Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I'll probably have an update post today, but we just got back from midnight mass (and yes, it's almost 2 am!), and I absolutely had to post the most astounding revelation I had while I was sitting in mass tonight:

Love is Empathy.

Isn't that beautiful? Love is Empathy. It all makes sense now.

Have a wonderful night (or morning). Dad and I are waiting for Mom to go to bed so we can surprise her by setting up her gift for her so it's ready in the morning. For safety's sake, I'll tell you what it is later today ;-)

G'night!

Top 10 Viral Videos of 2007

So time has this interesting piece listing (and providing links to) the Top 10 Viral Videos of 2007. It's really worth taking a look at. I was shocked to see actually 5 videos that I hadn't seen before.. hmm; seems like grad school is actually affecting how well I waste my time on the internets. How many did you fail to recognize?

Of note is "Iran so Far", another SNL short starring one of the Narnia cupcake guys. Hilarious, but I can see why the president of Iran hates us so much.

Other Time top 10 lists you may be interested in are:
Top 10 T-Shirt Worthy Slogans
This video from the Top 10 Animal Stories (nothing else is really worth it)

It's the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and I'm busy programming. I'm actually taking a break right now; I may get back to the coding.. but then again I may not. It -is- Christmas Eve, after all. Status report: if I can get one more component fixed, life will be good, and maybe I'll switch gears for a while. If not... meh. Not sure if I care right now. I do need to rest; that is of paramount importance.

Anyways, wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas eve.

Graph Theory + Kitties

My favorite kind of combination.

Check out Chat Noir, a really game that is applicable to some problem within Graph Theory, I dare-say something associated with pursuit and evasion, though I am hesitant to use that label here.

Freakin' Hilarious

9 Most Badass Bible Verses

Read now.

Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon (VPN running)

Back in linux, I follow the link and download the file. After unzipping the tar.bz2 file, I cd in and run ./vpn_install. Magic happens. Next, to start the thing. In the future, I hopefully don't have to do this, since it should be done automatically:

sudo /etc/init.d/vpnclient_init start

Ok, next, I need profiles. Before, when love was on the side of vpnc, I would have to enter the gateway info, and two passwords. This was doable, and ok. Now I need profiles. With a touch of chagrin, I realize that this probably the program that the help desk wanted me to run all along, though the tar file I downloaded was different. Going back to the RPI helpdesk site, I download the necessary .pcf files and put them in /etc/opt/cisco-vpnclient/Profiles/

The following command is then used:
sudo vpnclient connect RPI_External_VPN

Magic happens: user names and passwords are entered, information is exchanged. Sparkles and rainbows shoot out of my terminal. And suddenly..!

Negotiating security policies.
Securing communication channel.

Your VPN connection is secure.


To check, I try to connect to my server. No problems! Hooray! VPN now works!

Ugh. It's been fun, I think. I haven't checked RPI Wireless yet, but something tells me it will work (before it didn't). So overall, a productive and good use of time.

I -am- hungry. Maybe food is in order? That's a good idea. Food, and a hot shower.

Till next time...
-Suzanne

Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon (Fixing VPN)

Now in Windows, I test out my Cisco external VPN connection. After successfully being able to connect to my server (which is now behind the firewall -- another rant), I knew there wasn't anything wrong with External VPN. So one of two things must have happened.

By some hidden magic, External VPN no longer supports vpnc, or by some other hidden magic, vpnc changed somehow from Ubuntu 7.04, to 7.10, in an unproductive manner for me.

I head over the help-desk site and see the package that they have for linux. I shudder I -really- don't want to deal with their shit if I can get things working on my own. Back to ubuntu forums. Sure enough, other people seemed to be having a similar problem.

I now have the following instructions:

You can find the client here:
http://linux-support.hiwi.rz.uni-kon...1.0640.tar.bz2
Extract the file. Make sure, that you have installed the kernel headers and then run
sudo ./vpn_install
Link

h'okay, then, let's see what we get. Reboot into linux.

Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon

So I developed a nasty head cold last night, and as of this morning, am still feeling pretty terrible. I think among the things necessary for a cure are food and fluids, neither of which I've had since my meager bowl of oatmeal last night.

Because I wasn't feeling well, I played on my DS, but eventually got bored. So I decided to upgrade my current system, which ran Ubuntu Fiesty 7.4 to Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10. Flipped open system upgrade, and told it to upgrade to 7.10.

I immediately began having doubts. Usually, when a new OS comes out, there are bugs here and there, and I winced remembering my wireless adventure dealing with my network stuff. Things were working perfectly now, after all.. why change things?

To test how well the upgrade will actually upgrade my system, rather than downgrade it, I authorized the go ahead.

The upgrade was relatively painless; it took about an hour to download the upgrades, and another hour to install all the updates, which was pretty reasonable, especially since I don't have the best of wireless connections here at the apartment. So, I restarted the system to see what it all looked like.

Things were ... mostly the same. Gaim had disappeared, since now Pidgin is exclusively supported. I added the Pidgin Icon to the panel, rearranged it some, and my panel looked as good as normal, save for this weird purple pigeon icon being where my simple, yet elegant yellow man icon used to be. Ah well, I'll get over it. The biggest change was that wireless was no longer working. At all.

SHIT, I thought. This could be for several reasons. 1.) Something different is going on that it was in Fiesty 2.) Something different is going on and it's going on worse because I TOLD ubuntu during the upgrade process to keep the modified blacklist file. SHIT, I thought, shit, shit, shit shit.. Worst of all, at that point in time, I had forgotten that the blacklist file was called "blacklist", so I didn't know where to look.

Rebooted into windows. Came to my blog, saw the notes I made last time about blacklisting goodness. Went back into linux. Located and went into this file:
/etc/modeprob.d/blacklist

After looking at the tail of the list, sure enough, my original changes were there. shit, I thought. So it' s no longer hostap that's the problem... wait, but what if hostap has control, and orinoco is the trouble? A few quick changes to the blacklist file yielded the tail of blacklist to look like this:

#buggy network-manager causes ornico to fight with it for wireless card
#blacklist hostap
#blacklist hostap_pci
blacklist hermes
blacklist p80211
blacklist prism2_pci
blacklist orinoco
blacklist orinoco_pci

With my fingers crossed, I restarted the system. Ubuntu came back up, and lo and behold! Wireless was working! Hooray! Scanning is re-enabled, and things looked like it was full of win. I was pleased to see that vpnc was part of the default install, and that all my previous settings were saved. Let's see if I can connect to the external VPN. A button click and two passwords yielded:

VPN Connect Failure

Could not start the VPN connection 'External VPN' due to a connection error.

The VPN login failed because the VPN program could not connect to the VPN server.


