miscommunication breeds tiredness

so, last post, i detailed my crazy saturday to Krivoklat and back.

Saturday morning, two other Czech students who didn't go on the crazy Saturday trip suggested a Sunday trip to Kutna Hora, which sounded great at the time.... when we returned to our dorm at 11:30pm on Saturday, tired, muddy, and exhausted, we read the email about Sunday closer -- they wanted to meet us at 7:45am at the main train station (30-40 minutes of public transportation from the dorm)... that sounded painful sleep-wise, so one of my students looked up the cellphone number of one of the organizers for the Sunday trip and requested to roll it back to 9:45,... she got voicemail but asked him to email us if that was ok, otherwise, we'd drag ourselves out of bed early.

not knowing if the Czech students would get our message in time, Megan, Ben, and I decided that we would be up by 6 to check email and still go on the trip on practically no sleep if they didn't write us back (it would be a shame for NO ONE to show up for a cool trip just because of the previous day's activities, right?)... so at 6:45, ben and i (on 4 hours of sleep each), and megan (on 15 minutes of sleep... she alex, and natalia were partying downtown most of the night) headed to the train station... we waited until 8, got back to the dorm exhausted at 8:40 and checked email, only to discover that the Czechs emailed us 3 minutes after we left the dorm saying 9:45 was ok by them.

alas, the pain of not having cellphones....

that said, ben and megan decided to go back to sleep rather than make 2 trips to the train station in one day... i, having been up since 5:30 was determined to go see i silver mine no matter how little sleep i had... and with the later time, kelsey and elizabeth joined instead.

we moved sloooooooooowly all day, but we toured a really cool cathedral, a silver mine, and an ossuary (there's an old monastary in kutna hora where they took part of the graveyard and made it into something else, so the remains of 40,000 people who died in the plagues and the hussite wars a few centuries ago were sanitized and whitewashed and used to make the decor of the place. it's soooo many bones that it's not exactly possible to process that they're really human... it was a strange place.

after our adventure to the east, we headed back to prague to meet up with everyone else for the krizik fountain... it's a fountain lightshow that runs 4 times a night every night and i had seen it last year. this year we watched a show set to dvorak's new world symphony. it was quality.

all that said, you've read my weekend... with two crazy adventures outside of prague, and all of 4 hours of sleep between the two, i'm exhausted. but hey, i'm seeing things i've never seen before for all the time i've spent in czech republic in the past, and that's fantastic. :)

yay europe.

math lecture time.

the end. :P

how to spend a busy day in czech republic...

8am: get out the door and head down to breakfast

8:30am: leave your hotel for the train station
... miss a tram by 2 minutes, and the metro by 30 seconds, causing you and 7 others to have to RUN a mile and a half to catch a train at 9:25

10am: learn to play a crazy czech card game called "cucumber" while sitting on the train

10:45am: learn that you've just missed the next train that you were supposed to take... wander for an hour in a small czech town

noon: catch next train to crazy old castle in western czech republic

1:30pm: tour crazy old castle with tour guide who doesn't speak english... rely on strangly phrased paper translations to get through

3pm: leave castle and agree with your 8 travelling companions to take on a 10 kilometer hike on one of the czech national hiking trails.

4pm: after confronting the steepest hill on earth and surviving, get drenched in a colossal thunderstorm while still 2km from the nearest building... find that the nearest shelter that you can get into really is your original destination, still another 5km away, continue in the rain

5pm: evetually the rain stops, you're still dripping wet

6pm: arrive in small czech village and gretly enjoy several beers and some good fish and potatoes

7:30pm: discover that the bus your czech friends planned to take you home doesn't come any more on saturdays, and that there is no public transport leaving said village again until tomorrow

8pm: hike 3km more to one of your czech friend's parents' summer cottage...

9pm: now, at the cottage, load up on orange juice, get dry socks, and watch the sunset, get a ride to nearest large town (where we had lunch earlier in the day)

10pm: board train to prague

11pm: still wet and muddy, arrive in prague

11:30pm: tired, but content, arrive back at dorm...

more such fun tomorrow... hilarious pictures in a month. :P

jaded?

a week or so ago before i left for europe, my mom commented how excited she was getting to come to europe next month, and couldn't imagine how much i was jumping up and down.

i responded, "frankly, i'm not jumping. this is old hat for me. i'm content, but not bouncing."

she told me "oh i forgot, you've done this so much you're jaded"

i wouldn't say jaded, but...

