed to eric:
~~~~~~~~~
just put in my enya CD and remembered my story from
last time i had it in...

observation: repetition doesn't register quickly with
me...

if finding measures is about finding periodicity,
maybe that's another reason why i have a hard time
seeing exactly what you're saying about rhythm stuff:
because audio-oriented periodicity/repetition seems to
take awhile to register in my head.

end of thought
~~~~~~~~~

RECAP: my day... (as if you should expect anything new besides "i have lots of math to do and little time to sleep")
last night i was tired of math so i read for a little (i wish i had time to just sit down and read from where i am (halfway through) to the end of the house on the strand, but alas i just get a chapter in here and there), and then went to sleep by 11:30pm... woke up early, did laundry and some general cleaning around here... worked a LOT on graph theory and solved ONE problem.,.. (7 more to go... it's gonna be a looong week)... analysis 2:50-4:10, extra graph theory class 4:30-5:50, then went to eric's for a quick dinner before i had to drive him to his band concert... he was off in another world, but we made quality spaghetti with fresh portabellos in the sauce =)...

drove eric to his concert, and colleen eventually came and sat with me... they played some interesting stuff... the strangest piece was called "armies of the omnipresent otserf", where at parts there was no rhythm, but just the conductor cuing in various sound effects one at a time... parts where most of the band members were chanting in made up words... at one part, where it just sounded like them all yelling nonsense, eric explained the score actually said for them all to yell out their full name and phone number... it made for some interesting audio effects... and was pretty cool... another song was kinda a themesong for one of the characters from lord of the rings... my favorite piece though was called sleep... the composer wrote it for her parents who died a few weeks apart, and wanted to put it together with a robert frost poem, but couldn't get permission to use the words in performance... nonetheless it was a really cool piece...

anyhow, end of concert... i think it's end of semester stress all around, but like eric and me argued halfway to the concert and half of the time on the way back... not fighting, but like bickering over retarded things, like the radio dial and who saw what star in the sky on the way to the car, and stuff like that... i think everyone just needs a break... this week is pretty intense all around... which leads into...

PREDICTION: this isn't a prediction per se, but another observation... last semester when we all finished up, people were around for a bit after our finals were done and hung out... now, this semester, our last final is on monday 5/10... people have all changed their flights, etc., so that half of my math people leave town on tuesday 5/11, and the other half on wednesday 5/12.... even the people who were going to be around longer moved flights in the last week... no one's coming back until nearly the start of june... it's like we all just need a break: from math, from stress, from people, etc. it's interesting... while on one hand, we've all bonded that we'll all be living in a guy math house and a girl math house next year, we've all kinda reached our tension limits in the last bit too... this summer's going to be interesting people-dynamics wise... colleen, scott, and sometimes john, and me will be the only ones still in town... other people will be home for most of the summer, and even those of us near each other have very different plans for what to do with ourselves... just incredibly curious as to how people dynamics will work next fall.

ok, now, back to homework for a bit... joy. night y'all.

one wooooolly sheep

check this out: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1756&e=1&u=/040428/481/fot10104280803

garfield =P

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

another looong day... and the mystery of rhythm

dude -- i'm so ready for this semester to be done. one week from now i'll be done with lie groups and graph theory... 2 weeks from now i'll be completely done with the semester, half my NJ friends will have flown to their respective homes for a week or two (or a few months as the case may be), and i'll be packed up and ready to head out to tour the midwest for a few weeks, leaving first thing that wednesday morning... i'm excited for the trip and to see old friends, but it's also hard to believe things wind up so quickly, and change pace so drastically when they're so intense right now.

e.g.: today.
i left my place here at 9:30am, running late for algebra... 80 minutes of algebra and 80 minutes of graph theory later, i was tired of taking notes... eric and me went to subway for lunch and talked about classes and stuff for a bit... then 45 minutes after my last class had gotten out, we were back in the math building working on analysis homework with lots of other people... we did that for 4 hours straight, then i worked on writing up my answers neatly while eric practiced his horn... we got a quick dinner in the student center and went to colleen's band concert... then back to eric's for a tiny bit so i could explain some of the assignment to him that he didn't understand yet... now, well after 10pm, i just got back home... am going to watch scrubs, which i recorded while i was out, and then get to work on graph theory.... joy.

and this is typical for the next 2 weeks... yuck

on a more entertaining note... eric is really into music/music theory and since he has a really strongly-defined sense of rhythm, he thinks everyone must... and i insist i have no sense of rhythm whatsoever... i explained how although i understand the concept of what sheet music is supposed to represent, i basically read the notes as tones, and either (a) while playing by myself, play the rhythms how i feel like it (i.e. don't parse quarter/eighth/half notes, etc. and play what i want) or (b) absorb how the piece is "supposed to sound" together with other instruments and just remember the sound and play based on that... prime example... when i used to play flute/piano duets at church w/ my mom, i'd never play from the music that just had the flute notes -- i'd always get a copy made of the piano and flute lines together and time when i played my notes along with when mom was playing her melodies -- i've NEVER learned to count out rhythms that have anything shorter than a quarter note in them and sometimes not even then!.. for someone with a highly musical mom, and who played flute for years, this is kinda strange, eh? but definitely true.

eric was so thrown for a loop by that that we spent the time driving to colleen's concert and the time there trying to count out rhythms in the music... when he asked me what meter one song was in during colleen's concert and i responded "well, i counted to 19, and decided i really didn't want to go into 20s so i started over again and got to 13 before things changed majorly, so i'd guess it's divisible by 4", he was completely floored!... it's funny, because eric still insists he can teach me rhythm... we shall see...

mostly i argue that even if i can hear a downbeat now and then, measures seem arbitrary to me, and if something's written "in 4", why can't i just move bars on the sheet music around and make it be "3" or "5" or whatever i feel like... kinda like my counting to 19 and not having a problem with it... eric insists there's periodicity in all music in western culture, that that's where the meter comes from, and he's just trying to help me learn to pick up on the rhythm of the world i've been living in for nearly 23 years.... i'm just being honest and am convinced i just parse music differently than he (or most any musically inclined person) does.

anyhow, that's the discussion of the day. night y'all.

two inspirational(?) quotes

brother: "here's what you do... even if you think you're dumb, just keep doing what you're doing and do your best and say 'whatever' to anyone who gives you a hard time"
me: "even if my best is crap?"
brother: "even if your best is crap"

me: so, dude, like what is the point of grad school?
eric: demoralization

(i agree)

night.

Monday, April 26, 2004

manic monday update

done with my lie groups talk -- i didn't race and i was coherent -- yay =) no more public speaking this semester!

on the down side, we'll get our lie groups final on thursday and it'll be due a week from today -- i had planned to work on graph theory like mad all weekend, and now i have two major things to work on all weekend... yuck.

time for lunch/homeworking in the student center... joy.

eh

today has the potential to be a very loooong day.

Sunday, April 25, 2004

lie groups, schmee groups

dude... in 15 days i will be one happy camper... until then, STRESS.

i'm actually not doing too bad... but like,
(1) major graph theory assignment to do in the next week, and i'm not encouraged to start after my record low score on the last one
(2) analysis homework due in 3 days... leigh and i worked for quite a bit of the afternoon today and solved absolutely nothing
(3) i have to teach part the lie groups lecture tomorrow... mostly i'm set... i figure the things i don't know how to explain on my own i list as "preliminaries" before i start to prove the theorem i'm proving and give page references in our text book for them... that works, right? it worked last time at least! =P

mostly, i'll just be glad to have a break for a bit!

hitch to the vegas trip... eric and me were way excited to get tickets to see "O" (cirque du soleil)... went to buy them online tonight and saw there are no monday or tuesday shows! my flight gets into vegas at 8:40pm on a sunday, so we could get tickets to the 10:30 show and be royally screwed if my plane is late, get tickets for wednesday night and delay leaving vegas for 2 days later than we planned on, or not see the show... we were frustrated by all of the above and decided to think about it (moving my plane to earlier on sunday would cost $50 plus the difference between the two fares...)... we shall see.

leigh and i visited another apartment today that was pretty cool (colleen was en route back from boston, and thus didn't come with)... the landlord was really nice... it's the top floor apartment of a two-apartment house... we'd get 3 bedrooms, a common room, a kitchen, a bathroom, AND a whole attic with the floor space of all the other rooms combined to use as an extra rec/party room... basement space besides with our own washer/dryer... the basement was kinda yucky, but mostly because the current tenants were a little sloppy... space wise, the attic was a nice feature... we'd each have to pay $600/month for the place... we'll see where we end up.

that's pretty much the scoop... back to work for a little. later dudes.

=(

my neck hurts... i want a back rub.