Shit, I thought. Not good. I checked configuration file. No problems seem to be there, since indeed, it was my previous settings. I was able to connect via external VPN no problem since I last checked, which was two days ago. Could something actually be wrong with External VPN connection at RPI? or is it VPNc? Let's check.

System reboot into Windows.

Some fun

For all of those who think that "Codex Carnivorous" may be experiencing a revival, surely you're imagining things...

Florida (Part III) - Bridge Day and Grace Hopper

I was going to have a "Florida Part IV" as well, but I really want to just go back to talking about non-florida stuff

Wendnesday was the "bridge" between the two conferences, aptly called "Bridge Day". A select few of us won scholarships to have guided tours at Epcot and Magic Kingdom, and that's what we did. Three huge groups of girls piled into buses and rotated between a tech talk, epcot, and magic kingdom. We started with the tech talk.

To summarize the tech talk, someone didn't tell Disney that there were a lot of graduate students present. If you want more details, I will tell you later, but it was like pulling teeth for the next hour and half. At least I got chocolate out of it.

Epcot was amazing. We got a backstage tech tour, and learned about the technology that Disney uses. There, we all got to go on the "Mission: Space" ride. At Magic Kingdom, we got a backstage tour as well (did you know that MK is on the second floor?). We also got to go on "Haunted Mansion" at Magic Kingdom. It was fun, especially because Disney has done some really neat stuff with lighting and holograms. All in all, I was pretty impressed, especially with how well they hide their cameras.

Grace Hopper was really cool. Imagine 1400 women in one hotel for three days. Now imagine them all in computing. Ridiculous, eh? Coming from a department with like 30 girls out of 600 students, it was quite something. Grace Hopper was quite, quite classy. I would have probably had a blast, if it wasn't for the fact that I had been interacting with people non-stop over the previous three days. While I can be quite the extrovert, even with that much interaction I need get away. By friday, I had to force myself out of bed, because I just didn't want to see people anymore.

Probably one of the highlights of the week was my lunch with my mentor, Tiffani. We went to lunch, and spent four hours talking about different things, especially things about life. I am so incredibly lucky to have a mentor like her, and she's seriously one of the most dynamic people I've ever met. Biggest take away from the conferences? Finding a sense of balance. Finding a sense of self.

Randy Pausch once said, "my next piece of advice is that you just have to decide if you're a Tigger or an Eeyore". All my life, I've been an Eeyore: incredibly cynical, and somewhat defeatist. At my best, I've been content with the world, but never saw it in a favorable light. But I have a gift; I can talk to people, I can interact with people, I can make things happen. I have enormous potential as a Tigger; whenever I join any organization or club, I somehow wind up near the top. It's happened since high school. I like organizing and leading, and I can. I've always repressed that part of me, since I'm good at it, and it scares me. Also, I'm a Computer Scientist; we're not supposed to know how to interact (some case of peer pressure, huh)! That will all be in the past. Now is the time for change.

Does this mean that I think everything is right with the world? Heck no! I just don't care anymore. I can still make good things happen, regardless of the bad stuff. If I embrace the side of me that is extroverted and aware of my strengths, I can really go places. As long as I have my "bounce" and my passion, I can overcome almost anything. So I'm going to give it a shot, and see where life takes me.

Before I left Orlando, I stopped by the Disney store. I picked up an Eeyore and a Tigger stuffed animal. I keep them on my bookshelf, so whenever I walk by, I can remember the promise I made to myself:
"Never stop, never give up. Inspire and be inspired. And above all - Embrace life"

Time to shift into overdrive. Things will be okay.

Florida! (part II)

I honestly thought I would have been blogging about the (two) conferences more than this, but I've honestly been too busy being exhausted and having a ton of fun. Just a quick recap of the weeks events:

The Richard Tapia conference started on Sunday. It was really good (if for no other reason) for all the people I met. Because it was a smaller crowd (about 400 people), you really got to know and sit down and talk to people. Plus, there were a lot of people from industry, quite a few who seemed to jump on the mention that I do my research in Computational Biology. This is a huge deal. Why, you ask? When I was originally going on job searches, back in Undergrad, at the big career fair, this is usually what went down: I'd find a pharmaceutical company that I thought would be a big name for what I want to do, and walk up to them. The conversation will inevitably go like this:

Me: "My name is Suzanne, I do Computational Biology!"
Rep: "Sorry, we're looking for Computer Science majors only"
Me: [face fallen] "But, I have a bachelors in Computer Science!"
Rep: [lights up] "Oh! Do you know Java? We need programmers in our IT department.."

It was so aggravating. Instead of recruiting people to do research, they all were just recruiting code monkeys, even the companies that were known for research in my field. Sure, it's really important to program, but that's not necessarily the focus of research. It was just so.... frustrating. How nice it was to finally go somewhere, not even looking for an internship, and being asked to sign up, asked for contact info, resumes, etc.

I also met a lot of people at Tapia. If for nothing else, that was so much fun. I played pool with two PhD students from Berkley and TAMU, hung out a bit with someone from Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and just had a plain good time with everyone. I also was really lucky to have one of the sweetest roomies that I could have been matched up with (Lacey, from Auburn U). Plus, there were two other students from RPI (Onur and Jiao) who came to Tapia. Together, we represented RPI CS at a booth for one day during the conference. That was also fun, because it brought back memories of my recruiting days as an Undergraduate.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention! At the conference I remet a PhD student who just graduated from RPI CS, Joel Branch. He is now working for IBM full-time as a researcher. That's just really exciting, so I talked to him about how life was for him at IBM, and some of the pitfalls and trials that a person may face as they are transitioning from PhD to the workplace. I also asked about how "kid-friendly" IBMs policies are, and was very happy to hear the answer. It was very informative, and made me seriously think about going to IBM afterwards and pursuing research. Who knows? Maybe I'll apply for an internship their soon.

Tapia concluded for me Tuesday night. There was an awards banquet that went a little too long, causing some of us to design plans to escape. I went back to downtown Disney for a little bit, before deciding I needed to go to bed. All in all a good time.

Stuff about Bridge day and Grace Hopper in the upcoming posts. I'm just too tired to blog about it now. Also, I probably should get moving, since checkout is in a little bit.
Till then!

-Suzanne

Florida! (part I)

Things learned so far:

1.) The food sold in the in-hotel mini-food-store is only ~$2 more expensive than the food sold at RPI.

2.) The beds at the Hilton are super soft and comfy.

3.) Downtown Disney is fun to walk around in.

4.) I look stupid with mouse ears.

5.) 4-inch heels are not good for walking, no matter how "comfortable" you think they are; 3 hours later, your feet will be in pain.

