i was asked today what i've been doing while i'm in town, to which the response is "well, my family's always at work, and none of my high school friends are in town, so i sit around in my PJs all day and read"... not quite true, but pretty indicative of the pace of my week.
i enjoy that my family now has sattelite TV and i can put full house reruns on in the background while i eat lunch or dinner...
i enjoy having access to a piano while i'm home alone, even if it's horribly horribly out of tune, and i enjoy remembering how to play. (i like playing when only i can hear me -- my mom's a brilliant organist and when i was 8, she tried for about 2 weeks to try to teach me and gave up on account of my stubbornness, so i taught myself how to play instead, and have no sense of rhythm, other than memorizing how it sounds when mom plays a song and then imitating what i hear in my head... consequently, getting mom to hum tricky rhythms for me, and then imitating what i could hear of her in my head is how i learned flute parts when i played too -- i was not meant to be a good musician :-P... nonetheless it's fun to play around anyhow :-P)
i've been fixing the family computer... besides the drenching the keyboard issue this weekend, they've managed to download a few viruses, etc., and never installed antivirus software, so i've been slowly but surely getting rid of all the things piggybacking on internet explorer and cleaning up the machine with appropriate other software... i think i've finally won! :-P... now to convince them to get something better than a dialup connection ;-)
and otherwise i've been reading. i'm about 1/4 of the way through The Story of Mathematics -- i've made it up to astronomy calculations of the early AD centuries, and it's an interesting read, but not engaging if you don't have a prior interest in math history... if you do though, it's decent, and well illustrated.... the pictures are what drew me in to getting the book in the first place, and a history with lots of visuals to benchmark it along the way gets bonus points in my book.
i've read the first 40ish pages of Mathematics in a Postmodern Age, the book i posted about yesterday. so far that's the intro and chapter 1... it's mostly outlined what they mean by a "modern" view and a "postmodern" view... both in general and with respect to mathematics, and give examples of mathematicians whose working philosophy fits into each. by their definition, a modern view of math is one that says things are true because they are logically derived to be true. that a mathematical theorem is true whether we're thinking about it or not. that mathematics is independent of the cultural construct we have to view it from. a postmodern view says that we put a lot of faith in the mathematical community and that the way it goes about things is correct... that for example, while i can illustrate that 3+4=7 on my fingers or even in a couple lines using the successor function and the postulate that a+S(b)=S(a+b), computing 1204871204712907 x 12095871035790237509 is not something that i can do so easily, and i must use either an algorithm or a calculator or computer program to deduce the answer. but the multiplication algorithm or the calculator are cultural constructs in some sense -- a "proof" of the answer of the above multiplication is not down to the bare bones of mathematics, it uses constructs that we accept to be true. while no one in their right mind would argue that there's more than one answer to that product, one can see the general idea we're getting at here. i think just from the bit of reading i've done today, i fall inbetween the two views, but i'll not elaborate on my view right now -- i've done that from other angles in previous posts... at any rate, lara spends hours reading books about the philosophy of math for FUN when she has free time -- how crazy is that? :-P
finally, in the last hour, i've read the first 1/3 of The Five People You Meet in Heaven -- i've seen this book around and know it was at the top of the new york times bestseller list for awhile... i'm not spoiling the story at all to tell the summary on the back cover-- eddie dies trying to save a kid's life and discovers that heaven is a series of 5 people who you met in your life who changed it forever, whether you realized it at the time or not, and they each have something to teach you -- in this way, heaven is getting the peace of understanding the purpose of your life on earth. so far i've made it partway through the second person... it's an interesting light read... like i said, read all that in an hour, so i'll prolly finish the book tonight or tomorrow... it's quality, and i'm enjoying it.
all the reading aside, wednesday night is the one night i'm guaranteed to get out of the house when i'm in memphis, no matter who's in town. doc and lois are a couple at my church in memphis. he was the FIRST principal of mom's school, when it opened back in 1947, and then he took a second career as a dentist, before he finally retired, but they're still both very active in everything under the sun related to the church and school (they're in their 80s and do all the yardwork there, etc.)... anyhow, for years and years they've run a "college and career" Bible study at their house in germantown on wednesday nights... the regulars are the two of them, leni (lois's older sister), diane (lady around my mom's age who keeps in touch with me year round), liz and brian (married couple 3-4 years older than me (liz used to be one of my babysitters :-P), daniel and janelle (engaged to be married in a few months, daniel was in kindergarten through 8th grade with me), jacob (son of the former pastor of the church), paul (liz's brother who's a year younger than me), and a few other random people on and off. i'd been going to that bible study since before valpo, so when i'm back to visit, wednesday night's i'm with them... tonight we discussed matthew 25:1-13 (the parable of the ten virgins), but next week is the every few months movie and burgers night... so i hit it good time-wise :-P it was good to see people again and i like seeing them all... daniel didn't even realize i was in town and was genuinely surprised and pleased to see me. liz and brian are expecting a baby this fall and *that*'s completely crazy to me, but yay for them... so yeah, i got out of the house for a bit, and it was fun.
i'm done rambling... that sums up my day though... for sitting around in my PJs with books until 5pm, that's a pretty decent novel of a day, eh? ;-P
i get out of the house, moreover out of *town*, tomorrow morning for a bit, but i'll tell more about that after i get back...
night y'all! :-P
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
mini movie review :-P
tonight's movie in the week of rentals mom and i got last night? the muse
i'd never heard of it before and it wasn't the best done or most believeable acting, but it was a cute late night movie rental.
the main idea is that this movie writer is burnt out and lacking inspiration and then meets a "muse" through one of his friends... he spends all this time trying to keep her happy (which costs more $$ than he has), while his muse ends up inspiring his wife to open her own (extremely successful) cookie store instead... the ending has a random twist, but it was overall pretty predictable. sharon stone played the muse... she had such an annoying character to play, but she did it well :-P on the whole, it was a cute idea for a movie, but the way they went about presenting it, the attitude changes of some of the characters were too sudden to be convincing... whatever... we laughed anyhow.
now, to sleep.
later dudes :-P
i'd never heard of it before and it wasn't the best done or most believeable acting, but it was a cute late night movie rental.
the main idea is that this movie writer is burnt out and lacking inspiration and then meets a "muse" through one of his friends... he spends all this time trying to keep her happy (which costs more $$ than he has), while his muse ends up inspiring his wife to open her own (extremely successful) cookie store instead... the ending has a random twist, but it was overall pretty predictable. sharon stone played the muse... she had such an annoying character to play, but she did it well :-P on the whole, it was a cute idea for a movie, but the way they went about presenting it, the attitude changes of some of the characters were too sudden to be convincing... whatever... we laughed anyhow.
now, to sleep.
later dudes :-P
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
happy tuesday?... and yay for books :-P
so the zoo didn't so much work out today... i showed up at mom's school at 4:15, as agreed upon, but her teachers and her head janitor were feeling chatty so we didn't leave until 4:45, arriving at the zoo at 5:05, and although it doesn't close til 6, the last admission is at 5... so here we were, 2/3 of the way downtown, and for nothing... oops... we'll try again earlier next week.
so, instead, we decided to run by the central memphis library (my idea)... the main location of the city/county library system is a really nice building... it was built while i was at college, and if i actually lived in town, i think i would be there several hours every week just because i love the place! mom didn't realize that there's a small bookstore just inside the front doors that sells old books for as low as 25 or 50 cents, so i showed her around that, then dropped her off in fiction, while i went up to scope out the math section.... given it's a public library, and not a math research library, but i do generally find interesting math history books on the shelves... of note this time: Mathematics in a Postmodern Age: A Christian Perspective... this book came out 4 years ago, and i'd never heard of it before... i got mom to check it out for me on her library card, and i'll return it before i head out of town, finished or not; if i like what i make it through, i'll just buy myself a copy off of amazon.
i think there need to be more books that explore the relationship between the sciences and religion. while it's very true and needful to remember that science explores the laws, relationships, and patterns of the physical world, and religion (at least Christianity) explores the relationship of people with God, so they're exploring different things, it's also true that religion can affect one's views of the philosophy of science, and science can affect one's views about religion. i've made an effort to read what i do find in this vein... for example things a computer scientist rarely talks about by don knuth, or the science of God by gerald schroeder... however, in schroeder's book for example, when i talk about it with non-religious friends, i feel compelled to add the coda "well, even if it's not all accurate, it's interesting food for thought"... the sad thing is, most literature that is on this cusp so far either "bends" science to match a religious philosophy or bends theology to match a scientific agenda, at least for some parts. biographies/autobiographies aside (i'd put knuth's book in this category -- even though it's transcripts of a lecture series, i got more of his personal attempts to meld his faith and his work as a computer scientist out of it than the tone of a book of research)... it's rare to find a book that both well-read theologians and well-read scientists will both acclaim as a good book.
in keeping with being mindful of that, here's a review by a grad student in a christian magazine (click here), and here's one by a non-Christian reviewer from one of the national math societies (the MAA) (click here). Notice that the first review seems to be wholeheartedly supportive, which doesn't surprise me, while the math one is favorable by also not willing to gloss over structural problems with the book... this is a general trend in this area of writing (christianity intersecting mathematics) (i.e. the christian reviews are glowing while the science reviews question the logic/validity of some arguments), however, unlike many reviews i've read where the science review calls the book rubbish, the MAA review comments that while it's not perfect, this book adds serious discussion to this area and it will be interesting to see what comes from this book's authors in the future. at any rate, i was excited to see that this book exists, and i'm very interested to see what it says.
oh! and here's something i didn't expect and was absolutely delighted to find out about. this book i'm rambling about and haven't read yet was written by a coalition of authors who are members of the Association for Christians in the Mathematical Sciences -- i never knew that such an organization existed! this makes my day! i've strongly felt for a long time that there needs to be more seriously scholarship and dialogue on the intersection of faith and mathematics that both sides of the coin (non-christian mathematicians as well as non-mathematician christians) respect. i was extremely excited to find out that there is a small but growing formal organization of people doing just that.
it's been a happy academic day :-P
now, dinner and scrubs :-P
later dudes
so, instead, we decided to run by the central memphis library (my idea)... the main location of the city/county library system is a really nice building... it was built while i was at college, and if i actually lived in town, i think i would be there several hours every week just because i love the place! mom didn't realize that there's a small bookstore just inside the front doors that sells old books for as low as 25 or 50 cents, so i showed her around that, then dropped her off in fiction, while i went up to scope out the math section.... given it's a public library, and not a math research library, but i do generally find interesting math history books on the shelves... of note this time: Mathematics in a Postmodern Age: A Christian Perspective... this book came out 4 years ago, and i'd never heard of it before... i got mom to check it out for me on her library card, and i'll return it before i head out of town, finished or not; if i like what i make it through, i'll just buy myself a copy off of amazon.
i think there need to be more books that explore the relationship between the sciences and religion. while it's very true and needful to remember that science explores the laws, relationships, and patterns of the physical world, and religion (at least Christianity) explores the relationship of people with God, so they're exploring different things, it's also true that religion can affect one's views of the philosophy of science, and science can affect one's views about religion. i've made an effort to read what i do find in this vein... for example things a computer scientist rarely talks about by don knuth, or the science of God by gerald schroeder... however, in schroeder's book for example, when i talk about it with non-religious friends, i feel compelled to add the coda "well, even if it's not all accurate, it's interesting food for thought"... the sad thing is, most literature that is on this cusp so far either "bends" science to match a religious philosophy or bends theology to match a scientific agenda, at least for some parts. biographies/autobiographies aside (i'd put knuth's book in this category -- even though it's transcripts of a lecture series, i got more of his personal attempts to meld his faith and his work as a computer scientist out of it than the tone of a book of research)... it's rare to find a book that both well-read theologians and well-read scientists will both acclaim as a good book.
in keeping with being mindful of that, here's a review by a grad student in a christian magazine (click here), and here's one by a non-Christian reviewer from one of the national math societies (the MAA) (click here). Notice that the first review seems to be wholeheartedly supportive, which doesn't surprise me, while the math one is favorable by also not willing to gloss over structural problems with the book... this is a general trend in this area of writing (christianity intersecting mathematics) (i.e. the christian reviews are glowing while the science reviews question the logic/validity of some arguments), however, unlike many reviews i've read where the science review calls the book rubbish, the MAA review comments that while it's not perfect, this book adds serious discussion to this area and it will be interesting to see what comes from this book's authors in the future. at any rate, i was excited to see that this book exists, and i'm very interested to see what it says.
oh! and here's something i didn't expect and was absolutely delighted to find out about. this book i'm rambling about and haven't read yet was written by a coalition of authors who are members of the Association for Christians in the Mathematical Sciences -- i never knew that such an organization existed! this makes my day! i've strongly felt for a long time that there needs to be more seriously scholarship and dialogue on the intersection of faith and mathematics that both sides of the coin (non-christian mathematicians as well as non-mathematician christians) respect. i was extremely excited to find out that there is a small but growing formal organization of people doing just that.
it's been a happy academic day :-P
now, dinner and scrubs :-P
later dudes
Monday, May 09, 2005
etc.
i spend way too much time while i'm here trying to herd bugs out of my bedroom window with a towel... oi.
mom's the only normal one of the crew around here :-P... tonight, she suggested that we use the blockbuster gift card one of her friends gave her for christmas (she NEVER rents movies on her own), and we used up the whole thing renting 4 movies for this week (and hopefully we'll find time to watch them all before saturday!)
tonight, we watched "shakespeare in love"... neither of us had seen it before, and both of us really enjoyed it.
that's about all there is to say. tomorrow, not even brother will be home (he was today)... i get to entertain myself until 4pm, when i'm supposed to pick mom up from work so we can go to the zoo... we'll see how much we see before the zoo closes at 6...
high of 87 tomorrow and low of 65 tonight... our overnight lows here are higher than the highs in jersey last week :-P... heh
retreating to my room for the night -- later dudes :-P
mom's the only normal one of the crew around here :-P... tonight, she suggested that we use the blockbuster gift card one of her friends gave her for christmas (she NEVER rents movies on her own), and we used up the whole thing renting 4 movies for this week (and hopefully we'll find time to watch them all before saturday!)
tonight, we watched "shakespeare in love"... neither of us had seen it before, and both of us really enjoyed it.
that's about all there is to say. tomorrow, not even brother will be home (he was today)... i get to entertain myself until 4pm, when i'm supposed to pick mom up from work so we can go to the zoo... we'll see how much we see before the zoo closes at 6...
high of 87 tomorrow and low of 65 tonight... our overnight lows here are higher than the highs in jersey last week :-P... heh
retreating to my room for the night -- later dudes :-P
top 1000 public high schools
newsweek ranked them here
white station was #621 in the country
but unless i miscounted, it was only #3 in Tennessee, and it was #1 in the western half of the state (the only TN schools i saw above it were in brentwood and in oak ridge, both out east)
go spartans? :-P
white station was #621 in the country
but unless i miscounted, it was only #3 in Tennessee, and it was #1 in the western half of the state (the only TN schools i saw above it were in brentwood and in oak ridge, both out east)
go spartans? :-P
some funnies from the inbox
here's a few entertaining things:
(1) steve klee sent me this link: http://www.collegehumor.com/?movie_id=149448
it's a barbershop quintet singing a song about math... it's pretty great :-P
(2) i was asked by the rutgers math dept. chair to write the "pizza seminar news" section of the spring 2005 newsletter... below are my results, which were approved by him already... i was pretty amused with what i came up with :-P (note: if you think this sounds too goofy or something, if you read the previous "pizza seminar news" sections on old newsletters on the rutgers math dept. website, they're all written in similar tones as well) :-P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Graduate Pizza Seminar is a weekly gathering for students to present interesting mathematical topics and research projects to their peers. Of course, free pizza is always provided. Since January 2004, the Seminar has met in the Graduate Common Room; the seminar and many other graduate students continue to greatly enjoy this space, whose use is restricted to graduate students. Learning from the difficulties of years past, throughout this year, we used Gerlanda's, the campus pizza supplier, and with good results too -- our pizza was only late once. However, we will gladly accept the donation of a wheelbarrow, wagon, or other wheeled object to cart large amounts of drinks across campus. To learn more about the seminar, visit the seminar website at http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~seminars/GraduatePizza.html.
