disclaimer: those three have nothing to do with each other other than that they're in the same post
re: apprentice -- not a bad episode... previews had soooo played it up to be chris exploding, but really both teams did a decent job... kendra and tana were a bit smarter than networth and it paid off, stephanie was stupid to go to brooklyn for an hour and a half and then be like the baby sitter who reported to the parents on what the kids said happened when she wasn't looking -- good bye stephanie!
re: math -- dr. z. was so pleased with my work today and thinks the proof i brought in to show him today, while an old result, is a new proof -- this makes me happy :-) went to experimental math seminar and dinner with the speaker after... had a good chat with profs and with vince, who had some good thoughts on my oral quals (to be taken next fall)... we'll see how this goes... at any rate, it was a good math day
re: theology. quote from a friend half an hour ago: "here's why i'm not religious... if i were to adopt a religion, it would need to give me a hardcore philosophical reason for what the universe is, and maybe it would need to tell me about what my purpose is in that universe... but as far as i see just about every religion out there tries to answer those questions and does a half-ass job and wants people to accept a lot of "paradox" without proof instead of giving satisfactory answers.... if you were inventing a new religion what would it need to answer for you and why do you think Christianity is doing that for you?" -- this is a discussion i don't want to drop, but i don't want to give half-assed answers for why i think what i think tomorrow either... need to think for a bit tonight about how to *clearly* explain why i think what i do... hopefully it will be a good chat all around :-)
that sums up my day.
night y'all!
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
yay!
quality dinner with scott tonight and a good chat over margaritas. i like hanging out with scott. when i told him tonight's TV lineup (two episodes of "scrubs" and the 2nd episode ever of "the office"), he was game for watching with me, so that's what we did.
scrubs is still my all time favorite show, but the office might just be my new 4th show to watch (along with scrubs, apprentice, and joey).... it's mostly pretty slow, but occasionally they say something that's so ridiculously funny that you have to stay tuned. the boss's personality is so abrasive that if he were real scott and i agreed we'd be tempted to punch him, but for a TV show, he has the possibility of being hilarious....on tonight's episode they were having "learning about diversity in the workplace day", in response to some of the boss character's ridiculousness. after the official speaker left the boss decided to redo things his own way, including a video he made himself... partway through that video, he's just standing there talking, and says "as abraham lincoln once said, if you're a racist, i will attack you with the north"... scott and i just about bust a gut laughing for the next 5 minutes that we missed the next few jokes... it's not my favorite (it would be pretty hard to replace scrubs as that), but it's made me laugh enough to watch 2 episodes and i plan on sticking with it for a bit.
in other news, i got enough sleep last night for the first time in forever... i actually slept in til 12:30 this afternoon (given i didn't go to bed until 3 last night from talking with eric)... however, despite the late start and the long fun evening with scott, i managed to prove what zeilberger asked me to last thursday (the first time he assigned me something that didn't involved the computer), and went the next step and programmed the bijection from the bijective proof into maple and just checked it for permutations of length 1 through 9 and it works both ways... this makes me happy :-)
now, to go to sleep at a more reasonable time :-P
night y'all
scrubs is still my all time favorite show, but the office might just be my new 4th show to watch (along with scrubs, apprentice, and joey).... it's mostly pretty slow, but occasionally they say something that's so ridiculously funny that you have to stay tuned. the boss's personality is so abrasive that if he were real scott and i agreed we'd be tempted to punch him, but for a TV show, he has the possibility of being hilarious....on tonight's episode they were having "learning about diversity in the workplace day", in response to some of the boss character's ridiculousness. after the official speaker left the boss decided to redo things his own way, including a video he made himself... partway through that video, he's just standing there talking, and says "as abraham lincoln once said, if you're a racist, i will attack you with the north"... scott and i just about bust a gut laughing for the next 5 minutes that we missed the next few jokes... it's not my favorite (it would be pretty hard to replace scrubs as that), but it's made me laugh enough to watch 2 episodes and i plan on sticking with it for a bit.
in other news, i got enough sleep last night for the first time in forever... i actually slept in til 12:30 this afternoon (given i didn't go to bed until 3 last night from talking with eric)... however, despite the late start and the long fun evening with scott, i managed to prove what zeilberger asked me to last thursday (the first time he assigned me something that didn't involved the computer), and went the next step and programmed the bijection from the bijective proof into maple and just checked it for permutations of length 1 through 9 and it works both ways... this makes me happy :-)
now, to go to sleep at a more reasonable time :-P
night y'all
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
some fun
long day of class, but fun afternoon and evening... eric and i went to subway and to see the movie "robots" (which is excellent, and worth seeing in the theater), and then played scrabble (and both got to over 250 points, so not bad at all)... now, no responsibility whatsoever until wednesday... woohoo! happy monday all? :-P
Monday, March 28, 2005
noises
some random guy sat in on combinatorics today.... friend of the professor... he sounded like he was coughing up a lung the whole time... like a nasty flem-y raspy cough, and occasionally he groaned quietly too.
i can take some amount of noise, and recognize that such things are bound to happen when people are sick, but this was excessive. i got a headache just from involuntarily furrowing my brow in disgust whenever he did it.
people coughing up lungs in lecture... yuck.
i can take some amount of noise, and recognize that such things are bound to happen when people are sick, but this was excessive. i got a headache just from involuntarily furrowing my brow in disgust whenever he did it.
people coughing up lungs in lecture... yuck.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
things that made me smile today
* seeing pastor j. at church this morning and getting a hug from him
* hanging out with arlene this weekend
* not having any combinatorics due this week
* seeing "ice princess" at the theater with leigh this evening
* burgundy basil vinagrette salad dressing
* knowing that He Is Risen! Happy Easter :-)
* hanging out with arlene this weekend
* not having any combinatorics due this week
* seeing "ice princess" at the theater with leigh this evening
* burgundy basil vinagrette salad dressing
* knowing that He Is Risen! Happy Easter :-)
what a day
man, oh man, what a long day, but boy was it fun.
arlene and i were up at 7:30 today so that eric, scott, and the two of us could leave for the train station by 8:30 to head up to new york for the day. scott went CD shopping while eric and i showed arlene some of the major landmarks downtown that she wanted to see (world trade center site, wall street, brooklyn bridge, statue of liberty), then we all met up at the natural history museum.
pause from happy story of my day to insert a small rant: the ticket people at the museum are inept. eric had 2 free admission stubs which he gave them, and they took them but wouldn't give him the discount... he asked for them back and we ended up paying full price (something about us being students instead of adults or something)... scott, on the other hand, came in at a different entrance than us. while we paid $16.50 each for admission plus a planetarium show each, scott paid $10 for admission and was told he could add a planetarium show later... the girl at the counter after he met up with us again insisted he couldn't just pay the difference but rather would have to pay $12 more for adding the planetarium show, so he just didn't... but it took 10 minutes of them yelling at him to make that clear... stupidly inept people. it's not a good system.
otherwise, the afternoon was fun... we saw the hall of meteorites and the hall of gems, and the hall of human evolution and biology before than planetarium, then a lot of dinosaur stuff after.
after the museum closed we showed arlene rockefeller center, had dinner at KFC, and then saw hairspray which was fantastically fun. :-)
a few (well 3) pictures to illustrate my day... i'll post several more on my website eventually.
enjoy.
scott, me, and eric waiting for the train to NYC this morning
arlene, me, eric, and a freakin huge rock at the museum
me and arlene, post hairspray
oh, here's the other fun part of the day. arlene slept the whole way home, and 80% of the way home eric and i had a "philosophical chat"... these generally go as follows: eric make a comment, silence while i think, i make a comment, silence while eric thinks, repeat. so i feel like it's too spread out to be a "chat", but really it is, i just want to make sure i make sense before the words come out. we were talking about how i think there's room for faith in a structured view of the world, whereas he sees faith as elevating a conjecture to a theorem without proof. no one won, but i think we both were able to present ourselves clearly, so it made for interesting food for thought... funny quote of the evening though...
eric was meaning to say "from my philosophical view", and instead came out with "from my falafel view,... (paused, laughed at himself),... i think we need some hummus"
ok, now i'm really done rambling... that basically sums up my day. :-P
paul and arlene were daring enough to commit to going to easter breakfast at church an hour earlier than service is... this means i'll be up in 6.5 hours... i should probably be asleep :-P
night y'all!
arlene and i were up at 7:30 today so that eric, scott, and the two of us could leave for the train station by 8:30 to head up to new york for the day. scott went CD shopping while eric and i showed arlene some of the major landmarks downtown that she wanted to see (world trade center site, wall street, brooklyn bridge, statue of liberty), then we all met up at the natural history museum.
pause from happy story of my day to insert a small rant: the ticket people at the museum are inept. eric had 2 free admission stubs which he gave them, and they took them but wouldn't give him the discount... he asked for them back and we ended up paying full price (something about us being students instead of adults or something)... scott, on the other hand, came in at a different entrance than us. while we paid $16.50 each for admission plus a planetarium show each, scott paid $10 for admission and was told he could add a planetarium show later... the girl at the counter after he met up with us again insisted he couldn't just pay the difference but rather would have to pay $12 more for adding the planetarium show, so he just didn't... but it took 10 minutes of them yelling at him to make that clear... stupidly inept people. it's not a good system.
otherwise, the afternoon was fun... we saw the hall of meteorites and the hall of gems, and the hall of human evolution and biology before than planetarium, then a lot of dinosaur stuff after.
after the museum closed we showed arlene rockefeller center, had dinner at KFC, and then saw hairspray which was fantastically fun. :-)
a few (well 3) pictures to illustrate my day... i'll post several more on my website eventually.
enjoy.
scott, me, and eric waiting for the train to NYC this morning
arlene, me, eric, and a freakin huge rock at the museum
me and arlene, post hairspray
oh, here's the other fun part of the day. arlene slept the whole way home, and 80% of the way home eric and i had a "philosophical chat"... these generally go as follows: eric make a comment, silence while i think, i make a comment, silence while eric thinks, repeat. so i feel like it's too spread out to be a "chat", but really it is, i just want to make sure i make sense before the words come out. we were talking about how i think there's room for faith in a structured view of the world, whereas he sees faith as elevating a conjecture to a theorem without proof. no one won, but i think we both were able to present ourselves clearly, so it made for interesting food for thought... funny quote of the evening though...
eric was meaning to say "from my philosophical view", and instead came out with "from my falafel view,... (paused, laughed at himself),... i think we need some hummus"
ok, now i'm really done rambling... that basically sums up my day. :-P
paul and arlene were daring enough to commit to going to easter breakfast at church an hour earlier than service is... this means i'll be up in 6.5 hours... i should probably be asleep :-P
night y'all!
Saturday, March 26, 2005
apprentice, and other such fun
yay weekend!
this afternoon, i caught up on last night's TV... joey was fun... apprentice was disappointing to me... i'd never seen so little teamwork as the beginning of the show and networth never really did pull anything off... erin's a skilled debater, but she was rather ridiculous this episode... i'm just glad angie didn't get fired from that team... in the long run she's so much less silly than stephanie, erin, or chris... so, so long erin, oh well.
arlene, scott, leigh, and me also watched the pilot episode of "the office" from last night too... it was such a bizarre show... we laughed our heads off at parts, but it was just strange. i'll probably watch a couple more before i decide if it's a permanent fixture in my TV list or not.
church tonight was good... as was last night. the temporary pastor actually gives clear focused sermons on the weeknight services... i just wish he'd pretend it was a midweek evening service some sundays so that we'd get a focused message more consistently then too :-P
last night, i was home for less than 10 minutes to eat dinner AND change for church before i was back in the car (since i had class til 5:30 and needed to be there early for altar guild)... paul suggested we go to a diner for dinner after too, since we were both rushed and hungry, so we had a good chat over sandwiches around 9:30 last night... just me and him... it was a good break in a hectic couple of days.
tonight, arlene came too (last night she was hanging out with eric),... first we had an entertaining dinner with scott... and then went to church... arlene liked my church a lot. she grew up in an elca church and attends various churches sporadically now that she's in school and travels some with ultimate frisbee teams, etc. she's excited to come back with me and paul on sunday too :-)
when arlene and i got home from church, ben was over playing scrabble with leigh, and when they finished we all watched "monsters inc", which arlene had never seen before, so that was quality.
tomorrow, she, eric, and i are going up to NYC... spending most of the day in the natural history museum, but seeing "hairspray" on broadway at night... it should be a fun time... but eric will be here to head in 1 car to the train in 8 hours, so that means i'm up in 7... oi... night y'all. :-P
this afternoon, i caught up on last night's TV... joey was fun... apprentice was disappointing to me... i'd never seen so little teamwork as the beginning of the show and networth never really did pull anything off... erin's a skilled debater, but she was rather ridiculous this episode... i'm just glad angie didn't get fired from that team... in the long run she's so much less silly than stephanie, erin, or chris... so, so long erin, oh well.
arlene, scott, leigh, and me also watched the pilot episode of "the office" from last night too... it was such a bizarre show... we laughed our heads off at parts, but it was just strange. i'll probably watch a couple more before i decide if it's a permanent fixture in my TV list or not.
church tonight was good... as was last night. the temporary pastor actually gives clear focused sermons on the weeknight services... i just wish he'd pretend it was a midweek evening service some sundays so that we'd get a focused message more consistently then too :-P
last night, i was home for less than 10 minutes to eat dinner AND change for church before i was back in the car (since i had class til 5:30 and needed to be there early for altar guild)... paul suggested we go to a diner for dinner after too, since we were both rushed and hungry, so we had a good chat over sandwiches around 9:30 last night... just me and him... it was a good break in a hectic couple of days.
tonight, arlene came too (last night she was hanging out with eric),... first we had an entertaining dinner with scott... and then went to church... arlene liked my church a lot. she grew up in an elca church and attends various churches sporadically now that she's in school and travels some with ultimate frisbee teams, etc. she's excited to come back with me and paul on sunday too :-)
when arlene and i got home from church, ben was over playing scrabble with leigh, and when they finished we all watched "monsters inc", which arlene had never seen before, so that was quality.
tomorrow, she, eric, and i are going up to NYC... spending most of the day in the natural history museum, but seeing "hairspray" on broadway at night... it should be a fun time... but eric will be here to head in 1 car to the train in 8 hours, so that means i'm up in 7... oi... night y'all. :-P
Friday, March 25, 2005
home free!
