Midpoint

Since my schedule tends to be fairly full, I've not posted here in a while. So here's a basic update on what's been going on.

On August 12, I became a PhD Candidate. So what does that mean? It means that I am now done with courses, preliminary examinations, and any other requirements other than my dissertation. At this point, I'm ABD, which fittingly stands for All But Done, All But Dissertation and/or All But Dead.

It's been two years since I entered Texas A&M University as a graduate student. In that amount of time, I've published four papers, with an additional two in preparation/under review. I've given a lightning talk, served on a panel, and presented numerous posters. I'm the lead author for the best algorithm for compressing phylogenetic trees, and the fastest sequential and parallel algorithms for comparing large groups of trees. This past summer, I passed four preliminary exams (one given to me by each committee member), wrote up a thesis proposal and successfully defended it.

Not bad for two years of work.

So what will happen with this blog from now on? Well, I do plan (ha ha) to keep on updating it. Most likely I'll start adding things I discover here as I play with some software.

My ubuntu-fix posts will probably be few and far between from now on -- Ubuntu 10.04 is out: it's beautiful, it's fast and it basically works. There has been no need for extra configurations like I've needed to do in the past. Gosh, I love Ubuntu. However, as I discover new things, I will definitely post them here.


That's all for now. I'll try and post something later this week.

-SM

Rage.

I has it.

Waiting for paper notifications is always a pain. I do my best not to think about it, and focus my energy instead on the current algorithm I'm working on. This semester is a special case, since I should be hearing back about two papers in the next two weeks. Both are solid pieces of research and I'm incredibly proud of having been a part of both of them. At this point though, I am all too familiar with the paper reviewing process, and the endless submissions. Half the time, it's not clear to me the reviewers are actually reading the damn things... Each reviewer has so many papers to look at, and a seemingly impossible amount of time to look at it all in. Sometimes I want to scream out the same things ResearchCat is spouting above.


The tentative caption for the above picture is currently "ResearchCat on EasyChair".

And yes, I may have more ResearchCat pictures in the future... you didn't think LOLQualCats was the end, did you?


-SM

Good times

Kevin came to visit me in TX, and we've had a wonderful week together (well, aside from me being sick last wednesday and thursday, but anyway). There was much to celebrate; I had a new apartment, he just finished his M.S., and (as I just found out today), I got my first paper accepted to a conference! Hooray!

Instead of going out, we decided to make dinner. What was on the menu? Brownies, Shake n' Bake chicken pieces, and a custom recipe for garlic mashed potatoes. Kevin and I both -love- garlic, so, for all you garlic enthusiasts out there, here is our recipe!

-----------

KEVIN'S & SUZANNE'S GARLIC LOVERS MASHED POTATOES

4 large red potatoes
1 can of garlic chicken broth
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 T butter
1 - 2 T milk

1. Cut potatoes into reasonably sized chunks and toss them into a medium saucepan.

2. Pour in 1 can of garlic chicken broth. Add additional water until tops of potatoes are just covered with water. Mince 2 cloves of garlic with garlic press and add in.

3. Bring potatoes to a boil; when it boils, let simmer for an additional 6-8 minutes; Potatoes are done when you can stick a fork into the individual pieces

4. Drain away the majority of the broth, letting only a little bit remain. Mash with potato masher. Add milk, a little bit at a time, to get desired consistency. Mash with one tablespoon of butter.

5. Cut up the last one to two cloves of garlic (depending on your taste!) into coarse slices, each about 2-3 mm thick. Throw into mashed potatoes and mash till properly assimilated. Salt and pepper to taste.



Ok, back to Olympics and perhaps some more Cowboy Bebop! Nikhil, I finally understand why you wanted a Corgi :-)

EDIT
--------

Man, those potatoes are powerful. Other suggested titles:

Kevin's and Suzanne's Hit-Me-in-the-Face-with-Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Kevin's and Suzanne's Garlic-Explosion Mashed Potatoes
Kevin's and Suzanne's Pistol-Whipped-with-Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Kevin's and Suzanne's I-don't-mind-knocking-people-unconscious-for-a-week Mashed Potatoes
Kevin's and Suzanne's Vampire-Slayer Mashed Potatoes
Kevin's and Suzanne's Garlic Armageddon Mashed Potatoes
Kevin's and Suzanne's Death-By-Garlic Mashed Potatoes

More Mashed Potato title suggestions welcome

Done.

Now I'm just exhausted.

Got my M.S. this semester. Now to rest, celebrate, and re-organize my life. Kevin and I escaped to Rochester for this weekend, so this should be good.

It's Official

Friends,

I have just been notified that I've been accepted into the PhD Program in Computer Science at Texas A&M University. I will be working with one of the most stellar advisors that a girl could ever hope for in a field that is cutting edge.

So I guess this is it then... I am leaving RPI after this semester (hopefully with a Masters).

It's official.

