In my 141A class from 11-12 today a couple of people talked at irregular intervals throughout lecture. It was highly irritating. However, for some reason, no one else seemed to be bothered by it, so the most I did was give one of them an irritated glance at one point. It may have helped temporarily, but it didn't take long for them to start up again. I don't understand why people do that in class. That class has other problems too, like having awful sight lines due to being longer than it is wide and densely packed in. If you're more than three rows back you spend the entire hour craning your neck in every direction in a futile effort to see the chalkboard.
I am having a hard time getting started on the paper I am writing based on the research I've done over the summer. I guess getting started is always the problem, and the solution is simply to start.
It was a good decision to get into the intermediate racquetball class. I am one of the worst students in the class, but that is much much better than being one of the best students in the class. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the worst, so I think it'll be good.
We've got a party about to start in the lab I work in. We recently moved locations to a nice new lab, and we're celebrating by drinking a lot of beer and eating a lot of pizza and junk food. Yeah!
I signed up for a racquetball class this semester, giving me a weird sort of symmetry where I took only two P.E. classes my entire time at Cal, once at the beginning and once at the end. I signed up for the intermediate class because I was afraid the beginner level class would be full of people who weren't into it. But I may be in a bit over my head. Hopefully I can hang in there and catch up to people. I'll be spending the rest of the day working, then go home and do a few loads of laundry. Hopefully I can get the rest of my room set up tonight too. Then the only thing I have to do is convince my roommate to go for DSL.
I talked to the professor of Physics 110B today, in an effort to help me decide whether to take that class or to take Astro 228. He was helpful, but in the end he didn't say anything that tipped me in one direction or another. Later on, however, I talked to a professor in the Astronomy department, and he indicated to me that graduate schools don't care so much whether or not you take a grad level class when they look at your qualifications and decide whether to admit you or not. That was one of the key things that made me want to take 228, that it might help my application stand out. But apparently, it does not. Then, just a few minutes ago, I talked to a friend of mine who is a grad student in the astronomy department, and he strongly reccommended that I take 110B, because it was all important stuff that I need to know, and I will have plenty of time in grad school to take astronomy classes.
So that's pretty much the nail in the coffin. It would have been really fun to take a grad level cosmology class, but I guess it can wait.
Today is the first day of class at Cal. I had a class from 9-10:30 that I had to leave early because of another class from 10-11. After that I had a class from 11-12, ate my lunch, and then came in to work, where I have been the rest of the day. I am faced with a rather difficult decision regarding which class to take. I have to choose between Astro 228 and Physics 110B. I think I outlined the problem yesterday, but anyway, the issue is that their lectures overlap by half an hour, so I can't take them both. 228 is quite a bit more interesting, but at the same time 110B provides more practical knowledge that theoretically I ought to know before I go to grad school.
So, I'm going to consult with a few professors and some grad students that I know and see what they say, then make my decision by the end of the week or earlier. Right now I am leaning towards 110B.
I went camping with Tiffany Wed-Fri, and didn't get to a computer with internet access until earlier today when I went in to work for a little bit. I didn't get too much done, but I did get to check my email and keep track of my fantasy baseball teams.
School starts tomorrow. I'm currently signed up for three classes, but I'll drop one of them and end up with only two classes this semester. I am allowed to do that because I'm on the degree list this semester, meaning that this is my last semester at UC Berkeley as an undergrad. I'm signed up for Astro 228, a graduate class on cosmology, Physics 110B, a second semester class on E&M, and Physics 141A, a class on solid-state physics--something I know nothing about. The cosmology class the potential to be the most interesting and the most challenging, but at the same time I've already had some cosmology and this is the time when I should be getting a breadth of physics classes in. However, the instructor for 228 is supposed to be really good, and that may be the key factor in the decision making process. Initially, my plan had been to drop 141A as long as I could handle 228, but it turns out that there is a time conflict between 228 and 110B, so I may have to drop 110B if I really like the cosmology class.
The rest of my time this semester will be spent on finishing up the paper that I'm writing based on the research I did over the summer, studying for the GRE and applying to grad schools, and potentially another project with a professor in the astronomy department having to do with instrumentation.
I think the moral of this post is that now with fewer posts the content of each one is going to go up by quite a bit.
I've moved most of my stuff in to my new co-op apartment at Fenwick. It is about a fifteen minute walk to campus coming from the south. The apartment itself is extremely spacious; in fact, I think once I have all my stuff unpacked we'll have more room than we need (it's a two bedroom apartment, so I have one roommate, but the common space is enough for at least three people).
Currently, the main problem with my room is that the mattress I have is really gross and dirty. The issue is that I want to have an extra wide mattress to sleep on, and there aren't any bed frames available that will fit an extra wide mattress. I have this sofa thing that folds out into a bed frame, but it is not long enough to hold a standard size mattress, so I had to use this reallly dirty mattress that is shorter instead. I slept on it last night though, and it was pretty comfortable. So I guess I need to get bigger sheets that will cover the entire mattress so I don't have to see it or touch it. Or I might order a piece of foam that will fit into the bed frame that I have, or I might make another effort at getting a large bed frame tonight.
My room is also missing a pole in the closet to hang clothes on, so I need to get that as soon as possible. The last thing I need to get is a bookcase for my books. I guess I can just stuff them under the bed like I always have done, but since there is room now for a bookcase, I'd really like to get one. I'm thinking of making a trip to Ikea next weekend.
My computer at home is not connected to the internet at all right now, and I don't know if that will change at all over the course of the semester. It looks like high speed access is not going to happen, but I may put my modem into my computer and use dial up access from time to time.
Softball is tonight, then camping tomorrow, so it'll be awhile before I make another update.