it's been a crazy week...
not a lot of sleep wednesday night due to working on reading class stuff... not a lot last night because it was too warm in the house and i kept waking up... doht... i resigned myself to turning in half answers to lots of my combo hw and getting sleep though, rather than keeping working with a brick wall :-P... he says the next set (due in two weeks) is even tougher... i don't like that thought.
we've had prospectives around every night this week... both girls who came are interested in combinatorics! if even one of them would come, that would make me NOT the only (american) girl in combinatorics around here, which would make me very very happy! (there's a first year from india who was in my combo class last fall, but isn't this semester due to schedule conflicts; nonetheless i'm in a subarea of math that doesn't usually get many women). the girl who stayed last night knows one of the guys i know from BSM, and was amazed at the small world connection. both of them (amanda on monday, and deborah today) seem pretty cool; hopefully they'll pick to come here in the fall!
finally, though, nothing due again until next thursday.
i was all excited today, i have a subscription to an email list for preprints of math publications... there was an article posted today (see here) that references one of my publications... that made me happy. it's exciting to get published; it's even more exciting to see other major papers refering to it too!
now though, to solve the case of the missing arlene who isn't where she was when i went to class this morning; chances are i'll find her if i check out the math library... we'll see.
pizza seminar, then hello weekend -- hope all y'all have a fantastic one!
not a lot of sleep wednesday night due to working on reading class stuff... not a lot last night because it was too warm in the house and i kept waking up... doht... i resigned myself to turning in half answers to lots of my combo hw and getting sleep though, rather than keeping working with a brick wall :-P... he says the next set (due in two weeks) is even tougher... i don't like that thought.
we've had prospectives around every night this week... both girls who came are interested in combinatorics! if even one of them would come, that would make me NOT the only (american) girl in combinatorics around here, which would make me very very happy! (there's a first year from india who was in my combo class last fall, but isn't this semester due to schedule conflicts; nonetheless i'm in a subarea of math that doesn't usually get many women). the girl who stayed last night knows one of the guys i know from BSM, and was amazed at the small world connection. both of them (amanda on monday, and deborah today) seem pretty cool; hopefully they'll pick to come here in the fall!
finally, though, nothing due again until next thursday.
i was all excited today, i have a subscription to an email list for preprints of math publications... there was an article posted today (see here) that references one of my publications... that made me happy. it's exciting to get published; it's even more exciting to see other major papers refering to it too!
now though, to solve the case of the missing arlene who isn't where she was when i went to class this morning; chances are i'll find her if i check out the math library... we'll see.
pizza seminar, then hello weekend -- hope all y'all have a fantastic one!
Thursday, March 24, 2005
man, oh man
what a week...
i don't get much sleep this week... combo due friday (i've done 1.5/8 correctly and made up answers for 3 others, so that's better than nothing, but it's still not good)... meeting with dr. z. tomorrow, for which i'm working away and have been for hours already this evening.
i did manage to be a decent host today at least :-P... i had to get up early to observe ben teaching... when alliswan was here, and i had class, i dropped her off at the music campus to practice piano... arlene, on the other hand is majorly into ultimate frisbee and has a need to go running all the time... so instead of dropping her off somewhere, i just left her my house key so she could go running around my neighborhood and lock the house while she was not in it :-P... that worked well... i came back home so we could have soup and sandwiches for lunch, and then she actually was brave enough to come with me to combinatorial commutative algebra this afternoon not knowing much of any of the subject and coming in to one lecture partway through the semester :-P
after that, since eric and arlene know each other equally as well as she and i know each other, and they hadn't gotten to visit yet this week, arlene and i went over to eric's house and we all made dinner together -- homemade pizza and some salad... it was quality. after that we played pool for a bit, and before that we watched eric and arlene take turns doing magic tricks too... it was a fun time all around.
nonetheless, me having oodles of hw, we were back home by 8:30 so i could work, as i have been for the past 5 hours straight now.
this is just such a weird week... here, we've had at least one prospective grad student visiting each night (which means lots of opportunities to go out to eat and get free food if i weren't so busy!... oi)... there's 2 guys at eric's house tonight and there was 1 last night... tomorrow night there's a girl staying at my house, but leigh's in charge of entertainment since colleen and i will each be out at church, etc. instead.
in other academic news, one of my friends here (should be easy to deduce who) plans to talk to dr. z. tomorrow and see if dr. z. will take him on as an additional student. there shouldn't be any issues, but for some reason it makes me feel ultra competative towards the friend in question. even though dr. z. specifically asked me to be his student, i constantly am mindful of continuing to keep him impressed with me. the friend in question is really industrious and dedicated when he's working on things he likes, and i feel not as dilligent compared to him despite the long hours i put in to my classes... i don't always want to have something nagging in the back of my head that i'm not as good as him. i'm pretty sure he'd tell me i'm being ridiculous if i brought any of this up with him. i can share my advisor (and i recognize it's really up to my advisor, and not up to me or his other students, who he takes on as students)... it's just, i really liked the idea of the fact that the other students who work for my advisor are not like my best friends here, and are more of academic friends, while the people i hang out with are doing something different. this friend potentially working with my advisor mixes up that dynamic, and means i'm going to have to work through this hyper competative streak that i don't even know why it's there. all this is to say, tomorrow said friend and dr. z. will probably both be delighted with the idea of working together, and in the meantime, it incurs a lot of issues in my head that it probably shouldn't and i'm not quite so excited. oh well. i'll figure it out in time.
for non-rutgers people it seems to be an off week in a completely different way. got an email from my friend carli (who i just saw on saturday) that her sister is having eye surgery (she has a tumor in her eye and they'll have to implant a radioactive disk and isolate her from all other people for a bit)... alliswan's grandmother died this week too so she's suddenly off to NC to be with family for memorial service etc. i feel for my friends a lot when they're going through stuff... i know it's not fun :-/... at any rate, alliswan, carli, you're in my prayers.
night?
i don't get much sleep this week... combo due friday (i've done 1.5/8 correctly and made up answers for 3 others, so that's better than nothing, but it's still not good)... meeting with dr. z. tomorrow, for which i'm working away and have been for hours already this evening.
i did manage to be a decent host today at least :-P... i had to get up early to observe ben teaching... when alliswan was here, and i had class, i dropped her off at the music campus to practice piano... arlene, on the other hand is majorly into ultimate frisbee and has a need to go running all the time... so instead of dropping her off somewhere, i just left her my house key so she could go running around my neighborhood and lock the house while she was not in it :-P... that worked well... i came back home so we could have soup and sandwiches for lunch, and then she actually was brave enough to come with me to combinatorial commutative algebra this afternoon not knowing much of any of the subject and coming in to one lecture partway through the semester :-P
after that, since eric and arlene know each other equally as well as she and i know each other, and they hadn't gotten to visit yet this week, arlene and i went over to eric's house and we all made dinner together -- homemade pizza and some salad... it was quality. after that we played pool for a bit, and before that we watched eric and arlene take turns doing magic tricks too... it was a fun time all around.
nonetheless, me having oodles of hw, we were back home by 8:30 so i could work, as i have been for the past 5 hours straight now.
this is just such a weird week... here, we've had at least one prospective grad student visiting each night (which means lots of opportunities to go out to eat and get free food if i weren't so busy!... oi)... there's 2 guys at eric's house tonight and there was 1 last night... tomorrow night there's a girl staying at my house, but leigh's in charge of entertainment since colleen and i will each be out at church, etc. instead.
in other academic news, one of my friends here (should be easy to deduce who) plans to talk to dr. z. tomorrow and see if dr. z. will take him on as an additional student. there shouldn't be any issues, but for some reason it makes me feel ultra competative towards the friend in question. even though dr. z. specifically asked me to be his student, i constantly am mindful of continuing to keep him impressed with me. the friend in question is really industrious and dedicated when he's working on things he likes, and i feel not as dilligent compared to him despite the long hours i put in to my classes... i don't always want to have something nagging in the back of my head that i'm not as good as him. i'm pretty sure he'd tell me i'm being ridiculous if i brought any of this up with him. i can share my advisor (and i recognize it's really up to my advisor, and not up to me or his other students, who he takes on as students)... it's just, i really liked the idea of the fact that the other students who work for my advisor are not like my best friends here, and are more of academic friends, while the people i hang out with are doing something different. this friend potentially working with my advisor mixes up that dynamic, and means i'm going to have to work through this hyper competative streak that i don't even know why it's there. all this is to say, tomorrow said friend and dr. z. will probably both be delighted with the idea of working together, and in the meantime, it incurs a lot of issues in my head that it probably shouldn't and i'm not quite so excited. oh well. i'll figure it out in time.
for non-rutgers people it seems to be an off week in a completely different way. got an email from my friend carli (who i just saw on saturday) that her sister is having eye surgery (she has a tumor in her eye and they'll have to implant a radioactive disk and isolate her from all other people for a bit)... alliswan's grandmother died this week too so she's suddenly off to NC to be with family for memorial service etc. i feel for my friends a lot when they're going through stuff... i know it's not fun :-/... at any rate, alliswan, carli, you're in my prayers.
night?
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
in summary
arlene is here! :)
...but i have a ton of work to do between now and friday :(
...but she's here til sunday and i'm completely free come friday afternoon, so that at least gives us the weekend to have fun :)
exhausted, and have to be up early tomorrow to observe ben teaching a workshop... woohoo... night y'all :-P
...but i have a ton of work to do between now and friday :(
...but she's here til sunday and i'm completely free come friday afternoon, so that at least gives us the weekend to have fun :)
exhausted, and have to be up early tomorrow to observe ben teaching a workshop... woohoo... night y'all :-P
Monday, March 21, 2005
eh
i went to riteaid today to buy an envelope. i got the same cashier that gave me and leigh a minilecture the day before our qual about why math is a stupidly easy major.
i got the same lecture again, with him telling me he quit after calc 3 because he was making such easy As without studying and he was bored. woopdedoo... anyone who makes it to math grad school *should* have an easy time with those because those are like freshman level courses. i told him he gave up too early, but he seemed pretty smug that he's better than me because i'm still doing math.
whatever... he's a drug store clerk; look where i could be by now if i had ditched math early on too ;-)
(mostly it just annoys me that repeatedly this same cashier tells me i'm dumb because i'm a student... as if he has the world mastered because he made it through calc... i should just learn to not go to riteaid anymore :-P)
i got the same lecture again, with him telling me he quit after calc 3 because he was making such easy As without studying and he was bored. woopdedoo... anyone who makes it to math grad school *should* have an easy time with those because those are like freshman level courses. i told him he gave up too early, but he seemed pretty smug that he's better than me because i'm still doing math.
whatever... he's a drug store clerk; look where i could be by now if i had ditched math early on too ;-)
(mostly it just annoys me that repeatedly this same cashier tells me i'm dumb because i'm a student... as if he has the world mastered because he made it through calc... i should just learn to not go to riteaid anymore :-P)
update
man, what a weekend.
yesterday, i didn't get nearly as much done as i had hoped for.... however, if nothing else, you can now see pictures (a) from when alliswan was here two weeks ago, and (b) my past week visiting tons and tons of people here.
it's gonna be a crazy couple of days. i can't seem to track down the guy who agreed to do pizza seminar this friday, so i'm hoping against hope that i hear from him... otherwise, eric and i had a chat and he *might* be willing to do a talk on the fly if i get him proper equipment. (a projector, etc.)... i sure as heck don't have time.... the math server keeps crashing doing the computations i need it to for my reading class, so as of yet, after not meeting for 3 weeks i still have absolutely nothing to show dr. z. this can't be good. that and that amount of hw due for combo this friday doubled this morning and i hadn't even finished the first half! all this and arlene gets in tomorrow (that's the exciting part of my week :-)... i just hope i'm not a horrific host due to workload!)
here's my random story of the day though... illustrating the utter incompetence of some cashiers. yesterday, i go to riteaid to drop off film. there's a sign on the photo center counter that says "for 1 hour film developing, fill out a blue envelope and hand it to a cashier". i fill out a blue envelope (the 3 day envelopes are red), ask a cashier who to give it to and she takes it.. i assume being an employee and being able to read, she's smart enough to put it where it needs to go.
2 hours later, i return and see the same cashier checking someone out at the register. the man paid $100.25 (his total was something dollars and 17 cents, and he wanted to minimize coin change). the cashier accidentally types in $125.00 instead (fine), realizes her mistake (good), and calls for help. i guess she needed approval to edit the transaction in the computer or something... that's fine. however, she and the TWO other cashiers who came up to help, kept punching in the man's total before tax into a calculator and subtracting that from $100.25 instead of the real amount.... he saw the mistake since he didn't want howevermany dollars and 77 cents back, and finally after pointing it out 3 times, and getting the response of "well, we punched it into the calculator, it must be right", he was like "ok, well you can come up short at the end of the day if you really want." they got worried then and called up the manager, who (novel though), counted back his change to him the old-fashioned way without using a calculator or computer of any sort... immediately her three cashiers who can't even use a calculator properly are all "oooh! she's soooo smart, that's why she's our manager!" i'm glad *someone* in the store has the ability to count change!
because that wasn't entertaining enough... i get up to the cash register next and ask for my film... from the SAME GIRL I GAVE IT TOO earlier in the afternoon... she looks for it and can't find it... she calls up the two cashiers from before and finally one of them finds it in the send-out for 3 day developing bag... um duh... my faith in her realizing that a blue envelope meant 1-hour developing was completely misplaced... her cluelessness in looking for it annoyed me even more since she's the one who put it there! another employee apologized profusely and said they'd have it ready in 30 minutes. i return in 40 and the same cashier who's screwed up repeatedly in front of me all day plays dumb that she can't find it again, when i can see it sitting on the end of the photo machine done, and just needing to be wrapped up. when i got the photos, the colors were all off, and i was annoyed. when they went to charge me though, they rung me up for singles instead of doubles, so i shut my mouth and left with the pictures while i was ahead.
maybe the girl was just having a horrible day, but really, repeatedly, how hard is it to (a) put things in the right place (my pictures), (b) count out change, and (c) maybe remember what you've done with things and take responsibility instead of playing dumb.
incompetant people never cease to amaze me.
yesterday, i didn't get nearly as much done as i had hoped for.... however, if nothing else, you can now see pictures (a) from when alliswan was here two weeks ago, and (b) my past week visiting tons and tons of people here.
it's gonna be a crazy couple of days. i can't seem to track down the guy who agreed to do pizza seminar this friday, so i'm hoping against hope that i hear from him... otherwise, eric and i had a chat and he *might* be willing to do a talk on the fly if i get him proper equipment. (a projector, etc.)... i sure as heck don't have time.... the math server keeps crashing doing the computations i need it to for my reading class, so as of yet, after not meeting for 3 weeks i still have absolutely nothing to show dr. z. this can't be good. that and that amount of hw due for combo this friday doubled this morning and i hadn't even finished the first half! all this and arlene gets in tomorrow (that's the exciting part of my week :-)... i just hope i'm not a horrific host due to workload!)
here's my random story of the day though... illustrating the utter incompetence of some cashiers. yesterday, i go to riteaid to drop off film. there's a sign on the photo center counter that says "for 1 hour film developing, fill out a blue envelope and hand it to a cashier". i fill out a blue envelope (the 3 day envelopes are red), ask a cashier who to give it to and she takes it.. i assume being an employee and being able to read, she's smart enough to put it where it needs to go.