As usual, in 2004-2005, the seminar covered a wide variety of topics. In the fall, one talk on mathematical modeling featured a computer demonstration, and spring 2005 continued the trend with three experimental math talks also including live computer experimentation (i.e. Even Pizza Seminar now reflects the growth of computer-assisted mathematics!). As for the requisite statistics: 13 talks were given in Fall 2004, and 14 were given in Spring 2005. Attendance ranged from 20 to 35 students with an average of 25 each week.
Following is a list of the seminar speakers for 2004-2005:
(insert list of speakers and talk titles)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(3) random email i got from a professor at arizona state... i've never met him but he's a copublisher on a paper i helped write my senior year at valpo... not only have we never met, we've never corresponded ever before either... this just made me laugh at what a small world it is:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
greetings lara,
small world. first, we write a paper together, then i go to trinity to do
some 0-sequence stuff and discover you reu'd there (did you know that
0-sequences are the origins of pebbling?), and now you're at my alma mater
(phd '90 under ron graham). did you know that m. saks was the inventor
of pebbling? say hi to him for me. have you discovered the frisbee golf
course r. hochberg and i invented? we had to change a hole or two over
the years because of construction -- does anyone still play it? i enjoyed
your list of quotes, especially j. kahn's. brought back fond memories
of his classes. enjoy...
cheers,
glenn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
you never know *what*'s gonna show up in my inbox :-P
(1) steve klee sent me this link: http://www.collegehumor.com/?movie_id=149448
it's a barbershop quintet singing a song about math... it's pretty great :-P
(2) i was asked by the rutgers math dept. chair to write the "pizza seminar news" section of the spring 2005 newsletter... below are my results, which were approved by him already... i was pretty amused with what i came up with :-P (note: if you think this sounds too goofy or something, if you read the previous "pizza seminar news" sections on old newsletters on the rutgers math dept. website, they're all written in similar tones as well) :-P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Graduate Pizza Seminar is a weekly gathering for students to present interesting mathematical topics and research projects to their peers. Of course, free pizza is always provided. Since January 2004, the Seminar has met in the Graduate Common Room; the seminar and many other graduate students continue to greatly enjoy this space, whose use is restricted to graduate students. Learning from the difficulties of years past, throughout this year, we used Gerlanda's, the campus pizza supplier, and with good results too -- our pizza was only late once. However, we will gladly accept the donation of a wheelbarrow, wagon, or other wheeled object to cart large amounts of drinks across campus. To learn more about the seminar, visit the seminar website at http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~seminars/GraduatePizza.html.
As usual, in 2004-2005, the seminar covered a wide variety of topics. In the fall, one talk on mathematical modeling featured a computer demonstration, and spring 2005 continued the trend with three experimental math talks also including live computer experimentation (i.e. Even Pizza Seminar now reflects the growth of computer-assisted mathematics!). As for the requisite statistics: 13 talks were given in Fall 2004, and 14 were given in Spring 2005. Attendance ranged from 20 to 35 students with an average of 25 each week.
Following is a list of the seminar speakers for 2004-2005:
(insert list of speakers and talk titles)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(3) random email i got from a professor at arizona state... i've never met him but he's a copublisher on a paper i helped write my senior year at valpo... not only have we never met, we've never corresponded ever before either... this just made me laugh at what a small world it is:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
greetings lara,
small world. first, we write a paper together, then i go to trinity to do
some 0-sequence stuff and discover you reu'd there (did you know that
0-sequences are the origins of pebbling?), and now you're at my alma mater
(phd '90 under ron graham). did you know that m. saks was the inventor
of pebbling? say hi to him for me. have you discovered the frisbee golf
course r. hochberg and i invented? we had to change a hole or two over
the years because of construction -- does anyone still play it? i enjoyed
your list of quotes, especially j. kahn's. brought back fond memories
of his classes. enjoy...
cheers,
glenn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
you never know *what*'s gonna show up in my inbox :-P
more fun
so as i was getting ready to go to my room to hide for the night earlier (dad's cockatoo sami has decided this trip that she *really* likes me, and dad lets her out of her cage each night for a little supervised playtime... last night she kept making beelines for me... even so much as flying through 2 rooms to try to land on me, so i've decided during "bird out of cage time" this trip, i need to be in my room hiding from said bird), my brother comments to me "dude, you don't wanna see a movie tonight?"
turns out that he did some work on the house of the guy who owns ajay theaters (the 2 movie theaters in the city that aren't malco theaters, one of those two ajay theaters is the closest theater to our house) he got a bunch of free movie tickets (brother installs satellite dishes, so he meets lots of different people :-P)... anyhow, we used the free tickets to see hitchhikers guide to the galaxy... brother's never even read the books, but this was my second time through.
i didn't mention it last time but the chicken little trailer that they run right before hitchhiker is pretty brilliant... if you've seen it you understand... just had to say that i'm a fan of how they trick you :-P
i enjoyed hitchhiker the first time, but i enjoyed it even immensely more this time, so that was fantastic.
now, it's 1am this time, 2am in the time zone my head thinks it's in... i should be asleep. (how anticlimactic is that?)
later dudes.
turns out that he did some work on the house of the guy who owns ajay theaters (the 2 movie theaters in the city that aren't malco theaters, one of those two ajay theaters is the closest theater to our house) he got a bunch of free movie tickets (brother installs satellite dishes, so he meets lots of different people :-P)... anyhow, we used the free tickets to see hitchhikers guide to the galaxy... brother's never even read the books, but this was my second time through.
i didn't mention it last time but the chicken little trailer that they run right before hitchhiker is pretty brilliant... if you've seen it you understand... just had to say that i'm a fan of how they trick you :-P
i enjoyed hitchhiker the first time, but i enjoyed it even immensely more this time, so that was fantastic.
now, it's 1am this time, 2am in the time zone my head thinks it's in... i should be asleep. (how anticlimactic is that?)
later dudes.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
oh joy, oh joy
yesterday was a long day.
i left jersey for pittsburgh on friday... you never know what age kids my aunt there will have when you visit (she and my uncle are foster parents)... the current crew (besides my 13 year old cousin rachel) are charles (age 5), jason (age 4), and shyanne (8 months)... the boys were playing in the front yard when i arrived, while my aunt and uncle were inside... to my surprise, they both walked right up to me and asked "who are you?" and shook hands with me and introduced themselves... friendly kids...
at dinner, charles, who is in preschool, asked me to write his name on his placemat, and i did... later he was all excited that they had written his name on his hotdog... finally, rachel helped him get an ice cream cone and when he sat next to me again, he exuberantly pointed out the letters on the cone and said "look! my name!", to which i replied, "um, sorry, that spells 'TAKE OUT'"... my aunt laughed *really* hard at that :-P
that was friday.
yesterday i got up at 7:30 and headed out of pittsburgh by 8:30 (am eastern time)... drove straight to cincinnati and met memphis jenny at a pottery show there for an hour before heading onward... drove the rest of the way to memphis getting in at 8:30 (pm central time)... roommate called at one point and in my reach across the car to grab the handsfree set, i answered with the microphone flying across the car before i could speak... first thing i heard was her laughing really hard, and she commented "at first it sounded like a spaceship had answered and i was sincerely worried you had found a way to get to the moon without telling me first!" -- that was amusing :-P
last night, dad, ryan, and i went out to eat... dad gave me crap that i wanted to go somewhere where i could get salad instead of ordering in pizza... again at lunch today when i just got the salad bar, he was upset that i didn't want appetizers or dessert... for as much crap as he's given me about my weight over the years, you would think he'd be happy to see the change in diet and the fact that i'm finally starting to lose weight now too...
i was exceedingly irritated last night after dinner when i went to check email from the math department and from the REU and discovered first when i tried to type "mail.yahoo.com" that i couldn't get the stupid machine to type an "i"... i asked brother what was up and he commented that it was fine yesterday and he didn't know what i did to it to make it act up... as i fiddled and leaned over the computer desk to reach around to the back of the computer tower, i noticed my shirt got wet, and sure enough when i turned the keyboard upside down i poured a whole coffee cup full of water out of it. i really really don't understand how my family could have saved up for so long to buy themselves a computer, fully understand the investment it was for them, and then drench it and ruin parts of it. even after drying it out, the keyboard is non-function (it was a cheap one anyhow), so i dragged mom to office depot this afternoon and got her to buy a new one, and an optical mouse (because her old cheap mouse is annoyingly sticky anyhow)... she was surprised that she only needed to spend $10-15 each if she really wanted to and ended up with a $30 really nice keyboard, and a standard $15 optical mouse... and now i can check email at home again -- this is a good thing.
it takes a matter of about 3 hours for me to remember why i don't come home much. no matter how much they clean up, after the birds (right at the bottom of the stairs from my room), they never deep clean the house enough to get rid of bugs... every time i go to my room there's a cloud of small flying bugs going up the stairs ahead of me... i just leave all the windows open a lot, and that helps to make them escape, but as soon as we get a rainy day here, i'm going to be miserable.
the 8th graders at mom's school are on their class trip this week... mom said i can install maple on the 8th grade computer for the week (as long as i take it off again by next weekend) and i have their classroom to myself to have a dsl connection to do some math work... that'll be good... so i guess i'll be hanging out at my old grade school this week.
the memphis zoo also does free hours on tuesday afternoon and mom thinks she and i should go this week, so that'll be nice too.
true i grew up here, but i completely fail to understand how my family can live in a house this gross and dirty... my brother cleans *my* room decently before i come home each time, but there and in front of the computer by the front door are about the only places in the whole house i can stand to be for more than 5 minutes... i'm glad i don't live in this house anymore :-P
done complaining... maybe i'll read the afternoon away and think about doing work tomorrow.
later dudes.
i left jersey for pittsburgh on friday... you never know what age kids my aunt there will have when you visit (she and my uncle are foster parents)... the current crew (besides my 13 year old cousin rachel) are charles (age 5), jason (age 4), and shyanne (8 months)... the boys were playing in the front yard when i arrived, while my aunt and uncle were inside... to my surprise, they both walked right up to me and asked "who are you?" and shook hands with me and introduced themselves... friendly kids...
at dinner, charles, who is in preschool, asked me to write his name on his placemat, and i did... later he was all excited that they had written his name on his hotdog... finally, rachel helped him get an ice cream cone and when he sat next to me again, he exuberantly pointed out the letters on the cone and said "look! my name!", to which i replied, "um, sorry, that spells 'TAKE OUT'"... my aunt laughed *really* hard at that :-P
that was friday.
yesterday i got up at 7:30 and headed out of pittsburgh by 8:30 (am eastern time)... drove straight to cincinnati and met memphis jenny at a pottery show there for an hour before heading onward... drove the rest of the way to memphis getting in at 8:30 (pm central time)... roommate called at one point and in my reach across the car to grab the handsfree set, i answered with the microphone flying across the car before i could speak... first thing i heard was her laughing really hard, and she commented "at first it sounded like a spaceship had answered and i was sincerely worried you had found a way to get to the moon without telling me first!" -- that was amusing :-P
last night, dad, ryan, and i went out to eat... dad gave me crap that i wanted to go somewhere where i could get salad instead of ordering in pizza... again at lunch today when i just got the salad bar, he was upset that i didn't want appetizers or dessert... for as much crap as he's given me about my weight over the years, you would think he'd be happy to see the change in diet and the fact that i'm finally starting to lose weight now too...
i was exceedingly irritated last night after dinner when i went to check email from the math department and from the REU and discovered first when i tried to type "mail.yahoo.com" that i couldn't get the stupid machine to type an "i"... i asked brother what was up and he commented that it was fine yesterday and he didn't know what i did to it to make it act up... as i fiddled and leaned over the computer desk to reach around to the back of the computer tower, i noticed my shirt got wet, and sure enough when i turned the keyboard upside down i poured a whole coffee cup full of water out of it. i really really don't understand how my family could have saved up for so long to buy themselves a computer, fully understand the investment it was for them, and then drench it and ruin parts of it. even after drying it out, the keyboard is non-function (it was a cheap one anyhow), so i dragged mom to office depot this afternoon and got her to buy a new one, and an optical mouse (because her old cheap mouse is annoyingly sticky anyhow)... she was surprised that she only needed to spend $10-15 each if she really wanted to and ended up with a $30 really nice keyboard, and a standard $15 optical mouse... and now i can check email at home again -- this is a good thing.
it takes a matter of about 3 hours for me to remember why i don't come home much. no matter how much they clean up, after the birds (right at the bottom of the stairs from my room), they never deep clean the house enough to get rid of bugs... every time i go to my room there's a cloud of small flying bugs going up the stairs ahead of me... i just leave all the windows open a lot, and that helps to make them escape, but as soon as we get a rainy day here, i'm going to be miserable.
the 8th graders at mom's school are on their class trip this week... mom said i can install maple on the 8th grade computer for the week (as long as i take it off again by next weekend) and i have their classroom to myself to have a dsl connection to do some math work... that'll be good... so i guess i'll be hanging out at my old grade school this week.
the memphis zoo also does free hours on tuesday afternoon and mom thinks she and i should go this week, so that'll be nice too.
true i grew up here, but i completely fail to understand how my family can live in a house this gross and dirty... my brother cleans *my* room decently before i come home each time, but there and in front of the computer by the front door are about the only places in the whole house i can stand to be for more than 5 minutes... i'm glad i don't live in this house anymore :-P
done complaining... maybe i'll read the afternoon away and think about doing work tomorrow.
later dudes.
oi...
so i try to check email last night now that i'm in TN & discover that someone had poured a cup of water on the family computer keyboard...currently using the 'on-screen keyboard' &typing slooooooooowly with a crappy mouse... this sucks.... making mom go keyboard & mouse shopping with me later.... more news when i have access to a more functional machine... later dudes
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Southern bound
it's off to pittsburgh tomorrow for me, and memphis on saturday -- haven't been home since christmas and just barely then.
goals while i'm putzing around memphis for two weeks when neither of the two high school friends i keep in touch with are :-P
* actually do my final project for dr. z.'s class
* read some math. namely, a journal article i'm supposed to referee for dr. z., a few other papers for our reading class (which continues in june), and Combinatorics of Finite Sets (Ian Anderson).
* read some non-fiction just for fun, namely, Journey Through Genius (William Dunham) and/or The Story of Mathematics (Richard Mankiewicz)
* read some fiction, namely, The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) and/or Prague: A Novel (Arthur Phillips)
* take full advantage of the $2 movie theather by my parents house
* show up at each of my parents' jobs one afternoon, wander around, and get a free lunch out of whichever one i'm visiting. in mom's case, this is basically just visiting my grade school/where i worked in HS/my church during the work week and seeing lots of people who have known me since i was 5... in dad's case this involves free admission to the botanic gardens :-)
* i would add "go see a planetarium or IMAX show at the pink palace with my brother", but apparently in february they got a budget cut and the planetarium is indefinitely closed and the museum isn't open when my brother's off work... this makes me sad. i know that you have to prioritize when there's budget troubles, but it makes me sad to see educational places having to close their doors....
* finish arranging this summer's REU schedule
* learn how to pick locks
[this last one probably needs some explanation. in a back issue of Mental Floss there was a short article on how to pick locks. i figured my landlord would kill me if i tried to pick a lock attached to his house and he saw me... replace "my landlord" with "most any professor" and "his house" with "the math building" and you have an equally true statement... however at home, my dad has lots of padlocks that go on the outer fences to the yard. occasionally these rust or he buys new ones just to have different keys... it should be easy to find a few unused padlocks in a drawer somewhere to play with and no one would care... thus, goal is to put mental floss to the test and learn to pick locks while i'm home ;-)]
i think that about sums it up.
i'm ready to hit the road now, but it's probably better to get some sleep first ;-)
night y'all!
goals while i'm putzing around memphis for two weeks when neither of the two high school friends i keep in touch with are :-P
* actually do my final project for dr. z.'s class
* read some math. namely, a journal article i'm supposed to referee for dr. z., a few other papers for our reading class (which continues in june), and Combinatorics of Finite Sets (Ian Anderson).
