We just got served, team!

Voltron, REPRESENT!

I concur!

Why should you date a Gamer?

2 posts in 2 days?? Oh noes! What's the world coming too??

Here's the original reference, kindly found by Ethan.

I swear it was only apple juice!

So, in addition to my usual hijinx this semester, I also decided that I wanted to try not to drink. I'm 21, so of course I've had my share of drinks, but, the allure of it is quickly wearing. I agreed to go with Amy to a series of parties last night (including one at our place). "I don't want to drink," I said, when she asked me to go and mingle. "Take something with you then!" she told me. So I picked up an Apple&Eve juice box and headed down. Some people started teasing me, but I maintained that "it's what all the cool kids drink" and how the apple juice was "200 proof" because it was 100% juice (get it)? Surprisingly enough, I convinced other people to start drinking apple juice, including Amy, who didn't want to drink that much either. Together, we started a trend of apple-juice drinking. The second party we went to was ok, but I didn't really care that much for it because neither of us knew anyone. The third party... well. That was full of math majors, so I felt right at home. I met up with two Computer Science and Math dualies, and we had a grand old time talking. We traded horrid pickup math and cs pickup lines ("nice equation, wanna fuck?" and "you should come home with me so I can show you the size of my L2 cache" were some of the winners. I also threw one in there about "normalizing vectors", so you get the drift). We eventually got onto the topic of theoretical computer science classes that we've taken, and this (inevitably) led us to discussing graph theory (Dr. Isler would be so proud). I recalled having trouble with the proof-based tests, but the two guys told me it was cake for them, since they had to go through the terror that was math analysis.

Math analysis is appropriately called "math anal" at RPI, or just "anal". So, thinking myself to be horribly clever I said:

"I don't do ANAL unless I have to.", my mind still on proofs. What a horrible thing to say, especially in front of two guys. One of the guys I know winked and elbowed me, "unless you have to, eh?" and I buried my face in my hand, laughing.

Sometimes I put my foot down my throat so far that I kick myself in the ass.

Another thing about apple juice: like beer, too much of it may cause you to say very stupid things. Also like beer, you also pee a lot. And lastly, like beer, you wake up the next morning and think, "did I actually say that??". And yes, this was after three boxes of apple juice and nothing else.

I'm the hugest dork that ever lived.

That's all for now.

Transition, part II (Chapter IV)

And you would have never thought in the end
How amazing it feels just to live again
It's a feeling you cannot miss
It burns a hole through everyone that feels it...
Alive. I feel myself awakening again. I haven't written here for a few weeks now, mainly because it has been so busy. I came back to RPI. TA training ensued. My mind shut down for a few weeks, as the realization of exactly how busy and exhuausted I've been this summer just washed over me, like a tidal wave. Besides accomplishing meaningless stuff, like getting ready for my courses and buying stuff necessary for day to day living, my mind has been shut off. I didn't finish the scripts necessary to finish the project so I can publish; I've just been too exhausted. I'm sure I'll resurrect them at some point and finish what I need to do. But now I have other things to worry about. I have a masters thesis to work on this semester, on Hidden Markov Models. As an initial project, I'm going to write a simple HMM in FORTRAN. Let's see how successful I am. I'm also TAing two(!) courses this semester; Data Mining and Computer Organization. Computer Organization will be a nice review, but Data Mining is what I'm really excited about. I think TAing that course will help me quite a bit in my two courses this semester, Computability and Complexity and Applications in Probability and Statistics. I need As in both of them so I can pass my qualifiers. Hopefully, this will also be accomplished.

All in all, it's going to be a busy semester. As far as relaxing goes, I went to a LAN party last night. I got to meet some interesting people and play some awesome old retro games. I also got shanghi'ed into giving a presentation on Computational Biology for the campus ACM. I'm terribly nervous, though somewhat excited and anxious; what if I look like a complete idiot? I talked to my friend Ethan about it, and he thinks I'll be ok. I think he has more faith in me that's due though.

So that's been the last few lonely, mostly boring weeks. Though only one week of school has passed, I've been agonizing, since my mind has been mainly shut off. But I think I'm coming alive again. And this is good news... good news indeed.

I don't want to talk about the whole "being single" thing anymore. In short, the plan is that I want to be single for at least one whole semester, so I can learn to stand on my own two feet, and learn to be self-reliant. A noble goal, but one that no one thinks I'll make. My friends told me today that none of them think I'll make it through the month without finding a boyfriend. Some are even counting down the days until I'm no longer single. While it's all very funny, it's a little sad that no one thinks I'm capable of being single for any long period of time. I still plan to stick to my goal, since I think I really need a period to rediscover myself. Hopefully I'll be able to reach my personal goals at the end of this semester too.

It's Sunday, the Sunday before Labor Day, and I missed church, again. This is quite saddening, since I did want to start going to church regularly again. Maybe after I finish reading the slew of books I plan on getting through this semester, I'll start reading the Bible again. At least that way I can start forming a bond with the spiritual side of me that I've somewhat left in the dark. For the rest of today, it's going to be paper reading, and perhaps flirting a bit with my Fortran book. I need to make an early start in this thesis, because I know as the semester goes on, I'm going to be hellishly busy. So wish me luck! I honestly hope this productivity spell that I feel coming on will last for a good deal. I need all the inspiration I can get.

That's all for now.