Notables from the Daily Smush

The Daily Smush is what I call my commute in my head. Some days it's less smushy than others (if I leave rather late or rather early, for example) but most of the time, it's quite the smush.  Today, I was pressed up against the doors on a very full BART car as we went under the bay, and against my back I could feel an occasional thump, thump, thump in the tunnel - I'm sure this was wind and air pressure buffeting the doors and ricocheting off the tunnel walls, but of course, my head actually thought: "We're under the bay - we must be hitting some fish as we go by." Herp derp derp. Sometimes, my brain cracks me up.

Also, the new building that the office is in has interesting elevators - I keep meaning to take a sneaky picture of them, but, you know, as elevators there is a high chance someone else will happen upon me in that moment and I haven't dared to take such a picture yet. The point is, they are interesting because you can only choose what floor you want to go to from the outside - the inside has no buttons at all. I haven't quite worked out if I think this is cool or just terribly inefficient (there are three elevators, one might be in use to take me to floor 4 ((you stand at the keypad outside, push the floor number, and it tells you whether to go to door A, B, or C, and you go to said elevator, then woosh- up you go) and another one to take someone to floor 19, therefore using two elevators for generally 'up' directions, instead of the traditional 'we both want to go up, what floor are you, four, okay, you?, 19, okay' model). I feel like it must say something about the corporate world I dabble in here, but I haven't figured out what that is yet.

Also, I happened to be walking down the street from the train station this morning and I heard someone exclaim to the person next to them (while gesticulating and pushing away a piece of paper that the other was holding) "You know what? F*** math, f*** numbers!!" which just made me smile as I wandered off to my office of math and numbers. I have no idea what they were talking about, but it's probably not the math I like anyway.

Finally, last night, I had dinner with friends - work friends, school friends, new friends - at a beautiful house up past the Berkeley hills in an area called Kensington. The house is more beautiful than I can describe and my friend Kate made us an incredible dinner - an amazing pork roast (a departure from the kosher household I grace on a daily basis), ratatouille (made from scratch from veggies at the Lake Merritt Farmer's Market), and green beans gently sauteed with some olive oil and then topped with lemon juice from a lemon I brought from the tree. And we ate in this dining room:

 The lemon also happened to be pear- or teardrop-shaped (REALLY), and I didn't get a picture of it, but it inspired a conversation that went something like this.
"Haha, that lemon is so weird looking! It's a pear-lemon, or apple-lemon..."
--"Don't make fun of it, it's just a bit confused about its identity."
"Well, that makes sense, it's from Berkeley. Lots of folks are confused about their identities."
--"Yeah, especially with so many fruits around."

Also, there were some dogs around (of course ), which makes me so happy, including Bama, who featured a few posts ago:

Picturesque as ever. Here, she doesn't look at all like Bamalamadingdong, which is her name when she acts rather goofy and bounces off the walls. But she's just a wee thing (about 2), so that huge energy makes sense.

And now, I'm at the office. Tuesday, and my last day of on-site work is Friday. How can this summer almost be over?

This is how I feel about summer right now. :) Let's do this.

Headphones might be one of my favorite inventions.

It's amazing how well I start to concentrate when I put in my headphones - I mean, even my daydreaming becomes more focused.

Also, I happened upon one of my favorite childhood movies this weekend and I think it's worthy of attention.

The Point: 1971

As I was thinking about, I kept being reminded of another movie that, on the surface, might be considered a kid's movie as well - one that my friends have heard me blabber quite a lot about.

Flatland: The Movie, 2007. Yes, I know it was a book first. What kind of math major do you think I am?

These two films are just pretty damn awesome (pfc, as one of my closest friends calls such things - I'll let you figure out what that stands for) and I was thinking about them today and on the weekend. Now, I need to go back to learning about things like heteroskedasticity, which along with being a pfc word, is a rather interesting concept. I'm climbing into the cave of algorithms ("algos", apparently), just so you know. I will emerge on Friday, my last day of work at Primarq (at least my last day on-location, if you will). In the meantime, go google 'recursion' and see what happens, have a laugh, and think of me.

