three years from now

HOW TO: UNC Career Fairs for Computer Science majors

2009-09-16T23:19:00.004-04:00

UNC is mainly a liberal arts school, and typically, we don't get very many technology-oriented companies at our Career Fair (as to be expected). It is a little disjointing to go to one, (suits? consulting companies?) but there are always a few companies that go to recruit for tech.-minded folks, and I don't think it's bad practice to go meet a few recruiters, shake a few hands, and disseminate your resume like you're Genghis Khan.

This HOW TO is motivated by my friend Max's questions to me regarding the Career Fair. I've been to the annual one as a freshman and as a sophomore, and the Internship Fair as a freshman. FWIW, I haven't gotten a job directly from any of the fairs I've been to, but I have gotten a 90% covered weeklong vacation for two in Seattle (Microsoft interview) and created an important connection with a recruiter from IBM who eventually got me a job in Canada (the topic of finding a job in a country you're not living in is worth another post...)

The Career Fair is targeted towards graduating seniors who are looking for jobs. Many companies will accept your resume if you're looking for an internship, though, and I find that it's nice to get a headstart on these sorts of things, esp. for tech. internships. The general timeline for scoring a software-related internship seems to be now (September) until early February, but not much later.

All the obvious things should be done (i.e. print out a resume). Of course, listen to Career Services, as well!

I. BEFORE

As someone interested in software-related jobs, you don't have to wear a suit. In fact, I might go as far to suggest not wearing a suit. No one at your eventual job will, so why should you now? Do dress business casual, though. For men, this means dress shoes, not white socks, nice slacks, a collared shirt. For women, I'm not even going to try to cover that in this post.

There aren't that many companies looking for software folks (as stated before), so you only need to print ~10 resumes. Be prepared to acquire a lot of swag. I've seen women carry larger shoulder bags for them before. I'm not sure what you want to do as a man.

The tech. companies aren't all together, and aren't labeled in an obvious way (other than the obvious Microsoft and IBM), so it's good to check out which companies are coming in advance and research them a little.
II. WHILE

Once you're in the Smith Center, I advise doing a full circle of the possible recruiters before homing in on the ones you're actually interested in.

Smile, shake hands, introduce yourself, and ask the recruiter who they're looking for.

The recruiter will probably look over your resume, and they might circle some keywords ("Java", "Python", "C", "internship") and ask you a few questions about projects you have listed or the type of job you're looking for. This is not an interview, but this is a step to getting an interview! Treat it as such!
III. AFTER
When you leave, if you're at all interested in getting the job (and I always make sure to talk to a few recruiters who are recruiting for things I really don't care about, just to practice), make sure to get the name/email address of the recruiter to follow-up with them!

I hope this post is helpful to a few folks. I figured that if Max had questions then it's possible that others do as well.

(picture taken from UNC School of Public Health page w/o permission)

internet misconceptions

2009-08-30T23:56:00.001-04:00

1. If you set your Gtalk status to "Busy" but you've spoken to me before while you were "Busy" i'm going to ignore that you're "Busy" and talk to you anyway.

2. Putting your phone # on Facebook isn't any more sketchy than telephone books. You know, those old white pages that used to list people's names associated with their phone #s and addresses? When did we all get so scared of stalkers?

summer to-do list

2009-06-01T17:00:00.002-04:00

An attempt to merge self-discipline with communication. : ]

1) UNC Student Congress website

I inherited responsibility for this from Val when he finished his Ph.D. program in May. This summer, I look to implement:

an attendance system. easy to update, easy to look at [so that students can see if their representative is on a term of leave, hasn't been to 3 meetings and should be impeached, etc.] Ideally this will be integrated with the 'current members' page.
easier to find locations for current bills/ resolutions. Unfortunately, this will probably mean sacrifice of ease of upload. Currently, they're just dumped to one location.

2) Project UNC Student Code

I'm working on this with my friend Max . The use-case? The current Student Code is in latex, which makes it look beautiful, but also makes it non-trivial to update. The Student Body Secretary is responsible for updating this, but this past school year (Raynor administration) never did. Max and I, for differing reasons, would like to see the Student Code be updated more frequently, and thus, to this end, instead of just placing blanket demands (and impeachment threats), we're going to try to make it easier on the SBS.

Progress so far? We've barely agreed on the tools that we're going to use, but have one follower on our assembla account! Woah.

