& etc.

so i was totally wrong about the no email for the weekend gig., whatever.

conference is tons of fun.... you'd think 12 math talks by grad students and one super long talk by my advisor makes for a long boring day but it's rather fun. since aek and me followed dr. z. for lunch instead of eating with other students, we ate with 3 really famous math profs who teach at wisconsin here, which was a once in a lifetime deal -- extremely cool.

this evening at the conference dinner, etc. i've made friends with dot -- a 27 year old grad student from north carolina but at school in san francisco. it was the most beyond "hi, where are you at school? what do you study? are you giving a talk for the conference?" i got with anyone all day, and we had a fabulous time chatting it up for 4ish hours... half of that at the conference dinner and half of that at my REU friend ben's house party.

that's right... for the first time literally in years, i was in a house full of crazy people and loud music and several kegs of beer, and didn't totally flip out about it. i chatted with my friend ben (from my REU in texas who i hadn't seen in 5 years) for awhile, and i chatted with dot for most of the rest of the time... then aek and me made the 2 mile trek back to his friend's place.

i'm branching out (i.e. i tolerated being in a large group for social activity for several hours), making new friends, and learning lots of cool new math. definitely a quality weekend, and tomorrow's even more of it.

go ahead, be totally jealous... math conferences rock! :P