Weekend

I crashed into this weekend. I stumbled and fell, slept and felt dazed, drank tea and thought. That's sort of how it felt the whole time. I went to Santa Cruz with my friend Carly and had a good time, but inside I felt really confused, mixed-up, and out of place. I just got back to Berkeley and have realized that part of what made the weekend wonky was that I was doings things because I felt I should, and hardly any of them because I wanted to. And I'm doing something I want to do right now, and have been for the past hour, and it's like breathing fresh air after a transatlantic flight.

I found my journal from Thailand and spent some time rereading it yesterday.

I saw this picture at a friend's house and found it so sweet.

And I went and greeted the chickens and the yard after a weekend away, and was rewarded with this.

Now I'm going to go on a walk with a good friend and mostly just keep breathing for the rest of the evening. No more shoulds for today.

:)

I only did it for about ten minutes today, but I forgot how much I liked teaching, and ten minutes was enough to remember. :)

There Was No Smoking Gun

-When do you trust fear instincts? 

Erin and I were having this conversation a few days ago, late night and standing around the island in the kitchen. I was talking about my interactions with people on BART and the bus that I have mentioned here – when do you trust people, when does it become obvious that another individual does not trust me (for example, when you tap someone on the shoulder, they turn around, shocked and already bracing themselves – and then I might say, “I’m sorry, you dropped your scarf,” or something similar). We are so ready to mistrust others, and this makes me sad – but the interesting thing about my conversation with Erin is that I think emotionally, we come at that fact from different angles.

I don’t mean that Erin thinks people are generally bad and I think people are generally good – well, perhaps the latter, but I don’t believe the former. Erin is, however, a self-declared introvert and I am emphatically not, and this characteristic is, I believe, important when it comes to evaluating these situations. Am I more inclined to trust people I don’t know because, inherently, I do not mind interacting with them? Or is that basis level of trust (which is, I think, higher than Erin’s) due to some other trait I possess?

When someone stands next to you on the train and you feel uncomfortable – what does that mean? Does it mean anything? Does it mean that you are overthinking things and are nervous, or does it mean that that person is actually dangerous? I think sometimes, real instinct does kick in – we are animals after all. A certain person, charming as they might seem, gives us the creeps and especially when they seem outwardly “pleasant” or “friendly” and we get the heebie-jeebies, I think we should listen. There are lots of fascinating cases when that feeling, a real gut-feeling uninformed by anything else, has proven to be incredibly accurate. But is that true so often? Is that weird-smelling, perhaps greasy-haired individual next to you really dangerous? That old woman, the homeless man – we don’t know. I think we should certainly maintain our own comfort level. If that means moving out of the way when someone who makes us nervous steps on to the train, well, so be it. But is it always necessary? Is there really something to fear?

I have been called (a) an (bubbleheaded) optimist, naïve, etc. I don’t think those things are true. The optimist/pessimist debate is pointless and that being said, I have participated in it several times – with people I love, people I dislike, and people that I don’t care much about at all, and it is pointless. That is, debating which one is “better” or “more accurate” is pointless. I do think that individuals fall slightly to one or the other side of that line and after discussing the dangers of strangers with several people who see it from different sides – a policeman, an ER doctor, commuters, optimists, pessimists, introverts, extroverts – I have come to a conclusion of sorts.

There are people out there who are dangerous, no doubt about it (‘no bout a doubt it’, as we used to say growing up). Still, after all those conversations – I have realized that if a person is really dangerous, and if that harm is imminent (read: not just that it would be dangerous if I went into that person’s apartment, or got in that person’s car – but rather danger to me as I am standing next to this person in public) – then there isn’t time to do anything about it. Real harm in those situations comes out of nowhere, and it’s fast – whether it’s a knife, a gun, or a fist – usually, we don’t have time to figure it out.

I don’t mean to give such a morbid conclusion, but it’s actually supposed to be hopeful, or at least it sounds that way in my head. The vast majority of people in this world are not dangerous and probably not crazy, either. So, the chances of this happeneing are slim. If someone seeks out an interaction with you – offers to carry your groceries, or something equally benign – and the willies start to creep in, listen, I say. But I don’t think it’s worth it to stand in fear on platforms and in train cars. Whatever happens happens. Listen, but don’t overthink.

