Writing Christmas cards..

Hello!

So, I spent some quality time with my new complex analysis book. I'm not sure if the two of us will be best friends, but -- certainly more likely than me being best friends with my Stochastics TA! I know I left that story sort of hanging earlier, and I won't go into much detail now. Basically, I find him arrogant, intimidating, and really not adept at teaching. And rather petty. But who knows what I would think of him if were better at Stochastics. :P

I think that blogs make it very easy to let go of the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" rule that we all learned as kids. Sure, ranting is really fun and sometimes rather important, but I don't think I'll spout my venom about that workshop here. Especially because now, I'm over it! If I write about it, it'll just come back!

Right now I'm flopped on the couch and trying to convince myself to write some Christmas cards. It's not that I don't want to write them or don't want to be in contact with the people to whom I will send the cards -- it's just that I would so much rather sit down with them and have a cup of coffee, show them around the apartment and the city - or just hug them (a lot of them I haven't seen in four months or more) - and because of that, it's so hard for me to bring myself to write a tiny card. But alas, I want to send something! And I do miss the people, and want to hear from them, so -- los geht's!

(Note: It's becoming harder and harder to think in English. Really.)

(Note 2: I'm gonna have serious German language withdrawal back in California. Help.)

A cozy afternoon...

My girl is in Germersheim until tomorrow, and I made it through Stochastics lecture and workshop today, went to the library, and trudged all the way up the five flights of stairs with my overflowing backpack today with one thought sustaining me:

I now get to sit in a big comfy chair, a hot water bottle for my back (stupid backpack), a cup of tea (or coffee- haven't decided yet), and two math books IN ENGLISH that I found in the Math library today. Did I suddenly turn 60 overnight? Perhaps. Does that make this any less blissful? No. :)

Heads up - I may write later ranting about my Stochastics TA. I have to wait a few more hours before I write that, though, or I'll just end up punching the keyboard.

But other than that, it's a beautiful day, and I'm gonna go flirt with some integrals now! Ciao!

!

This is hilarious.

One of the best things about my generation:

Hey.

Writing this message is part of a long series of procrastination attempts, but let's ignore that for a second.

I'm writing right now because today I have just been overpowered by the initiative and creativity of my generation, specifically the Nerdfighteria movement. Some of the people who read this are already familiar with Nerdfighters and are smiling right now as they read it -- others have never heard of it and think it sounds pretty darn silly. Let me give you a brief background of Nerdfighteria and then I can tell you the specifics of it that have so impressed me today.

A while ago, two brothers named Hank and John Green started a youtube channel called 'vlogbrothers' and made videos three times a week, addressed to one another. They talked about all sorts of things from music to video games to strife in other countries or relevant pieces of the news. These days, a community has grown around their videos. It's often referred to as 'Nerdfighteria', and its fans refer to themselves as 'Nerdfighters' and use the motto/slogan "DFTBA" meaning: Don't Forget To Be Awesome. John is an author and has written more than three novels, and Hank is an entrepreneur and founder of organizations such as EcoGeek.org and DFTBA records, a music producing company that has allowed many youtube musicians who otherwise don't have the means to get record deals be able to produce their own music.

One of the most recent interests of the Nerdfighters has been the website Kiva. This website enables people who are NOT investment bankers or large corporations to loan small amounts of money to people around the world who are trying to start/better their businesses. The Vlogbrothers mentioned this website in their videos a short while ago and encouraged their viewers to go and join the Nerdfighter group on Kiva. Since those videos went up a few weeks ago, the Nerdfighter group on Kiva has collectively loaned more than $110,000.

I went to Kiva myself today and loaned money to a man in Tajikistan who is trying to buy a milking cow. And I thought about all of the other Nerdfighters my age around the world who have joined this movement, and I was so proud to be a part of them. I often have rather grumpy thoughts about my generation (or at least the stereotypes of it) and was so overjoyed today, I thought I would share that with you.

I realize this entry is a bit more of a public service announcement than most of what I write here is, but I really think that this is something non-Nerdfighters should hear.

I'm going to get back to Complex Analysis, but in comments, please let me know what you think. Nerdfighter readers (:D), let me know if you've gone to Kiva!

