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.

More Reasons why Pantene Sucks

Seasonal greetings from your neighborly comp sci! It's Christmas Eve 2006, and I've returned back home for a quick break before the requisite study sprint for the qualifiers that I'm taking this upcoming January. Result of this last semester? Not too hot. Averaged a 3.0 for this semester; while it's much lower than I wanted, it's still not wholly bad. What is bad is that I now have three qualifiers to write this coming january. They are: Molecular Biology, Probability and Computability & Complexity. They all should not be that bad, as long as I prepare correctly. So I get to spend a wonderful Winter Break studying and reading Godel Escher Bach (a must read).

So none of the above news relates to my current rant, which, unlike most other things in my life, has to do with shampoo. That's right... shampoo (and conditioner!). So let's take an aside from the usual religious/comp sci related topics and talk about something over the top and girly.

So for over a few months now I've been using Pantene Pro-V shampoo & conditioner. Determined to let my black locks grow to new, unchartered lengths, I've been changing up a variety of hair products to see what I can use that will work the best for me. Though I distrusted Pantene Pro-V since adolescence (I couldn't help but feel that it was doing something bad to my hair, even though everyone else was swearing by it), I decided to give it another go. So after several months of using it (and determining my hair was getting drier), I went to the stylist who affirmed that Pantene is the worst kind of stuff to use on your hair, since it (-gasp-) dries out your hair. But other things should have warned me about how the stuff they're peddling is absolutely horrible. The label is the big one:

Pantene Pro-V 2 in 1 shampoo + conditioner: NEW with AMINO PROTEINS.

...

Wait, what? What the shit is an AMINO PROTEIN? So proteins, in their simplest structure, are chains of amino acids. Is an amino protein just a protein with a higher precentage of amino acids? If so, isn't this a bit self-descriptive? A quick search on Wikipedia turns up nothing, so I'm left to utilize my madd intarnets searching skillz, the stuff that all comp scis are born with. Most of the stuff that I turn up on google are either poorly quoted reasearch papers or ads for protein supplements. What all of these "amino protein" products had in common was the fact that they were ingested. Which made me wonder; even if Pantene came up with a protein wonder-complex that does wonderful things for your hair, why would you apply it directly to the hair, and not injest it? So I did some research on the purpose of conditioners. It turns out, that conditioners like Pantene are Pack Conditioners, with high levels of something called Surfactants. The purpose of these compounds is to coat the hair surface and not fully wash out, due to the hydrophillic bonding of the compounds with the core hair protein, keratin. This makes sense. In other words, the purpose of these conditioners is to effectively "glue" hair scales down to the surface, by adding a thin to moderate film of this stuff to the surface. However, silicones also found in such products (such as dimethicones) act as a sealing agent. While this is an effective method of smoothening the hair surface, it also seals the hair from moisture, effectively robbing the hair's ability to gain moisture from the surface. Also, it also creates the need for more shampooing to prevent buildup. Since shampoo is in essence a detergent, it robs the hair further of moisture, creating the need to condition, thus causing an endless cycle of shampoo and conditioning. So this, it turns out, is the reason why my hair was so dry.

So "Amino Proteins" seem to be this made up term for something Pantene is using in their stuff, and while it's purpose is to make hair sleeker through their "Exclusive Formula" I really think it does nothing more than actually make you hair more frizzy.

So I switched shampoos again. Let's see if this makes my hair any silkier. I guess if nothing else, this was a good opportunity to explore laymen biochemistry that goes into hair care products. And of course, a lovely opportunity for me to complain.

That's all for now.

A New Religious Debate

Cycling through my news articles for the morning, I came across this plum from Wired News:
http://www.wired.com/news/wiredmag/0,71985-0.html?tw=wn_index_10

It is about a group called The New Athiests, who are challenging all intelligent people to clarify their stance on the existence of God. This group is much different from previous groups of atheists, as they not only reject the belief in the existance of God (and consider it a disease), but they also reject all groups of people (agnostics, liberal believers) who may agree with some, but not all of their beliefs. They seem very binary; either you're with them, or against them: 1 or 0.

For a liberal believer of the Christian faith like myself, it is quite disturbing (and insulting). The article is a good read, and and I think it provokes some good thoughtfulness. However, I find it humorous that this Dawkins guy does not realize you cannot have prayer without religion; his belief system will just spark a new religion, thus propogating what he is intending to destroy.

It doesn't seem he looks too closely at the basic tenants of the teaching of all relgions: love, respect, humility, and being a good person. Also, I'm profoundly disturbed by the extremist stance he takes; in this manner, I daresay the New Atheists can be likened to terroristic organizations such as the Taliban and the Branch Dravidians. Please note I have nothing against atheists; I've just have never had any respect for any type of extremist, for those who cannot respect others, but demand respect for themselves.

Strangely enough, while I was reading the article, I started thinking of an old hymn we used to sing in church when I was a little girl. It goes:
"I believe in the sun
Even when it isn't shining
I believe in love
Even when there is no one there.
And I believe in God
I believe in God
Even when God is silent."

Something to chew on I suppose. That's all for now.

And yes! Suzanne has posted quite a bit in the last few days. What could it mean? Probably that she's avoiding doing work. And I would agree! So, back to work I go.

Friday nights...

So two Fridays ago I decided that I would go out and have some fun. So I went and visited some of my friends and played video games :-) I played the original Zelda. This was amazing, since I never played any game in the Zelda series (yes, it's true), and I had an absolute blast. Later, when someone else wanted a turn, one of my friends let me play with the character creation screen on City of Villains. It was amazing; while I really have no interest in playing the game, the level of customization a person could put into their characters just had me in awe. So after quite a bit of fine tuning, I came up with a character, who I named Czara. Below are some screenshots of her. Pretty badass, no? :-)




Check out her boots.. aren't they cute? <3

I guess this is a geeky girl's way of playing dressup :-)

Ok, it's late.. I'm pretty much done posting for a few days. Have a good night!

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!

Being a chick rocks

Yeah, I whine about it every 28 days, but man, being a woman totally rocks most of the time.

I was listening to some of my music today, and one song that played was "Bitch" by Meredith Brooks. Quite a bit of the lyrics reflect on how mecurial I think every woman can be. Compare to another song that I really love, "She's Always a Woman" by Billy Joel, which I think also is very descriptive of most women (and me most of the time). I always liked Billy Joel; finally a man who realizes that all woman-kind is crazy, and always has been, and always will be, and that it's not worth trying to make us into logical creatures.

Yeah, so it's late, and I need to get up early tomorrow and do work all day. So, that's all for now! I'll give updates as they come.

Oh! I turned 22 recently! Hooray for getting old!

"And the most she can do
Is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me..."