Wednesday: March 29, 2006

back to CA

Boston, needless to say, was WUNDERBAR. Met Anita at the airport, had a nosebleed, and proceeded on to the subway, where I was rudely shoved aside by a fuming man who sat on the train muttering swears and going, “aaargh!” every so often. Strange, strange. Being us, we proceeded directly to a cake shop in Chinatown and went for noooodles. :-D

( gluttony is my deadly sin )

Waiii i wanna be back! Oh and of course I had the interview. ^^;;

Thursday: March 23, 2006

the grad student from the swamp

Paintball today was, in a word, AWESOME. 13 people (myself included) showed up. We played on an outdoor field… and left extremely filthy, because there were puddles and decaying plants and bird poop. I felt like a swamp monster afterwards. The mud was really bad for mobility… at one point I was crouching down in a puddle and when I tried to move, I couldn’t!! Hmm… got shot in the face a few times and got hit many other times. But none left marks except when Chris shot me from ~3 feet away, repeatedly!! Man that hurt. So my only souvenir from this paintball excursion is the bruise that resulted. It’s multicolored. I took a picture, because, well, bruises fun to look at in a morbid sort of way.

Till gets the award for bringing Nerdom with him everywhere he goes. The ref asked, “So are you guys going to pull some matrix moves?” and Till’s reply was, “We’ll do matrix multiplication!” *koff* To his credit, one of the highlights of the day was his lonesome self versus the other team, after the rest of our team had been eliminated. It was a glorious standoff, and he fought bravely until the others surrounded him. See, situations like paintball make me glad I’m not male, because Jed got shot in the groin!

It was a nice day overall. I sat in the hall (literally sat in the hallway) with Jim & Francis & whoever else stopped by and looked at us with amusement. ^^;; So many friendly people in the department. It’s awesome.

Sunday: March 19, 2006

x-men?

So there’s an article about artificial muscles being developed for use by firefighters, police, soldiers…

Does this sound like a comic book background story or what?

Saturday: March 18, 2006

YEAAAAAH!!!!

I got it!!! Fortify Internship is floating out there! ^_^ So now, let’s see how the MA internship interview goes!

Wednesday: March 15, 2006

“What the hell is broccoli anyway?”

So… I know I’m supposed to be “mature” now that I’m in grad school and all, but stupid stuff like this still cracks me up. *koff* Arnold’s Pizza Shop.

( juvenile humor ahead! )

You really do need to hear the mp3 to really appreciate it. The guy does such a great impression of our governor.

Monday: March 13, 2006

“So, what’s the symbology…”

I saw this post over at Digg. My first reaction was Willem Dafoe’s voice hissing, “I believe the word you’re looking for is Sssssymbolism.” (From Boondock Saints) Good read. I prefer Will Ferrell’s Architect to the actual movie one. Actually, I didn’t even bother seeing the 3rd movie because the 2nd was rather atrocious.

Saturday: March 11, 2006

homesick

Today the prospective students came and visited the department. I remember my visit last year… thoroughly enjoyable!

so I’m not “homesick” for home… I’m more “Boston sick.” But… I do get to spend my spring break in Boston, thanks to an interview I have scheduled during that time. ^^;; Still don’t know yet about Fortify, but the adrenaline generated by excitement that day is wearing down and I’m becoming more pessimistic and doubtful.

And this is quite disturbing: swimming ants. Ew. First the swimming rat that eluded scientists for a month and now this! Gaaah!!!

Tuesday: March 07, 2006

Fortify

Till and I drove up to Fortify for our interview, which was today… We thought, “2nd round… we’ll be out by mid-afternoon.” HA! HA!!! What we got was… FOUR HOURS of interviewing. Granted, we weren’t getting grilled with hard technical questions every minute of the interview, but… FOUR HOURS of interviewing! 1 - 5pm. Gone. As Jacob, one of the interviewers, said, “I felt like I’d gone through a gauntlet.” Nothing left to do but wait now… hopefully… something good will come of it.

We went to my house for dinner and stopped by Costco. ^^;; I got more baguettes. (I know, i know. it’s become an addiction. but at least it’s not an addiction to something like crack!)

Monday: March 06, 2006

Lyrics: Luna by Alessandro Safina

Ok, so I don’t understand this song… as it’s in Italian, but I looove listening to it. (Conny introduced the song to me. ^_^) Hehehe. It seems like such a Dean Martin song, and I LOVE Dean Martin songs.

( click for a jolt of lyrical goodness )

Saturday: March 04, 2006

spring break in boston?

Sooooo… I’m definitely going to Boston at some point in spring break for an interview… Perhaps I should take advantage of spring break and go there earlier than my scheduled interview? ^_^