Goff-Helman

2008-06-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

*sigh*

everybody's leaving :(

i miss you hoff-muffy.

i guess i am gonna have to go hang out with lynchypoo soon. no one to get coffee with right now. humph.

where are you going next? home or california? i HAVE to go to california/west coast once i graduate. we'll hang out then :)

just throwin' this out there...

2008-04-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

i win on: february, march, and april.

i'm going for may too, just so you know.

i just emailed you.

maybe you still check this.

i do.

lalalalalalla.

it is springtime!

good luck racing this weekend. who are you up against?

guess what!?!?

2008-03-03T15:29:00.000-08:00

http://xkcd.com/391/

60 degrees in boston in february

2008-02-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

so i went to revere beach today for the first time ever since it was so nice and warm outside. i realized how much i love warmth today. every other winter day here when i breathe in, i smell a sharp cold, a lack of ability to sniff out life and aromas naturally floating around out in the air. today when i breathed in, i felt like i was swimming (yea, it was in fact that humid) in a pond teeming with life, warmth, scents. on the way back from starbucks, instead of stopping at the goodale entrance of EC like normal, i for some reason kept on walking, all the way across the street to the river. and when i looked out, it was misting on me, and i thought about florida, and how on the last day i went to the beach in the am and could feel the spray from the ocean. i thought then that it was going to be so long before i next get to be in the same situation, perfectly happy and content with the universe, with spray all over me, salty froth on my feet, waves gurgling in my ears... i longed to just stay. forever. and that was when i decided i was going to go to revere beach today.

it was quite wonderful. i took this picture.

hulglhulgh

2008-01-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

ugh. yep. you won that one.

i can always wait till next year i guess.

i planned to get up and go erg this morning... but now i don't feel like it.

such is life. woe is me.

meeeeeeeeph.

enjoy this post.

brought to you by:

LAZY SARAH

that is all.

i win 2008!

2008-01-15T12:12:00.000-08:00

and i'm back with a vengeance, to posting on this blog. Well maybe not with a vengeance. But sort of back.

Are you doing surf again next summer? I got a job offer in LA.

this is what i do with my time nowadays

2007-12-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

2007-11-20T18:29:00.000-08:00

i'm finally on a roll with my grades! i mean, i have spent my entire MIT career so far just trying to stay afloat, and just trying to get by, just trying to get a degree and get the hell out. now i fear that i have wasted two years. humph.

so let's think aloud:

Fall Frosh:

8.01T - Physics Mechanics

18.01A - Single Variable Calculus

5.111 - Intro to Chemistry

21L.001 - Literature Intro to Western Culture Pt 1

SEM.111 - Science, Spirituality, and something... don't remember the title

+ 16 units from AP credit

Spring Frosh:

8.02T - Physics E&M

18.02A - Multivariable Calculus

18.03 - Differential Equations

12.400 - The Solar System

12.080 - EAPS Undergrad Seminar

21L.003 - Literature Intro to Fiction

Fall Soph:

7.012 - Intro to Biology

8.033 - Physics Relativity

12.102 - Environmental Earth Science

IAP Soph:

12.120 - Environmental Earth Science Field Course

Spring Soph:

12.001 - Intro to Geology

12.005 - Continuum Mechanics for EAPS

21L.471 - Literature Major English Novels

21L.702 - Literature Joyce Seminar

Fall Junior:

12.002 - Physics and Chem of Terrestrial Planets

12.425 - Extra Solar Planets

21L.473 - Literature Jane Austen

So I think I want to take two classes this IAP:

21F.301 - French I (12 A/B/C/D/F)

6.189 - Gentle Intro to Python Programming (6 P/D/F)

IAP goes from Jan 7 till beginning of Feb, and I will be going to Florida for crew up through Jan. 9... so I would miss the first three days but I hope that would be fine.

I'm really feeling better now that I feel like I am actually able to just do well in these classes I am taking, not just barely survive them. I hope that this feeling lasts past this semester (or even through this semesters' finals!). I have pretty much decided against the study abroad idea... I have wasted so much time just lollying around. And I don't think I want to do crew in the spring. I feel nowadays like I am finally starting to remember why I came to MIT in the first place... and it definitely was not for crew. I find MIT much more rewarding on a day to day, even week to week basis without crew. Moreover, there is the great age-old argument that you only get one chance in your life to do crew at the collegiate level, but to be fair, you can do crew NOT at the collegiate level later on. I only get one undergraduate MIT experience, and no, grad school is not the same, and no, I can't just go on opencourseware and get the same experience.

sorry - i might bore you now... but meh. what i think i might do for the next three terms:

Spring Junior:

3.046 - Thermodynamics

12.108 - Minerology

12.420 - Physics and Chem of Solar System

HASS-D

8.282J - Intro to Astronomy

Fall Senior:

12.410J - Astronomy Lab

12.113 - Structural Geology

12.201 - Geophysics

HASS-D

12.Tip

Spring Senior:

HASS E Literature Seminar

12.Thu

6.00 (?)

12.007 (?)

18.05/6 (?)

that would finish me off with a major in 12 Geology/Planetary Science and a minor in Literature. and a few extra classes for interest.

so... now for something completely different.

i hope you are going to have a great thanksgiving. where are you going? what are you doing? i am staying on my hall. we're actually gonna go to shaw's tonight to get more food. :) we had a thanksgiving dinner on sunday while everyone was still in town and i made stuffing and candied yams; they turned out well -- good times. i also decorated my room this weekend... i put up some christmas lights (for happy feelings inside) and some cool posters i found in a nasa calendar (for inspiration to tool). i also did a little rearranging, and this was all prompted by a surprise package (actually two!) i got on friday from my aunt and uncle in florida. they said also that i can come down and stay with them after our crew training trip in iap :)

so... overall, this is a positive post. that is good. cruising again, for now. i hope you're feeling better and things are going ok. i don't really see you or lynch all that much. humph.

currently reading: EMMA by Jane Austen

currently listening to: my neighbor's music...

today! is the day! for ice cream!

2007-11-10T06:57:00.000-08:00

dear gellman, it is a beautiful day and we should go to jp licks if we cna convince lynch to come. Or if we can't. ??? I mean it's cold but we can deal with that. Also when we go, i want to play on the playgrund. there is a totally sweet tire swing. Here are the special November flavors.
Although maybe we should just get a huge ass cake .
Or else a Vermonster?
Anyways I hope you check our blog, all the time, so you get this. Becuase I don't want to have to use email, or much less, phone.

i hope your presentation went well, love

2007-11-07T12:27:00.001-08:00

ice cream soon.
with chunks of cookie dough in it.
from jp licks
with lynchypoo of course.

and i got the first TWO posts in november. woohoo. my hall also has a party this weekend. and i get to wake up really early tomorrow for an AM practice with the cold and the 4+'s.

big cats, pumpkin harvest soup, and the relief of finality!

2007-11-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

ok... so i know you're not that excited about leopard, the new mac os x release... and i know lynch is still having issues that we'll try to clear up this weekend, but because this is also just our blog for writing stuff down that we're thinking about... i thought i would include these topics. here is a screenshot of what it looks like to switch workspaces in leopard... in it i have email in one, IM in another, irc chats in one, and itunes with the little pretty visualizer still playing even while i look at the bird's eye view. it is pretty...

the rest of my title is pretty self-explanatory, no? well i am eating some pumpkin harvest soup from abp right now instead of correcting my pset due in half an hour and i also finished and finalized everything on my summer research project. paper written, paper corrected, paper corrected again, paper submitted, paper approved. woohoo.

so what's up with you? you were a duck for halloween. which = cool. hope your rib feels better :(

hotttttt on the charles!