Saturday, April 24, 2004

p.s.

have i meantioned amanda's gone home for the weekend? i don't think so... do you know how much i love having the place to myself for a few days? answer: a LOT! not that we don't do fine when we're both here... but like, e.g. right now i'm making sweet tea, jello, and cookies in the kitchen, stereo blasting a CD full of memphis songs in my room, loud enough i'm sure you can hear it well outside, all the windows and doors wide open and a peach-scented candle lit -- i can't do all that at once when she's here =P yay. back to work, really this time. =P

dude, where's my... motivation?

i've been productive today -- woke up at 8 ready to go even though the alarm wasn't set to go off til 10

putzed around and did some minor baking and washed dishes... balanced checkbook and other such fun...

had an appointment for an oil change at 11... went to that... i like the goodyear here... the guys at the memphis one are nice enough but always seem to find something worth a few hundred dollars of work that "needs to be fixed asap"... my parents still go there... i do when i'm in town, but the guys at the jersey location i've been going to are (1) nicer, (2) give me an update on my car so i know they check it, but don't make up stuff to fix (3) take appointments so they're faster... i don't mind sitting around and reading for half an hour while they work if they're not pushy and don't talk to me like i'm ignorant of all things automobile-related... i'm not a mechanic, but i know my way around any engine.

went grocery shopping and had sushi for lunch... it was a party =) jenny sent me stuff to make my own which i think will be a fun finals week project for me... so far scott and ben are interested in sharing in the fun... we'll see how this works!

in the meantime i *have* to get going on my stupid lie groups presentation... i basically understand the dynamics of the theorem i have to prove, but need to look up a lot of stuff and come up with an example of how it works... lots of work, but i have absolutely no motivation when it's this nice outside!

wish me luck. later.

Friday, April 23, 2004

one loooong (but good) day =)

when i woke up this morning i was sooo tired from not sleeping well and sooo sore from playing so hard last night... oops... algebra and graph theory survived later, it was pizza seminar time, and then happy weekend!

eric's in boston for a conference; colleen's in boston visiting a friend; jared, sam, john, and scott went to philly for the night for a concert; so leigh and i had agreed it was mooovie night. i wanted to see "the prince and me" and leigh wanted to see "ella enchanted" but we each vetoed the others suggestion... we went to a bookstore for 20 minutes then ended up going to catch a 3:30 matinee of "13 going on 30", which was really cute... afterwards went by starbucks (they have 3 new frappuccino flavors! i tried strawberry =) ) and then went home to crash

called home and asked for the brother but mom informed me (1) brother is stranded in kentucky somewhere with some of his scout friends (2) ruthie, the family's pet goat died this morning... she was dad's favorite... apparently he spent several hours with her last night since she wasn't doing well and she died overnight (3) lots of other memphis gossip...

after that chat i was more awake and ben was online and bored... we started discussing the latest mooovies, and he asked what i was interested in seeing... i told him there was one chick flick i was most excited about but wouldn't drag him, and listed several other possibilities... however he insisted that having an older sister, a movie-loving mom, and a string of movie-loving ex-girlfriends, he had no shame in seeing a chick flick, and after reading the yahoo movies summary of the plot said he was game for "the prince and me"....

soooo, off we went; he came by my apartment and then i drove from there... neither of us had been to that particular theater before, so it was a bit of an adventure... it was in a mall, on the second story, and only accessible from the outside, but there were no signs telling us that... so we parked on the lower level, went inside, followed mall directories and ended up somewhere in the bowels of the behind the scenes of the mall... service hallways and elevators, and a maze of places we weren't supposed to be... *that* was an adventure until we found our way out... eventually we figured it out and saw the mooovie, with 5 minutes to spare... i think poor ben was the only guy in there, but he enjoyed it -- laughed a lot throughout and was impressed with a bunch of it that i was too... like when the prince proposed to julia stiles, he opened the hand holding the ring and a butterfly was there, sitting on the ring.. it was really sweet and ben was actually the one to make a comment of "oh wow!" to me about it.... to summarize -- ignore the critics, while not *the* best movie of all time, it was still extremely quality. =)

anyhow, we got a little wet in the rain after, and upon returning back to my apartment, we got even more wet in the rain and he walked me to my door before heading away...

all in all, a very quality day despite my utter exhaustion

oh yeah, and a footnote: before you even start on me... recall the nice paragraph i had on easter? having mostly guy friends here is just one of the benefits of being a MATH grad student... and yay for them... =) if even a fraction of the guys you find me running around with from day to day were interested in me, dude my life would be a freakin soap opera. but that's not how it is, so don't even get going on it. =P

the end. sleep time. night y'all.

still tiiiiiiiired

i didn't sleep well last night. lots of tossing and turning and waking up frequently. i think i'm more tired than when i went to sleep. and weird dreams too.... dude... whatever. later.

one tiiiiiired lara

dude, what a day

here i was midafternoon, thinking i was just about done for the evening, but not a chance.

this afternoon colleen, leigh, and i visited another apartment... this one near the undergraduate campus, between some bars and stuff... but the house was nice, and the landlord was awesome... despite the location he says that he's never had a complaint safety wise, and that he lives right down the street... talked about all the things he plans to do this summer to fix it up even nicer, etc... we'd have 1 bathroom, a decent size kitchen, a living room, and 3 bedrooms... no matter where we live i probably get the master bedroom, which i have no problem with. despite being an in the middle of town almost row-house kinda house, it had a nice decent size green yard... leigh and i visit one more place on sunday... hopefully something will work out soon. (re: the last places, we told the landlady of the house i didn't like so much that we weren't interested, and then never called the other guy back... doht)

went home to make dinner and watch the 3rd to last friends episode ever, then realized i'd never seen the rerun one that was on after it...

then, the people were playing basketball so i went to campus for an hour and a half of that... it was me, colleen, leigh, vicki, scott, and ben, and some other guy who was in a class ben taught this year... we played 4 games of playing up to 15 points and they were all pretty neck-and-neck throughout... i pulled a muscle or something in my leg partway through the 2nd game, and while i was moving i was ok, but occasionally could really feel it again, so i played a lot different the first half (in people's faces) than the second half (sticking near the basket and nailing shots)... an hour and a half later, we were kicked out on account of the gym closing, but we all had a lot of fun.... now that i sit still though, i can really feel it in the leg i screwed up -- oops.

one cold shower, and an episode of scrubs later (how can they put jd and elliot back together and have the last line be in jd's head "i don't want you!"?.... dude... next week better be good or the scrubs writers are fired!)

at any rate, class in like 9 hours... night.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

yay!

i'm productive today.

i actually slept a decent amount last night.

had weird dreams, but not spooky weird like usually lately. i was having thanksgiving dinner at my aunt priscilla's house (my pittsburgh aunt) only her house was really my 3rd grade classroom back in memphis and my cousins and uncle were not there, but lots of random people, some of who i knew, some of who i didn't were there... mostly i remember talking to my brother and to michael and brian rose (brothers who i know from my church/grade school in memphis.,... michael's a year younger than me, brian's a couple years older... michael and me disagree a lot, and brian and me never understand a word the other is saying in general) it was just bizarre and that's all there is to it. my head is a weird place.

only one class today, then came home to make lunch and watched some old fun TV shows -- one episode of family matters and one of step by step each... i think i'd seen both before... they're simple, but fun, and innocent... i miss those shows.

got a huge package today too -- from memphis jenny... her ohio friends have been teaching her to make her own sushi, so she sent me a kit of rice, seaweed, etc. (i have to get the fresh stuff on my own) -- and she sent me a CDR of pictures, some from christmas when we got together, others from around and about where she's been the past year... yay for fun mail =) and even bigger yay for friends =)

leigh, colleen, and i visit another apartment tonight... fun fun...

that's all for now -- later dudes.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

awwww yay! =)

Take the quiz: "Which American City Are You?"

Memphis
Belt Buckles and Boots. You'll give a hoot and hollar but you 'll never give up your core values.






Take the quiz: "Which Playing Card Are You?"

