Tuesday, October 23, 2001

if i had a million dollars

ugh. very very frustrating homework day.

we were watching "office space" today and there's a line in there about asking yourself what you would do with a million dollars. whatever you answer, well, that's what you're supposed to do.

becca will be off to morocco for a week within a few hours. that is so cool. i wish i could go with her.

carter has to give a speech on friday, a kind of introductory "about me" talk. when he asked if i had any ideas, i thought of the one thing that i felt really defined him when i first met him years ago--avondale. as the years have passed i've heard him speak about it less and less, but i don't know if you ever really lose a feeling like i know he used to have for that place.

kent is in west virginia working. christina is in arkansas both relaxing and getting buff. nick spends his free time dancing in utter happiness.

you know, if i had a million dollars, i would buy a really nice digital camera. i would start a magazine or similar publication about...well, i don't know what it would be about, but i would start one. maybe it would be about travels, and i would use my million dollars to take a different friend with me to a different place each month. that would be half of my job. with the rest of my money, i would get becca and karen to move out here and we would start our ae mafia company. granted i might have to use some of the money for counseling so that we don't argue too much, but that would be a small price to pay. ;)

Monday, October 22, 2001

plans for owl cookies

i realized tonight that halloween is coming up in less than ten days, meaning i need to make owl cookies, and soon! i won't let this be this first halloween that i haven't had owl cookies. perhaps i'll have time to go to the grocery store tomorrow to get all the ingredients. then i can make the dough on friday afternoon, and make the cookies on saturday. i think i'll make enough to take them to breakers (a.k.a. "the communist kitchen" in alex-lingo) and share them with everyone. ooh, actually, i could even use the kitchen at breakers--they have all the pans and everything i'd need.

so the yankees won. ugh. if they don't quit winning, i'm going to start boycotting the world series. it's just disgusting. blah blah blah.

flute ensemble was great tonight. we are playing this three movement irish piece that i love, and i lucked out and got put on first part, which is just gorgeous. i feel badly for one girl who can never seem to get anything right--she's always missing notes, and today she got reprimanded for bringing the alto flute back with huge nasty fingerprints all over it. (i mean, like she had dipped her hands in butter, and then picked it up or something--not normal use.) i have to admit that our director is rather strict. but she is making us sound really good, and as sorry as i feel for the girl who constantly messes up, i'm glad i'm getting my part right.

Sunday, October 21, 2001

queen of cheap airfare

so i did live up to my promise to myself, and i just got back from running. it was tough today. my ankles and shins were so stiff--i guess i didn't stretch enough after i went running on thursday. i was running a lot in houston, then i came here and didn't do anything for a month. now i'm determined to begin getting some exercise again, but after a month off i guess i need to be careful.

i talked to carter today. ah, i love talking to my friends. it always puts me in a good mood. oh, i also bought my plane ticket home for christmas today...san francisco to atlanta for only $184.50! yeah! i'll meet katie in atlanta, and dad will drive down to get both of us. it's not out of the way for dad since he has to go get katie anyway, and i will get to see my atlanta friends. our christmas break is three weeks--that is the longest break i've had in a while! i wonder what i will do. well, if all else fails and i never get around to it this quarter, maybe at christmas i can finally put together my europe scrapbook!

we're about to go get chinese food. then it's homework time. fun fun fun.

Saturday, October 20, 2001

brown paper packages sealed with duct tape

i got a care package from katie! it is awesome. she sent me techniques, and a picture of javy, and georgia tech socks, and a cd, and a space shuttle keychain and m&m's. ah. my sister rocks!

(1:08 a.m.)

don't go see "from hell." it sucks. i was hoping for something along the lines of sleepy hollow--which was at least somewhat entertaining. this one is just bad. {sigh} i hate spending money on bad movies, even more so when it is in california, where the movies are more expensive to begin with.

we went to borders though, and i bought a new book. well, not a new book, but i've never read it anyway. stephen king and peter straub's "the talisman." recommended some time ago by kent, of course. i will start it as soon as i finish lord of the rings. or maybe after i read "lords of discipline," also recommended by friends. lately i am wishing i had much more time to read. it's such an enjoyable way to pass the time.

i am worrying nick. or exasperating him. one or the other, i don't know. it has been a long and trying week, and he thinks the sole source of my discontent is the fact that he wants to date valerie. which upsets me not because valerie isn't great, or because nick doesn't deserve to date someone cool, but because it means...oh i don't know. something along the lines of "it changes our friendship." and since he's the best friend i have out here...

but that's only one of many reasons it's been a long and generally annoying week. the other reasons are some undetermined combination of the usual--stress, lack of sleep, worry, and self-doubt.

it'll pass. because i do like stanford, and i am doing cool things. tomorrow is a day of homework, and perhaps a trip to compusa if i have time to check out new monitors. flicks tomorrow night with new friend neal.

i really feel like going running. i should take advantage of this motivation; however, it is very late, and my knee has given a few random twinges today. hmm. i will promise myself to go running tomorrow, and sleep tonight.

