Most overlooked movie of 2003:

To me, this is "Dirty Pretty Things." It did get one Oscar nomination, for screenplay, but lost. It's the story of immigrants in London, of their struggle to succeed in western society, but it could have been set in any major city. The star could have been the Nigerian-born doctor in Atlanta who now draws blood for the Red Cross, the guy who works in the Lake El station who did his degree in chemistry in Sierra Leone, or my friend's father who studied medicine in Ethiopia before coming here to work in a mail room, as much as the London cabbie/hotel clerk who are so much more dignified than most of their passengers.

It's about people who want a chance for themselves and their kids so much that they are willing to trade their respected jobs, the time they put into education, their lives to come somewhere else and start over. If you haven't seen it, you should.

Oscar thoughts:

Jim Carrey was just described as "the star of Bruce Almighty." God help us all.

McCoy picked the Kate Hepburn "dead montage" to get behind the TV and start playing with the stupid antenna. It's OK, I would probably have cried anyway.

Documentary short subject? Do I look like I care? It does appear that Lord of the Rings is undefeated so far, which I hope is a good sign. I couldn't really care less about such awards as "Best Makeup," but I want LOTR to get "Best Picture."

Frank Pierson can't seem to talk. But he's talking about Atticus Finch, probably my mother's favorite role in her favorite movie ever, which tells you something about my mother. I can quote whole lines of dialogue from that movie. Good-bye, Gregory Peck.

Ooh, it's "dead montage" time. Number of people I've heard of: 8, plus Peck and Hepburn. And Leni Riefenstahl got some applause, as did Elia Kazan. The "movie trailer innovator" guy didn't.

Wow, I really like Charlize Theron's dress and hair. Of course, she has to look really glamorous so people will remember that she's not really like in "Monster." The tan-in-a-can, though? Not so much. And she thanked her lawyer. Interesting.

11 for 11. And I can see why Spielberg didn't go into acting.

Limoncello and (feels like) June:

I bought some Limoncello last night, when Amanda and I made a Sam's run. It feels a bit wrong to drink it in February, even though it's 60 degrees here (!). Limoncello is June in Chicago, when you get it out of the freezer and the bottle is impossibly cold. And you get in arguments about how much club soda to use. When you finally get to drink it, it's just a little bit alcoholic, but lemony and a little sweet and SO cold. I think of sitting with my windows wide open for the breeze and my baby fan going, thinking about how I should be studying for finals, but really just being cool for the first time since I got out of the shower in the morning.

And now it's February and I'm drinking Limoncello. It's somehow not the same thing. But I'm going for a walk to the Point this afternoon, since it occurred to me that I haven't been back since I got back from London. It seems like ages.

Peace on Earth:

I can't believe the news today
I just can't close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song, how long?

Budapest, looking across the Danube:



Can you see why I loved Budapest?

Broccoli (which I don not crave, but do rather enjoy):

What are the little leaf things on broccoli stems? Are those supposed to be there, or are they a consequence of my purchase of Co-op broccoli instead of dragging my lazy ass to Hyde Park Produce? And I know, HPP is signifcantly closer to my apartment than the 55th Street Co-op, but once you have already gone to Walgreens, it's so much easier to go to the Co-op. But this week, there will be no Walgreens trip.

California!:

My physics professor today described California as "the land of fruits and nuts." It was in the context of making fun of Stephen Wolfram. I don't know.

What book are you?:

You're Prufrock and Other Observations!

by T.S. Eliot

Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic
and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying
to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you've really
heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Vern is gone:

Vern has finally officially left Trading Spaces. This isn't a surprise; I've been expecting it for months. It is unfortunate, since he was by far the most talented designer on the show. But he's going to have his own NBC show, which I am really excited about!

Fun with course evaluations (Spring 2003):

From the algebraic number theory class that I hated (describing the professor):

"He copied the book word for word onto the blackboard. It made it easy to follow along, but didn't contribute much to extra understanding or insight. "

"Boring as all hell. Had this wierd, sort of patronizing thing where he'd ask one student if he understood something all the time."

Interestingly enough, two people listed "followed the book" as a good thing about the class. To me, there's following the book and there's copying the book on the blackboard. And copying the book on the blackboard is WRONG. We can read. By the way, I'm pretty sure I wasn't in class on the day that we did evaluations, so I didn't write either of these two (very accurate) reviews, though the boring as all hell part does sound like me.