The Joker
Wild, foolish, and unruly, You are the Joker!






also took a few more, and got Ben playing along too when i discovered there was a "what drug should you be on?" quiz... running IM commentary:

lkp 42 42 42: lol -- guess what ben!
lkp 42 42 42: i just found a "which drug is right for you?" quiz online
PeaceFrog3333: wow really! send the link!
lkp 42 42 42: http://www.zenhex.com/quiz.php?id=113
lkp 42 42 42: tell me what you get ;-)
PeaceFrog3333: k
PeaceFrog3333: lol, pot
PeaceFrog3333: that doesn't blow me away
lkp 42 42 42: i got morphine
PeaceFrog3333: wow!
PeaceFrog3333: Congrats!

lkp 42 42 42: yeah, i did the which disney princess are you? just to laugh at it... and a couple others
PeaceFrog3333: cool, I'm Ariel!
lkp 42 42 42: good job!
PeaceFrog3333: who were you?
lkp 42 42 42: sleeping beauty (i laughed... first off i don't sleep... second, yeah... the description was anti-lara)

lkp 42 42 42: did you see there's a what's your drug personality quiz too?
PeaceFrog3333: really!
lkp 42 42 42: pick a word you can relate to: and a choice is actually "dude"
lkp 42 42 42: i win =)
PeaceFrog3333: wow!!!!!!!
PeaceFrog3333: Party Drugs ((X,Coke, Meth, Dextro))
PeaceFrog3333: uh oh
lkp 42 42 42: You Dont Have A Drug Personality...
lkp 42 42 42: =(
PeaceFrog3333: oh, that's okay, you can have some of mine

lkp 42 42 42: i'm going to find out what my identity crisis is
lkp 42 42 42: then leave this site alone
PeaceFrog3333: he he, yeah, I think I'll take one more
lkp 42 42 42: apparently lactose intollerant is a facial expression
PeaceFrog3333: !
lkp 42 42 42: my identity crisis is:
lkp 42 42 42: You have a kind heart which makes it easy for people to take advantage of you. You are a little confused abot life because you believe that bad things are always going to happen. But don't worry, if you put more effort into things, maybe they will turn out to be good. You are also very Asian because you listen to your mother and have the cursed ability to play the piano.
PeaceFrog3333: I'm sorry that you are very Asian
lkp 42 42 42: dude: this line was good though: "You are a little confused abot life because you believe that bad things are always going to happen."
PeaceFrog3333: yes! That is so you!
lkp 42 42 42: lol... oh dear

PeaceFrog3333: BTW I am Lena St. Clair
lkp 42 42 42: which means....
PeaceFrog3333: Likds June, you are also very Asian because you listen to your mother a lot. But you tend to have problems with your husband and in your relationship
PeaceFrog3333: I didn't even know I had a husband!
lkp 42 42 42: so when do i get to meet your husband?
lkp 42 42 42: woah!
PeaceFrog3333: dude, I don't know
lkp 42 42 42: you should work on that
PeaceFrog3333: this site is creepy now
lkp 42 42 42: um yeah

the end.

age gauge

still sorting through old emails, and came across this link i thought was cool before... enjoy:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~cdm/age1.html

miscellaneous

(1) my roommate make spaghetti sauce and then puts it in our ice trays and freezes it. this means we don't have ice, but rather tomato paste cubes... i don't put ice in my drinks usually, so this isn't a complaint... but, does anyone else think that's a little weird?

(2) eric disappeared for about 20 minutes of analysis today -- asked him where he went when i was driving him to band today... his response, "oh, i just didn't feel the need to be there so i went for a walk." i wish i didn't feel the need to stay around in class when i'm tired of it ... oh well

(3) sam said he's getting me a ton of bouncy balls for my birthday -- this makes me happy =)

(4) nothing due til next wednesday and just a presentation between now and then (on monday)... i like this change of pace... working on cleaning out my yahoo email account... i have a couple people who have written me over 100 emails in past 3 months... duuude

(5) watching tv while i work on emails...mystic pizza (old julia roberts movie that's supposed to be bad) is on on before they were stars on bravo... half way watching,... they were in a planetarium just now... yay stars =)

the end.

crime rates

i get made fun of a lot for my habits with locking things, keeping things out of view in my car, etc., etc., etc. which i just consider common sense habits (if you park your car somewhere, especially in a public lot, you don't leave anything out with your address showing or anything remotely of value, even just a CD because you don't want to give someone incentive to break in.) my memphis friends have similar habits, but my non-memphis friends just seem to laugh a lot. in light of that, thought this was interesting:

http://houseandhome.msn.com/Move/BestandWorstCitiesforCrime.aspx

the fact that i come from the 2nd highest crime-ridden large city in the country and now at the send lowest crime-rate metropolitan area in the country completely cracked me up.

the end.

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

quotes of the week to date:

there's actually a condition to using the Fubini-Tonelli theorem....and it's NOT saying the rosary or invoking the name of your favorite politician. ~dr. goodman

lkp 42 42 42: anger beign metaphorical
Galois1105: metaphorical for laughter?
Galois1105: oi

PeaceFrog3333 (6:34:03 PM): probably. Hey, what are you doing this summer?
lkp 42 42 42 (6:34:04 PM): what are you doing this summer? ( i know i must have asked this before) teaching?
lkp 42 42 42 (6:34:07 PM): lol
PeaceFrog3333 (6:34:07 PM): lol
PeaceFrog3333 (6:34:09 PM): hey!
PeaceFrog3333 (6:34:11 PM): I asked first!

PeaceFrog3333: And then I'll be studying for orals the entire rest of the summer
lkp 42 42 42: oh joy
PeaceFrog3333: yay :-(
lkp 42 42 42: i'm not convinced i'll make it that far (orals)
PeaceFrog3333: It'll be here before you know it :-)
lkp 42 42 42: not if i fail written quals in august and january and live in a box in new york afterwards
PeaceFrog3333: if you live in a box in new york, I can crash at your place when I go to the city!
lkp 42 42 42: see, eric says he won't talk to me anymore if i live in a cardboard box
lkp 42 42 42: so you're cooler than him
PeaceFrog3333: Yes I am :-)
PeaceFrog3333: I would love to visit your box. We could go to the city, and then have dinner guests at your box.
lkp 42 42 42: you win
PeaceFrog3333: :-)

lkp 42 42 42: some people are on drugs
PeaceFrog3333: yes, and he appears to be on all the good ones
...
PeaceFrog3333: he needs to take less drugs...or more drugs....in any event, he is not taking the correct number of drugs


in conclusion -- highly entertaining chat with ben (peacefrog) tonight. now to get around to making some dinner and watching scrubs. later dudes =P

so much for trying to be assertive....

i'm not having very good luck with people lately.

situation 1: we're each required to do a presentation for lie groups between now and the end of the semester. not knowing what the prof plans to cover in the next two weeks, i've been unsure what's fair game.

my email to the prof:
Dr. Woodward: I was wondering if you could suggest some appropriate presentation topics. I'm finding it difficult to choose a topic on my own without knowing what you envision to happen in the next two weeks. Thanks much! Lara

his response:
please do!

reaction: please do what? pick a topic out of the blue even if it has nothing to do with the sections of the text he wants to cover? um, riiiight.

situation 2: yesterday we didn't know when any of our finals were. although rutgers has a schedule of when finals are for classes in general, usually grad classes vote and do theirs whenever they want. two weeks ago, me, eric, sam, scott, and jared were sitting around at jared's and discussing how we'd all love if our analysis final was on the last day of class rather than during finals week... at the very least we all wanted it as early as possible. so yesterday jared brought up the subject of finals. (note: finals week technically goes may 6- may 12) dr. goodman suggested we have the exam on the 13th or 14th. leigh quickly reminded him that finals period ends the 12th, so then he suggested the 12th...... in light of the previous discussion with other students and in light of the fact that i'd *like* to get out of town for valpo graduation as early as possible on the 12th, i commented.

me: i might have something going on then. What about earlier?

goodman's response: you have an OBLIGATION to be here on the 12th. that's invalid. does the 10th work for people though?

result: i got barked at in front of the class.

note: what i did happens in every class every semester -- one girl said she didn't like the tentative date for algebra final just now because she "had somewhere to be" on the 7th... everyone i've talked to about it (except 1... see situation 3) said i was making a request, and was fine.... i felt bad though, especially after this morning.

situation 3: i had asked everyone last night who was studying in the graduate lounge, plus a few other people on IM when they'd like algebra final so we could email the prof and get him thinking about when to schedule it. every single person i talked to said earlier is better and getting it 3 or 4 days before the analysis exam would be good. i didn't talk to everyone in the class, but definitely a majority before i emailed dr. vasconcelas saying "can we please set a date for our final. analysis is on monday the 10th, so a few days before that would be good." (loose paraphrase)

ian came into class this morning telling me how i was inappropriate in analysis yesterday and that he really wanted algebra on the 12th just to spite me because i'm imposing my ideas on everyone. now i'm kinda frustrated... when i spoke up yesterday i didn't say "the exam HAS to be before the 12th", i made a request and did so after realizing a lot of the rest of the class wanted an earlier exam too.... i asked most of the class before i wrote the algebra prof too. i wasn't trying to be out of line or bullheaded and now i feel crappy about it.

go me.

graph theory time. later.

a looong day

i just realized when i got home just now -- i was gone for over 14 hours!... dude

8-8:30am: woke up, got ready before amanda was up b/c she's not used to me being up til after she's gone on mondays

8:30-9:30am: caught up on emails, organized my stuff for the day

9:30-10:15am: ran by the bank, picked up eric, went to the local playhouse to buy tickets to see "cats" next week

10:15-11am: got omeletes at a local diner =) i've been craving omeletes for awhile now. =P

11am-11:30am: unsuccessfully worked on algebra homework in the office with mike

11:30am-12:50pm: lie groups... completely lost

12:50-1:30pm: lunch in the student center with leigh -- i had indian food =)

1:30-2:30pm: worked on homework on my own in the office, waited in the parking lot until a spot close to the building showed up to move my car to for the quick post-analysis get-away with eric

2:30pm-2:50pm: had a good chat with jared and played wallball with my new sparkly bouncy ball against the chalkboard in the analysis classroom before anyone else got there =)

2:50pm-4:10pm: analysis -- dr. goodman snapped at me when i told him i'd rather not have the final later than monday may 10 (i plan on getting outta town on the 12th)... that's the current plan now that we all voted

4:10-5pm: drove eric to class and fought traffic to get myself back to campus

5-8pm: worked on algebra homework with leigh to absolutely no avail

8pm-9pm: helped eric make a pizza, had dinner, listened to him vent for a bit (or as he prefers to say "connect with his subconscious" (this is rare... the venting, not the creative rephrasing, so it was interesting)), had a crazy theological discussion with trevor (eric's roommate) who had just returned back from a crazy just for fun trip to paris with his girlfriend (he just skipped classes for a week and a half for fun!)