------------

Just got back from exploring Downtown Disney... there is a whole slew of shops, many of which I took pictures of. Of note was the Lego store, which I had a lot of fun walking through and taking pictures of. I also saw a "build-your-own lightsaber" station in one of the toy stores, which I just -had- to take a picture of (all my pics will be up on Facebook sometime later... during the trip, I'm not sure, but definitely after).

Conference related stuff is going to start around 6pm tonight. Until then, I'm going to relax, mostly, me thinks; maybe tuck into another research paper (I've read at least 5 so far). Or maybe I'll take a nap.. mmmm.. nap sounds good.

Getting Ready...

I'm currently in NJ, getting ready for the Richard Tapia and Grace Hopper conferences that I will be attending all of next week. I'm starting to get pretty psyched, especially about the Grace Hopper Conference, since it's largest consortium of female computer scientists in the country (~2000 last year alone). I'll probably be taking pictures and blogging about my experience while I'm there.
Who is Grace Hopper, you ask? One of the first modern computer scientists, wrote the first compiler, and developed COBOL (which, despite what current people may think about COBOL, was quite a feat). On top of all that, she was a Rear Admiral in the Navy. I found a clip on Youtube of when she appeared on the David Letterman show back in 1986, 5 years before her death:

Grace Hopper on Letterman Show, 1986.

She was also known for her visualizations of nanoseconds and picoseconds (shown in video).

Anyways, enjoy.. I'm going to get back to other stuff...

'Til then.

-Suzanne

23

So I'm 23 today.

I present to you Jakob's First Aquarium, in celebration:
Watch it now

I was hoping that youtube would post this to my blog, but apparently it's been several hours and it has not been posted.

New Species of (Itty Bitty!) Frog found in Kerala

The University of Delhi reports that India's smallest land vertebrae, named Nyctibatrachus minimus ("Small NightFrog"), has been found in the Western Ghats in Kerala. S.D. Biju, a Systems Biologist from Delhi University has been working in the Western Ghats to discover new species of frogs. His discoveries also include the Purple frog, and the first Canopy Frog from India (Philautus nerostagona).

Picture of the cute froggy appears below:



Links to articles:
Science Daily
IndianPad
Boing Boing

Alligator Lambda Calculus

Since my Turing Machine coloring book idea has not yet reached fruition, you can only imagine my pleasant surprise when one of my friends sent me this link about using Alligators to teach children about lambda calculus. It's really cute! I really like how the "eating rule" represents beta reduction.

Enjoy!

Kitten Katamari!

Source
Holy Smokes, Batman! A Katamari of Kittens??

This has to be one of the best things ever.

Special thanks to my friend Bill, for sending me the link!

Sunday Nights

Tonight I watched The Music Man, an old movie-adaption of the broadway musical. For reasons that I won't divulge here, I find it very significant that I finally can watch it again (and actually had a desire to), since it's been years since I've been able to. It's one of those musicals I really enjoyed when I was younger, if for nothing else, the love songs. Most notably: "Good Night my Someone", "Til There was You" and "Will I Ever Tell You". All are poignant, simple and sweet. I feel it necessary to share at least one with you... I think I will share the last one; I think the first one (with some minor changes) will be my nighttime away.

"Dream of now, dream of then.
Dream of a love song that might have been.
Do I love you?
Oh, yes, I love you.
And I'll bravely tell you
But only when we dream again.
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
How sweet that mem'ry how long ago
Forever?
Oh, yes forever.
Will I ever tell you?
Ah-- no."

Simply beautiful. I like to say that I've killed the old romantic that I used to be, but such songs still have a way of affecting me.

One thing I hope that never dies within me is my inner child. I like to think, that after all these years, I still have a childlike wonder and curiosity for everything around me; I'm also still very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when I am not cynical and brooding. Having a childlike nature as I enter adulthood I've always felt was essential (this is, I stress, much different that being immature; that's one childlike way that should be abandoned in childhood).

Sometimes I wonder if this view of things is correct; during one of my darker moments this past week, I was blessed by a link from my friend Theo. He sent me a link to a talk by Randy Pausch called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". The poignant thing about this talk, is that it's Dr. Pausch's last lecture; he is terminally ill with cancer, and doctors say that he has only a couple months left to live. I strongly encourage everyone to watch it; it's very good, and very inspirational. So good, in fact, that that I've asked the ACM chair of our chapter to allow us to show it at one of the meetings. Let's see what happens.

Computer Science: One space ahead of pornography

Here's a neat trick:

Type in "hardcore model" into Google. Note results.

Now, type in "hard core model" into Google. Note the top result. Read the top result (only if it isn't porn)

Cool, huh?

K. I'm going to bed now.

... and Exhale

As you can guess, I passed :-) I can't believe it; I'm actually done with my qualifiers! Of course, I still have my research qual that I need to finish before this year, and then I have my candidacy and my defense. But since that's research specific, I think while they will be stressful, I'll have an easier time.

Now to start catching up with all the research and the coursework that I've been putting off this semester. I'm lucky; the second week of classes just ended, and the first homework assignment I have for any of them is due on Friday. So, I have -plenty- of time. I think today will be mostly doing the reading necessary for them and relaxing. I think for once, I deserve all the relaxation I can get.

As a special request from my good friend Ethan, I have created another LoLQualCat. :-) Created using the CheezburgerFactory, courtesy of ICHC.

Hmm.. Maybe LOLPhDCats will be in order? ("I can has PhD?" "Mah Research, Let me Show you It!", "Research Cat is Researching".. oh, the possibilities!)

Enjoy!

-Suzanne

Waiting for results...

So I took the programming languages qualifier this morning. I have no idea how I did. I woke up at 6:45am today, shaking, and then vomited. Talk about nerves! The exam went alright.. I got asked a question that I was definitely comfortable with answering, and it seems like they were satisfied with how I answered, though I stumbled on some of the followups. I don't know how I did. If they're feeling nice, I'll pass. If they're not, they can fail me; I have no idea. And I won't find out until later tonight (around 5 or 6pm). I have class at noon, and then we have a CS mixer at 4 pm.

I just need to try and relax and not think about how I did until then.

But what I -do- know is that I was incredibly nervous, and I probably was looking like this during the qual:

Introducing LoLQualCat! Or, "Suzanne During the Prog Lang qual". Enjoy!

-Suzanne

Take a Deep Breath...

That's it. I'm done with work for the night. I agonize, because I stop, and it's only 9:30pm. Forget the fact that I've been working all day. Forget the fact that I know I'm dangerously close to my limit.

It's only 9:30pm. And I'm stopping?