2007-10-21T17:25:00.000-07:00

here's a sneak preview just for you of some of the pictures i took this weekend. dude. i did a lot of biking. and pedestrians suck. go red sox. and wireless internets suck in EC.

lets see... is there anything else i wanted to say. ummmmm... i feel neglected when i IM you and you don't respond. i mean, you're not idle, you don't have an away message... and you just don't respond. sad me. i want to know if minna or mindy coxed you guys today. whoever it was, she had a pretty good course, at least coming to weeks and coming to elliot, because those were the pieces i saw.

this blog has by far overcome my old blog

2007-10-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

which is kind of sad because i liked that storey i was writing, but i guess it's ok for now.

thanks for the sleeping backg news i'll be back over someday to pick it up , i swear. .. Yep, we beat up on a bunch of D3 schools, always fun.

thanks a lot for unquitting crew, to the other team. :) i'm gald that you'll be around the bouathouse a little bit, at least.

the reason my writing looks like i'm drunk is because i'm running a huge mathematica file and it's slowing everything down. i hope it it's done soon.. it's taking like 15 min for one iteration and it has to be able to do a hundred. that's like... a day. also, it was due last monday.

maybe we can go to walden pond some day next week. hmm
i mean the weak after next, after head of the charles. and, uh, after princeton chase. but seriously, then. i don't think it will be too cold, although the leaves might be gone, who knows. i would also be up frot campoing anytime.

how was your visit with the relatives?

this is easier than email...

2007-10-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

hey.
i was going to IM you but then you weren't online.
then i was going to email you, but i thought this was easier. yes.
so your sleeping bag is still at the end of my hall. so if whoever it belongs to wants to know where it is, it is still here.

oh and i heard you got some medal or some shit like that this weekend by beating up on Div III schools and rowing faster than them... if that is true then... congradulations ;)
love, your blog-buddy.

guess what...

2007-10-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

today i un-quit crew.
hah
wow. that didn't last long.
actually i am only a part-time coxswain again. yea. that's it.
me and ted are buddies.

i hope you feel better. we should figure out things to do to make ourselves happy again (i dont think unquitting crew made me either happier or sadder... we can talk. i know what it feels like to be other the other side...)
wanna bike to walden pond sometime soon? before it is too cold. and after i clean the chain on my bike (still haven't done that; it has sand in it. and some squeeky noises... should check up on those... maybe i should take it for its one month checkup).

i decided on my new life motto:
i don't lose; i quit.

hmm.

2007-10-11T13:33:00.001-07:00

dear gelman,
it is really easy to sink into a state of numbed down existence around here. so easy to find yourself no longer asking the kind of questions that make your life a instance of exploration and change rather than an occurence of complacency with circumstances at hand. i don't know how to change that.

each day seems to drag on now, slowly from dawn to dusk. contrasts so much with when we were on the trip, even just for that one day, we were going so fast the whole time. movement through the whole state just by the power of our legs. fresh rain and wind and then eventually sun. but it was a cool thing to be journeying.

that's what I like about trips - you are on a journey, from a start to a destination, following a (perhaps inaccurate ) map, sometimes you go the wrong way, sometimes you go the right way, but the whole time you watch yourself move from place to place, forwards or backwards, but you're moving. and eventually you either get where you're going or go back to where you started but at least hte whole time you have a purpose in mind. i feel driven by nothing around here. no aims, no directions, no reason to insist that i work hard, at school, or rowing, just flat, feeling like no matter how much work i put into it i won't ever know how close or far i am from my destination because i have no idea where that might be.

but in other news: that was a totally sweet trip. i think this blog is going to become a whine-a - thon, but that's OK. that's what the internet is for. Also i think i'm sick. are you sick?

life as a q&a session

2007-10-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

i find that so many people are those cliche college-application-writers who walk around like "omg, who am i?" and "is there a god? if not, my whole foundation of life, of the world around me will instantaneously come crashing down!?" no... i have always admittedly looked down on those types (sorry guys...). if i could have anything right now to make me feel more content with the life and world in which i see myself, i would ask for the ability to ask questions rather than search for answers. i seem to have misplaced that one along the way...

i wish for the ability to again sit somewhere observing the world around me and to ask what it means to me. i wish to remember how to involuntarily ask what having meaning actually... means. i seem to have forgotten the whole world i had so elaborately built up for myself back in high school. i mean, that is not so disastrous because i am definitely a different person now than i was then; i require a different world. but what i do find disastrous is that i lost the ability to automatically build up a world at all.

i feel like i often just float around, following whichever breeze seems strongest, in whichever direction i happen to be least resisting at that moment... *sigh* is that so bad though? i don't know. do i care? i dunno... who am i really? hah. nope, not gonna happen. sorry, folks.

so... back to the real world... i went on a bike trip with you, hoff-muffin, this weekend. instead of going out and getting trashed like everyone expected me to, i went and rode 90 miles on a fixed gear bike, up and down many-a-hill, camped, and got thoroughly rained on for my 21st birthday--talk about rebellion! the pictures are up on facebook (woohoo).

this weekend my bike and i handed our respective asses to each other. on a platter. made of... hah, sorry, that line belongs to ted. nonetheless, we definately bonded, that bianchi and me. i love it. my knee hurts but my little bike has a few bruises as well, so i consider us even. in the mean time, i am already looking for the next trip...

dude. I'm freaking out.

2007-10-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

dear gelman,
this is our big chance to take our dreams to the bare pavement, sleep under the stars (cloud covered stars), probably get really tired and wet and cold and uncomfortable, but get the hell out of TFP. are you ready?

October is mine!

2007-10-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

brain-numbed

2007-09-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

coffee in
try
try harder
fail
wish, hope (idolize some unattainable goal)
pray (in my own way)
*buzzzzzzzz*
stretch it out deep unconscious complacency, but at peace...
rinse and repeat... over and over and...

but where do i wish i was, if not here? and what do i wish i were doing, if not this???
gahhhhhh....

what the fuck am i typing???

if numb = d/dt ((8.03^(infinity*t) + 12.002^(.5t) + 12.425^(frustrating*t) + 21L.473^(long-ass*t))/sleep)
and if brain(numb) = e^(-numb)
then my brain is decaying into the slumpy expanse of 'gaahhhhhh' exponentially.
wait... i have no idea what all that meant. did that even make any sense at all? see?

yea, so that is what's going on in my life - how are things in yours?

happy new year...

2007-09-12T14:16:00.000-07:00

tonight starts the two-day jewish holiday rosh hashanah. because i know you're usually interested in this stuff... rosh means head, beginning, top, start, etc. shanah means year... and "ha" is just "the". so it is the beginning of the new year, in hebrew.

i went to a jewish high school, which i am sure you know, and i was particularly interested in religion and that 'spiritual journey'. i was interested enough, that though i joke that crew booted god out of the top position, it is sort of true. the original plan was to try out a bunch of different religions, starting with orthodox judaism, when i left for college. well, needless to say, i never got around to it. and... with that 2.5 year break, i have become less extreme in my desire to learn about religion. in fact, i think about it now, and admire my goal and ambition, but think it was almost silly. so what now?

well, now that it is rosh hashanah, i went to the hillel desk in the infinite yesterday, paid my $18 "optional" donation, and got tickets to both rosh hashanah, the free dinner tonight, and yom kippur in 10 days (perhaps more on that later?). feeling all festive in my "spiritual" mood, i was listening to christmas music... (ok - my favorite holiday is xmas, but i guess that is a digression, so more on that one later also). heh. i wonder if i should back on this now that i have that time i never had before? maybe i will go to church with you some of the sunday's you go... who knows. *sigh* let me know the next time you're planning on going, ok? deal.

on another note, pride and prejudice is my favorite book. it is the only one i have managed to fully reread, and in fact, i have done so four times now. i did it again this weekend for a class. yes, it is that good. i love it. and on a completely different note, no i haven't been to mit medical yet. i slept finally for like 7 hours last night. it was great. i woke up and felt like i had slept so hard... but i am still sorta tired. we'll see what happens tonight. i have to do my 8.03 pset too... it is due tomorrow, but i am halfway done. it wasn't that hard... but meh. we'll see how it goes. we'll finish it tonight after the rosh hashanah celebration i think. then bed. sleep....

and the trans-siberian orchestra is good stuff. btw.

i wish i wrote as well as you

2007-09-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

man all your sentiments are useful and interesting. i wish i had some things like that to say. please don't start a separate blog! you can't break up with me in blog life. gelman...

