Edgar Allan Po(e/oh)

This is the sort of humor that is kind of mean but really hilarious at the same time. William found it!

It's Been Quiet

There is something really awful about not knowing what I'll do this summer. Besides this, the last week of the very kindly long winter break is going very well. My sprain at the leg/pelvis joint seems to be healing up, enough so that I can run again! Besides that, I have done a Jillians Michaels workout twice this week, and stretched every day. I still believe that my chest pain, which progressed negatively throughout the first semester, is not going to bother me significantly. I just need to stay calm, breathe deeply when stressed, and continue to become a more relaxed person. But not careless.
"Love Is A Place" by Metric begins:
There's spring in the air
They're sweeping the streets
Wind is a breeze
The sun becomes her, he agrees...
It's pretty simple, but I can imagine the sweeping of streets, particularly after the snow melts away enough so that it is possible. This is when you can really feel the sun shining on your body. Actually, while jogging today through my neighborhood past Nesters but not quite to Wooded Gorge, I sat on the sidewalk cross-legged, closed my eyes, and felt calm for a while. Though as I opened my eyes, a man walked down his driveway across the street to get the mail and said "Hi!"
Once, I asked my friend for some calming music recommendations, since he has thousands of songs in his iTunes and seems to particularly enjoy the ones that help him wind down. So he showed me all these Beck songs, such as "The Golden Age," and "Side Of The Road." I don't really think they work for me, but I'm glad he tried to help, because it serves the overall goal of becoming more relaxed.

I think there is a lot of love that I am almost always ready to give out to people. Some of my friends have told me that I have a good idea about the true nature of people when I meet them. So there is no point in trying to exploit me, now that I have put that idea out there in case you did not have it before this sentence entered your mind.

Neglecting to click on the Stats tab frequently, here is a thank you for reading to everyone- from the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Russia, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Brazil, India, Moldova, France, Taiwan (which is a part of China, unless I am mistaken), Ukraine, and my current home country.

La Maison en Petits Cubes

I am in love with this.

I don't know if I can forgive myself.

Not only can I not at all juggle, I cannot meditate. I am working on it, though. Well, I was working on the meditation at the time I wrote that sentence. It is now 5 days later, and I barely meditated for 3 minutes since then. Way to fail. So then I tried stretching consistently, but who knows how that will go in the long run.
This morning I woke up kind of early and started worrying about things, and when I heard my watch alarm, I kind of swore under my breath, which was definitely a shock to me, because I don't usually curse. But if I ever do, I feel like I have a pretty good reason, and it generally isn't when other people are around. But if anyone were lurking in my room that early in the morning, maybe I would have.
To explain the title (oh yeah, the first two paragraphs weren't actually in response to that, so sorry to trick you), I basically sat on a couch all morning. Maybe because my friend's mom forgot to tell her I called. But then I think, well gosh, I was still pretty lazy. This is the result.
I downloaded Flipboard for the iPad. It's the App of the Year, apparently, and conveniently free. There is a section called FlipDesign, which has a bunch of interesting showcases of industrial and architectural designs.

For example, this cool designer, Luc van Hoeckel, came up with a wooden fan that moves without electricity. I think it's pretty impressive, yet so simple, though maybe a little weird to actually put in my future house... and hoping the latter phrase might enter existence one day:



And apparently, Sanaa, a group of Japanese architects, designed this watch that is supposed to look like a cat wrapping around one's wrist. Here's the black one:


And then there are these little cardboard chairs that you can recycle after your children grow out of them:


Another group of Japanese architects (why are they so good?) made these sticky notes from scrap wood:


I think that's probably enough to share for now. There were also some really interesting buildings and rooms, though.

Two weeks until a four month long... something awful but really worthwhile at the same time. There's college.

Medley

But separate's always better when there's feelings invooooolved
Oh oh
Heeey yaaa
Heeey yaaaa
I say what's cooler than bein' cool?
Ice cold
Lend me some sugah; I am your neighbor!
Leave the bourbon on the shelf
And I'll drink it by myself
If only we could move away
From here.
Let's disappear till tomorrow
Dis a ppea r
Back with my high school friends
Meetin' where the train tracks end
Maybe I know somewhere deep in my soul that love never lasts
And we've got to find other ways to make it alone and keep a straight face
Nothing is easy. Nothing is sacred. Why?
They got me on the run. Direct me to the sun
Only the young can break away, break away
Is there anyone out there?
I watched him spin you round and round
Why did you roll your dice, show your cards...
Tu sais que tu n'aimes pas ta réalité.

I'm home!

And I love the way my little brother is growing up...