Have a lovely rest of your Saturday, everyone.

I'm back!

Whew!!

I'm sorry I was gone for so long, but that cold/flu/yuckyness really got me last week. Being sick while you're a student is always hard, because first you suffer from the awfulness of being sick and then after you have to suffer the painful 'catching-up-with-work' process. I actually listened to Claudia and didn't go to class for a few days, and I'm sure that made my sickness much shorter than it would have been if I had just forced myself to go. Luckily, I had someone I could count on in the classes that I missed, I've copied down all the notes that I missed from each one and have been to each of the lectures once since I wasn't there, and it's not completely over my head, so I think I'll be okay!

Just for a class update, let me tell you what's going on in each of them right now. In Complex Analysis, we looked at lots of complicated integrals the week before last and went from there to look at logarithms, etc. Now we're into Laurent Series - a special kind of power series, for you math people out there. Very exciting. Power series make sense to me, so I'm looking forward to this chapter!

In Stochastics, we had a brief (and lovely) interlude for the last four classes in which we talked about the classic probability problems - you have 'n' different balls in a bag, pull out one, write down which one it is and either put it back or don't (two different stochastic models) - what is the probability that a certain number of balls come out in a specific order, etc. [I just got back from juggling class, and as I took my juggling balls one by one out of my bag when I got to the university, all I could think of was the stochastics problem!] I say that this was a lovely interlude because before that, we were talking about extremely abstract kinds of distribution functions and I just didn't have quite a solid enough picture of those kinds of functions in my head to be able to wrap my mind around the problems we were supposed to be doing.

The metaphor I tend to use for that class is: When you read the notes from the lecture or the solutions to the homework problems, it's like reading a language that you can understand, but you do not know how to write. Then, of course, you have to DO the homework problems, which IS writing that language - it's almost like writing poetry in that language! (I'm not saying that the problems are particularly beautiful*, but just that poetry is hard to write and these proofs are pretty damn hard, too!). Afterwards, it all seems so simple, but when you're sitting there with your brain and your pencil, it seems kind of impossible to get right! I think we're diving back into the theory next week, but the last four lectures have made a lot more sense to me than the others, and that's AWESOME.

In computer programming, the main lesson I have learned is this. We have to hand in our homework in groups of four, and I could spend an hour and then some explaining to all of you the fantastic, frustrating, and often hilarious dynamics of my group. BUT - all in all, that is my favorite class right now. In that class, it is very clear to see when you are learning something because you can WRITE A PROGRAM AND MAKE A COMPUTER DO SOMETHING! I'm very, very proud of how much I've figured out so far, and I think it can only get better. I wasn't expecting to like programming this much, but I really do. :) Awesome surprise!

In non-school news, Mainz is coming alive with Christmas now. We have several Christmas markets in the city, including one right on the square in front of the train station, so I see it every time I go to class. :) My juggling is also coming along, and last week I couldn't go to rock climbing (sickness- bah!) but I will go tomorrow and hope I haven't forgotten everything! I don't think I have. ;)

I hope this is a good catch-up for everyone, and I hope all of you are avoiding the colds that are flying around every country at this time of year. Let me know how you're doing and I'll write something here again soon!

:-)

*There are, in fact, many things in math that I find beautiful. Stochastics proofs (so far) are not one of them.

Sick today...

Sick today, but all's well if your girlfriend brings you a teddy bear, a teddy hippo, lots of blankets and a cup of tea. I really need someone to convince me to just stay in bed when I actually am sick, and thank goodness I have C. I will be recuperating today, but I thought the teddy bear and hippo were too cute to be missed, so enjoy.

:-)

Internationaler Abend

A fantastic weekend and pictures to prove it!

Last Friday night, I went to Germersheim for the college's International Evening. I got to hang out with a lot of people that I hadn't seen in ages, and we had dinner together and then went to the party at the university and had an amazing time. There was a band playing, silly pictures were taken, lots of languages were thrown around, and there was yummy food!

It was wonderful to get that chance to relax on Friday since last week was a rather tiring week for me. As a matter of fact, just being a student again seems to be tiring! I guess I had such a long summer vacation this year I kind of got out of the studying rhythm. I'm getting back into it as I write, denying myself a cup of tea until I've worked at least an hour on my computer programming homework.. it's amazing how slow time goes by without tea!