2 hours later, i return and see the same cashier checking someone out at the register. the man paid $100.25 (his total was something dollars and 17 cents, and he wanted to minimize coin change). the cashier accidentally types in $125.00 instead (fine), realizes her mistake (good), and calls for help. i guess she needed approval to edit the transaction in the computer or something... that's fine. however, she and the TWO other cashiers who came up to help, kept punching in the man's total before tax into a calculator and subtracting that from $100.25 instead of the real amount.... he saw the mistake since he didn't want howevermany dollars and 77 cents back, and finally after pointing it out 3 times, and getting the response of "well, we punched it into the calculator, it must be right", he was like "ok, well you can come up short at the end of the day if you really want." they got worried then and called up the manager, who (novel though), counted back his change to him the old-fashioned way without using a calculator or computer of any sort... immediately her three cashiers who can't even use a calculator properly are all "oooh! she's soooo smart, that's why she's our manager!" i'm glad *someone* in the store has the ability to count change!
because that wasn't entertaining enough... i get up to the cash register next and ask for my film... from the SAME GIRL I GAVE IT TOO earlier in the afternoon... she looks for it and can't find it... she calls up the two cashiers from before and finally one of them finds it in the send-out for 3 day developing bag... um duh... my faith in her realizing that a blue envelope meant 1-hour developing was completely misplaced... her cluelessness in looking for it annoyed me even more since she's the one who put it there! another employee apologized profusely and said they'd have it ready in 30 minutes. i return in 40 and the same cashier who's screwed up repeatedly in front of me all day plays dumb that she can't find it again, when i can see it sitting on the end of the photo machine done, and just needing to be wrapped up. when i got the photos, the colors were all off, and i was annoyed. when they went to charge me though, they rung me up for singles instead of doubles, so i shut my mouth and left with the pictures while i was ahead.
maybe the girl was just having a horrible day, but really, repeatedly, how hard is it to (a) put things in the right place (my pictures), (b) count out change, and (c) maybe remember what you've done with things and take responsibility instead of playing dumb.
incompetant people never cease to amaze me.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
hello from jersey!
what a day.
yesterday, it was fantastic to see heather, denny, uncle dave, aunt michele, and amy... a lot of circuitous driving, but nothing too bad, and it was nice to see everyone i did...
today, man oh man...
i left my uncle's place in northern SC (half an hour south of charlotte, NC) around 9:30 this morning... my day was FANTASTIC until just barely south of washington DC... there, a semi-truck had crashed over and smashed at least two other vehicles, completely blocking all 3 lanes of I-95 north... so we were all merged into the HOV lanes instead, and the backup started 10 miles before the wreck... that slowed me down considerably and i got to carli's place an hour/hour and a half later than hoped for.
however, i joined her for potluck/bible study and arrived 15 minutes before they actually started eating anyhow... turns out the guy whose house the bible study was at was also a valpo grad... just 4 years ahead of carli (which means 6 ahead of me)... so half the bible study was valpo folk :-P
after the bible study, i went to carli's house and visited for the better part of an hour before hitting the road again... then 3 hours more back to jersey in the rain, but even with a caramel macchiato from starbucks when i made a pitstop near the MD/DE border, i was crashing... i called travis who entertained me for about 40 minutes, until our connection died... then got annoyed when very drunk friends of his brother were calling to me on his phone about the time i was doing all the crazy lane changes to get off the turnpike and headed in the right direction home. drunk people... oi... i just hung up and turned off my phone at that point.
lucky for me, when i got home, eric was over here visiting with colleen and her sister, so i drafted him to help get all my crap out of my car, and told him a bit about my week before he just now left...
now to get *me* some sleep before church in the morning...
what a week indeed.
yay for seeing so many people... but also, yay for sleep.
night y'all
yesterday, it was fantastic to see heather, denny, uncle dave, aunt michele, and amy... a lot of circuitous driving, but nothing too bad, and it was nice to see everyone i did...
today, man oh man...
i left my uncle's place in northern SC (half an hour south of charlotte, NC) around 9:30 this morning... my day was FANTASTIC until just barely south of washington DC... there, a semi-truck had crashed over and smashed at least two other vehicles, completely blocking all 3 lanes of I-95 north... so we were all merged into the HOV lanes instead, and the backup started 10 miles before the wreck... that slowed me down considerably and i got to carli's place an hour/hour and a half later than hoped for.
however, i joined her for potluck/bible study and arrived 15 minutes before they actually started eating anyhow... turns out the guy whose house the bible study was at was also a valpo grad... just 4 years ahead of carli (which means 6 ahead of me)... so half the bible study was valpo folk :-P
after the bible study, i went to carli's house and visited for the better part of an hour before hitting the road again... then 3 hours more back to jersey in the rain, but even with a caramel macchiato from starbucks when i made a pitstop near the MD/DE border, i was crashing... i called travis who entertained me for about 40 minutes, until our connection died... then got annoyed when very drunk friends of his brother were calling to me on his phone about the time i was doing all the crazy lane changes to get off the turnpike and headed in the right direction home. drunk people... oi... i just hung up and turned off my phone at that point.
lucky for me, when i got home, eric was over here visiting with colleen and her sister, so i drafted him to help get all my crap out of my car, and told him a bit about my week before he just now left...
now to get *me* some sleep before church in the morning...
what a week indeed.
yay for seeing so many people... but also, yay for sleep.
night y'all
Thursday, March 17, 2005
yo, yo, yo from SC :-P
it's been a crazy (but tons of fun) day :-)
yesterday, after hanging out in roommate's room all afternoon, and still having an unfixed car :-P, we headed to wednesday night church at her field church (i.e. the congregation where she's assigned to work at while in school).... apparently the ELCA (the branch of lutheran that roommate belongs to, a different branch from the one i belong to) is writing a new hymnal. so over sandwiches and homemade soup, we discussed (well, i basically read and listened to discussion) the changes between certain aspects of the old hymnal and the proposed versions of things in the new one. after that, a short evening prayer service, and then roommate and i got ice cream and came back and crashed. i really like the pastor at roommate's field church (aka pastor karen), and pastor karen's husband (dr. hawkins, one of roommate's professors and the seminary choir director/organist) was exceedingly cool too (although he strangely reminded me incredibly -- in speech and appearance -- of my dentist in memphis... how weird is that? ;-P)... from the discussion of the other church members throughout the evening, it seems that they have a very small but incredibly lively congregation... it was cool to see it for myself.
today went a bit differently than planned. all along, roommate and i had been planning on seeing the south carolina state house and the local zoo, however i managed to see columbia on the week that they set a record low for the high (mid 40s today) and had drizzle all week... oi... so that kinda put a hitch in things :-P
first off, while roommate had a midterm at 8 this morning, i met up with mason again at his house... we went on an hour long driving tour of columbia, a la mason... he saved the state house for roommate to give the tour of, but got me some good shots of downtown from parks, showed me the governor's mansion, the church where the articles of confederation were signed, a good bit of the USC campus, and a few other historical sites... it was cool to chat, and especially as for most of the hour roommate was going to be testing anyhow, it was a quality use of time :-P
by the time i got back to the seminary, roommate was already out of class... first off, we headed for the SC state house and wandered the grounds to see all the assorted monuments there... it was pretty cool... next we drove half an hour away to lexington, SC, to drop my car off at the shop that was supposed to come fix it yesterday (doht)... then, we drove over a dam (nice view of a large lake along the way) to the next town over for lunch and a movie. we ate lunch at a cute place called isabelle's that roommate and her friend ely found earlier this semester... they sell sandwiches and quality deserts and all the walls are basically an art gallery for local artists (all the paintings are for sale too)... i had a really good turkey veggie sandwich and then a banana split cheesecake (layers of strawberry, chocolate, vanilla flavored cheesecake with banana mousse and a cherry on top ;-) ), which was fantastic :-)... it was a quality stop :-) we saw "the wedding date" at the theater, which is already out of theaters in jersey from such bad reviews and tough competition from other flicks... while i wouldn't contest the average reviews the film got, it was still funny and cute.... just not blockbuster best ever :-P we both enjoyed it.
next, we got my car back... i have a $200 deductible and it cost $199.44 -- how delightful is that? my car (which is beige) also has the windsheild lined in bright blue tape until tomorrow too... isn't that exciting? at least it's not longer cracked...
next stop, was the local zoo... we managed to see most of it in less than an hour, and since it was cold and rainy, that's probably about all the time we wanted to spend outside... highlights include the aquarium, the elephants, and a baby koala :-)
finally, a tour of roommate's campus (besides the union and her dorm), and evening chapel there with all her friends... after church, we (roommate, me, and 5 of her seminary friends) went out for dinner, and halfway through, mason showed up and joined just for the fun of it... we all had a great time chatting, and it was fun for me both to (a) get to meet/spend more than just saying "hi, nice to meet you" time with roommate's seminary friends, (b) hang out with mason a little more... although some combinations of mixing people from different parts of ones life work better than others, mason's got a friendly enough personality that he mixes well with just about any group you put him in, so the whole combination of people (roommate, 5 other seminarians, me, and a fellow BSM/math person :-P) was fantastic and not weird at all :-P
quote of the night: "so lara's crew has 'no math night' in jersey... is this your 'no God night'?" ~mason (*that* got laughs all around :-P)
now, to chill a little, and get ready to head out in the morning.... NC and back to SC tomorrow... jersey, by way of a few hours stop in maryland on saturday :-)
catch y'all on the flip side!
:-)
yesterday, after hanging out in roommate's room all afternoon, and still having an unfixed car :-P, we headed to wednesday night church at her field church (i.e. the congregation where she's assigned to work at while in school).... apparently the ELCA (the branch of lutheran that roommate belongs to, a different branch from the one i belong to) is writing a new hymnal. so over sandwiches and homemade soup, we discussed (well, i basically read and listened to discussion) the changes between certain aspects of the old hymnal and the proposed versions of things in the new one. after that, a short evening prayer service, and then roommate and i got ice cream and came back and crashed. i really like the pastor at roommate's field church (aka pastor karen), and pastor karen's husband (dr. hawkins, one of roommate's professors and the seminary choir director/organist) was exceedingly cool too (although he strangely reminded me incredibly -- in speech and appearance -- of my dentist in memphis... how weird is that? ;-P)... from the discussion of the other church members throughout the evening, it seems that they have a very small but incredibly lively congregation... it was cool to see it for myself.
today went a bit differently than planned. all along, roommate and i had been planning on seeing the south carolina state house and the local zoo, however i managed to see columbia on the week that they set a record low for the high (mid 40s today) and had drizzle all week... oi... so that kinda put a hitch in things :-P
first off, while roommate had a midterm at 8 this morning, i met up with mason again at his house... we went on an hour long driving tour of columbia, a la mason... he saved the state house for roommate to give the tour of, but got me some good shots of downtown from parks, showed me the governor's mansion, the church where the articles of confederation were signed, a good bit of the USC campus, and a few other historical sites... it was cool to chat, and especially as for most of the hour roommate was going to be testing anyhow, it was a quality use of time :-P
by the time i got back to the seminary, roommate was already out of class... first off, we headed for the SC state house and wandered the grounds to see all the assorted monuments there... it was pretty cool... next we drove half an hour away to lexington, SC, to drop my car off at the shop that was supposed to come fix it yesterday (doht)... then, we drove over a dam (nice view of a large lake along the way) to the next town over for lunch and a movie. we ate lunch at a cute place called isabelle's that roommate and her friend ely found earlier this semester... they sell sandwiches and quality deserts and all the walls are basically an art gallery for local artists (all the paintings are for sale too)... i had a really good turkey veggie sandwich and then a banana split cheesecake (layers of strawberry, chocolate, vanilla flavored cheesecake with banana mousse and a cherry on top ;-) ), which was fantastic :-)... it was a quality stop :-) we saw "the wedding date" at the theater, which is already out of theaters in jersey from such bad reviews and tough competition from other flicks... while i wouldn't contest the average reviews the film got, it was still funny and cute.... just not blockbuster best ever :-P we both enjoyed it.
next, we got my car back... i have a $200 deductible and it cost $199.44 -- how delightful is that? my car (which is beige) also has the windsheild lined in bright blue tape until tomorrow too... isn't that exciting? at least it's not longer cracked...
next stop, was the local zoo... we managed to see most of it in less than an hour, and since it was cold and rainy, that's probably about all the time we wanted to spend outside... highlights include the aquarium, the elephants, and a baby koala :-)
finally, a tour of roommate's campus (besides the union and her dorm), and evening chapel there with all her friends... after church, we (roommate, me, and 5 of her seminary friends) went out for dinner, and halfway through, mason showed up and joined just for the fun of it... we all had a great time chatting, and it was fun for me both to (a) get to meet/spend more than just saying "hi, nice to meet you" time with roommate's seminary friends, (b) hang out with mason a little more... although some combinations of mixing people from different parts of ones life work better than others, mason's got a friendly enough personality that he mixes well with just about any group you put him in, so the whole combination of people (roommate, 5 other seminarians, me, and a fellow BSM/math person :-P) was fantastic and not weird at all :-P
quote of the night: "so lara's crew has 'no math night' in jersey... is this your 'no God night'?" ~mason (*that* got laughs all around :-P)
now, to chill a little, and get ready to head out in the morning.... NC and back to SC tomorrow... jersey, by way of a few hours stop in maryland on saturday :-)
catch y'all on the flip side!