this europe trip is a bit different for me than before. budapest is a special case in and of itself, but other than budapest and the states, cities i've been to out of the US have definitely been for short touristy visits, even if they're primarily for a conference or whatever too.

with so much time spent in prague last summer (2.5 weeks), and with having visited it 4 years ago as well, i've seen all the major touristy stuff at least once, probably twice, possibly even more times. i know my way around town decently well. sure, i think it's gorgeous and i enjoy wandering... but i don't have a major list of things to do on the agenda, and i don't feel the need to run myself ragged. i have a desire to wander and avoid tourists and take it easy, and that's about it. last year i had a bunch of things to knock of my list... this year, i page through my tourist book and go "seen that, seen that too, ride past that every morning on the way to campus for math lecture,... "... not jaded, just... it's different.

tonight is a copy from last year: we're taking the REUers to see don giovanni in the estates theater (the theater that mozart directed the original performance of it in years and years ago)... last year's students weren't as into arts and went and had a good time... this year's students are major excited about it, so it'll be even more fun. :) i'm looking forward to it.

not jaded, not unappreciative, just taking it easy and being thankful for the chances that my job gets me for immersing myself in other cultures beyond the point of being one of the tourist mob :-P

happy weekend y'all!

yay for europe

charles bridge is awesome... every other time i've been there before today, it's been during the afternoon or at night and it's SWARMING with tourists... this morning, elizabeth, ben, natalia and i woke up at 6, got breakfast, and were out the door by 7:30 to go see the bridge a little less crowded and it was beautiful. i like escaping tourists. :) prague is still as beautiful as ever.

math lecture time. more another day... happy wednesday to all y'all!

:)

i neglected to mention this last night, but....

reason #867 this year's REU kids are awesome.

as me and the 6 undergrads were loading the bus to take us to the airport on sunday, all the other students came out of the dorm to say goodbye. the students were all hugging each other, some crying, etc., all sad to start to have to break up the awesome group of 30 they've been all summer.

i stood off to the side out of the way. luke was the first one to offer to give me a hug, after everyone else was just about done with each other... then marla realized "you guys, none of us have been saying goodbye to lara, she needs in too!" and then they all (all 30 of them) surrounded me in the middle of a giant pile-on group hug. it was rather cool.

now, i'm much better rested than yesterday, i've listened to the first REU seminar talk (on cycles in graphs for the past 1.5 hours), and am about to spend a quality afternoon wandering the streets of prague with my students. spending the morning in a european classroom listening to math brings back good warm fuzzy memories. :) (yes, i'm weird... )

in non-my students' news. with 7 of us here, the 4 girls were assigned a 4 person suite, the 2 guys were assigned a 2 person suite, and i have half of a suite to myself... the other half seems to be quite well occupied like someone's been living there for the past year, with winter coats, etc. still hanging up... but i haven't met the other occupant... we'll see if i acquire mystery suite-mate during my stay here, or if i just get to coexist with some other girl's things for 2 weeks... mystery indeed. :P

done rmabling... i'm off... a great day to all y'all!

brief greetings from prague!

i'm here!

...and i'm tired... i've been awake for 31 hours.

no internet through the university yet, but i bargained with one of my students: email time on her laptop in our dorm in exchange for borrowing my european socket converter.

we had an awesome klm flight over with personalized movies and video games and such so that none of us slept... then we decided to all stay awake until it was actually night here... now that it's 9pm prague time (eastern US time + 6), it's definitely time to crash.

it's been a good but exhausting day... math lectures begin first thing in the morning!

more later.

night!

this is funny

Feline felon suspected in glove thefts

now off to europe... really.

overflowing....

i'm a weird person.

i'm mostly packed and ready to go. i'm excited about visiting prague and budapest again. it's gonna be a good month.

but last night i couldn't handle anything or anyone. i knew scott was coming over to say goodbye before i went away for a month, and that was fine, but when he brought over the girl he likes, who i hadn't met before (hadn't met before was the problem, not the first half), i snapped.... not directly at anyone, because no one's to blame, but in general... basically "let's hang out with lara before she goes away for a month!" became "let's all play a board game or two together while lara hides in her room"

most people love being around other people and enjoy meeting new people, etc., etc., etc.... me, i get overwhelmed sometimes.