From ODE:
"He clearly didnt want to be here. Spoke directly out of the on-line notes and was still confusing. Not to mention hes boring and vaguely hostile."

"Confusing, unenthused, unreliable, always late to class, even late to the midterm"

Surprisingly, nine people recommended this professor. This was the class that the professor didn't copy enough midterms for because so many people skipped the class in the weeks leading up to the test that he assumed that there were far fewer people still enrolled. So it's possible that these course evaluations were not an accurate sample. Or maybe I'm too picky about professors, because I thought this was the worst math class I'd taken at the time.

The Reg at midnight:

is kind of depressing. On the A-level, I just feel really old. I was in the MacLab and came out to go home, and there were all these kids sitting around and talking about going BartMarting and such and not really seeming like they had much work to do. I used to do that, you know; I used to stay at the Reg until 1 (back when it closed at one) even when I didn't really have any work to do, just sort of talking to people. Back then, though, we had to go on Ex Libris or Second Floor Coffee Shop runs, since BartMart didn't exist. These kids today, they don't know how lucky they are. Now, if I'm staying at the library till 1, you'd better believe that I'm there because I have work to do, work that's due the next day, probably in the morning. There's no more hanging around in the Reg for me. If I want to go hang out, these days it's usually USITE-Harper in the afternoon. At least the MacLab was filled with people like me, who actually have work to do and aren't there to hang out. It made me feel a little better about my life right now.

On the plus side, I have basically nothing due for two weeks. I can get caught up on reading and grading and it will all be good.

My hand hurts:

My hand got a car door slammed into it on Saturday. Presently, my second finger is bruised and larger than normal, while my third finger has a little spot where the skin got ripped off. Both don't bend normally either. I'm basically typing with 6 fingers now, my left hand and the first finger of my right, and I'm not sure how well writing is going to go.

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc:

I went to see this yesterday. It was a screening of Dreyer's silent film, with an accompaning oratorio called Voices of Light written by Einhard. The music was really, really good. Einhard merged biblical texts with medieval theologians/mystics and profane medieval texts to produce something that sounded right with the time period and the persona of Jeanne, at least as I've been taught. And, of course, Sudeep was fantastic, as were the other soloists.

The movie? Well, it may be a classic of filmmaking, but neither Will nor I liked it very much. The woman playing Jeanne just wasn't very good. She had exactly one response to everything: turn her head to the right, look up, and open her mouth a bit. Then the cinematographer lit up her eyes in such a way that we are supposed to believe that God was speaking to her. The whole mace-wielding riot scene at the end was just weird (like, where did that come from? I'm pretty sure it's not in the canonical tale of Ste. Jeanne). Jeanne seemed ridiculously naive, trusting the theologian who was trying to get her to condemn herself. And why did they give her the sacrament at the end? I mean, it makes sense for the dramatic structure of the movie, but I can't imagine a medieval priest giving a relapsed heretic communion, and Jeanne died excommunicate.

So the movie I could have more or less done without. I did learn that Shakespeare actually wrote about Jeanne d'Arc (she's a character in Henry VI).

Yankee v. Dixie:

My mother sent this link, which is pretty amusing. It does appear that it counts midwestern/western-isms as Dixie, though, which makes no sense. Possibly it gives you a lot of dixie points for "no regional bias" anwers. Anyway, I'm 38% Yankee, which I imagine will surprise exactly no one.

UW Whitewater-- It's not just UW Whatever anymore:

I'm out of town this weekend. Hopefully, there will be email terminals for me to check my email during the ridiculous number of byes that seem to always characterise a CBI tournament.

Sorry I don't sound more upbeat about this. The whole thing has been a giant mess, and I'm busy and would rather be here this weekend. But it will be OK; I'm sure once I actually leave Chicago I won't be as unhappy about the whole thing. Stupid CBI.

Humvees and armor:

There was a piece in Slate today about the US army's lack of armored Jeeps in Iraq. One of the things that always surprises people in Belfast is that the army Jeeps there are entirely stripped down, no armor, not even doors or canvas roofs. Looking at them, you can usually see three or four soldiers (or RUC) crouching in the back. The argument is that the great visibility outweighs the greater danger that the soldiers are in, particularly when any sniper knows that there are actually about three other jeeps nearby.