It's been pointed out to me by my good friend Mac, that since he was the last SBS who actually updated the damn thing, we should be talking to him more about our implementation. I'm a little nervous about working with Mac and Max on the same project, though, because despite the similarities in their names (or perhaps due to?), their ideas on UI/technology in general cannot be melded harmoniously. At the core, Max is a big Apple fan and Mac is a linux user. Everything else stems from that... I think I could work with either of them on a project, but working with both? Maybe a lesson in diplomacy, or maybe a lesson in just making decisions and running with them...

3) Eve Carson Scholarship website
In exchange for a nice seat on the Executive Board for the Eve Carson Scholarship, I have agreed to web-design/technology-implement for the Carson Scholarship for the next year.
Despite knowing next to nothing about web design (have you /seen/ my website? http://www.unc.edu/~zhoum), even less about graphic design (seriously), I am excited and thrilled about this project.
First, I've had at least 3 people ask me to design websites for them this past year (the perils of going to a large school with only 100 CS majors...), and been forced to refuse (although admittedly, I probably would've refused anyway). It will be nice knowing something (and having solid proof of knowing something!) about web design. Second, I am so so excited about this scholarship.

The Eve Carson Scholarship is a senior-year + one summer full merit-based scholarship that's intended to reward people who have blossomed at UNC. The idea behind it is that not everyone is a high-school hot shot who can get the Morehead or Robertson, but /so/ many people do great things at and for Carolina while here. The idea of a 'reward' for these students is simply amazing to me. What a great idea. On top of that, this gives money for an amazing, independetly-designed summer experience for the scholar(s) /plus/ the freedom to not worry about money their senior year! --allowing them to do even more amazing, wonderful things at Carolina and/or free them up for fully investigating jobs, fellowships, etc. : ]]] (I'm very fortunate to be living with the first Carson scholar next year... hah.)

I'm super excited about helping this Scholarship grow, and it's a tremendous opportunity to get to be on a Scholarship exec. board in college, especially in the initial stages of a scholarship like this, where I get to be part of defining what this is. : ]

Pumped.

On top of this, I'm working at IBM this summer in Toronto for the DB2 group doing tooling for their test division. (phew, quite a sentence). I'm creating the first resume I've had in 2 years, and making myself a better website as a primer for getting started on the Scholarship website.

Hah. Summer of tech...

youth for western civilization

2009-04-11T23:17:00.003-04:00

This past week, there have been fliers across my campus promoting "YWC: Youth for Western Civilization": a group whose national mission statement aims to encourage "support of Western history, identity, high culture, and pride and opposition to radical multiculturalism, political correctness, racial preferences, mass immigration, and socialism. [www.westernyouth.com]." They also want to enable the conservative movement to act on a local, campus level instead of being focused on larger politics.

Cool. I'm pro-Western civilization. I think a Great Books curriculum should be taught at UNC, I like The Constitution and all that has come from it, ice cream, and technology. I really think that this one has the most potential to give the most people their freedoms (although, someone could argue otherwise with me on that one and I could be swayed).

However, I'm not about to join a white supremacist group (and honestly, I recognize that despite good public intentions, this could turn out to be an all-white-boys-club)--so, I was going to protest the protest of the YWC meeting.

However, I did a bit of googling first. Turns out that the Vanderbilt chapter of this organization (and yes, when you join a national group, you are responsible for what other chapters say) says the following about the subversion of Western values: "Mass immigration without regards to assimilation. Illegal immigration. Affirmative action. And multicultural ideology."

Okay, guys (yes guys), you have it wrong. Western civilization isn't about dressing the part, it isn't about speaking English or going to church. A good example of Western civilization is The Constitution--it's freedom, independence, and basic rights (in the life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness sense). Illegal immigration nor immigration erode at Western civilization--instead, they are the force behind Western civilization. I promise you man, your average immigrant has the ideas behind the Founding America far more squarely in his head than the smartest college student.

So, YWC. I believe in your right to assemble, to discuss without feeling threatened or endagered as a group (although I somehow suspect that many of you will feel validated at the turn-out in the protest). I was about to protest-your-protest. But you're threatening me and your existence as a group endagers my livelihood in this country. You are pointing a gun at my head on May 9th of my senior year of college telling me that I have to get out of this country, you are the reason why I cannot work here, why it is so hard to find a job and eke out a living in the country that was founded on the principles I most agree with.
You got it wrong, man. You're not preserving Western civilization and its valid cultural values, and the beautiful foundation of America. I doubt you'll succeed, honestly, but if you did, this is what you'll save: your pale white skin, your churches, and your bland boring food.

spring break to-do

2009-03-07T14:16:00.001-05:00

the official:

