possibilities, re-evaluation

In the last month I've lost my journal and my Algorithms textbook (Cormen). The journal wasn't too big of a deal, other than the Andras Schiff ticket inside (which also isn't that big of a deal, I'm pretty sure Memorial Hall is willing to print me another ticket), as I hadn't written much other than bus stops / times in 3 cities and 2 countries and some music inside. The textbook wasn't too big of a deal, because it was an older edition that I got for fairly cheap ($15), and I was planning on buying a newer edition, anyway.
...but seriously, folks: I have yet to take a CS class that I haven't lost a textbook for.

This break I'm trying to reevaluate a lot of my time priorities. I applied to Harvard in high school and I had an interview with an alum (a Duke law school student). He interrogated me on my activities, the time I spent on them, which ones I liked the best, why I hadn't taken many APs--and concluded, in a question, "So, if you enjoy tutoring and music so much, why do you spend most of your time on other things?"
At the time I didn't have much of an answer for him (and if I were to redo the interview, I'm not quite sure I would now, either), but it's interesting how our time priorities don't always mesh well with what we say is important to us. This seems silly, but it's also something that happens really often to people.
I spoke to my friend Rodin the other day on something similar and she exclaimed, "If you let yourself spend your time on things that aren't important to you now, the rest of your life is going to be that way!"

I don't know if I'm going to be as radical as Rodin and say that life is such a continual extreme (you know, you know, people change, things change, most definitely--circumstances change), but the reality for me right now is not only that what I'm spending my time on is not neccesarily important to me, but that I'm not entirely sure what is important to me.

So, I'm re-evaluating. Not just time priorities, but what I'm doing with my time I get in college (seriously, college is so self-fucking-indulgent! I get four whole years where I can just pursue things intellectually for fun! what! I get to interact with people who have seriously thought about some serious (and less serious) issues, who want to help guide me into figuring out what I think about some things and are willing to spend some time with me on that. What! I get to be with other people in the same or similar place as me, what! Hah!). For a long time, I've derided this liberal-arts philosophy and felt like college was a time for learning skills (foreign languages, how to think about certain disciplines, how to do certain disciplines), and I still think it is. But I forgot that I've never been someone with only one interest (or even two or three), and I'm allowed to pursue my various interests with full-hearted abandon instead of trying to limit myself to these false constraints of "majors" and "minors". Political philosophy! Art history! Remember, remember, I like these things--I should let myself think about them intellectually and academically again.

I'm re-evaluating a lot of other things in my life, too. I'm going through a transition phase in my life right now (a serious break in a serious relationship), being financially independent but not needing to be, and other factors are really influencing my mood and making me a lot more introspective than I have in a few weeks. I'd like the things I do to be more cohesive, which is something that's always been important to me. I think I've made the mistake in the past of doing this by viewing all my interests holistically (or attempting to do so), and then trying to SMUSH all these interests into one activity, or one discipline. Obviously, that didn't work (cognitive neuroscience of music, anyone?), but one approach I hadn't thought of just doing things that involve more than one thing I like, but realizing that I'm allowed to do more than one thing, hah!

So from this comes mentoring a Durham county FIRST Robotics team, experimental music (hopefully more on this front soon) collaboratively and individually, allowing myself to consider dropping the Math major (=> taking a more holistic view to my education => taking a course in the relationship between politics and economics) and hopefully more persistent introspection and thought. : ]

halloween

In thinking about potential Halloween costumes, I fall into sort of a fear of Halloween night itself. The parties are fun, dressing up is interesting (if not fun), and seeing other people is always great. The fact of the matter is, though, Halloween is also a parade of my lack of knowledge of pop culture.
I ran into a friend at Time after Time (a vintage store in Chapel Hill) looking at clothes. Asked her what she was planning on being for Halloween, she cheerfully answered, "Lucille Ball." Upon seeing my blank expression, she elaborated: "From 'I Love Lucy'." Okay folks. The only thing I know about "I Love Lucy" is from the author bio. for "The Babysitter's Club". The author liked reruns.

In everyday life situations, I can sort of edge myself around the topic, start a new conversation, and hastily go home and Google the topic to fill myself in ('I Love Lucy' was a comedy that ran in the late '50s. ah.). Unfortunately, I have no such tool on Halloween night. It's /long/, man. A 5 to 8 hour parade of things I don't understand where I'm forced to pretend awe at the reality of the costume, how close it is to the original...eeeeedh.

So, I have no clue what I'm going to be for Halloween. My costume for last year was very fun and inventive, but not very interesting. I had a bag that I tagged "FREE PANTS," and went around asking women (and men) who were suitably under-dressed if they wanted any pants. It was terrifically fun, gave me and my group lots of laughs, and one person even accepted.

describing an anxiety attack.

