soul (sole?) education

Got back into running today. Was a pretty pansy run, but one has to start somewhere. A very cheerful FedEx lady delivered my running shoes this morning, and I decided it would be a travesty if I didn't take them for an inaugural run today.

Excuse overcome today: "it's too late in the day". Sure, it was 6pm and more or less dark outside, but half of the park near my apartment is lit--so instead of loops around the pond, I just ran "c"s. Plus, the weather was remarkably summer-like, with a breeze and everything...this is such a strange land.

Anyway, now, I'm going to try and get something done for work before I go to bed. sigh.

ode to a pair of running shoes

I used to have an awesome pair of running shoes when living in Burlington. Awesome does not even begin to do justice...I mean, these were the sort of magical running shoes that could inspire epic poetry and paeans of timeless caliber. (My knees have never been so happy in a pair of shoes--ever.) I ran these shoes until they wore out, and then they eventually died a fantastic mud puddle death. (I mean, why not go for a mud puddle run when your shoes are done for anyway? Might as well go out in a blaze of fun.)

Well I set myself to the semi-indulgent task of buying a new pair of running shoes this afternoon. I did some searching online...wanted to see what there might be out there by this same company that made my once-upon-a-time dream shoes. Turns out--they still have some of the same model of shoe, and they're trying to get rid of them, as they're now discontinuing the line!!



Guess who's getting a sweet new pair of these puppies delivered to her doorstep this week...

maybe tuesday will be my good news day

So. A few thousand fellow dorks and I across this country (and, the world) are currently sitting on the edges of our seats, repeatedly refreshing our email inboxes. It's decision time.

The Grad Cafe has a database of user-submitted decision stats. You can sort the data by program, school, date, etc. It shows what decision a person received, and how they received it (email, postal, phone), as well as whether they're American or from abroad. There is a place to write comments, too, so you can say something like, "accepted but w/o funding". (No funding is basically a rejection...and, as it turns out, NYU mathematics is notorious for doing this...and yes, I applied there, well before I found out about this site. Damn it.)

The other cool thing is that you can look at the years previous (they've had this database up for three or four "seasons" now), and see when the schools you've applied to usually start sending out their decisions. For UMCP, the school I think I have the best shot at, it looks like they usually send out their first round offers any day now. So, this will be a weekend of anticipation for me, I imagine.

Anyway, usually these boards are alternately filled with woeful rejection and joyful victory. But sometimes you get people with their heads up their own asses writing plain stupid stuff. But also sometimes, they get put in their place.



In other news, it looks like Cornell sent out their decisions today; as they pretty much dominated the math board today. Not a whole lot of activity yet from any of the schools I applied to; a couple early Columbia (physics) and NYU (math) admits. (Although as I mentioned earlier, NYU doesn't really offer funding for many people other than their first picks, so they may be a moot point for me by now...who knows.) I just need one "yes" and I'm good to go...

banks gone wild

This is a surprisingly clear (and hilarious) explanation of the financial crisis, in so far as it was caused by bad mortgages. I really liked the explanation of "leverage":

"i'll pay you back tomorrow"
"ok"

(you'll see what I mean)

I think with the economy imploding as it is and all...we'd all do well to improve our understanding of the financial system a bit. I took an intro to macroeconomics course my senior year in college, and then really wished I had done it sooner, so I could've spent more time in some intermediate courses. (I think every college student should be required to take a macroecon course, and possibly a microecon course as well...and yes, this is in addition to my infamous "every college student should have to take two semesters of calculus" rant.) So, in that spirit, I am bookmarking this blog on my list of daily-ish reads.

Anyhow, without further ado...


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

As you can see, I'm not much for my own thoughts this past week or so...instead just posting various internet clippings. I've got a lot of projects going on right now, but things will be calming down soon enough. Until then, I hope you are enjoying my little findings from the interwebs...

update (9:52 pm): just found out this video was picked up by BoingBoing as well...see, told you it was cool.

low-tech hackery

I think my favorite part is the one about using your head as an antenna:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/technology/personaltech/19basics.html

e-time capsule

There are only two relationships in my life so far that I've haven't deleted all the "love emails" from. And before the year is out, that might be truncated down to one.

I was digging around the depths of my UVM email inbox tonight, looking for a class-related email from fall 07. In the process, I stumbled upon one of the aforementioned emails...and sort of stared it down for a minute, while it dared me to read it.

So I opened it. (I can be a bit of a masochist sometimes.) Turns out, it contained exactly the words I needed to hear right now. Besides reminding me I'm lovable, besides reminding me to take care of myself, it told me this:

Keep your chin up sweety. Everything's gonna work out. I know what it's like to feel overwhelmed when you got a lot of stuff going on. It happens to me on a regular basis. But things always end up working out in the end.

When I finally perform the electronic exorcism of this relationship past, this email will definitely be spared.

(It has been a rough past week. I needed to be reminded that I always land on my feet. And it doesn't hurt to read it written with such warmth.)

ah, the refreshing awkwardness of laundry day

You know in college when a buddy would show up to class in a really nice pair of dress pants or something, and you'd ask, "hey, what's the occasion?" And your buddy would reply: "oh, no occasion--laundry day."

Yeah, so today I'm wearing my skinny jeans to work. The jeans I wear when going out to a bar, or even if I just feel like feeling cute on the weekend when I go to the grocery store. But today I'm wearing them to a place where I usually try to dress on the androgynous side. I had two pairs of jeans in the dryer that I was waiting for this morning, but they didn't dry in time...and I wasn't about to wear dress pants, so...the skinnies it was.