it's not that i'm not excited about europe, there's just a lot of other factors at play.
* i think the emotion level has been pretty high for me the past few days, with saying goodbye to 60 percent of my REU students.
* although i love europe, i hate packing and i hate long flights
* i'm generally not capable of sleeping on airplanes so i won't really sleep again until monday night.
* last time i left the country for a month my grandma died, and there was nothing i could do about it (including make it for the funeral)
* it takes a lot of energy to be the lara who does a great job in front of people every single day for the summer with the REU... don't get me wrong, i love it, but sometimes they 100 percent happy and helpful shell has to crack..... i've got about 6 hours to get back to being that for another 2.5 weeks.

all of these together plus some more, and i was in a very brittle/fragile mood. when scott showed up with his friend i whispered "no offense, but i can't handle meeting new people today"... i met new people anyhow, but later on in the evening i cracked... scott said i was acting how i do when i'm mad at him, but he knew i wasn't mad at anyone, so he wasn't quite sure how to relate to me... when he gave up on me being in a good mood and left me alone for a bit, i couldn't stop crying for a bit... not that i'm sad or anything, just, it was like the emotional tension/overflow release just opened up and i couldn't stop until all the built up emotion (good/bad/or otherwise) leaked out.

notably, i made a *fantastic* new impression on scott's friend (extreme sarcasm), and today my eyes are incredibly dry today from the amount of tears that involuntarily came out of them last night. it's gonna be a long 24 hours, but 24 hours from NOW, i'll be in prague, mid afternoon, possibly hiding in a garden or showing my REU kids charles bridge. *that* is a happy thought.

more updates from europe. :P

interesting quote:

"There is a small correlation between a woman's being single and her having gone to college. There are many confounding factors, however, and whether there's any causal relation between the two phenomena is unclear, as is its direction, if there is one. It may be that a woman's tendency towards "spinsterhood" is a contributory cause to her attending college, rather than the other way around."

reactions?

:)

this is adorable

yay circuit city!

just a note that they continue to be on my good list.

i talked with a guy about the warranty on my monitor on monday morning. last night, my new monitor showed up on the doorstep.

isntead of a 15 inch screen i now have a 17 inch, also with integrated speakers. my guess is that the problems before had something to do with the cord connecting the monitor to the computer itself, and my old screen had that cord built into the monitor (i.e. to replace the cord, you must replace the whole unit)... on this new one, the cord unplugs on both ends which i consider a bonus.

only con: old monitor had a place to plug in headphones to the monitor when i listened to music at night, this one doesn't... but that's what volume control is for, right? i'll take bigger screen over headphone plug any day. :P

now, all i have to do is put the old monitor in the box the new one came at and drop it off at the ups store down the street... super easy, and a monitor with good color = happy lara! :)

the end.

2000 more words in picture form

i walked throught the lobby of the REU building an hour before the farewell dinner tonight and luke (one of the students this summer) was working at a mostly blank board... i came through 20 minutes later and it looked like this:



what got me the most was what it says in green right by his hand... students are great!

in other news, check this out:



138 = my best game of bowling ever in my life (i got 115 on the game right before this, and 113 earlier this week, but these three are the first time ever i've broken 110! yay lara!

the end.

fabulous quote

"Math is Hard. Unfortunately, people are just not that good at mathematics. While intensely enjoyable, it also requires hard work and self-discipline. I know of no serious mathematician who finds math easy. In fact, most, after a few beers, will confess as to how stupid and slow they are." ~thomas a. garrity (All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School)

daily news dose

And the top prize in Hungary uprising quiz is...

...

completely unrelated: this is a hilarious picture

if a picture's worth a thousand words... here's 5000

random shots that i thought deserved posting (well at least the first 4)...

i recently got the link to the website where the czech REUers have been posting their pictures.

picture #1 is from the labyrinth game 2 weeks ago. this is me with josef and bernard in the rain just after we found the final station of the labyrinth. i thought the light from the cars going by and the streetlight in the background that looks like the sun at like 1am made it fairly cool...



picture #2 is me and 3 of the czechs when they had me over for dinner last week :)



picture #3 is even more entertaining... last week i tried to convey in words what dinner looked like and how the color was unexpected to the chefs even though tastewise it was great... now you can see what i mean... here's martin helping me dish up. :P



picture #4 can be summed up as "isn't my math pretty?" (this is what i was up to in my office the half hour before i met with dr. z. today)



picture #5 maybe doesn't rank as highly as the others but it's here because i'm proud my hair stayed like this ALL DAY LONG today (yes, i'm weird)



... just wait... in another month the posted pictures have *got* to improve since starting in 6 days, i'll have a month to take pictures in europe. :)

night y'all!