I'm trying to get a hold of you right now because me and lynch want to make cupcakes again tonight... but we'll see. i don't want to make them without you.

In laverdes today, I was waiting to buy coffee and there were some acorn parts in this box of gum. I was talking to the lady at the checkout and i was like "There's some acorns in your box of gum... weird" and we talked about it for a long time. She was like "I can't imagine how those got there... must have fallen off of somebody's umbrella or something. Maybe it's a sign" so I said "yeah... a sign of... FALL!" and she laughed. But then she told me that acorns are a sign of strength, and health, and that it was a sign that we were going to live long lives. she made me take one of the acorns, and kept one. she said she got the big one because she was older than me. It was the lady who's blond and maybe 40? with kind of a gap in her front teeth. Anyways, I love her. and all the people at laverde's. its weird how we have this sort of friendship that comes off of me buying coffee from them, every day.

did you end up going to medical? I hope you can figure out what's going on... i'm really worried about you, g-man. let me know if there's anything I can do, be it make you food or row with you or pretend to help you with homework that i know nothing about. but seriously, ,if you want someone to go to medical w/ you I can come with.

miss you!

the new semester

2007-09-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

man. i felt chilly walking around today. that makes me depressed. i hate the winter here. and the first day of classes makes me depressed. man, as the day presses on, i just feel more and more down. i spent 13/14 of all my money today just to register. then i had a frappaccino at starbucks to make me feel better (though it only helped marginally)... all the while thinking that i should cut that out to save money. *sigh*
why does my mood shift so much. hah. i don't even feel like having people try to cheer me up - i just want to write down the fact that i feel depressed. heh. wow. what a downer entry. sorry.
maybe i'll go to mit medical tomorrow. sounds like fun. this wouldn't be a great way to start out the semester. i should fix this quick. i really want to do well academically this term. i have a real opportunity to do well. i want myself to go for it. i am starting my 8.03 pset now. i am 3/8 of the way done with it. i emailed ted back saying i wasn't doing crew. i told him the same thing i told claire, but maybe because it wasn't in person it didn't get the same sentiments across? he didn't email back, which makes me nervous. humph.

heh. i feel bad posting this in our blog. maybe i should start a blog and post in two different places... one for the blarggggggggg not fun things like this post, and one to talk about cupcakes, the game, crew and dessert (this one).

at least i quit crew... :(

2007-09-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

since i want to treat this as a real blog, in addition to an open communication with you, hoff-muffin... i mean, i do see you now like... every few hours and all...
i quit crew two days ago. :( :( :(
oh well. that was that. i mean, i guess i am going to florida training and i will pick it back up in the spring... i guess that could work. i don't miss it right now, that is for sure, but it is hard to believe that tomorrow when school starts, i don't have practice in the afternoon. i can work out in fact any time i want... which is usually like a dream come true. humph.

also, i am on reg hold still till i ask my dad for $1,300. it is really baffling to me that i can be $65,000 in debt, only just beginning my junior year, and somehow on reg hold owing mit MORE money. damn. i guess in the mean time i just attend the classes i was planning on taking. i was thinking about taking 5 classes, but the fifth is like this super time consuming class... it has 3 hours of class and 3 hours of lab each week, not to mention the outside work. man. but it is course 12 which means it might not actually be hard... hmmmm... i need to speak to some upperclass course 12ers to figure out if it is a good idea. in the mean time... it is at 11am tomorrow, and i don't feel like going. that is bad right? merrrr.

i think i should erg for a little while tomorrow. like start out doing like 30' SS and see how it goes. screen taped. on sliders in the boathouse? maybe then i will get to talk to ted to finally tell him i am not doing crew at all this fall... i feel bad. he emailed me on like friday or something and i just avoided emailing him. now it is like... practice day. geeze. i like ted too. i should email him in the morning.

also, here is a picture of what was left of our cupcakes this afternoon, in case you want to remember the first time we finally made cupcakes together after a full summer of talking and never doing. its go time.

at least i get the first postin september

2007-09-04T04:41:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed our cupcakes last night and am very shortly going to come walk into your room and eat more of them. hopefully i won't catch you doing something awkward, like... eating a lot of cupcakes or something.

I'm off to the boathouse right now, to talk with Claire about my diseases. Hmm. I think what I will end up doing is staying the first week, like she says, and then if I do still feel like I don't want to do it, leaving. I know it seems like i won't ever leave, but I dont' have very strong attachments to the team anymore... you, Loretta, and Schumacher are all gone, my 3 best friends on the team except for Lyncheroo. also there's enough rowers for Claire to build a decent program, so I won't feel like i'm deserting lynch, erqi, etc. . . although I have no idea.

Whatever happens, i'll still row with you, constantly, no matter how awkward it might be. and what bizarre hours of the day we have to row at. heh.

man, i was envying your mac book so much last night. kind of hope my powerbook busts soon so i can buy one. hah, with all my money. Or maybe I can sell my powerbook: "2004 15" Powerbook, slightly dented, does not close. Covered with stickers. Power charger occasionally functional."

happy reg day... see you tonight i guess!

Our Date Tonight...

2007-08-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

yea... i am looking forward to it. just so you know. soon i am going to go out and check the water/weather.
u + me + hudson = :)
i just lost the game.
and then i am gonna hitch on as the third wheel with you and lyncheroo to go get a milkshake at pour house on saturday. just so you know.

"have a little faith, have a little faith"

2007-08-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite lyrics from any song: "Dressed the the Nines" by The Blinking Project. Have a little faith in your fellow human being. When you say good-bye, have a little faith that other people are worth knowing also. When you meet someone, have a little faith that they are worth your time.

I feel like I am just so sick of saying good-bye to people and things that I was not ready to leave: my friends from caltech, my family, the new kitten my sister got, loretta and other graduated people. I really want to remind myself, though, that I should have a little faith. I feel like saying good-bye is a theme, a constant in my ever-changing life. Yet I wish that was the something that was not there. *sigh* I should have a little faith that even when I am letting go of people and things I wish I could hold on to, there will be others. There are more people in the world... and surely chances are I will like many of them as well.

I wish myself the ability to have a little faith in each individual I meet; to presume that each person is a potential friend, a potential lover, potential family. I should not be afraid that I will either not like them, or have to eventually, ultimately leave them. Seize the moment, really. Have a little faith that at the end of the day, I may still be lonely, but each person along the way was worth their part in the story of my life.

I left my pillow at home.
And I hate US Airways. FYI.

going back home...