I'm not sure why the same principle doesn't hold in Iraq. On the face at least, the two situations seem similar. A guerrilla war, fought with both bombs and bullets, against a determined but outgunned enemy in terrain that is both rural and urban (though I suspect that more of the war in the north of Ireland is fought in the cities than the war in Iraq is, since the British have more or less conceded the Irish countryside to the Catholics).

The cutest cat in the whole wide world:

Chicago city government weirdness:

Yesterday night, when I was heading out, I saw a big white, probably bulletproof, truck with Department of Revenue written on it. It had big signs saying "Do Not Follow" on the back. So that when those revenuers are going to break up the stills, Johnboy or whoever won't follow them with a shotgun, I guess.

Then this morning, I was walking down to 55th Street, and I saw a big greeny-yellow (you know, sort of the caution color) truck with "Emergency Blacksmith Service" printed on the side. How do they carry the forge and the bellows around? Can I call them to make me a nail if it's too cold to go to Ace and buy one?

An emergency blacksmith would have been really cool during the Middle Ages, though. Horse throws a shoe? Sword breaks? Who do you call? Emergency Blacksmith Service. Can't you see the commercials now?

Ah, euphemisms:

I'm translating some Latin now and one of the sentences reads: "Oedipus duobus oculis se privavit," literally "Oedipus deprived himself of two eyes." I guess you could put it that way. It doesn't sound right somehow, though; there should be a difference between depriving oneself of one's eyes and gouging one's eyes out. Though I'm not sure how you could deprive yourself of your eyes without gouging them out. Ideas?

Screw it:

I decided to say screw it and go to the gym rather than go back to the MacLab. I'll skip class tomorrow and go instead. I figured I was better off attempting to do something for which I could feel immediate results. And I honestly feel a lot better, so it was probably a good decision.

And it gave me the strength to be polite while being patronised on the telephone, so it can't be all bad.

Enough with the whining:

I know, I know, I made this decision, and really it's probably been the best decision I could have made. So now I have to deal with the consequences of it for another what? 15 weeks? I can do this. I have to do this.

Why does it happen like this?:

One minute I'm fine, getting to spend some time doing what I want, rather than running eight million errands or doing work for classes I just don't care about. The next minute, I'm sitting in physics, feeling really overwhelmed, realising I basically have no idea what is going on or why I'm taking any of my classes, feeling ridiculously sick, and generally wanting more than anything else to go home and cry for an hour. I try to go to recitation, thinking it might start to fix the problem, but it's full. I'll try again in an hour, but at least now I'm remembering why I'm not going to grad school. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle another quarter of this, much less five more years. I love math, but somehow the learning of it in this environment at least doesn't do it for me.

More piracy:

Not that I'm obsessed by the subject or anything, but someone on the computer I'm on at Harper named his paper "Aristotle Paperrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr." I was amused, though I would have been more amused if it had been "Arrrrrrrrrrrristotle Paper."

Also, I spoke to the math pirate today, and the following lines occured:
me: Maybe the navy. (pause) But not as a sailor... Though that would be cool.
him: It would.

Math gossip:

I learned a great piece of math gossip Friday. I don't think I can post it here, but email me if you want to know it.

On The West Wing:

Listening to Dire Straits got me reading old recaps of this show, and God, was it good. From about the middle of season 1 to the end of season 2, it was brilliant, and parts of early season 3 were almost equally good. So what happened? I know the loss of Sorkin didn't help, but honestly the show was more or less in the crapper by the time he left. It still has a brilliant cast, it didn't lose many (if any) writers over season 3, so why did it stop being so good?

It's really unfortunate. This show used to be one of the best things on TV (and if you don't believe me, watch the repeats on Bravo), and honestly the couple of episodes of season 4 were close to terrible. I firmly believe that the episode after the death of Mrs Landingham was the best hour of TV I've ever seen, and I'm not exempting Joe Millionaire here.

So why do things like this happen? Why do shows jump the shark? Sometimes, it's clear why, of course. To me, MASH began jumping when Trapper and Henry left and finished when Frank left. Before that, it was a very good black comedy, after that, it was a sitcom that was basically only about Alan Alda who is in fact kind of annoying. Newradio jumped when Phil Hartmann died ad was replaced by (?) Jon Lovitz. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? The Simpsons probably jumped when Conan and a couple of other writers left (Season 4?), though it hasn't really fallen so far, I guess. There are plenty of other examples where it's clear that a show stops being good because of external factors.

