February 2012
10 posts
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I was kind of planning on going for a walk today (because it’s WARM! like super warm!), but instead I ended up doing number theory with some people in a McDonald’s for a couple hours. As one does.
Seriously though, it was a CLASSY McDonald’s. American fast food chains in Budapest all seem to be really nice for some reason. Maybe it’s a European thing. Anyway, just...
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It is a fine thing to want to live a life of constant excitement and adventure, but there is hidden glory in the times when the adventure becomes the mundane — when the once-interesting walk from train station to apartment is absolutely routine, when you get to see the postcard-perfect city skyline in all weathers, when you find yourself seeking not the things that make a place special but...
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Recently discovered: the essays of Paul Graham. They’re easy to read and insightful. Some quotes:
How to Do What You Love
Most good mathematicians would work on math even if there were no jobs as math professors, whereas in the departments at the other end of the spectrum, the availability of teaching jobs is the driver […]. Math would happen without math departments, but it is the...
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How to improve a sandwich, in two easy steps:
Toast the bread.
Congratulations! Your sandwich is now improved.
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And then there were four straight hours of math class.
Okay, actually there were some 15-min. breaks in there, and also the professor (I had the same professor for two classes) seems to be insanely cool (i.e. very cool, and cool in an insane manner).
But still, considering I’ve been in vacation mode since mid-December, it was kind of a temporal wall of mathematics. There will be an...
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OTHER THINGS THAT HAVE OCCURRED:
trying to learn Hungarian
weekend in Vienna
extremely grumpy museum curators
many bakery visits
a lot of drinking
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January 2012
15 posts
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Today we inadvertently hopped a fence at the British Embassy while looking for a place to eat. The guards started coming over but we ran away too quickly.
Then we ended up at a trendy Italian restaurant where they cook your pasta fresh as you watch, the kind of place that might cost $15+ a plate in the US but here cost <$6 for the best pesto I’ve ever eaten. Plus they had gummi bears...
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Aaaaand now I’m in Budapest. What is happening to my life, you ask? ADVENTURE, THAT’S WHAT.
More when I’m not jet-lagged or busy. So like, June.
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Advice from a road tripper.
pace yourself
make a good driving playlist
bring your own booze
clean your windshield
if you’re paying more than $5 for bad food, you need to try harder
free dispersed camping in national forests is the shit
don’t go to Roswell
do go to Arches
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December 2011
13 posts
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So far, break = at home being a vegetable and lacking connectivity (via phone, internet, personal contact, whatever). Hence the lack of blogging.
Come this Thursday, however, things will be getting a little more exciting. Though I’m not sure if they have wifi at the Grand Canyon.
Stay tuned.
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As a junior who’s leaving campus soon and studying abroad next semester and who has a number of friends who are seniors — it’s a funny time of year for me. When I see someone and we get ready to say goodbye, I never know whether to say “Have a good day” or “Have a good semester” or “Have a good life.”
Maybe I should just start saying...
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Things that could qualify as bad decisions but really probably don’t:
late night pizza, which may or may not result in GIFs
my answer to the last question on my last final: “ah, fuck it”
beer in lab
updating to Facebook Timeline at 4:30am
re-engaging with Facebook at all
I blame Facebook for everything
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When I’m talking to my shrink in 20 years trying to figure out what went wrong, it seems likely that this semester will be the one that started the whole downward spiral.
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Computer science! It’s so wonderful! You start running a program at 6pm, let it go overnight. Check on it the next morning, and find that it halted with an error. Resolve the error. Try to preemptively resolve all future errors. Contemplate just abolishing all errors so you never have to deal with this shit again. Restart the program, let it go all day. Check on it in the evening and...
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Ethan: I feel like I never leave this lab.
Me: TELL ME ABOUT IT.
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Oh man. Getting out of bed in the morning is such a struggle for me. SUCH A STRUGGLE.
This either means it’s the end of the semester and I’m spending 5-12 hours in the CS lab every day, or I’m fucking lazy. I’m beginning to suspect both.
Only at Williams could you simultaneously feel like you’re always working, and you’re lazy.
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November 2011
22 posts
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I wish I had something to write about, but I spent a couple days working on this, and then today I slept through my one class and spent 8 or 9 hours working on my two CS final projects. So much programming. SO MUCH PROGRAMMING.
Last night I took a break from it all and did math homework. It was like a balm for my soul.
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Currently procrastinating on laundry by doing math homework.
PRIORITIES MAN, I GOTS ‘EM.
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Today I am thankful for finally being caught up with my reading.
No but seriously. My problems mostly consist of needing to do paperwork for a study abroad program, missing my boyfriend who I get to see in a month, and possibly preparing for an internship interview (or two) during the next couple weeks.
The angst that keeps me up at night, literally, is having too many possible futures that...
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I am in a SUPERB mood. Because it’s Thanksgiving break, and last night I finished all the work due before next Monday.
Since the past two weeks have pretty much been constant work, and the next two weeks after Thanksgiving will also be constant work, this is pretty nice. (Although due to the impending end-of-semester busyness ahead, I will be attempting to get quite a lot done during...
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So I slept funny last night and have spent all day unable to move my head in certain directions due to extreme neck pain. Said directions include: too far right, too far left, too far forward, any amount backwards, any combination of the previous, seriously it hurts to even hold my head straight up and not lean forward slightly.
Guys my life is hard.
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There are so many things I am interested in! Like typography. Just imagining designing a typeface is somehow fascinating to me. It’s like an exercise in extreme attention to detail and how much of a difference it can make. It’s like the ultimate in functional art. And some of the results are just so beautiful.
Also where our food comes from, the culture of food, the sociology of...
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Today: afternoon at the coffee shop, evening in the lab. Nothing like good coffee and good company to make a stressful week better.
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“You shall know a word by the company it keeps.”
– J. R. Firth, 1957
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