* read some non-fiction just for fun, namely, Journey Through Genius (William Dunham) and/or The Story of Mathematics (Richard Mankiewicz)
* read some fiction, namely, The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) and/or Prague: A Novel (Arthur Phillips)
* take full advantage of the $2 movie theather by my parents house
* show up at each of my parents' jobs one afternoon, wander around, and get a free lunch out of whichever one i'm visiting. in mom's case, this is basically just visiting my grade school/where i worked in HS/my church during the work week and seeing lots of people who have known me since i was 5... in dad's case this involves free admission to the botanic gardens :-)
* i would add "go see a planetarium or IMAX show at the pink palace with my brother", but apparently in february they got a budget cut and the planetarium is indefinitely closed and the museum isn't open when my brother's off work... this makes me sad. i know that you have to prioritize when there's budget troubles, but it makes me sad to see educational places having to close their doors....
* finish arranging this summer's REU schedule
* learn how to pick locks
[this last one probably needs some explanation. in a back issue of Mental Floss there was a short article on how to pick locks. i figured my landlord would kill me if i tried to pick a lock attached to his house and he saw me... replace "my landlord" with "most any professor" and "his house" with "the math building" and you have an equally true statement... however at home, my dad has lots of padlocks that go on the outer fences to the yard. occasionally these rust or he buys new ones just to have different keys... it should be easy to find a few unused padlocks in a drawer somewhere to play with and no one would care... thus, goal is to put mental floss to the test and learn to pick locks while i'm home ;-)]
i think that about sums it up.
i'm ready to hit the road now, but it's probably better to get some sleep first ;-)
night y'all!
apprentice, final 2!
leigh predicted earlier today that the final 2 were probably rigged to be craig and kendra just to watch them have at it again, even though she (leigh) really likes tana.
she was wrong.
i was pleased when the executives who interviewed the contestants unanimously said that craig didn't give straight answers and lacked substance. as a person he doesn't lack substance, but as a communicator he does, and this week he fell through.
this means that trump is finally going to hire a woman apprentice since tana and kendra are all that's left!
i sooooooooooooo just about busy a gut laughing when one of the two commented to the other, "shoot, (i/you) got all the scatterbrains and (i/you) got all the worst tempers!" i can't remember who said it, but it was accurate! with their "employees" being preassigned, it was definitely rigged so that both kendra and tana would have some major challenges.
as erin commented, "if you can handle us, you deserve to work in the trump organization, but if you can handle brian, chris, and kristin, you deserve a medal of honor or something!"... next week's gonna be a trip.
i'm interested to see how it works out -- i've been rooting for kendra since week one and here she is in the final two; i have respect for tana minus the week she quit on kendra in favor of sleep so i think she brings a lot to the table too, but her team is rough, so we'll see what happens.
at any rate, i'm pleased with the pick for final two, so yay for that :-)
she was wrong.
i was pleased when the executives who interviewed the contestants unanimously said that craig didn't give straight answers and lacked substance. as a person he doesn't lack substance, but as a communicator he does, and this week he fell through.
this means that trump is finally going to hire a woman apprentice since tana and kendra are all that's left!
i sooooooooooooo just about busy a gut laughing when one of the two commented to the other, "shoot, (i/you) got all the scatterbrains and (i/you) got all the worst tempers!" i can't remember who said it, but it was accurate! with their "employees" being preassigned, it was definitely rigged so that both kendra and tana would have some major challenges.
as erin commented, "if you can handle us, you deserve to work in the trump organization, but if you can handle brian, chris, and kristin, you deserve a medal of honor or something!"... next week's gonna be a trip.
i'm interested to see how it works out -- i've been rooting for kendra since week one and here she is in the final two; i have respect for tana minus the week she quit on kendra in favor of sleep so i think she brings a lot to the table too, but her team is rough, so we'll see what happens.
at any rate, i'm pleased with the pick for final two, so yay for that :-)
ben quote of the day
so if this more than 2 people at a time thing realy does become a long term problem, we just need to make sure you meet a great guy who only has one parent, because just you and him, you'll be fine, meet one parent, you'll be fine, meet both... ooh, let's watch lara explode!
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
officially the most antisocial lara ever
so i thought going to falafel night would be a nice change of pace and that it would be a nice friendly and simple way to get back into the swing of hanging out with my friends here... i live with colleen and leigh, and i go out to eat or see movies with eric, scott, and ben each regularly, but since august that's about it. if you catch me outside of the offices, or outside of the house with more than 3 people at a time, you must be seeing a lara clone and not me.
tonight, dinner at the guys' house seemed perfectly harmless. when i arrived, ian, leigh, sam, and bill were working on cooking in the kitchen, a few people were downstairs playing pool, etc., and eric was in his room working... i curled up on the floor of eric's room and read, which was fine.
when it got to be time for dinner though, i freaked. instead of getting dinner, i stayed put and read, my excuse to eric being that i was in the middle of a chapter. when eric got his food and came back up to be like "dude, what's wrong?, you need to get firsts so that we can divy out seconds", i shrugged and just kept reading. the longer i knew there were the better part of a dozen people around the table downstairs, the less i wanted to be the last to enter the room, and so i just stayed put. the more i just stayed put, the more i convinced myself that it was best to just stay put in a corner of eric's room until there was no one left in the kitchen or on the way from eric's room to my car, so that's exactly what i did. i left for eric's house around 4:30, and left around 8:45, and in that time i read 106 pages of "mostly harmless" curled up on his floor, basically not moving. i was honestly and sincerely freaked out about going one room over to a room full of my friends to get a plate of falafel, and so i played statue and read for 4 hours instead.
that can't be normal.
the thing is, i've been in this anti-more than 3 people at a time mode for so many months now (since the end of last summer) that even if ahead of time i think i *want* to snap out of it and do something with a *group* of my friends, when it comes down to it i spazz and freeze up at the last moment. i've been doing this so long without worrying about it, that i have no clue anymore how to reverse the process.
i'm officially a sociophobic-panic-attack-ridden weirdo. go me.
i'm having lunch with ben tomorrow... maybe he'll have something brilliant to say about all this. we shall see.
night y'all
tonight, dinner at the guys' house seemed perfectly harmless. when i arrived, ian, leigh, sam, and bill were working on cooking in the kitchen, a few people were downstairs playing pool, etc., and eric was in his room working... i curled up on the floor of eric's room and read, which was fine.
when it got to be time for dinner though, i freaked. instead of getting dinner, i stayed put and read, my excuse to eric being that i was in the middle of a chapter. when eric got his food and came back up to be like "dude, what's wrong?, you need to get firsts so that we can divy out seconds", i shrugged and just kept reading. the longer i knew there were the better part of a dozen people around the table downstairs, the less i wanted to be the last to enter the room, and so i just stayed put. the more i just stayed put, the more i convinced myself that it was best to just stay put in a corner of eric's room until there was no one left in the kitchen or on the way from eric's room to my car, so that's exactly what i did. i left for eric's house around 4:30, and left around 8:45, and in that time i read 106 pages of "mostly harmless" curled up on his floor, basically not moving. i was honestly and sincerely freaked out about going one room over to a room full of my friends to get a plate of falafel, and so i played statue and read for 4 hours instead.
that can't be normal.
the thing is, i've been in this anti-more than 3 people at a time mode for so many months now (since the end of last summer) that even if ahead of time i think i *want* to snap out of it and do something with a *group* of my friends, when it comes down to it i spazz and freeze up at the last moment. i've been doing this so long without worrying about it, that i have no clue anymore how to reverse the process.
i'm officially a sociophobic-panic-attack-ridden weirdo. go me.
i'm having lunch with ben tomorrow... maybe he'll have something brilliant to say about all this. we shall see.
night y'all
vanilla nut... potatoes?
that's right... i'm weird.
here i am heading out of town in a day and a half so i'm trying to finish little odds and ends i have in the fridge. in an effort to finish some potatoes, i was happily cooking and went to the fridge in search of milk... seeing that we had one and halfway done cooking already, i opted for the closest thing in the fridge to milk -- vanilla nut creamer... it actually turned out pretty tasty.
so there's a random idea. want to put a little bit of random unexpected flavor in your food? when a recipe calls for milk, mix in a little flavored creamer too and you win. :-)
or maybe i just think i win because i'm crazy.
whatever ;-P
here i am heading out of town in a day and a half so i'm trying to finish little odds and ends i have in the fridge. in an effort to finish some potatoes, i was happily cooking and went to the fridge in search of milk... seeing that we had one and halfway done cooking already, i opted for the closest thing in the fridge to milk -- vanilla nut creamer... it actually turned out pretty tasty.
so there's a random idea. want to put a little bit of random unexpected flavor in your food? when a recipe calls for milk, mix in a little flavored creamer too and you win. :-)
or maybe i just think i win because i'm crazy.
whatever ;-P
a funny & a gameplan
i've developed a morning tradition as of the past few months -- after i get ready in the morning, i make myself a bowl of grits and eat it in front of the TV... always watching MSNBC until breakfast is done.
this morning, doing the same (eating grits and watching MSNBC), one of the headlines that rolled across the bottom of the screen in text said "runaway bridge jennifer wilbanks..." obviously runaway bride, but the typo completely cracked me up. someone over in the MSNBC studio didn't do their spellchecking job today ;-)
i have decided that i'm officially making today a mental vacation day... if the only thing left on my to do list is my final project for dr. z. and he's giving everyone As anyhow, it doesn't matter if i do it in the next 2 days, the next 2 weeks, or the next 2 months, so long as i do it. so why should i try to drudge up motivation i'm severely lacking right now? i've worked my head off for 4 months straight, minus spring break, and i'm just ready to collapse and be lazy for a bit.
on that note, i woke up at 9 today (my usual is 8) and finished reading "so long and thanks for all the fish", the 4th hitchhikers book... here, nearly 1:30, i'm still in PJs and plan to grab lunch, then work away at "mostly harmless", the 5th and final one in the series. in 3.5 hours, there's falafel night at the guys' house, and i'll probably show up for that, but if i'm not done with "mostly harmless" yet, you can bet that i'll be sitting in a corner with the book and kicking anyone who tries to get me to be more social :-P... i really have turned extremely antisocial towards large groups (i.e. more than 4 people) in the past few months... ooops.
oh well, back to reading :-)
this morning, doing the same (eating grits and watching MSNBC), one of the headlines that rolled across the bottom of the screen in text said "runaway bridge jennifer wilbanks..." obviously runaway bride, but the typo completely cracked me up. someone over in the MSNBC studio didn't do their spellchecking job today ;-)
i have decided that i'm officially making today a mental vacation day... if the only thing left on my to do list is my final project for dr. z. and he's giving everyone As anyhow, it doesn't matter if i do it in the next 2 days, the next 2 weeks, or the next 2 months, so long as i do it. so why should i try to drudge up motivation i'm severely lacking right now? i've worked my head off for 4 months straight, minus spring break, and i'm just ready to collapse and be lazy for a bit.
on that note, i woke up at 9 today (my usual is 8) and finished reading "so long and thanks for all the fish", the 4th hitchhikers book... here, nearly 1:30, i'm still in PJs and plan to grab lunch, then work away at "mostly harmless", the 5th and final one in the series. in 3.5 hours, there's falafel night at the guys' house, and i'll probably show up for that, but if i'm not done with "mostly harmless" yet, you can bet that i'll be sitting in a corner with the book and kicking anyone who tries to get me to be more social :-P... i really have turned extremely antisocial towards large groups (i.e. more than 4 people) in the past few months... ooops.
oh well, back to reading :-)
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
my day
*turned in my last combo hw ever (for this prof anyways)
*watched my mock lecture video... not quite as bad as i thought but it sure is weird watching yourself on tape... dr. butler said i'm a natural at it and that i did a beautiful job, in that he was certain i'd been teaching for years, and was surprised to hear that i haven't taught before at all. eric's comment is that butlers philosophy of teaching seems a little formulaic to him and that he thinks butler will always be quick to praise if we do the 3-4 things he emphasized in TA training throughout the semester, but regardless of to what degree of esteem you take butler's advice (and i think he's a very clear teacher and good person to pattern lecture style off of), like leigh commented, it's a good thing to be in his favor.
*tried to work on commutative algebra, but gave up and decided i really don't care to do anymore homework for it
*picked a final project for dr. z.'s class and worked on it for quite awhile, but with no major results... at least i found something cool to work with, and he knows what i'm up to now for that class
*went to the math library and checked out 4 of the 7 recommended books for a class i'm considering taking or auditing in the fall... i figure i can browse a little this summer and decide accordingly if i want the course for credit or not
*went to subway with eric and griped to him a lot about math
*got back to work on my final project for dr. z.'s class, and now am quitting with lots to do tomorrow
here's the random news of the day
(1) there's a party at eric's house right now... scott's throwing it because sam and paul (sam's my year, paul's a year older and is my church buddy) both passed their orals today (scott, sam, and paul all have the same advisor and are his only students right now)... i decided to stay put here and work... i already congratulated paul in person this morning, and i'll give sam a high five when i see him next. i'm just not in a large group of people drinking mood, even if they are all my friends, and thus i'm not there.... 15 minutes ago though, working at my computer, i get the following email from eric's address:
"Ah, so you tried to pawn off your free Panasonic Athens 2004 Olympics pin
on me that we got at Circuit City, did you!?!? Did you really think you'd
get away with it?! Well, I FOUND IT ha ha ha ha ha. And I will give it
back to you, whether you like it or not!!!"
that's soooooooooo not eric, so someone thought they were being funny... whatever.
(2) i got a crazy voicemail earlier too when i was ignoring the phone to work... here goes:
"hello lara, this is (insert name)... calling to see how your last call for homework day went... um, groovy... i guess i'll catch you later and... have a happy kwanzaa?"
conclusion? i'm tired, antisocial, and have crazy friends :-P
night y'all
*watched my mock lecture video... not quite as bad as i thought but it sure is weird watching yourself on tape... dr. butler said i'm a natural at it and that i did a beautiful job, in that he was certain i'd been teaching for years, and was surprised to hear that i haven't taught before at all. eric's comment is that butlers philosophy of teaching seems a little formulaic to him and that he thinks butler will always be quick to praise if we do the 3-4 things he emphasized in TA training throughout the semester, but regardless of to what degree of esteem you take butler's advice (and i think he's a very clear teacher and good person to pattern lecture style off of), like leigh commented, it's a good thing to be in his favor.
*tried to work on commutative algebra, but gave up and decided i really don't care to do anymore homework for it
*picked a final project for dr. z.'s class and worked on it for quite awhile, but with no major results... at least i found something cool to work with, and he knows what i'm up to now for that class
*went to the math library and checked out 4 of the 7 recommended books for a class i'm considering taking or auditing in the fall... i figure i can browse a little this summer and decide accordingly if i want the course for credit or not
*went to subway with eric and griped to him a lot about math
*got back to work on my final project for dr. z.'s class, and now am quitting with lots to do tomorrow
here's the random news of the day
(1) there's a party at eric's house right now... scott's throwing it because sam and paul (sam's my year, paul's a year older and is my church buddy) both passed their orals today (scott, sam, and paul all have the same advisor and are his only students right now)... i decided to stay put here and work... i already congratulated paul in person this morning, and i'll give sam a high five when i see him next. i'm just not in a large group of people drinking mood, even if they are all my friends, and thus i'm not there.... 15 minutes ago though, working at my computer, i get the following email from eric's address:
"Ah, so you tried to pawn off your free Panasonic Athens 2004 Olympics pin
on me that we got at Circuit City, did you!?!? Did you really think you'd
get away with it?! Well, I FOUND IT ha ha ha ha ha. And I will give it
back to you, whether you like it or not!!!"
that's soooooooooo not eric, so someone thought they were being funny... whatever.