9-11:45pm: worked more on homework, finished some, decided i didn't care on the rest and chatted with eric more in the grad lounge

11:45pm: finally left to come home and here i am... sooo tired, so much yet to write up tonight... the work never ends!

night y'all.

Monday, April 19, 2004

omeletes and mangos

eric had me up early this morning... "cats" is showing at the local playhouse end of next week so he was in charge of getting tickets for me, him, scott, and colleen. however, eric doesn't have a car, so he conned me into picking him up by 10 this morning (i usually *wake up* at 10 on mondays!) to get the tickets... he was ready to go back to campus then, but i told him that i've wanted a good omelete for a month and if we had 75 minutes til class he was darn well getting an omelete with me... went to a local diner, got ourselves omeletes and it was a good morning. =)

i had a mango lassi to drink with my lunch and i can still taste it -- spectacular. =)

it's also eighty-freakin-eight degrees outside today -- *this* is outrageous... especially since it was 50s and rainy all last week and reverts back to that by the end of this week.

oh well.

studying for a bit, then class. later dudes =P

outtakes

lkp 42 42 42: i just added another stop to my may trip
davrbeagle: oh yeah?
lkp 42 42 42: funny how "going to valpo for graduation" turns into 6 cities and 2 weeks
davrbeagle: sounds like a typical lara road trip expansion
lkp 42 42 42: well yeah...

jon beagley (dave's brother)'s IM profile until tonight:
"Lara is my hero!"
updated profile as of like 3 hours ago:
"Lara and Eric are my heroes!"

hockey7183: dude, you are not at your computer and that is unhealthy...especially for me because i'm fighting with ramsey theory
(i got an IM from someone in budapest for math help... heh =P)

lkp 42 42 42: tip any cows?
smswtshnn: oh yeah
smswtshnn: a whole dollar!

i've been productive today =) time for sleep! =P

Sunday, April 18, 2004

and the people rejoiced!

leigh and i worked at starbucks awhile today, at the outside patio tables -- such beautiful weather.... tomorrow's high 88!!! how nuts is that???

i figured out part of an analysis problem that sam's been struggling with, and sam is like analysis genie -- he knows like everything there is to know plus some and is good friends with the prof. who wrote the book (from his undergrad university) -- that was a much needed mathematical confidence booster -- we'll see how long it lasts, but right now i'm still on cloud 9 about that for a bit =)

i got scott to do a seed impression -- he was a flower the other day and it cracked me up... he's refused to repeat that, but him curling up in a ball on the floor and saying "the seed hides under the ground, and then it stretches up, peeks its head up, sees the sun and hides again (acting things out as he says them)... look, see how little i can be?!?!" all in falsetto was hilarious... i was laughing so freakin hard when i left campus earlier

i've made calls and filled in my schedule for next month... i have places to stay may 12-25th... and there's one more person i'd like to talk to and see if their schedule matches up for me to stop by them too for a day, but who knows -- yay for fun upcoming travels!

oh! and on the housing front, colleen, leigh, and i all agreed we liked the townhouse apartment (the one i liked better on friday), rather than house, but that we want to research our chances of getting a townhouse on our own rather than subletting from this other guy before we tell him a definite yes. we shall see, but at least we're all on the same page =P

dude, it's 9:45pm and i've yet to eat dinner... maybe i should look into that... later dudes! =)

a note on sleep

i've come to the conclusion i'm not capable of sleeping like a normal person anymore

e.g. friday night, i was excited about saturday so i woke up a lot

e.g. last night, exhausted after having fun all day, i set my alarm for 9am this morning, went to bed, took a bit to fall asleep, then woke up with a start at 7 convinced i was late for something or other... got up, started getting ready, realized i had 2 more hours to be able to sleep before my alarm really went off, and went back to bed... 8am same thing happened... only this happens several mornings a week... i'm so weird.

but hey, at least i have lots of fun when i'm actually awake during the day, right? =)

later dudes

a marvelous day =)

today was super good. =)

(1) woke up early and drove to philly to hang with jessica

(2) we drove down into town and wandered through the italian market for a bit... i got 2 super cool ginger-lime scented candles,... this makes me happy =)

(3) wandered down south street to penn's landing, waved at the boats and at the river

(4) wandered back up south street to the market, and bought books at a used book store, quality pasta and fresh veggies from the market stands, and each got a requisite cup of gelato (i wanna go back to europe... =P)

(5) drove our stuff back to jessica's place, collapsed for a bit, chatted for a bit, then watched "brother bear"

(6) cooked up all our spiffy stuff into one awesome dinner =) (mushroom stuffed pastas (forget the name, but like mini raviolis), spinach fettuccini, marinara sauce, portabello mushrooms, and zuchinni for the main stuff... salad with blue cheese vinagrette besides -- fantastic!)

(7) went out to the theater to see "the ladykillers" which we both enjoyed quite a bit. =)

(8) went back to jessica's and collapsed again for a bit and chatted some more

(9) drove back home and got in around 12:30

now, mass email time and then time for sleep!

later dudes =)

Friday, April 16, 2004

house-hunting and other such fun

today was long but good

i didn't sleep enough, but i never do... 2 classes and pizza seminar later, colleen and leigh and i went house-hunting for next year, and after that i've mostly been a putz... more on house-hunting in a sec... first other random comments.

* eric told me a few days ago that he bets that if i had something in my head that i think about a lot or whatever and try to keep it from him, he'd figure out what it is because he thinks he knows me that well. as a challenge back, i have a crazy code i write notes to myself in that i don't want other people to be able to read. i wrote him a few sentences in it and he's making it his personal challenge to crack the code. i really would be willing to bet a few hundred dollars that he can't though... shall be fun

* sam and me played wallball with my new bouncy ball at colleen's house at dinnertime tonight, that was fun =P

*that's about it, except the house-hunting part. so we visited two places. i like the first one better so i'll describe it second.

second place: house in highland park, NJ... i.e. about as far from campus as i am now, just going to opposite direction, really nice residential family neighborhood. we'd have the bottom floor of a house where the top floor belongs to a family with small kids. it was basically a hallway with 2 bedrooms on one side, a bedroom and a common room on the other side, a kitchen on one end (comparable to the size one i have now, but shaped different), and a bathroom on the other end. enough space for us all, $600/person/month (i.e. $1800/month total, which is pretty standard lower end price for places in central jersey) the landlady was really nice, and it was fine. i didn't like the layout very much (all in a straight line off a narrow hallway) or the fact that the backyard was kinda trampled down to dirt and small. also, no washer/dryer, so we'd have to go to a laundromat, which i don't like very much... otherwise, it's acceptable and we'd be fine there.

place one: town house in edison, NJ... a little farther from campus, but near the grocery store we usually go to, etc., so not bad either. the landlord is a guy in his late 20s at most, and he lives there too... it's a 3 story place, he'd have the basement, we'd have the 3rd floor, and we'd share the kitchen/living room. mostly he wouldn't be around, but it is his place too. that concerned colleen and leigh a little at first, but after meeting the guy, it's not as much of a problem. i liked the layout better -- for 1, i like sleeping up high (e.g. i always had the top bunk in dorm rooms, i've always had a 2nd floor bedroom, etc. i like being on the top floor instead of the bottom)... there are 3 bedrooms and 2 baths on our floor... since i already own a full size bed, i'd get the master bedroom with my own bathroom... there's a half bath on the lower floor and two common rooms instead of just the one (like in the other place)...the kitchen is more open, and bigger than in the other place as well... after living in compass pointe in valpo last spring and in rivercrest now, i also kinda like the green space that comes with being in an apartment community. we wouldn't have our own yard per se, but there's a lot more common green space to make use of that way. the price? $1750/month for all of us together. i'd probably pay a little more since i'd get my own bathroom/bigger room, but at most be paying $600/month, like i'd be paying regardless at the other place. we'd have our own washer/dryer in our unit, unlike the complex laundry room i share now, which is also nice.