Friday, October 19, 2001

where did the week go?

i don't feel very good today. a bit queasy, and overwhelmingly sluggish. i almost fell asleep right in front of dr. enge in controls class. not good.

tonight we're going out to dinner. i think i will take a nap beforehand.

(12:30 a.m.)

i had the best evening! it was a girls night, and since the majority of my friends are male--with a few very notable exceptions, of course--it had been a really long time since i had a girls night. i thoroughly enjoyed myself, and am convinced we should do it at least once a month, if not every week.

it started when emily and i headed to dinner at chili's. we sat at the bar, did the usa today crossword puzzle, had drinks, watched the baseball game, and chatted with the bartender and the old man sitting next to us. it was the kind of thing people always think would be fun and random to do, but they never actually do it. dinner was great.

we then headed back but stopped at banana republic on the way. i got a cool green bag/purse thing. i like it. i've justified the purchase by deciding that it's my treat for making it through this rough week.

anyway, we made it back to emily's room, where susan joined us and we drank daquiris and watched "the mummy returns." horrible movie. horrible. you know, so horrible...that it's actually really funny. we made fun of it endlessly, but watched the entire thing.

when it was over, we talked for a while and then realized all three of us were exhausted. so we said our goodnights and i came home. for the first time in ages, i was home on a friday night before midnight and i didn't feel like a completely asocial loser. because my evening was awesome.

so that's my happy story of the day. i'm going to head to bed now, early, and get up at a decent hour tomorrow so that i can do homework all afternoon, which will leave my evening free to go to the movies.

Thursday, October 18, 2001

fan mail

{sigh} i could go to madrid next week for only $295. why madrid? no reason at all. it just sounds cool.

i got fan mail today! so exciting:

i wanted to write you to say that i thoroughly enjoyed your column in today's daily. i also work for the daily (writing sports), so i've seen a lot of columnists come and go, but your column today was far and away one of the best i have ever read since i started working for the paper. you did an amazing job of summarizing the feelings of those of us who thought they had some understanding of that part of the world and what was going on in it, only to realize on sept. 11 that we really didn't.

isn't that so nice??

Wednesday, October 17, 2001

old habits die hard

a few days after classes began, i took a trip to the bookstore and walked away with my very own soft and fuzzy stanford sweatshirt. i wanted one because stanford is my school now; i wanted one because it is chilly outside in the mornings and evenings. every day i take my new sweatshirt with me--in the mornings i wear it while riding my bike to class, i wear it while i sit in the cold classrooms, then i just tie it around my waist until night falls and i need it again. it's been with me pretty much non-stop since i bought it.

but this morning as i am about to leave for class, i put my sweatshirt down. instead i reached into the box under my bed and pulled out my georgia tech sweatshirt! yay! it will make me happy all day.

(10:21 p.m.)

i have a homework assignment that is due tomorrow and i still have two problems left, but i've spurned it for tonight to give my brain a break. it's not due until 5:00 anyway, so i'll have plenty of time tomorrow. instead, i'm going to put on my pajamas, climb into my warm bed, and read. and drink apple cinnamon tea. mmm.

i watched dawson's creek tonight. is it me, or is some silly tv show echoing my life? argh. i just want to be with my friends again. not unlike dawson--a freaking fictional character--i find myself thinking it would be better if undergrad had been horrendous. then it wouldn't be such a disappointment to come here and not find the same people.

but i won't complain, really, i'm not complaining. stanford is good. a bit more work than i'd like, but hey, i can adjust to that. i miss my old friends, but at least i have a phone and can call them. flute ensemble is incredible, and writing for the daily is an adventure--i've never had anyone actually edit my work until now, and wouldn't you know it actually makes the columns better?

i guess i'm just in a reflective mood. blame two things--tv and a phone conversation with kent. kentie, kentola. yep, i finally tracked the boy down after a week and a half of trying to get ahold of him. i love talking to him, even though he must be annoyed because i usually have a constant stream of questions. i just like hearing his laugh. he told me everyone on dawson's died. ;) that made up for the fact that i had to watch it alone again.

anyway, my bed and book and cup of tea are calling.

Tuesday, October 16, 2001

don't insult spotted owls, please

two words. homework, ugh.

i need an idea for my column this week. please send me ideas. anything will do.

i don't have much to write today seeing as how i've just been doing homework since i got out of class at 10:15. however, i thought i'd share this very amusing story from today's stanford daily.

