Yes, this really was the view from the hike.

Awesome, isn't it? :)

HEY!

Alright, folks! It's VACATION now.

Okay, okay, this is a cruel world and while I have vacation, my dearest Claudia is still schlepping to Frankfurt every day for her internship, but in about three weeks, I'll start classes again and then she'll have vacation, so I guess it all evens itself out in the end. But seriously dumb timing!

And, of course, what you've all been wondering - how did my exams turn out? Well, I passed all of them. ALL of them. Some with a very tiny tiny margin, some by a more comfortable amount and let me tell you, I am just thrilled. I have never studied so hard in my life for exams and I could not have studied any less and done alright on the tests. This is a serious college system here. Hours of flashcards, hours in front of the whiteboard writing a theorem and an example, erasing it, writing it again from memory, sitting in the library redoing homework problems until my brain threatened to turn to mush -- but it was all worth it.

And now, it's about 70 degrees in Mainz every day, you can get ice cream on every other corner, and I'm indulging my total new love for cooking while I'm at home these days. :)

More on the cooking in a bit. The other thing I did was have my lovely father here for a visit! He was a real sport about being around at the time when I was just waiting around for the grades of my exam, waking up from nights or naps in which I had had multiple dreams that contained various scenarios about why I had failed, etc, etc. He calmed me down so much, we played a bunch of Cribbage (a fantastic game - do you know it? You should!) and had some wonderful conversations. We also took a day to go to Boppard (a small town along the Rhine from here a few miles where I actually went with my high school German class a lifetime ago) and found an amazing hike through the woods on the hills above the river. Actually, at times along the path, you could choose to do the harder "cliff walk" part of the climb instead of the normal hike, and of course, we took the harder way each time. And it was HARD. But fantastic!

There were completely unnecessary ladder rungs driven into rock walls that you would climb down only to have to go up a ladder a few minutes later, moments holding on to cables and the stone where you thought "Actually this isn't that bad," until you looked down and saw how far the river was below you. It was great. We walked for about two and a half hours and then sat on a bench and had some lunch and looked over the beautiful scenery, and then walked for another hour and a half or so and eventually made it back to the train station and we both fell asleep in the train on the way back to Mainz.

However, in that last hour and a half, we also came across the Boppart Jump Parachuting Team. Now, I don't know if what they were doing was actually called "jump parachuting" but that's what I've decided to call it. They were standing on this hillside above the river ( waaay above the river) and unfurled parachutes from backpacks that made them look like human turtles when they had them on, hoisted the parachutes into the air with help from other folks when the wind was right, saw them catch and hold in the air like a kite that's caught the right breeze, and then the daring soul attached to the parachute by many, many tiny strings would turn downhill, run, and jump into the air. It was incredible to watch. In the air, the turtle-pack would turn into a seat that they would sit on, and with delicate hand and arm movements (with all the strings connecting them to the parachute) they could go up, or down, or sail in circles, or even (in the case of the one grizzled old man who looked like he was completely at home in the air) sail around for a good five minutes further and further away from the take off point, then circle expertly around flap his parachute like the wings of a bird to clear the last stand of trees, and alight on the ground from where he left. Amazing to watch!

Now, in Mainz, I also had an adventure last weekend with a few friends. I'm not sure how many of you are at all familiar with the idea of geo-caching, but just in case you're not, I'll explain. Geo-caching is a new sort of game that has come about where you can go to a website (here), type in the post code of the place where you want to play this global-hide-and-seek, and then you'll get the coordinates of something(s) hidden in that area, and a tiny clue. If you are "old school" you can use a map to try and find the exact location of this thing and find the tiny, film-container sized object. Or, you can use a GPS device to find the location. We did the latter and believe me, it still didn't make the actually finding of the "cache" that much easier. But find them we did (3 out of 4, anyway). Usually it's a small tube of some sort (no bigger than the palm of your hand) in which is rolled up a list where everyone who has previously found the cache has written down their name and the time they found it. The crazy thing is to realize as you're writing your own name that the last people to find it were there just a half hour before you. The world is so interesting!

That's how I spent my last Sunday afternoon, and I encourage other people to try it! Now, finally, back to cooking.

I've gotten really excited about cooking this year. In short, I've been planning on making some exciting things in the next few weeks while I have the time. Tonight's plan: homemade ravioli. Yes, including the pasta dough. Oh man. This is gonna rock! :) I'll let you know how it goes!

One more thing!

I just took a fifteen-minute power nap (yes, yes, I am totally grateful and proud to admit that I am indeed capable of falling asleep for a fifteen minute nap, no matter where I am ((as long as I can lie down. Damn planes))) in which I had 3 separate dreams and in each dream some normal, everyday landscape (train station, university campus, etc.) turned into an amusement park. Slightly dizzying, yes, but COOL!