:-)
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
errrrrrrrrrgh
on account of rain, the auto glass people couldn't fix my car today... this i understand
however, instead of calling to tell me so, they did nothing and i had to call to ask what the deal was. had they actually called me as they were supposed to this morning, i could have brought my car in to the shop and had them do it... now... oi.
the only real options i see are for (1) kristin to humor me and follow me 30 minutes to their shop tomorrow morning and then drive me back at the end of the day to get it back (tomorrow's supposed to rain all day long too, or (2) try to get it fixed asap when i get back to jersey. had someone just done their job and given me a call this morning, (a) it would have been done by now (b) i wouldn't have spent all day waiting on a call i never got.
stupid people.
the end.
however, instead of calling to tell me so, they did nothing and i had to call to ask what the deal was. had they actually called me as they were supposed to this morning, i could have brought my car in to the shop and had them do it... now... oi.
the only real options i see are for (1) kristin to humor me and follow me 30 minutes to their shop tomorrow morning and then drive me back at the end of the day to get it back (tomorrow's supposed to rain all day long too, or (2) try to get it fixed asap when i get back to jersey. had someone just done their job and given me a call this morning, (a) it would have been done by now (b) i wouldn't have spent all day waiting on a call i never got.
stupid people.
the end.
oh what fun ;-)
welcome to my week -- it's been a crazy good one so far. every night for the last better part of a week i've been in a totally different world so to speak :-P... in the past few days i've seen someone i knew from HS, three valpo friends, and a friend from my semester in budapest -- it's been fantastic!
sunday, i dropped alliswan off at the train station on my way to church... it was a fun week, but as my spring break began, hers ended, so she needed to get back to school... i'm glad we had the time for all the fun we did have :-)
after church, i headed south to wilmington, delaware. jessica warnier (of valpo fame) is there doing the lutheran volunteer corp thing. she shares a 5 bedroom 1 bath house with 4 other girls in the same program. mostly we just chatted a lot until dinner time (as we hadn't seen each other since last may!)... i lucked out sine for dinner they had a potluck for all their support staff, etc., so i got to meet new people and get quality eats... after most people left, all the roommates, and the 3 extras of us who were staying the night watched "saved!", which i had never seen before. i didn't know what to expect, but for what it is, it's a decent film.
monday, jessica, had to be at work at 8am, so i planned to head out at the same time. by 10:30 i was in downtown washington, DC, and running ahead of schedule, so i decided to park and walk around for an hour... i made it past the white house and the washington monument and over to the WWII memorial in the middle of the national mall before i needed to turn around and head back to my car,... it was a nice stroll though :-) and i got a few nice pictures :-)
things were going well until partway through virginia, when a rock fell out of a dumptruck and hit my windshield, putting a fist size star-shaped crack in the darn thing. i called insurance to see what i was covered for, and i still have a $200 deductible on glass claims, and so i get to pay full out for a new windshield this afternoon.... that didn't make me very happy :-P
however, north carolina cheered me up... in addition to finding a nice surprise from alliswan in my car, i also got sweet tea when i just ordered iced tea, and the pleasant surprise of that cheered me up considerably too!
finally, around 7:30 (right on schedule) i pulled into my friend sheima's apartment. sheima and i were the best of friends freshman year of high school, and just before the end of that school year, her family moved to virginia. besides seeing her and her family spring break of my senior year of HS, we've not been super in touch since... in the meantime she's finished college and gotten married, and both works and is in grad school now, here in columbia. it was a blast from the past and so fantastic to catch up with her! her husband (fahrettin) is from turkey and only just came to the states for grad school (he has a masters in poli sci from rutgers and a ph.d. from USC in the same, he now teaches economics at a local college)... we had a fantastic dinner, and then played scrabble. fahrettin made up for his lack of being able to spell non-turkish words by placing 2 and 3 letter words on double and triple word scores... it was a fun time... we also (over dessert) had a good chat about christianity. sheima and fahrettin are both very devout muslims... sheima and i had many a chat in high school but fahrettin had his own questions, and from being in an LVC house one night to trying to explain my beliefs to a turkish muslim over pistachio pudding the next night, you have to agree that my network of friends is a fantastically diverse and cool set of people, eh ;-)
yesterday (tuesday) morning, i left when sheima and fahrettin left for work, getting to roommate (aka kristin)'s school just as she got out of her first class. after setting me up an appointment to get my car window fixed, we headed south on another mini-roadtrip -- to charleston, south carolina.
we made it through the old slave market, fort sumter, several oooooooooooooold and very cool churches and down the waterfront to the battery before nina miller (also of valpo fame) got out of work to meet us. from there the 3 of us went to another beach (and saw lots of dolphins playing in the water! i think that's the first time i had ever seen them in the wild!)... then dinner, and then i asked for a tour of nina's workplace (she helps write math textbooks for a publishing company in charleston)... after seeing the book office/warehouse, we went to her place for cookies and to chat a little more before driving back to columbia.
today, for heading south for my vacation, it's rainy and with a high of 46... go figure... this morning i met up with mason (of budapest semesters in math fame) at his place and then we went out to breakfast... i'll meet up with him again tomorrow morning before he goes into work and while roommate's taking her last midterm of the week. we chatted lots about grad school and common budapest friends and had a quality time :-)
now, i am glued to roommate's room from 12-3, waiting on the autoglass people to come (i need to be able to answer the phone and give them directions if necessary), while she has class and/or a funeral to attend this afternoon (someone from the church she works at locally)
so far, it's been a quality trip... hopefully i'll get some homework done this afternoon through too :-P
so yeah, a new world of sorts every night... makes it fun to catch up with people when there's such a variety of people to catch up with :-) it also is just fun to SEE for myself the places where my friends are at :-)
turns out after hanging out with roommate yet tomorrow (and some with mason too), friday i'm going up to greensboro, NC to see my cousin heather, then back down to lancaster, SC to spend the night at my uncle dave and aunt michele's place... saturday, all the way back to jersey, but going to dinner and a bible study with carli rossow in maryland on the way first :-P i'll be back laaaaaaaaaaaate.
anyhow, all this is to say: here's what i've been up to, yay for friends, and hope you all have a fantastic week!
signing off from a very rainy and cold columbia, south carolina :-P
later dudes :-P
sunday, i dropped alliswan off at the train station on my way to church... it was a fun week, but as my spring break began, hers ended, so she needed to get back to school... i'm glad we had the time for all the fun we did have :-)
after church, i headed south to wilmington, delaware. jessica warnier (of valpo fame) is there doing the lutheran volunteer corp thing. she shares a 5 bedroom 1 bath house with 4 other girls in the same program. mostly we just chatted a lot until dinner time (as we hadn't seen each other since last may!)... i lucked out sine for dinner they had a potluck for all their support staff, etc., so i got to meet new people and get quality eats... after most people left, all the roommates, and the 3 extras of us who were staying the night watched "saved!", which i had never seen before. i didn't know what to expect, but for what it is, it's a decent film.
monday, jessica, had to be at work at 8am, so i planned to head out at the same time. by 10:30 i was in downtown washington, DC, and running ahead of schedule, so i decided to park and walk around for an hour... i made it past the white house and the washington monument and over to the WWII memorial in the middle of the national mall before i needed to turn around and head back to my car,... it was a nice stroll though :-) and i got a few nice pictures :-)
things were going well until partway through virginia, when a rock fell out of a dumptruck and hit my windshield, putting a fist size star-shaped crack in the darn thing. i called insurance to see what i was covered for, and i still have a $200 deductible on glass claims, and so i get to pay full out for a new windshield this afternoon.... that didn't make me very happy :-P
however, north carolina cheered me up... in addition to finding a nice surprise from alliswan in my car, i also got sweet tea when i just ordered iced tea, and the pleasant surprise of that cheered me up considerably too!
finally, around 7:30 (right on schedule) i pulled into my friend sheima's apartment. sheima and i were the best of friends freshman year of high school, and just before the end of that school year, her family moved to virginia. besides seeing her and her family spring break of my senior year of HS, we've not been super in touch since... in the meantime she's finished college and gotten married, and both works and is in grad school now, here in columbia. it was a blast from the past and so fantastic to catch up with her! her husband (fahrettin) is from turkey and only just came to the states for grad school (he has a masters in poli sci from rutgers and a ph.d. from USC in the same, he now teaches economics at a local college)... we had a fantastic dinner, and then played scrabble. fahrettin made up for his lack of being able to spell non-turkish words by placing 2 and 3 letter words on double and triple word scores... it was a fun time... we also (over dessert) had a good chat about christianity. sheima and fahrettin are both very devout muslims... sheima and i had many a chat in high school but fahrettin had his own questions, and from being in an LVC house one night to trying to explain my beliefs to a turkish muslim over pistachio pudding the next night, you have to agree that my network of friends is a fantastically diverse and cool set of people, eh ;-)
yesterday (tuesday) morning, i left when sheima and fahrettin left for work, getting to roommate (aka kristin)'s school just as she got out of her first class. after setting me up an appointment to get my car window fixed, we headed south on another mini-roadtrip -- to charleston, south carolina.
we made it through the old slave market, fort sumter, several oooooooooooooold and very cool churches and down the waterfront to the battery before nina miller (also of valpo fame) got out of work to meet us. from there the 3 of us went to another beach (and saw lots of dolphins playing in the water! i think that's the first time i had ever seen them in the wild!)... then dinner, and then i asked for a tour of nina's workplace (she helps write math textbooks for a publishing company in charleston)... after seeing the book office/warehouse, we went to her place for cookies and to chat a little more before driving back to columbia.
today, for heading south for my vacation, it's rainy and with a high of 46... go figure... this morning i met up with mason (of budapest semesters in math fame) at his place and then we went out to breakfast... i'll meet up with him again tomorrow morning before he goes into work and while roommate's taking her last midterm of the week. we chatted lots about grad school and common budapest friends and had a quality time :-)
now, i am glued to roommate's room from 12-3, waiting on the autoglass people to come (i need to be able to answer the phone and give them directions if necessary), while she has class and/or a funeral to attend this afternoon (someone from the church she works at locally)
so far, it's been a quality trip... hopefully i'll get some homework done this afternoon through too :-P
so yeah, a new world of sorts every night... makes it fun to catch up with people when there's such a variety of people to catch up with :-) it also is just fun to SEE for myself the places where my friends are at :-)
turns out after hanging out with roommate yet tomorrow (and some with mason too), friday i'm going up to greensboro, NC to see my cousin heather, then back down to lancaster, SC to spend the night at my uncle dave and aunt michele's place... saturday, all the way back to jersey, but going to dinner and a bible study with carli rossow in maryland on the way first :-P i'll be back laaaaaaaaaaaate.
anyhow, all this is to say: here's what i've been up to, yay for friends, and hope you all have a fantastic week!
signing off from a very rainy and cold columbia, south carolina :-P
later dudes :-P
Sunday, March 13, 2005
a new chapter
so my time with alliswan here is nearly done. yesterday we saw "million dollar baby", which was incredibly fantastic, had dinner with ben and colleen, and then saw "the barber of seville" at the local theater/operahouse... it was a quality day. :-)
this morning, i've already been doing laundry and such and packing for a trip of my own.
in an hour, i'll drop alliwan off at the train station on my way to church, so that she can head home for a week of classes herself, and after church, i'm finishing up getting set for a trip of my own.
the plot:
today:
drive to wilmington, delaware, crash at jessica warnier's place there... apparently there's a potluck dinner party there tonight, so i'll be meeting lots of people :-P
tomorrow:
from jessica's head south to columbia, south carolina, where i'll head straight to west columbia where my friend sheima lives. we knew each other from freshman year of high school in memphis and then her family moved to virginia before the year was even up. i got to spend a night at their place in richmond on my spring break trip to DC with mom and brother my senior year of HS, but haven't seen her since... since then she's been married for several years now and is still in school in columbia... it'll be fantastic to catch up! anyhow, dinner and crashing at her place
tuesday:
by the time sheima leaves for work, i'll need to be out and about too, so early, while roommate (aka kristin :-P) is in her morning classes, i'll head in to downtown columbia where she goes to school. i'll probably hang out in the union at her school until she's out of class, at which point we'll head down to charleston, south carolina to see nina miller! that'll sum up tuesday :-P
wednesday:
while roommate's in class all day, i'll be lazy/study all day... however i do have breakfast plans with mason (of BSM fame) too, so that'll be fun :-)
thursday:
around and about columbia with roommate
friday:
after breakfast with roommate, i'll head up to greensboro, north carolina to see my cousin heather. originally i was going to spend the night back in SC with her parents on friday, but i haven't heard back from them and apparently my uncle's really sick right now (which i technically don't know, even though i do ;-P), so i'm not going to push it... if i don't hear from them, i'm hoping i'll get things straight to spend the night with my friend carli (of valpo fame) in maryland... if not, friday will be a long day of driving; if one or the other works out, i'll be back to jersey saturday :-P
so how's that for a crazy week? ;-)
time to a move on here... later dudes! :-P
this morning, i've already been doing laundry and such and packing for a trip of my own.
in an hour, i'll drop alliwan off at the train station on my way to church, so that she can head home for a week of classes herself, and after church, i'm finishing up getting set for a trip of my own.
the plot:
today:
drive to wilmington, delaware, crash at jessica warnier's place there... apparently there's a potluck dinner party there tonight, so i'll be meeting lots of people :-P
tomorrow:
from jessica's head south to columbia, south carolina, where i'll head straight to west columbia where my friend sheima lives. we knew each other from freshman year of high school in memphis and then her family moved to virginia before the year was even up. i got to spend a night at their place in richmond on my spring break trip to DC with mom and brother my senior year of HS, but haven't seen her since... since then she's been married for several years now and is still in school in columbia... it'll be fantastic to catch up! anyhow, dinner and crashing at her place
tuesday:
by the time sheima leaves for work, i'll need to be out and about too, so early, while roommate (aka kristin :-P) is in her morning classes, i'll head in to downtown columbia where she goes to school. i'll probably hang out in the union at her school until she's out of class, at which point we'll head down to charleston, south carolina to see nina miller! that'll sum up tuesday :-P
wednesday:
while roommate's in class all day, i'll be lazy/study all day... however i do have breakfast plans with mason (of BSM fame) too, so that'll be fun :-)
thursday:
around and about columbia with roommate
friday:
after breakfast with roommate, i'll head up to greensboro, north carolina to see my cousin heather. originally i was going to spend the night back in SC with her parents on friday, but i haven't heard back from them and apparently my uncle's really sick right now (which i technically don't know, even though i do ;-P), so i'm not going to push it... if i don't hear from them, i'm hoping i'll get things straight to spend the night with my friend carli (of valpo fame) in maryland... if not, friday will be a long day of driving; if one or the other works out, i'll be back to jersey saturday :-P
so how's that for a crazy week? ;-)
time to a move on here... later dudes! :-P
Saturday, March 12, 2005
ha :-P
got this email yesterday while i was out -- it made me smile :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Lara,
I just wanted to say "42" to you on this the birthday of Douglas Adams. It was reported as such
in the "poet's corner" of NPR this morning. Treat yourself, open your copy of the "Hitchhiker's
Guide" to this "mostly harmless" planet, and find a place to hoist one in his honor! I intend to!