kudos to cc

for a bit my computer monitor has intermittently been screwing up colors (red looks like black, etc.). it's finally persistent enough of a problem that i decided i should actually do something about it before my warranty expires next month while i'm in europe.

i tried calling on saturday and had my phone on hold on speakerphone the whole time i got ready to leave the house, but gave up on waiting... this morning, i waited 4 minutes on hold before getting picked up... but once i did, the customer service dude was extremely helpful and patient... and now they're mailing me a new monitor and i just have to put the old one in the box they send the new one in and mail it back on their bill... not bad. now, hopefully it comes before i leave for prague, otherwise leigh is in charge, and i have to wait a month to admire the new results. ;-)

the end.

innumeracy, etc.

today was a spectacular day,... after i got home from church, i met up with scott to study for the afternoon. originally the plan was "grab lunch from the nearest subway and then go to a nearby park to study for a few hours"

instead, our route was this:
click it!

A: we started off at scott's house in piscataway, and then went to
B: south plainfield for subway sandwiches
C: when we missed a turn due to construction we meandered around until we caught the garden state parkway near clark, NJ, and by then we decided we were on an adventure and headed to
D: south orange. this is where seton hall university is. it's also home to a decent size (for jersey) mountain which overlooks newark and manhattan... we studied there for the better part of 5 hours before we grabbed ice cream at the south orange train station and then drove for
E: perth amboy, and studied at the beach on the shore of the raritan river mouth for a few more hours... after that we drove through
F: old bridge (within a block of my church), and had dinner at baja fresh before heading back to scott's place
G: (=A) once back in piscataway, we split the bottle of bull's blood (the most famous kind of Hungarian wine) that we bought last weekend while reading random math books for fun... i finished innumeracy by paulos, and scott's been reading my copy of letters to a young mathematician by stewart. since we've both been reading about the philosophy of being a mathematician as well as doing our own work, there was quite a bit of discussion of "when did you know you wanted to be a mathematician?, what percent of you really is one?, etc. etc. etc." which kept us both entertained for hours.

finally,... 13 hours after i left to meet up with scott this morning, i got back home. it was a fantastically productive day.

this is a rambling post anyhow, so i'll end with the 4 quotes of innumeracy that made me laugh the most in the final chapter or so: (enjoy!)

"Adding, though pleasant and easy, is often inappropriate... Recall that mathematics as simple as '1 + 1 = 2' can be thoughtlessly misapplied: If 1 cup of popcorn is added to 1 cup of water, we do not end up with 2 cups of soggy popcorn."

"There was once a state legislator in Wisconsin who objected to the introduction of daylight saving time despite all the good arguments for it. He maintained sagely that there is always a trade-off involved in the adoption of any policy, and that if daylight saving time were instituted, curtains and other fabrics would fade more quickly."

"Statistical analyses of works whose authorship is disputed (books of the Bible, The Federalist Papers, etc.) also depend on related clever ways of gleaning information from uncooperative (because dead) sources."

"Zealots, true believers, fanatics, and fundamentalists of all types seldom hold any truck with anything as wishy-washy as probability. May they all burn in hell for 10^10 years (just kidding), or be forced to take a course in probability theory."

night y'all!

lara + bookstore = trouble

as if I don't already have a corner of my room that looks like this:

plus a wall full of books in my parents' house, plus half a bookcase more of my own books in the living room of this house...

seriously, books have like a magnetic attraction to laras.  i see them, i skim them, i MUST buy them.

It adds to the connundrum that I've bought and inherited books for years at a faster rate than I have time to read them.  I'm currently halfway through Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences by John Allen Paulos, which I've owned since i inherited it from a professor my senior year of undergrad, and never got around to.  I expect to finish it in the next couple days.

After that, the stack of "recently" purchased (defined as in the last 4 months) books for me to read includes:
* About A Boy by Nick Hornby
* A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
* A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper by John Allen Paulos
* I Think, Therefore I Laugh by John Allen Paulos

plus several math books i've gotten out of the library for "fun" this summer.

tonight, scott and i got dinner and then spent the better part of an hour wandering around barnes and noble... this is lethal for my wallet... i seriously can't help myself.

newest additions as of tonight:
* The Number Devil by Hans Magnus Enzensberger
* Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
* Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
* Annie Freeman's Fabulous Travelling Funeral by Kris Radish