Sometimes shows can survive these drastic changes. I thought the Daily Show was going to start sucking with the loss of A. Whitney Brown and Brian Unger, but really it's far better now than the early seasons.

But West Wing hadn't had any major losses in the middle of season 3, but it started sucking anyway. And it's not like they ran out of things to say; God knows there are plenty of good stories from the last two years of news.

But so it goes, I guess. I should just be grateful for my year and a half of happiness. And endless repeats on Bravo.

Yet another lazy Sunday morning:

And by morning I mean that it's 3:20, but I haven't bothered to get dressed yet (and I'm honestly not sure that I will-- I don't really need to leave the apartment today). So far today I've cooked a grilled cheese sandwich, cleaned up after that, and translated two sentences. It's good to see that I'm being productive. I was hoping to get some grading done, but the way things are going I'm not exactly holding my breath on that one. My roommate's cat is curled up on my scarf right now and it's really tempting to do the same thing (only probably on a bed).

I had a good weekend, though. Friday I went to the Gapers Block party in Bucktown. It was really nice to get out of Hyde Park even only for a night. I was supposed to get back at 1 or so, but we ended up going to get tacos and I got home at about quarter of three.

So I skipped the Salonica breakfast and got up around 7:45 to go to ACF. The morning was a little scary (no Matt, no scoresheets, and a limited amount of paper), but then everything went fine. We got out of there about 6:30, which really isn't too bad at all.

Selene and I went to Matt's party last night and had a pretty good time. I ended up knowing about three people there (well, plus Selene and Matt) and it was good to get to catch up with some of them. And I drank quite a bit of wine from a jug, which, combined with the lack of sleep from the last week, meant that I was definitely a bit drunk. But Matt was still drunker.

Interesting:

I haven't written anything that isn't bitching about midterms/my computer in a very long time. Hopefully now that I'm done with midterms that will change.

Now I don't have internet at home (which should hopefully change this afternoon) and really have nothing to say. It did occur to me that I hadn't done anything more online than check my email in a day and a half. That NEVER happens.

I had a great day today so far. Did well enough on my midterm, got a job interview that I really wanted, and got to sleep for practically 8 hours. And it's not even 11 am.

Late night:

I'm closing out the MacLab tonight. But I was productive and I think I can actually sleep till 8 or even (gasp) 9 tomorrow morning. And then I'll be done!

Anyone up for some drinking tomorrow night? I need to celebrate.

Midterms and such:

One down (Latin midterm), two to go (Vikings paper and Fortran code, not technically a midterm, but still one of the things that's making me pretty miserable). It's funny that even though I'm only taking three classes, one of which doesn't even have a midterm, this happens. And next week? Absolutely nothing due. Literally.

Bite me, University of Chicago.

Anyway, off to finish the paper (it's due in 2 hours and 20 minutes and counting). Wish me luck.

Help:

My computer crashed and I was dumb and didn't ftp my paper to harper last night. I am so screwed if chkdsk can't fix the problem.

Update: Yayy. Well, the computer isn't fixed, but my new hero at Dell Technical Support managed to get a parallel OS to run on my laptop. It's about as unstable as Civita di Bagnoregio and there aren't any drivers so my wireless card and sound card don't work, but I managed to get my paper and my kids' grades off the hard drive. I'll have to reinstall Windows at the end of this week. Does anyone have a CD of XP Pro? I left mine at home, so I'll have to stick with XP Home if I can't find Pro.

Primogeniture in northern Europe:

So I should be writing a paper right now. Yes, right this minute. But it's not due till Wednesday (afternoon, no less) and if I didn't have a midterm Wednesday and code due Thursday, I wouldn't have even started it.

I'm writing about changes in Norse society as a result of Christianization and so far I'm looking at concepts of marriage and inheritance. It's been making me wonder about primogeniture, though. Where does it come from? I mean, I know in England and Ireland at least it's the legacy of the Normans, and William the Conqueror really hated to be called William the Bastard and all that, but why did William choose to install this system? It doesn't seem natural at all to me. Were the Normans in France known for their rigid system of primogeniture? I can't imagine they were, since a bastard was able to become Duke of Normandy.