(2) i got a crazy voicemail earlier too when i was ignoring the phone to work... here goes:
"hello lara, this is (insert name)... calling to see how your last call for homework day went... um, groovy... i guess i'll catch you later and... have a happy kwanzaa?"
conclusion? i'm tired, antisocial, and have crazy friends :-P
night y'all
400% smart?
| Your brain: 60% interpersonal, 20% visual, 40% verbal, and 280% mathematical! |
| Congratulations on being 400% smart! Actually, on my test, everyone is. The above score breaks down what kind of thinking you most enjoy doing. A score above 100% means you use that kind of thinking more than average, and a score below 100% means you use it less. It says nothing about how good you are at any one, just how interested you are in each, relatively. A substantial difference in scores between two people means, conclusively, that they are different kinds of thinkers. Matching Summary: Each of us has different tastes. Still, I offer the following advice, which I think is obvious:
|
 |
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The 4-Variable IQ Test written by chriscoyne on Ok Cupid |
Monday, May 02, 2005
ode to being a non-1st year grad student
there are no more finals.
today was the last day of classes, i still have 2 more homework assignments and i don't want to do them.
class 1: my advisor's lecture class... i've turned in homework fairly regularly all semester. he's told us he will give us all As, but it's in our best interest to turn in a final project if we want him to hold us in high esteem. he already holds me in decently high esteem and i never picked a project so it depends on how motivated i feel on picking and doing one. i *should* since i have 3 days before i head south, but, if i feel like not doing math, maybe i'll just keep not doing math ;-)
class 2: combinatorial commutative algebra. the professor originally said she'd give us homework every two weeks... that turned into 3 assignments corresponding to the 3 major chunks of the semester... and then that turned into never getting around to writing a 3rd assignment. on assignment 1, i was the only one who turned anything in (of the other 4 students, 1 was finishing his thesis, and 2 have been working on oral quals). now, on assignment two, i remember learning these things in some form before spring break, but it's been so long and i never put them to use outside of paying attention in lecture that i really have no idea how to start. sarah, (whose advisor is the professor teaching the class), claimed last week that she'd be around tomorrow working on the assignment, so i might see if she's around to help, and if i don't feel inspired by the end of tomorrow, heck i've turned in more than anyone else, and i have a feeling we all get As anyhow, so what's it to me?
this is the nice thing about not being a first year student anymore. there are no more finals. in fact, although there are "grades", they're really not significant at all. this doesn't do much for motivation to *do* homework, but whatever. after one more semester hopefully i'll be done with orals and not required to take classes anymore either. *that* will be wonderful. halfway there, but not quite.
in happy news: tammy called tonight... it was the first time we had chatted in a couple months (since mid-march i guess)... she was really into learning about john nash's work at one point in undergrad, so i had sent her an email about meeting him, and she wrote back how much she enjoyed reading it and that her and marcus were closing on a house this week and that she and i should chat again sometime soon, so tonight she was a much welcome distraction from work.... we talked for nearly an hour. :-)
otherwise, i'm in a weird mood though... now that classes are done i don't want to work for a bit (and perhaps i just won't?)... i also seem to get annoyed with just about everything anyone does, even so much as breathing and have been rather passive-aggressive lately if things do annoy me. i recognize that no one's doing anything mean or frustrating and that i just have an exceedingly short fuse right now... eric's theory is it's just the end of the semester and that it's ok. it's a good thing i'll be in the car for two days straight later in the week... i think after that i'll chill out some.
but the chat was good... i'm glad for tammy :-)
now, maybe to read some non-math.
night y'all :-P
today was the last day of classes, i still have 2 more homework assignments and i don't want to do them.
class 1: my advisor's lecture class... i've turned in homework fairly regularly all semester. he's told us he will give us all As, but it's in our best interest to turn in a final project if we want him to hold us in high esteem. he already holds me in decently high esteem and i never picked a project so it depends on how motivated i feel on picking and doing one. i *should* since i have 3 days before i head south, but, if i feel like not doing math, maybe i'll just keep not doing math ;-)
class 2: combinatorial commutative algebra. the professor originally said she'd give us homework every two weeks... that turned into 3 assignments corresponding to the 3 major chunks of the semester... and then that turned into never getting around to writing a 3rd assignment. on assignment 1, i was the only one who turned anything in (of the other 4 students, 1 was finishing his thesis, and 2 have been working on oral quals). now, on assignment two, i remember learning these things in some form before spring break, but it's been so long and i never put them to use outside of paying attention in lecture that i really have no idea how to start. sarah, (whose advisor is the professor teaching the class), claimed last week that she'd be around tomorrow working on the assignment, so i might see if she's around to help, and if i don't feel inspired by the end of tomorrow, heck i've turned in more than anyone else, and i have a feeling we all get As anyhow, so what's it to me?
this is the nice thing about not being a first year student anymore. there are no more finals. in fact, although there are "grades", they're really not significant at all. this doesn't do much for motivation to *do* homework, but whatever. after one more semester hopefully i'll be done with orals and not required to take classes anymore either. *that* will be wonderful. halfway there, but not quite.
in happy news: tammy called tonight... it was the first time we had chatted in a couple months (since mid-march i guess)... she was really into learning about john nash's work at one point in undergrad, so i had sent her an email about meeting him, and she wrote back how much she enjoyed reading it and that her and marcus were closing on a house this week and that she and i should chat again sometime soon, so tonight she was a much welcome distraction from work.... we talked for nearly an hour. :-)
otherwise, i'm in a weird mood though... now that classes are done i don't want to work for a bit (and perhaps i just won't?)... i also seem to get annoyed with just about everything anyone does, even so much as breathing and have been rather passive-aggressive lately if things do annoy me. i recognize that no one's doing anything mean or frustrating and that i just have an exceedingly short fuse right now... eric's theory is it's just the end of the semester and that it's ok. it's a good thing i'll be in the car for two days straight later in the week... i think after that i'll chill out some.
but the chat was good... i'm glad for tammy :-)
now, maybe to read some non-math.
night y'all :-P
yay
things to be happy about
(1) no more classes
(2) i've officially given up on combo hw... and i don't plan to have classes with this prof in the fall, so i'm good to go :-P
(3) travis got a free itunes song and gave me the code... today's selection was "angels among us" by alabama
(4) in 4 days i will be in pittsburgh en route to memphis
things to be sad about
(1) meeting tomorrow with the TA training prof tomorrow to watch my video from my mock lecture -- not excited
(2) two more homework assignments to finish
the good far outweighs the bad today though, so i approve :-P
later dudes
(1) no more classes
(2) i've officially given up on combo hw... and i don't plan to have classes with this prof in the fall, so i'm good to go :-P
(3) travis got a free itunes song and gave me the code... today's selection was "angels among us" by alabama
(4) in 4 days i will be in pittsburgh en route to memphis
things to be sad about
(1) meeting tomorrow with the TA training prof tomorrow to watch my video from my mock lecture -- not excited
(2) two more homework assignments to finish
the good far outweighs the bad today though, so i approve :-P
later dudes
ode to the weekend
it was a good one
yesterday, church, then mucking about doing homework... it was a beautiful day, so i walked the 6/10 mile to the bank, and hit up the grocery store on the way back... it was a fantastic afternoon... after that i worked on the porch until it got cold... talked to memphis jenny for 45 minutes (i had been hoping maybe she'd be around memphis maybe a little while i'm home later this month, but no such luck), then scott and me had dinner.
scott and me haven't been out to eat in a bit... we were both passive agressive for a little until we chilled out... he gave me the ultimatum that he wouldn't read me dr. suess books anymore until i come out to a dance club with him and ben in NYC sometime. i retaliated with "i won't drink margaritas with you anymore until you read me more books"... he didn't expect that reactions so 10 minutes of looking sad about it he rescinded his ultimatum, then we started fresh agreeing to stop being mean all around.
after we got back to his house, scott *did* read me 2 books... quote of the evening from some point in the story time, "dude, there's gotta be *something* i can do around people?" (~scott)
after stories, eric and me took out the telescope as it was exceedingly clear... after getting yelled at by a cop for being out in a park after dusk last time, we tried a field on one of the rutgers campuses but way too much light... we're still in search of a good place to go regularly without getting in trouble.
i had weird dreams last night. i was staying with my "aunt" (made up person, not one of my real life aunts, who was getting married to some french guy... then suddenly eric appeared, and had an identical twin with him. he (eric) was mad about something, and frustrated that he was only allowed to stay around the block he was in because he had never walked further away than that in the area we were in (which makes no sense whether it's typed clearly or not)... i told him we were going to darn well walk whereever it was he needed to go... so here we are, me, eric, and eric's identical twin (who didn't have a name) walking in the middle of a freeway to where eric wanted to go (for some reason i think we were in minneapolis, MN because i remember thinking to myself at one point "oh, we're on 10th street... that means we're only 30 blocks from michelle's parents")... turns out he barged right into a wedding and started beating someone up (note: this is *not* in character for eric, and just downright strange for a dream of mine in general)... i stayed outside, and watched as cops came and broke up the whole mess... there was an older lady sitting outside too insulting me about my hair the whole time i was trying to watch what was going on inside.
.... and then i woke up.
you can't tell me my head isn't a very very strange place.
last day of classes -- woohoo! later dudes :-)
yesterday, church, then mucking about doing homework... it was a beautiful day, so i walked the 6/10 mile to the bank, and hit up the grocery store on the way back... it was a fantastic afternoon... after that i worked on the porch until it got cold... talked to memphis jenny for 45 minutes (i had been hoping maybe she'd be around memphis maybe a little while i'm home later this month, but no such luck), then scott and me had dinner.
scott and me haven't been out to eat in a bit... we were both passive agressive for a little until we chilled out... he gave me the ultimatum that he wouldn't read me dr. suess books anymore until i come out to a dance club with him and ben in NYC sometime. i retaliated with "i won't drink margaritas with you anymore until you read me more books"... he didn't expect that reactions so 10 minutes of looking sad about it he rescinded his ultimatum, then we started fresh agreeing to stop being mean all around.
after we got back to his house, scott *did* read me 2 books... quote of the evening from some point in the story time, "dude, there's gotta be *something* i can do around people?" (~scott)
after stories, eric and me took out the telescope as it was exceedingly clear... after getting yelled at by a cop for being out in a park after dusk last time, we tried a field on one of the rutgers campuses but way too much light... we're still in search of a good place to go regularly without getting in trouble.
i had weird dreams last night. i was staying with my "aunt" (made up person, not one of my real life aunts, who was getting married to some french guy... then suddenly eric appeared, and had an identical twin with him. he (eric) was mad about something, and frustrated that he was only allowed to stay around the block he was in because he had never walked further away than that in the area we were in (which makes no sense whether it's typed clearly or not)... i told him we were going to darn well walk whereever it was he needed to go... so here we are, me, eric, and eric's identical twin (who didn't have a name) walking in the middle of a freeway to where eric wanted to go (for some reason i think we were in minneapolis, MN because i remember thinking to myself at one point "oh, we're on 10th street... that means we're only 30 blocks from michelle's parents")... turns out he barged right into a wedding and started beating someone up (note: this is *not* in character for eric, and just downright strange for a dream of mine in general)... i stayed outside, and watched as cops came and broke up the whole mess... there was an older lady sitting outside too insulting me about my hair the whole time i was trying to watch what was going on inside.
.... and then i woke up.
you can't tell me my head isn't a very very strange place.
last day of classes -- woohoo! later dudes :-)
Saturday, April 30, 2005
ode to good shepherd
remember a couple weeks ago how i was all excited that my church was looking at starting a singles ministry? tonight was spaghetti dinner night.
first off, they started with a spaghetti dinner just open ended age-wise to singles (i.e. not married) in the congregation... that was tonight. 8 of us showed although more expressed interest. i was the youngest, and the next person was probably mid-30s. at any rate, looking at the congregation demographic, there's about 75 people who fit into the general singles category and 30 of them are 20s/30s, just i was one of like 2 that showed up tonight.
at any rate, what we decided on for now is to meet once a month with a "social activity" of some sort, with it open to singles of ALL ages. our next get together will be the first week in june -- a dessert potluck and board game night, which should be fun.
my goal in attending is mostly to get to know more people in the congregation than i know from my new member class, altar guild, the one seminar i've attended, and who sit near me on sunday mornings, regardless of age. and sometimes it's just nice to chat with other people, no matter what age, who aren't attached to a spouse or 10 children and can just chat :-P
anyhow, the hope is if we do a monthly social activity for a few months to see what kind of interest there is, then we can decide how other activities (bible studies/servant events/who knows what else?) can best be structured, and once we get a decent estimate of how many people are really interested in showing up, if we want, maybe we can partner with another church in the area to have a joint group to get more people involved in bigger things.
who knows.
at any rate, it just makes me excited to see a group starting up that i feel comfortable with (not that i'm uncomfortable with anyone at church, just like i don't belong in a couples bible study, even if i like the topics they're covering, for example), to get to interact with outside of sunday mornings, and i'm really looking forward to seeing how things further develop. :-)
yay for good shepherd and for growing new ministries :-)
first off, they started with a spaghetti dinner just open ended age-wise to singles (i.e. not married) in the congregation... that was tonight. 8 of us showed although more expressed interest. i was the youngest, and the next person was probably mid-30s. at any rate, looking at the congregation demographic, there's about 75 people who fit into the general singles category and 30 of them are 20s/30s, just i was one of like 2 that showed up tonight.
at any rate, what we decided on for now is to meet once a month with a "social activity" of some sort, with it open to singles of ALL ages. our next get together will be the first week in june -- a dessert potluck and board game night, which should be fun.
my goal in attending is mostly to get to know more people in the congregation than i know from my new member class, altar guild, the one seminar i've attended, and who sit near me on sunday mornings, regardless of age. and sometimes it's just nice to chat with other people, no matter what age, who aren't attached to a spouse or 10 children and can just chat :-P
anyhow, the hope is if we do a monthly social activity for a few months to see what kind of interest there is, then we can decide how other activities (bible studies/servant events/who knows what else?) can best be structured, and once we get a decent estimate of how many people are really interested in showing up, if we want, maybe we can partner with another church in the area to have a joint group to get more people involved in bigger things.
who knows.
at any rate, it just makes me excited to see a group starting up that i feel comfortable with (not that i'm uncomfortable with anyone at church, just like i don't belong in a couples bible study, even if i like the topics they're covering, for example), to get to interact with outside of sunday mornings, and i'm really looking forward to seeing how things further develop. :-)
yay for good shepherd and for growing new ministries :-)
Friday, April 29, 2005
hitchhiking and other such fun
this afternoon was a fun time indeed.
eric and i went to see hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, the movie, which came out today. douglas adams wrote the screenplay himself years ago (obviously though he didn't see the movie production since he's been dead for a bit), and as it says in the intro to the ultimate hitchhikers guide (the book that contains the 5 book hitchhikers trilogy), it was made to contradict with everything else. the movie only covers the first book of the series, and that only loosely since there's new scenes and a character or two waaaay more developed than in the book, and some differences in plot, but overall, hilariously good. i liked the way they ended it. eric's comment was "that was so great! amazing though how some of the acting was so good and some was sooo bad... from the same people even". it was also amusing to see how parts of it were staged. i'm glad i went -- it was entertaining.
after that, eric decided we should go to blimpie to use a discount card he had, only to discover blimpies was inexplicably closed... so we ended up at a diner we'd never been to instead... eric's treat :-) (yay friends)
finally, we picked up jared and went to the rutgers university orchestra concert, which was really good. just got home and now am reading myself to sleep (i'm currently in the 3rd book of rereading the hitchhikers series, and i have an 8am oil change tomorrow so my target is to get up at 7... we'll see how this goes.
at any rate, happy weekend... night y'all!
eric and i went to see hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, the movie, which came out today. douglas adams wrote the screenplay himself years ago (obviously though he didn't see the movie production since he's been dead for a bit), and as it says in the intro to the ultimate hitchhikers guide (the book that contains the 5 book hitchhikers trilogy), it was made to contradict with everything else. the movie only covers the first book of the series, and that only loosely since there's new scenes and a character or two waaaay more developed than in the book, and some differences in plot, but overall, hilariously good. i liked the way they ended it. eric's comment was "that was so great! amazing though how some of the acting was so good and some was sooo bad... from the same people even". it was also amusing to see how parts of it were staged. i'm glad i went -- it was entertaining.
after that, eric decided we should go to blimpie to use a discount card he had, only to discover blimpies was inexplicably closed... so we ended up at a diner we'd never been to instead... eric's treat :-) (yay friends)
finally, we picked up jared and went to the rutgers university orchestra concert, which was really good. just got home and now am reading myself to sleep (i'm currently in the 3rd book of rereading the hitchhikers series, and i have an 8am oil change tomorrow so my target is to get up at 7... we'll see how this goes.
