Putting Things Off

You know, I have this huge Physics exam tomorrow morning. I've yet to study. Hmm, *twiddles thumbs* so...

A few minutes ago I was headed downstairs--taking them two at a time, as usual--to toss my trash in the dumpster (I'm good people like that). Moments later, the outside door slamming behind me, I realized that it was definitely not t-shirt weather. Also, that short walk becomes a lot longer when you're skin's begging for a little heat. But no matter, my attention was promptly stolen with an, "Ooooh, stars.." seeping from my mouth.

On the topic of random stories, earlier today I passed by the mail room to check if we'd gotten anything. And we did in fact get something. Actually, I got something. A magazine titled US Weekly. Addressed to me and everything. Which raises the question (since never in my life would I get a subscription to such a "great" piece of literature), "..who payed money for this??"

I was utterly confused.

So yeah, random rants aside, I actually had something useful* to say. In the afternoon I had a meeting with my partner for the Hausdorff dimension presentation (the one we're doing for honors credit). The two of us have a pretty good understanding of things--it took so long to take it all in but its finally paying off--and therefore we decided to sit down and start preparing. Afterwards we had a sheet full of lots of writing, a little over half of it solely equations. From here I volunteered to type it up and was introduced to an interesting, um, program(?) called LaTeX (wiki it). The best way to describe it would be a word processor like Word that doesn't have formatting. Instead you type something like tags which do this. Really, the biggest reason it's used is for scientific writing (especially math), since using word processors for that is just a pain.

And..hmmm. Nothing else for today. I'm gonna go get started on that studying. Do wish me luck, I wouldn't mind getting above a fifty (out of one hundred) on my test.


*If anything you at least got an easy way to cheat at Minesweeper.

Paying for Life

And it's taken an arm and a leg.

So, I've been busy. Like really busy. Spring break ended and I was thrown back into the fray, much more brutally than I actually expected. Thus, as it has been more than two weeks since you all last had a chance to read my witty rantings, I feel an update is in store.

My math homework (calculus of several variables, fun no?) sits in front of me, nearly complete, what with my messy scrawl and equations and symbols shoved into any open whitespace. My computer science project (data structures and algorithms, second semester) is on my laptop with a teensy bug yet to be fixed. My computer science homework (computer organization, building virtual circuits, mmm) I took one look at and just gave up. It was around eleven last night when I realized I'd done at least ten hours worth of work on a Saturday...On a Saturday!! *indignant* Anyway, that's when my pencil went down, my laptop turned off, and Lullaby was pulled out to be read.

I've been taking it pretty easy since then. Smash Bros. Brawl with Alex (roommate version) and reading and now writing--which I've been dying to do. Hmm, actually, Alex and I played a lot of Smash this weekend. But it's such fun, and ever so easy to just say, "One more round..."

Other than that--and homework--I've had lots of club meetings and hanging out with certain friends that I seem to never see. Oh, that and there's this huge talk that is being sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) here. And talking to a professor about research for next semester (more on that eventually) and talking to a VT dropout, who has some of the most interesting ideas I've ever heard, about a job. Just, so much. I've always wondered how people can become "workaholics" and am starting to understand it. But I really don't wanna be one of those!!

Also, sorta behind the scenes of everything, I have been trying to write a response to a post Tim wrote about faith. I found it interesting and, after a number* (that number is one plus one, or two (yay for MATHS!)) of conversations online on the topic, decided to reply. So yeah, watch for that.


*I really really wanted to use the word bevy there..'til I realized that it just didn't fit *grumbles*

Out of It

You know how when you're sick and have something simple like the cold or the flu and you sit around and don't do much?
Yeah, that's me right now. I've got a nice little headache that's kept me in bed nearly four hours longer than I wanted to be.

Have a good number of posts in mind to write, just been out of it (hah, see, the title!) for the last week or so. Classes begin once more next Monday so they might take me a bit to post, just bear with me.

Spring Break-ing

*sigh* I always get sick when I come home. It's a bad habit that I really need to outgrow.
..as if I have any say in it.

It's spring break for Tech, UVA, and William & Mary (I think). Has been for a few days now, though the technical start was Monday. Still, with a decently long list of things that I want/need to do in this week, I haven't done much. Gotta work on that.

For starters there's "I'll just get ahead on schoolwork!" which I always say when some form of break--usually the much-needed type--comes along. Another bad habit. Ideally, I would just stop saying this altogether because, as those who know me would probably expect, I never go through with it. I'm lazy and sleep too much on breaks and in general get sidetracked pretty easily. Which, after typing that last sentence I went off for ten minutes and looked at a few websites...for example. Er, that and I've read seventy-six chapters of Death Note this week (I'm so bad! But it's so good!).

In other matters, like I've told everyone that's asked me if I have an internship for this summer, I will say that I am half-assedly looking for something. Possibly work. Possibly research. I honestly don't know yet. Preferably not a full-time job like last year at AOL. Not that it was bad--in fact I loved it--I'm just not thrilled about the whole nine to five aspect.

What I would really like to do is work on a project for the Google Summer of Code (SoC for short). Tim did it last summer so I've been pestering him for information and help. Unfortunately the SoC requires a good chunk of work, though if anything happens I'll keep you guys up to date.

Other than that I've a few other things to keep me busy. For my math class--which I am trying to get honors credit for--I have to learn what a Hausdorff dimension is. Too bad wiki pages don't always give the simplest of explanations. Also, John, Tim, and I were thinking of working on a programming contest which MIT is hosting. It's called BattleCode and deals primarily with artificial intelligence--a field none of us have any experience with--specifically programming a player for a neat real-time strategy game they've made. Not too sure how far we'll get into it this year.

Last, but never least, is the latest writing assignment. Alina gives these out every once in a while, although it's been a couple of months since the last one. This one calls for a story two to four pages long and using the words "defenestrate" and "akimbo" (neither of which, in my opinion, gets ample usage). As always--as usual really, I don't always finish..--you can check my piece out over at my deviantART page. There's a link over on the right, click it now anyways. It has writings, and you should really comment on them.
Please comment. *whimper*

Hmm, that's all this attention-deprived artist has for now. Later~

Memoirs of One Seeking Life: Preface

It has been a year since I was last in the blogging spirit (hm, someone should trademark that). And you can just imagine how much has happened. If not, check my old blog, the last post to be precise. It alludes to it somewhat.

The biggest reason that I restarted blogging on a new blog page is that--apart from the year-long hiatus--I feel like a different person. I've gone through so much. My thoughts have changed, my view on life has changed, the way I talk and write and probably walk have all changed. Perhaps if you look closely you might notice the little differences.

I have a point. Namely that there was much learned and much to comment on. So since I can't really blog on everything all at once I plan to break it up by subjects. What subjects? *shrugs* I don't really know yet, though I have a few in mind.

So, I feel kinda silly leaving the post at this, but there's nothing more to say.
'til next time!