Everything scares me so, so, much right now.
I had a major freak-out about the economy last night--so out of control, so out of my control, so seemingly out of anyone's control. The somber news of bank after bank closing, wondering about what my senior friends are going to do to find jobs, what people's parents are going to do about their investments, and even, "oh my god, why did my dad send me frozen stuffed salmon steaks? can we afford this??", when really it'll probably be okay. This isn't 1929, maybe just 198something. Ben sent me this:http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/09/30/hype-and-fear-in-the-news.aspx which really helped alleviate my fears, but as soon as one thing goes, more fear comes.

China? fucking scary. I don't understand people of a similar Chinese immigration relationship to me desiring to go to that country to work; I don't understand the numerous Americans going there to teach English; Don't you understand that it's fucked up? Fucked up! There's going to be war by 2012. I'm such an alarmist: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/opinion/30wilson.html?ref=opinion

Really, there's nothing I can do, but that's even more scary, sometimes. I just wish I did what I did well.


I need to grow up. How about now?

UNC CS ramble

It's amazing how intensely partisan departments get. Certain majors attract certain types of folks, I guess, and it's not too surprising that Geography is overwhelmingly liberal but it might be a little surprising to some that Computer Science is dominated half'nhalf by Conservative and Libertarian members.
It's enough to make me feel isolated merely for not sharing beliefs on God and family values and marriage (which is fucking irrelevant). I end up avoiding broaching such topics, staying away from things I might socially ask questions about ("So what do you mean Brian, about different ideas about marriage?"), and just stay mum.
I'm already in a recognized minority: I was enrolled in Intro. to Computer Graphics for two weeks in which I was the only woman out of 15 people, my Computer Organization class (/required/ for the major) has only 2 out of 40-some-odd--including myself. The more radical voices in my head scream that this is how the dominant majority white male is gonna getcha down! Gotta watch out! Make sure you aren't put in your place by yourself, be wary! Be loud!

The point is not really to be vocal and share your opinions, though. It's not gonna do me much good other than isolate me further, I feel. "Oh, there's the /strange/ girl". And I mean, to a certain extent I can't avoid that, but for that extent it's okay.
Politics, though, I'm avoiding. Talk is cheap, I guess, and certain politics just really have not much at all to do with CS. I end up just defending things when they come up, grabbing aluminum cans out of the recycling bin, and avoiding discussing anything more controversial than liking Facebook, running Windows, and using Cygwin over Putty.

People seem very divided on the visibility of women or lack thereof. I've spoken to undergrads who barely notice, undergrads who really care and wish there were more (ones who notice and don't care), professors who never bring it up, professors who schedule appointments with me to try to remedy this.

A lot of the women seem pretty Software-Engineering-Business-Mangement track focused. I've spoken to 3 or 4 who plan on getting out into the industry right away and managing projects as opposed to coding. They all seem pretty set on it: graduating early, doubling with Business Management, doing 25 hr. internships during the school year. It's not that we women aren't motivated to do CS, I just that generally the ones who end up here are looking for a career, not neccesarily here looking to code for fun. Not many undergrads period are future-thinking enough to be thinking of a career already. The guys in the department are here because computers were a hobby and "hey, why not." It's a radical difference.

Starcraft LAN parties aren't going to attract this crowd to sticking around longer than they need to around Sitterson, but talks from industry women about management & gender in a technology field will.
It seems like maybe this crowd of women sticks around Sitterson the longest, though, because you need to be that driven to slog through. Your drive can come from a lot of things: passion, desire for career, whatever, but it's pretty painful sitting in a classroom with people discussing things you have NO CLUE about, talking about coding since 4th grade when you've been doing it for 4 months, and general tech-geek-isolating you out. What they don't tell you, what no one tells you, is that you'll catch up. Promise. They're just boasting and you can find out everything they know. On google.

I guess I have a lot to say on that front. I've been planning on essay-ing it up for a while. Divided into a few sections: "Why aren't there more women?" "Advice for women considering CS" "Advice for men wanting more women in CS"

internship done; projects finished

Pretty much this is all that is going on right now:

It is possible, I suppose that sometime
we will learn everything
there is to learn: what the world is, for example,
and what it means. I think this as I am crossing
from one field to another, in summer, and the
mockingbird is mocking me, as one who either
knows enough already or knows enough to be
perfectly content not knowing. Song being born
of quest he knows this: he must turn silent
were he suddenly assaulted with answers. Instead
oh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselessly
unanswered. At my feet the white-petalled daisies display
the small suns of their center piece, their - if you don't
mind my saying so - their hearts. Of course
I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and
narrow and hidden in the roots. What do I know?
But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,
to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly;
for example - I think this
as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch -
the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the
daisies for the field.