The first 3 I've considered buying for awhile and finally caved.  the last three were on a buy 2 get the 3rd free shelf, so the last one (which I'd never heard before, but was intrigued by the jacket) can be considered the freebie. :P  it has very bipolar reviews on amazon, so we'll see...

summary: i'm a bookaholic.  i really CAN'T help myself.

the end.

my job is a cultural experience... ;-) (... or yay for slovak food!)

irst... non-cross-cultural adventure of the day: we've had crazy thunderstorms all evening... earlier tonight before dinner, i was working at my computer, with a fan running in my window 15 feet away... when it started POURING out of nowhere, my fan served as a jet propeller and sprayed water all over my room, including me,... 15 feet away.... this was not quite as fun as the rest of the evening :P

as if i haven't written this 10 times already, i LOVE my summer job. 30 kids are here at rutgers doing math/computer science research with various professors. 7 of these students are from charles university in prague. about once a week this summer, i've gladly taken them grocery shopping and rather enjoy it. as a thank you, tonight they invited me over for dinner.

on the menu was halusky, which is apparently the most popular slovak dish on earth. they're potato dumplings with cheese sauce... the consistency wasn't something i'd quite had before, but they were great. (you can read more about it here or here.)

the humorous thing was, trying to make czech and/or slovak dishes with american ingredients, they run into some conundrums. apparently halusky is usually white or beige in color, and ours were definitely a strange gray due to american potatoes and flour. never mind the presentation, they were fantastic. :) it was also fun to just sit around for 3 hours with the czech students and chat. seriously, my job gets me in touch with fantastic people. :)

to prague in 11 days... yay summer! :)

awesome

You Are 20% Girly

Um... you're a guy, right? If not, you're the most boyish girl in the world. And for you, that's probably the ultimate compliment.

How Girly Are You?

i passed!

so much for my master to do list. it was wishful thinking. i made it through items 1-6, but haven't thought a lick about 7 or 8.

the main thing to note is -- #5 is DONE! no more studying french just to translate 3 pages of math... i'm no longer ABDALE, i'm just ABD (all but dissertation)... really now. no more hoops to jump through except the thesis. it's a good feeling.

7 and 8 had a chance of getting done if #5 hadn't been so hard to do. i meant to take the exam at 1:30, but the REU seminar lasted until 2, and by then something had come up and the prof i meant to take the exam with had something else come up. he emailed me around 4 that he'd be around at 5:30 or sometime tomorrow. i got his email at 5:20 so i waited outside his office. after another series of crazy events, he showed up around 6, by which time the math library was closed (oops)... luckily, he had some french math books in his office, and i got to translate 3 pages of one of those... and as of 7 tonight i'm done!

tomorrow i have a super exciting (maybe) meeting with the undergraduate chair of the math dept. he wants to discuss the results of the computer survey i invented and sent to all the rutgers calc 3 kids last semester. in return for trying to improve the public university math world, i get extra meetings... oh well. :P it means that they care enough to listen for at least a little bit, right?

the plan for the night? forget about the rest of my to do list and crash with a movie.

the czechs are making me dinner tomorrow night. i'm excited.

the end.

the plot today?

(1) shower, breakfast, etc.
(2) figure out where to get a new international student ID card
(3) study on campus
(4) REU seminar on Prague/planning meeting with the Czechs of what to do in Prague
(5) take my French language exam, hopefully pass
(6) long walk
(7) write up and submit the referee report for the math paper i read this weekend
(8) edit my paper one more time that got accepted two weeks ago and resubmit

if i pass #5, then 5, 7, and 8 will be 3 major things off my to do list that i should have done for awhile.... wish me luck!

press release

click me

they make my job sound so much more professional than i do ;)

victory!

i convinced my parents to go see a ballet at the national opera house with me when we're all in budapest next month. mom was totally game... it took half an hour to get dad on board. $35 tickets for floor seats can't be beat. :)

"taming of the shrew" here we come.

cheap ways for math people to have fun...

(1) (a la this afternoon) -- read student reviews of my teaching from the past semester.

(2) (a la last night) -- invite your 30 summer REU students out to dinner, and then over to your house for board games until midnight

(3) (a la tonight) -- go to "plays in the park" and see "the scarlet pimpernel" for $5 with one of your roommates, reading math books for the two hours ahead of time so as to have a good seat

(4) (a la last weekend) -- go over to scott and eric's house, and while playing pool with eric, edit scott's math in clever ways: how many crazy nonsense edits can you catch?

a crazy night of czech-organized fun (or why i just walked 11 miles in the rain)

a couple of weeks ago, some of my Czech REU students sent out an email with the following description:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Labyrinth is a night game usually for teams with two members. The labyrinth consists of several important positions chosen by orginazers in advance. Each team begins at a starting position and its task is to leave the labyrinth (to find the final position).

