Grad

So Ive been thinking about grad school and I'm about 75 % sure I'm not going to go.

Fleur

I've only had my airplants for 4 days and they have changed so much already! It's very exciting, the one with pink petals is growing little purple things where each petal is.

Tutor

I tutored this girl tonight in Semantic Web (she was doing something with HTML and PHP) and I actually kind of helped her. Well, lets just say I either helped her or confused her, depending on if I even showed her how to do something the right way. The point is, she made some progress on her lab (She was doing a madlib and I had to teach her what a noun/adjective/verb was so if anything, at least she now knows that).

It was kind of fun trying to help someone learn something, even though I had no idea what I was doing. I think I got her to understand variables.

I have decided several things:
1. I do not like robotics. Robots are kind of cool, my class seems very laid back, and I guess the topics are interesting, but I'm not fascinated by robots enough to say- Hey! I want to work with Robots in my spare time!
I most definitely don't want to play/work with robots. I see plenty useful applications of robots, but not for me to create.

2. Design of Programming Languages: Everyone in the class is always lost/confused/has no clue.

3. I don't want to go to grad school. I mean, maybe, just maybe I'll go to grad school eventually. However, I'm not going to grad school after college. I was looking at even the simplest programs and aside from the fact that 1- I don't actually WANT to study these things they teach, aside from that, they don't like to take people out of college.

So what am I going to do after college? I don't really know. I'm probably going to work 'somewhere' doing 'something' until I have enough money to buy a little house and work part time, and have a chicken coop and a self-sustaining fruit/vegetable garden year round in some warm part of California.

"...in a related study, British scientists have found that children whose mothers work outside the home are more likely to engage in unhealthier lifestyles -- including eating less healthy foods and getting less exercise -- than kids whose mothers are at home."

Woodstock, NY

Groundhog

My lovely air plants that don't require any soil.

This is the groundhog that lives under my dorm.

From August 09

So here are some photos from when Noah and I spent a day in NYC in August.

Bamboo

I was right, I got 100% on my Hebrew quiz. I was very happy.

I had a great weekend, I went home and got a lot done. I painted the wood panels (final coat!!) in the big room, as well as the window trim and bottom closet trim inside the bedroom. Noah started painting the big rooster that's going in the bedroom. I'm very excited for it.

The rooster traditionally brings happy events and good fortune in Feng Shui. It is regarded as a strong and protective figure. It is thought to "eat up" the bad energy at home and the work place.

What else, it is time to plant the garlic bulbs for spring season! It is also time to trim the hostas and other plants. There is so much to do and not enough time. I wish I could do it all, I like working in the garden.

We also carried a heavy black shelf (WOW! Really, it was very heavy) to Noah's car and then into the new house, as well as the metal sides to another shelf. We ultimately decided to keep my bedroom as free of clutter as possible, and not put the shelves there because the dimensions didn't fit quite right, and it looked better without it. I saw this nice chair on overstock, what do you think?

I think a true testament of becoming an adult is worrying about how to clean things. Actually starting to look at tags and wondering, will this be easy to clean/wash?

And I was thinking about getting two rugs as well, a bigger natural bamboo one for the big room, and a smaller maybe red or orange colored bamboo one for the bedroom, it's nice to have a wood element. I've been thinking about the feng shui elements and colors, and it would be nice to have a little bit of all of the elements (something metal, maybe copper, some clay- the crazy rabbit sculpture noah made for me, a wood/water/fire element, crystal, etc)

Noah and I played some pool in the basement, Noah started off strong but I won our mini-game.
I also made a little 8 track mix (you can listen to it free without registering).

Hebrew

Tomorrow is Rosh haShana! Happy Jewish New Year to all!
In other news:
I had a Hebrew quiz today and I think I did really well.

Good Morning

I have the hiccups. I have class soon, and I feel like I never leave the RKC (science building). Sometimes when I leave at night, I think to myself, wow..i'm going to be back here again in 9 hours.

Everything is going okay but I miss home.

Bonjour

So I would really like to live in Europe when I grow up. America is overworked and overstressed, I'm thinking, a little cabin in the countryside, a quaint apartment in the city, perhaps France. It’s the law: full-time workers in France are guaranteed at least five weeks vacation.

Did I say 5 weeks?
YES!
5!

It is a fact, people in France work less (35 hr workweeks) and go on vacation more! They value pleasure over money, since education and healthcare are taken care of.

All I have to do is learn French. Bonjour! Par le vous Anglais?

Discovered a Grocery Store

Noah and I discovered a great grocery store last Friday, called Adams Fairacre Farms.

They have fantastic fresh produce, fruit, meat, cheese and fish. The prices are also great!

We got a catfish fillet with cornbread and jalapeno seasoning as well as some crab cakes, cooked them up, garnished with blackberries and they were great.

What did I do this weekend? Nothing particularly exciting. Ever since the visit to Alstede farms with James and AJ, I had been craving a chocolate frozen banana, so we found those in the frozen foods section at the grocery store. Noah and I went to the park briefly, the mosquitos made us leave.