"this saturday marks the first time in 11 years that the stanford band will be allowed to perform at the university of oregon.

 "thanks to the the stanford department of athletics’ persuasion of the oregon administration, the band has been allowed to return to the oregon football stadium.

"university of oregon officials banned the band from its football stadium in 1990 after the band performed a halftime show about the endangered northern spotted owl...."

laughing yet? the article gets even better after a few more paragraphs.

"in its offending 1990 show, the band had hoped to increase social awareness about the predicted extinction of the bird, according to yelderman. 'It was a very socially aware show to bring interest to the issue,' he said.

"band members had observed that lumberjacks were destroying the owl’s habitat and causing owl populations to drop dangerously low, yelderman explained.

"the show included what band members thought was a humorous yet informative social dialogue:

"'mr. spotted owl! your environment has been destroyed, your home is now a roll of brawny and your family has flown the coop. what are you going to do?' 'Me? I’m going to disneyland.'"

however, university of oregon administrators did not find the routine quite so funny, “objecting to such keen social awareness,” said junior aram cretan.

cretan said the lumber industry plays a significant role in the oregon economy and that administrators found the band’s antics insulting. the result of the school’s displeasure was an 11-year restraining order."

i was cracking up.

Monday, October 15, 2001

my poor thumb

i am playing the bass flute for two songs in flute ensemble, and man is it hard! i've never played a bass before. i've pretty much gotten the hang of getting a decent sound out of it (you'd think after having played the normal c flute for 13 years it'd be easy to pick up bass...wrong, at least in my case), but it's so heavy that my hand is throbbing after about 10 minutes of holding the thing. especially my right thumb, which is straining to hold the majority of the weight while the rest of the fingers on that hand try desperately to hit the keys at the right time. i need one of those hand exercise thingys. it's very odd--it's like i'm learning to play flute all over again.

dinner time. i'm starved. i hope we're having something good tonight.

Sunday, October 14, 2001

i am the inanimate argument queen

today i am having conflicts with my desk. yes, i know my desk is an inanimate object, and i therefore have little excuse to be arguing with it, but i am. it's amazing how i can argue with anything--computers, piles of paper, bike grease on my pants, etc. anyway, the keyboard drawer on my desk sucks. it doesn't slide out as far as i want it to, leaving my hands rather cramped as i type. i still haven't figured out the best way to fix this because i've been too lazy to deal with it, but seeing as how each day it seems to slide out less and less leaving me more and more annoyed as i type, i think the time has come to deal with this problem. i need some wd-40.

have you ever stopped to think about fixing something, and realized that most of the world's problems could be entirely solved using only wd-40 and duct tape?

tonight i am going to flicks. it should be quite interesting. see, flicks is this organization that shows good (or just recent) movies in memaud at 7:00 and 10:00 on sunday nights, and it is a really popular thing to go to; it's touted as "what could be better than watching a movie with 1700 of your friends?" the early one is the tame showing--the one you attend if you actually want to see the movie. 10:00 is more rambunctious, famous for massive paper fights and appearances by the marching band and people saying the lines with the movie and yelling at the characters onscreen. basically everything you're not supposed to do in a real movie theater. i figure it should either be really fun, or really obnoxious.

last night i went with valerie and her mom and her mom's friend to see the fleet street singers, one of the many a capella groups here. oh my god, they were awesome! now, georgia tech had one male and one female a capella group, and they weren't bad...but geez, this group last night was incredible. this concert happened to be their 20 year reunion concert, and so there were many alumni who were back to sing with the new guys, and man, there are some really talented men in that group. i thoroughly enjoyed myself.

(12:50 a.m.)

so it seems my hundred day experiment in journal keeping has stuck. i came home with this need to write some mindless banter, even though i already wrote something earlier today.

so i went to flicks tonight and it was really fun. i swear, people must save their newspapers for the entire week, and then hit the stands again right before they come to flicks, because i've never seen so much newsprint flying around. there are paper fights everywhere, rolls of toilet paper flying through the air, and people shouting right along with the movie...or just mocking it. before it started, they held a four-person mariocart contest. i was very amused.

anyway, i went with this guy i met a couple weeks ago. he seems pretty cool. we ran into some of his friends, so we all sat together.

see, i told you this would be boring. ugh. well, off to finish my math homework. i predict it will take...hmm...an hour. we'll see.