I have to though. I'm getting tired. My programming languages qualifier is in two days. This isn't last minute crunch; I've studied around 200 hours over the last three months for the exam, and a lot of the material is finally starting to click. Things I accomplished today:
-read and take notes on compilers e-book
-read and take notes on interpreted languages
-read and take notes on different programming classes( functional,
logical, imperative, object oriented, generic programming language)
over regular functions
-read and take notes about symbol tables
-read and take notes about garbage collection
-read about parse trees
-Figure out nuances of problem 13

Things I'm (unwillingly) leaving for tomorrow:
-read and take notes about exception handling
-read and take notes on inline functions, and advantages/disadvantages
-read about attribute grammars
-go over notes on object oriented languages
-polish example for question 5
-go over questions 17-23
-final run through the questions

My exam is on Friday at 8:30am. I am going cold turkey on the studying at 10pm tomorrow. What I have left for tomorrow is very doable... I just didn't want to have to do that much on the day before. I've been fretting over the prog lang exam again lately, which took me a long time to stop doing. The exam is unfair, but I've studied hard for it anyway. Now all that's left is to pray and see what happens.

Oh. And for those who are curious and didn't hear from me about it already: I passed the C+C qual. That's four out of five passed. Now to see if I can pass the last one.

IneedtorelaxIneedtorelaxIneedtorelax mustnotpassbreakingpointmustnotpassbreakingpoint relaxrelaxrelaxplaymario?sleep...
sleepsleepsleepsleep

sleep.

Quals and Outings

So my friend Chris just got back from CA (where he interned at Apple for the summer -- and now has a job offer from!) today, and he told me about this ice cream place in Troy called Moxie's. He heard about it on another blog, Dish and Dirt, and asked me if I wanted to go. Tonight was especially important, since it was the last day that it was open for the summer, and it was only going to be open till 9:30pm. It was close to 8:30 pm. He picked me up at around 8:45, and we headed over to Moxie's, which was out in the middle of nowhere a little ways from Troy. It was so far out, that our surroundings ceased to look like Troy; the roads became more twisty and turny, hillier, and ever darker. As we were nearing our destination, Chris had to use his Brights just so that we could see a little distance away (and it was a clear night). Finally, we found it, and got there at 9pm. Chris got Blue Moon and Indonesian Vanilla. I got Sweet Cream and Indonesian vanilla. Moxie's is apparently famous among Vanilla lovers, because they apparently have five kinds of vanilla ice cream: one named from each place that their vanilla beans was imported from.

Best. Ice cream. Ever.

I am feeling so lazy and full right now, and am probably going to head to bed after I post this. I shouldn't feel lazy though; over the last three days, I have gone over all 29 questions of the C+C qual, 10 questions per day. Tomorrow, I'm going to do a final run through all 29. I think I should be good to go on my qual for Wednesday.

Of course, being my usual graceful self, and considering how accident and illness prone I have been over the last few weeks, I managed to go and twist my foot on some gravel the other day. Since I'm still limping, I'm probably going to head over to the health center tomorrow morning, and get things all set up. Hopefully things should be ok.

Okies.. bed time for me! Good night everyone.

ENTJ!

So I recently took the Jung Typology test, based on the Myers-Briggs personality test, and scored as an ENTJ. What type are you?

According to the description of my type:
ENTJ 1 12 12 44
- slightly expressed extravert
- slightly expressed intuitive personality
- slightly expressed thinking personality
- moderately expressed judging personality

ENTJs take charge quickly and deal directly with problems, especially in situations that involve confusion and inefficiency. They provide structure to the organizations to which they belong and design strategies to accomplish their personal and organizational goals. They are 'take charge' people who organise their own and others' external environments. They use their resources to find a way to meet the challenge. They are at their best in using their analytical and strategic thinking.

This page has more info about my personality type.

So, in summary, I am a leader! (apparently)

A leader who loves kitties. And sleep.

Speaking of sleep... bed time!

Night.

Late night misfortune

Tonight Kevin came over, and we decided to watch a movie. I had fallen sick a couple days back, so the visit served as a way to check up on me, and for us to have some of the chili we made the day before but never had a chance to eat. The chili was very good; it was really thick, and we mixed it with cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese and ate it. We watched our movie, spent a little time together, and then went our separate ways (him, to home.. me, to bed). That was 12 am.

3 am I bolted upright in bed. My stomach felt like it was going to burst. I had thrown up a little in my throat, and it was really acidic. I cursed myself silently. While I'm a huge fan of chili, it's one of those things that I'm not supposed to eat, because it is tomato-based, and very acidic. Usually a few tablets of antacid and a little bit of stomach uncomfort is the worst of it. This time, however, I'd pay for my disregard for my body's dislikes.

I frantically searched for anatacid. No tums, no rolaids... nothing in sight. Among the pile of medicines, I was able to fish out a bottle of Pepto Bismol. I took a swig of it (I lost the dosage cap), and waited. In a few minutes, I began to feel a change... my stomach started to feel a lot worse. The pain was becoming unbearable. I frantically grabbed my laptop and started searching for ways I could neutralize the stomach acid. Sleep was a top priority, especially since I was trying to get better. Every time I coughed, it pushed down on my stomach, which felt like a nerve-ridden water balloon, precariously stretched.

Then I felt a difference. A rushing, boiling, churning difference. I pushed aside my laptop, and projectile vomited (I shit you not -- projectile vomited) all over my clothes, my bed, and my rug. I run to the bathroom and vomited again. I felt much better, but I returned to my room with anxiety replacing the acid that was there in my stomach.

I had paid almost $200 for my rug. It was a really nice rug. A beautiful rug -- black and creme colored, nice and thick, and felt really good when I walked on it barefoot. Miserably, I rolled my sheets into a ball and threw them into a corner of my room. The sheets were easily fixable as well as my clothes. I procured an extra set of sheets, and extra pants and an extra shirt, and threw them on the bed. Those can wait. What I needed to was get rid of that vomit on the rug.

I blotted the entire area with paper towels. This took a long time, since i didn't want to push the vomit into the rug any more than it was already. After I was satisfied, I got a wet, soapy sponge and tackled the stains on the cream part of the rug. I think I managed to get it all out; I got some more paper towels and removed all the moisture I could. There was nothing left that I could do, but consign myself to the next part... head towards bed, and wait till morning, when the rug dries. Then I can vacuum up the rest of the stain. If the instructions I found online work, it should come right out.

I remade my bed, changed my clothes (which I scrunched up and threw in the pile containing my dirty sheets) and sat there contemplating what had happened. Sometimes, I learned, it's not good to test your body's limits. My stomach still doesn't feel that great, but I'm getting tired again, so it's time for sleep. Will update after I vacuum.