It seems to grow out of a system of scarce land, or at least land with scarce resources. If the land is barely able to support one man, dividing it among several sons is suicidal. But why would the Normans implement such a system just when they are getitng a whole new island to divide among their sons?

And why wouldn't this system have caught on in a resource-poor Norway much earlier than it actually did? There is obviously something else going on there.

At the Reg:

And being astoundingly unproductive. I can't seem to write anymore.

I miss you:

Do you remember chalk hearts melting on a playground wall
Do you remember dawn escapes from moon washed college halls
Do you remember the cherry blossom in the market square
Do you remember I thought it was confetti in our hair
By the way didn't I break your heart?
Please excuse me, I never meant to break your heart
So sorry, I never meant to break your heart
But you broke mine

Kayleigh is it too late to say I'm sorry?
And Kayleigh could we get it together again?
I just can't go on pretending that it came to a natural end

Kayleigh, oh I never thought I'd miss you
And Kayleigh I thought that we'd always be friends
We said our love would last forever
So how did it come to this bitter end?

Turning back into a night owl:

I like staying up late, but since I have been getting up constistently around 7 am for the last six months (and still being ridiculously late to work at the Embassy, a job that I could walk to), it's difficult for me to stay up past about 12:30. I'm not sure I shouldn't try to stay that way, but going to bed early might cause me to miss such gems as:

1. "You're not allowed to dream about the rotten food."

2. "If by fun you mean taught by Sidney Webster at 9 in the morning" "I think there's actually a rule in English against those being synonomous"

3. "Well, at least you don't leave the homework in a pile on the table and-- what else did she do?" "Cluck like a chicken"

4. "Sometimes he comes in and asks you what the spleen does and you want to say, 'Who cares? This is genetics'"

5. "Winnie the Pooh???" "Well, they seem to be enjoying it." "They're fourth graders." "Yeah, well some of the humor goes right over their heads."

No longer in Indiana:

We made it back from NAQT SCT at DePauw (thank God). That was a long day. Three hours of driving followed by 16 rounds of NAQT followed by three hours of driving. Not much fun. It got to the point where we thought that if winning our last game would make us play more games, we might just throw it, and I don't think any of us were entirely kidding.

Greencastle, IN is really in the middle of nowhere, 70 miles off of I-65. Since we decided there was approximately one snowplow per county (Which we got stuck behind on a two-lane highway), the road wasn't clear.

Also, a poster at DePauw read "AIDS. Not just a homosexual thing." It's good to know it's 1987 right now.

A (halfhearted) defense of the weblog:

Reading this essay, I tried to figure out what sort of weblogger I was and decided that unfortunately I was the "Tragically Geek." Oh well.

I do think the writer has a lot of really valid points, and honestly the reason I think comments are good is that I think they facilitate conversation, not just weblogger to reader but also reader to reader. Weblogs by their nature destroy conversation (rather than emailing my friends to say something, I post it), so anything I can do to increase conversation I think is a positive.

I personally enjoy reading my friends' blogs, and I hope they enjoy reading mine, but I can understand that my blog wouldn't appeal to everyone (or possibly to anyone who doesn't know me). And that's fine with me. I honestly don't need the entire city of Chicago reading about what I ate for dinner last night. I love reading book reviews, recipes, restaurant reviews, etc from people whose opinions I trust. That doesn't mean that I read every comment my friends post, either; sorry, Will, but I just don't care that much about Coase's Theorem...

My weblog is a chance for me to hash out how I feel about things for myself, post poems I like, write about movies and things I did today, and generally write something that amuses myself. It's also a chance for me to write in a non-academic style, so I get to use lots and lots of paranthetical clauses. I don't expect that this will appeal to most people, but I put it on the web both because I'd rather type than write and because I can't come up with a good reason not to.

Anyway, I'm not ready to quit yet, though I definitely understand why Ruthie has...

And I do think that TrackBack is the tool of the devil. I adore Google, and anything that messes it up as much as TrackBack does (and for now, that is restricted to certain topics, though I imagine that will change as weblogging gets even more mainstream) gets no points in my book.