Positions are marked with letters. At every position you will find instructions that tell you where you can go next. Typically, there is also a question that should help you decide where to go. If you give the correct answer it leads you to the finish in the shortest possible way. Otherwise, the way will be probably longer.

Positions are located in an area of few square kilometers and the game usually takes 2-8 hours depenidng on teams abilities to give correct answers.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, tonight was the night...

About 13 of us ended up playing, and while we originally laughed at the 8 hour estimate, i just spent nearly 6 hours out and about giving it a go, and i didn't finish in the most straightforward way.

Here's how it worked. Over a several square mile spread there were 40 different stations. Each station had a multiple choice question (about math, general science, world history, etc.) Each answer had a letter with it. And each letter corresponded to a new question. A right answer got you to finish quickly. A wrong answer took you a longer way. So for example, our first question was
Question B:
The 65th Numerous Ideonus is
W: 3.28
delta: 54
eta: 1644
U: 1848
(i made up all but the last answer), and U is the correct one so you then go to station U. Each team had a map of all the stations, but some of them were hard to find. In particular:

"A large rectangle-like bench off a rocky path" had us laughing and feeling like we were out of some spooky movie wandering through the woods at night in the rain shining 3 flashlights all over the place to try to find the next clue

and the last station (the one that says "congrats! you're done!" was on a gravel island in the middle of the (flooding) raritan river... you had to ford a cross stream of mud to get there, but it was worth it to see it!

the penultimate station (we found the last one just before it so we didn't have to go out again) was inside the dorm where they served you tea and cookies (a welcome source of relief from the rest of the stations!) and the multiple choice question was "what kind of tea did you just drink?"

the winners finished in about 3 hours and visited 12 stations to find a correct path to the finish. we collaborated with another team to each get a valid path, and ours ended up being 17 stations long. there was a LOT of back and forth across the playing area though.

to summarize: consider this satellite map (courtesy of google): the yellow ring is the playing area, the blue dots are roughly where the stations were, and the light reddish squiggle is the path my team took through it from 7:30pm until nearly 2am. it was fun, but it was crazy... according to my pedometer we went over 11 miles in that time. (in the rain).

.

tomorrow is lazy american fun :)... no long walking, just stuffing our faces with thai food, and then board games at my house. my feet will thank me for the break. ;)

night y'all!

happy 4th?

through a series of random happenstance i ended up watching fireworks by myself from my 6th floor math building office... at least i got to see some... in fact, in just the 180 degrees i could see, i saw parts of at least a dozen shows, but i was within a mile of the one i had intended to go to, so i had an excellent view with no bad traffic for the main one i meant to see...

things that occur to me:

(1) all around the world, people celebrate all kinds of things by lighting huge balls of fire and shooting them in the air. when you watch it up close it's awe-inspiring... when you watch it happening many places far away simultaneously, it's kinda humorous that that's the thing to do. it makes you (or at least it makes me) wonder who originally thought this would be a brilliant idea and why.. i mean you can look up answers like this, but seriously... try to imagine the mind of the first dude who decided this would be a good idea. it's funny.

(2) i really am tired of people. i'm tired of how group dynamics and new relationships screw with how people interact. some people are still fantastic and know how to still be a good friend even after they've gotten involved with someone new, but 3/4 of the time anymore it seems to screw things up. i'm tired of people not keeping promises and becoming unreliable for all kinds of reasons, this or otherwise. i know that there are always people i can count on, but the number of them seems to be growing fewer and i hate that. maybe there is some truth to the "americans have no close friends anymore" article i posted a few weeks ago...

end of brain dump... happy 4th?

:)

(mom): happy monday
(mom): are you familiar with mark harris - find your wings
(mom): i just heard it, love the words cuz they speak to me of you
(mom): love ya

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(lyrics)

surveys and other new things

in case you're wondering...

since i joined myspace i have access to way more surveys sent my way than i'd care to fill out. however, they are fun once in awhile, i just don't have the need to put them out as bulletins like a number of my myspace friends do. i'll just keep them in blog-land instead. (see previous three entries).

in other news.

new stuff lately!

new CD: Jenny sent me The Johnny Cash Children's Album as a birthday present. it's quite catchy.

new books: when i got paid on friday, i ordered A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper and I Think, Therefore I Laugh, both by John Allen Paulos. i plan for them to be recreational reading while in Europe in a few weeks

new camera: since my film one died in iceland (and i haven't found a place willing to fix it yet), and my old digital one has been finicky, i ordered this guy instead... it should get here tomorrow. 75% off and good reviews can't be beat!

the end.

sentences.