Saturday, October 13, 2001

go cardinal?

eventually i'm going to redesign my webpage. {sigh} i think leila may kill me if i don't do it soon; she is so impatient! ;) maybe i'll have time this weekend. i have all these things i want to put there, like pictures galore and links to articles i've written for the technique and now for the daily. but the combination of procrastination with the fact that i don't have much free time anyway has hindered me. soon, leila, i promise.

i'm sitting here waiting for tico to come by. we're going to the stanford football game. it's homecoming, and we're playing washington state. go cardinal! (side note: i had to consciously make the effort to refer to stanford as "we." nope, i'm still not used to the whole "this is my school now, not georgia tech" thing. you know, i think i will refer to tech as "we" for the rest of my entire life. maybe stanford too, once i've been here long enough. but "go cardinal" just sounds stupid.)

so here's my dorky moment of the day. in lieu of buying a new computer, i bought more ram. yay! i just installed it, so now we'll see if it actually helps my computer or not.

where is tico? he was supposed to be here ten minutes ago.

the braves won yesterday, completing the sweep of the astros. i felt kind of sad about the astros getting knocked out so early, i mean, after all, they are sort of my "home team away from my home team." it's too bad they couldn't win at least one game. if they had been playing anyone but the braves, i would have been rooting for them. as it was...i of course wanted my bravos to emerge victorious. on to the nlcs!

(6:24 p.m.)

so we lost the football game. i am not particularly upset about this since my stanford loyalty is still in its infancy, but i have to say that the game was quite interesting. very different from a georgia tech football game. for starters, stanford has no fight song that i can figure. when we score, there's a group of people down on the field who blow a big train whistle and shoot off a cannon. then the band plays that song that goes "all right now, baby it's all right now" and all the students clap and then at two select points in the song everyone jumps into the air, throws up their arms and goes "whoo!" there is no singing or "let's go stanford (bust their ass)" or the mascot doing pushups or anything.

and speaking of the mascot, well, there is a guy dressed up as a tree, which is stanford's secondary mascot of sorts, since i guess it's hard to dress as a color. he wears red pants, and bounces around a lot because i guess it's really hard for a tree to actually dance. also, the tree really has no arms, so i don't understand how it's supposed to defend itself against rival mascots. and the cheerleaders are like high school cheerleaders--there are no men, so that means no stunts or flips. there are just five girls (yes, only five) shaking their booties, more like a dance team than a cheerleading squad. also, in addition to the cheerleaders there is a pep squad or something consisting of five people in red print hawaiian shirts who jump up and down and cheer and yell things into the microphone like "let's go defense" and "yay, first down."

finally, today it was freaking hot, and the stadium is poorly designed so we spent the entire second half with our arms in the air trying to shield our eyes from the sun so that we could actually see what was happening on the field. weirdest thing of all though--the fact that california has such low humidity. we were really hot, but weren't sweating, or maybe we were and it just evaporated. anyway.

so that is the stanford football experience. very strange. i like games at tech much better.

Friday, October 12, 2001

maybe the braves can win, since my jackets couldn't

in response to becca, yes, i admit that i am politically conservative, but no, oddly enough, stanford has not been shocking to me. sure, yesterday the ed board wrote about the lack of political activism on campus and said there should be more rallies...but i can't say i've noticed any steady streams of the stereotypical california freakishness. stanford is different from tech, but not dramatically.

in any case, today is a good day because i get to watch the braves, finally. their first two division series games started at 10 and 11 a.m. respectively out here...right smack when i am in class. argh!

Thursday, October 11, 2001

don't throw it to stonehands

what is up with the georgia tech football team?!? i cannot believe we lost, in overtime, again. i cannot believe that godsey threw so many interceptions, that joe burns didn't keep the freaking ball in play to run down the clock, that the maryland kicket made that long field goal, and that joe burns (him again) fumbled the freaking ball in overtime. joe burns is the new stonehands.

i saw alex on tv early in the game. he had his hands in fists and his mouth wide open. :) he made me laugh.

my first column appeared in the daily today. i'll be writing one every thursday, and they'll always appear in print under the title "rarefied air." that's what i picked to call my little spot of the opinions pages. cheesy, but i was having an uncreative day when they made me come up with it. anyway, today the column is about baseball. you can go to their website and read it for the next few days, and then it goes into archives, which i haven't figured out how to get to on the web yet. supposedly they're there, but i can't find them.

direct quote from a guy nick overhead while on his way home from class: "dude, some chick in the paper today wrote about baseball..." yes. that's all he heard. i was very upset that nick didn't eavesdrop some more, or look to see if the guy was cute. then he could of said "oh, i know her, you should talk to her sometime." anyway. ;)

i talked to leila tonight. boy did she have a horrible day...i wish there was something i could do. a third of the workforce at her company got laid off (she didn't, luckily), and then we lost the game. we vented for a while on the phone. in an effort to cheer her up, i have finally added a schedule to my webpage. leila, now you can know where i am at all times.