<seque style = "questionable">
But if Sens. Collins and Snowe can get it done at work while wearing skirts, I can certainly make it in a similarly male-dominated workplace in skinny jeans.
</segue>

Ok, so I have one more news story to share (that refers to Mainers as "pragmatic and independent people")...but I promise I'll stop gloating after this last link on how awesome Maine's senators are:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/us/politics/11cong.html

"respectable" media fucking up their numbers as usual

There's plenty to laugh about in this article on CNN.com, but the ending is what really gets me:

Nationally, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Monday showed a slight majority of Americans, 54 percent, favored the stimulus bill while 45 percent were opposed. However, only 32 percent of Republicans said they favored the bill.

I think what they should've pointed out is that only 3 out of the 200+ Republicans in Congress had the grit to vote for the stimulus package (and to work hard to negotiate a bill they felt was worthy of a vote)...despite the fact that a whopping 32 percent of Republicans out and about in America support the bill.

Less than 1.5% of Republicans in Congress << 32% of Republicans in the general American public.

Can you say partisan politics? (And oblivious journalism?)

hero-worship

What can I say? This lady is my hero.



And maybe the role model the little girl mentioned in two posts previous needs.

(I will partially justify said hero-worship by stating that: anytime you can say everybody where you're from has bought lumber from your senator's siblings at their hardware store, it definitely humanizes said senator. I mean, I would be a huge fan no matter where in Maine she was from, but the fact that she is actually from true "northern Maine" is just all the more awesome. I would probably freak out in full Obama-tron-like undiginified-ery if she were to run for president someday. She's too cool for president, so she won't, but I'm just saying. I'd be completely intolerable. =) )

hooray for political moderate-cy

The state motto isn't "Dirigo" for nothing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/washington/10stimulus-web.html

somebody get this girl a role model

The final passage of this article from the NY Times is quite possibly the most depressing thing I've read so far this year:

And when a little girl at the charter school visited by the Obamas announced that she dreamed of becoming first lady, Mrs. Obama flashed her self-deprecating wit. “It doesn’t pay much,” she advised.

I could add my own thoughts here...but I think I will just let the quote speak for itself. If you don't understand why this is depressing, then you are not very in-tune to the ongoing oppression of ladies in our society, and I am just not prepared today to waste my energy trying to enlighten others through writing.

I guess my only question is, Ms. Obama being the bad-ass career woman that she is, why didn't she suggest to the little girl that someday she could have her choice of first lady or president, instead of cracking a joke?

Oh, wait. Right. I forgot about those 2008 primaries already.

those fuckers messed up my cookies!

http://www.kashipeanutbutterrecall.com/

And here I thought I was immune to the recall. I didn't think Kashi (a food brand which I admittedly, borderline, hero-worship) would buy ingredients from such an idiot company:

Federal health officials have begun a criminal investigation into the actions of the Peanut Corporation of America, which they said knowingly sold contaminated peanut butter and peanut products to major food makers.

Knowingly?! Those bastards deserve jail, and a full psychological workup. What strand of wonky produces people that will sell products even after they know they've tested positive for potentially fatal bacteria?

I'm now wondering if my recent case of food poisoning was actually due to those damn cookies, and not the tuna from a restaurant as I had originally suspected...

Either way, it will be a while before my FAVORITE cookies are back on the shelves. Which means I will probably just take to baking my own in their likeness, and won't bother buying them again once they are back on the shelves. Epic fail on this one, Kashi. (But I will still religiously buy your "U" cereal...and would still buy your seven-grain nuggets if I could find them out here...)

oatmeal from concentrate

Did you ever realize that it's possible to turn granola back into warm, comforting oatmeal simply by drowning it in hot water? Well, now you do. (And now you are probably wondering, like I did, "why didn't I think of that before?")

So, at work, I eat oatmeal in my aluminum (I think, or rather, some alloy thereof...) travel coffee mug. (Indeed, I am known by some as the crazy girl that eats oatmeal from her travel mug. One of the people recently pulled to our project from elsewhere said, upon being introduced to me, "oh, I know her, she'd come downstairs to clean the oatmeal from her coffee mug, because the soap brush was missing from the kitchen on her floor." Great.)

Anyhow, I was cleaning my travel mug out this morning, by filling it up with (really) hot water from the coffee machine. Immediately after it was full, I began using my spoon to scrape along the top of the cup. But as I was scraping, the pitch of the scratching kept increasing, for several seconds, up to a certain point. Now, my only guess is that this was caused by the metal heating up in response to the arrival of the hot water.

So I then wondered: why does heating metal make it give off a higher-pitched sound when scratched?

I do not have an explanation yet. (I'm sure I probably should...but ah well.) Attempts at such explanation are more than welcome.


And now for a moment of zen:

"sun in the sky, you know how i feel
breeze driftin by, you know how i feel
and i'm feeling good
...
dragonfly out in the sun, you know what i mean, don't ya know
butterflies all having fun, you know what i mean
sleep in peace once day is done, that's what i mean
and this old world is a new world
and a bold world
for me"

--"Feeling Good", as performed by Nina Simone

ah, efficiency

Today I received an email with the subject line: "Lunch at 1? (eom)", and an empty message body. I thought, wtf is eom? I almost wrote the sender back asking that question, but I decided to see if Google could hide my ignorance instead. And indeed, it was able to find an answer; see the explanation here.

Good thing I didn't write back to ask. =) However, I did respond with an "eom" of my own (someone else had written in the meantime, saying they brought their lunch but would hang out with the group anyway):

Re: "Lunch at 1? (eom)"...I brought my lunch today, too --k (eom)

I feel so trendy.