2007-08-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

when i go back to mit, i definately have plans of things i want to do... and rowing with you in the 2- is definately on that list. no answers sounds good. because i am pretty set on not rowing or coxing, or being involved in any team sport this fall at all. i have plans. i have plans for what i want to do, what i want to learn, things i want to try, a lifestyle i want to experiment with... but rowing with you in the 2- is one of those things that i also want to do, regardless of the whole crew team thing.

but yea... i sort of feel like i am in this weird state. i feel like only an hour ago i was hanging out with people at caltech, it was always sunny and hot, i was sitting around in this dorm, i could walk out any day and feel rather blissful, and i could make my own schedule each day full of leisure. now though, i am not there. i am at my family's house, helping them clean and tidy, organize and repay them for the macbook. it is not that bad, but slowly but surely, caltech gets more and more distant. i don't really talk to the people from there for whatever reason, but i find that i often feel like saying to them, hey, let's go get an ice cream... but they're gone... heh. i always feel like i am uncomfortably conscious of chapters opening and closing. i felt depressed for the whole week preceeding my department from caltech, and now i still feel deflated for not being there. i feel like i won't ever get to go back. i felt like that at the end of high school too... and sure enough, i haven't been back. you get over things; you stop thinking about people; you replace them and forget them. but while you're still in the moment you feel like you just don't know how that will be possible this time. man. there were some good friends there this summer. and the loneliness of being home with no friends, just family here, sort of amplifies that.

*sigh*

i can't really wait to get back to mit. friends again. opportunities. dorm rush... my desktop... the sooner i am able to entertain myself, the less i will feel so distinctly that i am finished with this summer's adventures.

weird weird weird

2007-08-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

man, it is definitely a weird feeling to be in my last week here. Still can't believe i never saw you.. man...hehehe. Oh well, we still will live like 30 meters away from each other for the whole school year, so that will be cool.

So I'm thinking so hard about rowing right now. I had a dream about it last night. Ainsley is asking me about it on AIM right now.

I just want to row so badly... I love it so much. meh. When do you get back to Boston? Want to just go to the boathouse and row the pair? no questions asked? I mean no questions answered... ie if anyone asks us any questions we won't answer them? we'll just row away really fast?

I would really like to get in that pair again ASAP though. Although actually it's probably rigged back as a 2x now, since I think the novii were using it all summer. I guess we can take out one of the red ones.

Cool...macbook and ipod... sweeeet! Enjoy the time w/ your family . i know you don't get much of it.

Oh and I went to Sprinkles! It was AMAZING. Wow. I can't even describe it. Fortunately there is one coming to Boston soon, so hopefully I won't have to.

Also: Apparently Loretta went to visit Irene a while ago to get her cello back (she had lent it to Irene) and she said that she told Irene that I was waiting for her to answer my email... she was like "Yeah, Irene, hoff would really like to hear from you" and Irene was apparently saying "Oh, definitely...i'll write to her...etc" yeah. What a jerk. heh. Never heard from her.

Downers Grove, Kittens, and New MacBook, iPod...

2007-08-19T22:39:00.001-07:00

ok. i am at home now... it is a little weird... but meh. i should mention that the only precipitation at all in california was a sprinkle a little one morning. since i have arrived in IL it hasn't stopped raining. thunderstorms and flash flood watches, oh my.

also, right before i left for california, my family bought a kitten. when i left it was all scared and hiding behind furniture and all that... but now i love it. it is so cute. i will put up a picture sometime. she is sweet and small and playful and she sleeps on my bed all night long. so cuddley.

and, my dad bought me a new macbook! it came with an ipod nano too, so i got the red one. my brother scratched up my silver one last time i was home, and he doesn't have one, so i figure i will give the silver one to him and keep the new red one for myself... hmmmmm.

so that is my update for now. sorta wishin i was still in cali....

Aug. 26 and nope...

2007-08-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

Yea, so I get to Boston on the evening of Aug 26. I think that is technically the first day of dorm rush, so just in time.

Claire emailed me to tell me to submit my medical paperwork. I ignored the email. I was going to respond saying I won't be doing crew this fall, but then I just couldn't send the email. So... I guess the most correct thing is I haven't submitted the paperwork yet... if I ever do. *sigh* Such a big step, it feels like, to just stop doing something.

Just stop doing something... just taking things out of my life, presumably to add more in its stead... presumably. Man. I feel so depressed to be leaving.

wow.

2007-08-16T12:59:00.001-07:00

that summer was fast. holy crap.

i guess i'll see you in boston... when do you get there?

did you sign up for crew? (i mean put in the medical forms) i didnt yet.

T-27 hours

2007-08-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

:(

*sigh*

g'bye socal.

coffee and cookies are yummy

2007-08-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

i thought i would share how much caltech webmail sucks. yea... it is showing me the 11th out of 10 total emails. you suck caltech webmail.

i have to give a lunch talk on friday. i have 20 slides already, but now they want it to last around 40 minutes. heh. we'll see how that goes.

oh, and since last weekend, in three hours approximately, i have made around $150 from social science experiements at caltech. yea. nice. i know. i'm signed up for six more this weekend, plus one more tonight. oh yea.

i also got paid today. which means i have to go pay housing. man. money flies... away... so fast...

it's been so long

2007-07-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

but old habits die hard.

my office mate just watched a video about a prank that was played, in the harvard stadium.

i miss it

The Choke's on You!

2007-07-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

i made and enjoyed an artichoke last night. and a huge salad. it was surprisingly filling. then i watched the bourne identity. another cool thing: i have decided to learn how to do a little programming in python. it is really pretty fun actually... and monday through wednesday this week my co-mentor is out of town, so i am on my own (i do have work i should be doing though), and yesterday i spent the entire day working with the different kde programming environments on this computer. man... a "hello world" application with ... only three words. nice.

i am now also just past halfway through this summer program... sadly. this is just so... blissful, most of the time. anyway, i am not thinking too much right now, because i think i am really tired or something. i think i want to go and take a nap and then i will just stay later this evening. but it is an update anyway.

carbon fiber vs. wood

2007-07-15T01:55:00.000-07:00

today i went on a bike ride to a park near jpl... it is uphill there, about 6-7 miles? and nice downhill on the way back. we also stopped at a small taco place half way back. it was refreshing, but i noticed something. when i am following and someone else is riding as the leader/pace-setter, i find myself constantly thinking that i am tired and this is hard and i am out of shape. but when i am the one setting the pace, none of that exists anymore... i just feel like going as consistently as i can, optimizing energy use, going comfortably fast, and making sure i am getting a legit workout. as in, i probably make us go faster when i am leading, and feel like things are too fast for me to keep up when i am following. at least that is how it seemed... maybe i was actually leading us slower? but nonetheless, i think the psychological issue at stake is much more interesting. i feel this intense competitive spirit (even if it is with no one in particular) when i am setting the standards, but when i have to follow others, i shy away from that. hmmm. i am starting to wonder how much crew actually affected me these past two years. freshman year, matt always said "everything is a race". meh. i wish i could get rid of that a little! hah...

which brings me to an interesting thought... i was having a discussion with someone who knows bikes recently. he was talking about the differences between good and not so good bikes, and then i went in to what makes rowing shells good. actually i just wanted to surprise the person by saying that our boats can cost $40,000, and then had to explain that they are made out of carbon fiber. that guy then asked what they had been made out of before, and the only thing i could think of was wood. he asked why no one ever uses wood now and i said because wood is slow. it is heavy, and it would be a slow-ass boat. he said that there is the same thought process in the world bicycles, except it is stuff like steel versus carbon fiber (he is part of the old-timey steel clan). i argued that slow things are ... slow. and at the end of the day, all that i cared about was boat speed, was getting my bow across the line first. he was like "oh, wow... you're one of those..." (in a not good way).

one thing that i don't not like (yea, double negative there...) about crew is the competition, is the exhileration of going fast, and the pay-off when after an entire year of agony you get just that tiny bit of glory that is doing well in a race... i loved that. but that seems to have creeped into all facets of my life, and i didn't even realize it. i race... anything. i race... everything. is that a good thing? i want to be best at whatever i put a lot of effort into... and if i know i am not going to be good at it, i tend to half-ass things because if i am not gonna be great at it, i might as well not go for mediocrity either. after all, who cares about it if i am not good at it, right?

merrrrrr, that is my rant for now. i actualy wrote that last night, so i will just leave it intact as it is... man, cutting your hair at work is intense. i was gonna do locks for love when i cut my hair, but they told me i had to do the mail it in thing and it was like the tuesday before we left for ira, and i was flying out on sunday, and so the next chance i would have gotten to take care of it was monday at home in chicago... so i gave up and let them throw it away. i didn't really want to carry around a huge lock of my own hair for 5 days. yea. :(

cupcakes (i just lost the game). i have the mix, and it is sitting here. it is so easy to go and get more, i think i am going to have to break into them before you would have a chance to visit and make some... i can't help myself! i will take pictures and put them on the blog so you can share the experience :) i justify this because loretta went and hung out with YOU and not with ME when she was here. that is not fair. so i will eat cupcakes and make you live vicariously through me for a moment. yea...