God's best,
Pastor Keith AKA Kristin's Dad!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Lara,
I just wanted to say "42" to you on this the birthday of Douglas Adams. It was reported as such
in the "poet's corner" of NPR this morning. Treat yourself, open your copy of the "Hitchhiker's
Guide" to this "mostly harmless" planet, and find a place to hoist one in his honor! I intend to!
God's best,
Pastor Keith AKA Kristin's Dad!
yay for NYC
it was a quality day.
i'm exhausted, but will summarize... lunch, guggenheim, wandering, mars, stomp
stomp was absolutely incredible! a fantastic time was had by all :-P
and just in case dinner on mars, an art museum, and the NY performance of stomp isn't enough for you to consider it an exciting day... here's one more thing we did today that you (probably haven't):
picture with rupert jee (of hello deli fame on letterman's show):
night y'all! :-P
i'm exhausted, but will summarize... lunch, guggenheim, wandering, mars, stomp
stomp was absolutely incredible! a fantastic time was had by all :-P
and just in case dinner on mars, an art museum, and the NY performance of stomp isn't enough for you to consider it an exciting day... here's one more thing we did today that you (probably haven't):
picture with rupert jee (of hello deli fame on letterman's show):
night y'all! :-P
Thursday, March 10, 2005
apprentice, week something or another
farewell john!
same story as last week -- i thought john was fabulous at the start of the show because he seemed to treat everyone with respect and manage people well... he disproved that for the 2nd week straight, and although he was fired for bad negotiation, the treatment of stephanie and erin was pretty intolerable too... i'm glad he's gone.
on the other hand, major kudos to kendra and her team -- fabulous work to them! she hasn't disappointed me yet. she's not all excrutiatingly obnoxious and loud like some of the other contestants, and she always seems to hold her own and not just fly with the crowd... i'm hoping she makes it up til the end. it's nice to see some of the superfluous characters getting out of the way lately :-P
end of TV reviews..
tomorrow should be fun... just one more class between me and spring break... after that alliswan and i head up to NYC for the day... amidst potential rain and snow, oi... but we have enough fun inside plans that we should basically be good. i just realized though that i have no real camera film anymore, and so i'm just bringing the digital camera up for the day... doht! oh well...
anyhow, *almost* spring break! woohoo :-)
night y'all
same story as last week -- i thought john was fabulous at the start of the show because he seemed to treat everyone with respect and manage people well... he disproved that for the 2nd week straight, and although he was fired for bad negotiation, the treatment of stephanie and erin was pretty intolerable too... i'm glad he's gone.
on the other hand, major kudos to kendra and her team -- fabulous work to them! she hasn't disappointed me yet. she's not all excrutiatingly obnoxious and loud like some of the other contestants, and she always seems to hold her own and not just fly with the crowd... i'm hoping she makes it up til the end. it's nice to see some of the superfluous characters getting out of the way lately :-P
end of TV reviews..
tomorrow should be fun... just one more class between me and spring break... after that alliswan and i head up to NYC for the day... amidst potential rain and snow, oi... but we have enough fun inside plans that we should basically be good. i just realized though that i have no real camera film anymore, and so i'm just bringing the digital camera up for the day... doht! oh well...
anyhow, *almost* spring break! woohoo :-)
night y'all
& etc.
alliswan met dr. greenfield at experimental math seminar today... and she out-evil-eyed him... *that* was entertaining
retakh subbed for dr. z. this morning.... he always had a great way of phrasing things for algebra my first semester here, and today was no exception to the rule... "good morning, so doron asked that i would provide your entertainment today... so let me formulate you a theorem"
in other news, alliswan, me, ben, colleen, and colleen's friend scott (scott from the catholic center here, not from the math dept.) have tickets to see "the barber of seville" on saturday night at the state theater,... it should be quality.
end of thoughts
later dudes
retakh subbed for dr. z. this morning.... he always had a great way of phrasing things for algebra my first semester here, and today was no exception to the rule... "good morning, so doron asked that i would provide your entertainment today... so let me formulate you a theorem"
in other news, alliswan, me, ben, colleen, and colleen's friend scott (scott from the catholic center here, not from the math dept.) have tickets to see "the barber of seville" on saturday night at the state theater,... it should be quality.
end of thoughts
later dudes
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
for the record
diary of a mad black woman was phenomenal....
tonight's post-movie entertainment for me and alliswan has included dinner and watching 4 episodes of a random show called "firefly" that leigh and her college roommate april are in love with... april flew into town this afternoon and is here through sunday... it's the first time non-family has visited leigh since we started out here.
yay for random fun, eh?
time to crash.
night y'all
tonight's post-movie entertainment for me and alliswan has included dinner and watching 4 episodes of a random show called "firefly" that leigh and her college roommate april are in love with... april flew into town this afternoon and is here through sunday... it's the first time non-family has visited leigh since we started out here.
yay for random fun, eh?
time to crash.
night y'all
happy wednesday?
i was so worried this morning that sujith (who is an excellent speaker) would have a poor pizza seminar turnout today... so many of the people who usually come teach on wednesdays, so they couldn't make it... however, enough people had complained about there not being wednesday seminars this year so i gave them one, and the week right before spring break seemed the perfect time to do it. most weeks we run in the low 20s in attendance on fridays, and besides the speaker we had 15 in the audience today, so no worries; that's actually really good for a wednesday. alliswan said she enjoyed it too... and who can complain about free pizza?
however, NONE of the people who have given me crap about there needing to be wednesday pizza seminars showed up, and NO ONE who showed up today (other than alliswan and trevor who were visiting (see below about trevor)) were people who don't already come on fridays, so really, for all the lectures i've gotten about needing to do wednesday pizza seminars, i don't really feel that bad about not doing them.
anyhow, it was a success in my mind, so yay for that.
on top of that, trevor (of last year was a 1st year grad student, and was one of eric's dorm roommates, but decided to move to india to teach math instead of start his second year last fall fame) came around to visit this afternoon and came to pizza seminar too -- that was happy :-)
now, at home getting stuff done until my 2:50 while alliswan gets plenty of practice time with the piano on a neighboring campus... later, after my class, we're going to see this movie -- it's gotten highly controversial reviews (mostly Cs from the critics, but extremely high ones (mostly As) from most viewers who sign into yahoo to rate movies. so, we'll see how it is... we'll even manage to catch the last matinee of the day, so yay for saving $$ too :-P
that's all i know -- later dudes!
however, NONE of the people who have given me crap about there needing to be wednesday pizza seminars showed up, and NO ONE who showed up today (other than alliswan and trevor who were visiting (see below about trevor)) were people who don't already come on fridays, so really, for all the lectures i've gotten about needing to do wednesday pizza seminars, i don't really feel that bad about not doing them.
anyhow, it was a success in my mind, so yay for that.
on top of that, trevor (of last year was a 1st year grad student, and was one of eric's dorm roommates, but decided to move to india to teach math instead of start his second year last fall fame) came around to visit this afternoon and came to pizza seminar too -- that was happy :-)
now, at home getting stuff done until my 2:50 while alliswan gets plenty of practice time with the piano on a neighboring campus... later, after my class, we're going to see this movie -- it's gotten highly controversial reviews (mostly Cs from the critics, but extremely high ones (mostly As) from most viewers who sign into yahoo to rate movies. so, we'll see how it is... we'll even manage to catch the last matinee of the day, so yay for saving $$ too :-P
that's all i know -- later dudes!
happy wednesday?
i was so worried this morning that sujith (who is an excellent speaker) would have a poor pizza seminar turnout today... so many of the people who usually come teach on wednesdays, so they couldn't make it... however, enough people had complained about there not being wednesday seminars this year so i gave them one, and the week right before spring break seemed the perfect time to do it. most weeks we run in the low 20s in attendance on fridays, and besides the speaker we had 15 in the audience today, so no worried. alliswan said she enjoyed it too... and who can complain about free pizza?
on top of that, trevor (of last year was a 1st year grad student, and was one of eric's dorm roommates, but decided to move to india to teach math instead of start his second year last fall fame) came around to visit this afternoon and came to pizza seminar too -- that was happy :-)
now, at home getting stuff done until my 2:50 while alliswan gets plenty of practice time with the piano on a neighboring campus... later, after my class, we're going to see this movie -- it's gotten highly controversial reviews (mostly Cs from the critics, but extremely high ones (mostly As) from most viewers who sign into yahoo to rate movies. so, we'll see how it is... we'll even manage to catch the last matinee of the day, so yay for saving $$ too :-P
that's all i know -- later dudes!
on top of that, trevor (of last year was a 1st year grad student, and was one of eric's dorm roommates, but decided to move to india to teach math instead of start his second year last fall fame) came around to visit this afternoon and came to pizza seminar too -- that was happy :-)
now, at home getting stuff done until my 2:50 while alliswan gets plenty of practice time with the piano on a neighboring campus... later, after my class, we're going to see this movie -- it's gotten highly controversial reviews (mostly Cs from the critics, but extremely high ones (mostly As) from most viewers who sign into yahoo to rate movies. so, we'll see how it is... we'll even manage to catch the last matinee of the day, so yay for saving $$ too :-P
that's all i know -- later dudes!
happy wednesday?
i was so worried this morning that sujith (who is an excellent speaker) would have a poor pizza seminar turnout today... so many of the people who usually come teach on wednesdays, so they couldn't make it... however, enough people had complained about there not being wednesday seminars this year so i gave them one, and the week right before spring break seemed the perfect time to do it. most weeks we run in the low 20s in attendance on fridays, and besides the speaker we had 15 in the audience today, so no worried. alliswan said she enjoyed it too... and who can complain about free pizza?
on top of that, trevor (of last year was a 1st year grad student, and was one of eric's dorm roommates, but decided to move to india to teach math instead of start his second year last fall fame) came around to visit this afternoon and came to pizza seminar too -- that was happy :-)
now, at home getting stuff done until my 2:50 while alliswan gets plenty of practice time with the piano on a neighboring campus... later, after my class, we're going to see this movie -- it's gotten highly controversial reviews (mostly Cs from the critics, but extremely high ones (mostly As) from most viewers who sign into yahoo to rate movies. so, we'll see how it is... we'll even manage to catch the last matinee of the day, so yay for saving $$ too :-P
that's all i know -- later dudes!
on top of that, trevor (of last year was a 1st year grad student, and was one of eric's dorm roommates, but decided to move to india to teach math instead of start his second year last fall fame) came around to visit this afternoon and came to pizza seminar too -- that was happy :-)
now, at home getting stuff done until my 2:50 while alliswan gets plenty of practice time with the piano on a neighboring campus... later, after my class, we're going to see this movie -- it's gotten highly controversial reviews (mostly Cs from the critics, but extremely high ones (mostly As) from most viewers who sign into yahoo to rate movies. so, we'll see how it is... we'll even manage to catch the last matinee of the day, so yay for saving $$ too :-P
that's all i know -- later dudes!
tiiiiiiiired
woohoo for 9:50am classes? it was raining when i left the house, and snowing when i headed back home... then alliswan and i managed to stay awake for "a bug's life", went to the theater to see "hitch" (which is a cute film), then dinner, pool, and go dog go with scott, and finally "bend it like beckham" back at my place.
big academic news of the day is that eric was dissuaded by several older graduate students from asking the professor he'd been thinking he wanted for an advisor to be his advisor. thinking no longer that that's a brilliant idea, he's actually considering asking my advisor how interested he'd been on them working together, only eric's more interested in number theory than dr. z., so either eric would probably have to expand his interests and not work on what he's been planning on, or he'll have to look elsewhere. that would be so freakin hilarious if he ended up with the same advisor too, although if he doesn't have the same one as me, chances are he'd end up with the same one as john, so somehow or another we all share :-P
in even other news, the boy house is breaking up... all year eric, sam, mike, jared, scott, and john have shared a house. mike's getting his own place next year though, and yesterday sam, john, and paul (one of the first years) signed up to get their own new place... this leaves scott, eric, and jared to get their own place, so so much for them being all in one place henceforth.
anyhow, done rambling, that's the debriefing of the day.
big academic news of the day is that eric was dissuaded by several older graduate students from asking the professor he'd been thinking he wanted for an advisor to be his advisor. thinking no longer that that's a brilliant idea, he's actually considering asking my advisor how interested he'd been on them working together, only eric's more interested in number theory than dr. z., so either eric would probably have to expand his interests and not work on what he's been planning on, or he'll have to look elsewhere. that would be so freakin hilarious if he ended up with the same advisor too, although if he doesn't have the same one as me, chances are he'd end up with the same one as john, so somehow or another we all share :-P
in even other news, the boy house is breaking up... all year eric, sam, mike, jared, scott, and john have shared a house. mike's getting his own place next year though, and yesterday sam, john, and paul (one of the first years) signed up to get their own new place... this leaves scott, eric, and jared to get their own place, so so much for them being all in one place henceforth.
anyhow, done rambling, that's the debriefing of the day.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
what a day...
yesterday i mean, of course... today's barely begun!
all sunday night i let my roommates entertain alliswan since i had tons of hw... i ended up up til 1:30 and waking up at 7:30, so yeah... not an exciting host at all :-P
then, to top it off, yesterday i had class from 9:45-1 and then from 2:45-5:30... i dropped alliswan off for the morning at the music building so she could practice piano, this also involved her geting up 1-1.5 hours earlier than normal b/c my schedule is crazy :-P... after that she got quality time with the math library while i had my afternoon classes.
