yosemite

The trip was really good. Better than expected. Small and cozy group, we hiked for almost 7 miles. It was beautiful. Didn't sleep much last night though, less than 6 hours, and then a full day of hiking, so pretty tired. The perfect escape from life.

Click on photos for larger versions.







(By the way, I was in a cabin with Trevor and Yao, and apparently I woke both of them up at 3 am by getting their attention and asking what girlpuffs were. Ermm....)

i'll marry whoever gets me one of these

no joke! well, maybe joke.

ps. I'm 10% (or so) convinced that all my unfortunate luck this year comes from my clock. It is cursed. Clocks are supposed to stay at whatever time you set them at, or--if they're malfunctioning--get slower and slower. My clock does not. Regardless of what time you set it at, it KNOWS the real time and will adjust itself within the day to be either 10 minutes ahead or 10 minutes behind.

I have done many empirical trials with many different hypotheses. My drawmates have helped me too. But it's cursed. It resets itself to exactly 10 minutes behind the real time, regardless of whether I set it on the real time or 5 minutes ahead or 9 minutes ahead. I've tried so many things. How does a clock know what time it is, independent of what I set it at?!?

all nighters, anyone?

It's almost 3 am and the hall shows no signs of sleeping!

Lights are on everywhere. Clare and I are working on our problem sets--Statistics and Statics, respectively, haha. Another guy who doesn't even live in our dorm is on our floor, working on a CS problem set. CS (the person) is next door typing his problem set up. Gary is up working on an EE problem set. Yao has already announced his plan to pull an all-nighter for his problem set. And Vincent and Francis are both still up, presumably working in their dorms on their work!

I don't know how far everyone else is, but I'm nowhere near done with my stuff for tomorrow. Is it just a weird joke that all engineering classes have problem sets due Wednesday?!

I'm tired....sleep!!!!..... :(

ps. Clare, looking over: "You're blogging instead of working??!"

pps. Clare and Trevor and I ate an entire loaf of banana bread today.

dreams bleed into reality

Sometimes I have really vivid dreams and later on I think little things that happened in dreams actually happened in real life. Actually that happens to me on a semi-regular basis.

Other times I feel strong emotions in dreams and when I wake up I feel like that for the rest of the day.

Other times I wake up from dreams within dreams and it's layered and when I wake up for real I'm not immediately sure if it's reality or still a dream.

And (although this is the most rare), once in a while I really, really feel that reality is a dream. Not in the fantasy "I wish this were a bad dream" way, but in a physical feeling that my surroundings are made up and from a dream.

Crazy! I think dreaming is amazing. Reminds me of this xkcd comic:

material happiness

Midnight ride down the 280 in Gary's new car, which he picked up today. It's a dark, dark gray BMW coupe with a sunroof....in his words, a "pretty sweet ride." It is in fact a very smooth ride and a really nice car. His driving leaves something to be desired (he kind of doesn't notice stop signs...and has a hard time with red lights too), but I guess it's only in college that you'll get to drive at 110mph down a deserted highway while listening to classical music in a brand new BMW. At times I feared for my life. But at others I just sat back and enjoyed.

anecdotal

Clare: You know, dim lighting does seem to increase productivity.
Me: What?
Clare: Haven't you noticed that you work better when it's dim?
Me: Umm....not really.
Clare: Oh. Maybe this is how CS majors differ from everyone else.

I've developed a dislike for wearing real clothes. Pajamas are amazing. I wore pajamas when we went to the trampoline place, I wore pajamas to the Xanadu party last weekend (not quite up to standards with the low-cut shirts all the other girls were wearing), and I wear them at least half of the time I'm the the dorm. PAJAMAS! AMAZING! :)

I also have cardboard box in the middle of my floor that contains about 30 individual bags of Cheetos. It's been there for about three days. Gary dumped it in our room and refuses to take it back. What am I supposed to do with 30 bags of Cheetos? I don't even like Cheetos that much. Hum. Anyone want Cheetos? I'll mail you some.

Reading about the VT shootings sends shivers down my spine. The New York Times reported that not a single one of the injured victims was shot fewer than 3 times. Head, abdomen, chest. Wrist, elbow, arm. That's scary.

an interesting article

pearls before breakfast: washington post cover, sunday, april 8

it's a lovely day

Don't take my depressing posts too seriously. I don't. :)

ps. the average on my E60 final last quarter was a 43/100. Hahaha. 23% of the class got between 0 and 10 points. How can people actually get below a 10 on a final.......?

adrift

I know I haven't posted in a few days. Partially because nothing has happened and partially because posting requires thinking and if it's one thing I came home to escape from, it's thinking. It's been a good few days. Relaxing. I'm not doing anything, not thinking about much. Just floating along, eating and reading and sleeping odd hours, and being carried. For once, my parents aren't even telling me to be "productive." They just let me eat and sleep and read and stay in bed all day. It's nice.

Thunderstorms today. Also quite beautiful. Scary to drive during but lovely to listen to and even to be in. I feel....peaceful, almost. I surrender myself to whatever the future will bring. No expectations.

sushi; femaleness + techiness

I went to a delicious sushi place in San Mateo for lunch today. Totally made my day.

Clare pointed out that the girls of the draw group (her, me, and Tina) have been getting more....female. Haha. Poor Trevor. We have been, though. I've noticed it too. Kinda nice :) You know what else? When I got back from San Mateo this afternoon, Trevor was studying in our room, and he said, "Yay, Helen's back!" and was happy about it even though I just sat down and started playing Tetris like always. Isn't it nice, when your presence is appreciated, even if you're not being interesting or funny or anything else? It is. I think our draw group really just enjoys being together, which is what makes us work so well.

Oh, by the way, my femaleness factor was once rated 0.8/1.0 by a general consensus (compared to such numbers as 0.9 for Winnie, 0.7 for Tina, 0.2 for Yao, and 0 for Peng). My techiness factor is 0.7/1.0 (compared to 0.4 for Winnie, 0.8 for Yao, and 0.3 for Peng, and 1 for Vincent).

I guess I'm pretty female and pretty techy. I wonder if I should take a fuzzy class next quarter just to balance my schedule out, or if I should keep it at the 2 engineering + 2 MS&E + 1 CS that it's at right now. Hmm.......fuzz. Always a question of to take or not to take.