I went out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant with some friends of mine from astronomy, including one guy who is leaving for Arizona on Sunday. It was a real good time, except that later on I did not feel so good after eating a tempura dinner. In fact, it took me forever (till 2am) to fall asleep because I had an upset stomach, and then I woke up at 5am due to a severe case of diarrhea. Then I woke up again at 7am for the same reason. After having to get out of bed again at 8am for another tromp to the bathroom, I decided to stay awake. I'm feeling a little better now, but still even the thought of tempura makes me want to puke.
Today and tomorrow I'll be moving my stuff to my new apartment, so internet access may be spotty.
I did pretty well at poker last night, making a $15 profit after about two hours of playing. There were a number of people (actually, exactly 5) who didn't know what they were doing, and that always makes it easy. However, even the people who lost money said they had a good time, so I guess the game will keep on going.
Today the entire body of work I have done has been to run a program that takes forever to run. And unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot else for me to work on. It has been quite boring. Tonight is poker, then tomorrow it'll probably be more of the same boring work. Saturday and Sunday I move, then camping sometime next week, then classes start the week after.
We had 18 people for softball, and it was one of the best games we've had in awhile. We started a half hour earlier and the game was decided by a three run homer in the bottom of whatever inning it was that the game ended. We came back from something like seven runs down in that inning. It was great. Plus I made up for the four bucks I lost last week.
I'm thinking about moving softball next week to Tuesday, so that I can play the night before we head off to go camping. Either that or I may try playing racquetball for the first time in my life that night. Not yet sure which.
My family came up to Berkeley today to get another look at the place that I've spent the past four years of my life in. First we went to lunch at a nice restaurant on the edge of the bay, which had some very nice seafood. Then, we went drove up to the Space Sciences Lab, where I worked for much of my first three years in college. Then we went down to the lab in the physics department where I work now, doing far more interesting research than I did at SSL. After that, we went to Fenton's Creamery for some really good ice cream sundaes. They ended up being in Berkeley for about four hours, which was good enough to cover the spots that they didn't get to see when they came up for my graduation.
Tomorrow I go back to work. Then softball, then on Thursday it looks like there'll be a game of poker at night. We'll be playing in my lab, which happens to have a table large enough to accomodate a good game of poker.
Right now though, I am somewhat bored. Tiffany just left for Colorado to visit her family, and I've somewhat exhausted the possible things for me to do.
My family is visiting me in Berkeley tomorrow. The plan is they come up around noon, then we go to a restaurant by the bay for lunch, then I show them around campus for a couple of things they didn't get to see on my graduation day, then we get some ice cream and then they go home. It should be fun.
I finished Speaker for the Dead, the sequel to Ender's Game. I liked Speaker for the Dead even better than I liked Ender's Game. It seemed to have more meaning to it, particularly with regard to issues of acceptance and truth.
Softball Wednesday, poker Thursday, something Friday, then maybe start moving stuff Saturday/Sunday.
I haven't been updating my site as much recently. I guess I haven't had too much to report. Softball went ok; we had 14 people so I lost $4, but it's of course worth it. I may even make up for it next week, although I doubt it. It seems like everyone is trying to get in their vacation before school starts.
In case you're color blind, I made a new "skin", so to speak, for my website. Let me know which one you like better. I'm currently leaning towards the green. Eventually I'll figure out how to give people the choice as to which skin they want to use.
Work is going well. The professor I'm working for this summer recently characterized my work as 'excellent' and 'fucking awesome'. It's a good feeling. We spent most of the day at work today packing for the move tomorrow. So I didn't get too much done and won't get much done tomorrow either.
I currently have no plans for the weekend, but my family is going to visit me on the 12th. I'm going to give them a more thorough tour of Berkeley. I've got to figure out the details of the camping trip before then, so I know what I need to ask them to bring for me (they're quite generous for letting me use stuff :).
I played golf today with a couple of guys who had their first game of golf on a real course ever. They played up to their ability, and I did my best to fit right in. I was hoping to shoot a 95, but I wound up with a 100. In particular, with three holes to go I realized I needed to be four over or less on the last three holes to break 100, but I failed to do it. It was a frustrating round, particularly because it took so long (about five hours).
I've been posting picture galleries. In particular, check out the new night time pictures of the bay area. My new camera kicks butt!
Tiffany and I have been discussing the possibility of going camping somewhere in California. She mentioned that Point Reyes is very nice, so perhaps that might be the place to go. But we haven't thought much about the logistics of the whole trip, like when we'll go, for instance. So it's more of a thought than anything else at this point.
I took an old physics GRE test on Sunday. I did ok, getting about 50th percentile, but I made some stupid mistakes that could have raised my score a little bit really easily. After I took the test I went over the questions I missed with a friend of mine who is also going to be taking the test this semester. I've got some work to do, but it's not a terrible start.
"Time seems to stand quite still
in a child's world, it always will."
-Moody Blues, Days of Future Passed
I really like that line. I think it was very true for me in my childhood.
I finished Ender's Game, at about midnight last night. So that means there was about 26 hours between the time I first opened the book and the time I finished it. It was a good book, but the end left me somewhat unsatisfied. I felt Card could have spent more time talking about the relationship between Peter, Valentine, and Ender after Ender's "Final Exam".
I also spent some time last night driving around Berkeley in Tiffany's car. I even got on the freeway for a little bit at one point. Quite exciting. In particular, there was one point where I had some trouble getting the car going (in first) and we both laughed very hard as the card jolted forward and made loud noises that did not sound particularly good.
As of yet, I have no plans for the weekend. I think I should really devote a good portion of my time to studying physics for the GRE. We'll see how it goes.