Good night (or good morning), world.

UPDATE:
11:20 - Tuesday, August 21 2007
My rug is pretty much completely clean, and I am getting better... I still get exhausted very easily, but I think by tomorrow, I can fit in a full day's worth of work. Even though I was Master TAing on Monday, I couldn't bring myself to start working afterwards, and Sunday I was pretty much forced to stay in bed. Today, I worked very little on quals (it was astonishing how quickly it was exhausting me), and then concentrated on doing research. The research I'm doing right now is relatively light.. some touching up with CGI-perl on three sites that I'm transferring to a new server. It was slow, time-consuming work, but in a way somewhat relaxing. When I went home close to 8 pm, one of the sites had their transition completely finished, and the other two are partially there. A little more poking, and little more prodding here and there, should complete it.

Being sick sucks. On a positive side, this happened (and is ending) now, a full week before I have my first qual, and a good two and half to three weeks before my second (and last) qual, which is the one that I'm worried about. It's also a wake-up call from my body: I haven't been paying enough attention to it as much as I should have. Especially since I'm on RAship this coming year, I should try and work on taking more breaks, eating a bit better, and incorporating exercise into my weekly routine. I think with a little planning, this can all happen. I am starting to worry about my health somewhat, since I don't think I'm usually this sickly. Hopefully, things will get better.

Hopefully tonight will be better.

Good night.

Wireless Adventure - Part IV (Wireless in Linux)

As I write this, I'm logged into my Ubuntu partition on my laptop. We have total and complete success!

This is great. Not only can I scan for wireless networks now, I can also connect! I'm so excited.

Lessons learned:
network-manager: friend
orinoco: friend
hostap: THE DEVIL

Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn: Completely f-ing awesome.

Now, to sit back and enjoy my intrawebs on my linux partition! How shall I celebrate?

I know. Watch as many Flight of the Conchords episodes as I can!

Then some Planet Earth! ^-^

I am completely pleased with myself.


Wireless Adventure: Success!

Wireless Adventure - Part III (Blacklisting hostap)

So blacklisting Orinoco had some positive effects. Now, I can scan for wireless networks (whoopee!) As you can imagine, this was very exciting. I thought I had finally got it to work.

Unfortunately no.

I'm now thinking about blacklisting hostap instead of Orinoco:
my etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file should now read like this:

blacklist prism2_pci
blacklist hostap_pci
blacklist hostap

Let's see how this works!

More update goodness soon.

Wireless Adventure - Part II (Blacklisting Orinoco)

More poking around the internets. Lucking I found this.

To quote:
The problem is that the hostap and orinoco kernel modules are competing for control of the card. This is mentioned as a likely problem on NetworkManager site:
(http://live.gnome.org/NetworkManagerHardware)

hostap: "Supports unencrypted, WEP, WPA, and WPA2 networks. Be aware that if you have both this driver and the 'orinoco' driver installed, they may fight for control of the wireless card and render it inoperable to NetworkManager. You should either disable one of these drivers, or ensure that only one driver is able to control the card."

Thank you, Brett!

To summarize the instructions:
1. Check to make sure I'm dealing with the right network card: I entered the following command in bash:

:~ lspci | grep Network
I got:
02:02.0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation Prism 2.5 Wavelan chipset (rev 01)

HA! It matched. Yes! Next, for adding some blacklisting marks to
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist:

blacklist orinoco
blacklist orinoco_pci
blacklist hermes
blacklist p80211
blacklist prism2_pci

Last step, reboot!

Completing this process took less than two minutes (even less time than it took me to install WICD), and it was relatively straightforward.

I still don't know if it will work yet. I have to go home and see. But I have my fingers crossed! Results later. Hopefully, this should do it!

Wireless Adventure - Part I (WICD)

I looked for suggestions. The first one was WICD. It looked great. A lot of people seemed to be having the same problem, and WICD seemed to just fix it very quickly. Also, the Digg reviewers were treating it like the second coming of Christ: "GREAT interface! network-manager BLOWS! ALL my wirless problems were FIXED when I started using WICD! AND it improved my sex life! FIVE+++ StArS!" Sheesh.

Installation was breeze. I was liking this already! Now came the fun part: testing it out. The interface was lot larger than network-managers. One thing I didn't like about it right away, is that it didn't automatically connect to my WIRED network, which was annoying. Furthermore it required me to create a profile for each IP (for -wired- connections). I didn't like this at all. Since I connect to the internet all over the place, the last thing I wanted was to have a bunch of "profiles" cluttering up the interface, most of which I will probably never use again. Of course, I won't delete any of them in the off-chance that I -do- use them again(and who wants to enter all that information again?). Too aggravating. The kicker was that it wasn't detecting the wireless network present.

That would have been okay. network-manager wouldn't automatically detect wireless networks. I just had to enter them in manually. But, as it would turn out, in WICD, there is no way for me to manually enter a wireless network it didn't detect (they had a "hidden network" box, which allowed you to enter a ESSID, and no encryption key, which wasn't satisfactory.) Maybe I should have given WICD more time. Maybe I should have poked around more. Maybe I was dumb and wasn't looking at the interface closely enough. Could the solution have still been there?

Whatever. I uninstalled WICD and reinstalled network-manager. Back to square one!

Wireless Adventure - Introduction

So my IBM ThinkPad T30, Phoenix, got a makeover earlier this summer. Due to my general laziness and strange attachment to Ubuntu Breezy, I didn't update to Dapper. When Feisty came out, I found out that I could no longer update my system, period. Shit.

Among other things, this meant that I couldn't do an automatic update to Dapper, and then from there, into Feisty. So, I wiped my partition (after backing up my data) and did a clean install of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04. That, plus giving Phoenix a new fan and an additional 512 MB stick of RAM, she seemed ready to rock the world.

I really like Feisty Fawn. It's sleeker, cleaner, and it got rid of some minor annoyances I had with Breezy. Perfect set up, I thought.

Then it turned out that my wireless card wouldn't work.

I was mystified. In Breezy, my wireless card worked fine. There was a bug that prevented me from scanning for wireless networks, but as long as I knew the SSID and/or password of the network I was trying to connect to, things worked fine.

Did something go horribly wrong? Did I do something wrong? Why is my wireless card not being recognized? I rebooted into Windows. Maybe it's the network that's at fault?

In XP (where I can scan for wireless networks fine), I located the wireless network I wanted to connect to. I entered the WEP key. Everything worked fine. So nope, nothing wrong with the card, nothing wrong with the network.

Doing some poking around the internets revealed that this is a known bug with network-manager, which, of course, made things so much easier for me. But how to fix the bug?