{sigh} i wonder where nick is. i banged on his door earlier and no one was home. and emily was in memaud (memorial auditorium...stanford has weird nicknames for things), and she was busy.

ugh. my diary entries these past few days have sucked. i'm gonna go read.

(11:39 p.m.)

well, instead of reading i checked my email, and after that, i called christina. ahhhh. one hour and fifteen minutes of lovely conversation and laughs. she is awesome.

Wednesday, October 10, 2001

the winds of change keep blowing

today had its ups and downs. i started out tired, but happy...because in the middle of math class, i finally figured out my cfd homework. it's amazing how sometimes things really do start to make sense if you stare at them, sleep on it, and then stare at them again. thankfully this assignment was one of those things.

after our three morning classes, nick and i walked to breakers for lunch. thanks to the limited selection of snack foods and my strong aversion to cooking, i have recently discovered that i really like blueberry yogurt. hmm. good stuff.

after cfd class i headed to the newspaper office for my first meeting with mark, one of the two opinions editors. he's the one that works on wednesdays. duh. anyway, it is an odd feeling to be merely a writer instead of an editor. with the technique, i would write, edit, and layout my editorials all on my own. unless i asked chris to read over it, i don't know that anyone saw it before it was printed except me.

but now of course things are different. i sat beside mark as he read my column word-for-word, made a few changes, and then read it again. even though his corrections were extremely minor, i found the whole process very nerve-wracking. i was uncomfortable sitting there watching this guy that i'd just met go over my words with a fine-tooth comb.

when i write something i know will be published, i edit it myself until i think it can't get any better. i wrote my column for this week, thought it was as good as it was going to get...and then mark got to put in his two cents. it's not a bad system at all, in fact i think my writing will certainly benefit from having an impartial editor. it's just yet another thing to adjust to.

sadly enough, the highlight of my day was watching the season premiere of dawson's creek. i swear, if i were allowed to have only one vice, that show would be it. but the viewing experience, like everything else in my life, has changed. six months ago i would have recorded the show (because i would have been at technique consensus), and watched the video on thursday with christina or carter or kent. kent would tell me that everyone dies in the episode, and i would laugh. tonight i watched alone on the couch in our living room and painted my fingernails silver.

they match my new shoes, at least.

Tuesday, October 09, 2001

drinking from a firehose

agh. i don't understand cfd. i could go on and on about how all the taylor series and numerical expansions and differencing schemes are turning my brain to mush, but i've done that enough lately. at least the class is recorded, and i can watch the webcast anytime. listening to last week's lecture a second time made a bit more sense, and i was able to watch the problem session that i couldn't go to this morning because i have another class at the time.

this afternoon i went to a welcome session for graduate women. it was really nice! the first hour was a sort of panel discussion by 5 current or former female grad students, and it was really interesting to hear how many of them felt the same way upon entering grad school that i do right now--wondering how my application managed to slip past and let me be admitted, thinking everyone in my classes totally understands all the material while i sit here either cursing myself for forgetting so much or just being totally clueless. worrying that i'm wasting another five years of my life in school.

one girl in particular offered some terrific advice. her name was ayodele thomas, and she is a 1996 georgia tech grad who won a truman scholarship! i had heard early in my tech days, from randy i think, but had never met her and had no idea she was at stanford. is it just coincidence that she was the one on the panel i found most interesting? anyway, she perfectly described my thought process: ok, so i'm in graduate school, which is going to be hard and take a lot of time, and if i get a ph.d. i'll be here for five or six (etc...) years, at which point i'll finally look up and realize i'm 28 or 29 (etc...) and i'm alone and have nothing outside of school.

ayodele thought the same thing at first. she was stuck in the mindset that school was different from the real world, and that her life was on hold until she graduated. she told us how she finally realized it would be better to accept things exactly the way they were, and to enjoy it. instead of her life being school, she reversed the process and made school only one part of her life. she joined outside organizations, she started mentoring some undergrads. she made close friends and set aside time to spend with them. she realized she is a member of the bay area community, and not merely a stanford student. six months later, she met a guy who is now her husband.

cheesy as all that may sound, i found it rather inspiring. i sometimes wish i could warp speed through the graduate program so that i'm not late for wherever my life is going, or falling behind the rest of the world. i constantly worry that staying in school is just my way of putting off the inevitable--joining the 8 to 5 world, staring at my computer all day and then leaving at night to follow the masses of single people trying to find someone to spend their life with. it's always nice to talk to someone who had the same fears as you, and see that the worries were really unfounded, in the end.

anyway. that was rather deep. and now, i've got to get back to my homework.