so yeah, that's the summary. leigh originally loved the house in highland park better, but the washer/dryer situation is swinging her towards the townhouse -- i loved the townhouse a lot more from the start, and colleen's up in the air all around. hopefully we'll come to a decision we all like when i get back... where am i going? philly of course! leaving as soon as i get myself up and moving tomorrow to hang with jessica for the day -- i'm excited!

and now that all that rambling's done, reading myself to sleep... later dudes =)

a bright sunshiny day

today was a good day.

only one class, no homework due

after that, it was free cookie day at subway. (no advertising, but if you're a subway regular, like... um, some people, you knew to ask and they give you a free cookie! =P) colleen and leigh came with besides the usual me and eric subway day crew (free cookies are incentive for anything =P)

the 4 of us got some major grocery shopping done, and at the grocery store i blew 50 cents on getting a bouncy ball out of one of the toy machines on the way out... it's twice as big as a normal bouncy ball and dark green and silver and sparkly -- it's the coolest ever. =)

colleen, leigh, john, and i worked on algebra homework for an hour and a half before giving in to the beautiful weather and quitting... we got one problem done, that's something, right?

went home, got non-sandal shoes and my kickball, and alternated between kicking it around a soccer field and playing on a nearby on-campus ropes course w/ leigh, colleen, and scott... lots of fun, and a beautiful day

developed film, and camped out in the living room to watch the apprentice finale -- dude! that was fun... i'm such an addict, i know. then again, after it was announced that bill was the winner, i got phone calls from friends comparing reactions with me, so i'm not alone on that one =P... i got to see the NYC news after though and see the reactions of kwame's family and an interview with the donald about it all... dude such fun.

immediately after all that, eric and me went and had a csilag buli for the first time in awhile... found saturn before it set, and jupiter and its moons were extremely bright... are learning new constellations since the ones we know set early now that it's not winter anymore

and here it is, nearly 2am, i have class in less than 8 hours, and i'm still up -- go me =P, but that basically summarizes my day =P

night y'all.

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

quote of the week

(on the phone just now)
eric: so, it just occured to me that maybe you want to see a show in vegas... apparently that's what people do there
me: apparently? this coming from a native? how much do shows cost?
eric: let's see... i'm pulling up the bellagio website... attractions, golf, spa, weddings... (laughing) hey wanna get married at the bellagio?
me: so *that*'s what we're doing in july?... dude!
eric: just kidding, dude, ok, shows... tickets start at...
(the rest is uninteresting numbers... that was just about the funniest thing said all week in my book =P)

and so it goes

eric and me had said if it continued to pour down rain tonight we'd go run around and get soaked for fun... but it stopped pouring while he was in band rehearsal... unfortunate

leigh, colleen, and i spent a bit this afternoon calling places for apartment ads for next year. visiting a place tomorrow afternoon and another on friday afternoon... hopefully one or the other pans out to be good for us.

just finished watching the dateline behind the scenes special of the apprentice. it was entertaining. season finale is tomorrow... i am such an addict.

no homework due til tuesday, so i'm taking a night off to read and whatever =)

philly in 3 days! =)

the end.

to whom it may concern

it has recently been brought to my attention that i am a fundamentally sneaky and un-trustworthy person. if you're my friend and think you trust me, you probably shouldn't.

and then there was time for sleep...

dude, just now got home, and am done with 70% of tomorrow's homework... eric wins a friend of the year award for putting up with my homework questions for the past 7 hours straight.

to sleep. night.

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

i'm never going to sleep!

it's been a long day

i have a headache

i have an enormous analysis assignment due tomorrow.

i've been at eric's for 4.5 hours... we made pizza and then he's patiently helped me deal with the analysis homework... i'm about halfway done... this is taking forever... 2 problems have parts a, b, and c... the last one has parts a-h...

my head hurts

i just want a nap....

...and the mood swings return

funny how a day can go from realy down to really up and vice versa

today started out good... i was done with graph theory homework by 10 last night, had sat through both my classes this morning, and had subway with eric... so far, an excellent day -- i was having fun, and it was good

then, we went to work on homework with everyone else... one word: analysis. i started in on the first problem that other people had finished with and asking for a hint got "it's easy, don't think so hard... it's practically trivial" 3 hours later, working on parts of every problem, (the supposedly "easy" parts), i had solved nothing and was ready to punch my fist through a wall or cry or something, so i left and came home without saying a word when i left.

got home, and went to check email since i've been writing people about visiting them on mine and eric's roadtrip in july, and had my first email from ian since december. i had wondered why he was on IM 24/7 for february/early march and why i hadn't heard from him. turns out his dad had a stroke in mid february and was in a coma until march 3, when he passed away. ian has his master's defense later this month and had missed a month of school to be home in michigan for all that, and being so overwhelmed with life this semester, he hadn't written and updated much of anyone because he had enough to do to keep on top of his own life. anyhow, after reading the epistle he wrote back about everything, i'm kinda bummed for him now too. nagyon sajnos....

i'm curling up in a ball for a bit... time to re-attack the world again in a few.... hours (would say days, but deadlines interefere... unfortunate)

Monday, April 12, 2004

fun with maps

you've seen these before, but they're back:

states i'd been to 4 months ago
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



states i've been to now
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



states i will have been to 4 months from now
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



how much fun is that??? =)

um, OUCH!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1756&e=1&u=/040410/483/sto80104101336

talking in my sleep

i dreamed all last night about solving graph theory problems -- is that disturbing or what?

losing my mind?

so i've been working on graph theory homework for the better part of 2 hours.... had a CD in the whole time.

i just *now* realized that i accidentally hit the "repeat" button and have been listening to the same enya song over and over for the past hour and a half instead of the whole CD...

that's just plain sad that it took 1.5 hours for me to even *notice* the repetition. what does this say about my head? discuss. =P

Sunday, April 11, 2004

7 minute wonder

question: why is it that i meet other peoples grandparents and talk for a nice loooong time, and when i call my grandma on the phone, she can't get off the phone with me quick enough?... i just called her to say happy easter and she really didn't want to hear a single thing... it was "oh lara, are you in memphis or new jersey?... oh good, i was wondering why your mom didn't put you on when i talked to her earlier... anything new with you?" (i start to say something) "nothing, oh well i understand... i was out with bob all day... i don't want to run up your bill... life is nice when you're young and you can do what you want... enjoy it for all you've got, ok, grandma loves you, bye"

what is that?,.,, seriously... i don't get it.

dude

after an afternoon and evening being a weiss (it was family, plus an aunt, uncle, and cousin i met at halloween, plus grandparents, and then me), they sent me home with way too many leftovers again, so i'm at eric's sharing the wealth

his korean roommate, joon, who shares a phoneline with eric is proud of himself that he's finally learned how to spell my name, just came out to wash dishes while eric and me were dishing up food, and was like "hey, i heard your name in a song... what's it called, 'cocobanana'?"... eric's response "um, copacabana?" joon, "yes, that's it, (starts singing) her name is laura,...."

dude, my life is weird. (and no, the actual song doesn't say "laura", it says "lola"... on non-american ears that's close enough =P) the end.

footnotes

(1) paul ellis came with me to church again today... he really really likes pastor j., and seems to enjoy the other people too... funny result though, all the sudden after me coming mostly by myself, or only with female visitors before (leigh, roommate... or my parents), since paul's been in church with me every day this weekend, some friends stopped me on the way out to ask if he was my new boyfriend, and i had to go through the whole paragraph again "(1) paul has a girlfriend, so most definitely no, (2) i kinda get along with paul, but not a lot, so again, even more definitely NO, (3) i'm a math person, 90% of math people are guys, so 90% of my jersey friends are guys, so chances are it means absolutely nothing for me to be running around with one or another of them for a few days" conclusion... duuuuuuuuuuuude

(2) easter dinner w/ the weiss's in an hour -- i'm excited... i like being in a family here especially as mine is far away and most of the people i know here are fellow students =) it's even more ideal, because i get the family environment, them being interested in what i'm up to and looking out for me, but not them telling me what to do or lecturing me =) i get adults who care about me as well as peers... i'm getting all prosaic or something... i'm happy. =)

(3) when i survive this week, it's gonna be great -- saturday is back to philly to see jessica again... yay for happy plans =)

time to find some comfy clothes for the afternoon... later dudes! happy easter!!! =)

post #2 -- happy easter!!!!

so, easter has been my absolute favorite holiday from when i was little on... the flowers, the trumpets, the music, everything.,... and when i was small, the egg hunts weren't bad either, but over the years, even if i don't like the candy as much, it's still my favorite,... and for more important reasons... it's all about life!

