Saturday, May 27, 2006

Texas, here I come!

So tomorrow morning, I am leaving for Texas. Hooray! I've been looking forward to this for the last couple of weeks. I'm finally packed: I'm bringing with me two computers and then extraneous stuff, like clothes, food, etc. I'll be arriving around 9pm EST tomorrow night, and then it's check-in, crashing, sleeping, whatever.

So I had a series of goals of things that I wanted to do these last two weeks: They were:

1.) Relaxing
2.) Cover some FORTRAN
3.) Relearn C
4.) Read research papers
5.) Contact people about qualifiers

Of those objectives, the following were accomplished:

1.) Relaxing
2.) Cover Some FORTRAN - A little
3.) Relearn C - A bit more
4.) Read research papers - 30% (longest one read)
5.) Contact people about qualifiers - nada

I have a few days in Texas before "work" officially starts, so I can finish reading my research papers easily in that time frame and look over C some more. In the case I never make it to Texas or back, I have decided to assemble a series of last words:

"Planes are completely safe!"

"Hmm.. pointers in C look easier than the ones in C++."

"Genetic and Cooperative Algorithms? Psh. Piece of cake."

"I'm 95 miles from Houston! I'm safe from whatever hurricane blows through the Gulf this summer. Six major storms? What a joke!"

--alternatively --

"Global warming totally doesn't exist!"



In other news, Dan is up at our new apartment for the summer. He's taken a bunch of pictures of our place, which he will be sending over to me shortly. So, apartment pics will be posted soon! Yay!

Ok. I better stop being hyper and get some rest. I have a plane to catch tomorrow.

Have a good night.
-Suzanne

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Transition

... And then, with the draw of a breath, it was all over. I just sit here, blinking, at my parents' house, 200 miles away from the place I had definitively called "home" for the last four years. In a sense, it shouldn't come as such a shock; unlike the other students who are graduating, I am returning to RPI. I will still see my friends, my professors and everyone else I know. I'm not leaving. Yet, in another way, I am.

I can't even imagine what it will be like when I enter RPI again in August, this time as a first year graduate student. I can't even imagine what being in Texas this summer is going to be like. It blows my mind that, in two weeks, I'm going to 1700 miles away from where I am now doing bleeding edge research with a professor! And that in 10 weeks after that, I'm going to be done with said research, and I will be flying back for a two day break before I head over to RPI again to start TA training, and move into my new apartment with Dan. And then, just a little while after that, I will be a graduate student! It seems so surreal. My life is starting to speed up and I don't know if I'll be exhillirated or suffering from Toxic Shock at the end of the summer.

So I have two weeks to prepare. In these two weeks, I want to 1.) Refamiliarize myself with C and possibly FORTRAN, 2.)Start reading all the research papers on my summer professor's site, and get a general gist of what I'm going to do, 3.) Contact RPI about taking a qualifier or two and 4.) Get on a new diet. I have reached the unhappy weight of 133 lbs, which, at my height, is a bit too much for me to bear. I'm not "heavy" by a long shot, but I am definitely overweight, having gained approximately 15 lbs in the last year itself (partially due to illness). So tomorrow, I will start my new exercising plan ("Oh no.. call the cops. She's going to diet again?"). Seriously. This one is legit. I've been reading The Hacker's Diet by John Walker. It seems intresting, and hell, I need something to amuse myself in my spare time this summer, so what's better than trying to shed those ugly extra pounds?

That's for tomorrow. Tonight, I'm going to sit back, relax and just think about how I'm actually a college graduate, with a Bachelors in Computer Science. A song Dan introduced me to, "Here's to the Night", is stuck in my head. While it's about a one night stand, I think this song accurately protrays my current feelings about finally graduating. Good night everyone. To my friends who are graduating (Ethan, Theo, and so many more), congratulations :-) And I wish you all the best in whatever you do: "Here's a toast to all those who hear me all to well..."

"Here's to the night we felt alive
Here's to the tears you knew you'd cry
Here's to goodbye tomorrow's going to come to soon"

Saturday, May 06, 2006

In the Final Stretch..

Well here we are. Classes have finally ended. I have one final. Not too bad, right? Except it is in the one class that I'm worried about. Graph Theory. It's a really informative course, and my instructor is terribly brilliant, but he has very high, albeit sometimes unrealistic standards for the class. Graph Theory is about definitions, theorems and proofs concerning graphs and their general construction ("well yeah," you might say, "it's Graph THEORY you idiot. What did you expect?"). In other words, proofs + definitions + theorems = oodles of memorization. It shouldn't be as bad as the midterm, since he is letting us have a "cheat sheet" containing theorems and definitions. I'm still doomed. The worse that can happen is that I get a C in Graph Theory. The best scenario, I get an A. I think my current study plan involves concentrating on the creation of mentioned cheat sheet, and going over all my homeworks and the midterm. If I understand all the proofs in that, I will at least be free of the guilt that I didn't sufficiently prepare.

In between study bursts, I'm amusing myself with a rediscovery of an old classic, Lemmings. I also am amusing myself with a game that one of my friends (Ethan) showed me, called Planarity. I'm trying to convince myself that this game counts as studying for my final.

I am sooo doomed.