maggied’s blag

Today was pretty busy. I woke up at the record hour of 10:30 to go over to school with Paul. I got bagels, and we arrived around 11:30 to visit teachers and stuff. Little did we know, there are now new rules about school and all that are really stupid. You can’t even go in and visit without having set up a distinct appointment with guidance before hand, including information such as when you’ll arrive, and how long you plan to say. Needless to say, that’s pretty lame. Paul and I wound up hanging out at his house for a while instead, and I wound up re-activating World of Warcraft for a month or so. I figured I don’t really have that much to do and it could be fun, so long as I’m careful not to get addicted.

Afterward, I had dinner with my grandmother, whom I probably won’t see for a little while after today since I’m heading back to MIT on Sunday. Around 9ish Paul picked me up and we went over to Colin’s and hung out in his hot tub for a while. It was fun, but was also one of those things that made me realize that things’ll never be the way they once were, and I don’t necessarily really like the way they actually are. Oh well.

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Things were pretty busy today. I woke up and headed right over to the mall with Paul, where we got our cartilage pierced. It was cheaper if we split the earrings, and we both wanted the left ear, so now we look like twins. Afterward, I went home and finished The Golden Compass. I sort of forgot how much of a cliffhanger the end of the book has, because I got busy right after I finished it the first time and couldn’t move on to the second two. While I’m eager to read them, I’m still going to try to cram The End of Faith in there. Had a lovely dinner with Carey and Jess at Ossining Pizza, which was nice because I haven’t had real New York style pizza in a while. We went on the swings at the park, and it was awesome. I really love the swings. Paul swung by Carey’s house later on and we played Wario Ware, Set and this other game.

Overall, the day was enjoyable, and I hardly spent any of it at home at all. It’s been good for me to keep moving and active. Interactions with my friends have reminded me of the “good ol’ days,” although I’ve come to realize that I didn’t really like those days all that much. One thing that’s nice about MIT that I didn’t realize is the fact that at MIT, people don’t talk about how smart I am. Back home, people have this weird respect for anything I say, even if I’m making it all up. I occasionally even get cracked on for being smart, which is just annoying and I really dislike it, but I made that clear to the responsible parties.

Tomorrow I’m headed back to high school to visit teachers, and possibly meet up with people I still haven’t seen yet. In the morning, I’m getting a bagel. That’s another great thing that I miss about New York. I’d take a plain bagel with cream cheese from the deli down the street in Briarcliff Manor any day. I’m having a nice time at home so far, but visiting high school will really test that. I want to leave home before I get sick of it, so I feel as if one week is just the right amount of time to come back.

I’m supposed to pick Paul up at 11am, so I better get moving. Maggie out.

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Spend most of today reading the book Practical Python. I found it on the MIT libraries website. I still can’t get over how awesome the site is; it has access to tons of books that would be pretty expensive to buy in paper. I hacked together a simple interactive prototype for the Media Lab today. File input/output in Python wasn’t really hard at all. Once I run everything by the grad student I’m working with, I’ll pretty up my code and flesh out the software for determining the current state and we’ll be ready for data collection. That’s when the real fun will come around; I need to come up with effective means of analyzing the user’s input and apply that to the back-end software we have for determining the the user’s state.

Thankfully, my illness seems to be subsiding, although the antibiotics have been a little harsh on me. I’m getting my ear pierced this afternoon, and hopefully hanging out with some of my friends from home. The week has pretty much flown so far. I’ve been having a nice time, but I do miss MIT a little. I’m off to try to finish the Golden Compass.

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Spent a lot of the day napping today. The cough suppressants finally started kicking in, but apparently the side effect of that is sedation. I managed to get my stuff together and get over to the Science Research symposium. The nostalgia was interesting, but I finally realized that my time there is over. I also got to play pool later on which was pretty exciting.

On the way home, I wound up discovering that even though one of my close friends from elementary school and I had drifted, we still connect more than I had realized. We had a really nice chat about relationships and life in general, and it was really great to see that someone knew where I was coming from and could relate similar feelings and experiences.