eric went to subway with us and then said we could come over to his house for pool... he did a few of his magic tricks for us, but now that i've seen just about all of them he gets hesitant to do a lot in front of me because he doesn't want me to figure out the secrets behind them... oh well... he was a good sport.
then, talk about the worst half dozen games of pool ever :-P... most of the time none of the three of us (alliswan, eric, and me, we rotated playing in pairs) could get a good break... my attempts at breaking normally involved hitting the cue ball into a pocket without even hitting the other balls... it was fun though... although i think i tired eric out with my ridiculousness throughout :-P heh... as if that never happens :-P
here's a measure of how exhausted i am though (and alliswan too!)... last night around 10:15, back at my house, we sat down to watch "a bug's life", which is like an hour and a half long... by 10:45 we were both totally conched out... oops! i guess we both *needed* the sleep then at least :-P
otherwise this week is totally off... instead of having combo (my hardest class) just monday and friday, we have it both of those AND today on account of class being cancelled (prof out of town) last friday... on the other hand, dr. z. (my advisor) is at a conference today through the weekend, so although we had class yesterday, he has a guest lecturer on thursday and i have no reading class again til after spring break... doht!
oh well... today is just that one class and then i'm free til tomorrow again :-P alliswan and i plan to see "million dollar baby" this afternoon, and we're having dinner with another of my friends tonight... it shall be a party :-P
must eat breakfast, then off to class... woohoo?
later dudes :-P
all sunday night i let my roommates entertain alliswan since i had tons of hw... i ended up up til 1:30 and waking up at 7:30, so yeah... not an exciting host at all :-P
then, to top it off, yesterday i had class from 9:45-1 and then from 2:45-5:30... i dropped alliswan off for the morning at the music building so she could practice piano, this also involved her geting up 1-1.5 hours earlier than normal b/c my schedule is crazy :-P... after that she got quality time with the math library while i had my afternoon classes.
eric went to subway with us and then said we could come over to his house for pool... he did a few of his magic tricks for us, but now that i've seen just about all of them he gets hesitant to do a lot in front of me because he doesn't want me to figure out the secrets behind them... oh well... he was a good sport.
then, talk about the worst half dozen games of pool ever :-P... most of the time none of the three of us (alliswan, eric, and me, we rotated playing in pairs) could get a good break... my attempts at breaking normally involved hitting the cue ball into a pocket without even hitting the other balls... it was fun though... although i think i tired eric out with my ridiculousness throughout :-P heh... as if that never happens :-P
here's a measure of how exhausted i am though (and alliswan too!)... last night around 10:15, back at my house, we sat down to watch "a bug's life", which is like an hour and a half long... by 10:45 we were both totally conched out... oops! i guess we both *needed* the sleep then at least :-P
otherwise this week is totally off... instead of having combo (my hardest class) just monday and friday, we have it both of those AND today on account of class being cancelled (prof out of town) last friday... on the other hand, dr. z. (my advisor) is at a conference today through the weekend, so although we had class yesterday, he has a guest lecturer on thursday and i have no reading class again til after spring break... doht!
oh well... today is just that one class and then i'm free til tomorrow again :-P alliswan and i plan to see "million dollar baby" this afternoon, and we're having dinner with another of my friends tonight... it shall be a party :-P
must eat breakfast, then off to class... woohoo?
later dudes :-P
Monday, March 07, 2005
oi
this is good: i'm going to sleep at 1am instead of much later
this is bad: i think that despite killing a forest worth of scratch paper in the past week and many hours of time down the drain, i'll still get a crappy grade on this week's combo hw
this is retarded: on alliswan's flight here today, although they departed the gate early, twice while in the air they had to stop making progress and just fly figure 8s for a bit because of control towers telling them to wait along the way... result: they landed 50 minutes late... blasted continental
this is happy: despite weird airline issues, alliswan is safely here and once i survive tomorrow, it'll be a good week
this is trouble in the making: my brother apparently dished out $120 for a tatoo on his shoulder and the parents don't know yet but i do
this is funny: http://remarque.org/~grabiner/linear.html
night
this is bad: i think that despite killing a forest worth of scratch paper in the past week and many hours of time down the drain, i'll still get a crappy grade on this week's combo hw
this is retarded: on alliswan's flight here today, although they departed the gate early, twice while in the air they had to stop making progress and just fly figure 8s for a bit because of control towers telling them to wait along the way... result: they landed 50 minutes late... blasted continental
this is happy: despite weird airline issues, alliswan is safely here and once i survive tomorrow, it'll be a good week
this is trouble in the making: my brother apparently dished out $120 for a tatoo on his shoulder and the parents don't know yet but i do
this is funny: http://remarque.org/~grabiner/linear.html
night
Saturday, March 05, 2005
gizoogle revisited
i ran my new quotes page through it, and there's definitely some unrepeatables in the gizoogle version, but here's a couple that made me just about bust a gut laughing: (you can check out my actual website for the original quotes)
goodman . Hollaz to the East Side: it's kinda like gang bangin' this classroom n trippin' tha universe is full of rooms of thugz blunt-rollin' analysis 2 straight from long beach nigga.
ian: (shrieks)
jared: that's one way ta makes lara want ta pass out
jared: so let's assume f is an NFE, you knizzow, funky assst function killa.
Mathemizzle. tha ideal n norm of all careful weed-smokin'. ~G. Stanley Hizzy
back to work
goodman . Hollaz to the East Side: it's kinda like gang bangin' this classroom n trippin' tha universe is full of rooms of thugz blunt-rollin' analysis 2 straight from long beach nigga.
ian: (shrieks)
jared: that's one way ta makes lara want ta pass out
jared: so let's assume f is an NFE, you knizzow, funky assst function killa.
Mathemizzle. tha ideal n norm of all careful weed-smokin'. ~G. Stanley Hizzy
back to work
some fun
eric says this site layout is way too formal and professional looking for what i use it for... that's all the more inspiration to keep it ;-)... i changed the right sidebar back... i missed their font and didn't like how my graphics looked.
in other news, i've completely updated my website see here in the past 24 hours too... there's 3 additional pages, one of which is math quotes scoured from my mass emails over the past 6 years, which i had lots of fun putting together.
the other bit of fun is, in checking away messages just now, i came acros a plug for gizoogle.com... it translates your webpage for you as follows: the first page of my website (above) actually reads:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Welcome to my website!
Who am I? Short answer, a second year grad student at Rutgers University. Long answer, well, you'll have to explore a bit more of my websites to even begin to get an idea.
I created this website to house my professional papers and other scholarly work. If you want to see a more goofy and moderately outdated version of me and what I've been up to, you should visit my old website at www.geocities.com/lkp42.
If, however, you're interested in seeing the papers, presentations, journal articles, etc. that I have put together over time and learning about what interests me most, you've come to the right place. Each of the links on the menu at the left is pretty self explanatory. I hope you'll take the time to explore them all!
At any rate, welcome to the site!
Current news: (3/5/05)
what with 3 classes, an ongoing research project with Dr. Z., a seminar to organize, and working on the DIMACS REU, leisure time is rare, but this is probably my favorite semester (mathematically) since I've been at Rutgers. Spring break will find me in South Carolina, May will get me a quick trip home to Tennessee, but there's a neverending supply of homework to fill the time inbetween.
This site created and maintained by lpudwell@math.rutgers.edu.
Last updated 5 March 2005.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
but gizoogle reproduces it as:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Welcome ta mah website!
Who am I? Short answa, a second year grad student at Rutga University. Long brotha well, you'll hizzle ta explore a bit mizzle of mah websites ta even begin ta git an idea.
I created this website ta hizouse mah professizzles bitch n otha scholarly work. If you wizzle ta see a mizzy goofy n moderately outdated version of me n wizzle I've Been up to, you should visit mah old website at www.geocities.com/lkp42.
If, playa you're interested in mackin' tha drug deala presentizzle journal articles, etc so sit back relax new jacks get smacked. tizzy I have put togetha over tizzy n rhymin' `bout what interests me M-to-tha-izzost, you've come ta tha right place. Each of tha links on tha menu at tha left is pretty sizzay explanatory. I hope you'll takes tha time ta explore tizzle all!
At any rate, welcome ta tha site!
Current news: (3/5/05)
what wit 3 classes, an ongo'n research project wit Dr. Z., a seminar ta organize, n work'n on tha DIMACS REU, leisure time is rare, but this is probably mah favorite gangsta (mathematically) since I've been at Drug Deala. Spr'n break will find me in South Carolizzles May wizzy git me a quick tizzle home ta Tennessee, but there's a hatin' supply of homework ta fill tha time inbetween cuz I'm fresh out the pen.
This site created n maintained by lpudwell@math.rutga.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
i fairly cracked up over the ordeal. enjoy!
meanwhile, back to combo hw for me :-P
in other news, i've completely updated my website see here in the past 24 hours too... there's 3 additional pages, one of which is math quotes scoured from my mass emails over the past 6 years, which i had lots of fun putting together.
the other bit of fun is, in checking away messages just now, i came acros a plug for gizoogle.com... it translates your webpage for you as follows: the first page of my website (above) actually reads:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Welcome to my website!
Who am I? Short answer, a second year grad student at Rutgers University. Long answer, well, you'll have to explore a bit more of my websites to even begin to get an idea.
I created this website to house my professional papers and other scholarly work. If you want to see a more goofy and moderately outdated version of me and what I've been up to, you should visit my old website at www.geocities.com/lkp42.
If, however, you're interested in seeing the papers, presentations, journal articles, etc. that I have put together over time and learning about what interests me most, you've come to the right place. Each of the links on the menu at the left is pretty self explanatory. I hope you'll take the time to explore them all!
At any rate, welcome to the site!
Current news: (3/5/05)
what with 3 classes, an ongoing research project with Dr. Z., a seminar to organize, and working on the DIMACS REU, leisure time is rare, but this is probably my favorite semester (mathematically) since I've been at Rutgers. Spring break will find me in South Carolina, May will get me a quick trip home to Tennessee, but there's a neverending supply of homework to fill the time inbetween.
This site created and maintained by lpudwell@math.rutgers.edu.
Last updated 5 March 2005.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
but gizoogle reproduces it as:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Welcome ta mah website!
Who am I? Short answa, a second year grad student at Rutga University. Long brotha well, you'll hizzle ta explore a bit mizzle of mah websites ta even begin ta git an idea.
I created this website ta hizouse mah professizzles bitch n otha scholarly work. If you wizzle ta see a mizzy goofy n moderately outdated version of me n wizzle I've Been up to, you should visit mah old website at www.geocities.com/lkp42.
If, playa you're interested in mackin' tha drug deala presentizzle journal articles, etc so sit back relax new jacks get smacked. tizzy I have put togetha over tizzy n rhymin' `bout what interests me M-to-tha-izzost, you've come ta tha right place. Each of tha links on tha menu at tha left is pretty sizzay explanatory. I hope you'll takes tha time ta explore tizzle all!
At any rate, welcome ta tha site!
Current news: (3/5/05)
what wit 3 classes, an ongo'n research project wit Dr. Z., a seminar ta organize, n work'n on tha DIMACS REU, leisure time is rare, but this is probably mah favorite gangsta (mathematically) since I've been at Drug Deala. Spr'n break will find me in South Carolizzles May wizzy git me a quick tizzle home ta Tennessee, but there's a hatin' supply of homework ta fill tha time inbetween cuz I'm fresh out the pen.
This site created n maintained by lpudwell@math.rutga.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
i fairly cracked up over the ordeal. enjoy!
meanwhile, back to combo hw for me :-P
Friday, March 04, 2005
new look... same great taste?
as you can see, totally gave the blog a makeover tonight... i was chatting with a friend as she was setting up her own blog for the first time, and it inspired me to give mine a new look... the picture i had up was only a couple months old, but pretty sure i had the navy background with the neon dots for at least a year?
anyhow, this one caught my eye, and i had a picture of me that color coordinated with it ;-), so it works... only thing that bugs me a little is that they had pretty script headings for "recent posts" and "archives" on the side column, but since i add so much extra stuff to the side column and wanted it uniform, i made my own jpegs for each section over there. although i used the same color for the background as their original images did, (i used the dropper in paint shop pro and copied the hex code, so i mean EXACTLY the same color) it doesn't look quite as nice... also i didn't really like any of the script fonts on my computer as well, so i ended up with the current one instead. the lack of uniformity of font size over there bothers me a little, but for now, it'll do.
enjoy the new look, bet on how long it will last, and be assured that just because this page looks all formal now, that doesn't mean i'm going to give up my unformal rambly/venting posts, which are generally the norm.
be parties one and all!
night :-P
anyhow, this one caught my eye, and i had a picture of me that color coordinated with it ;-), so it works... only thing that bugs me a little is that they had pretty script headings for "recent posts" and "archives" on the side column, but since i add so much extra stuff to the side column and wanted it uniform, i made my own jpegs for each section over there. although i used the same color for the background as their original images did, (i used the dropper in paint shop pro and copied the hex code, so i mean EXACTLY the same color) it doesn't look quite as nice... also i didn't really like any of the script fonts on my computer as well, so i ended up with the current one instead. the lack of uniformity of font size over there bothers me a little, but for now, it'll do.
enjoy the new look, bet on how long it will last, and be assured that just because this page looks all formal now, that doesn't mean i'm going to give up my unformal rambly/venting posts, which are generally the norm.
be parties one and all!
night :-P
emails
i really really hope that this works out:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Lara,
Professor Zielberger suggested you might be an appropriate student for
DIMACS to sponsor to attend the Graph Coloring meeting in Budapest on April
21 and 22. Would you be interested in attending and perhaps giving a
talk? If so, please send me a few sentences on your background and
interest in graph coloring. It would be helpful to get this information as
soon as possible.