A few pictures!

Firstly, here's that crazy piece of paper with all the Stochastics information I took with me to the exam. Maybe I should have it framed...
Second, a picture of that sweet, sweet dog Abby that I haven't seen in months. My dad was kind enough to send me a picture the other day of what she looked like just after her bath!
And lastly, a picture my mom took of me in one of the pedestrian zones here in Mainz when she was here last week. We had such a fantastic visit!

Here's a few things that have happened to me lately.

1. Exams. I'll get back to that.

2. This whole internet-went-crazy-for-and-against-the-Invisible-Children-campaign. Those of you who happened to check my blog on the morning that I first saw the Kony 2012 video know that I got sucked in by it. Let's be frank - it's good movie making. Simple ideas, clear bad guy, adorable child, tries to convince the viewer that he/she can make a difference, scary music, moving pictures -(Haha! I meant 'moving' in the sense of emotional, but a video is also just "moving pictures" heehee...) basically, it had it all. And it got me. For a little while.

I watched the movie, went to the website and then started to think. The poor children, my brain said, the poor children. You with your shiny macbook are just sitting and worrying about exams and there are poor, suffering children out in the world. What can I do? Because I do care, I really do, and I'm at a loss for what to do. Then I read some more articles about the Invisible Children charity though not from the people in that charity. Then I took a step back. I thought about how I, a relatively emotionally susceptible person, was easily pulled into the sensationalist video that tells you all about the poor children in Uganda (though the movie director's white son has far more screen time than anyone from Uganda in that video). I got slightly angry (after reading some more about the charity, as I mentioned. In earlier posts there were links to these articles.) about being manipulated. Then I took another step back and thought about the innumerable ways we are manipulated by the media, even by causes we are trained to think are "good", such as charities that "help the poor children". I thought about how human empathy and sympathy and wanting to change things are such intrinsically good qualities that we have, and how cruel it is that I feel like I can't just trust them to be treated as such anymore. I'm sure I'm coming to this revelation rather late, but now, as a citizen of a global community, I have a right to blog about it and you have the right (I won't go so far as to say "privilege") to read about it.

Then I took another step back and thought about the state of the world. Then I took another step back and looked at how small my life is in comparison to the entire world and all the people in it. Then I took another step sort of to the side instead of back and looked at my binder and papers and highlighters on the table and realized that I was supposed to be studying now. Then I took another second to think and realized that I was already narrating this blog entry in my head and thought it would be more useful if I took the twenty minutes to write it than to just have it as an inner monologue. Maybe something more will come of it than me simply sitting and going "Huh." when the train of thought comes to its final station.

Basically, I feel as if these days I'm constantly hopping precariously from the micro to the macro - the micro being my current life and my finals, the macro being my future and the rest of the world. I keep feeling like I'm being pressed back into my seat on an airplane as it barrels down the runway when I have been thinking about my future good deeds with the Peace Corps or something similar and then a glance at the Residue Theorem on the white board brings me rocketing back to the exam on Monday. I'm trying to live in both worlds and do justice to both. I think we all have to do that, but right now, I'm keenly aware of it, and aware of the fact that it is hard.

Now, on the micro level, I'm 2/3 done. My Programming exam was already two weeks ago and though it was not what any of the students expected (due to some misleading comments by the TAs and professor), I don't think it went horribly. Stochastics was two days ago (crazy... I can't quite believe it!). I was COMPLETELY immersed in studying for it. The days leading up to the exam quite literally had me sitting and re-doing all of the homework assignments for six hours at a time, let alone rereading my notes from the lecture and memorizing formulas and writing as much as I could down on the one piece of paper we were allowed to bring with us (Yes, a picture will follow. :D ). And it paid off.

Now, of course I'm not sure now just how much it paid off - I don't have the results yet. And, well, frankly most of the people I was studying with seemed to think that it didn't go very well. But for me? Let's put it this way: nothing on the exam surprised me. True, I couldn't do every last bit of every last problem, but if one exam covers an entire semester of material and I don't get freaked out when I read the problems? That's a good sign. There were even a few problems that I was 100% sure on. And, after all, I just need to pass. I don't want to jinx anything, but - I'm fairly certain I've done that. :)

And now, just one more lonely exam up on the horizon. Complex Analysis and Differential Equations. 6 questions, three for each topic. 8 a.m. on Tuesday. I feel as if I've been running a marathon (particularly due to how I stretched myself for Stochastics) and all I want to do is sleep. But I know I will get to recuperate very soon, and more than that - my dad is coming to visit next week. I'm so excited!

Alright. Time to put the kettle on and then get back to work. See you all again soon! :)

Stochastics in 48 Minutes.

HERE WE GO!