i prefer pi

I got a Best Buy gift-card for Christmas. I think that my parents intended for me to use it to get a game, so I went to the nearest brick-and-mortar retailer and spent several hours casing the place, trying to decide what I would get. I came to the realization that there are few games out there that I’d really like to play, and there aren’t any that I want to own. I never really thought that I’d arrive at a point where I wasn’t stoked about playing video games.

Dial-up makes the internet boring. My life isn’t really as droll as it sounds. That’s about it, I guess.

EDIT: A few years after the fact, I come to find out that droll means exactly the opposite of what I thought that it meant (dry, dull, boring).

I’m beat. It’s been a long and physically tiring day, and I’ve been given a lot to think about. Today started at 7:45 AM, when my alarm went off for the first time, then it started again at 7:50, 7:55, 8:00, and finally 8:04 when I got out of bed. I did a ten-mile bike trip around a good bit of Duncanville, and then rushed up to the Summer Institute of Linguistics to meet with some people to talk about how computing is related to linguistic work that they do. I ended up spending more than two hours there, talking with Gary Simons about computational linguistics, digital libraries, and everything in between.

Editor’s note: I got stuck here for about half an hour. I suck at using words.

It suffices to say that I’d really appreciate prayer for me re: making decisions about graduate school. I’ve been married to the idea of pursuing graphics at A&M for a long time; recently, though, I’ve given serious consideration to other topics, other universities, and even other countries. Please keep me in mind.

David Simons was in town for Christmas and heads back to DC tomorrow, so a bunch of us got together for some Ultimate this afternoon. David got tickets for the Mavs game for Christmas, so we went and watched them BTHO the Celtics tonight. While we were there, we also espied Ashlee Simpson and Ryan Cabrera from afar. We chatted it up for a good while afterwards, then said good-bye. Between biking and running and Ultimate, I’m exhausted. Bed-time for bonzo

My week nine days at a glance (I’m aiming for brevity here):

End-of-year hall closing stuff on Friday, Sabra’s (and about a dozen others’) graduation ceremony that afternoon, and the shaving of Dimitri’s head that night. Cleaned my room and packed until five in the morning.

Last resident checked out on Saturday (Go home, Ags!). Mom and Dad came and picked me up, and I was home at last

Went shopping with Joel. Got trapped at the Super Target in Cedar Hill. Dallas Wind Symphony’s Christmas Concert at the Meyerson that night was awesome. (Missed out on two opportunities to hang out with friends in the process, though) Didn’t have time to watch Lost. Grades turned out inexplicably well, as in “Thought I was going to get a 2.6, got a 4.0 and an incomplete.” I think that one of them might have been a mistake, so I’ll have to talk to the prof after the break.

It’s been an exciting morning so far. I got woken up early by a wrong-number–caller, went down to Keith’s apartment, and got served with pancakes and a subpoena. This will be my first visit to court, outside of our class field trip in elementary school.

My pattern recognition final was yesterday morning, and it was surprisingly easy. As in, “If I’d known that it was going to be that easy, I would have slept 15 hours and studied one, instead of vice versa.” Unfortunately, I think that I still made a mistake, which may end up being more painful than usual, given that the test was simplified (to compensate for our abysmal performance on the midterm, I’d imagine). I was actually somewhat frustrated with the test because four of the five simply involved following the steps of an algorithm that was given to us along with the problem. I can’t particularly complain, though, because I’d much rather follow some 1-2-3 steps than do an infinite-dimensional projection into non-linear spaces for a support vector machine.
 * * *

I had a great conversation on Sunday night with Andrew at Old Bernard’s Café about being our sisters’ keepers. “Like a diet of the mind,” begins one of my favorite movie lines, “I choose not to indulge certain appetites.” There are many hungers in life to be satiated, many appetites that I would like to still; however, I know from experience and scripture confirms that I won’t be content with anything as long as my relationship with God is not My One Thing. I am continually learning things that I thought I already knew. Hallelujah!

A few wise or thought-provoking things that friends have said that have stuck with me over the years (organized roughly by the time in which I became aware of the quote):

“You shouldn’t break a girl’s heart just because you want to be in a relationship.” –Dimitri, while talking about dating, December ‘04

“Sometimes, you might like someone but they don’t reciprocate. All that you can really do is say ‘Oh well…’ and move on.” –Uncredited, while talking about dating, April ‘04

“It’s much better to have a good roommate than a good room.” –Lesley McKee, April ‘04

“It’s funny how when I have feelings for a young man that are not returned I feel much pain and wish to be relieved of my suffering, but when the situation is reversed I often feel little pity.” –Uncredited, a (female) friend’s blog while discussing the Aragorn/Eowyn subplot of LOTR, April ‘04

“I’d rather have good professors than a good schedule.” –Bernie Parks, while sitting at Fazoli’s and working on our CPSC 211 project, April ‘02

Everyone reading this entry falls into one of three groups:

1. You’re tired of hearing about the (sic) list eater.
2. You’ve been living under a rock and have no idea who I’m talking about.
   or
3. You don’t live within 50 miles of the Bryan-College Station–plex.

(For those lucky, unenlightened few, I’ll direct you to this KBTX story, which sums it up nicely.)

I, for one, applaud the unidentified female student who, in a flash of quick thinking, made a bold and unprecedented move to secure her place in line. When confronted with a difficult situation, she took a difficult course of action. She saw an opportunity and seized it. Because of her dogged determination and willingness to take a stand (and have a snack) in the face of adversity, the fatal flaws in our current modus operandi have been laid-bare, revealed for the world to see. True, it is painful, but reform seldom comes easily and without sacrifice. Though you endure the ire of the student body today, I am certain that you will come to be recognized, along with Walton, Rudder, and Bowen, as an agent of great change on the campus of this University. List-eater, I salute you.