Thanks,
Brenda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brenda IS the person who hired me for the REU so she knows me... while i have a knowledge of classical results in the area, my graph theory research is not in coloring though, so there might be others who get picked ahead of me... we'll see, and hopefully i'll know soon!
otherwise, i was amused with myself for sending this one to the math grad list today:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
greetings all,
worried that your spring break plans will interfere with catching a
quality pizza seminar next week? been frustrated all year that there has
not yet been a wednesday seminar? then i have good news for you:
next week, pizza seminar will be on WEDNESDAY, march 9 at 11:30am (note
the temporary change in BOTH day and time). (insert name) will be
speaking; title and abstract follow.
i'll remind you again next week -- hope to see you wednesday!
lara
(attached title and abstract)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mostly i was just proud of the first paragraph ;-)
hello weekend? alliswan comes on sunday, and it'll be a good week with the exception that monday's gonna stink and i have a hard homework assignment due first thing monday AM, so if she can be super patient the first 24 hours she's here, i think we'll be set :-P
later dudes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Lara,
Professor Zielberger suggested you might be an appropriate student for
DIMACS to sponsor to attend the Graph Coloring meeting in Budapest on April
21 and 22. Would you be interested in attending and perhaps giving a
talk? If so, please send me a few sentences on your background and
interest in graph coloring. It would be helpful to get this information as
soon as possible.
Thanks,
Brenda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brenda IS the person who hired me for the REU so she knows me... while i have a knowledge of classical results in the area, my graph theory research is not in coloring though, so there might be others who get picked ahead of me... we'll see, and hopefully i'll know soon!
otherwise, i was amused with myself for sending this one to the math grad list today:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
greetings all,
worried that your spring break plans will interfere with catching a
quality pizza seminar next week? been frustrated all year that there has
not yet been a wednesday seminar? then i have good news for you:
next week, pizza seminar will be on WEDNESDAY, march 9 at 11:30am (note
the temporary change in BOTH day and time). (insert name) will be
speaking; title and abstract follow.
i'll remind you again next week -- hope to see you wednesday!
lara
(attached title and abstract)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mostly i was just proud of the first paragraph ;-)
hello weekend? alliswan comes on sunday, and it'll be a good week with the exception that monday's gonna stink and i have a hard homework assignment due first thing monday AM, so if she can be super patient the first 24 hours she's here, i think we'll be set :-P
later dudes
this is kinda funny :-P
this all takes place on IM this morning:
me: colleen says she cries the WHOLE TIME she plays basketball with you
me: hey, so colleen has a question that she's scared to ask you
me: will you sing the blues for her while playing basketball?
scott is no longer idle at 10:54:21 AM.
me: soooooooooo, will you?
scott: she cries while we're playing basketball? i don't understand
me: you haven't noticed?
me: how much attention do you pay to her?
me: because she misses me so much!
scott: maybe if she asks me and explains why she wants me to sing the blues, then i will
scott: but not otherwise
scott: i pay plenty of attention to her
scott: colleen: scott - i have a huge favor to ask.
would you pretty please sing the blues to me while
we're playing basketball today?
colleen: it's the only way i can make it two hours without lara
scott: you guys are too much ~~ i need to recruit eric before i step into this ring
me: what are you talking about?
me: this is our default mentality
me: i think you should sing colleen the blues later
me: it would cheer her up
me: she's already quite distraught about leaving the house
me: colleen says you better recruit eric fast if you're scared of us, she's feeling more hurt by the nanosecond that you dont' respond
me: me: hey sam, is scott in eric's room?
sam: um. wha?
me: is scott in eric's room right now?
sam: i don't know.
sam: what reason do you have to suspect that?
me: scott: you guys are too much ~~ i need to recruit
eric before i step into this ring
me: seeing if he's lying and delaying response to his
conversation with me and colleen :-P
sam: i don't think he is.
me: LIAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
me: i'm hurt
me: and colleen's even more hurt
scott is away at 11:11:42 AM.
colleen plans to show up to basketball this morning acting to be in tears and see if she can get scott to sing for them.
colleen and i can cause so much excess drama it's not funny... well, actually, yeah it kinda is :-P
later dudes
me: colleen says she cries the WHOLE TIME she plays basketball with you
me: hey, so colleen has a question that she's scared to ask you
me: will you sing the blues for her while playing basketball?
scott is no longer idle at 10:54:21 AM.
me: soooooooooo, will you?
scott: she cries while we're playing basketball? i don't understand
me: you haven't noticed?
me: how much attention do you pay to her?
me: because she misses me so much!
scott: maybe if she asks me and explains why she wants me to sing the blues, then i will
scott: but not otherwise
scott: i pay plenty of attention to her
scott: colleen: scott - i have a huge favor to ask.
would you pretty please sing the blues to me while
we're playing basketball today?
colleen: it's the only way i can make it two hours without lara
scott: you guys are too much ~~ i need to recruit eric before i step into this ring
me: what are you talking about?
me: this is our default mentality
me: i think you should sing colleen the blues later
me: it would cheer her up
me: she's already quite distraught about leaving the house
me: colleen says you better recruit eric fast if you're scared of us, she's feeling more hurt by the nanosecond that you dont' respond
me: me: hey sam, is scott in eric's room?
sam: um. wha?
me: is scott in eric's room right now?
sam: i don't know.
sam: what reason do you have to suspect that?
me: scott: you guys are too much ~~ i need to recruit
eric before i step into this ring
me: seeing if he's lying and delaying response to his
conversation with me and colleen :-P
sam: i don't think he is.
me: LIAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
me: i'm hurt
me: and colleen's even more hurt
scott is away at 11:11:42 AM.
colleen plans to show up to basketball this morning acting to be in tears and see if she can get scott to sing for them.
colleen and i can cause so much excess drama it's not funny... well, actually, yeah it kinda is :-P
later dudes
Thursday, March 03, 2005
apprentice, etc.
networth, dudes, what happened? john was one of my favorites.... until this episode... he was always so levelheaded and up til this week i don't remember anything from him but hard work and treating everyone with respect... he definitely fell down on both counts this time, although mostly the latter. you don't have to like someone to pull your weight and temporarily follow their orders...... audrey was one of my favorites until this episode too. although she fought for her chance to be project manager and she works hard, she was too hands off about it throughout, and to her own detriment since now she's gone.
kendra continues to impress me... magna was pretty below the radar this episode, but kendra's idea is what seemed to pay off most of all for them... i don't see her bickering, just working and helping pull things off well, whether they're assigned to her or not.
anyhow, good episode, next week looks fun too.
in other news, dinner with the speaker after experimental math seminar was quality. the speaker talked about some continued fractions results relating to catalan type problems, ordered trees, and pattern avoidance... since pattern avoidance is exactly what dr. z. has me working on right now, the last bit of the talk especially was right up my alley.
anyhow, dinner was the speaker, another professor from the speaker's home university, a rutgers prof i'd never met before, dr. z., drew (a postdoc who works with dr.z. a lot), mohammud (one of dr. z.'s students working on a totally different problem than me), and vince (the student whose work i'm learning all about), and me. it was good for me in that dr. z. bragged on what i'd been working on a bit (so i felt affirmed that he really is pleased with my progress... he's 99% of the time appearing so happy that i can't really read degrees of happiness out of him yet :-P)... i sat next to vince and across the table from mohammud, so i talked a bit with both of them... mohammud's talked to me regularly before, but when vince and i were the first two to arrive to the restaurant, and we chatted for 5-10 minutes before the rest came, i think that was probably a good thing... just in that we've now interacted for more than 3 minutes outside of class :-P zeilberger brought me and stuff i'm doing up from time to time throughout the conversation... so for a little the whole table was discussing my upcoming spring break road trip to SC even :-P... zeilberger also commented that he thinks i should attend the 4th annual permutation conference in sweden next spring (the 3rd annual one is next week in florida, dr. z. is the invited keynote speaker, vince is giving or associated with at least 2 of the other talks)... you wouldn't think math is a very exotic discipline being all paper, pencil, chalkboard, and computer, but, you'd be surprised how many places there are that people go for conferences. math people really are, at least the top notch ones, pretty well travelled. and even the ones not at top ranked universities are at least locally well travelled. yay academia :-P
anyhow math-socially it was a good afternoon for me :-P
now, i'm pondering crashing early... it's been a long week and i'm fighting getting sick, so sleep could be a very very good thing.
later dudes :-P
kendra continues to impress me... magna was pretty below the radar this episode, but kendra's idea is what seemed to pay off most of all for them... i don't see her bickering, just working and helping pull things off well, whether they're assigned to her or not.
anyhow, good episode, next week looks fun too.
in other news, dinner with the speaker after experimental math seminar was quality. the speaker talked about some continued fractions results relating to catalan type problems, ordered trees, and pattern avoidance... since pattern avoidance is exactly what dr. z. has me working on right now, the last bit of the talk especially was right up my alley.
anyhow, dinner was the speaker, another professor from the speaker's home university, a rutgers prof i'd never met before, dr. z., drew (a postdoc who works with dr.z. a lot), mohammud (one of dr. z.'s students working on a totally different problem than me), and vince (the student whose work i'm learning all about), and me. it was good for me in that dr. z. bragged on what i'd been working on a bit (so i felt affirmed that he really is pleased with my progress... he's 99% of the time appearing so happy that i can't really read degrees of happiness out of him yet :-P)... i sat next to vince and across the table from mohammud, so i talked a bit with both of them... mohammud's talked to me regularly before, but when vince and i were the first two to arrive to the restaurant, and we chatted for 5-10 minutes before the rest came, i think that was probably a good thing... just in that we've now interacted for more than 3 minutes outside of class :-P zeilberger brought me and stuff i'm doing up from time to time throughout the conversation... so for a little the whole table was discussing my upcoming spring break road trip to SC even :-P... zeilberger also commented that he thinks i should attend the 4th annual permutation conference in sweden next spring (the 3rd annual one is next week in florida, dr. z. is the invited keynote speaker, vince is giving or associated with at least 2 of the other talks)... you wouldn't think math is a very exotic discipline being all paper, pencil, chalkboard, and computer, but, you'd be surprised how many places there are that people go for conferences. math people really are, at least the top notch ones, pretty well travelled. and even the ones not at top ranked universities are at least locally well travelled. yay academia :-P
anyhow math-socially it was a good afternoon for me :-P
now, i'm pondering crashing early... it's been a long week and i'm fighting getting sick, so sleep could be a very very good thing.
later dudes :-P
ode to reading classes
i really wish i could read dr. z. better.
we had our reading class today. i was frustrated with myself because i'm generating all this data, and i decided a couple days ago there was a much more efficient way (for me to make it readable) to have the computer output things (although it takes longer to sort it out nicely in the computer first)... anyhow, this week i came in with basically the same data i had last week, just organized prettier and the computer still working on doing more. you can see what i've done so far here, but chances are it won't make much sense to you :-P
anywho, that and i have been working on reading an old paper of dr. z.'s related to this too... today he told me my output file (link above) was beautiful and he was impressed by it and we discussed the "statistics" on the first page a little... then he showed me some of his maple packages for computing asymptotic estimates of sequences. he had me take over the computer and run an example to show that i was paying attention... then he asked me some random question about the golden ratio that i wasn't sure at all what he was getting at. he commented that it was too open ended of a question anyhow, and we answered it together, but i felt like i missed my chance to show i have decent intuition for the day instead of just taking notes and nodding and showing what i organized of what the computer spit out... oops.
experiemental math seminar in 45 minutes. i generally go but have been busy on the nights that they've gone out to eat with the speaker so far. this week though, dr. z. invited me to join again (and he has invited me every time), so i figured it's probably not a bad thing to go and socialize with dr. z. and some of his other students and some of the other profs. hopefully i'll end up sitting with someone i actually have something to talk about with since none of my usual crew are involved in that branch of the department... doht :-P
anyhow, here i am at home midday (which is highly odd, especially on a thursday), for the sole purpose of setting up the VCR to record joey and apprentice, figuring i'll get back home before them, but just in case :-P turns out joey is a rerun anyways so i could have stayed on campus and figured that dinner would be over by 8:30... oh well :-P
tomorrow, i was all excited that i have no 9:50am class, but i got a request from some of the valpo profs running the new REU there this summer that they didn't get enough minority applicants and they want to know if they could get addresses to contact some of the good applicants we couldn't take on here to advertise to. i ran it by the higher ups, and then while the staff person i'm working with was willing to do it monday, since it's kinda my favor to valpo people, i felt like i should do it, so tomorrow morning, i'm hanging out in chris's office and going through that mightily huge stack of applications again... just for fun :-P
aren't you jealous? :-P
now, to get myself back to campus... later dudes :-P
we had our reading class today. i was frustrated with myself because i'm generating all this data, and i decided a couple days ago there was a much more efficient way (for me to make it readable) to have the computer output things (although it takes longer to sort it out nicely in the computer first)... anyhow, this week i came in with basically the same data i had last week, just organized prettier and the computer still working on doing more. you can see what i've done so far here, but chances are it won't make much sense to you :-P
anywho, that and i have been working on reading an old paper of dr. z.'s related to this too... today he told me my output file (link above) was beautiful and he was impressed by it and we discussed the "statistics" on the first page a little... then he showed me some of his maple packages for computing asymptotic estimates of sequences. he had me take over the computer and run an example to show that i was paying attention... then he asked me some random question about the golden ratio that i wasn't sure at all what he was getting at. he commented that it was too open ended of a question anyhow, and we answered it together, but i felt like i missed my chance to show i have decent intuition for the day instead of just taking notes and nodding and showing what i organized of what the computer spit out... oops.
experiemental math seminar in 45 minutes. i generally go but have been busy on the nights that they've gone out to eat with the speaker so far. this week though, dr. z. invited me to join again (and he has invited me every time), so i figured it's probably not a bad thing to go and socialize with dr. z. and some of his other students and some of the other profs. hopefully i'll end up sitting with someone i actually have something to talk about with since none of my usual crew are involved in that branch of the department... doht :-P
anyhow, here i am at home midday (which is highly odd, especially on a thursday), for the sole purpose of setting up the VCR to record joey and apprentice, figuring i'll get back home before them, but just in case :-P turns out joey is a rerun anyways so i could have stayed on campus and figured that dinner would be over by 8:30... oh well :-P
tomorrow, i was all excited that i have no 9:50am class, but i got a request from some of the valpo profs running the new REU there this summer that they didn't get enough minority applicants and they want to know if they could get addresses to contact some of the good applicants we couldn't take on here to advertise to. i ran it by the higher ups, and then while the staff person i'm working with was willing to do it monday, since it's kinda my favor to valpo people, i felt like i should do it, so tomorrow morning, i'm hanging out in chris's office and going through that mightily huge stack of applications again... just for fun :-P
aren't you jealous? :-P
now, to get myself back to campus... later dudes :-P
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
rent, etc.
for having heard the soundtrack a million times, finally seeing it staged (rent), made several things more clear as to what's going on... it was a fantastic show, and i'm glad i got to see it finally :-) it was going to be eric, sam, scott, ben, sarah, and me, but sarah had to cancel last minute on us so paul went with her ticket instead... me and a bunch of the boys.. woohoo :-P
i sat between scott and eric and i think i (kinda but not exactly) annoyed eric with questions before the show and during intermission. doht. as if that never happens :-P
now i come home at 11:30pm and both my roommates are out studying elsewhere... leigh always works at the math building anymore, so i'm used to her being gone... colleen's gone at night a lot too, but she said she was going to be home tonight... the usual drill of having the house to myself at all hours again, blah :-P
i should be working or asleep.
later dudes.
i sat between scott and eric and i think i (kinda but not exactly) annoyed eric with questions before the show and during intermission. doht. as if that never happens :-P
now i come home at 11:30pm and both my roommates are out studying elsewhere... leigh always works at the math building anymore, so i'm used to her being gone... colleen's gone at night a lot too, but she said she was going to be home tonight... the usual drill of having the house to myself at all hours again, blah :-P
i should be working or asleep.
later dudes.
two quotes
one funny, one setting up a potentially humorous situation:
scott comes into the office while i'm working (i don't have class til 2:50 and i've been free since 11), and the following ensues:
scott: hi lara! you're coming tonight, right?
me: to rent? yeah of course!
scott: dude... all 3 of your guys are gonna be there, what are you gonna do?
