Found:

• One bowl of soup in my microwave from this last weekend. Heated, then forgotten. Oops.
• One busted microwave (one week after one-year warranty expired). Boo.
• One funny quote: "Bamboo doesn't grow that fast!" --on one of the fencing kids growing an inch in December.
• One tired girl after a 2.5 hour workout

Back to it.

"It" being regular workouts. At least, I hope.

Having discovered last week at Morgan-Monroe that I am terribly out of running shape, I took it easy today. I ran two miles from my apartment in about 17.5 minutes. I felt pretty good the whole way and I was able to comfortably push, knowing it was a short run. My knee didn't bother me (it did last week on both my runs).

When I got home, I did some core work.

Now, I can eat the rest of the chocolate cake that Rachel left in Bloomington! Yea!

To waste your time...

Go take the Sci Fi Sounds Quiz.

I'm terrible. Identifying sounds isn't a strength, but it's an entertaining quiz. I went back and took this, trying to go from memory, but still only scored a 71. I think Jeremy got a 71 without the advantage of multiple choice answers. I would play a clip and he would say something like, "Oh, that's HAL."

I was going to post the little tag from the website, but I couldn't get it to play nicely so you'll have to go and take the quiz and imagine the little tag at the end of this post.

**Imagine Cute Tag Here**

DoneDoneDone!!

With one in-class exam and two take-home exams turned in today, I'm done for the semester. A swim, some fencing, and a dinner at Bosco's later, I'm a little more sane.

Coming up: Holiday non-sequitur-ness and, in the Spring, PhD Prelims. Everyone smile and wait for the craziness.

Will Attempt Mental Math for Beer

Yes, I should be working on my exams. I got sidetracked by this article that implies that chimps can do mental addition as well as college students. I think this lands well within the duh regime. At this point in my college life, I can't put my shoes on correctly, much less mentally add things quickly.

The test (briefly summarized) was to flash two groups of dots on one screen and the adder had to select the sum of the two groups on another screen displaying two choices. It's not clear in the article (and I don't have the time/inclination to figure out) whether the response was a visual or symbolic answer. The success rate was the same for the primates as well as the college students (Duke, if you must know).

Anyway, it's a vaguely interesting and perhaps applicable article. I may need a pet chimp for Christmas.

Now, it's 9:00 pm, my chili's almost done, I have three hours before I turn into a pumpkin and there's an exam to tackle. Back to it.

NotaFire

The maintenance people came today to investigate my <ahem> electrical problem. It seems that the outlet and cord for my central heating unit had progressed into the melting-non-functional stage.

Why didn't the circuit breaker flip??

I dunno. Neither do the maintenance people. It could be that I caught it early enough that there wasn't enough time for it to flip.

Wait. It was your central heat? Wasn't it cold last night?

Yeah. It was cold. However, it's going to be colder tonight and I still have an apartment. It kinda reminded me of being on the farm. Nice and nostalgic--for a night.

So, everything's okay?

Yes. The guys came in and replaced the cord and the wall outlet for the heating unit. I'm snug as a bug, with only minor concerns about the rest of the wiring in the building.

Big Week

Things have been a little hectic since my last post:

• Jeremy and I competed in the Div. I NAC
• I had a particularly bad neighbor on a flight
• I finished and defended my thesis(!!!)
• An odometer birthday was celebrated
• My apartment nearly caught fire
• I'm still working on a take-home exam

Before I get to (really) rest:

• I have to finish this take-home exam and one more (for the same class)
• Christmas shopping
• Two finals
• Drive to Indiana

Good things from today:

• The wetsuit I ordered was delivered
• Yummy Indian food at the research group pitch-in (first ever, I think)
• Thesis was submitted
• The apartment did not actually catch fire**
• The potential fire was not from my cooking
• Progress was made on the above-mentioned exam

**I expect there will be a post about the non-fire tomorrow after resolution with the maintenance people. In the meantime, all is okay. I was lucky I was home.

Chocolate is Seasonal???

Jeremy went to pick up dinner tonight while I worked on the thesis. I had requested a chocolate shake from Arby's. He came back with tea and explained that, according to Arby's, chocolate is a "seasonal" flavor and this is not chocolate season. Jamocha, on the other hand, is not seasonal. This, evidently, is eggnog and orange cream season.

FOUL!!!

Sounds I Dislike:

Lawn equipment.

All lawn equipment that has any sort of motor, engine, etc.
This includes, but is not limited to, leaf blowers, weed eaters, and lawn mowers.