Finish each sentence..... erase my answers and put your own in.....

1) My ex is... non-existent.

2) Maybe I should... study French

3) I love... permutations

4) I don't understand... analysis

5) I lost... my desire to interact with people in groups of more than 3 or 4 a long time ago.

6) People say that I... am a good TA

7) Sex... is for marriage.

8) Love is... a myth.

9) Somewhere, someone is... proving a cool theorem.

10) I always... enjoy a good thunderstorm.

11) Forever is... countably infinite (or is it?)

12) I never want to... go blind.

13) I think the current President.. has a good heart, but isn't perfect.

14) When I wake up in the morning I... eat grits and watch the news.

15) Life is full of... math.

16) My past... was a rollercoaster at times.

17) I get annoyed when... people do their job inefficiently.

18) I wish... life didn't cost so much money.

19) My dog is... very furry and happy.

20) Tomorrow I am... going to study French and work on a lot of math stuff.

21) I have low tolerance for... caffeine.

22) If I had a million dollars I would... pay off my debts, buy a blue harley, visit antarctica, share, and invest the rest.

23.) My future... is full of math.

i'm only 22.5% girly... probably even less. (awesome.)

WHAT YOU HAVE:
[] You have over 10 bottles of nail polish
[] You have a designer purse
[] You have something from Abercrombie
[] You have had fake nails
[] You are promised or have a car for your 16th bday
[] You have clothes or shoes or accesories for your pet
[] You have at least 1 designer item of clothes
[] Your pet is a chihuahua, pomeranian, or siamese
[] You have a swimming pool
[] A pink comforter, walls or sheets
TOTAL: 0

ARE YOU:
[X] Blonde
[] Outgoing
[] Fun
[] Rich
[] Dumb at times
[x] Near your cell phone right now
[] Going out with anyone now?sorta?
[] using your cell phone right now?
[] Listening to pop or top 40 music?
[] Wearing makeup now?
[] A shopaholic?
[] A shoe freak?
TOTAL: 2

DO YOU LIKE:
[x] Puppies
[x] Kitties
[] Makeup
[] Glitter
[x] Guys
[] Money
[] Pink the color
[] Pink the brand by Victoria's Secret
[] Shopping
[X] Candy
[X] Talking
[X] Laughing
[] Jewelry
[] Shoes
[] Love
[X] Chick flicks (sometimes)
ToTAL: 7

DO YOU SHOP AT/ BUY:
[] Hollister
[ Abercrombie & Fitch
[] American Eagle
[] Aeropostale
[] Claire's
[] Express
[] The limited
[] Club libby lu
[] Kitson
[] Jimmy Choo
[] Armani
[] Juicy Coutore
[] Sephora
[] Versace
[] Fendi
[] Deb
Total: 0

DO YOU SAY:
[] Slut
[] fuck
[] Bitch
[] Biatch
[] Whatever
[] Oh my god/gosh
[] That is so fetch
[] I heart you
[]Fugly
[]That's hot!!!!
[] Cali
[] Babe
[]Plush
[] Cutie
[] Hottie
TOTAL: 0

OTHER:
[] In your school picture are you wearing something pink?
[] Do you type like this: // && ~* ;; ::. __
[] Have you gone to mall in the past 3 days
[] Do you not play sports?
[x] Do you wear jewelry every day? (just earrings, since if i go without them long enough i can't find the holes again)
[] Do you dye your hair?
[] Do you have nail polish on right now?
[] do you take all those magazine quizzes like "Does he like you?"?
[] Is your favorite holiday Valentine's Day?
[] Do you have a crush on Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise?
[] Have you met a celebrity?
[] Have you ever written your first name with his last name?
TOTAL: 1

DO YOU OR HAVE YOU READ:
[] Seventeen
[] Cosmogirl
[] Teen people
[] Teen vogue
[] Teen
[] Justine
[] Prom magazines
[] Ellegirl
[] J-14
[] M
[] Ym
[] Cosmopolitan
[] Glamour
[] Marie Claire
[] Elle
[] Vogue
[] Us weekly
[] Star
[] Tabloids
[] Gossip Girl
[] The clique series
[] The a-list series
[] The mates, dates series
[] The Georgia Nicholson Series
[] The it girl series
[] The au pairs
[] The hookup artist
[] The dating game
[] South Beach
[] Ttyl
[] Ttfn
[] The lovely bones
TOTAL: 0