-Suzanne

Surreal

Sometimes it feels like I'm moving so fast that I'm simply standing still. The days are starting to blur; I am on a train. I am in a cocoon. If I glance outside my window, an endless stream of people rush past, the days and nights rise and fall in a ridiculous cycle. It's like watching a segment of a movie on endless repeat. It's all very dream-like... is this reality? So I stare back at my computer, trying to accomplish a fraction of what I feel like I should be accomplishing, letting my fingers curl onto my keyboard. They long to type:

When does this end?


All I ever wanted was to feel the way you'd feel
All I ever wanted was a chance to make it real

I'm in love with you
And I can pull it through

All I ever wanted is a place out by the sun
To watch the world go by and take each day as it comes
All I ever wanted was a chance to catch my breath
To see the world go by and lay my ghosts to rest

Give me a chance to catch my breath
So I can lay my ghosts to rest

So ask me tomorrow what I thought of yesterday
There's so many things that I could not explain

I'm in love with you
And I can pull it through

All I ever wanted is a place out by the sun
To watch the world go by and take each day as it comes
All I ever wanted was a chance to catch my breath
To see the world go by and lay my ghosts to rest

Give me a chance to catch my breath
So I can lay my ghosts to rest

All I ever wanted was a chance to catch my breath
All that I ever wanted was to lay my ghosts to rest

All I ever wanted was a chance to catch my breath
All I ever wanted was to lay my ghosts to rest

- Ghosts, Dirty Vegas

... 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Last Weeks of October

So much has happened in the last few weeks, it's hard to list all of them. All good things, so you won't hear me whining much :-)

Let's see: at the end of this semester, I will be staying permanently at Amy's apartment, and it will be my primary address of sorts from now onwards. It's really exciting, since I finally have a place I can call home. Plus, my housemates are really nice, so I really like being there.

I gave my presentation to the RPI chapter of the ACM last week as well. Believe it or not, it was a success! People genuinely seemed interested in what I had to say, and I got asked back to give future presentations (at least once a semester!). Hooray! Also, they advertised my talk all over campus, which, for me, was quite shocking/flattering, since most talks do not get advertised. About 20 people showed up, which was pretty good, and I got some really good questions. If anyone is interested, the slides for my presentation are up on the main page of my website.

Let's see... what else? Oh! My good friend Amy (who's going to graduate at the end of this semester.. *sniff*) and I decided to dress up together for Halloween this year. My sophomore year and her freshman year, we got dressed up as pirates, and it was a ton of fun :-) Since this is her last semester, I guess we're going to have a repeat just for old time's sake. But, what to be? Our first idea was going to be "Cowboys and Indian" (guess who the Indian would be?). Then we had a "Disney Princesses" idea (I would have been Jasmine), and we even had a girl-version of the "Village People" idea (again I'd be the Indian... but there weren't enough girls!). So Amy and I were talking one night, and I jokingly (emphasize, JOKINGLY) suggested that we go as characters from Sailor Moon. Horrifically enough, she ran with it, and it now seems I will be Sailor Mars and she is going to be Sailor Mercury. Amy's even dyeing her hair blue! I'll post a picture or two if my dignity allows it.

So this last weekend, we carved pumpkins and worked on our costumes. Believe it or not, we actually were able to make pleated skirts from scratch (go us!) and the costumes are probably going look surprisingly good, considering our total lack of any sewing expertise. We're almost done... though I want to save the actual pictures of us till after Halloween, I might post a quick pick of just my costume.. I'm so excited! Our pumpkins also turned out quite nice. Below are two pictures of Amy's pumpkin, my pumpkin, and our suitemate's pumpkin (coincidentally also Amy). I also have a closeup of my pumpkin, which was a black kitty against a moon. Pretty simple, but I haven't carved a pumpkin since I was like five, so it was a heck of an experience for me.




Oh! And of course, I should mention Computer Science Day, which has been the highlight of the past few weeks. Rensselaer hosted the first annual Computer Science Day last friday, in which we welcomed four world renowned researchers to come and talk about research related to a particular topic. This year's theme was Computational Geometry, and our researchers talked about geometry and topology as they applied to db search (Dr. Indyk), Computer Vision (Dr. Ponce), Bioinformatics (Dr. Edelsbrunner) and Random Sampling Methods (Dr. Kannan). It was positively amazing, and I attended all the talks. 12 am Friday, I was elated, and singing random CS carols that I made up, like "Little CS boy", which were horrific knockoffs of existing Christmas carols, such as "Litte Drummer Boy". I will spare you the lyrics. But to see how giddy I was, here is a picture of that Amy took of me and her on the morning of CS day:



Don't I look happy? :-)

Anyways, that's all for now. This post is waaay too long. I will probably post some other random junk about what I've been up to in the next few hours/days. This week is going to be busy, since aside from working on probability, I still have the halloween costumes to make. But you know what? I'm doing well, and I'm doing happy :-) So life is good.

More later!