I have a robotics project I'm working on with two other people, it is due Wednesday and I guess we're doing the whole thing tomorrow. Not my idea, I wanted to do it today, but they changed the schedule.

It doesn't really matter though because I guess I'll just work on a different lab for Bob's class that is also due Wednesday, and get that done tonight.

ASC Lab

Another day, another blog.

I am currently in Lab right now, from 1-4, and it looks like it's just me and this girl Julia this semester/year. Georgi, Jackie and Aleks are seniors so they're working on senior project (though they still come and help out, I think Aleks is still interested and wants to work on it), Petar wasn't interested in staying in lab this year, Adina has a class at 2:30 and basically that's it. Mary and Peter G. graduated, and I got Peter's chair! It actually is a better chair (it has wheels while the rest don't).

We have a new assortment of k-cup teas for the coffee machine, and hot chocolates as well. So basically me (CS) and Julia (math major) are working on an application of some sort.

It is raining like a rain forest, terrible weather.

Well, it's 3:36, that means I leave in less than 30 mins!

I guess i'm doing something with design and HTML at the moment. I'll post a screenshot sometime.

A Mouse

Well, there seems to be a mouse in our dorm.
Nothing new.
A couple of girls were screaming like psychos in our silent 24 hour quiet dorm, so ... this is how I found out.

Also, I am hungry. I was eating my dinner today at Kline, and in my pasta, was a GIANT housefly. It was so disgusting, I nearly vomited. I had to spit out my food, and had a cup of cereal instead.

Why GOD? WHY? WHY ME? Why do I get the giant fly in my food?

Food, my favorite thing.

Pictured Above: Pasta with baby bella mushrooms, creme fraise, and cheese.


Chicken potstickers.

Olive oil fried chicken with hot sauce, potatoes and mushrooms.
















Rambutan, mangosteen mochi and red bean mochi.

Weekend

It was my first weekend at Bard, and Cathy went to a wedding in Atlanta, Georgia, so I went to Albany to visit Noah.

What did I do this weekend? Well, nothing much. I relaxed. It's nice to relax, hang out. Friday was the unfortunate anniversary of Noah's grandfathers death, so we went to temple for Shabbat service in Albany with some of his family.

Then we spent the rest of the weekend just hanging out. We updated Noah's resume, and he is going to take photos of his sculptures and artwork this week to make a nice portfolio.

I also cooked a big pot of real chicken noodle soup (from scratch), I made my own broth, because Noah sprained his ankle and it swelled up like a tennis ball.

I also made a cream of wild mushroom soup, and chicken with shrimp crepes.

Noah had a bunch of tomatoes to pick too!

Publishing (hope)

Ross and Nir (grad student, mentor) are trying to publish our REU paper from the summer, so I got an email today asking me the name of our department at bard and the address info, so they can write it properly. I'm excited, I hope it gets published!

Big Bunny

A.J. sent this to me and I thought it was cute.

J Flip Flop

My mood just flip flopped and I now suddenly find myself not so annoyed anymore.

Back at school: Week 1

What can I say. Yet again I find myself loathing and despising the world.

Bard Starts- Junior Year

I'm back at school and back on this blog.
What can I say, the summer flew by so fast. It was great though, it was really great.

I am taking four classes and ASC lab.

My classes so far:
Design of Programming Languages- it is going to be hard, I can tell already. The minute Bob started talking about how its great that we all took Theory of Computation because it is going to help us, I thought, oh no. I don't remember too much from that class, and I didn't understand it all too great. Let's just say, it wasn't my favorite class.

Robotics- We don't have any tests in this class. Yay! That takes some stress away, I hate cramming all of the info into my head and stressing out about tests. Instead we have a quiz every two weeks to make sure we are reading the material. He also is a new teacher, Keith, and he seems fun. He really wants to make us like robots and be interested in them. He said we can program in any language we want, which is....interesting. Then he goes, Java isn't the best one to use for these. Hah! So the one language I actually know (well) won't help me. Well, that's okay. I'll....figure something out. Who knows.

Jewishness beyond religion- Well, this class is really big. It's strange to see people that aren't Jewish answering the question, what does it mean to be a Jew. I don't know, it's kind of weird. I mean I guess it's good to have another perspective..but I don't see why they want to be in the course. The teacher seems alright, but her voice is quiet and she is mousy, so she could easily bore me like crazy. Also, I don't know how interested I am about what it means to be Jewish. I don't have identity issues. I guess I'm in the class more for the history aspect rather than the personal insight.

Hebrew- This class is actually pretty good. It is pretty small, and I actually found out that a girl from Millburn High School is in it. That's pretty crazy, what a small world. She is a freshman and friends with a guy I know (Justin) and apparently he told her I went to Bard and she recognized me. So far, we have been going over the alphabet and learning to write the letters. I also like the teacher, he is the rabbi at Bard.

So that's it. As long as I don't start thinking about the future, I don't go totally crazy.