I'd love to be a fairy's child:

Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their heart’s desire:
Jingle pockets full of gold,
Marry when they’re seven years old.
Every fairy child may keep
Two strong ponies and ten sheep;
All have houses, each his own,
Built of brick or granite stone;
They live on cherries, they run wild—
I’d love to be a Fairy’s child.

-RG

Monty Python:

I watched Monty Python's Live from the Hollywood Bowl today, rather than going to the class I'm TAing for. Definitely a good use of time. This is really a great comedy special, and it marks the first time I heard "fuck" on TV, oddly enough on PBS.

I loves me some John Cleese and all that, but really none of any of the Pythons later work has compared with the stuff they did in the group. Watching them play off of each other is amazing. The Last Supper skit between Eric Idle and John Cleese has to be one of the funiest things ever. "I want a Last Supper with twelve disciples and one Christ." "ONE?!?!?" "Yes, one. Now tell me what in God's name possessed you to paint this with three Christs in it." "It works, mate." It just wouldn't have been that funny without both of them and the way they react to each other. Eric Idle manages to put just the right amount of indignation tinged with surprise with his "ONE?!?!?"

I like to imagine how they came up with their ideas, too. I think of them sitting around a table saying, "Hey, we have a skit about a woodcutter." "Man, those lumberjacks are really manly." "Yeah, except for the ones that wear women's clothing." "Oh I think I met one in a bar in Alberta once." and so on until a song is born.

It's sort of the way Susan and I work. "What's so bad about unleashing the generics?" "Oh, you know for some things generics are bad." "Like birth control pills." "Yeah. It increases your boobs." "Where would the extras go? Like on the sides or the back or what?" until we start wondering whether a conical hat on your head would be a sure sign that there's a boob there.

Lentil mental:

OK, I found this Guardian article hilarious. Come on, "I'm doing the dance. I'm doing the pogo. Lentil mental. I have gone lentil mental." And I didn't even know the Brits had a version of "I'm a celebrity..." I wonder whether it predates the ratings suck that was the American version.

I give up:

It's 3:42 am right now. Someone is fricking blasting their music. I just called the University Police. This is fricking ridiculous. I try to be reasonable because I know I'm old and go to bed early, but 3:30? People, you have neighbors. Turn that crap down.

Editted for language (in case my mom reads this) and to add that at least it was good music. The Beatles, mostly. Not that I wanted to hear the Beatles then. It took the University Police about 15 minutes. Not bad really.

Blogger failed me:

So I was busy procrastinating (oh, my code isn't due until 1:30. I only have to learn the Polya distribution(?) for it. Hmm, what the hell is he asking? I know what all of these words mean, but they do not make sense in this order...) by writing a post to Far from home, and then blogger upped and et it. So now I have to decide. Start coding what happens to an electron in a 4-stage GEM or rewrite the blog? Sadly, I think I should code at least for awhile, so I may not get around to any more blogging tonight. I can't believe I'm this far behind in blogging, schoolwork, and social life (I haven't seen so many people since I got back. Sorry!) What exactly have I been doing? Nil ciall ag deanamh.

Dinner:

Jello, Edamame, and not very good white wine, together at last. I have to start cooking.

I miss math:

I was sitting in the calculus class I TA for yesterday (awake, shockingly enough), and the teacher wrote a theorem out. He was talking about it and I started thinking about how to prove it. The first words that came into my mind were "Assume not." Not that that's how they do proofs in 130s, but I was trained pretty thoroughly, I guess. I started thinking.

I mean, I haven't done any real math in over six months now, since last June. I thought I needed the summer and fall off, to try to regain my sanity (I think I failed. Last night, I demonstrated to the cat how I was going to take a shower). I figured I would see whether I missed it during these six months and make some decisions about my life. And the thing is, I really didn't. I didn't even really think about it. I came back here and opted not to take any math classes this quarter. After all, I didn't need to, and why bother? But maybe I was just too far away this summer and fall. Now that I'm close again, taking physics and TAing for math, I miss it again.

I miss the rigor, mostly, the way you have to take this step and then that step and then the next and if you don't do it exactly right, it's wrong. I miss the beauty, the way complex analysis all came together ninth week and all I could think was wow. Everything else seems mushy and not at all intuitive compared to math.