-resNET project
-interace design w/ OGRE
-ACM ICPC problems
-ACM presentation
-ycombinator application

the unofficial:

-learn git
-work on mwik a bit
-vimpiphany
-reading list:

the fountainhead
portrait of an artist as a young man
the dispossesed
rainbows end
the snow queen

tech. things i want to work on

2009-02-24T10:52:00.001-05:00

I know this isn't any of the promised posts.
That being said:

google calendar --> google calendar syncing. This would allow for someone to add one calendar and be able to see all of my events. I use multiple Google calendars to organize my life and I'm not willing to give up the colors on my calendar so that other people can sync up with me more easily.
porting vimperator to Epiphany. I got hooked onto vimperator a few months ago. The key bindings make my life much easier, especially from a laptop where your hands are on your keyboard much more than your hands are on a mouse. Recently I discovered Epiphany (it came with the Gnome package that came with Debian Lenny) and oh my god, it's just so fast. Firefox is really getting bloated--and I realize that for some people that's desirable (where bloated = extensions), but I really don't utilize Firefox extensions and would just like for my tabs to load faster. : ] That being said, I don't know if I can live without vim-keybindings in my browser...and Epiphany add-ons are written in C/Python, which means that porting vimperator (or just the vim-bindings that I care about) might be a do-able task.
Writing laser music for Zac. My friend Zac has a neat laser set-up that "takes in" music input in the form of vibrations. I'd like to write some music to fully show off the laser's capabilities.
Work out a good framework for syncing up delicious links w/ mwik , incorporate tags into my structure of how I use mwik.

self blog challenge

2009-02-05T20:12:00.002-05:00

Okay, ya'll, I know you liked hearing about my personal dilemmas & self-reflections, but I'm going to start blogging again and I'm going to challenge myself to the following:

I am going to blog on a theme and I'm going to do it once a week.

The theme is rather broad: UNC.

I'm nearly-definitely going to be blogging on the following:
(1) How the Honors Program failed me (or, what I would like to see in an Honors program)
(2) undergraduate women in Computer Science (or, why are there over 60% women in my 500-level Math classes?)
(3) the DTH (or, how journalists fail their classes but manage to put out a quality publication)
(4) Science majors vs. everyone else (or, where i prove that grade inflation isn't actually a problem)
(5) hipsters, wxyc, and the impenetrable nature of the flagpole smoking social scene
(6) why i'm more pissed off at women in my humanities classes than men (or how subjectivism, low self-esteem, and uncertainty of opinion has penetrated the classroom realm)

Anyway, these topics are very rough outlines, and I might end up going off on tangents or not blogging about any of these at all. If you read this and are interesting in hearing from me on any of these subjects in particular, please post and let me know.

(photo credit flickr user elander)

possibilities, re-evaluation

2008-10-16T22:23:00.008-04:00

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

2008-10-04T17:16:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-09-30T23:45:00.003-04:00

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

2008-09-04T23:39:00.004-04:00

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

2008-08-09T22:50:00.001-04:00

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"

2008-07-24T23:09:00.001-04:00

TWO WEEKS UNTIL SUMMER INTERNSHIP IS DONE AND SCHOOL STARTS.

shit.

audioblogging: the possiblities

2008-07-03T14:54:00.003-04:00

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'.

2008-06-14T00:32:00.003-04:00

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

2008-06-06T16:55:00.007-04:00

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

2008-05-10T18:17:00.004-04:00

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.

2008-03-27T22:42:00.005-04:00

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

2008-02-29T01:32:00.002-05:00

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

2008-02-03T15:25:00.000-05:00

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.

2008-01-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

i like to look at you--yes, you--in the rearview window of my car and ask myself what you're sayin' about me, what you're thinkin'

2007-12-19T19:05:00.000-05:00

There is a 10 gallon fish tank in my father's office that is perpetually empty, yet never gets dirty. On the other hand, for some reason my black tea is cloudy--no, I did not put milk in you--no, I am not going to put milk in you. No.

On the way back from my friend's house to my mother's workplace today I not only drove all the way down N. Greensboro St. until it turned into Hillsborough Rd. but also until it turned into Old NC-86 and hit Homestead Rd. Once at my mother's workplace, I then proceeded to drive half-way over a median (3 feet wide, 1 foot tall) before realizing "oh shit".

I am distracted.

My camera is broken. Likely culprit? Rechargeable batteries do not come fully charged.

My family is bad at Christmas. My sister opened her Nintendo DS yesterday (after begging and pleading for 2 weeks) and my mother opened some fancy running-device. Yes--they knew what they were opening. I am not so innocent, myself. I am discovering portable music--with wifi!