The conversation really brought the fact that I’m done being depressed to the foreground. I’m sick of moping around or being sad about what’s in the past. It’s done and over with, and I’m ready for another chapter of my life to start unfolding. I’m ready to look on the bright side of things, and accept the fact that I’m currently living for the small things in life, be it sunshine, ice cream, and the people that I’m still close with. Even if it’s not something grand or epic, I’m not going to downplay that I am fortunate to be where I am in the world right now, and I live with no regret as to how I’ve lived my life in the past.

I’m starting work on the Commonsense AI project tomorrow during the day (hopefully the morning if I wake up in time). I’ll need to learn more about Python’s method for Input/Output, but I’m pretty excited about getting everything off the ground. I hope to finish reading The Golden Compass by the weekend. Then I might take a break and read a book that Carey let me borrow called The End of Faith. It’s about how organized religion causes humans to do things that we wouldn’t otherwise. It should be an interesting read. Maggie out.

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I was pretty hyped up about the Star Wars: Legacy Revealed special on the History Channel tonight. There were ads everywhere, so I was hoping it would be something awesome, but it wound up being kind of boring. Additionally, the people who I thought might be interested in these things wound up mocking it a little too harshly for my comfort. Oh well.

I finally got my drugs for my illness. A 5-day antibiotic and a generic cough suppressant. So far the cough suppressant hasn’t done much even though it is supposed to kick in about 15 minutes after you take the pill. Sick + sad about star wars = lose

But, the exciting thing is the science research symposium tomorrow, I’m looking forward to seeing the projects and my teachers. I decided I’ll probably go for a cartilage piercing sometime this week. I’m also planning on getting a hair cut before we really get into summer, because I don’t usually like to put it up.

I started Supreme Commander a bit and that was fun. I’m probably going to spend the rest of the evening finishing up The Golden Compass.

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Despite being unable to sleep until about 7am yesterday, I managed to get out of bed just before noon and get to the Fung Wah Bus. I met my dad at the train station in North White Plains, NY around 6pm and had a lovely dinner at the Westchester Hills Golf Club nearby. We celebrated my little brother’s 16th birthday and my parents’ 24th wedding anniversary. My grandmother was there as well and it was great to see her.

I was home for about a half hour before I ran off with my friend Paul over to hang out. We picked up Caroline and Sarah, and wound up driving around bored for a while until we settled back at Carey’s house. We played cards for a little, chatted about college and such. Ultimately, I realized that I’ve changed more than any of they have, and this was a little weird for me. Maybe I needed to change more, or they just haven’t reached that phase yet.

Going to see Pirates of the Caribbean III later today with Caroline and Sarah. Should be fun. After that, hanging out with people from home and hoping to have a good time even though most stuff will be closed.

I leave off with a poll: I want to get my ears pierced, either a second hole in the lobe or the cartilage on one ear. Opinions? Discuss.

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So I played around with a few different themes for the blog, but I don’t really like them all that much. If anyone spots a nice one, let me know. I typically prefer blue and darker colors as themes.

Today is my little brother’s birthday, so I’ll probably go out to dinner or dessert with him when I get back. Sunday’s hopefully going to be pretty laid back. I’m hoping to hang out with some of my friends then. Monday is my parent’s anniversary, and Tuesday is the science research symposium. Wednesday - early Friday will probably be just me hanging out by myself during the day and maybe the evenings depending on how lame or awesome my friends are. Friday I want to go into NYC, I have a party on Saturday, and then Sunday I’m coming back to MIT. So things look pretty reasonable right now; hopefully I will not die of boredom.

I figured out the rest of plans for the summer. I’ll be home for this week, and then at MIT from the 3rd of June through the rest of the summer. I might go home on a weekend or two. I plan on working for 11 weeks and take the week before rush off. I’ll be designing a new paradigm for the Behavioral Neuroscience Lab to test cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson’s Disease using functional MRI. The Media lab stuff is also still in order, so I should have plenty to keep busy. Might have some ideas in the works for an electronics project too…

In other news, today was pretty enjoyable, even though this damn cough makes it hard to fall asleep and I’m tired a lot. It was a little bit up, and then a lot down, but I’m pretty much okay again. Going home will force me to confront a lot of things that I haven’t been, which I hope will be good for myself, but this remains unclear.

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I’m done! Yay! Plans for the next two days include hanging out, doing laundry, and general relaxation. While I’ll surely get restless sometime soon, I’m enormously thankful for the next 2 weeks or so.

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