Mary Oliver, "Daisies"

TWO WEEKS UNTIL SUMMER INTERNSHIP IS DONE AND SCHOOL STARTS.


shit.

audioblogging: the possiblities

I find that people were really excited about the possiblity of audioblogs in 2004, 2006 [why is this last updated in 2006?], but the hype has died down as we observe that there really hasn't been anything great in this medium.

Podcasts exist in great number, but nothing close to the number of text blogs. Most podcasts seem to be either music or other topical related, very few are purely personal. Besides, the very idea of an "audioblog" seems to be very different than a "podcast". Podcasts seem directly linked to the old idea of radio shows: each show has a topic, an idea to present, perhaps a new band, or an interview with someone. Blogs, like the Internet, are open to interpretation, they can be anything, and are.

I have never really stumbled across any videoblogs, either. The stream-of-conscious, transparent styles that so permeate and define blogging are not very suitable to video. With the increased popularity of Macs (and their built in webcams), you would think that the possiblity would surface more frequently than simply John Green's Brotherhood 2.0, lonelygirl15 and the limited such.

There is of course the problem of limited search capabilities for audio and video, all this problem remains temporarily "solved" by use of metadata tags and the such (see previous post on last.fm). Obviously, either this isn't a full solution, or there is some other reason for the limited popularity of video blogs

Regardless I've been heavily considering setting up a audioblog lately, probably using a combination of Wordpress's services and setting it up under a very open Creative Commons license. I used blogger for this one, simply because honestly, I don't blog that often, and blogger's interface is great for a low-demand blogger. I feel like blogging through another medium, would involve a completely different recording experience, and could be an interesting experience.

Stay tuned (ha ha), I'll update this with a link to it once I get it up and goin'.

I mean, the truth is that immigration sucks, that it would be easier and cheaper and more profitable for me to work in the U.K. for a year than in the U.S., that I'm paying 1000 dollars to the U.S. government to keep my job this summer (this fee subtracted from my wages makes it so that I may as well be working illegally. Well, not really.)

I'm compulsively replanning my life to fit with new facts I get. My mother is considering moving (she loves this house, is too tired to move, and yells at my father about the brand of hair dye he mixes up for her while drunk at 10:45PM), so that she can have another job.

This summer is one of the most dreadful to date in black and white, in facts, in legal fees and the second to last sample check I wrote out to my mother in block letters, TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS of my first pay check goes to her, to pay the bills, the A/C that's set on 81 degrees at night and 79 degrees during the day, the gas for the cars that stumble when they hit 35 miles per hour (2nd gear), the food that goes in our stomachs only to come out again, into the water system, into pipes and porcelain. We pay for all that too.

But summer is okay, really. Hanging out with friends a lot; work is satisfying and still interesting, and I really enjoy my co-workers. Playing a lot of music by myself right now, very very soon (this coming week) to be playing a lot more with lots of different people. I am making bassoon reeds and learning Haskell and going to be fixing an organ and a road bike.
And Ben comes home two days from now and that is a very big deal and I am very glad.

I sometimes wonder if I'm going to spend a lot of my life waiting for him, waiting for him to come home to me, but I think that is just the now. It is not okay, I miss him dreadfully, but it is how it is; and I realize that someday, maybe sooner than I think, he will be the one waiting for me.

U.K. fall 2009 or spring 2009? Summer 2009 is France if I get this grant for this idea I want to do, U.K. or Canada if I don't and just want to work.

unusual evangelism

I've always complained about last.fm's recommendation radio; how it failed me after its first and only victory: The Magnetic Fields, but the fact is, that if anything, I have failed last.fm.

For those not in the know, last.fm is a social music platform that allows you to share what you're listening on your computer (and now ipod) with your friends by "scrobbling" your latest tunes. After you've listened to a few hundred tracks or so, it'll also start giving you recommendations for new music, as well as compiling a radio of "your favorite music". Awesome? Yeah.

Except for the fact that I haven't gotten a recommendation that I've agreed with in the last two years. So what's up with that? last.fm uses the music you've played before to give you new recommendations. But it interprets the music not by dsp but by user tags given to the song / artist / album. I have not tagged more than 3 artists. How should I expect good recommendations from last.fm? In fact, like any collaborative, I will get more out of this if I put more into it.

So...go! get a last.fm account! tag everything! Results will be better! Tailored to you! to the collective conscious!

it's free! it's fun!

You can find my music at: last.fm/user/pencilshavings , if you so want.

(picture taken from www.school-for-champions.com)

attempted changes

I've spent most of today roasting outside in my family's yard doing various work. Pulling out weeds is a strenous intellectual process, but very low in vigour physically. If you pull lightly and it comes out, it's a weed. If it doesn't, it might still be a weed, or it might be a desired plant / root. This second case is when the intellect comes in. Here we have a choice to a) pull harder, b) let go and hope that it really isn't a weed. In all cases but a few I went with the second, pulling up even a few plants was not really an option after the first one.