Free Food...

2007-07-13T18:03:00.001-07:00

is the only reason I ever do anything ... seriously ... hahaha. I'm glad you are enjoying your mars conference and benefiting a lot from the fruits of conference funding... the literal fruits!!! woohoo!!!

that is so many meters to have erged. Man, we used to erg so much. Remember when you and I did all those Monday morning ergs? and then Monday night was always like the worst practice ever? Yeah those were the days.. man we got fast though. I feel like we will be old women sitting around and being like "yeah... remember when we did 4x2k..." Oh yes.

I hope you get to go camping! It is gorgeous out here... I love the sun so much. Going back to Boston is going to be a little rough, I think. No wonder thsi state is so full of people, anybody who sees how nice it is is not likely to want to leave, ever!!!

I cut my hair for cancer. It was in my office one day, we were so frustrated with our research that we just had been sitting in the room arguing for like an hour about a bunch of random dead endsand then somebody was like "kate, when are you going to cut your hair?" i said, "now... who wants to cut it?" so my officemate cut it off for me. It was funny... he went to go get a scissors from the secretary and they were her *personal* scissors so she was like "make sure you bring them back..etcetc.. why do you need them?" and then later in the day she saw me walking around w/ decidedly less hair than I had had before, and gave me a weird look. I think she knows.

I'm so happy that you got cupcake mix! There are sprinkles in my dining hall every night, I should totally steal some. cupcakes are NOT cupcakes without sprinkles... yeah I will steal a huge bag. I'm a criminal.

oh yeah and now my hair is just sitting in my desk drawer.. weird!

1,528,890

2007-07-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

... is the number of meters i have erged and logged on the C2 site since May 1, 2006 (so doesn't include winter training from freshman year, nor on-the-water rowing). that is updated as of this afternoon when i finished a 45' SS, 2:24.4, 20spm, 9350m. i also managed for the first time ever to figure out a way to use my ipod while i am erging without fear that i will run over the earphones cord or something... yea. it is also funny that you never forget all the tricks you used to get yourself through boring steady states and such... all they numbers games i always play to keep myself entertained, or at least keep my mind from watching the time, ALL THE TIME.

today i also bought some new balance running shoes for $40. i don't think that is too bad of a price, and hopefully they will help to prevent shin splints (i am told that having shoes that i used for running for 2 years means they are worn out - even if not to the point of useless - and don't have enough cushioning and support anymore, which causes shin splints).

more mars conference stuff. most of the day. it is nice to not have to work, and to just show up when i feel like it and get free food all the time... i am not gonna lie.

i might go to the beach this weekend... but i don't know which one. i kind of feel like going to interesting fun places, like that palacides place, or however you spell it. i kind of want to go camping or something... maybe i can convince someone to light a fire in our courtyard again tonight... you know, it is really weird but i always get these really weird cravings for very specific things. i heard that pregnant women are supposed to get that, but i have always had it. sometimes i just really want some ice cream. tonight i really wanted some chinese food. and now, i really want a fire. hmmmm.

good thing

2007-07-10T12:10:00.001-07:00

that we are on the same wavelength, all the time. I pretty much have been having most of those feelings that you mentioned. too.

and.... gonna write more later. work work work

am i lazy?

2007-07-08T17:59:00.000-07:00

i don't feel bored... but perhaps i am? i feel utterly idle. i feel like a waste of human flesh sometimes, like i am just sitting around... i think i am burnt out... but i think i have been burnt out, running on empty for a while now. that means, though, that whenever i have the option to slow down, i take it, but i slow down so much that i just stop functioning...

on an unrelated note, this week there is this huge mars conference being held at caltech. some of my mit professors have come and are speaking! :) it is kind of cool. you get to learn about all the new and interesting things that people are doing now, and will probably publish in a few years. tomorrow they will cover water/volatiles in the morning and the formation of the planet and the interior stuff in the afternoon. it is also like a never-ending line of free food... and i volunteered, so all i have to do is direct traffic for an hour in the morning and reap the benefits for the rest of the time.

last night i saw two movies: borat and live free or die hard. i thought borat was funny, and now lots of joking things people have been saying for a while make so much more sense! die hard was whoa.

i bought cupcake mix yesterday... and icing with sprinkles. it is waiting for whenever you want to come over and make them :)

i wanted to go to the gym today, but then each time i had the opportunity (which was many times...) i just didn't feel like pushing myself... and that is actually true like every day. i feel bad... but then i try to figure out WHY i feel so bad. i feel bad mostly because i am losing all the fitness i worked so far to build up for the two solid years of doing crew. but at the end of the day, i have no goal now... i don't care how fast i am... and without an end in mind, the journey is perhaps far more significant than anything else, and so at the end of the day, each and every time i go to workout, it does not matter if i am fast or slow, but just that i am there, getting faster from whatever point i am currently at.
fuck this poetic stuff.

transformers, Sicko and cupcakes

2007-07-08T09:17:00.001-07:00

that feeling of going to the erg and outperforming your (or somebody else's ) expectations is so powerful. i don't know why... it's just a machine... but it continuously quantizes your performance to a tenth of a second for as long as you sit on it, and after you're done that number runs through your head over and over again until the next time you go...

for life I will be 1:55.9 unless i do a 2k again. I'm sure that 50 years from now someone could be like "what did you pull on your 2k vs steve?" and i would know exactly. i feel like we all have numbers implanted in our heads, after we submit ourselves to being judged by that machine.

i've not been rowing at all, in fact (i don't know if you read my wiki, i'm assuming you did) i'm done for a while. my injuries have already gotten better and i already feel 100% better about any type of working out i might do. like hurdles, haha. i love hurdles. i can't wait to teach you hurdles.

twice this week i almost drowned. i can't believe i used to be scared of erging, there's nothing as terrifying as seeing that you're about to get pulled under water hard and not knowing when you'll get to breathe again. my body is not as smart as i hoped, its first instinct upon going underwater for a long time is to try to breathe. I guess that makes sense, but still i was screaming with my head at my body "don't in hale don't in hale" and it still did. choke. cough.

I'm giving my hair away!!! I will cut it myself or go to a $10 place in Westwood, or let somebody who really likes cutting hair go nuts on it. can you just mail it to locks for love if you cut it yourself or does it have to be a registered hair...um... person? stylist? salon owner? who does it?

So this weekend I saw transformers (AWESOME) and Sicko (ALSO awesome although now I have a bunch of strong opinions about the health care system which I totally had no knowledge or opinions about before, and as i sadly prefer apathy to being opinionated, i'lll have to spend a few days detoxing in case i accidentally get up on a soapbox and start yelling about HMOs) and after Sicko some lady was walking around with a box of cupcakes in the theater lobby handing them out to random people, and she did NOT hand one to me and sebastian. I just thought you should know.

hope you had a good weekend!

you're only as fast as the slowest person...