at any rate, happy weekend... night y'all!
well, *that*'s new
so, if you know me and have talked to me about my classes in the past two years, you know that my combinatorics professor is exceedingly brilliant and gives wonderful lectures, but impossible homework. i have had him for 3 semesters straight, and do not plan to take his class in the fall for fear that it will be over my head, and because i have other interests... generally i'm a little intimidated by him too, so i generally just leave well enough alone, show up to class every day on time, turn in homework on time, say hi when i see him out of class, and that's it.
today, i ended up coming into the building at the same time as him so we talked the whole way down the hall and through the lobby to the elevator, less tense than my previous dialogues with him have been... that's good, right?
then, halfway through class he commented "it's so hard to figure out exactly what goes in the last lecture of a course", to which we were all like "dude, there's still classes on monday", to which he replied, "but we started as a tuesday/thursday class and changed it... this is my 28th lecture, i refuse to come in on monday,... in 20 minutes, this course is done except for your last homework"...
um, ok... i have no problem with that... it was just a bit of a surprise! :-P
today was just off anyhow, besides rutgersfest, there's the annual math prize exam for undergrads and when we came in for our 9:50 class (described above), all the juniors/seniors had been assigned to take the exam in our classroom, so we had to go on a hunt for another room... adventure indeed...
now, i return to my office, and there's computer people rewiring network cables... to get to my office, i had to jump over three large rings of network cables, under two stepladders, and push my way through a cascade of wires coming down from the ceiling... there's a guy right outside my office door with lots of smaller cables he's cutting or doing something to, and i had to have him move his pile of wires 3 feet down the hall so i could get in the door.
i think i'm going to hide in the graduate lounge; it's obvious 5th floor (where my class was *supposed* to be), and 6th floor (where my office and the network cable fiesta 2005 are) are not good places to be right now :-P
yay weekend?
today, i ended up coming into the building at the same time as him so we talked the whole way down the hall and through the lobby to the elevator, less tense than my previous dialogues with him have been... that's good, right?
then, halfway through class he commented "it's so hard to figure out exactly what goes in the last lecture of a course", to which we were all like "dude, there's still classes on monday", to which he replied, "but we started as a tuesday/thursday class and changed it... this is my 28th lecture, i refuse to come in on monday,... in 20 minutes, this course is done except for your last homework"...
um, ok... i have no problem with that... it was just a bit of a surprise! :-P
today was just off anyhow, besides rutgersfest, there's the annual math prize exam for undergrads and when we came in for our 9:50 class (described above), all the juniors/seniors had been assigned to take the exam in our classroom, so we had to go on a hunt for another room... adventure indeed...
now, i return to my office, and there's computer people rewiring network cables... to get to my office, i had to jump over three large rings of network cables, under two stepladders, and push my way through a cascade of wires coming down from the ceiling... there's a guy right outside my office door with lots of smaller cables he's cutting or doing something to, and i had to have him move his pile of wires 3 feet down the hall so i could get in the door.
i think i'm going to hide in the graduate lounge; it's obvious 5th floor (where my class was *supposed* to be), and 6th floor (where my office and the network cable fiesta 2005 are) are not good places to be right now :-P
yay weekend?
friday, friday
the good:
forgot to mention, but yesterday, there was a math journal in my math department mailbox... i was surprised because it wasn't one i have a subscription to... yet i opened it up, and it was the volume containing my 3rd published paper... i bought a subscription to the one with my first article on my own, and the 2nd one is in a journal that costs like $100 per issue, so this was the first time the publisher just sent me a copy for free :-) i was pleased
today is the last pizza seminar i'm in charge of... i've enjoyed it, but i'm glad to hand it over to phil next year; he'll do a good job, and it's nice to know i survived just fine and it's done now
friday tradition: my clock radio goes off at 7:50am... at 7:55am every friday the radio station i have it set to (the NYC christian station) plays "i believe statements"... their motto is "star 99.1 is a reflection of you", so in keeping with that, if you call in before 7:30 on friday and leave a 1 sentence statement starting with "i believe", they splice them together and play them all at 7:55 to "kick off the weekend"... it's kinda a cool idea... anyhow, waking up to that every friday makes me smile :-)
oh! and hitchhikers guide, the movie, comes out today! woohoo!
here's not quite as smiley news:
the annoying: today is rutgersfest... even though classes still go on through monday, today, every undergraduate on earth will pour into a field pretty darn close to the math building and have a huge drinking party all day... last year they got in smashmouth or someone huge like that... i don't recognize any of the acts this year.... i just know they're really loud and make my head hurt and making getting myself to and from school really hard... oi... i'm glad people will have fun, i just wish that it wasn't so close to my building when we're still trying to work.
the sad: this has been on the NYC news all week:
Heartbroken mom lets boy slip away... it was originally suspected that this 13 year old boy had a tooth infection that spread to his brain, causing it to swell and killing him... he died yesterday afternoon... the news says it was something else now, but still losing a 13 year old so suddenly has to be unimaginably tough... i've been hearing about this all week long and i'm kinda sad for the family every time i hear it... i guess prayers for them.
and that's your friday-morning-news-that-lara's-aware-of update. have a good one.
forgot to mention, but yesterday, there was a math journal in my math department mailbox... i was surprised because it wasn't one i have a subscription to... yet i opened it up, and it was the volume containing my 3rd published paper... i bought a subscription to the one with my first article on my own, and the 2nd one is in a journal that costs like $100 per issue, so this was the first time the publisher just sent me a copy for free :-) i was pleased
today is the last pizza seminar i'm in charge of... i've enjoyed it, but i'm glad to hand it over to phil next year; he'll do a good job, and it's nice to know i survived just fine and it's done now
friday tradition: my clock radio goes off at 7:50am... at 7:55am every friday the radio station i have it set to (the NYC christian station) plays "i believe statements"... their motto is "star 99.1 is a reflection of you", so in keeping with that, if you call in before 7:30 on friday and leave a 1 sentence statement starting with "i believe", they splice them together and play them all at 7:55 to "kick off the weekend"... it's kinda a cool idea... anyhow, waking up to that every friday makes me smile :-)
oh! and hitchhikers guide, the movie, comes out today! woohoo!
here's not quite as smiley news:
the annoying: today is rutgersfest... even though classes still go on through monday, today, every undergraduate on earth will pour into a field pretty darn close to the math building and have a huge drinking party all day... last year they got in smashmouth or someone huge like that... i don't recognize any of the acts this year.... i just know they're really loud and make my head hurt and making getting myself to and from school really hard... oi... i'm glad people will have fun, i just wish that it wasn't so close to my building when we're still trying to work.
the sad: this has been on the NYC news all week:
Heartbroken mom lets boy slip away... it was originally suspected that this 13 year old boy had a tooth infection that spread to his brain, causing it to swell and killing him... he died yesterday afternoon... the news says it was something else now, but still losing a 13 year old so suddenly has to be unimaginably tough... i've been hearing about this all week long and i'm kinda sad for the family every time i hear it... i guess prayers for them.
and that's your friday-morning-news-that-lara's-aware-of update. have a good one.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
apprentice, and other such fun
today was a bizarre day.
i had my morning class, but the french man that eric and i took out to eat on tuesday was an unannounced guest speaker, which was fine.
in my reading class, i had no new results to share, but zeilberger didn't know if the project he gave me to do even had a chance at being successful anyhow, so he wasn't upset. instead he had vince lecture to me about some new research directions to go in from where i am now, so that was fine.
i had my reading class early because my friend sarah had her oral qualifying exam (which i get to do my own of in the fall) and dr. z. was on her committee. since my class was moved up so dr. z. could get to sarah's orals on time, i had an hour to kill and went to eric's to play pool. he beat me the first game because i scratched when hitting in the 8-ball but i beat him fair and square the 2nd game, and went nuts over it :-P i beat him for the first time ever the last time we played, so this was only the 2nd time ever i'd beaten him and i was pretty excited :-)
after i got back to campus, sarah had *just* gotten out of her orals and was waiting on the verdict... 15 minutes of listening to her, we headed into the stairwell, me headed upstairs and her headed downstairs when she ran into her advisor, and i heard diane (her advisor) congratulate her, so from 2 floors up i yelled "woohoo sarah!!!!" and clapped... diane took a minute to figure out who was doing that and was amused :-P
after experimental math seminar, dr. z. assumed i was coming to dinner and invited sarah to come and she agreed... after that she wanted to go get a drink or two to celebrate her passing her test, but it was 8ish and still light out, so none of the bars looked that appealing since happy hour was over and they were all moderately dead... i offered my vanilla vodka, which i still have a *little* of, so sarah and i went by riteaid to get coke to mix it with, and she invited aek, (3rd year student from thailand) to come along... not only did he come, he brought teddy (one of dr. z.'s former students who's generally around on thursdays for seminar and dinner) with him... leigh showed up with ben not much after, and the 6 of us sat down to vodka and cokes and watched apprentice... it was entertaining.
i was sorry to see alex go. tana is fantastic in many ways but when she doesn't preform quite up to par i feel like she's rather plastic, and it irritates me. she doesn't take credit for mistakes and just blames them on others. i was hoping trump would go with george and carolyn's votes and fire her, but no such luck... so long as kendra's still in it, i'm happy :-)
post apprentice was a very strange conversation. aek is an interesting character to start, just in that he has some different perspectives on things that i would never think of, and in that he seems to struggle a lot with american culture and more specifically with american social interaction. this is hard to explain properly, but for example... the post-apprentice conversation was aek asking how to properly give a hug without seeming like he didn't know how to give hugs. as you might imagine, this led to some strange conversation, just based on aek's comments, and based on people demonstrating hugs for aek :-P
anyhow.... that's my math people.... they're lots of fun as always.
only 2 more days of class..... AND hitchiker's guide comes out tomorrow! i can't wait!
night y'all :-P
i had my morning class, but the french man that eric and i took out to eat on tuesday was an unannounced guest speaker, which was fine.
in my reading class, i had no new results to share, but zeilberger didn't know if the project he gave me to do even had a chance at being successful anyhow, so he wasn't upset. instead he had vince lecture to me about some new research directions to go in from where i am now, so that was fine.
i had my reading class early because my friend sarah had her oral qualifying exam (which i get to do my own of in the fall) and dr. z. was on her committee. since my class was moved up so dr. z. could get to sarah's orals on time, i had an hour to kill and went to eric's to play pool. he beat me the first game because i scratched when hitting in the 8-ball but i beat him fair and square the 2nd game, and went nuts over it :-P i beat him for the first time ever the last time we played, so this was only the 2nd time ever i'd beaten him and i was pretty excited :-)
after i got back to campus, sarah had *just* gotten out of her orals and was waiting on the verdict... 15 minutes of listening to her, we headed into the stairwell, me headed upstairs and her headed downstairs when she ran into her advisor, and i heard diane (her advisor) congratulate her, so from 2 floors up i yelled "woohoo sarah!!!!" and clapped... diane took a minute to figure out who was doing that and was amused :-P
after experimental math seminar, dr. z. assumed i was coming to dinner and invited sarah to come and she agreed... after that she wanted to go get a drink or two to celebrate her passing her test, but it was 8ish and still light out, so none of the bars looked that appealing since happy hour was over and they were all moderately dead... i offered my vanilla vodka, which i still have a *little* of, so sarah and i went by riteaid to get coke to mix it with, and she invited aek, (3rd year student from thailand) to come along... not only did he come, he brought teddy (one of dr. z.'s former students who's generally around on thursdays for seminar and dinner) with him... leigh showed up with ben not much after, and the 6 of us sat down to vodka and cokes and watched apprentice... it was entertaining.
i was sorry to see alex go. tana is fantastic in many ways but when she doesn't preform quite up to par i feel like she's rather plastic, and it irritates me. she doesn't take credit for mistakes and just blames them on others. i was hoping trump would go with george and carolyn's votes and fire her, but no such luck... so long as kendra's still in it, i'm happy :-)
post apprentice was a very strange conversation. aek is an interesting character to start, just in that he has some different perspectives on things that i would never think of, and in that he seems to struggle a lot with american culture and more specifically with american social interaction. this is hard to explain properly, but for example... the post-apprentice conversation was aek asking how to properly give a hug without seeming like he didn't know how to give hugs. as you might imagine, this led to some strange conversation, just based on aek's comments, and based on people demonstrating hugs for aek :-P
anyhow.... that's my math people.... they're lots of fun as always.
only 2 more days of class..... AND hitchiker's guide comes out tomorrow! i can't wait!
night y'all :-P
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
misc.
i'm tired and irritated with math.
last night 4 different times, i thought i solved, (and then proceeded to unsolve my solution to) one of my combinatorics problems due next week... today i finally got it, but last night i went to sleep really irritated with it.
tonight, similar story. my last reading class of the year with dr. z. is tomorrow, and i have absolutely nothing to show him for it. i've been working for the past 6 hours on stuff for him, but absolutely nothing has proven productive. last week i made up for lack of actually proving stuff by showing him my new web book... this week, i have absolutely nothing to show, and i feel bad about it. :-/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
insert 45 minutes of being on the phone with eric
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
eric says that i have no reason to feel bad about my lack of finding solutions and life goes on and that gives me something to work on over the summer too... research... oh joy :-P
in other news, mohamud, the oldest student working for my advisor, had his thesis defense today. i'd never been to a defense, but i figured an "academic big brother" was a good one to start with. other than the jury of professors there were vince, eric, and me (3 of the other 4 of us working for dr. z.), and then a handful of students who came in the same year as mohamud. basically, he talked for an hour about the content of his research, followed by questions from the general audience, followed by all of us except the jury getting kicked out so that they could talk to him. 15 minutes later, the verdict was that he passed. so now there's only 4 of us and mohamud is officially dr. mohammed (yes, both his first and last names are mohamud, spelled differently :-P). i was excited for him. :-)
here's my last random news of the day before i crash... new pictures posted at the usual spot enjoy!
some of my favorites:
random block near my house
dogwoods :-)
john nash and me
(nash didn't pay much attention to who had what cameras when, but besides being me with a famous person, i think it's also a really good picture of me :-P (no bragging intended :-P))
now, to sleep, and hopefully to have a better math day tomorrow...
night y'all!
last night 4 different times, i thought i solved, (and then proceeded to unsolve my solution to) one of my combinatorics problems due next week... today i finally got it, but last night i went to sleep really irritated with it.
tonight, similar story. my last reading class of the year with dr. z. is tomorrow, and i have absolutely nothing to show him for it. i've been working for the past 6 hours on stuff for him, but absolutely nothing has proven productive. last week i made up for lack of actually proving stuff by showing him my new web book... this week, i have absolutely nothing to show, and i feel bad about it. :-/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
insert 45 minutes of being on the phone with eric
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
eric says that i have no reason to feel bad about my lack of finding solutions and life goes on and that gives me something to work on over the summer too... research... oh joy :-P
in other news, mohamud, the oldest student working for my advisor, had his thesis defense today. i'd never been to a defense, but i figured an "academic big brother" was a good one to start with. other than the jury of professors there were vince, eric, and me (3 of the other 4 of us working for dr. z.), and then a handful of students who came in the same year as mohamud. basically, he talked for an hour about the content of his research, followed by questions from the general audience, followed by all of us except the jury getting kicked out so that they could talk to him. 15 minutes later, the verdict was that he passed. so now there's only 4 of us and mohamud is officially dr. mohammed (yes, both his first and last names are mohamud, spelled differently :-P). i was excited for him. :-)
here's my last random news of the day before i crash... new pictures posted at the usual spot enjoy!
some of my favorites:
random block near my house
dogwoods :-)
john nash and me
(nash didn't pay much attention to who had what cameras when, but besides being me with a famous person, i think it's also a really good picture of me :-P (no bragging intended :-P))
now, to sleep, and hopefully to have a better math day tomorrow...
night y'all!
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
oh joy
gotta love my advisor. last thursday, he told both me and eric that he has a friend coming in from france today and he'll be unable to take this friend to dinner. instead he asked if eric and i would, and we agreed. then, he made the following arrangement and informed us of it via CCing us on the email to his friend:
Dear Bernard,
Looking forward to your visit and talk. If it is OK with you, my students Lara P------ and Eric R------ will take you out for dinner tomorrow. Lara will meet you earlier, to chat about math, at 5:30pm, at the Rutgers Univ. Inn lobby. Then at 6:15pm, Eric (who has a class until then), will come and you three will decide on a restaurant of your choice.