(2:30 a.m.)

hi. here i am. awake. late. about to go to bed, right after i make this resolution, to be witnessed by, well, whoever reads this:

i will stay ahead on my homework and not take on any additional obligations so that i don't have to stay up until 2:30 a.m. anymore.

procrastination and overcommitment, which led to staying up until the wee hours of the morning, is what made my last semester at tech such a hellish one. a constantly sleep-deprived sarah is a very unpleasant person to be around. i think carter, kent, christina, especially becca and karen, and just about everyone else who saw me at any point between january and may could tell you that. so there in lovely bold type is my resolution not to do it anymore.

ok then. that's settled. good night. :)

Monday, October 08, 2001

boring blabbing about homework

agh, i hate this feeling, this overwhelmed with homework feeling. i went to the compressible flow problem session today though, and it was very helpful. even if all the second year grad students were making fun of us. jerks. anyway. i'll finish that homework tonight, and hopefully finish structures as well. that will leave controls (which i'm hoping will be easy, but i don't know because i haven't looked at it yet), and cfd (which i'm avoiding like the plague).

i went to talk to dr. springer today with a question about the structures homework, and left his office laughing. he is such a cool guy. he must be in his 60s, and he is from hungaria and so he has a cool accent. but he's also got a great sense of humor. he told us today that you can tell how good a mathematical law is by the person it's named after. the older they are, the better the law. :) ok, so maybe that's not that funny, but i hope at least karen and becca will be amused by the engineering humor.

as if anyone really wants to read about what kind of homework i have to do. what could possibly be a more boring subject?? so here's something funnier: tim the beaver has reappeared. for those of you who don't know him by his lovely nickname, tim was one of my ta's for fluids lab back at tech. he is an entertaining guy who is now working at pratt and whitney in connecticut. he emailed me over the summer, and again a couple weeks ago. well today he emailed and asked if i am in dr. cantwell's compressible flow class. hmm. i think he's taking the same class via video that i'm taking in person! that makes me laugh.

this morning i was more convinced than ever that i'm going to die in a horrible bike accident. i think all the people who didn't have bikes last week went out over the weekend and bought them, because there were even more than i saw last week. it is crazy.

my first column in the stanford daily will appear on thursday. :) you can all read it online. i haven't decided what i'm going to write yet. (surprise, surprise...do i ever know what i'm going to write about more than a few hours in advance?)

anyway. i'd better get back to doing homework.

Sunday, October 07, 2001

and so it begins

so we've finally begun our retaliation. bombing afghanistan. the taliban is saying that now america has become the terrorists. {sigh} the whole thing scares me.

i spent yesterday afternoon cleaning my room. yes, all afternoon. cleaning is a very slow process for me, mainly because as i clean, i rediscover things i'd forgotten i had and get distracted. but in the end, my room looks better than it did, so i guess i can declare the process at least halfway successful. i still haven't figured out where to put all of my clothes, and so i have a pile of sweaters that has been moving back and forth between my bed and my desk chair...but i'll figure something out.

last night was nice though. tico called about 4:30 and said he had no plans for the night, and when i said i didn't have anything to do either, we decided to get a group together and go out to dinner. we parked underneath the palo alto city hall and walked down university avenue until we found a thai restaurant that looked good. and it was. yum. afterwards, we found a gelato place, and then walked to the brand new apple computer store that had just opened yesterday morning. they didn't have any free t-shirts left, but we had a lot of fun playing with their computers and filming our own mini-movies in the store. god, we must be huge dorks, because it was really fun.

today is an errand and homework day. ick.

(12:28 a.m.)

i hate homework. it was so nice to work this summer and never have to spend my sunday nights working on problems that i don't understand, but that i should understand. i get frustrated so easily. argh. in any case, i finished the math, did maybe half of the compressible flow (which was maddening...i can't believe how much i've forgotten), and did a third of the structures. that leaves controls, and then "the big one" a.k.a. computational fluid dynamics. (cue scary music) it's only been a week and a half, and already i'm lost in that class. it's gonna be rough.

i was working on all this homework tonight with nick. i realized he and i have never done homework together, so he didn't know how annoyed i get when i don't immediately understand a problem. i should have explained the method to my madness so that he wouldn't worry.

in happier and less stressful news, i did two very fun things today. i got new shoes, and i got my car washed. yay for simple pleasures. my car and my feet feel so much happier now.

i have to write two columns for the daily this week...one to run this thursday, and one to run next thursday. they work a week ahead of schedule...imagine that! definitely not how technique editorials operated. ;) anyway, i am soliciting ideas...anyone got any?