I feel like it's a Kermit with a chef's hat on.

That was Nicole.
We just made a gingerbread house! It was the first one I have ever helped make. Anne is telling us the beginning of her adorable love story. Faith's computer is playing a Christmas station on Pandora, and I am typing on her computer. We are wondering if this guy is from Barcelona. Probably not. Faith, Anne and Nicole are SO cool. Faith has a master plan to figure out how she can associate with a certain group of people. It's Nicole's turn now. We are going to bed soon. Faith, if you end up reading this, I'm sorry it wasn't very exciting. But I probably shouldn't post our personal stories on the internet. It's supposed to rain tomorrow! The high is 41 degrees tomorrow. SO warm! Really.
"When you were little and you had play dates with people... I'm so sleeepyyy... I feel like these are awkward sneakers. He must've been a huge stoner. Don't you think? Well not them; I meant the old one. Everyone cartoons is short. But yeah, I don't know. Oh. Fail. A gingerbread. But you can eat it if you want it. It's massive. It's so big. Regression. Regression. Kejing's blogging about us. I want to start a blog, guys. Yeaaah. I've made a one-log... yeah.! My friend Riley and I made a response video and we actually posted it and it was like, Faith and Riley! Demi Lovato? I'm trying! I'm working with you. Mhm. Yes. It's like a Japanese restaurant where you sit around the cook stove. Sooo good. Mmm. What are you writing? And it better be about us. That's all I have to say. Faith Faith Faith. Nicole Nicole Nicole. Anne Anne Anne. Okay go ahead. This is being wasted. My eyes are getting larger and larger. I don't even remember the part we were crying at but Nicole said this isn't the part you're supposed to be crying. I'm going to start writing in my journal and not read it to you. Kejing is not sharing her blog so I'm going to make an an.. angr.. angry response. I can't talk." ...said Faith.
There is a pile of Hamlet books on Faith's printer, and a tiny Christmas tree. She was up late Facebook-chatting three really creepy boys, except she likes two of them. So if you are one of them.... you have a two thirds chance of being in luck. I think they want me to read them the post now.
Hmmm, it says this blog has had 1,196 views through all time. I wonder if my parents have found this yet.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. So close!

The End

As I (hopefully) reach the end of my differential equations courses, I remember sitting in lecture during the spring semester with Jack, William, Lyndssey and Blair.

Professor Sussman: I actually spent days of vacation plotting 3D graphs.
[class laughs]
Professor Sussman: I'm serious.

Ten more days. Sooo close!

Hey.

Since my last post was about the courses for which I signed up, I should probably talk about them, since the classes end in a couple of weeks.
The descriptions were probably from the Courses of Study website.

Matlab has been okay so far. The projects are kind of time-consuming. The last one is making the worm game, which I remember Ryan really liked playing on his graphing calculator. It is maybe not as complicated because the worm is supposed to stay the same length. We'll see. It says that this time, they won't give much guidance about how to actually do the project. So it will take a lot of planning. We get our third prelim grades back on Tuesday morning at the end of the lecture.

The freshman writing seminar hasn't really been about fairy tales in the sense that you would expect. A lot of it is pretty modern. Right now, we are revising each other's essays in preparation for the final portfolio. But we have to write an addition essay about the three essays we put into that. Hmm. I guess a lot of people in my class have been fairly disappointed about the course, because the description seemed very interesting, but they do not enjoy actually taking the course.

Math is probably the most comfortable course I have right now. The first prelim was entirely covered in my class last spring. We are doing wave equations right now, using separation of variables to solve partial differential equations. It is a little weird, because the variables and terms they use are different from the ones I have learned in physics this semester, but are still somewhat familiar. The lecture is fun because I always sit with my friends and we generally have a good time, somehow. And I almost always eat food there.

Swedish massage and more has mainly been "and more" and not as much Swedish massage as I expected. It is not very awkward, because everyone has to massage each other, and you just do it. I guess it can be painful at times if your partner hurts you, but thankfully I haven't really hurt people, and it doesn't seem too difficult as long as you think about how it might feel to the other person while you are moving your hands and fingers. I guess it helps that I can play the piano.

Physics has kind of been my enemy this semester. I don't think I have enough passion to learn it really really well. I also don't think people usually take this course if they are doing my major. I do not actually need to take my math class, either. But here I am, completely left out compared to all these academically experienced male MechE's, ECE's, AEP's... They are too smart. I spent 8 hours on quantum physics yesterday.

The engineering seminar ended a couple weeks ago.

I don't actually like talking about school this much. But at least there is now some balance with the previous post.