Best wishes
Doron
(last names dashed out purposely by me :-P)
not that i mind... it should be cool and it's free dinner (dr. z. will reimburse us)... and the guy should be interesting to talk to -- he has his own "math company" in france (see here: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/scmsa/), so just asking him about what he does should be interesting and keep us talking for a bit. i'm not quite sure why he (dr. z.) set things up this way, but eric and me discussing the location of the university inn, the places we'd thought of for dinner so far, and rush hour traffic just decided i'd chat for 20-25 minutes until eric gets out of class at 5:50 and then i'll drive dr. z's friend to the restaurant we pick and meet eric there.
we'll see how this goes.
Dear Bernard,
Looking forward to your visit and talk. If it is OK with you, my students Lara P------ and Eric R------ will take you out for dinner tomorrow. Lara will meet you earlier, to chat about math, at 5:30pm, at the Rutgers Univ. Inn lobby. Then at 6:15pm, Eric (who has a class until then), will come and you three will decide on a restaurant of your choice.
Best wishes
Doron
(last names dashed out purposely by me :-P)
not that i mind... it should be cool and it's free dinner (dr. z. will reimburse us)... and the guy should be interesting to talk to -- he has his own "math company" in france (see here: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/scmsa/), so just asking him about what he does should be interesting and keep us talking for a bit. i'm not quite sure why he (dr. z.) set things up this way, but eric and me discussing the location of the university inn, the places we'd thought of for dinner so far, and rush hour traffic just decided i'd chat for 20-25 minutes until eric gets out of class at 5:50 and then i'll drive dr. z's friend to the restaurant we pick and meet eric there.
we'll see how this goes.
yay for budapest friends :-)
remember this post from yesterday?... it's about how i plan to go to hungary in august and now have set tentative travel dates... i emailed 9 of my closest (hungarian/expats living in hungary) friends yesterday to tell them i hoped to be seeing them in august... so far i'm 2.5 for 4:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from the american guy (who married to a hungarian girl and now lives/works in budapest) who co-led the international Bible study I attended while there:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hello Lara,
It's good to hear from you. Thanh here. I'm glad to hear that
you will have something productive to do this summer to keep you out of
trouble...Congrats! Unfortunately Melinda and I, if all goes well, will
head back to the US from early August to early September so we will miss you
while you're in BP....bummer. It would have been good to get to catch up
with you again. At any rate I think many of the other people will be here
like shalom, henk, etc...
Have a good time then...and thanks for keeping in touch.
Thanh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from my hungarian friend rita -- psychology grad student while i was there, now psychology graduate looking for a job anywhere in europe she can find one
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lara,
I'm waiting for U!!!! I don't know if I will in Budapest in August or not,
but happy to hear that You come to Europe :))))!!!
Hugs, rita
p.s. I've finished my studies and looking for job in Hungary and abroad.
p.s.2. I hope you like this mandala..
[lara's note: she attached a cool graphic file she made herself]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from my friend zsofi, who is about my brother's age and was one of my best friends while i was around
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
yuppeeeeee yupppeeeeeeeeee yuppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
;-DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
[lara's note: *that* cracked me up :-P]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from bernadett, who is 10 years older than me, almost to the day, but was my "prayer partner" through my church in budapest while i was there... so we met at least once a month to chat over dinner and hang out... we got to be pretty close and have been fantastic pen pals since then
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[lara's note: this email came in HUGE blue font, in bold face... can you hear the excitement in it? :-)]
HI DEAR LARA!
I AM SO HAPPY FOR THE NEWS YOU HAVE JUST SENT ME!
OF COURSE I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING YOU AGAIN ¢¾ !
I AM GOING TO TAKE SOME DAYS OFF AND SPEND SOME TIME WITH YOU. I CAN ALSO COOK SOME HUNGARIAN FOOD FOR YOU! AH, SO NICE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR VISIT!
LET ME GIVE MY MOBILE PHONE NR: [deleted from mass publication ;-P]
MY BIG NEWS FOR YOU IS THAT OUR SECOND BABY IS COMING AND I AM EXPECTING HIM/HER BY THE MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER - SO YOU GONNA SEE ME WITH A BIG TUMMY.
WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?
GREETINGS, BERNADETT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
you can't tell that my hungarian friends love me as much as i love them, can you? ;-) i sooooooooooo can't wait to see them all again.
yay.
now to get on with my work for the day :-P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from the american guy (who married to a hungarian girl and now lives/works in budapest) who co-led the international Bible study I attended while there:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hello Lara,
It's good to hear from you. Thanh here. I'm glad to hear that
you will have something productive to do this summer to keep you out of
trouble...Congrats! Unfortunately Melinda and I, if all goes well, will
head back to the US from early August to early September so we will miss you
while you're in BP....bummer. It would have been good to get to catch up
with you again. At any rate I think many of the other people will be here
like shalom, henk, etc...
Have a good time then...and thanks for keeping in touch.
Thanh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from my hungarian friend rita -- psychology grad student while i was there, now psychology graduate looking for a job anywhere in europe she can find one
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lara,
I'm waiting for U!!!! I don't know if I will in Budapest in August or not,
but happy to hear that You come to Europe :))))!!!
Hugs, rita
p.s. I've finished my studies and looking for job in Hungary and abroad.
p.s.2. I hope you like this mandala..
[lara's note: she attached a cool graphic file she made herself]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from my friend zsofi, who is about my brother's age and was one of my best friends while i was around
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
yuppeeeeee yupppeeeeeeeeee yuppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
;-DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
[lara's note: *that* cracked me up :-P]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from bernadett, who is 10 years older than me, almost to the day, but was my "prayer partner" through my church in budapest while i was there... so we met at least once a month to chat over dinner and hang out... we got to be pretty close and have been fantastic pen pals since then
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[lara's note: this email came in HUGE blue font, in bold face... can you hear the excitement in it? :-)]
HI DEAR LARA!
I AM SO HAPPY FOR THE NEWS YOU HAVE JUST SENT ME!
OF COURSE I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING YOU AGAIN ¢¾ !
I AM GOING TO TAKE SOME DAYS OFF AND SPEND SOME TIME WITH YOU. I CAN ALSO COOK SOME HUNGARIAN FOOD FOR YOU! AH, SO NICE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR VISIT!
LET ME GIVE MY MOBILE PHONE NR: [deleted from mass publication ;-P]
MY BIG NEWS FOR YOU IS THAT OUR SECOND BABY IS COMING AND I AM EXPECTING HIM/HER BY THE MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER - SO YOU GONNA SEE ME WITH A BIG TUMMY.
WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?
GREETINGS, BERNADETT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
you can't tell that my hungarian friends love me as much as i love them, can you? ;-) i sooooooooooo can't wait to see them all again.
yay.
now to get on with my work for the day :-P
what a night....
oi...
re: the previous post, ben and i were both convinced that scott was really really mad at me earlier, and over something silly.... it didn't seem characteristic, but from the death look i got from him in passing at one point today, i wasn't quite sure what was up... so before i left the office for the day, he was still in class, so i left him a note (and folded it up all funny like in junior high or something :-P) and left it on his desk... on IM a few hours ago i got this response:
scott: yes, i did see your note :-)
scott: no, i'm not mad at you, and of course i don'e hate you, even if that's what you've been telling everyone
scott: i'm just busy and stressed out, that's all. we can talk more later
scott: your note definitely made me smile!
so all's well that ends well... honestly for awhile though i wasn't quite sure how i had managed to offend him so badly, but i'm glad his outward reaction was way more extreme than apparently his inward one was :-P
moving right along... eric is getting increasingly talented at starting long discussions late at night. tonight he emailed me a link about islam's beliefs about who jesus is. eric thought that i should completely freak out that there's a rather huge group of people who profess the islamic faith and thus claim that jesus was not crucified. eric's comment was: "if it's really true and historically documented like you claim, shouldn't someone who believes in islam have caught on by now and there be tons of muslims who argue that jesus was in fact crucified, even if they have different beliefs from you on who he was?" we went back and forth on this for over an hour.
regardless of my arguments, his blanket response is generally "i just find it kind of suspicious that 'western facts' seem to back up your faith... you should find it just a little too convenient too"
the thing is
(1) if i didn't think christianity was the best fit belief system to what i've seen and believe to be true about the universe, i wouldn't be a christian -- it's to be expected that the arguments i present are pro-christian when it comes down to a question of "either this happened or it didn't, no gray", and that's not being catty, grandiose, or thinking i'm better than other people. it's to say that i believe certain things to be true and christianity best models that set of truths, and thus i am a christian,... not the other way around
(2) that is to say... i evaluate what i think to be true and what i don't think to be true and THEN adopt my beliefs and theories about theology and about the universe at large to fit what i've seen to be true; i don't adopt a philosophy and then just choose to believe only the points that support it
(3) like it's good to be reminded (see yesterday's post: here), it's not just me intuiting my faith. it's a gift worked in me through God, not anything i do, earn, or study into myself. sometimes i wish it were that simple and that i could cut and dry be like "so look, this is why the evidence seems to stack up this way, think about it and you'll see and believe too", on days when i'm tired, that would take so much less energy :-P, but the truth is it's not that simple at all.
as always, i just have to remind myself to be as open to discussion (both with being willing to explain myself AND with actually listening to who i'm talking to) and keep on working doing just that.
5 more days of the semester... woo hoo... i'm going to sleep.
re: the previous post, ben and i were both convinced that scott was really really mad at me earlier, and over something silly.... it didn't seem characteristic, but from the death look i got from him in passing at one point today, i wasn't quite sure what was up... so before i left the office for the day, he was still in class, so i left him a note (and folded it up all funny like in junior high or something :-P) and left it on his desk... on IM a few hours ago i got this response:
scott: yes, i did see your note :-)
scott: no, i'm not mad at you, and of course i don'e hate you, even if that's what you've been telling everyone
scott: i'm just busy and stressed out, that's all. we can talk more later
scott: your note definitely made me smile!
so all's well that ends well... honestly for awhile though i wasn't quite sure how i had managed to offend him so badly, but i'm glad his outward reaction was way more extreme than apparently his inward one was :-P
moving right along... eric is getting increasingly talented at starting long discussions late at night. tonight he emailed me a link about islam's beliefs about who jesus is. eric thought that i should completely freak out that there's a rather huge group of people who profess the islamic faith and thus claim that jesus was not crucified. eric's comment was: "if it's really true and historically documented like you claim, shouldn't someone who believes in islam have caught on by now and there be tons of muslims who argue that jesus was in fact crucified, even if they have different beliefs from you on who he was?" we went back and forth on this for over an hour.
regardless of my arguments, his blanket response is generally "i just find it kind of suspicious that 'western facts' seem to back up your faith... you should find it just a little too convenient too"
the thing is
(1) if i didn't think christianity was the best fit belief system to what i've seen and believe to be true about the universe, i wouldn't be a christian -- it's to be expected that the arguments i present are pro-christian when it comes down to a question of "either this happened or it didn't, no gray", and that's not being catty, grandiose, or thinking i'm better than other people. it's to say that i believe certain things to be true and christianity best models that set of truths, and thus i am a christian,... not the other way around
(2) that is to say... i evaluate what i think to be true and what i don't think to be true and THEN adopt my beliefs and theories about theology and about the universe at large to fit what i've seen to be true; i don't adopt a philosophy and then just choose to believe only the points that support it
(3) like it's good to be reminded (see yesterday's post: here), it's not just me intuiting my faith. it's a gift worked in me through God, not anything i do, earn, or study into myself. sometimes i wish it were that simple and that i could cut and dry be like "so look, this is why the evidence seems to stack up this way, think about it and you'll see and believe too", on days when i'm tired, that would take so much less energy :-P, but the truth is it's not that simple at all.
as always, i just have to remind myself to be as open to discussion (both with being willing to explain myself AND with actually listening to who i'm talking to) and keep on working doing just that.
5 more days of the semester... woo hoo... i'm going to sleep.
Monday, April 25, 2005
my secret talent is....
making math department friends angrier at me than anyone else around here has ever seen them be.
i need a new talent.
i need a new talent.
exciting plans are afoot!
here's an email i've been waiting for waaaaay too long to send; however, i just got an email from my summer job asking what airport i want to fly back from europe from and when, so my plan of visiting budapest this summer really *WILL* work out!
here's what i just wrote to 9 of the coolest hungarians/expats living in hungary i know :-P
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 10:28:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Lara"
Subject: visiting budapest!
To: -------
hello friends!
as you may or may not know, i have a summer job i'm very excited about this year. i'm helping coordinate a math research program for undergraduate students both from the states and from czech republic. the program runs for 6 weeks at my university in new jersey, and for 3 weeks in prague (july 23-august 10).
along with my summer job comes a free trip to prague. i figured if i get a free flight to and from europe, i should make good use of it to see friends while i'm much closer than i usually am. :-) after i finish working in prague, i'm planning to spend a little over
a week in budapest before heading back to the states for a new semester of school.
tentatively i'll get into budapest thursday, august 11, and leave again on monday, august 22. just wanted to give you all a heads up so that hopefully i can catch up with each of you at some point! i can't wait! :-)
hope all is well with all of you!
lara
=)
here's what i just wrote to 9 of the coolest hungarians/expats living in hungary i know :-P
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 10:28:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Lara"
Subject: visiting budapest!
To: -------
hello friends!
as you may or may not know, i have a summer job i'm very excited about this year. i'm helping coordinate a math research program for undergraduate students both from the states and from czech republic. the program runs for 6 weeks at my university in new jersey, and for 3 weeks in prague (july 23-august 10).
along with my summer job comes a free trip to prague. i figured if i get a free flight to and from europe, i should make good use of it to see friends while i'm much closer than i usually am. :-) after i finish working in prague, i'm planning to spend a little over
a week in budapest before heading back to the states for a new semester of school.
tentatively i'll get into budapest thursday, august 11, and leave again on monday, august 22. just wanted to give you all a heads up so that hopefully i can catch up with each of you at some point! i can't wait! :-)
hope all is well with all of you!
lara
=)
yay for being useful
me: do you remember how my last glass assignment went?