This multipart (hopefully not too long) series of posts in this blog will chronicle my wireless adventures. Will end when either I give up, or my wireless works in Ubuntu. And, I don't want to "rollback" (if that's even possible for me, considering I did a clean install of Feisty) to Dapper Drake. Let's see who wins!

Flaming Hatred

So fellow graduate student Nikhil drew a picture of a dragon attacking a group of hapless villagers on our whiteboard.

I had spent all day working on Programming Languages. Gazing admiringly upon his artwork, I was suddenly inspired to label it in thus manner:


You see, the allegory just popped out at me, and everything just snapped into perspective.

Clearly, I'm the unfortunate chap tripping on the log (right-most grad student).

Working hard! Now to move on to C+C. More updates later.

Enjoy!

-Suzanne

Review of Students

------
June 23, 2007

Dear Suzanne,

The Computer Science faculty regularly reviews the progress of all graduate students . . . on a semiannual basis. The objects of this review process is to evaluate whether students are making progress towards their degree . . .

In the Spring 2007 review, the faculty have determined that you are making satisfactory progress toward the PhD in Computer Science. Your goals for this term were to improve your grades, pass qualifiers, and to get more involved in research projects. You have done all of these. You have contributed to two research projects. You have presented a paper at a local student conference. Congratulations on your appointment as a Master TA. Consider aiming for a career in education. Your colloquium attendance has been good. The goals for the coming term are for you to establish your thesis project, to give a poster at a national or international conference, and to pass your remaining qualifiers. Good job so far.

Sincerely,
*name ommitted here*
Department Chair
--------

I just stared at the letter. They're happy with me... I'm not a failure. "You have done all of these... Congratulations on your appointment as a Master TA... Good job so far" I just continued staring at the letter in shocked and silent gratefulness, as I absentmindedly tried to open my office door with my home key, a mistake that I tend to make most every day. In a daze, I came back and sat by my computer.

After some seriously low points this summer, including much stress associated with my summer research and studying for my last two remaining qualifiers, this letter was really heartening. I've felt like such a failure this summer; After a major error surfaced recently in my research, resulting in me having to throw away a significant portion of my results and my analysis out the window, and having some incredible difficulties with studying for one of my qualifiers, nothing I did was enough. Taking breaks have turned into mild anxiety attacks, since I rarely feel what I've accomplished is deserving of them. Also, this week has seen a huge divergence from my usual productivity, causing me to feel like I'm in the middle of a hazy sea with no rudder, oar or sail.

It's nice when people believe in you, and even nicer hearing about it. "Consider pursuing a career in education..." I've been thinking more and more about becoming a teaching professor, mainly due to the great flexibility it offers. It's nice to hear that my department doesn't think I'm a failure (and I daresay seems happy with me), even when I feel so convinced that I am.

I should be studying for my quals. I'm where I need to be with them right now. Pushing myself hard right now, however, seems very dangerous. I'm thinking about trying to relax as much as possible, and hope that this bad streak passes, and soon. But is that a good idea? Do I deserve it? I did some more review for only one of my quals today, and now I believe there is only one question left on it that remains to be answered. As far as my other qual goes, I've answered almost 60% of the questions; I still need to do some reading up on lazy evaluation and exception handling, and it may be worth it to just to read some more of the text, just so I can gain that casual confidence that is so essential to passing this qualifier.

Do I deserve a break? What have I done to deserve a break? What have I done to deserve anything good? I'm thinking about heading home. The computer is just being a drain on my productivity. But I'll take my programming languages text with me . Yes. I'll exercise, take a nice hot shower, do a little cleaning, and then curl up with my textbook.

I hate not being productive... here's hoping that this bad streak ends soon.

Revival

So, one of my friends, Craig, is the web-developer for this site: Jewcy.

I read a few articles there today, and I have to say, I'm definitely impressed. Not to say a bit curious about Scott Korb.

Check it out, if you have the time.

Also, this is freakin' hilarious.

Going off to see the new Harry Potter movie.

Power Outages and such fun

So Troy has been hit by a supreme power outage. I'm writing this as quickly as I can, because I have no idea how much longer I will have power, before I lose it again.

There have been some powerful storms sweeping the area as of late; people are blaming them for the massive power outage that is taking place, which is affecting areas as far as Latham. While it's only 4 in the afternoon, I'm wondering if it would be wise to prepare dinner now, since I may not be able to in a few hours.

Summer is going well. Lots of work to do! More of an update when I actually have some spare time.

Later.
-Suzanne

Summer!

Sorry for the lack of updates; I just got back from India about two weeks back. Since then I've been working toward a paper deadline (June 10th!), so it's been really hectic.

So let's see.. India was awesome, and pretty. How pretty you ask? See for yourself:



I got to see lots of friends and family. Oh! And the semester ended well for me:

Randomized Algorithms: A
Mathematical Statistics: B

I'll post again sometime after the 10th, when I actually have more time.

Done

My semester is finally done!

I sit here, somewhat happy and disoriented, not exactly sure what to make out of this semester finally being over. (Is it really over?) I took my stat final today, and I don't think it went so bad. We'll see how it goes. This is the end of Year I of my PhD. Let's see how well I fair next year...

Also, I'm leaving for India tomorrow! I'll try and post pictures and stuff when I get back. Until then, adieu, hope everyone's semester goes well.

Plans for the summer:
-Submit paper
-Research
-Study for quals (C+C, Prog lang)
-Relax(?)

I think I'm definitely shooting for the first three on the top of that list... we'll see how well I get to do the last :-)

The parental units will be here shortly. So, I'm off!

Take care all!
-Suzanne

Too cute and too funny

This is too cute. My office-mate, Akintayo, whole-heartedly agrees with Schecky's sentiments.

Then there's this story, which practically made me burst out laughing.

I need to stop slacking off.

-Suzanne

TAing is Over!

W00t! No more students! Yippee! I'm free! Frrreeeeee!

Now it's just me, stat and research!

Yesss, it is now just usss, prreciouss, we have time for our preciousss now... my ressearch....

*purr*! <3

k, too much sugar.

Nearing the end....

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others"

~ Marianne Williamson

Kitty!

Kitty plays the piano

Watch it now.

Culture of Fear

It seems to me more and more that we are living in a culture that is largely sustained and driven by fear.

I say this after reading about this particularly disgusting bit of racism, about a man who was targeted as a "terrorist" because he had dark skin. Here is his version of the events, along with the the University's. I guess it would be easy to dismiss the incident as a case of "small town, small-mindedness", but it still makes me shake my head and wonder; is this really what our country has become?