last year easter was at valpo as usual... my brother had just driven up to visit for the weekend... nicole, and roommate, and heather were all around, and nicole's brother john was just starting out as a freshman at valpo... so me and nicole were both way excited about sharing the day with brothers... after michelle was around too and the 5 of us hosted a huge potluck for tons and tons of people at our apartment... it was a quality day. =) picture below: my brother, me, nicole, john, heather, roommate at the valpo chapel last easter:

yeah, it was a good day. =)

but yeah... now this year, my family's in TN, brother included and looking at major changes,... roommate, heather, and michelle are off on their own adventures in various places around the country, nicole's brother john is still at valpo, and nicole's been gone well over 7 months now... things can change soooo much in just a year!....

i guess that's one thing that's refreshing about holidays... situations and circumstances change, but the core of what they're really all about doesn't change, no matter who you're with or how you celebrate. easter's all about life... how Christ gave His life and then rose again so we can have life abundantly and eventually be in heaven with Him... completely all about life... =)... nicole gets to be in on the coolest easter celebration ever today, which is awesome... it's interesting what sets the memories going again, but in a good way, you know?... meanwhile, i'm excited to share the day with my new church family... it'll be good =)

this is all reflective and somewhat sappy and whatever, but there it is -- easter in a nutshell. well, actually... the source says it all even better:

At dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene & the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven & going to the tomb, rolled back the stone & sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook & became like dead men. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen just as He said! Come & see the place where He lay. Then go quickly & tell His disciples." So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy.
Matthew 28: 1-8

He is Risen! Happy Easter!!!! =)

post #1 -- my day =P

dude

so after sleeping til noon, i had a pretty good day.

first, on the list -- shoe shopping... it's officially warm enough to be wearing sandals again, so i got some without holes in the soles... this is always an adventure because i have freakin huge feet for a girl (i generally wear size 11 or 11.5 womens (which is cerca size 9 in mens))... i actually found myself some tennis shoes i liked amongst the women's shoes, and then got some sandals out of the guys shoes section... they're pretty generic, (i.e. there's nothing about them that screams they only belong on guy feet =P (except for the fact that they fit my feet and don't have a double digit size!)), and they were tons more comfortable than any of the sandals in the girls shoes section... anyhow, new shoes, yay

next on the list: sears. i just noticed last weekend where there was a sears near me and was excited... my favorite pair of jeans is still barely wearable but won't be for long, so i had to go on the hunt for replacement, and then got carried away with the tradition from when i was little of finding myself an "easter dress", so i got a skirt i absolutely loved and a nice shirt too... and they're amazingly enough not black, navy blue, or grey (the 3 colors i'm wearing 90% of the time)... (and amazingly enough, i actually bought dress clothes... duuuude, what's wrong with me?!?!)... i was pleased, and even now, 10 hours later am still happy w/ my purchases... all 3 pieces of clothing, plus both pairs of shoes all for under $90... and the shoes were half of it!

after sears, i met leigh at barnes and noble and she graded and i worked on graph theory... there's only 5 problems this week and i worked a bit on all of them but i'm not so happy with any of them. so it goes.

after i worked with leigh for around 3.5 hours, eric called me up and was like "dude, when are we eating dinner... i'm starving!", soooo, we went to subway, and then to rent mooovies... tonight's reviews:

blade runner: (first time either of us saw it)
eric: 5/10
me: 4/10
eric's commentary, "what the heck? and the moral of this is... don't be an android?"

aladdin: (eric's seen it a bazillion times before since it's one of his sister's favorites, it was actually my first time ever to see it!)
eric: 7/10
me: 8/10
eric's commentary before: "dude, i can't believe you've never seen this... i'm going to stop being your friend if you don't absolutely love it... and i can say that, because i know you will!"
eric's commentary after, (jokingly) "dude, i don't know if i'm ever again watching a disney movie with you that you haven't already seen before."
my first time ever review of aladdin... "party!" =)

so yeah, it was fun.... and that's my day... clothes, math, and movies... duuude.... more in a little... first to do some organizing of the mess that is my room right now =P

Saturday, April 10, 2004

less than 12 hours? it feels like a year....

dude, hello 2am, it's been a looong afternoon/evening.... i think mostly because i've been so many places with so many different people in the last 12 hours

church was at 7:30 tonight and i left super early since traffic was sooo bad yesterday, but it was all good tonight, no backup at all... go figure... paul came to church w/ me again, only drove himself this time and met me there... he plans to show up for easter too. good friday and christmas eve were the two services a year that completely freaked me out when i was little (christmas eve b/c of the hot wax from the candles everyone gets at the end of the service, good friday b/c of the dark and loud noise at the end)... now it's symbolic, unscary, but reflective and thought-provoking.

after church, rather than show up at jared's for no-math night in a dress, i went home, cleaned up the mess i made getting ready and changed into normal clothes and showed up at jareds... leigh's sick, colleen's home for the weekend, trevor just picked up and went to paris yesterday (it's trevor, don't ask), john disappeared for the weekend, and i was 2 hours late on account of church so the crowd was sparse... i got there and sam, eric, jared, and scott were sitting around the dinner table chatting about random stuff... i helped them eat the leftover portabellos from dinner and we all had ice cream (well, everyone but scott who we're all pretty sure is hooking up with jared's housemate vicki)... it was nice to be there, chat for a bit, but not be in the middle of a huge crowd... small group relaxed time... completely ideal!

after ice cream, jared and sam were going to watch some random dvd that i had little interest in, but eric and me rented jerry mcguire last night (neither of us had seen it before), so we took off to my place and watched it (starting at like dude... 11pm)... just finished and both of us loved it and give it 9/10 on the new mooovie ranking system. =)

now, after overanalyzing everyone's life in the department with eric as usual, i'm off to read myself to sleep... exciting eh?

later dudes, good night to all y'all.

Friday, April 09, 2004

random thought

some days i think it would explain a lot if i could get myself diagnosed as bipolar or something... wouldn't that be great?

freak out!

dude, what a night...

so i picked up paul for church around 7... normally it would take me about 20 minutes to get to church from where he lives, but some roads are undergoing major construction which just got majorly worse this week... so it took us 40 minutes and we got there just before the sermon hymn... oops.

pretty much the same maundy thursday order of worship i'm used to. at the end, with the stripping of the altar, bonnie, the team leader for my altar guild team tapped me on the shoulder and told me i could help if i wanted, and so i did.... it's cool to be part of a church family, know people, and be involved rather than just passively present. =) paul plans to come with me to church tomorrow and on sunday too, so i guess that's a good sign that he was cool with the place... from what he's said he comes from a very very conservative lcms congregation back in indiana (near valpo), but has visited many many other kinds of churches, etc. out of curiousity too... it was interesting to chat with him for the drive to and from.

after i dropped paul back off at his place, eric and me ran around for quite some time... first, after mooovie night last saturday we started making a list of mooovies that neither of us have seen (tomorrow night is jerry mcguire night i think), or that one or the other has seen and thinks the other should... we returned last week's mooovie and rented tomorrow's... went to walmart, and played with sunglasses, and sniffed just about every scented candle on the shelves (i bought 3 because i'm down to just one in my room again that has any wick), and then went back to his place to finish homework... after homework, we started preliminarily planning trips for this summer and it's going to be nuts!

so i have a dentist appointment in memphis on july 14th... eric doesn't want to go home in early july, and wants to go farther north to see grandparents, etc., so it doesn't make sense to include memphis on the vegas trip, so the plan is i'll be in memphis from whenever til the 14th, then drive back up to jersey the 15th-16th or 15th-17th depending on how energetic i feel... then... insanity begins!

i booked a flight (for under $150!!!!!!) from newark to vegas for the afternoon of july 18th that's a sunday... we'll be in vegas so i can see all the fun stuff on the 19th, and drive the 45 minutes to the rollercoaster at the NV/CA border just so i can say i was in california too! then east to the grand canyon, and north to stay with one of eric's friends in provo... then north to yellowstone, then east to mount rushmore, then more east to MN, valpo area, detroit (eric's grandma's place), pittsburgh, and back to jersey... we're not sure how many days we'll take, but for sure at least a week, maybe closer to two... and that's what... six?!?! new states? (CA, NV, AZ, UT, WY, and SD)... completely freaking out that this is going to be the coolest road trip ever! i can't wait!!!!) p.s. if you live along this general route (i think mostly I-90 til chicago) anywhere between NV and IN or will be somewhere on this general route in late july, let me know so we can crash at your place ;-P

at any rate, it's freakin 2:15am and i have to be up in 6 hours... maybe it's time to pick the contacts out of my eyes and get some sleep... night y'all!

look out vegas, here i come!

booked my flight to vegas for july 18th... soooo excited! more details when i get home (been at eric's since 9ish doing homework and planning the coolest roadtrip ever!) party indeed =)

later dudes =P

Thursday, April 08, 2004

oh joy

was late to my only class today because of traffic... took me 20 minutes to get to campus instead of the usual 10... turned out i was only the second one there and class started 15 minutes late anyhow... oh well.