I became a math major because of analysis, specifically because of one moment when proofs by induction came together in my head. I finally understood when to use an induction argument, and how, and why it worked. It was a moment where two weeks of work made sense. I've had a handful of other moments like that in my mathematical career, the time I figured out all those stupid domains and how they fit together in algebra, the moment complex stopped being a mess of integrals and started being beautiful, the time I figured out delta-epsilon proofs, the time the Axiom of Choice turned into something more than a college bowl question.

I've never had these flashes of intuition outside of math, whether because I've never gotten far enough in any field to get there or because they don't exist, at least not in the same way, and I miss it. It's a moment of feeling like I'm brilliant, when everything I've been working on for the last month becomes perfectly clear. There's no ambiguity, no question that I might be wrong. I finally understand.

So the point of all this is that I'm either going to take math next quarter or do the DRP. It's OK, though, I'm not going to math grad school. I haven't gotten all nostalgic about classes. They suck.

Woo:

Code is written. Must go import data into Excel for a fine histogram presentation.

Also, the Navy has apparently decided I should be an operations research analyst. I don't think I want to be an operations research analyst, but I'm not exactly sure what it is. Ideas?

FORTRAN sucks:

Arrggh. Stupid segmentation fault.

An open note to my neighbors:

To the people who live above me: your furniture layout looks fine, really. In fact, it looks great. It makes so much sense to have the couch there. You don't need to change it around three nights a week at 2 am. And if it doesn't look OK, it can definitely wait until morning. Trust me you can live with it.

To the people who live across the alley from me: Your music sucks. Please stop making me listen to it. I will burn you a CD of some better music if you just ask nicely. Oh, yeah, and asking nicely doesn't include blaring your music bright and early every morning.

To the guy in the basement: Give your dog some attention. Or at least let it out every now and then so it can bark in a new place.

To my roommate: Please don't cook anything that involves banging a pot on the edge of the counter (?) in the kitchen (right outside your roommate's door) at 7:30 in the morning. Eat some Cheerios for breakfast or something.

Use some common sense people.

Printer woes:

I have a very old printer. It's a IIIp, which Andrew was kind of amazed by (Wow! I've got a IVp and thought it was ancient!). And it rocks. Great quality, no problems, go HP. Their computers may suck but their printers are damn good. But it ran out of toner. I found a place that carries the cartridges, and I saw that someone on marketplace was selling an old IIIp with toner. I was tempted to buy it for $15 (rather than $65 for just the toner cartridge) but decided that there probably wasn't much toner in it and I would just end up having to buy a cartridge shortly. Plus I have no storage space at my apartment (currently my boxes are in the dining room) so I don't know what I would do with the carcass. I'd feel bad about throwing it out.

Super, super bowl:

Well, it was a good game, at least. Better than we expected from the first 27 minutes. Until then, it was just sloppy and watching two good defenses working on two bad offenses is boring. Though we were amused by the missed field goals. Stupid kickers.

I didn't care who won, so I basically rooted for whoever was behind, until the end, when I rooted for the Patriots because I needed to go home and do some work.

Commercials, you say? Well, the NFL ones were amusing as was the McDonald's dryer sheet one. The donkey who wanted to be a Clydesdale was also pretty funny. But there were an awful lot of crappy ones too. Truth? Get a frigging sense of humor. And chimps really aren't automatically funny.

It was a good time, definitely better than writing the 80 lines of code that I should have been doing. But I have a feeling that it's going to be a long night.

Babich 2002 Sauvignon Blanc (Binnys, $8.99):

All right, I'm going to admit that I was a bit nervous of the idea of a New Zealand sauvignon blanc. But I'd read pretty good things about the Marlborough region and the Wine Spectator had liked this one (and called it a "Best Buy," key on my budget) and I figured you have to take risks sometime.

It was quite good. Fruity but not sweet, it tasted sort of like citrus (and went well with the citrusy, spicy boullibaisse) and sort of like melons. It's strong and really flavorful, and though the vineyard recommends to, I still wouldn't drink it on its own, though possibly I'm just a wimp. I also don't think this wone would go well with something with a lot of pepper or paprika-- too much competing flavor.

Apparently, New Zealand sauvignon blancs are more flavorful (less grassy) than French ones and less sweet than Californian. It seems like a good compromise.

The verdict: this is a good, inexpensive wine to go with fish or chicken. Highly recommended.