Anyways, our new friend David took during the Friday night shenanigans. I'll put them up in the next post!

In other news, not much is new. I keep putting new dates into my planner for when I'm visiting people or people are visiting me, and the weekends just seem to be getting more and more crowded! The train station has big model Christmas trees next to it now and I'm listening to the first Harry Potter movie soundtrack and thinking about Christmas and making lists of potential presents for people. Now, with all that to do, who would think about computer programming homework?

I've got to run and apply myself now, but you'll get another update soon, and I hope you enjoy the pictures!

A few pictures from Weimar

Josi, you take such wonderful pictures!!! :D

I'm in the middle of a day that started at 8 at the university with Complex Analysis and will end at 8 at the university with rock climbing, and in between, TONS of homework! So unfortunately I can't write much now, but I thought you might like these pictures. :)

I spent six hours in a row in the math building today.

8:00-10:00 Differenzialgleichungen und Funktionentheorie

10:00-12:00 (Homework for the above class)

12:00-14:00 Übung for the above class.

That was a long morning! I walked out of the building just now and wondered at how it was still light out and everything! I felt I'd spent the whole day in there. But some good progress was made!

I'm feeling much more at home on campus now. I know everywhere that I need to go and how to get there (I almost even know which ways are the fastest). Right now, I'm sitting in one of the workrooms upstairs in the library, waiting for my computer programming group to get here so we can do our homework. There's something so thrilling and terrifying about having your own grade on homework be determined by a group... Each group of four people turns in only one assignment. Yikes! I mean, that's also really nice since you don't have to do the entire thing alone (unlike in my other classes!). We'll just see how well we work together!

While I'm waiting for them to show up, I'll just sit here and enjoy some cold water, think about the Thai food I'll be eating tonight (I'm so excited!) and about how I'll get to see Josi tomorrow.

:) I'll put up some pictures from Weimar soon. Until then, enjoy your Tuesday, all!

Hello, everyone!

I realize I haven't posted anything in a few days, but I've been a bit busy with classes and weekend plans, but I wanted to take the time now to check in. In short, I had my second week of classes, though still not a proper week. Starting next week, I will finally have ALL my classes with ALL of the workshops and things that go along with them. This week, I turned in my first two homework assignments and had my first Stochastics workshop, but next week, I will actually have workshops for Programming and Complex Analysis as well. This week, I also had my second rock climbing class and I was AWESOME. I was basically just taking a stroll up and down the walls. It was amazing. I'll try to sneak my camera in there next week!

This week was a bit stressful, to say the least, which is kind of upsetting because I only had a four-day week, since Tuesday was a holiday! But this weekend, some fun things are planned. Today, C and I are going to a friends house for lunch, one of the other Middlebury students. Tonight, there's a fair-like thing going on in a small town near here and we're thinking of going there tonight with one of Claudia's friends and that friend's friends. :) Tomorrow, I will be getting together with a classmate to work on Stochastic homework - that might not sound like some fantastically fun plan, but I am so thrilled to be making a connection with another student that I really am over the moon about it. I hope it goes well.

Another exciting thing - Josi will be coming to visit us briefly next week, and next Friday is the International Evening party in Germersheim, so I will be heading there on Friday evening. Also, a little bit more in the future, Claudia and I have bought tickets for a concert in Frankfurt! A friend of Claudia's gave her some amazing music this week, and we've been listening to it ever since and decided almost immediately to buy tickets for this concert on December 2. I'm thrilled already! Here - have a listen:

Alles Du - Kleingeldprinzessin

English speaking friends, if you want to know what she's singing, just ask me!

Also, lastly, I've posted a picture of my lovely, lovely dog Abby here. Okay, so she's not strictly speaking "MY" dog, but rather my family's, and she's still back in Pennsylvania. She is a terrier mix that we got from the pound, probably around 10 years old by now (or a little older), and she's someone that I've been missing a great deal lately! I hope you all find her as adorable as I do.

Alright, as much as I'd love to keep writing here, I should probably get started on my new homework. I'll check in again soon. :)

Second Mainz Video up!

Go ahead and watch it!