2007-07-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

yesterday i went to the gym and erged for the first time in ... a long time. it has to be at least a month and a half since i erged for more than just a pre-race warmup or something. shit. well, considering this i had pretty low expectations for myself... i figured i would chill for like 30' at 2:30 or something like that... but when 30' came, i kept going for another 10 minutes. and not only that, i ended up averaging 2:23.6. and afterwards i sauntered home... remembering the feeling that you get when you just did something that made you proud of yourself. i used to love that... like in iap with our training, or last summer, or any time i was a cox but erged... i felt like i was faster than anyone ever expected me to be - and it was because of one thing: my own will power and desire.

rowing this spring obliterated that from me completely. i forgot what it was like... and it is not worth it to lose touch of that again. oh, and at the end i did my thing where i spend the last 20 seconds or so sprinting as fast as i can, and i got it down to like 1:45. that is not THAT great, but i feel rest assured now that i haven't lost SO much that i have to start over or anything. i hate the idea of me erging and being constantly worried that i am not meeting expectations... that someone is standing behind me, trying to decide if i am trying hard enough or not. fuck that.

festration is an awesome word. i am kind of sad i didn't think of it before... because it has been applicable for a while now. i'm sorry that your work is bringing you to that though... that sort of sucks.

which brings me to teamwork. wow... i have always been a bad teammate. i would much rather just go it alone that have to change my methods and hold onto enough patience to work with someone else... i hated that this spring too with crew. i hated how you're only as fast as the slowest person in your boat... no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you want it, no matter how far you're willing to go. crew is one of those things that does not actually guarantee a correlation between how much you put in and how much you get out. hah, i guess MIT is too.

on a side note: my back is sore from erging yesterday. merrr. oh well, i will get it again.

FESTER

2007-07-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

i have all this hatred of teamwork festering inside of me.... i am not a good team leader... wish i hadn't taken this job... so much festration. but on the upside, festration IS a cool word that i just made up.

chocolate milkshakes

2007-07-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

why yes! i have been to in-and-out... like twice now? it is pretty solid, i have to say. and not too expensive. the milkshakes are half the price of the pour house ones... i went on a bike ride the a coffee shop this past sunday, and midway through the ride back we stopped at an in-and-out and then i had to ride up a long hill with a stomach full of fries, burger, and milkshake... but i feared not. it all ended just peachy.

so last night we were hanging out, and then at like 8:30 we didn't feel like actually going anywhere, so we instead got onto a roof here and attempted to watch the fireworks. you could see a couple different places' fireworks, but they were all at least partially hidden by trees and/or buildings. then we went back and relaxed some more and watched a movie. it was a crazy movie called "crank" or something. holy shit. geeze. basically it is about a guy who gets poisoned and he will die if he stops getting an adrenaline rush... so the whole movie is him on a huge adrenaline (or cocaine, pot, epiphederine - or however you spell it) rushes, doing really crazy stuff. yea... then after i went to sleep apparently some people in the dorm did their own mini fireworks in our courtyard, but i unfortunately slept through it.

i forgot the cupcake mix! but i did go to trader joes... but pretty soon i will go back and i will surely remember. i remembered even after we had just left. i think i got distracted by the thought of the yellow, orange, and red peppers i bought and love to eat by themselves.

and yes, i want to go hiking at the Pacific Palisades. do you know if we can camp there? supposedly i can check out camping equipment for us from caltech really easily.

that dolphin surfacing under our boat is one of those things that will forever make me smile deep inside. hahahaha.

woohoo

2007-07-05T09:03:00.001-07:00

back to work. what a lovely national holiday it was, though.

We ended up going to the beach kind of by Venice, but a little further south. We were surfing and saw dolphins in the water! They came so close that it was terrifying... the only time i've ever been closer to a dolphin was when that one breached underneath our boat in florida, haha. But anyways, they were maybe 10 m away from us, and they were surfing too! They know how to catch the waves, it's so fun to watch. I wish I were a dolphin, then instead of going to work I could just swim in the ocean all day.... Also they are surprisingly large. From far away, the fins look sharky, but you know it's dolphins, and then when they get close they jump in the air and they are ENORMOUS. like the size of a dolphin shaped Toyota Corolla I would guess. wow.

How was the rose bowl/ fireworks? did you buy cupcake mix yet? Would you like to go hiking in Pacific Palisades? You can take the bus there and it looks cool. Might be a good weekend trip.
http://www.livinginthepalisades.com/pacificpalisadeshikingtrails/

And also, just curious, have you made it to In-N-Out? They have the best milkshake I've ever had...yes even better than Pour House. It made me think of you while I was drinking it.

i just lost again.

2007-07-04T16:17:00.000-07:00

Hey, I just woke up from a 4+ hour nap... oops... and i am going out to trader joes now before they close. i will bring my cell phone though. yea, i am not sure i know how to get myself easily to santa monica, so i guess we're still planning on going to the rose bowl. problem is... if seb can't drive :( 1 you'd have to take public transit to get here (you can sleep over and all... if you wanted to avoid the commute back) but 2. to get to the rose bowl we were going to ride bikes so i am going to have to check up to see if we have another bike. i will check though. and bring my cell phone to trader joes now and call you to tell you whats going on. and to buy some cupcake mix.

blam!

2007-07-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

I think my roommate and I might go to Santa Monica via the Big Blue Bus. Want to go? This is all a maybe so if you already have a plan (ie rose bowl) let me know and maybe i can get there.

work work work = = lame.

kaboom!

also, for posterity, cupcakes and the game.

kabooooooom...

2007-07-03T17:10:00.000-07:00

what are you doing for the fourth of july? i haven't decided yet i don't think, but i might be going to the rose bowl (or nearby the rose bowl... at a slightly higher elevation) to watch their fireworks. i heard disney is supposed to be good, but it is far away. i bet sebastian knows where the best places for fireworks are.

wow. those cupcakes are... geeze. i got paid yesterday. when my check gets finalized through the bank account i am going grocery shopping. and you should know, kate hoff, i am going to buy exciting cupcake-making supplies. and i am going to wait patiently for you to get here before i make them... but don't push me. i might get bored if you don't show up and *poof* there goes all the cupcake supplies. i am that good. i could so easily make it all disappear. hmmm. that just got me thinking... man, i love cake batter. and i love frosting. and... dang. sprinkles... oh man!

i only did 4 pullups today. i think i am sore from yesterday's amazing push for the goal. i skipped like a week or so before yesterday, and that didn't pull me back then, it just made me have a much harder time today. oh well... i am going to get back on it.

i am so happy because i got to do something refreshing and fun today at work. during high school my 'hobby' (at least in the underclassmen years) was playing with photoshop. well, today i got to use photoshop AND illustrator. man... it was awesome. i am so glad i actually am somewhat literate in one awesome program (photoshop - and as soon as you know photoshop, illustrator was really easy).

when is loretta supposed to be in town? it would be really lame if we couldn't get together... oh man, someone just walked up with two huge bags of trader joes food. that reminds me that i have to buy groceries now that i have money. dude, it is great to live in a place where the most convenient grocery store is trader joes (well, i guess there is a real grocery store like one block closer in the other direction, but that is negligible).

dude, you doing hurdles sounds awesome. wow. i couldn't imagine jumping OVER something while i am running... seriously, the sidewalk here is so bumpy that i have even tripped on that... i can't even imagine a purposeful hurdle i have to actually, purposefully jump over. that is badass. wow. i keep on thinking of trying new sports... i can't decide if i want to do a sport, and it is just not going to be crew, of if i am going to do a sport it would be crew, but since i am not doing crew, i am not doing a sport... i can't decide. it is a serious shame because i really, honestly, deeply, and sincerely love the actual sport of crew... but... it has been sullied. i guess i will just take it easy and see how things turn out.

"don't worry; be happy!" -billy the big mouthed bass...

hurdles!

2007-07-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

This is what you get when you google image "cupcakes delicious" mmmmmm we will make these soon for sure.