Over the summer, I saw a Cornell girl's blog, saying that she rarely had time to explore Ithaca or anything while she has been here, because she is usually doing homework or just hanging around on campus. I disagree. If you want to get out, you can. For example, I have gone to the Farmer's Market at least five times. They have really good food, such as fruit, but also other things like strawberry Nutella crepes with whipped cream. It is really cool just to sit near the steamboat landing, and take in Ithaca's aura. There are a lot of families who go, and even though it is so far away from real home, it is something I think is worth joining.

But, I do run out of time. So much that I not found very many new songs. Consequently, I have been listening to a lot a lot of The Killers and Metric, as usual.

I would say that I will blog more, but I feel like it's kind of tough to make commitments in college...

Fall 2010... for now.

CS 1112 Introduction to Computing Using MATLAB
Fall, spring. 4 credits. Corequisite: MATH 1110, 1910, or equivalent. Assumes student is comfortable with mathematics (at level of one semester of calculus) but has no prior programming experience.
Programming and problem solving using MATLAB. Emphasizes the systematic development of algorithms and programs. Topics include iteration, functions, arrays, and MATLAB graphics. Assignments are designed to build an appreciation for complexity, dimension, fuzzy data, inexact arithmetic, randomness, simulation, and the role of approximation.

ENGRG 1050 Engineering Seminar
Fall. 1 credit. Prerequisite: freshman standing. S–U grades only.
First-year engineering students meet in groups of 18 to 20 students weekly with their faculty advisors. Discussions may include the engineering curriculum and student programs, what engineers do, the character of engineering careers, active research areas in the college and in engineering in general, and study and examination skills useful for engineering students. Groups may visit campus academic, engineering, and research facilities.

GERST 1109 From Fairy Tales to the Uncanny: Exploring the Romantic Consciousness
3 credits.
As didactic texts that present explicit—and implicit—moral lessons, fairy tales shape cultural identity by questioning as well as affirming dominant cultural values. This seminar uses selections from the Brothers Grimm to analyze characteristic features of the genre and examine its evolution to the present day. Our investigation will focus on how the transformation of oral folk tales into literary texts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries sparked an interest in androids, the paranormal, and the pathological and spurred German Romantics to experiment with new forms of fiction that established the matrix for popular genres like horror, mystery, fantasy, and sci-fi. The emphasis of the course is on improving writing skills.

MATH 2930 Differential Equations for Engineers (MQR)
Fall, spring, summer. 4 credits. Prerequisite: MATH 1920. Taking MATH 2930 and 2940 simultaneously is not recommended.
Introduction to ordinary and partial differential equations. Topics include: first-order equations (separable, linear, homogeneous, exact); mathematical modeling (e.g., population growth, terminal velocity); qualitative methods (slope fields, phase plots, equilibria, and stability); numerical methods; second-order equations (method of undetermined coefficients, application to oscillations and resonance, boundary-value problems and eigenvalues); Fourier series; linear partial differential equations (heat flow, waves, the Laplace equation); and linear systems of ordinary differential equations.

PE 1416 Swedish Massage And More
1 credit.
Swedish massage will be the common denominator as we explore multiple techniques to release stress and tightness in our bodies. We will have a bit of a sampler, with emphasis on understanding mechanisms of stress and how to interrupt patterns of movement that might be problematic over time. We will dabble in aromatherapy, The Trager Approach ®, reflexology, and massage with movement, to name a few. No prereq required.

PHYS 2214 Physics III: Oscillations, Waves, and Quantum Physics (PBS)
Fall, spring, summer (six-week session). 4 credits. Prerequisites: PHYS 2213 and MATH 1920, 2220, 2240 or 2130. (See list of overlapping physics courses.) Students may benefit from prior exposure to differential equations (at level of MATH 2930). Students lacking this background should co-register for MATH 2930. Students with strong performance in PHYS 2208 and who have taken vector calculus are also encouraged to enroll. Fall, R. Thorne; spring, staff; summer, D. Briota.
For majors in engineering (including biological, biomedical, and biomolecular engineering), computer science, physics, earth and atmospheric science, and other physical and biological sciences who wish to understand the oscillation, wave, and quantum phenomena behind much of modern technology and scientific/medical instrumentation. Covers physics of oscillations and wave phenomena, including driven oscillations and resonance, mechanical waves, sound waves, electromagnetic waves, reflection and transmission of waves, standing waves, beats, Doppler effect, polarization, interference, diffraction, transport of momentum and energy, wave properties of particles, and introduction to quantum physics. With applications to phenomena and measurement technologies in engineering, the physical sciences, and biological sciences.