HAVE YOU SEEN:
[x] Legally blonde
[x] Legally blonde 2
[x] Mean Girls
[] American Pie
[] Not another teen movie
[X]Josie and the Pussycats
[x] Never been kissed
[] Aquamarine
[] The hot chick
[] Beauty shop
[x] Miss congeniality
[x] Miss congeniality 2
[] Beautiful
[] Just my luck
TOTAL: 7

HAVE YOU EVER/ DO YOU WATCH:
[]America's next top model
[] Project runway
[] Next
[] My super sweet 16
[] Soaps
[] Hannah Montana
[] Unfabulous
[] Zoey 101
[] Lizzie Mcguire
[] Desperate Housewives
[] The simple life
[]8th & Ocean
[x] Friends
[X] Sex & the city
[] the fabulous life of...
[] E!'s True hollywood story
[] The real world
[] The O.C.
[] Laguna Beach
[] Miss America
[] Miss USA
[] Miss teen USA
[] the hills
TOTAL: 2

HAVE YOU BEEN TO:
[] Hawaii
[] Cali
[] The Bahamas
[X] New York
[] Paris
[] Italy
[x] Florida
[X] Las Vegas
[] Russia
[X] Canada
[] Australia
[] Aruba
TOTAL: 4

COUNT UP HOW MANY YOU CHECKED. That's your girly percentage

how much have YOU changed?

five years ago in June 2001....

1.How old were you?: 20

2.Where did you go to school?: Valparaiso University

3.Where did you work: I was an REU (research experience for undergrads) participant at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX

4.Where did you live ?: for summer 2001: san antonio, TX; permanent address: memphis, TN

5.Where did you hang out?: in the math building, the dorms, or downtown San Antonio

6.How was your hair style?: barely shoulder length, but often in crazy braids

7.Did you wear braces?: no

8.Did you wear glasses?: yes

9.Who were your best friends?: that summer, alexa, james, paul... in general kristin, heather, michelle, nicole, tammy, allison, jenny, jessica, brother

10.Who was your celebrity crush?: i honestly don't think i had one

11.Who was your regular-person crush? dude, that was obvious to the world at the time and doesn't need to be rehashed

12.How many tattoos did you have?: none

13.How many piercings did you have?: none

14.What car did you drive?: 1987 chevy nova

15.What was your favorite band/group?: probably newsboys or sonic flood

16.What were your biggest fears?: being alone

17.Had you smoked a cigarette yet?: no

18.Had you gotten drunk or high yet?: no

19.Had you driven yet?: yes, a lot

20.Had you been to a REAL party yet?: i avoid parties (seriously)

21. Had your heart broken?: no

**HA HA HA!!! LETS SEE WHAT YOU ARE NOW !!!!!**
___________________________________________________

-June 2006-

1.How old are you?: 25

2.Where do you go to school?: Rutgers University

3.Where do you work?: i run the Rutgers math REU (after experiencing an REU and other such fun myself, i was so motivated to want to make the best experience possible for other math people. :) )... we're in NJ for 3 more weeks and then i go to Prague for 2.5 weeks with half the students

4.Where do you live: central NJ

5.Where do you hang out?: my house, the math building, bookstores

6. What is your hairstyle? way longer than it should be, and way lighter than it used to be

7.Do you have braces? nope

8.Do you wear glasses? gave them up 2 years ago for contacts

9.Still talk to any of your old friends?: most of them

10.Who is your celebrity crush? still none

11.Who is your regular-person crush?: i recently decided i really really don't believe in love... for other people yes, for me no

12.How many tattoos?: none

13.How many piercings?: just ears

14.What kind of car do you have?: 2000 mitsubishi galant

15.What is your favorite band/group?: tammany hall NYC, snow patrol, johnny cash, coldplay

16.What is your biggest fear?: not getting a good job when i graduate

17.Have you smoked a cigarette yet?: no

18.Have you gotten drunk or high yet?: no

19.Had you driven yet?: yes, even more than before

20.Had you been to a REAL party yet?: i still avoid parties (seriously)

21. Had your heart broken?: minorly

a wonderful use of 4 minutes.

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A Most Famous Work of Art