Auto response from steve: fact 1: i've already sort of given myself one extension on this assignment
fact 2: no class tomorrow
fact 3: it's an assignment for prof. glass
fact 4: i don't care about disk architecture
fact 5: did i mention it's an assignment for glass?
fact 6: i can't not get an A
why should i do this assignment again? ok, good point, i'll put it off for another day
me: my advice is don't do it...
me: tammy and i were a "group" for our last assignment for his class my senior year... we spent like 30 hours on what he thought was very simple ALL freaking week the last week of classes... very little sleep... lots of singing billy joel's allentown in the sun computer lab late at night... finished the darn thing
me: during finals week the power was out in gellersen so no one else in the class did it
me: we all got As anyhow
me: it's not worth it
steve: mine is for 246...it's like 5 problems out of the book
steve returned at 12:08:29 AM.
steve: i just have no motivation to do it
me: still, don't do it :-P
me: i have no motivation either
steve: and even if i do it, glass won't get around to grading it by the end of the semester anyways
me: i have 6 days til end of the semester and i can't motivate myself to do my last assignment for each class
me: i've been mixing new CDs for myself :-P
steve: that's fun too :-)
me: this one has two hungarian songs in it :-)
steve: oh man
steve: that's awesome
steve: can you send them to me?
steve: i have movies
steve: and one cd
steve: but there was this one hungarian pop song that they played a lot while i was there
steve: but i could never decipher enough words to figure out what it was called or who sang it
me: ah, that's what i had hungarian friends for :-)
steve: and it was usually just on the radio, so there weren't hungarians around who i could ask about it
steve: and i'd never think of it when i was around the hungarians
me: lol
me: well my songs outdate yours by a little
steve: what kind of hungarian music do you have?
me: (cd name/group) : (hajnal/groovehouse) (uttalan utakon/unique) (the best of communism/various) (a hegedu hercegnoi/princess)
me: first two are kinda techno/electronic
me: last one is an electronic violin trio that bastardizes famous hungarian classical pieces
me: it makes music majors cry
me: and thus i find it highly entertaining
steve: do you have them ripped on your computer?
me: yeah, they're all on my machine
steve: might you be able to IM me a few choice selections?
me: i guess
steve: i could mail you a party in a box
me: i was getting ready to sleep :-P
me: but i can send you maybe 3 for now
me: more later if you want
................
steve: i would attempt to recreate the song i know for you, but well, i'm bad enough at guessing words to songs in my own language, so who knows what i'd come up with in hungarian :-P
me: it could be entertaining
me: i bet zsofi would be able to figure it out :-P
.................
me: this one was also big on radio while i was there
steve: oh man, i can even understand some of the words in this one
steve: i heard this one while i was there a few times
steve: i've been having a very i miss budapest weekend
steve: this makes me smile a lot
me: good :-)
steve: thanks lara, you're the coolest :-D
..................
steve: i'm not going to get any work done tonight because i'm going to try to translate this whole song
..................
me: would you like "lenin-song", a bunch of communist hungarian children singing how they love comrad rakosi, or "the party, the people, our one way" (my hungarian teacher taught us that instead of the little sheep song we were supposed to learn one day in the crash language course :-P)
steve: does it sound anything like the little sheep song?
me: nope
me: it was because he hated the sheep song
steve: ok...let's go lenin then
steve: we had a parody of the sheep song in our skit at the end
....................
me: glad to have been helpful :-)
steve: very much so
me: enjoy the tunes :-P
steve: i will, have a good night, thanks again
me: if you really do want to send me a party in a box, i don't mind ;-)
steve: email me your mailing address
me: ok, night steve klee
steve: this hajnal song is pretty sad
me: yeah well
me: it sounds decievingly upbeat
steve: i know
me: it's a hungarian song ;-)
steve: i like it :-)
me: awesome
me: that song's why i bought that CD :-P
steve: kosz, jo ejszakat
me: szep almokat
..................................
i miss budapest too... hopefully going back in august :-)
now really, night y'all :-P
Auto response from steve: fact 1: i've already sort of given myself one extension on this assignment
fact 2: no class tomorrow
fact 3: it's an assignment for prof. glass
fact 4: i don't care about disk architecture
fact 5: did i mention it's an assignment for glass?
fact 6: i can't not get an A
why should i do this assignment again? ok, good point, i'll put it off for another day
me: my advice is don't do it...
me: tammy and i were a "group" for our last assignment for his class my senior year... we spent like 30 hours on what he thought was very simple ALL freaking week the last week of classes... very little sleep... lots of singing billy joel's allentown in the sun computer lab late at night... finished the darn thing
me: during finals week the power was out in gellersen so no one else in the class did it
me: we all got As anyhow
me: it's not worth it
steve: mine is for 246...it's like 5 problems out of the book
steve returned at 12:08:29 AM.
steve: i just have no motivation to do it
me: still, don't do it :-P
me: i have no motivation either
steve: and even if i do it, glass won't get around to grading it by the end of the semester anyways
me: i have 6 days til end of the semester and i can't motivate myself to do my last assignment for each class
me: i've been mixing new CDs for myself :-P
steve: that's fun too :-)
me: this one has two hungarian songs in it :-)
steve: oh man
steve: that's awesome
steve: can you send them to me?
steve: i have movies
steve: and one cd
steve: but there was this one hungarian pop song that they played a lot while i was there
steve: but i could never decipher enough words to figure out what it was called or who sang it
me: ah, that's what i had hungarian friends for :-)
steve: and it was usually just on the radio, so there weren't hungarians around who i could ask about it
steve: and i'd never think of it when i was around the hungarians
me: lol
me: well my songs outdate yours by a little
steve: what kind of hungarian music do you have?
me: (cd name/group) : (hajnal/groovehouse) (uttalan utakon/unique) (the best of communism/various) (a hegedu hercegnoi/princess)
me: first two are kinda techno/electronic
me: last one is an electronic violin trio that bastardizes famous hungarian classical pieces
me: it makes music majors cry
me: and thus i find it highly entertaining
steve: do you have them ripped on your computer?
me: yeah, they're all on my machine
steve: might you be able to IM me a few choice selections?
me: i guess
steve: i could mail you a party in a box
me: i was getting ready to sleep :-P
me: but i can send you maybe 3 for now
me: more later if you want
................
steve: i would attempt to recreate the song i know for you, but well, i'm bad enough at guessing words to songs in my own language, so who knows what i'd come up with in hungarian :-P
me: it could be entertaining
me: i bet zsofi would be able to figure it out :-P
.................
me: this one was also big on radio while i was there
steve: oh man, i can even understand some of the words in this one
steve: i heard this one while i was there a few times
steve: i've been having a very i miss budapest weekend
steve: this makes me smile a lot
me: good :-)
steve: thanks lara, you're the coolest :-D
..................
steve: i'm not going to get any work done tonight because i'm going to try to translate this whole song
..................
me: would you like "lenin-song", a bunch of communist hungarian children singing how they love comrad rakosi, or "the party, the people, our one way" (my hungarian teacher taught us that instead of the little sheep song we were supposed to learn one day in the crash language course :-P)
steve: does it sound anything like the little sheep song?
me: nope
me: it was because he hated the sheep song
steve: ok...let's go lenin then
steve: we had a parody of the sheep song in our skit at the end
....................
me: glad to have been helpful :-)
steve: very much so
me: enjoy the tunes :-P
steve: i will, have a good night, thanks again
me: if you really do want to send me a party in a box, i don't mind ;-)
steve: email me your mailing address
me: ok, night steve klee
steve: this hajnal song is pretty sad
me: yeah well
me: it sounds decievingly upbeat
steve: i know
me: it's a hungarian song ;-)
steve: i like it :-)
me: awesome
me: that song's why i bought that CD :-P
steve: kosz, jo ejszakat
me: szep almokat
..................................
i miss budapest too... hopefully going back in august :-)
now really, night y'all :-P
Sunday, April 24, 2005
let the countdown begin
oi... just 6 more days of classes... that's 3 more combo lectures (1 more assignment), 3 more combinatorial commutative algebra lectures (assignments are somewhat optional, but i'll probably work some next weekend with sarah after she finishes her orals on thursday), 1 more algorithmic discrete math lecture and 2 more computer labs for it, and 1 more reading class meeting with dr. z., plus a meeting with dr. butler to discuss my videotapoing from last week, and then i'm home free.
one could argue that being this close to done and knowing when i finish the current assignment for each class i'm *done* with that class, i'd be all gung ho to get my work done and move on with life... apparently that's not the case... contrary to working yesterday, today i managed to do an awful lot of non-math.
after church and lunch, i went to riteaid and stop and shop and then cleaned the bathroom really good, did laundry and some other random things around the house, then watched a movie and worked on my cross-stitch for awhile (so close to done after 2 years of work... i expect to finish it in the next month or so)
recent discovery? smirnoff twisted watermelon... it's tasty... i need the 6 pack i bought today to last me for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong time though... i should mostly be drinking water for the sake of my insides :-P
other accomplishments? when my friend nina's away message said
"cleaning, or at least pretending to clean, but I've already spent almost 4 hours talking on the phone when I should be cleaning...so if you want to be next in line and help me out let me know...;-)", it was all too tempting to IM her with "oooh! call me! call me!" and she immediately did and we chatted for an hour (we hadn't talked since i saw her last month in charleston on spring break), so that was quality.
other big accomplishment of the day is making yet another CD... the previous one's been running non-stop in my car for over a week straight now, so i put on a bunch of other songs that didn't make the previous one but that i love just as much... i'm not quite sure what to call this new mix... it's a different personality entirely from either of the previous two CDs (which both had clear descriptions)... different parts of this one have completely different personalities from each other even... here's the current playlist (subject to minor revision/rearragement before i actually burn it:
1. On My Way (Phil Collins) -- from brother bear
2. When the Rain Comes (Third Day)
3. Free (Ginny Owens)
4. He Mele No Lilo (Kamehameha Children's Choir) -- from lilo and stitch
5. Hajnal (GrooveHouse) -- hungarian song; top of the charts most of the time i was in budapest 2.5 years ago
6. Two Sets of Jones' (Big Tent Revival)
7. Truth No. 2 (Dixie Chicks)
8. Born to Fly (Sara Evans)
9. zero measure set (Ben Bunting) -- warning: if you write me a catchy tune and leave it on my voicemail, there's an off chance i'll figure out how to transfer it to an mp3 on my computer, and then you, too, could inadvertently be a track on one of my CDs ;-)
10. csillagtenger (unique) -- another hungarian tune :-P
11. All American Girl (Train)
12. Memory [Dead Winter Dead Intro] (Savatage)
13. Not What You See (Savatage)
14. I Thank You Child (Zakk Wylde)
15. The Downeaster "Alexa" (Billy Joel)
16. Sikulandile (Soweto Gospel Choir)
17. Hallelujah, Salvation, and Glory (Urbana 2000 Worship Team)
18. Side by Side [Youtherial Mix] (Rebecca St. James)
19. What Trouble Are Giants [Live] (Rich Mullins)
20. Love's Been Following You (Twila Paris)
21. Wonderful, Merciful, Savior (Selah)
22. When All Is Said and Done (Geoff Moore)
what does that say about my mood? :-P
in conclusion, lime jello is one of the most wonderful things on the planet.
i'm going to sleep :-P
one could argue that being this close to done and knowing when i finish the current assignment for each class i'm *done* with that class, i'd be all gung ho to get my work done and move on with life... apparently that's not the case... contrary to working yesterday, today i managed to do an awful lot of non-math.
after church and lunch, i went to riteaid and stop and shop and then cleaned the bathroom really good, did laundry and some other random things around the house, then watched a movie and worked on my cross-stitch for awhile (so close to done after 2 years of work... i expect to finish it in the next month or so)
recent discovery? smirnoff twisted watermelon... it's tasty... i need the 6 pack i bought today to last me for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong time though... i should mostly be drinking water for the sake of my insides :-P
other accomplishments? when my friend nina's away message said
"cleaning, or at least pretending to clean, but I've already spent almost 4 hours talking on the phone when I should be cleaning...so if you want to be next in line and help me out let me know...;-)", it was all too tempting to IM her with "oooh! call me! call me!" and she immediately did and we chatted for an hour (we hadn't talked since i saw her last month in charleston on spring break), so that was quality.
other big accomplishment of the day is making yet another CD... the previous one's been running non-stop in my car for over a week straight now, so i put on a bunch of other songs that didn't make the previous one but that i love just as much... i'm not quite sure what to call this new mix... it's a different personality entirely from either of the previous two CDs (which both had clear descriptions)... different parts of this one have completely different personalities from each other even... here's the current playlist (subject to minor revision/rearragement before i actually burn it:
1. On My Way (Phil Collins) -- from brother bear
2. When the Rain Comes (Third Day)
3. Free (Ginny Owens)
4. He Mele No Lilo (Kamehameha Children's Choir) -- from lilo and stitch
5. Hajnal (GrooveHouse) -- hungarian song; top of the charts most of the time i was in budapest 2.5 years ago
6. Two Sets of Jones' (Big Tent Revival)
7. Truth No. 2 (Dixie Chicks)
8. Born to Fly (Sara Evans)
9. zero measure set (Ben Bunting) -- warning: if you write me a catchy tune and leave it on my voicemail, there's an off chance i'll figure out how to transfer it to an mp3 on my computer, and then you, too, could inadvertently be a track on one of my CDs ;-)
10. csillagtenger (unique) -- another hungarian tune :-P
11. All American Girl (Train)
12. Memory [Dead Winter Dead Intro] (Savatage)
13. Not What You See (Savatage)
14. I Thank You Child (Zakk Wylde)
15. The Downeaster "Alexa" (Billy Joel)
16. Sikulandile (Soweto Gospel Choir)
17. Hallelujah, Salvation, and Glory (Urbana 2000 Worship Team)
18. Side by Side [Youtherial Mix] (Rebecca St. James)
19. What Trouble Are Giants [Live] (Rich Mullins)
20. Love's Been Following You (Twila Paris)
21. Wonderful, Merciful, Savior (Selah)
22. When All Is Said and Done (Geoff Moore)
what does that say about my mood? :-P
in conclusion, lime jello is one of the most wonderful things on the planet.
i'm going to sleep :-P
sometimes it's good to be reminded...
today's church bulletin...
(click on a page and it'll open in a new window where you can actually *read* it :-P)
for some reason the lines highlighted were especially needed for me to hear today... they're things i "know", but "forget" from time to time. i'm so good at getting into long detailed discussions about various and sundry things that when a discussion with a friend who doesn't believe in God calls on me to explain what i believe and why i think it makes sense, there's a temptation to think "oh this is my chance to try to convince (fill in name, there are several) that Christianity isn't just a delusional/whatever world view", even though i know that's not what my job is. i think my goal should be to always be ready and willing to explain what i do believe and in a helpful manner for whoever i'm talking to, but it's not *me* who's going to convince my friends that God makes sense, that's all God's doing. really, none of my faith is my doing, and i'm thankful for all of it. even if i "know" that all already, it's still good and needful to be reminded explicitly from time to time too.
anyhow, yay for timing :-P
(click on a page and it'll open in a new window where you can actually *read* it :-P)
for some reason the lines highlighted were especially needed for me to hear today... they're things i "know", but "forget" from time to time. i'm so good at getting into long detailed discussions about various and sundry things that when a discussion with a friend who doesn't believe in God calls on me to explain what i believe and why i think it makes sense, there's a temptation to think "oh this is my chance to try to convince (fill in name, there are several) that Christianity isn't just a delusional/whatever world view", even though i know that's not what my job is. i think my goal should be to always be ready and willing to explain what i do believe and in a helpful manner for whoever i'm talking to, but it's not *me* who's going to convince my friends that God makes sense, that's all God's doing. really, none of my faith is my doing, and i'm thankful for all of it. even if i "know" that all already, it's still good and needful to be reminded explicitly from time to time too.
anyhow, yay for timing :-P
stupid kids... :-P
this has happened once before, but i was still surprised when it happened again.
late last night i got an email to the effect of "dear parent, your child has signed up to be a member of (insert name/webaddress of site). our site is completely G-rated and is a forum for girls to discuss fashion and read about the adventures of (insert random character name) and her friends. by joining this site, your child will recieve periodic newsletters from (insert character name), and we will peridicially update you about site news as well. as a parent, we know that you are concerned about your child's safety on the internet. for this reason, if at any time you would like to cancel your child's membership or view her profile information, do not hesitate to contact us at (insert email address). (etc., etc.)"
i figure, if a girl is going to lie and plug my email address in instead of her parents, she's not mature enough to have a website membership. plus it's not like i want update newsletters from the site.
anyhow, both times i've deleted the kid's account, whoever it was. maybe twice is enough times to get a hint? you don't forge "parent info", especially if it's cost you website memberships before.... oi.
late last night i got an email to the effect of "dear parent, your child has signed up to be a member of (insert name/webaddress of site). our site is completely G-rated and is a forum for girls to discuss fashion and read about the adventures of (insert random character name) and her friends. by joining this site, your child will recieve periodic newsletters from (insert character name), and we will peridicially update you about site news as well. as a parent, we know that you are concerned about your child's safety on the internet. for this reason, if at any time you would like to cancel your child's membership or view her profile information, do not hesitate to contact us at (insert email address). (etc., etc.)"
i figure, if a girl is going to lie and plug my email address in instead of her parents, she's not mature enough to have a website membership. plus it's not like i want update newsletters from the site.
anyhow, both times i've deleted the kid's account, whoever it was. maybe twice is enough times to get a hint? you don't forge "parent info", especially if it's cost you website memberships before.... oi.
ai yai yai
it's gonna be a long week
i worked hard today but to not much avail. after doing some stuff around the house, i ran a couple errands and then picked up ben from campus on my way home... we each worked on our own homework for several hours before i was ready to give up in frustration and he was ready for a break... then ihop for dinner (hadn't done *that* in forever, and then to the mall... since the first ihop we meant to go to had mysteriously been demolished since the last time we were there, we ended up taking longer to get TO dinner than intended, and thus ended up seeing a movie an hour later than intended... with 45 minutes to kill, we spent the time wandering around barnes and noble for fun... i found a fantastic mother's day gift... it's a large book for my mom to write her stories of her own growing up and about our family growing up... she gave a similar book to her mother several years ago but grandma never got to write too much of it before her stroke; nonetheless knowing she bought such a book for her mom, i know she'll appreciate the sentiment and i think she'll enjoy filling it out.