worked on algebra homework all day. this week's homework is extremely frustrating because it covers a whole chapter in the book which he covered in about one lecture. no one knows what's going on... at least when i left campus just now, i have an idea of something coherent to write for each problem and that's good.

it's yucky rainy today... go figure. and this is from someone who loooves rain.

got 2 hours to eat, patch clothes, write up algebra, and get ready for church. it'll be interesting... my church is holding a seder in half an hour (5:30ish) that you had to make advanced reservations for... going through the whole traditional seder stuff, but making the stuff around the 3rd cup of wine (the cup of redemption) into Christian parallels... i didn't have time or $$, so i didn't sign up. i'm not sure if the "7:30 holy communion" on the church schedule is part of that and paul and me will be joining a bunch of people who have been around all evening, or if it's after... we'll find out i guess.

amanda just got home as i was unlocking the door... she seemed disappointed i was just getting home instead of just leaving... oh well.

maundy maundy thursday

just woke up to a phone call from paul (aka crazy crutch guy to some... he's not on crutches anymore though =P)... the first thing out of his mouth was "so when's church at your church tonight and tomorrow and how do you get there because i'm going even if you can't....." he talks too fast... i had to make him repeat 3 times before i was awake enough to digest what had come out of his mouth.

apparently i'm giving paul a ride to church today (maundy thursday) and tomorrow (good friday). this shall be interesting.

for easter though, the weiss's are adopting me for the day again... i like this =)

now time to get my class on... then homework til it's time to go... joy.

later dudes.

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

woah

so i went to campus to work on homework with people. i've realized one thing in the last week. i like colleen lots and enjoy doing non-math things with her, but actually working on math with her gives me a headache. we were fine and having fun earlier, but tonight i was working on algebra and she was still writing up some lie groups stuff and kept calling me over to help her with it. only she wouldn't take explanations, she wanted to ask lots more questions than the assignment called for answering (there's absolutely nothing wrong with that)... mostly we just have very different approaches in general... i want to move along and finish all the task-based stuff i need to do (finish exactly what i need to write down to turn in for homework, nothing more nothing less) first, and that done, return to figuring out general theory... i'm not sure how to describe her approach, but it's not that and i feel like we step on each others toes a lot in the process... and both get annoyed with each other... oops.

anyhow, to make a long story short, after working for a little, i got frustrated with the cacophony of a dozen people working on homework for 3 different classes in the same room (in the graduate lounge), packed up, and came home to figure out stuff on my own.

i'm trying to figure out who amanda just brought home... she and some guy are in her room, but his voice sounds too high to be ron (her boyfriend)... i'm guessing it's the same guy she had over and in her room the other time someone was here besides ron... mostly it's funny because they came home and she started singing a church song, and then he started singing another one, made puns on the words, and she blurted out "hey, let's talk about our favorite hymns!"... this is just completely amusing to me because (1) i'm factoring a stupid 8 by 8 matrix, and there's alternating drunk roommate and random guy singing church songs 2 doors away (my life is so weird), and (2) amanda hasn't gone to church once that i'm aware of the whole time we've been living together (except when home with her family), so while i know her family's catholic, it's highly unusual for her to be running around singing hymns, much less having duets of them with random people late at night.

you know what? enough rambling. you know my life is weird... i'm back to diagonalizing this stupid matrix. later dudes.

self-reference

lkp 42 42 42: ooooohhhh! i remember what i was going to ask you
lkp 42 42 42: can you send me your biography so i have a model to decide how detailed to make mine?
Galois1105: just give her eight lines summarizing why you're interesting. but don't say 'dude', 'pizza', 'llama', or 'forty-two'
lkp 42 42 42: hey hey
lkp 42 42 42: but what if i'm not interesting
Galois1105: make stuff up
lkp 42 42 42: those words and "bob the rock" are exactly *why* i'm interesting
lkp 42 42 42: wouldn't you agree?

well, wouldn't you? =P

in a parallel universe

leigh helped me with homework some more and now i'm by myself in her office whle other people are working in the graduate lounge... i'm in a weird mood... not good, not bad, but moving extremely fast and fidgety and feeling hyper-analytical at present (don't ask me to explain that... either you understand or you don't)

in reviewing my thoughts, attitudes, and actions over the past however long that i've been claiming to be "in a weird mood" it's like the monster in my head is back. halfway through valpo, friends made me see the campus shrink and he verified that i had moderate clinical depression. it's hard to explain but during that year or two there, it was like no matter what i tried to do there was this imaginary monster burden in my head looking for the bad in even the best things i had going on... there was no reason to be sincerely happy about anything. i'm far from that point (in the good direction), but thinking about it, i think half my problem lately is (1) thinking too much about everything and (2) the same thought patterns that were there before have crept in again while i've been insanely stressed over the past however long and are attacking again... they're like weeds... you think you get rid of them, but the roots are always deeper than you quite seem to reach to and even if you try to put up a good front and really believe it, the roots are still hiding there and growing back.

this is a really weird entry... i'm going to stop for now.

eric found me a spiffy way to make money this summer if carolyn (last summer's boss) doesn't have long distance work for me. filling out surveys for companies online... i'll probably sign up for it whether carolyn has work for me or not... that'll be good.

ok, really, the end. hour til class... i'm going to read or something halfway constructive rather than type type type type type =P

wednesday, wednesday

the current plot: i *should* be asleep. usually wednesday i don't have anywhere to be til 3pm, but scott's pizza seminar talk last week ran long and he asked for a second day to finish it... we all have to go be supportive, so i'm up and getting ready so i can go eat pizza and listen to scott talk about logic in an hour and a half... joy.

random thoughts and observations:

*why is that when people leave a note to themselves to do something, they often put punctuation marks? (like !!!) i was thinking about this as i did dishes last night... amanda has a neon green postit note on the fridge that says "take vitamins!!!" if the neon green and the words already remind you, what's the added benefit of "!!!" for? that's just one example, i know i do it too... the important things on to do lists often get !!! after them, but... why do we all do that? discuss.

*i can't sleep anymore. i just can't. some people say they need at least 8, 9, 10 however many hours of sleep. i apparently am not capable for sleeping more than 8 in a row, and often not even that. (1) when i go to sleep, i toss and turn a lot before i fall asleep (2) i often wake up in the middle of the night thinking of things i have to do, or "just because"... (e.g. i vaguely remember waking up last night at 4am with a jerk, decided i was cold, went through my closet in the dark to find a sweatshirt, decided i didn't want it anymore b/c i'd get too warm, hung it back up, and went back to sleep) (3) i wake up early with a jerk too, think i'm ready to go and convince myself the extra hour of trying to sleep will be good for me this usually happens around 6, around 7, around 8, pretty much every morning hour until my alarm actually tells me to get up... dude, what's wrong with me? no wonder i'm tired all the time!

*studying math is such a weird (but usually fascinating) discipline... most people study topics and thoughts and stuff that have to do with society (humanities... or anything that involves english words)... even in the other sciences, people see direct applications to "normal life" too,... it's not that math can't be applied to "real life" because it totally can, but mostly people working on a Ph.D. in math are studying math topics because they (the topics) are there, and because the solutions are unknown... kinda like a treasure hunt... not *because* it's going to provide some scientific breakthrough down the line... we manipulate crazy objects you can't see with crazy rules, trying to figure out as much as possible about them. all our discussions use huge crazy complex concepts no one understands but math people. it's beautiful stuff... i just wish my brain could input more of it at once.

the end... see, i'm in a weeeeird mood this week. later dudes.

i wanna live in stereo...

dude, *this* is the legacy i leave behind me at my undergraduate university:

ShoeSprout: WHEE!
ShoeSprout: i took a flying leap off bob the rock today
lkp 42 42 42: really?
ShoeSprout: yep
lkp 42 42 42: how did that work?
lkp 42 42 42: did bob like it?
ShoeSprout: pretty well
ShoeSprout: i usually do it everytime after chemistry class is over
lkp 42 42 42: awesome!
ShoeSprout: because i have a class in the vuca right after that
lkp 42 42 42: you're the coolest ever adam hughes!
ShoeSprout: hehe. thanks!
ShoeSprout: oooo
ShoeSprout: speaking of which
ShoeSprout: i started randomly doing the llama thing
lkp 42 42 42: woah
ShoeSprout: and now like 4-5 people always do it when they see me
lkp 42 42 42: good work

impressive, eh? ok, well, at least unique =P

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

dude

lkp 42 42 42: dude, if you keep claiming *you* can't do math, what am *i* doing with my time?
lkp 42 42 42: certainly not math if your work isn't math =P
smswtshnn: dude, i don't claim to know the answers to these questions
lkp 42 42 42: i know
lkp 42 42 42: i'm just full of such questions
smswtshnn: but if i remember right, you're not supposed to talk to me about this
smswtshnn: eric's orders

question: why do people like to assume eric's in charge of keeping me out of trouble?