I know that the phrase “anti-choice” has become a popular way to classify critics of abortion. You realize that, by the same token, you’re “anti-life,” right?

O. R. Simpson Drill Field on the campus of Texas A&M has served the students of this University for decades. Future generals, former Presidents, aspiring athletes, and students in need of a quick shortcut across campus have all used her green grass and open spaces. It was in the last category that I found myself this evening. My first semester, I learned several valuable lessons, not the least of which was this: never cross Simpson when it’s dark outside. Her hard-packed surface, which is so ideal for the quick pick-up game of Ultimate or Two-below, becomes a treacherous black morass when the wet season rolls around. During the day, the fleet-footed student not weighed down by finals and physics books may be able to pick his way through the sucking mud and soggy grass, but once the sun sets, all hope is lost. Blech.

P.S. Will is a stud. Ask him about his Bernie’s story.

After briefly talking about blogs with Lindsay and Will the other night, I decided to assemble my Blogger’s Creed:

I am a blogger.
I realize that I am Not That Important.
I believe that not everyone wants to read my every opinion and the most trivial details of my life, and therefore, I will not share them with the world.
I believe that the Internet is no substitute for face-to-face conversation with real people.
I believe that websites are no substitute for real, private journals.
I believe that being intentionally vague so that people will press me for details is annoying.
I believe that using MovableType and knowing what XHTML and CSS are does not excuse me to be an elitist.
I believe that people want to know that they are being listened to, so I will leave them comments.
I will not be so serious all of the time.
I will not use my website to try to get dates (because I am single, you know).
I will not complain that people do not understand me.
I will not use this for ad hominem attacks, directed or anonymous, you jerk. You know who I’m talking about.
I will not turn every other word into a hyperlink.
I will not make up lies to get comments (I love you, Sarah-Jean!).
I will not be a mopey blogger.
I will not use my website to tell bad math jokes.

Okay, so maybe that last one isn’t true. How is yours different?

The past few days were one of the most enjoyable weekends that I’ve had in a long while. Got a little story for ya, Ags.

Friday saw the end of my nightmarish marathon (nightmarathon?), with my legal analysis of RFID tags and our presentation for Pattern Classification both going pretty well. People sat up and asked questions when we presented, which was probably due to the fact that our problem (geographical classification of folksong melodies) was much more accessible than protein folding or complex graph-network hybrid models. I was happy and relieved to be finished.

I grabbed some lunch from Ye Olde Hullabaloo and fully intended to take a nap for several hours, but somehow I cleaned the room and did the dishes instead — there’s something therapeutic in engaging in mindless chores sometimes. Either that, or my OCD rears its ugly head once again.

Friday night was the Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax concert at Rudder. It was, in a word, awesome. Sarah-Jean wasn’t able to make it down from Commerce, but Annie came along, and I think (read: hope) that a good time was had by all. They played an all-Beethoven concert (see the extended entry for the repertoire) and came back out for an encore by Chopin. It was great music, and they performed it in a very expressive and entertaining way that made it really feel accessible to someone (like me!) who isn’t familiar with the works or with Beethoven in general. Annie and I got cider afterwards and met up with James, Michelle and Matt to watch Roxanne. Good times.

On Saturday, I observed that most sacred tradition of weekends: going to bed without setting one’s alarm. I went to Layne’s for lunch, intending to eat and come back to work on stuff, but instead, I ended up spending ~3 hours there, eating with seven different people in the process. Some of us headed to Hart after Layne’s, and Dimitri and I went and hid around the Academic Building to watch Mr. Matt Fuller propose to Miss Keri Adams. She said ‘yes’! It was really enjoyable to congratulate him along with everyone else afterwards. The Russian and I headed back to his room, where he, Jacob, Luke, others, and I “accidentally” played Smash Bros until 8:30 or so. We all went to Texas Roadhouse afterwards and enjoyed some peanut-throwing, juvenile fun.

Sunday afternoon was the “Holiday Spirit of Aggieland” choral concert with the Singing Cadets, Century Singers, Reveliers, and Women’s Chorus. Christmas carols and concerts are always fun, so I wondered why I’d never gone before. It was cool to see Zach and Jesse in the Cadets (and Jesse in the Aggienizors) and Annie in the Women’s group, and the Hallelujah chorus sung by the mass ensemble was fantastic.

The hall staff and hall council were supposed to meet that evening to plan some events for next semester, but that fell through, so after putting out some fires, I headed to Sunday Sbisa Supper. After some quality chow, we headed to the Ferguson’s house for an RUF discussion night. The topic was alcohol, and as usual, I was supremely impressed with John’s thorough, level, scripturally-sound coverage of the issue — every objection and question that I thought I might raise was addressed before he was finished. When I finally got back to my room, I got an invitation to a midnight basketball game, and since I routinely make poor decisions regarding time management, my choice was clear. I still stink at b-ball, and I’m still a huge oaf who passes balls at people’s faces and knocks over girls. No one was seriously injured, though, so I think that everything is okay.

All-in-all, a great weekend. By the way, if you happen to take a drive down Lincoln Lane (the street that runs by the side of Best Buy) during the evening, keep an eye out for one of the houses on the left. There are two of those Christmas-light reindeer lawn decorations, a male and a female, engaged in some… err… “reindeer games.” We found it rather amusing. :happy:
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