The semester is slowly but surely coming to an end. At this point in time, I have to finish up my rand-alg assignment (90% done), finish up my stat assignment (90%), and then concentrate on studying for my final (0% progress) that I have next thursday, and work on some research (some percentage of progress that is too low for my tastes). Oh, and I just found out that I am going to be a Master TA. Jubilations!

Back to work I go...

-Suzanne

Happy Easter

Today I did nothing.

That's right -- I did nothing. It was probably the first day in weeks, perhaps months that I did not have to do any work, and thus the little work I did, I did at my leisure. I finished the last bit of my grading today (about 10 students out of the 47 that I had to grade) and submitted them.

Besides that, I did nothing; it was absolutely wondrous. Usually, I push grading into a single day, doing it all, or the majority, in one gruelling 10 hour period. I finished the remnants of grading in roughly two hours, spending the rest of my time reading. Kevin has lent me Hyperion. So far, I am really enjoying it.

I can't remember taking a break like this. The idea of not doing work for a day seems alien and strangely out of place. Hopefully I have more days like this.

That's all for now. Hope everyone had a Happy Easter. Here is my Easter gift to you.. an Easter Bunny.

Says one customer:
"Thought it would make a cute Easter gift, no one else thought so, kids are in counselling now. Apparently I'm the only one with a sense of humor in this family"

Here's anothe Easter oddity, provided by Akintayo.

Oh, and this video has been spreading like a virus here at RPI.

More later some day. I finished the scripts necessary for the last of my phylogenetic analysis! More later when I get results. Now back to watching Planet Earth.

... Where do I get my ideas of Christianity?

To the Christian brethren who view my beliefs as being "non-christian": These are the songs I remember from my childhood:

"We are the light of the world
May our light shine before all
That they may see the good that we do
And give glory to God"

"Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me
Let there be peace on earth,
The peace that was meant to be

With God as our Father,
Children all are we
Let us walk with each other
In perfect harmony

Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow

To take each moment, and live each moment
In peace eternally
Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me"


"Make me a channel of Your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love,
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord,
And where there's doubt, true faith in You.

Make me a channel of Your peace,
Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope,
Where there is darkness, only light,
And where there's sadness, ever joy.

Oh Master grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of Your peace,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving of ourselves that we receive,
And in dying that we're born to eternal life"

"We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love"

"This is my commandment, that you love one another
As I have loved you, as I have loved you, as I have loved you
Love your enemies, do good to those who hurt you
And live in my love, live in my love, live in my love"


These are the songs of my childhood. I still sing them to this day. These are the songs that have shaped and moulded who I am today, and what constitutes my basic belief system: Love and respect others, show humility, and live by example. WHERE does it say that Christianity is about being judgemental and turning our noses up at people of other faiths? Where does it say that we convert by force, that we hold ourselves above everyone else? Where on earth did you get your ideas?

These are the songs of my childhood. Why aren't they the songs of yours?

California pictures!

So I didn't really get to explore much at all, but here are a couple pictures of the area :-)

Enjoy!

So I'm having a good time...

s/good/absolutely wonderfully great/

This is seriously probably one of the most important weekends of my life. I came to California somewhat confused, feeling incredibly isolated, and wondering if I was in the right place. The entire 6 hour flight to San Francisco was just one continuous identity and existential crisis.

I feel kinda bad that I won't be able to stay for the entire google microsoft reception tomorrow night (on account of the fact that I have to leave for my flight) but at least I will still be able to attend for one hour.

Today has been just an eye-opener. I am surrounded by 200 other female computer science graduate students, all in their first or second year, from all over the country, some with similar interests, others with vastly different ones. Either way, we are all going through the exact same thing. The exact same thing. I've always thought that some of the misgivings I was having were nothing, just things that were wrong with me. I thought, hey, no one else feels this way, it's just me. Boy, was I ever wrong.

For example, I am considered by many (including my friend Ethan.. hi Ethan! :-) ) to be a misogynist, mainly due to my inability/unwillingness to interact with most females. Guess what? So other girls in Computer Science have the same problem. How do you talk to girls from other disciplines about a field that you're so completely passionate about when they are (at times) so repulsed by it? I've had conversations of mine become limited to hair, clothes and nails, since there isn't much else that I have in common with them. I find that there are several other girls who have had the same problem. Let me tell you: that was so refreshing to hear. That it wasn't just me, that I don't have some abnormality about me that just makes me not want to interact with girls. I just don't want to interact with girls who don't understand, who can't be passionate about computer science and/or research. Here, there are 200. This is great :-)

Anyways, I have to head over to another place for another reception. I will definitely write during my next break! I'll try and post pictures of San Francisco. Today was just a beautiful day, and I'm fighting the temptation to go shopping. More later!

Greetings from California!

I arrived in CA late last night, and I really can't write for long (I will try and be back for tomorrow), but so far I have made the following conclusions:

-SFO is a very large airport
-People in San Francisco are generally rude
-The Westin St. Francis is a very upscale hotel
-The CS Women I've met so far have seemed awesome
-As a result of the previous point, I think I'm going to have fun here...

I have to pack up and get moving. A bunch of us are going to get breakfast! More later!

Need Sleep

After staying up till 4:30 to do Randomized Algorithms, I think I'm in a serious need for sleep. So I'm about to go back and take a nap.

I was just perusing through my daily collection of new-sites, when I see this heading: "NYC blanketed with 2 to 4 inches of snow". I nearly burst out laughing. "Blanketed"? Oh noes! 4 INCHES of snow! Call a state emergency! Last week, Albany got hit with about 20 inches (on Valentine's day, actually), and I suspect we'll be getting more shortly. CNN sensationalizes things way too much.

If you check CNN often enough, you often see blunders, and sometimes (I suspect), information you weren't supposed to see, as later in the day, that little tidbit or "slip-up" is gone. I took a screenshot of their little "blanket" title, but since I'm not allowed to post it, I think I'll just send a link to the article instead. Keep in mind the "blanket"ing statement they made may still not be there. If you don't believe me, ask, and I'll show you the screenshot :-)

Check it out.

Ok. Getting REAL tired. Sleepy time!

Holy.. What did I just do?

A hearty good morning from the (tired jubilant!) comp-sci next door! After wrestling with my randomized algorithms homework for several painstaking hours, I finally submitted the damn thing at 4:45 am. Realizing that sleep was pretty much shot to hell, I thought to myself, "hmm... why don't I work on my Statistics homework?" Best. freaking. idea. ever.

I am now a mere 10% away from completion. I need to finish a couple odd problems, and do the writeup for those. Besides that though, I am DONE! :-) I feel absolutely wonderful. But perhaps another reason is due to the fact that today was the first day since the summer that I worked for almost 17 hours straight. And, just like I did over the summer, I loved it!