Saturday, October 06, 2001

sunrays and saturdays

so it's been a while since i've had an obsessive song (yeah, a whole two or three weeks), but this is definitely the current one:

vertical horizon
sunrays and saturdays

open the window
let the sunset in
if only for the last time
let me see you smile again

i'll take my records
you can have your books
i'm sorry i never read them
but it says so much about us

always trying
to make love out of care
the perfect recipe
but something wasn't there

chorus:
i wish you
sunrays and saturdays
perfect starry nights
sweet dreams and moonbeams
and a love that's warm and bright
sunrays and saturdays
friendship strong and true
oceans of blue and a room with a view
to live the life you choose

you'll write me letters
i'll call you on the phone
a wire away from touching
and never quite alone

we'll get to know ourselves again
and we'll heal our hearts
it's not that we're bad together
we're just better off apart

always trying
to have one and one make two
and even though it never worked
i still feel love for you

repeat chorus

(1:17 a.m.)

california is good, i guess. actually, i am supposing that i really don't have anything to complain about. the weather is nice and cool, and almost always sunny. the campus is beautiful, full of trees and grass and random racoons. i made the flute ensemble. i am learning how to play the piano. i have been picked as a new columnist for the stanford daily. i am surrounded by extremely smart people who are really great teachers as well. my classes are interesting. the only thing missing is people. but i am meeting new people every day, at dinner and in class and at meetings. i have found girl friends in emily and valerie and susan. i have nick. i've hung out with tico a few times. it's a slow process.

so i think that life is good.

Friday, October 05, 2001

chicks dig the long ball

so barry bonds hit #70 yesterday. i'm happy for him, and rooting for him to break the record in the last three games of the season. i know people have issues with his personality, but come on, he is a great baseball player. mcgwire was, and still is, only a home run hitter. he has 56 hits this year, 29 of them long balls. this year when he's not rounding the bases, he's stuggling to raise his pitiful .190 batting average. bonds, on the other hand, does just about everything well. you gotta give a man credit for that.

so i'm home for the day. i love how my weekends begin at noon on fridays. nick and i took a picture in front of the church for curt's birthday present, then headed to breakers for lunch and reading the newspaper. i love reading the newspaper! ahhh. anyway, we then put together the present and i headed home. i'm glad i did--as soon as i walked in, i remembered why i had wanted to come home instead of hanging out in crothers all afternoon. that reason? i have a pile of laundry the size of rhode island in my room.

Thursday, October 04, 2001

move to california, but leave before you get soft

today i left my room at 9 a.m. and didn't come home until just now. at tech, days like that used to make me crazy. here i hardly noticed. in fact, i might never have realized if i hadn't gotten home to two dozen email messages, and realized i hadn't checked it since before i showered this morning. it's funny how relaxed life seems out here, and how accurate the stereotype about laid-back californians is. i have more homework than i've ever had in my life--five assignments due between monday and wednesday--and yet i'm not stressed out. must be something in the air.

i got a package! a surprise package from carter that had pictures, and a cd! i was so excited. i never get surprise packages. the pictures are great--i will scan them this weekend and try to put them here. there is one of me and my sister that i love, taken back at the beginning of september when i went to visit. it is just great. i bought myself a "sisters" picture frame just like the one i sent katie, but i hadn't put a picture in it yet...now i have one! because of the package, carter is definitely my favorite person of the moment.

so i'm wondering if there are any parties scheduled for the weekend. last friday i enjoyed going to the shindig they had over in rains and meeting a bunch of people...i hope i get another chance to do that soon. then let's see, i have decreed that we must go to the movies this weekend or else i'll go into withdrawal, since i haven't been to the movies since i was in atlanta. and then, well, i have a lot of errands to run, and major amounts of laundry to do. i haven't done laundry since i left houston. it's amazing--i never knew i had so much underwear and so many pairs of socks.

Wednesday, October 03, 2001

a picture's worth a thousand words

i truly feel that this picture sums up becca's entire life:

lost in some exotic locale. that's becca. :)

(11:07 p.m.)

tonight i had dinner with the provost. now before you go thinking i've already worked my way into the political picture here at stanford, let me assure you that it was a fairly random occurence. last week i got an email saying "hey, if you want to have dinner with the provost, email us back. there's room for 20 students; if more want to go, we'll draw names out of a hat." so i emailed, and either i got lucky or they got exactly 20 responses. in any case, this evening i ate with the provost, dr. john etchemendy.

he was a really interesting guy to talk to. he was once a stanford graduate student himself, in the philosophy department of all places. he then taught at princeton for a few years before coming back here as a professor, then philosophy department chair, and now provost. he was younger than i expected--probably no older than 55, at the very most.

i was very impressed at the thoughtful questions asked. it was obvious that the other students eating with me weren't there merely for the free food. the points i found most interesting were:

• the provost is like the chief executive officer of a company. he approves every faculty appointment, and every promotion. he makes decisions that affect housing, transportation, athletics, and every other auxiliary service. he watches the budget and decides what money goes where. he keeps the university running. (until tonight, i really had no idea what a provost did...i just knew it was an important position. now i see why.)
• stanford's yearly budget is $2 billion, including endowments and everything. the "general fund" is about $500 million.
• dr. etchemendy honestly feels that stanford is as good right now as it's ever been, in terms of quality of faculty and quality of students. he called us "the best university in the world at the moment."
• stanford accrues an incredible amount of debt. each year, the university borrows as much as it can without losing its triple-a loan rating. (i'm not totally sure what that is, but maintaining it is important.) the board of trustees will not allow the university to borrow more than that because they want to reserve the right to borrow a huge amount and drop to the double-a rating in case there's an earthquake and stanford has to rebuild.
• the athletic department has at least one very strong supporter--a local man who owns a construction company and takes it upon himself to make sure the athletic corner of campus stays ship-shape. he brings his own company in to do all the landscaping.
• there are more graduate students here than undergraduates. if some professors and administrators had their way, they'd take it even farther, cutting undergrad enrollment in half and doubling the number of grad students. but stanford needs undergraduates because most of them pay tuition, while most grad students don't (because of fellowships, etc).

so dinner was very enjoyable. it's so nice to see high-ranking administration taking the time to talk to ordinary students. they never really seemed to do that at georgia tech.

Tuesday, October 02, 2001

it's been a day, yeah, just a day

well. actually not much to say today. i got a review of thermodynamics courtesy of dr. cantwell's compressible flow class. i had a turkey sandwich and ramen noodles for lunch at breakers. i hadn't eaten ramen noodles in years, and so i actually quite enjoyed them. while i ate i read the new york times. what a great newspaper!

after lunch i did my controls homework. it was all going well until i got to the last problem and realized that i've pretty much completely forgotten how a circuit operates, and thus could not derive the differential equation for it. it's not really my fault, since i'm not an electrical engineer (at least that's the excuse i'm using), but it was frustrating nonetheless. so i took a break and went to get the handlebars on my bike tightened so that they won't shake anymore. bought a hex wrench so that next time i can do it myself.

rode back onto campus and headed to durand for the controls ta's office hours. xavier was no help at all from 5-5:30 and only confused me even more, but drew took over at 5:30 and suddenly everything made sense. finished the homework and headed back to breakers for dinner. it was really good tonight--chicken curry with random coffee cake and whipped cream for dessert. yum.

went to roble with nick and emily to watch him run through his tap routine for his audition tomorrow. it looks good. i like the pull-backs at the end, even if it does look kind of funny. it sounds cool. came home, and put together half my application to be a columnist for the daily. i can't decide which of my 'nique editorials to submit...i need to choose two of them. decisions, decisions.

soon, to bed. :)

Monday, October 01, 2001

i love visitors

ah, october 1. this is my favorite month of the year for hundreds of reasons, including the beginning of autumn, halloween, college football, memories of random fun in octobers past, and this email that i received today:

Travelers: Chris, Christina
FLIGHT SUMMARY
-------------
Ticket Confirmed
Round Trip

Flight: from Atlanta, GA (ATL-Hartsfield Intl.) to San Francisco, CA (SFO-San Francisco Intl.)
Depart: 3-Mar-02 at 9:45 AM
Arrive: 3-Mar-02 at 2:03 PM
Flight: from San Francisco, CA (SFO-San Francisco Intl.) to Atlanta, GA (ATL-Hartsfield Intl.)
Depart: 9-Mar-02 at 11:55 AM
Arrive: 9-Mar-02 at 9:55 PM

woohoo! so chris and christina get the distinction of being the first to schedule their trips to sunny california to see the bay area and the lovely stanford university. they're coming out over their spring break. :) i am so excited!!

(5:17 p.m.)

yeah! i just bought my season tickets for basketball this year. they just went on sale today, and if tico hadn't mentioned it to me i might have missed out! at first i found the whole process very strange because i've never had to pay for tickets before; then again, georgia tech never had a great basketball team while i was there. stanford, on the other hand... anyway, i am pumped. the first exhibition game is november 6.

this afternoon i sat outside in the sun for a while and finally read chapter 8 in the two towers (lord of the rings, part 2). i started it about a week before i left houston, but moving out here and the start of classes had put the book on the backburner. i enjoyed getting back into it. one of my goals for this year is to read at least one book per month. over the past few months while finishing at tech and then travelling through europe and then living in houston, i rediscovered how much i like to read. i have a whole stack of books in the "to read" pile, so i have plenty of material to keep to my goal.