Hi again. The following is funny. To me. Maybe you think it’s dumb. If so, I think you’re dumb. It is an email exchange. First, some background: I am currently growing a beard, which I call my “winter coat.” Ok, on to the good stuff.
Me: :-{)} <---- haha beard
Livia: :-) <-- no beard, so much hotter
Me: :-{)}}}}
Livia: Hm... this one's a spirited one. Don't worry, we'll break him yet...
:-{)}}}} + beating x 100 ----> 0:-)
Me:
O O
----- -----
| + beating x 100 ----> |
/ \ / \/\
/ \ \
^ ^ ^
| | |
healthy some army broken
legs presumably non-dancing
involved legs
At which point she backed off.
Oh yeah, I guess I should have told you that I agreed to take a few lessons in um, swing dancing. During the month of January. And perhaps that there’s someone now who can actually get me to do things like that. ‘Cause I kinda like her.
(Sick!)
For the curious, we met about a year ago through the Graduate Christian Fellowship here at MIT (we’re both grad students there), and started dating this past summer, about the same time I quit posting on this here web-blog.
And to Rachel and Mom, no, there is no making out; that is against the rules. And yes, she now likes the beard (HA!).
It seems like I go through these cycles where for a while I will hardly get any research done, and then will suddenly start working really hard. It’s like I’m a 2-state system:
State 1:
- Go in late, come home early. Take days off.
- Twiddle around at work, reading news sites or blogs.
- Uninterested in astronomy.
- Hang out with people on weekends.
- Really slow progress on research.
State 2:
- Go in somewhat earlier, stay late. Go in on Saturdays.
- Fairly productive at work.
- Interested in my research.
- Withdraw from social activities.
- Lots of productivity.
I don’t like either of these extremes. I don’t want to spend all of my time working, to the detriment of socialization. On the other hand, it is not cool to be a State 1 slacker either. I have been in State 1 for several weeks now, and I think my collaborators are going to start wondering soon why I’m not contributing very much. I need to strike a balance.
Um, this doesn’t mean y’all should stop trying to distract me from work. I would take that personally. :)
This is kind of old news by now, but yeah, I went to Switzerland. It was my first time to “the Continent.” Actually, the entire MIT Concert Choir went to Lausanne, which is on the north shore of Lake Geneva, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, in order to sing Brahms’ Ein Deutsche Requiem together with the University Choir of Lausanne.
We had two performances, both in the Cathedral of Lausanne. It was my first time singing in a cathedral — in fact, one of the few times I’ve gotten to sing in a venue with really nice acoustics (ok, Dabney Lounge at Caltech was pretty good).
When we weren’t performing or rehearsing, we played tourist. I toured Lausanne, Montreux (which has a nice 12th-century château), Evian, and Geneva. Yussanne came out from London to visit! Here are pictures.
It was cool to actually have time to hang out and socialize with kids in the choir. Some of them are pretty cool. Even though we spend 5 hours a week together, we spend most of it singing and there isn’t much time to get to know people, especially outside your section. Plus, I’m usually hungry and grumpy from a long work day. :)
Oh, and I gave an astronomy talk too. When my advisor heard that I was going to Switzerland, he set me up with some of his buddies at the Observatory of Geneva, and I presented a little talk about our current research. It went pretty well, I thought.
Hi kids. Just thought I would let you know (if you’re curious and don’t know yet) what happened with my big oral qualifying exam. Yeah, I failed. But the blow is eased a little by knowing that I was (apparently) pretty close to passing, and my advisor thought I did a good job. So at least the person whose opinion counts approved.
I’ll be trying again in about six months. Hopefully I will not be so stressed out the next time around.
So my bible study group is pretty much awesome. They all got together to give me a “care package” for my upcoming qualifying exam.
I don’t really know what’s up with the Victoria’s secret bag. But the stuff inside it was pretty awesome. Chocolate, coffee, Jelly Bellies (yessss), rum (”Break open in case of emergency”), and more. Oh, and some really nice flowers. We didn’t have a vase, so I put them in the bottom part of Ali’s hookah.
I have been totally stressing out about this exam, even though I know I shouldn’t. I was feeling stressed and tired and kind of isolated when I got this, and it totally made my day. Still tired and stressed, but it’s nice to see that people still care for me, even though I’ve been neglecting them.
P.S. The exam is on Tuesday, from 2 to 4, if you feel like putting in a good word with the Man Upstairs.