(all 3 guys meaning him, eric, and ben, my like 3 best friends here, only usually i hang out with each separately and they all joke i'm not capable of hanging out with more than one of them at once :-P)
me: dude, i'll be talking to sarah
scott: (starts laughing so hard he falls over) *that* was the best answer ever
quote 2... really just an email exchange...
On Wed, 2 Mar 2005, Lara wrote:
> Dr. Butler,
>
> I just sat in on the recitation section you assigned to me, and on the way
> out of class, I ran into a friend (Ben Bunting) who had just finished
> teaching a workshop section.
>
> When you assign workshops for us to visit, can I request to sit in on
> Ben's 9:50am Wednesday morning class?
>
> Thanks much!
>
> Lara
>
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:24:54 -0500 (EST)
From: T.Butler
To: Lara
Subject: Re: request
Ms. Pudwell, Yes, I will assign you to observe Mr. Bunting. T. Butler
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
conclusion, i get to sit in on ben's rowdiest calc 2 section sometime after break... this could be amusing :-P
scott comes into the office while i'm working (i don't have class til 2:50 and i've been free since 11), and the following ensues:
scott: hi lara! you're coming tonight, right?
me: to rent? yeah of course!
scott: dude... all 3 of your guys are gonna be there, what are you gonna do?
(all 3 guys meaning him, eric, and ben, my like 3 best friends here, only usually i hang out with each separately and they all joke i'm not capable of hanging out with more than one of them at once :-P)
me: dude, i'll be talking to sarah
scott: (starts laughing so hard he falls over) *that* was the best answer ever
quote 2... really just an email exchange...
On Wed, 2 Mar 2005, Lara wrote:
> Dr. Butler,
>
> I just sat in on the recitation section you assigned to me, and on the way
> out of class, I ran into a friend (Ben Bunting) who had just finished
> teaching a workshop section.
>
> When you assign workshops for us to visit, can I request to sit in on
> Ben's 9:50am Wednesday morning class?
>
> Thanks much!
>
> Lara
>
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:24:54 -0500 (EST)
From: T.Butler
To: Lara
Subject: Re: request
Ms. Pudwell, Yes, I will assign you to observe Mr. Bunting. T. Butler
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
conclusion, i get to sit in on ben's rowdiest calc 2 section sometime after break... this could be amusing :-P
up and at it
it's wednesday... i usually sleep til 10am on wednesday... no such luck today... it's 9am, and i've been up since 8... in an hour, i get the pleasure of sitting in on an undergraduate diff eq class for engineers... woohoo?
really, it's just part of the TA training class the math department does. everyone my year took it last spring except me and eric. i should be glad that the rutgers department spends a whole semester going over the drill and with observations and practice before throwing you in a classroom... most math departments have a day or week long program right before your first semester and then toss you right in to the system.
so far every monday for the past month we've met and discussed rutgers policies and classroom preparation and last week the prof came in and purposely did things wrong the whole time and we had to stop him when we caught his goofs and correct them... then he invited a few students to the front to try as well.
this week, i sit in on a recitation. my friend mike, who helps me lots with combo hw, is the TA... he's very clear and good at explaining things, it'll just be funny to watch him in front of a room of 30 undergrads. the concept of recitations is completely foreign to me... valpo prides itself on small classes that are only taught by profs, so if nothing else, this is good for me to see how the system works.
next week we all come on monday to discuss our recitation observations... after break we visit workshops (an extended more interactive form of recitation... we could be assigned to teach either), and then discuss... and then we each have to get videotaped while giving a practice lecture with our classmates being the students and harassing us with questions, discuss the video with the prof individually, and then we're officially math dept. certified TAs... so much more to do than most schools... oi :-P
anyhow, i get to be an undergrad again for an hour, but without homework due... i'll actually understand every word of the lecture -- woohoo :-P
breakfast, then off to observe... later dudes :-P
really, it's just part of the TA training class the math department does. everyone my year took it last spring except me and eric. i should be glad that the rutgers department spends a whole semester going over the drill and with observations and practice before throwing you in a classroom... most math departments have a day or week long program right before your first semester and then toss you right in to the system.
so far every monday for the past month we've met and discussed rutgers policies and classroom preparation and last week the prof came in and purposely did things wrong the whole time and we had to stop him when we caught his goofs and correct them... then he invited a few students to the front to try as well.
this week, i sit in on a recitation. my friend mike, who helps me lots with combo hw, is the TA... he's very clear and good at explaining things, it'll just be funny to watch him in front of a room of 30 undergrads. the concept of recitations is completely foreign to me... valpo prides itself on small classes that are only taught by profs, so if nothing else, this is good for me to see how the system works.
next week we all come on monday to discuss our recitation observations... after break we visit workshops (an extended more interactive form of recitation... we could be assigned to teach either), and then discuss... and then we each have to get videotaped while giving a practice lecture with our classmates being the students and harassing us with questions, discuss the video with the prof individually, and then we're officially math dept. certified TAs... so much more to do than most schools... oi :-P
anyhow, i get to be an undergrad again for an hour, but without homework due... i'll actually understand every word of the lecture -- woohoo :-P
breakfast, then off to observe... later dudes :-P
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
a mass apology
my brother called earlier. we talked for less than 10 minutes. 3 or 4 of those were actually me talking to tina, his kinda-but-not-exactly girlfriend, who i'd never talked to before, so that was entertaining.
my brother informs me that my mom's put out with me and thinks i suffer from a chronic bad attitude lately, and while he understands that i'm just working a lot lately and don't want to talk when i'm in the middle of work, she doesn't quite get it.
i'm guessing that part of her commentary to my brother spurs off of an email i wrote her last week that said (in summary): "i was surprised to hear just days before it was going to happen that grandma was having surgery. even if little bits of news along the way don't seem that important, it's easier for me to input the big news when i hear the little news inbetween, please respect that and keep me better informed in the future" i didn't go off on any tirade or anything, just basically said what i just typed... but apparently she found it inappropriate and is irritated with me now, but not telling me so.... oi.... but our last few phone calls (me and mom) haven't been that great either...
most of that story has nothing to do with any of you, except for one thing:
i realize that from an outside perspective, my communication habits have been moderately sporadic lately... you may try to call or email or whatever and i probably come across as short because i'm in the middle of working on stuff or just really focused on other things, and then you see pictures of me being a goof with like leigh last night or whatever... this is just to say, it's all a timing thing lately... if you happen to hit me on the 5% of the time that i actually am taking a break and ready to chat/be silly, you luck out... otherwise, i tend to keep tunnel vision. really, i'm not playing favorites, i'm just working even harder than before. i think in large part this started when i got an advisor and thus am actually taking stuff i really enjoy this semester for once... it's probably going to be like this most of the next several years too.
my brother is pretty good at rolling with the punches, then again he's known me and been dealing with me week to week since he was born... but i'm guessing that the idea that it's really just i want to be left alone to work lately isn't necessarily clear universally. so, if i've offended/irritated you in the past several weeks, i'm sorry, and please just be patient and bear with me... several of you i'll see soon, and we'll have fun then, others of you, maybe wait til may and i'll be a person again for a little at least :-P
in summary... i work... a LOT lately... just because i may come across from time to time (more lately than usual) as if i don't want to give you the time of day or talk, isn't indicative of my mood towards you. but it is a biproduct of my work ethic lately. i'm sorry on the off chance i've offended you lately... please just accept the above as it is, and just be aware of why i am the way i am lately :-P
the end
my brother informs me that my mom's put out with me and thinks i suffer from a chronic bad attitude lately, and while he understands that i'm just working a lot lately and don't want to talk when i'm in the middle of work, she doesn't quite get it.
i'm guessing that part of her commentary to my brother spurs off of an email i wrote her last week that said (in summary): "i was surprised to hear just days before it was going to happen that grandma was having surgery. even if little bits of news along the way don't seem that important, it's easier for me to input the big news when i hear the little news inbetween, please respect that and keep me better informed in the future" i didn't go off on any tirade or anything, just basically said what i just typed... but apparently she found it inappropriate and is irritated with me now, but not telling me so.... oi.... but our last few phone calls (me and mom) haven't been that great either...
most of that story has nothing to do with any of you, except for one thing:
i realize that from an outside perspective, my communication habits have been moderately sporadic lately... you may try to call or email or whatever and i probably come across as short because i'm in the middle of working on stuff or just really focused on other things, and then you see pictures of me being a goof with like leigh last night or whatever... this is just to say, it's all a timing thing lately... if you happen to hit me on the 5% of the time that i actually am taking a break and ready to chat/be silly, you luck out... otherwise, i tend to keep tunnel vision. really, i'm not playing favorites, i'm just working even harder than before. i think in large part this started when i got an advisor and thus am actually taking stuff i really enjoy this semester for once... it's probably going to be like this most of the next several years too.
my brother is pretty good at rolling with the punches, then again he's known me and been dealing with me week to week since he was born... but i'm guessing that the idea that it's really just i want to be left alone to work lately isn't necessarily clear universally. so, if i've offended/irritated you in the past several weeks, i'm sorry, and please just be patient and bear with me... several of you i'll see soon, and we'll have fun then, others of you, maybe wait til may and i'll be a person again for a little at least :-P
in summary... i work... a LOT lately... just because i may come across from time to time (more lately than usual) as if i don't want to give you the time of day or talk, isn't indicative of my mood towards you. but it is a biproduct of my work ethic lately. i'm sorry on the off chance i've offended you lately... please just accept the above as it is, and just be aware of why i am the way i am lately :-P
the end
continental drift cam
eric sent me this link a couple weeks ago and i never posted... it's pretty great... make sure you read the data too :-P
continental drift cam
continental drift cam
fun with snow
as per www.weather.com
Winter storm along the Eastern Seaboard
8:30 P.M. ET 2/28/2005
Tom Moore, Sr. Meteorologist, The Weather Channel
Snow moved rapidly into Southern New England and Upstate New York on Monday evening. Parts of eastern New York, northeast Pennsylvania and interior sections of New England can expect six to ten inches of snow. Snow on Cape Cod and extreme southweast Massachusetts will change to rain overnight. Wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph at times are possible. Snow will end or change to freezing drizzle in the Baltimore-Washington area, overnight, after a relatively light accumulation. Snow will wind down before morning around Philadelphia and New York City after four to eight to inch accumulation. Parts of the Boston area may see 7 to 12 inches of snow by Tuesday morning. Heavier amounts of snow will fall in Maine late Monday night and Tuesday. Overall, snowfall from this storm, especially in the major metro areas from Washington to New York, will fall a little short of initial expectations due to an intrusion of dry air up through the Middle Atlantic region, marginal temperatures and a more easterly track of the main storm system.
as a result, check out leigh, me, and leigh's first snowman ever :-P
the snow was powdery and not good for sticking but leigh was way too excited to try to make one that she persisted for the better part of two hours to build the bottom part of the snowman... we rolled that thing uphill up 4 blocks (carrying it over cross streets) before we got it home... oi :-P
we also made snow angels, only before leigh threw her scarf in the house in preparation for making hers, she fell flat out on her back on the porch, and ended up making one right there in front of our door instead... that was pretty great too :-P
that about sums it up... lots of snow... lots of silliness... lots of work to do tomorrow :-P
later dudes
Winter storm along the Eastern Seaboard
8:30 P.M. ET 2/28/2005
Tom Moore, Sr. Meteorologist, The Weather Channel
Snow moved rapidly into Southern New England and Upstate New York on Monday evening. Parts of eastern New York, northeast Pennsylvania and interior sections of New England can expect six to ten inches of snow. Snow on Cape Cod and extreme southweast Massachusetts will change to rain overnight. Wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph at times are possible. Snow will end or change to freezing drizzle in the Baltimore-Washington area, overnight, after a relatively light accumulation. Snow will wind down before morning around Philadelphia and New York City after four to eight to inch accumulation. Parts of the Boston area may see 7 to 12 inches of snow by Tuesday morning. Heavier amounts of snow will fall in Maine late Monday night and Tuesday. Overall, snowfall from this storm, especially in the major metro areas from Washington to New York, will fall a little short of initial expectations due to an intrusion of dry air up through the Middle Atlantic region, marginal temperatures and a more easterly track of the main storm system.
as a result, check out leigh, me, and leigh's first snowman ever :-P
the snow was powdery and not good for sticking but leigh was way too excited to try to make one that she persisted for the better part of two hours to build the bottom part of the snowman... we rolled that thing uphill up 4 blocks (carrying it over cross streets) before we got it home... oi :-P
we also made snow angels, only before leigh threw her scarf in the house in preparation for making hers, she fell flat out on her back on the porch, and ended up making one right there in front of our door instead... that was pretty great too :-P
that about sums it up... lots of snow... lots of silliness... lots of work to do tomorrow :-P
later dudes