My sister and I listened to WCPE ("The Classical Station") as I drove her back from piano lessons last night. Around 9PM a joke was made: "And today we celebrate the birthday of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, without whom WWI would not have been possible." I got to explain the joke to my sister (with heavy emphasis on "this was not the only reason WWI started"), and she laughed, at the end. I wonder how much different my life would have been had I had parents able to explain these cultural references to me, to correct my pronunciation. I have found myself, for many years now, explaining to them, correcting them. I think I have learnt things, though, and not because I am the one in the authority position--I am not. I have learnt things about other countries, and other worldviews, and destruction, and oppression. These are pretty valuable lessons.
All the same, in all likelihood I won't be giving up being able to explain cultural references, and correct pronunciation to my potential children by moving across the globe.

i hope you don't think i'm crazy

2007-12-07T10:10:00.000-05:00

I'm slowly rediscovering things that were obvious to me in childhood.
So far:

1) The hot/cold sides of the bed dynamic. If you stay too long at one side of the bed, you get too hot. If you shift too often, the bed doesn't get warm until well after you've woken up. Solution? Moderate shifting throughout the night, timed so that you're at a perfect temperature always.

2) Shapes. The AC/Heat unit in the room was very loud last night and as I was trying to go to sleep caused shifting images behind my eyes. I remember being fascinated with these when I was around 5 or 6, at some point I just started to ignore it--I'm not exactly sure why. They appear different depending on what's going on, and are more intense with my eyes closed or lack of visual input (i.e. dark room). I can focus on them / see them best at night, when I'm trying to shut down, but even now they're sort of present. It appears to be a constantly shifting separated tessellation. Each piece is what I want to call fractal-y. I wish there was some way of taking a picture of this for better understanding. I'm not quite sure if they have color. They do, but it is more like the rainbow in a spot of oil on a sunny day type of color than a very solid visual.

3) Girls all hate each other.

4) The richer and heavier the better. Lately I've taken to ordering Breves instead of Lattes when I want a milk-espresso fix. Steamed half-and-half with espresso, yes.

three squared days since the last post

2007-11-20T17:55:00.000-05:00

I have synesthesia.

I realized this around a week ago at a really grand percussion ensemble concert on campus. Always before when I listened to music live I was very focused in on the music and the sound, too focused maybe to even realize that what I felt as "crunchy" and "wave-like" were not universal feelings about what was going on in the music but a first-level abstraction of what was going on before my eyes.

I see shape-like things.

For a while now I have been discussing with everyone my ideas for a "better" music visualizer (think windows media player, only, you know, better). They ask me: "what do you mean by better? voice recognition?" "No, no," I say, frustrated, "tone, theme, crunchiness, smoothness, how much the music is like a bubble!" And they nod hesitantly, maybe willing to let me and my crazy ideas alone, maybe afraid to admit that they don't know much about music, probably not completely comprehending.

It is not about the music. Or rather, it is. I have a history of being irritated when the music visualizers do not "align" or "fit" to the music, and only now do I realize that it's because the shapes and textures on the screen do not fit with what I feel are the shapes and textures of the music.

So, my "better" music visualizer? Maybe it won't be better for anyone but me. Maybe, there is hope, though. I am not entirely certain that synesthesia is a personal thing, that there is not some universal base case for what is associated with what among people who associate the same this with the same that.

I am going to explore pathways into this, I'm looking into CSound and player-dependent music (there are no mistakes, if you make a "mistake" just go with it, each next part of the music relies on what has already happened, credit a friend I have, I am not certain what my ideas about intellectual property are yet, so if you want to play around with this, talk to me first and I'll pass on the name of this guy so that you can talk to him and potentially credit/acknowledge him).

Wish me luck. In any case, it is really fucking cool, this shape-thing. I have been delighted with it all week.

three months into college

2007-11-11T10:22:00.001-05:00

I am three months into college and not yet settled in.
My dorm is far away from main campus, home to 800 students who vary wildly. What we have in common? A hatred for where we live. If you walk fast (very, very fast) and the traffic lights are in your favor you can get to class in 12 minutes. And this is the South, kids, so no one gets to class quicker than 15 or 17 minutes. Sure, you can bike (or even longboard), but many people don't and those who don't hate those who do. That takes anywhere from 5 to 7 minutes, depending on the lights, how dense the sea of people is, and how many people you're willing to mow over.

The view though. I would almost say living all this way away is worth this magnificent view. I'm only on the 4th floor of this 10 floor building, but this is what I see every morning when I wake up and leave my suite.