I'm spending the summer at home in Cary, which was not the plan for most of the year. I was going to sublet Nate, Courtney, and Julia's place and live with Nate and a few other folks. Some family business came up in conjunction with landing an internship at SAS (which happens to be in Cary), and instead of convincing them to let me stay in Chapel Hill regardless of the conditions, they ended up convincing me to stay at home.
I'm not too worried, the process of finding another subletter has gone smoothly so far (although, if you are in need of a place in Chapel Hill June 1 - Aug. 15th, give me a holler), and I like many things about my home (food, piano access, my bed, my family), although I'm sure I'll be raging to go by the end of it. I hope that my mother doesn't end up keeping me virtually locked up in my house due to gas prices, but I'll be mostly financially-self-sufficient this summer, so it'll be fine.

In order to blog more regularly (and update my Facebook profile less), I think I just need to accept static views of my self. As a person, I'm fundamentally very dynamic, changing, with changing ideas and impressions of things. Blog posts are not meant to represent some true or platonic version of myself, and I need to be okay with this. Likewise, my Facebook profile does not need to reflect a constantly true dicta of my activities, interests, and favorites, and I should not expect it to. Okay!

To round out an earlier post: yes, I did drop out of my neuroscience lab. I'm no longer anxious about the signs of shifting research areas a few times in one year, minors (but not majors!) an equal number of times, and losing sight into what I would like to study. I hope that the summer industry internship gives me a solid clue (and maybe even a map) toward what I enjoy, but I have decided to free myself of the boxes of research --> grad. school --> academia. I've done all sorts of kinds of research (experimental / theoretical, biology/psychology, computer science), and haven't enjoyed or been motivated to do any of them. I think this is a sign, finally. I'm not going to give it up for loss, but I think it's kind of dumb to expect that type of life of myself when it's clear that I am not (at least right now) in love with it.

Tap tap. TAP TAP TAP.

I've been coughing very violently today to try to knock up some of the phlem that's been stuck in the very far reaches of my throat. Too far for any normal cough to reach! My coughs need to be armed with excessive force and a staccato rhythm.
Went to dinner with Ben's family at a seriously good Chinese restaurant (sort-of) in the area [Red Palace, in Raleigh]. Ben and I's fortune cookies were the same!(!): "You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home."

delicious.

I feel like my caffeine cycle goes in spurts of drinking a lot at ridiculous hours and then purposefully not drinking very much at all (some tea, maybe one or two coffees in a whole week) to try to quit that cycle and then entering some other ridiculous-hour-cycle. It is probably related to my work load.

Not much more to say now. Ben is home for his Spring Break; I've been taking naps and getting sick with him instead of doing work. Diff.EQ. test next week; nervous.

: ]

anxiety

I'm not sure what I'm doing with myself;
yesterday went to a panel, a talk, informal they said 'bout
things that i'm 2 years away from in time but multiply that by a distance, a scalar
and you get where I am now.

I've switched research areas twice and I'm only a first-year, and I'm not sure the current one is where I want to be, and sure it's better than not doing anything at all, but how the hell am I so flaky, do I like anything at all?

Most of my friends are moving off campus next year and it's not that I think that I won't see them ever again, I'm not that dumb, it's just that I value, maybe overvalue, run-ins and spontaneous activity way over plans and I'm honestly really bad at making plans, and sticking to them.
I think it's because I discovered recently that being flexible with plans means more running-in to people, more spontaneous activity, more fun?

I think the sentences in this post are shorter than usual, even.

Doing badly in my favorite class (differential equations), and my emotional state in regard to that class is: how the hell do I deserve to feel so happy and great every time I leave this class if I'm doing so badly?

Short, short, short.

Went to a creative writing fancy shindig the other night with my friend, and I felt out of place. "So are you a creative writing student?" "uuh...no, not quite." "oh, what's your major?" "...computer science."

location

I've had an on-and-off cough / sore throat for the last two weeks; part of me wishes I would just lose my voice for a whole day and have that be it. This just springs up: a flannel fist choking my throat each morning, a 3 minute bout of coughing, a scratchy voice on the telephone.

I "went public" with this blog maybe a month ago (facebook, AIM profile), and since then haven't put anything up that isn't just pictures.

2nd semester is pretty wonderful so far. I'm getting into the groove. Yesterday I was offered a strawberry popsicle: I accepted. I have a fridge full of potatoes, onions, and apples.

I worry about the sustainability of my relationship; it seems sometimes like there is no end to the distance; grad schools and jobs pushing us further and further, but I guess we'll just have to cut our losses sometime in order to be together. No perfect decisions, but some are good ones.

I fly out to LAX this Wednesday. I am so excited. It will be a wonderful 5 days.