Today, these things sound like styrofoam being ground to bits by other, larger bits of styrofoam.

Sounds of Nature

Ugly, cellophane-wrapped, animatronic deer have taken up residency outside the Vanderbilt Hospital. I have yet to figure out what purpose the cellophane serves other than to compel me make a sympathetic gasping noise every time I pass. Breathe, little guy, breathe!!

Hooray!

Unless something important strikes me as I sleep, the Thanksgiving Thesis project has been successfully completed. There will certainly be revisions, but it's good to turn in to my advisor tomorrow morning for his leisurely browsing.

Doing a little happy dance...

...feeling a little insane.

Phase

I'm in the save-your-work-obsessively phase of the thesis writing. I have all the sections compiled into a single document. The figures and tables are all labeled and listed, there's a table of contents, and a bunch of words to go around the whole thing.

Whatever state the thing's in when I go to sleep tonight is what it will be in when I turn it in. I think.

Yea! Major progress!!

Crunch Time

The Thanksgiving Thesis Project has reached an important milestone. All the chapters are in (very) rough draft form. Now, it's time for the fine-toothed comb to come out and make sure that figures are numbered correctly, references are cited, and the bullshit I'm making up is at least convincing.

Let's see, refine 5 chapters in 30 hours. It's do-able.

What I'm dreading: Combining into one document.

What I'm happy with: A figure that took 2.5 hours to complete that nicely illustrates the process I'm working on.

Outlook: Optimistic, but getting easily distracted with real life (laundry, the need for groceries, the homework due Wednesday, the project due Friday, the exams -- THE EXAMS this week, Christmas shopping, the 15 little administrative things I need to take care of...sigh).

**Update**

Thanksgiving Night: 4 chapters out of 5 in very rough draft form.

Actively avoiding: The last chapter (results section).

Happy with: My data

Outlook: While it will be tight, but I think I'll have something that I'm not completely embarrassed about late Sunday night, ready to be delivered Monday morning. Optimism at its finest.

Thanksgiving Thesis

I am to write my master's thesis over the Thanksgiving holiday. This wouldn't be much of a problem except for my inherently social nature. AAA flew into Nashville on Monday, we drove to IN yesterday. I spent most of the day writing, but took an hour for a massage this afternoon. Today, I refined the outline, identified most of the figures that I want to include, and got rough drafts of two out of five chapters complete. Tomorrow, I hope to get at least one more chapter in draft form and the other two on Friday and spend the weekend cleaning up the whole thing. If all goes well, I'll defend sometime the week of the 3rd. Wish me luck!!

If I manage to get all this done, all I have to do in November is finish a math assignment, a project for another class, and take two exams while putting in corrections in the thesis. No problem, right??

Sesame Street

The first two seasons of Sesame Street are now available on DVD! Yea!!

Rumor has it that there's a warning for parents on the DVDs that these early episodes may not be appropriate for today's children. First, they tell us that the Smurfs was someone's giant hallucination, now, they're taking away Sesame Street.

No wonder we all turned out the way we did...

Green Christmas?

I have no idea how well this works, but Catalog Choice gives you an option to decide which catalogs you want to receive. Sounds great, eh?

Thanks Susan!!

Colossus

While listening to NPR this morning as I was heading to work, I heard in the hourly news summary that a British group has rebuilt Colossus, the computer designed to decipher German codes during WWII.

That's great! It'll be the size of a pocket watch!

No, no. Evidently, a computer museum (in the original location of an original Colossus machine) rebuilt the original design as accurately as possible (starting from a picture).

A computer museum--it's like seeing your childhood lunchbox in an antiques store!

The project took 14 years.

Huh? How long did it take to build the first one?

I dunno. Not 14 years. The difficulty is that all 10 original machines and their plans/specs were disassembled and/or destroyed for security reasons. The rebuilt computer will be pitted against a virtual Colossus running to demonstrate its blinding speed. Codes will be generated and transmitted via radio for this exciting head-to-head competition.

From Germany?

Yes.

Appropriate. Authentic.

Yes. Absolutely. The testing should be underway shortly. There are delays due to that fact that "we are at a bad point in the sunspot cycle."

Interesting article. Worth a read.

Names

I saw this article today and couldn't help but think that there may be some validity to this.

I remember drawing water associated with my lower-case script initials (SEA). Coincidence?

The sign of a long week ahead:

Walking to class this afternoon, I sighed and thought to myself, “At least it’s Friday.”
I then realized that it wasn’t.

It’s going to be a long week.