eh

so, i've emailed last summer's boss to see if she'll rehire me to "telecommute" for the summer... we'll see if this works.

mom called, approves of all the road trips and also wanted to let me know... dad ended up turning down the ohio job offer b/c it was too administrative for his tastes, but apparently some commercial land developer is considering buying our property. dad named a price of 3 times what he and mom paid for it, and the developer said he'd come back with an offer in the next 30 days. dad went and talked to one of his real estate friends who drew up a contract for said amount and said if this developer doesn't take it, he'll sell it for that amount to someone else, be ready to move in the next 30 days... dad said 30 days notice is impossible w/ all the animals and stuff, so his friend said, then he can get him 90 days at best, but be ready to be outta there anytime.

this means i probably won't ever get to visit the house i grew up in ever again. (it's so decrepit it'll most likely get bulldozed)... this makes me sad.

analysis makes me sad too. after our miserable algebra class, i worked on analysis from 11:30 straight til 1, had lunch with eric at subway, then worked straight from 2 til 6:30 again... still not all the way done and need to write up all kinds of junk... i'm in a tired, grumpy, bad attitude all around kinda mood, so i told leigh if anyone figures out the last part of a problem we don't know how to do, call me, otherwise i'll keep my bad attitude to myself for the evening... and that's exactly what i plan to do.

later.

duuuude

so only 4 of us showed up for algebra today... given it's our earliest class (9:50) so it's a stretch for people to be up then, and given the prof. doesn't give the most coherent lectures so people seem to take turns skipping class, but this was definitely a record low... usual attendance is around 10 people even though it's a class of 15 or so... 4 was just plain miserable.

we went over our evil midterms from a couple weeks ago... it makes low grades look so much nicer when they're only out of 4 points instead of out of 100.... all grades were basically 2.5, 2.75, or 3 out of 4... not the best, but all pretty close too.... he decided to go over related problems to the test the whole time... at one point he asked a question and said my name in particular... i had no idea so i gave him a blank stare until he moved on and answered it himself... i'm such a bad student. =P

no graph theory today... prof. kahn is off doing who knows what... subway when eric gets out of number theory, then homework forever, as usual.

later dudes.

road trip mania!

a few people have astutely noted that lara just isn't quite happy unless she has a roadtrip in the works... well check out the margin, now there's a bunch in the works!

*"top secret roadtrip" in may... several of you know about it, but some shouldn't yet, (so i can be all surprising and stuff)... excited about that
*memphis roadtrip -- dentist, renew license plates, and fun stuff like that

but the most exciting one...

*vegas roadtrip... this probably needs explanation, especially as i don't have a summer job planned yet... eric's going home (to las vegas, yes, the one in nevada) for the first half of the summer... when he returns, he plans to bring back a car instead of just flying. eric's not as gung ho about roadtrips as me, so he also wants company for the trip... sooo, we've been joking about me flying out there and being his roadtrip buddy to bring the car back, but today we pinky swore on it and agreed to set specific dates and book me a flight in the near future... vegas, grand canyon, and for sure at least a handful of new states in the "great out west"... this shall be a party.

how's the homework? leigh and i worked for 4 hours and eric joined us for the last 1.5 or so... we got the two "easy" problems done in that time... maybe i'm slow, but i did it myself without major help and know what's going on... joy. =P

sleep time. night y'all!

Monday, April 05, 2004

it never ends

blah.

so i thought i was done with lie groups last night... then we got our first assignment back in class today and i decided if no one else was turning it in today, i should maybe work on it a little more anyhow. that class makes me mad... it could be so much better if the prof came to class organized for once... really.

on the other hand, i got back a decent grade on last week's analysis that i didn't even go to visit jared for help on, and i mostly followed today's lecture... that was good.

all i almost ever talk about anymore is math homework... isn't my life exciting?

daylight savings time in screwing with my head... how can it be 7:30 and this light outside... well, obviously it is, and i've been doing stuff for the whole inbetween time... bought a bunch of easter cards to write to aunts, uncles, grandmothers, and the like and wrote out 12 of them. fun, eh?

now, back to campus to work on analysis with leigh... to be followed by some fun reading... i'm in the middle of reading the house on the strand by daphne dumaurier (her most famous book is rebecca... read *that* for HS summer reading one year)... it's fun... people going back in time when they take some drug made out of monkeys' brains or something... bizarre, but i'm hooked and i've barely started.

anyhow, being organized and getting myself outta here... later dudes.

just another manic monday

in a bookstore yesterday:

scott: (picking a book off the shelf) "hey lara, ten minutes from normal... is this your biography?"
eric: "dude, no, her biography woudl be ten years from normal!"

dude... at least i have a reputation as unique?

in other news, got yet another newsy email from another of my hungarian friends... they've one by one all been writing me in a spurt lately... i miss them all... i want to go back. roommate said next summer (2005)... i can't really afford it right now anyhow. blah. but, i miss budapest, and all my friends there.

class, lunch, homework, class as usual... outta get to it. later dudes.

midnight revelation

i've decided that if dr. woodward feels no obligation to present his lectures clearly (several times per class he stops and gets confused and finds errors and re-does everything), i have no obligation to turn in clearly written homework. i wrote up 6 sheets (front and back) of half solutions to homework for him that's due tomorrow and i don't care anymore... it's done. tomorrow's a new day... to start on non- lie groups homework... joy.

(fun) reading, then to sleep.

Sunday, April 04, 2004

eh

so despite the fact that i gave him a wakeup call and a 5 minute warning call, paul overslept, and didn't make it to church this AM... go figure... another time i guess.

lunchtime, then homework forever... apparently scott and eric want to work at a bookstore, so the two of them and colleen are waiting on me to finish eating and get myself over to campus to drive with them.... joy. homework all afternoon... i can't wait. =P

moooovie reviews

so, for a day that started out a cranky toe sock day (see next paragraph if that confuses you =P), it ended pretty alright.... well alright, but a little confused.

(for reference, half of my christmas present from roooommate (aka kristin) this year was a pair of toe socks that have a frown face on each toe, and the word cranky and more frown faces all over the rest of them... they came the day before my analysis final last semester, and have been an excellent way to make myself laugh whenever i've felt especially grumpy since)

as aforereferenced, i woke up in a bad mood that didn't have any plans for getting better... but,

3-3:30pm: lunch @ subway w/ eric
3:30-6pm: algebra homework at starbucks w/ eric (we may not have solved more than 1/4, but we at least know what they're asking now... that's a start, right?)
6-7:30pm: grocery shopping/moooovie shopping w/ eric again
7:30-8pm: dinner
8-1am: moooovie time

while at the grocery store though i got a random call from paul, a second year around here (if you've visited me, you might have met him and refered to him as creepy crutch guy)... he wants me to stop by his house on the way to church here and let him follow me and come to church w/ me, and then he'll go someplace else after... i was very confused, but whatever, that's the plan now.

otherwise, eric and me watched mooovies... i've been so excited about brother bear coming out on video-... i saw it with margie when she visited me just before thanksgiving and thought it was great... got the soundtrack at the nyc disney store when i was there with rooommate last month, and this week the movie actually came out on video... when i saw it at the grocery store i had to buy it, and eric commented "if you're gonna continue to quote it and sing the songs from it so much i might as well get it over with and see the darn thing"... and so we did... i still loved it just as much as before and was glad i bought it... eric commented that it threw him off guard from the start and was completely different from what he expected... he gave it 7/10 all the way until the last 3 minutes, which he thought were a little too cheesy... nonetheless, i own brother bear.

since i picked brother bear, eric got to pick the other moovie... he keeps a running list on his computer of ones he wants to see and why, and is a big kevin spacey fan, so he wrote down "a time to kill" and "the negotiator" as ones to look into tonight... however, we looked for "a time to kill" under the "T"'s and neglected to find it, so negotiator was mooovie of choice... it helps to note, i don't do well with gun violence... the plot was extremely intriguing and i enjoyed it immensely for that, but every time a gun went off, i was pretty tense for the next 10 minutes or so, which meant i was pretty stressed through large parts of the movie. if you're unfamiliar with it samuel l. jackson is a chicago cop who's famous for negotiating hostage situations, however in the first 5 minutes he gets framed for his partner's murder... then he ends up taking a hostage situation and playing out the police to try to prove his innocence (kevin spacey is the new police negotiator that gets called in)... it was complex and interesting and quality,... i just have a hard time watching people's heads get blown off. (eric on the other hand commented he thinks it's a boy thing to distinguish between the guns contained in the tv and real life ones and so it doesn't bother him in the least).... either way, whatever... we both gave both movies cerca 7/10, so mooovie night was a success...

dude, 2:30 according to new daylight savings time... i hate loosing an hour... would much rather gain an hour every time and just be nocturnal every few years... wouldn't that be much better?

at any rate, time for sleep, no matter how awake or not i think i am... later dudes =P