speaking of g-ma -- aunt priscilla called.. the doctor officially says g-ma's intestines are officially infection free, and they could take her off the antibiotics for that; however in the healing process she's somehow contracted pneumonia... not serious enough to take her to the hospital, but enough that she's on a different regimen of antibiotics for a bit... aunt pris said that g-ma was pretty upbeat and cheery today when she visited so that's good.
anyhow, post-bookstore, ben and i saw "a lot like love" -- new ashton kutcher, amanda peet movie that's kinda "when harry met sally"-esque. it was cute and we both enjoyed it even if it's not like "best movie i ever saw" material. so that was a quality way to end a not the most profitable ever kind of day.
on the way home, we talked a lot about ben's qual... well mostly ben talked about it and i responded periodically. he failed in february so he has one more shot. while one of his qual committee members is dr. greenfield (the prof who taught me, colleen, leigh, and eric all analysis all last fall to help us pass our writtens, just because he's that nice and helpful) and he's being really helpful, two of ben's four other members aren't the most helpful, and he's worried that they'll tell him to go ahead and get it over with again and then still not pass him... one of these people is his advisor... commented ben "i never said i had a GOOD advisor, i just said i had one"... i guess i'm super fortunate to have dr. z.
anyhow, ben's hoping to re-take in june, and it's basically do or die... if you don't pass the 2nd time, then you're out of here, which for ben is back to california (where ALL his family is) to get a "real job". i really really really want to see ben pass; not just for the "ben's one of my best friends around here" reason, but even more i've seen all the TONS of hours he's put into studying for this thing, and i want to see it pay off tangibly for him... only time will tell i guess.
in other news, both ben and scott have been chatting lately that they think it would be a fantastic idea for the two of them to get me to go out clubbing with them some night. anyone who knows me well knows my general policy of "lara doesn't dance", but eric's claim that i was dancing when it wasn't my turn while we were playing pool (and had one of my CDs on) earlier in the week gave them hope"... yes i occasionally move my feet to songs i like when in a good mood, but i don't classify it as dancing and generally don't do that in the presence of others who can see me, so i still argue that i don't dance :-P... ben commented that if it weren't for the fact that he knows i could work myself into a panic attack on the way to a club if i were really being dragged against my will, he'd MAKE me do it; but knowing there's a chance of extreme duress on my part he's just going to pick on me until he convinces me it's a good idea :-P boys...
at any rate, even if they suggest preposterous ideas from time to time, yay for friends... :-P
i should be asleep... night y'all.
i worked hard today but to not much avail. after doing some stuff around the house, i ran a couple errands and then picked up ben from campus on my way home... we each worked on our own homework for several hours before i was ready to give up in frustration and he was ready for a break... then ihop for dinner (hadn't done *that* in forever, and then to the mall... since the first ihop we meant to go to had mysteriously been demolished since the last time we were there, we ended up taking longer to get TO dinner than intended, and thus ended up seeing a movie an hour later than intended... with 45 minutes to kill, we spent the time wandering around barnes and noble for fun... i found a fantastic mother's day gift... it's a large book for my mom to write her stories of her own growing up and about our family growing up... she gave a similar book to her mother several years ago but grandma never got to write too much of it before her stroke; nonetheless knowing she bought such a book for her mom, i know she'll appreciate the sentiment and i think she'll enjoy filling it out.
speaking of g-ma -- aunt priscilla called.. the doctor officially says g-ma's intestines are officially infection free, and they could take her off the antibiotics for that; however in the healing process she's somehow contracted pneumonia... not serious enough to take her to the hospital, but enough that she's on a different regimen of antibiotics for a bit... aunt pris said that g-ma was pretty upbeat and cheery today when she visited so that's good.
anyhow, post-bookstore, ben and i saw "a lot like love" -- new ashton kutcher, amanda peet movie that's kinda "when harry met sally"-esque. it was cute and we both enjoyed it even if it's not like "best movie i ever saw" material. so that was a quality way to end a not the most profitable ever kind of day.
on the way home, we talked a lot about ben's qual... well mostly ben talked about it and i responded periodically. he failed in february so he has one more shot. while one of his qual committee members is dr. greenfield (the prof who taught me, colleen, leigh, and eric all analysis all last fall to help us pass our writtens, just because he's that nice and helpful) and he's being really helpful, two of ben's four other members aren't the most helpful, and he's worried that they'll tell him to go ahead and get it over with again and then still not pass him... one of these people is his advisor... commented ben "i never said i had a GOOD advisor, i just said i had one"... i guess i'm super fortunate to have dr. z.
anyhow, ben's hoping to re-take in june, and it's basically do or die... if you don't pass the 2nd time, then you're out of here, which for ben is back to california (where ALL his family is) to get a "real job". i really really really want to see ben pass; not just for the "ben's one of my best friends around here" reason, but even more i've seen all the TONS of hours he's put into studying for this thing, and i want to see it pay off tangibly for him... only time will tell i guess.
in other news, both ben and scott have been chatting lately that they think it would be a fantastic idea for the two of them to get me to go out clubbing with them some night. anyone who knows me well knows my general policy of "lara doesn't dance", but eric's claim that i was dancing when it wasn't my turn while we were playing pool (and had one of my CDs on) earlier in the week gave them hope"... yes i occasionally move my feet to songs i like when in a good mood, but i don't classify it as dancing and generally don't do that in the presence of others who can see me, so i still argue that i don't dance :-P... ben commented that if it weren't for the fact that he knows i could work myself into a panic attack on the way to a club if i were really being dragged against my will, he'd MAKE me do it; but knowing there's a chance of extreme duress on my part he's just going to pick on me until he convinces me it's a good idea :-P boys...
at any rate, even if they suggest preposterous ideas from time to time, yay for friends... :-P
i should be asleep... night y'all.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
dreams
i have some strange ones from time to time, and last night was such a night...
i dreamed i had made a new friend and was showing them around... however, i went down to the basement of my house at one point to get my clothes out of the dryer (i did do laundry yesterday), and the washer and dryer were gone -- apparently my landlord had decided to give the dirty cement floor down there a tile flooring instead... he had put up desks and stuff to which blocked views of the furnaces and stuff like that... it looked like a small business office instead... it looked nice, but i wanted to know where my clothes had gone.
later in the dream, me, this friend, and my parents went out to dinner at some middle of nowhere restaurant that was really fancy... there was a whole entertainment program going on throughout... part of it was a huge show outside the windows of the place with native americans and buffalos and other wildlife... it was mighty impressive... i think this part of my dream was inspired by the fact that last night i ended up at the rutgers wind ensemble concert and the last half was a series of 4 movements by Ezra Ewazen (apparently a very famous composer for brass pieces).. Ewazen was even there to talk for a bit about the piece before it was played and the American Brass Quintet played with the wind ensemble for it... it was AMAZING... anyhow, these four movements were based on a series of four photos by a famous American photographer taken 100 years ago of various aspects of native american life. Ewazen talked a lot about the traditions that were trying to be brought to life with his piece (Shadowcatcher), and I guess maybe that's what in my head sparked a dinner show of indians and buffalos... go figure.
in conclusion, my head is a weird place and you should all be grateful that you don't live in it :-P
i dreamed i had made a new friend and was showing them around... however, i went down to the basement of my house at one point to get my clothes out of the dryer (i did do laundry yesterday), and the washer and dryer were gone -- apparently my landlord had decided to give the dirty cement floor down there a tile flooring instead... he had put up desks and stuff to which blocked views of the furnaces and stuff like that... it looked like a small business office instead... it looked nice, but i wanted to know where my clothes had gone.
later in the dream, me, this friend, and my parents went out to dinner at some middle of nowhere restaurant that was really fancy... there was a whole entertainment program going on throughout... part of it was a huge show outside the windows of the place with native americans and buffalos and other wildlife... it was mighty impressive... i think this part of my dream was inspired by the fact that last night i ended up at the rutgers wind ensemble concert and the last half was a series of 4 movements by Ezra Ewazen (apparently a very famous composer for brass pieces).. Ewazen was even there to talk for a bit about the piece before it was played and the American Brass Quintet played with the wind ensemble for it... it was AMAZING... anyhow, these four movements were based on a series of four photos by a famous American photographer taken 100 years ago of various aspects of native american life. Ewazen talked a lot about the traditions that were trying to be brought to life with his piece (Shadowcatcher), and I guess maybe that's what in my head sparked a dinner show of indians and buffalos... go figure.
in conclusion, my head is a weird place and you should all be grateful that you don't live in it :-P
oi
said a friend to me today "yeah, i guess after i've known someone for awhile, subconsciously i start trying to change them to make them more like me. i know it's bad and not helpful and not even logical, but i have noticed it before. i guess i'm to that point with you; i know you well so my head thinks i should try to change the parts of you i don't understand.... i'm not saying that's good for me to do or that it's helpful, but it is a pattern i haven't managed to stop yet"
said me in response, "yeah, see, i've gotten enough of that all my life, and you saw my response yesterday -- you yell at me for a reason that makes no sense and that i don't deserve and i shut down and put up a temporarily wall until things are talked out over tea... if your subconscious is going to keep lashing out and trying to change me, you better get prepared for a LOT of chats like this over tea"
the end. (and all better for now) :-P
no more explanation to give... night y'all!
p.s. i pre-ordered scrubs, season one on DVD today... as scrubs is my favorite show EVER and i started watching halfway through season two, when season one comes out next month, i'm going to have a complete BLAST with it... i can't wait!
said me in response, "yeah, see, i've gotten enough of that all my life, and you saw my response yesterday -- you yell at me for a reason that makes no sense and that i don't deserve and i shut down and put up a temporarily wall until things are talked out over tea... if your subconscious is going to keep lashing out and trying to change me, you better get prepared for a LOT of chats like this over tea"
the end. (and all better for now) :-P
no more explanation to give... night y'all!
p.s. i pre-ordered scrubs, season one on DVD today... as scrubs is my favorite show EVER and i started watching halfway through season two, when season one comes out next month, i'm going to have a complete BLAST with it... i can't wait!
Thursday, April 21, 2005
dinner with john nash! :-)
so today's experimental math seminar was packed... normally there's maybe a dozen people in a room that holds like 50 desks? (maybe poor estimating), and showing up 30 seconds early is plenty of time... the talk was not advertised other than on the general math department seminar calendar, yet when i came 15 minutes early, the room was already 2/3 full with non-math people i'd never even seen before!
nash was a very clear speaker, but a very different style from many people i've heard. while in some sense he talked the most in generalities about models and the big idea of what he's studying lately, in another sense he worried a lot about explaining variable names in his mathematica code for example. if you're familiar at all with nash equilibria (loosly finding a point where every person involved in a bargaining game can't have a better lot if they change their strategy and everyone else keeps their current strategy).. he talked about the same kind of cooperative games only where players can elect another player to be an "agent" for them and form coalitions together. it was a good talk.
after the talk, there was the usual dinner with the speaker deal at an indian restaurant. normally there's 8-10 of us, which includes my advisor, me, a few of dr. z.'s other students, past and present, and a few profs from the department. as it turned out i ended up sitting right next to john nash himself! his son johnny was also present, but johnny was kind of in his own world for the evening working on some stuff in a notebook further down the table. john nash though, talked to me a bit about last names, because he had never heard of mine before and wanted to compare ancestries. when he heard me reply to a comment about budapest and gathered i was there for a semester, he compared notes with me about various eastern european foreign languages (as if i'm an expert)... he also commented to vince (who was sitting across from me) when vince asked if he's frequently recognized and made to be in pictures and give autographs, "well, right after the movie, i was pretty popular, but i think the older i get the more incognito i get... actually, i kinda like being incognito". that made me laugh. :-)
so yeah, not only did i hear john nash lecture and get to eat dinner with him, but by random chance of the 20+ish people at dinner tonight me and my advisor were the two who got to sit immediately next to him. it was a quality evening.
i took pictures, but i brought my regular camera, not my digital, so i'll post them when i finish the roll.
later dudes :-P
nash was a very clear speaker, but a very different style from many people i've heard. while in some sense he talked the most in generalities about models and the big idea of what he's studying lately, in another sense he worried a lot about explaining variable names in his mathematica code for example. if you're familiar at all with nash equilibria (loosly finding a point where every person involved in a bargaining game can't have a better lot if they change their strategy and everyone else keeps their current strategy).. he talked about the same kind of cooperative games only where players can elect another player to be an "agent" for them and form coalitions together. it was a good talk.
after the talk, there was the usual dinner with the speaker deal at an indian restaurant. normally there's 8-10 of us, which includes my advisor, me, a few of dr. z.'s other students, past and present, and a few profs from the department. as it turned out i ended up sitting right next to john nash himself! his son johnny was also present, but johnny was kind of in his own world for the evening working on some stuff in a notebook further down the table. john nash though, talked to me a bit about last names, because he had never heard of mine before and wanted to compare ancestries. when he heard me reply to a comment about budapest and gathered i was there for a semester, he compared notes with me about various eastern european foreign languages (as if i'm an expert)... he also commented to vince (who was sitting across from me) when vince asked if he's frequently recognized and made to be in pictures and give autographs, "well, right after the movie, i was pretty popular, but i think the older i get the more incognito i get... actually, i kinda like being incognito". that made me laugh. :-)
so yeah, not only did i hear john nash lecture and get to eat dinner with him, but by random chance of the 20+ish people at dinner tonight me and my advisor were the two who got to sit immediately next to him. it was a quality evening.
i took pictures, but i brought my regular camera, not my digital, so i'll post them when i finish the roll.
later dudes :-P
apprentice, week 13
farewell bren
that's so not how i wanted this episode to end. tana, craig, and kendra's product was so much better, but i soooooooooo wanted tana or craig gone this week after what they pulled last week. craig, regardless of other talents, is a poor communicator in my opinion, and i don't see him winning. tana's a good businessperson and very versatile, but i was just super annoyed with her just checking out on the previous task and then taking kendra's credit -- that was just plain STUPID of her.
i was sad to see bren go this week... he's the memphian on board this season so the hometown connection had me rooting for him all along. i'd been impressed early on with his people skills, and how good he was at resolving conflict, but his creativity has gone down the drain as the season's progressed. alex hasn't been that outstanding, but like bren said in the cab after he was fired, he (bren) doesn't have the same drive that alex does at this point... he came to new york wanting to have the trump job, but the longer he's been in new york, the more he's learned that what he needs and really wants is right under his nose back home in memphis. for a farewell, it was a good one.
now, i still want kendra to win, not sure who i hope should be up against her in the final. we'll see if i get what i want.
new post on dinner with john nash in a minute :-P
that's so not how i wanted this episode to end. tana, craig, and kendra's product was so much better, but i soooooooooo wanted tana or craig gone this week after what they pulled last week. craig, regardless of other talents, is a poor communicator in my opinion, and i don't see him winning. tana's a good businessperson and very versatile, but i was just super annoyed with her just checking out on the previous task and then taking kendra's credit -- that was just plain STUPID of her.
i was sad to see bren go this week... he's the memphian on board this season so the hometown connection had me rooting for him all along. i'd been impressed early on with his people skills, and how good he was at resolving conflict, but his creativity has gone down the drain as the season's progressed. alex hasn't been that outstanding, but like bren said in the cab after he was fired, he (bren) doesn't have the same drive that alex does at this point... he came to new york wanting to have the trump job, but the longer he's been in new york, the more he's learned that what he needs and really wants is right under his nose back home in memphis. for a farewell, it was a good one.
now, i still want kendra to win, not sure who i hope should be up against her in the final. we'll see if i get what i want.
new post on dinner with john nash in a minute :-P
fun with graphics
*this* i think is one of the better pictures i've had of myself in awhile -- ta da :-P
and here are my top 4 "artistic renderings" of the above photo just from playing for 15 minutes with my graphics editor :-P
and here are my top 4 "artistic renderings" of the above photo just from playing for 15 minutes with my graphics editor :-P