Something to read

So, I'm not sure if you've heard of 'The Oatmeal' - The Oatmeal is a website, is a person?, is a blog, is a comic strip - one that I read sometimes. The illustrations and stories are sometimes disturbing, sometimes odd, and always hilarious. This morning, I read this comic - about why the author goes running. Now, don't turn away just at that - I almost did. "I don' wanna spend my time reading about why someone else is awesome, in particular when it comes to exercise, while I'm sitting like a lazy bum at my laptop.." but I clicked anyway, and the last few minutes were well-spent. Touching, even. So, if you have a few minutes, give it a shot.

New Office

Corner office. 

 Fifteenth floor. :)

Illustrated

My birthday:

Going from this...

To this.

With a little bit of this in between.

Stand Up

Okay. A friend at my party last night sent me this video. It's a standup video from Maria Bamford. The first few minutes were a bit awkward and I was skeptical, and now I've just heard one of the funniest jokes I have heard in about a year and I can't wait to watch the rest. Check it out - give it a shot!

Btdubs, the moment I am talking about is from minute 10:45-11. But you can't just jump to that spot. Gotta let it build up.

"I think I'm having the adult version of a tantrum."

This, I remarked to my friends Erin and Miranda this afternoon while cleaning up from yesterday's festivities. Tight shoulders, frown, contrary thoughts, whining - "Actually," I continued after a brief pause and some reflection, "I think it's still just a normal tantrum." I didn't want my friends to leave, didn't want the week to begin, just felt like waving my hands at the world and yelling "hold on, just one damn minute! Give us a sec to breathe!!" I think everyone has those moments.

In general, this weekend was lovely. Last year's and this year's birthdays of mine will stand out in my mind for a long time. Both were high points in terms of friendship - each time I was shocked and pleased at the number of people, and the different kinds of people, that came to celebrate with me. These people I know from different circles, many of them I hoped we would be friends but figured that after the semester ends, etc, that would fade - and then this happens, and I know that's not quite the case.  And the party was so lovely. Great food, great conversation, and laughter. I couldn't have asked for more.

And especially this weekend, after seeing Erin and getting the chance to hang out with other people/not being alone, after about 36 hours (I'm counting Friday) around 4 this afternoon, I was actually relaxed. It took me that long to get there, and I sprawled on the sofa with two good friends talking about everything -  über Gott und die Welt (sometimes expressions just fit) - and it was so fleeting. Then I drove them to the Bart station and now I'm listening to NPR, finished putting away the last of the dishes, ushered the chickens into the coop, and the week is unfurling in front of me, fronds and branches from the trees (representing those things that I also need to do - study, look at grad school apps, get ready for the transatlantic move)  lining the road threatening the windshield of my week's plan.

I went to the gym after I dropped my friends off, wanting to zone out. I put on my music and hopped on the machine and zoned. I like my music loud. Every now and then, as one person told me, I have enough going on in my head and don't need the music. (When I first heard that ((in regards to music while running)), I didn't understand it at all - how could you not listen to music or something? Since, I have understood and have run with just my thoughts as company. On occasion.) For some reason, I felt like the walls of "culture" were closing in - the green lights telling me how long I had been running, the TVs glaring and silently blaring from the walls, the mirrors reflecting the room over and over and a person with headphones wherever I looked. It made me furious for some reason, both the outside and the fact that I was complicit in it, that I could not have fit in in that scene any better. Every now and then, I just have it up to here with culture and society, I think. It happens to me often in the grocery store - people, their inane conversations, my insipid worries, and the brands clamoring on the shelves. Today it was in the gym and all I wanted was a tent, a sky, a fire, and a cup of tea*. But I know that if I were there, I'd immediately be lonely and want for something else - but I think I'd rather be lonely when I'm actually alone than feel lonely when surrounded by people, which really is one of the components of that feeling I was attempting to describe.