I have been doing tiny hurdles because they are so much fun.... soon big ones i hope! if only i get good enough! it's like flying. my ankle hurts a little today though so I am going to do nothing for a couple of days.

how come you can do so many pullups! that is ridiculous. you festering ball of fire. I can only do one pullup. Maybe one. Some days not even. Hmmm maybe if I did pullups every day then I would be able to do more. New plan. All pullups, all the time.

I think that pullup plan was an ideal example of Irene's training philosphy: Give us a pretty hefty goal (10 pullups= very hard for lots of people), a time frame for it (end of IAP) and then do no actual work on it and then wonder why we can't all do a bunch of pullups. OK maybe she never wondered why but...whatever. My festering days are over! California, woohoo!!!

I'm glad to hear you are cooking so many delicious things. I will come take the train to your house, or else Loretta is coming to do interviews here in not too long of a time and she might have a car! although she just told me she might not be able to do anything while she's here... lame-o. Oh well. I can't wait to meet your EC-like friends!

My research is so exciting... I can't believe that thsi MIT thing really is paying off, but I feel super qualified despite definitely sucking in all my MIT classes...haha. Maybe we should all move down here.

My roommate and I decorated our seriously bare dorm room by hanging a giant picture of a rhino that I found this weekend on the wall. Now it is a seriously bare dorm room stalked by a rhino. sweet!

6 + 4 = 10... ?

2007-07-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

1st round of pullups today: 6
2nd round of pullups: 4

target number of pullups we were supposed to be able to do by IRA: 10

now, if i could only do them all completely in a row... (there is like a 4 minute break between sets)

Luna Bars and "cheap" $3 Frappaccinos

2007-07-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

yea, so that is what i am eating for breakfast this morning. so you finally had a cupcake? awe, i still haven't had mine... but i had some ben and jerry's twisted half baked ice cream the other night. yum. and i tried a new drink last night called a mojito. it was minty and good. then i played hungry hungry hippos for the second time in one day. oh, and me and my friend robert made pancakes yesterday morning. it has been a weekend full of exciting foodz.

so i know that you can get to campus here via a bus (it drops off right next to campus), or we're just up the gold line of the metro (but that requires like a 1.5 mile walk/run to get here from the station). i'm not sure exactly which bus it is that stops here, but i will check it out.

oooo, i get paid today, which is exciting, because then i can go for the 'real' (and cheaper!) frappaccinos from starbucks rather than this prepaid on-campus stuff. on another note, someone in my dorm got an iphone on saturday morning. i got to play with it a little bit last night. it is crazy... cool? spiffy? ummmm, mac-looking? damn. i don't actually want one (no, i really don't...) but i have to conceed that is looks neat. we watched youtube videos on it. i want to check to see if they have the shoes/food vidoes (probably not, but it is worth the try). i also relearned some of the moves i used to know to solve the rubik's cube yesterday.

oh, that sailboat-making sounds fun. :) heh, i should think up fun things for us to do. what are you doing for the fourth of july? (wow... tomorrow is it?) people keep saying the place to go is disneyland, to the top of a parking deck and watch for free, and i know some people with cars, but i was wondering if there is a more elegant solution...

wow... rereading this entry makes me think i have a.d.d. or something. maybe. heh. i feel like i want to go camping sometime this summer. or at least do a tiny little bit of travelling... like... go out of l.a. hmmmmmmm...

cupcakes.

2007-07-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

Dear Gelman, as cool as your "mars rover" deal sounds, you should know that I ATE A CUPCAKE LAST NIGHT. hahaha... sebastian and I went to the grocery store on the way back to UCLA and he was like..."what do you want to eat?" i said..."hmm... i really feel like eating a cupcake for some reason" I tried to tone it down, less like "Me and gelman have been talking about cupcakes for 4 days and I have been thinking about them ever since" It was delicious.

In other good news, my cupcake eating capacity is by no means saturated. let's make some more! I will definitely visit Pasadena, how did you get there by bus? Sebastian lives in a suburb of LA but he is working at huntington beach right now, which is down the coast a little bit from LA. this weekend we made toy sailboats... we were sitting around with his friend Nick arguing about what the best way to make a sailboat is: out of a plastic waterbottle, carved out of soap, or on paper covered with crayon so that it doesn't absorb the water. Well plastic waterbottle wins, FYI, but it did take us like 3 hours to determine that. Mine was the soap one. I definitely had the cleanest hands I've had in a long time by the time I was done carving it.

that's so cool that your name was on the powerpoint....!!! Sarah Gelman (MIT). that's hot. How was your weekend? did you get to Venice beach?

Also I just noticed that when I type in any label that starts with g, the label poster window pops up "the game" as a potential option. IE you lose. every time.

rovers and cupcakes

2007-06-29T21:24:00.000-07:00

so today i got to go to JPL. it was pretty cool (but really freaking hot and smoggy). my co-mentor took me, and since she was one of the bigger people working on the 'mer' project, i got to go and see all the cool places relating to that. (so when i got here also, they all kept talking about 'mer', 'mer', 'mer' this and 'mer' meetings, and the 'mer' project, and the 'mer' rovers - but i didn't know what mer meant. it stands for mars exploration rovers, and refers to spirit and opportunity, the rovers on mars)

i took some pictures which i might upload to either facebook or this blog sometime, but just not right now. i also got to listen to a talk by my co-mentor, and guess what... i was put up on the acknowledgments! yea... it said "sarah gelman (mit)" up there just for me :)

i also took your advice, even though i didn't actually know that you had given it till after i had taken it. i called sarah newman, and she called me, but neither of us were available to answer the phones at the same time, so we didn't actually get to meet up. oh well. she is moving tomorrow. she lives tonight only one mile away from here, but tomorrow she will live around halfway between you and me.

so where does sebastian live? i hope you have fun this weekend :)
we have kitchens with ovens and everything here. if you come over we can make all sorts of stuff!!!! we can make cupcakes here. hmmm, i have been craving something along the lines of... hmmm, something cool and tasty. we can think about what that might actually be and then make that too.

i think that transportation is a problem. :( i am not sure if i would be able to get to santa monica in a reasonable way... the only thing i can think of is public transportation. dude, there is this really expensive store like two blocks away where all sorts of organic stuff is sold. oh, and there is a grocery store across from it, and around the corner is a trader joe's. it is like a perfect food setup. but i would want to see some ec people if 4w kids are having a party. as much as i like this place, the dorm (it reminds me A LOT of ec), and the people, i find that i miss ec too. sometimes.

hmmm, ok, i guess that is it for now. i want to meet up with you sometime soon. but the blog is actually really fun :)

oh yeah

2007-06-29T16:45:00.000-07:00

let me know how JPL was! and how sarah newman is , if you see her.

why are you always returnign things you borrow.... if you would just keep them, life would be so much easier...

pasadena sounds so cool

2007-06-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

I can't wait to come visit you.

I am heading to visit Sebastian at his house this weekend but I may be going to the beach on Sunday night, by Santa Monica? some of the kids from 4w are around LA and talking about having a party there. I'll let you know if we end up doing that...

Feeling very uninspired and wanting to lie in the sun like a cat. also i STILL want cupcakes, REALLY BADLY. Do you want to get cupcakes sometime... not from that store because they cost like$3 each, but from a cheap cupcake factory, or even our own cupcake mix, baked in...something? i have no oven. Maybe just eat cupcake mix...