I went to the bathroom a few hours ago, and casually glanced at my appearance in the mirror. While I felt wired and ready to work, I noticed my eyes were as red as my nose, which was as red as my lips, which were as red as my shirt. If I were a puppy right now, I'd look adorable, I thought. However, since I am not a puppy, but a very tired grad student, this does not bode well.

Now, as it nears 7, I look out my office window and watch the sun come up, like I had watched the sun go down several hours ago. I am probably going to head down to the Amos Eaton lounge very shortly to take a nap until 10 am. Then I'll wake up for Randomized Algorithms lecture. After which, I plan to climb in my bed and sleep until 3:30. Then I'll go to Proteomics lecture. Then I'll sleep until like 9. And then I'll finish Statistics (It's due Friday). Then I'll sleep some more. The hope is, if I sleep enough tomorrow, my sleep schedule will realign itself and all will be happy.

Let's see... a quick update. Quals went fairly well. I decided not to take the C+C qual until next semester (a good move for me, I think). So, right now, 3/5 quals passed, which is pretty decent. What else? Oh. I got new glasses, and I'm going to California for a conference and India at the beginning of the summer (yeah.. I'll be going back for the first time in 8 freakin years!). What am I forgetting...? Oh! The scarf. It morphed into a hat, and then into an unfinished hat. I still have the best of intentions for it, but I have a feeling that it won't get completed for a while.

Time for me to curl up on the couch downstairs. I will try and write again some other time! Good night (or good morning!)

At the Crest of Winter

Walking into my Statitics class at 9:40, all I could think about was getting something warm, anything warm. Hastily I disposed of my belongings into a chair, and shuffled off to the cafe', where I ordered a warm croissant and medium coffee. After I paid and thanked the lady, I thought to myself, "Coffee? Why did you get coffee?" I usually get tea, and after my accidental discovery of the 25 cent coffee machine on the fourth floor of Amos Eaton, I vowed to never buy coffee anywhere else on campus again.

The thing is just cool to watch. You pick your choice of coffee, each kept in this specially shaped container, which looks like a larger version of those single serving half-and-half containers you see at the store, each with (surprise) a single serving of coffee. You put the unopened container in this compartment in the coffee maker, put a cup underneath, press a button, and tada! 15 seconds later, a freshly brewed cup of coffee. And there is no cleanup; the machine mysteriously disposes of the container. Perfect for the cheap, lazy, and the impatient. I fell in love with it as soon as I pressed the "start" button.

So why did I actually buy a cup of coffee? Then I remembered. The past two nights, I have been staying up until 2 am, 3 am, trying to study for my Computability & Complexity qualifier. I say "try", since I am not succeeding as well as I like. Part of the reason is due to internally generated pressure to work on the slowly accumulating schoolwork that I have ignored thus far. The other reason is that since winter break, I have been on a continuous sprint to study for three quals that I planned to take this semester. Well, I've passed two of the three so far, and my last one is next wednesday. But I'm stressed, I'm tired... I don't know if I will be properly prepared (though I will try). Worse comes to worse, I take it at the beginning of next semester (though I would rather that not happen). But it doesn't seem like there's an end to this sprint till wednesday, though I can feel myself slowing down internally. Which leads to some very interesting segues of thinking.

It was cold this morning. Cold. 2 degrees. And it was windy. Deciding not to risk it, I decided to opt to not wear my usually warm chocolate brown coat, and to instead wear my sturdier green one. This turned out to be an excellent move, considering how I doubt the brown coat could have resisted the wind as well as my green one. I got into Statistics, and I was cold. The wind was howling outside, and I could hear it grasping and shaking the windows of our classroom, like some frost-laden demon desperate to break in and make our lives miserable, howling at its unsuccess. I crawled inside myself a litte deeper and shivered.

I should make a scarf, I thought. A long, fuzzy warm scarf. One that I could wrap myself up in and stay warm. As the wind continued to howl, I could see in my mind's eye my fingers working the crochet needle, rapidly making a scarf that was a yard long, both beautiful and versatile. All this was going through my head as I rapidly took notes during the Statistics lecture.

Statistics is a high pace course. You need to sit down, listen intently and write rapidly in order to catch everything. Our professor uses a tablet PC. A very nifty thing for giving lecture, since you can easily project what you are writing and can even export it to pdf and post it online. Kevin had talked about getting a tablet, but I had my doubts, since it would tie me to the Windows operating system. I doubted linux had tablet pc software that was advanced enough to compete with the windows versions. But what about Apple? Oooh. There was a tempting thought. If Apple produced a tablet PC that ran OS X, I think I would have to buy that as my next computer purchase. Maybe they'd have one by Christmas? "Dear Steve Jobs Santa, please give me a tablet PC with 2 GB of RAM that runs OS X. And a pony. XOXO, Suzanne."

You have to believe me that I was paying attention. We went over continuous and discontinuous single and joint transformation methods, as well as order statistics, and calculating Jacobian values. But I couldn't get the scarf out of my thoughts. The more I tried to push it to a corner, the more persistent it became. My scarf would be a cream, no, beige color. It would be long. A yard is too short. What about two yards? Will it have frills on the end? How do you crochet things with frills at the end? Or is that just for knitting and weaving? I ignored the fact that I have never finished a single crochet project that I've started. Lecture continued. I started visualizing the ends of the scarf, fanning out like a fishtail. That will be cool, I thought to myself. The yearning to make a new scarf grew so persistent that I resolved to go to Wal-mart right after lecture; never mind that I was going to eat something and then work on C+C afterwards. The scarf was what needed to exist, and it had to exist now. I excused my impulsivity by reminding myself that I needed to pick up some other things anyway, so the trip was warranted.

Lecture ended, and I ran home. Grabbing my purse, I went to the bus station, and caught the first bus to Wal-mart. On the way there, the scarf continued to possess my thoughts. A beautiful, long, beige scarf, that I can wear with both my green coat and my brown coat. Two yards? No. It could be longer... And as my mind's eye turned internally again, the scarf started to grow, first to three yards, then five, till it seemed to stretch out perpetually for miles and miles. And I thought about wrapping myself up in it completely, creating a warm, beige cocoon that I could stay in until the quals were over, until the cold was gone.

I was back later than I wished, but finished everything I had to do, as far as extraneous necessary errands go, by 2. Rushing back to my office, I grabbed a pop-tart and started looking at the C+C questions. Nothing. Pushing away my frustration, I start skimming through the questions, and remembered how I wanted to finish an entry in my blog that I had started this morning in statistics. And that I want something more substantial to eat. Clacking away on the keys to finish my last sentence, I wrap up my entry and decide to grab a quick bowl of chili before resolving to get back to work.