I have lots of friends and very few good friends. I have lots of invitations to go party and get "crunk with my crew" (this exact wording was used yesterday) but more often than not I end up celebrating someone's birthday with Apples to Apples or going contradancing or enjoying myself quietly in someone's room and honestly, it would be very silly to leave something I'm enjoying to go do something else for the sake of doing it.

Contradancing. I went contradancing for the first time this past Friday night, despite the fact that nearly all my groups of friends are heavily into it and that many people from my high school went regularly. So, I went, finally. It wasn't so bad. It took me a while to get in the hang of things and I wonder if I shouldn't have asked for the guy who asked me to waltz's number. He was nice and I am perpetually looking for new people to hang out with.

College has made me more reliable, I think. I used to have a huge problem with saying I was going to do something with people and then backing out on it at the last minute. It is not that there is more obligation now, but maybe more fear now. Fear that if I back out too many times I won't have any more friends and damn, man. College is lonely.

I think this has been my biggest realization about college so far, which is not very conducive to feeling settled in. From an email address hastily written on the back of an index card declaring "first" in both English and probably Farsi (or maybe Arabic) to cell phones out always and promises and declarations of "hanging out sometime soon" and "coffee or lunch?" and "see you around S building" college is lonely and full of plans and not very much doing.

There is always doing to be had, of course, but more often than not it involves a week of Facebook messages (or for the more ballsy, wall posts) or back-and-forth cell phone calls and a quick run to the ATM for cash, and I just miss spontaneity, you know?

So I find that where I can and spend time with myself a lot. I do the lunch and coffee and the "hanging out sometime soon" and the scribbled email addresses and the cellphone thing, too. I don't kid myself, I'm just as lonely as everyone else, but I'm trying for more here, I am. And I think I'm finally willing to loosen the plans and eat a few meals by myself in exchange for potentially having some unplanned fun.

We'll see.

2007-08-15T21:26:00.000-04:00

some things:
-i have never written anything good in 3rd person.
-i have really bad mid-distance-in-time memory

forcing myself to think one thought at a time

2007-07-29T21:34:00.000-04:00

I put on new sheets today. It's a lot fucking easier to put them on when you're not on the top bunk. You can sort of rest your bodyweight on the bed frame and pick the mattress up, squishing comfort into a blue guardian: sort of like a water balloon, only less painful in the long run. Because someone always gets hurt when a water balloon occurs, only sometimes, it's the balloon itself.

We ate dragon fruit tonight. I hadn't eaten it since the summer after 6th grade when I went to China for the first and only time. I get sort of irritated when people say "back to China" when referring to my trip. There's no back for me, you see. I was made in Canada. Born there, too. If I'm going back anywhere it's to that land directly above Montana and not that different, except with the Northern Lights and a bit more windchill during the winter. I haven't been back there, either. Left when I was squalling and one years old for a place slightly further north with a bit more Northern Lights and a lot more windchill. I don't remember it either, we moved for what seemed like forever back then to Ottawa when I was three. I went to twelve daycares and 4 elementary schools, skipped a grade, poured chocolate milk on my 4th grade crush. I never graduated from elementary school, something that bothered me until 8th grade when my middle school graduation in a politely clean and rudely enforcing suburb in the South of the United States gave me 8 accolades. The band director, who announced my awards, because I was Musical and Worldly and played the bassoon, had to tell the audience (consisting of family. no friends, it was middle school.) to cease applauding twice before he finished telling them all.

I think my desire for glory was appeased then, because I haven't done much conventionally since then, since my middle school graduation, since I labeled people into cliques with names that all shortened into three letter acronyms (pop, prp., gek, frk, ...), since then.

My name is Maggie. My best friend spells my name maggie! sometimes. I used to, but not anymore. I am 17 and he and I are a pair of Mersenne primes in our ages, something that will never happen again. I am going to be a freshman at a reputable state school this fall and I am looking for a lot to happen. I am looking to start over, to learn how to be nice to more than people I don't know and my best friend, to not be sketched out by drugs that are not marijuana, to drink decaffeinated coffee, and to run for 30 minutes without stopping. I am at 25 right now.
I want new friends but to also keep my old friends. I want to learn Chinese, my heritage language, the language of my family, of my food and of more of myself than I want to believe. I want to become better at French to prove to my 2nd grade French teacher that I did not fucking deserve that C.

I have a lot to say. I have a lot to prove. I want to find that I am not just talking to myself, that I am not just proving things to myself.

I am on a journey to find people who care.