Starving,
Hoff

zero degrees

2007-06-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

last night i went to old pasadena. it was nice, and it was great because even though there were so many people (that is where everyone in pasadena goes at night!?) i felt totally relaxed. i really like this area... and riding around on a bike and seeing these mountains as backdrop... i think i am going to have to get back into taking cool pictures. i will post my favorite ones on here for you :)

while we were there we went to this great little coffee shop named the equator. it was really eastern feeling (with hookahs and sculptures, and really laidback emo-style-ish music.

we went to the mac store too. the iphone comes out today at 6pm apparently... and there was already a fairly long line of people camping out to be the first to buy one (or two). wow.

so this afternoon i get to go to JPL. i am kind of excited. i think i am signed up to get a tour or something, and then i hear my co-mentor give a talk, and i want to meet up with sarah newman because i have her bike light i have to return to her...

hmmm. your work sounds really interesting. and that uranium story is really crazy!
yea, i should probably do some work or something...

your research looks cool!

2007-06-28T21:06:00.000-07:00

today i went on a job site visit to cedars sinai hospital, which hosts my group the spielberg family center for applied proteomics (SFCAP!) and they showed us this cool touch screen, it's huge and you can zoom in just by touching an area and pulling your fingers apart, you can watch time elapse video if it is there, for example they showed us uranium mines in Iran where they hid their hugest mines over a period of 2 years so that by the time the inspectors got there you couldn't see them anymore, but if you watched the movie from space you saw the way it looked years before. The way they located the uranium mines was by doing studies that look like what you are doing... they found all earthquake sites and scored those sites bad, all sites with lots of people, all sites with out road access also scored poorly, until from space they had a red-green gradient map where red was bad places to have a uranium mining/purifcation plant and green was good, sure enough in the best sweet spot was this uranium mine. You can zoom in close enough to see individual cars, there was a car parked in the mdidde fo the empty mine (actually a giant truck) and it looked like a tiny ant. wow.

but anyways we use this touchscreen to zoom in on super high resolution mass spec data, so you get a huge picture that looks like this:

http://www.sfcap.cshs.org/images/so1.jpg

and if you zoom in on the tiny hot spots yousee even more hot spots, possible redundancies, possible machine error, etc etc etc... it is a lot cooler than it sounds here, hehe. but the coolest part is that this touchscreen lies flat so it's like a table in a war room, and when whoever wants to show something touches their side of the table all the controls jump to that side of the screen! wow.

oh yeah and i am done with crew for a while. end of story. tried to do a 10k today and had to stop after 500m because my ribs hurt... but funny it wasn't even hard to stop. i thought it would be a big deal b/c usuallly when i have to stop a workout before the meters say 0 it's horrible. but i didn't even care... it's like my body has given up being so involved in itself, which is cool i think to finally be able to let go. i have been way overtrained and beaten teh CRAP out of myself... now i want to be a normal kid who can do stuff like play a soccer game without my ribs hurting. maybe i should tell irene but i doubt she would email back...

peace!

my third post today... think of all the inbox space we are saving...

2007-06-28T17:59:00.001-07:00

the past three days i have stared at a screen and made it end up looking like this. it is kind of colorful. i thought i would share.

based on your wiki updates, i see that you have been to different beaches to go surfing every day since you've gotten here. not fair; i haven't been to even one beach (no, i don't count marina del rey... speaking of which, we have to decide if we're gonna do it this saturday... i am thinking no?). which beach are you going to this weekend? maybe i will go and see you...

mmmmm, cupcakes...

hey can we actually do that?

2007-06-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

row a 2x in HOTC? because i would love to. i don't know what the rules are about elligibility... can we row in it if we are in the 8? we could play it off as we can't row on the team this fall for academic reasons but we want to race at hotc still just to stay in touch. wait probably not, but... uhh... or if we are both coxswains next fall. hahaha

wow popcorn sounds amazing right now. also check out this website that my boss just sent about these really ritzy cupcakes:

http://www.sprinklescupcakes.com/

seriously look amazing. i am craving cupcakes like no other right now... i feel like they are totally one of those things where you can see a picture of them and then you want one immediately. I am sure you feel the same way.

gonna actually mention this

2007-06-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

oh, and i just lost the game...
:(
heh, i have actually lost the game many times in the past few weeks, but i just don't want to take the chance that other people here don't know about the game, and then i have to ruin their lives by explaining it each time i lose it... i am a cheater, i know.

(get it? the title would spell game... without actually reminding you of it... except you have to pretend that "this" starts with an 'e'.)

popcorn...

2007-06-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

...always tastes better when other people make it for you. it also always tastes better when served to you in a basket complete with paper towels lining the bottom.

oh, and the movie 'real genius' is really just about popcorn...

caltech is a place full of smart people. they taught me these things.

i want to take out a pair every morning at 6am with you this fall. in fact, we can alternate between the pair and the double... the head of the charles has a LtW2x event, but not a 2-... and I happen to be able to steer that river. interesting eh?

this morning i went on a very gimp 1.5 mile run due to the shin splints, but my friend robert went with me. whenever i run with people (it is fairly seldom these days) i can't help but think about times like in december, when it was so cold, right before finals, running the harvard-to-anderson loop, singing christmas songs with lynch and emily, and then me and emily telling lynch to teach us 7.012... and then us just listening as she has to talk the whole rest of the run... and then when i think about lynch, i of course think "eat the food, tina", which brings up an image of a llama... and naturally that llama is the very same one that you and seb got to see in your facebook pictures of when you went home this past term. yep... that is my detailed story of when i thought about you.

heh. there were times during iap this past year when we worked out for more hours each day than i am currently sleeping. hardcore. speaking of which, next week i am going to finally drop some money to join the gym here. then i will erg for the sake of erging again, and workout because i want to, not because i feel obligated--all in the name of 'rowing for the sake of rowing' and remembering how to do things for their own inherent enjoyment and satisfaction.

hey g-man!

2007-06-27T22:25:00.001-07:00

i went surfing today and it made me think of you!

on leadership and lunch

2007-06-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

1. the lightweight man from harvard that i work with was like..."yeah i don't usually eat lunch. i had a big breakfast.. that should last me until six." work environment disagreements. i say we eat.
2. this research is terrifying, our group has NO idea where we are going, we are a bunch of undergrads that got left out in the wind with this huge problem that computational biologists have been addressing basically forever. and now i'm in charge. hmmm.
3. i'm glad you are having such an awesome time at caltech... you deserve it. next fall is going to be too much drama for me if i come back to crew i think.. what i really want to do is just be able to scull for a while, take a break from teamwork(yeah i know. that's bad) and do my own thing, just to enjoy rowing for the sake of rowng. want to just sneak in every am at 6 and row a pair? god knows Irene won't be there.

Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

2007-06-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

Yep. You win.
At least we're able to keep the competitive spirit going...
My computer is such a crap-out. It just dies all the time. And it won't let my certificates work.
There is this 180+ lbs guy here who works out twice a day (he is competing with this other person to see who can lift this highest amount of weight or something). Anyway, he does these 6k's on the erg for cardio... so I of course asked him his splits and times. Dude, he takes like 28 minutes or something. So then I told him that little old me was way faster than him. Now he wants to beat me. So then I told him what he has to beat for just 2k (1:58.9). Someone else who coxed in high school and has access to the gym (I currently don't) showed him how to properly erg. He then tried it and only did about 2.5 minutes at a split below 2:00, then sat at like 2:10+ for the rest. Hah. I win there.

That is awesome that you got chosen like instantly to be the group leader. Yea, being a leader has its perks, but meh. I am really enjoying just laying back and enjoying a slower relaxed life this summer. I think I don't want to do crew this fall. I want to take five classes and try to do well in them. I want to get drunk and go to EC parties every now and then. I want to live a regular college life at least one term while I am in college... just to see...

Dude, somehow I am managing to sleep less here than I did even during term! I don't know how... we lit a fire in our courtyard last night and sat around it for hours. It was really nice. I have been up till 4am both of the last two nights.
Anyway, more later.
Have fun at work :)

I win.

2007-06-26T19:47:00.001-07:00

haha gelman. i am technologically more adept than you. or perhaps have a better internet connection. woo hoo!