*What I really want right now, as I have told a few of my friends recently, is only one task at hand. Work, perhaps. Or studying, maybe. Or cooking. Or taking care of an animal. Or a person to talk to. But right now, juggling and juggling is just exhausting to me.

And all this blabbering and the thoughts behind them are exactly why this weekend was so good. I needed that time with friends. NPR is talking about memory and forgetting, I have a ripe mango and no one with whom I am required to share it, and with that I will prepare for the week.

So Far - This is what my birthday looks like.

I was informed I had plans last night - at a certain address in San Francisco. Erin directed me there, I had no idea what was going to happen, and we ended up seeing this show - (everything under the sun was ridiculed. Justin Bieber to Michelle Obama, Wicked to the San Francisco Giants -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sang parts from Les Mis, and of course, Madonna sang 'Surviving Gravity'. I won't reveal any more. My throat is sore from laughing and cheering!) we sat in the balcony, feet away from the actors, witnessed incredible vocal talent and laughed our asses off. While drinking champagne and eating chocolate. It was beautiful.

We went to the Starry Plough, a local pub with some friends - where some local musicians stood on their upright basses while they sang to us. This band included a cello, an upright bass a guitar, and a didgeridoo. I should say that Erin and I had barely walked in from our play experience, put our bags on the floor, when I got a text message from my friend Molly saying she was outside our door! So, we put coats and shoes back on, and out we headed. Not expected, and awesome.

And then this lass started singing, and it was incredible. Turns out, she was on The Voice, a show I've never watched but I can see why. It was such good music and she was such a good performer - it really was a great way to end the evening. I really encourage you to check her out here and here - the first is her clip on The Voice, and the second something more akin to what we saw last night. :)

This is really what my birthday looks like to me. Awesome.

I have talked to my mom, sister, and dad already - got a Sriracha cookbook from Erin (!!!!!!), and some lovely gifts from my family already. We're going to stroll through a farmer's market now with more friends and then get everything ready for the party tonight. I'm sure there'll be more pictures to show!

Also, briefly -

I saw a good friend for the first time in months last night, and a similar thing with a different friend (Erin!) is going to happen tonight. Late night airport pickup, then long-night friend catch-up is what I foresee. It's really amazing to get the chance to live in this place. I can't believe I'm about to pick up and leave again.

Also, I get to start the day around these folks again. They really help keep me calm.

It's on!

Some press for the company hit the fan, and now the emails are coming in. 36 while I was asleep. More since I've been awake. It's going to be a busy day - but this is just the type of insanity that startups hope for!  Exciting!!!

Here's one, here's another. Read if you feel like it, not if you don't. :)

The cutting board looks like the stage at the end of Hamlet again.

That just means I made beet salad. I have a friend coming over for dinner tomorrow night and I've been planning the meal since noon today - I got very excited.

I accidentally fell asleep with a printout about Modern Portfolio Theory on my lap today, glasses smooshed to my face and everything. Luckily, I was at a coworker and friend's house and she didn't mind, nor did the two dogs that witnessed it. After that work day that ended so abruptly with my snooze, I eventually made my way home via the grocery store. I bought those ingredients I needed for tomorrow night and when I got home, I wanted to watch something while I cooked (oh, brave new world). And so I found Ted Talks. I'm really late to the party, I know, but sleep was starting to look optional so I cut myself off. The last one I watched was this, which made me smile on the inside - if you have four minutes, check it out.

But as I was cooking, a strange thing happened. I was looking at my hand (earlier, as I glanced at the same hand, I wasn't sure whether the color on it was from the beets I had carried home from the store, the berries I had picked from the bush, or from the bush that had tried to stop me from picking the berries - but don't worry. I washed the mysterious red off before I started to cook), poised on a quite lovely-ly sharp knife, the light from the sun going down mixing with the deep red of the beet juice, and I noticed I was smiling. The entire beet process (peeling, slicing thinly, then slicing the slices into slices - don't know if it qualified as julienne, but it was the Emily version of it) took about twenty minutes, and this was near the end of it, and I was smiling. And my head flashed forward ten years, maybe fifteen, and wondered whether I would be grinning and chopping beets in those years - for myself? For someone else? Holy shit, for my kids? It happened quite suddenly.

Maybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe there won't be beets then.

---

During the daily bustle and shove of a commute, I spend a lot of time doing what everyone does - I shift weight from foot to foot, get distracted about the day ahead, fiddle with the smartphone or music device to pass the time, avoid other people's gaze and get embarrassed when eyes happen to meet, hastily adjust clothing that gets disorganized by bags and briefcases and wind, and doggedly not look at that thing or event by which all of us are completely distracted. But one other thing I do, particularly on escalators, particularly at the Embarcadero station, is look at people's shoes. To be fair, on an escalator, my options are: 1. up - nah, nothing much there. Just the sky. Who cares. It's uncomfortable to look up anyway. 2. the person-in-front-of-me's bag. Rather not. Too close to my face. 3. The person standing next to me. Are you kidding? We don't do that. Ever. 4. Shoes, i.e. down.

And this is San Francisco, and the stop is near the Financial District. There are some nice shoes out and about on any given morning. I frequently seem to be next to quite a lovely pair of shoes (took me forever to realize that I often do like shoes- my thirteen-year-old-self is looking at me, aghast, and saying "What, are you going to tell me you like feta and olives now, too? And you're not going to be a dancer?" Hate to break it to you, kid...) almost every day. And compliments are nice, right? And good shoes are deserving of a compliment, yes? Several times, the compliment has risen in my throat and I have hastily swallowed it back, not wanting to interrupt the status-flow that keeps us rippling up the metal steps.

But today, I told the woman next to me as I walked by (I was in the passing lane, you see) that I liked her shoes, and her face was almost like that of the woman to whom I gave the apple the other day. In the three seconds that our interaction lasted, she didn't show any other expression than confusion. If she's anything like me, it was probably so unexpected that confusion was the only appropriate response, but after I was out of sight, maybe, hopefully, she started to smile a bit and perhaps, it's possible, that interaction made her morning slightly different in a minutely positive way.

I guess I'm a bit odd, but I don't think I'll stop being so.

Truth.

Just another Tuesday

Took my first stab at Larabar-esque granola bars this morning (dates, walnuts, grated carrots, homemade applesauce, coconut, chia seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, cinnamon) - it (that smooshy mass of good stuff that may or may not hold its shape while cool) is resting now, and we shall see what happens. I also was doing some studying this morning and out of the forty five minutes I was at it, the thing I am most proud of is that I finally came up with a way to remember which is concave and which is convex - namely, when I am (con)vexed, I might throw my hands UP in the air. HAHA. Yes, I know there are probably roughly a gajillion ways to remember those words, but my brain is just a bit confusing sometimes, and that way works for me, so I'm happy.

Still one of my favorite quotes.

"Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."
 

-Rumi

I absolutely WILL be in bed by ten.

So, I have twelve minutes to write this. I don't quite know where to start today. I guess I'll start with how my day started, which was like this:

Six dogs en route to Chrissy Field - This is Bama, and snuggled together in the front are Rosie, Matilda, Kai, and Finnegan - to the left in the back (and too big to be in the picture) is Kamaji, who you've seen before.

It was brought to my attention by Matilda's owner that she did not make an appearance on my blog after I spent the night at her house in Berkeley, so here is the lovely lady. She's a boss. There's no other way to describe it. And fantastically cute.

 So, I went walking with my friend Kate at Chrissy field (yes, the very same Chrissy field where, not too long ago, Athena put me into prison) and I witnessed the real skill of dog walking (I kid you not - no leashes, and six dogs heeled when she asked and waited as bikers, joggers, or children passed in front of us. Damn skill.) as well as the cold that San Francisco has to offer. But it was a beautiful, slow way to start the morning - damp fog creeping under my hoodie, scarf blowing into my face, watching the dogs play in the waves and the sand.

Jasmine tea with honey at Arbor Cafe.

Then I went to one of my favorite cafés, caught up with an old acquaintance (and gave a short German lesson), and studied some for the GRE. My mood was starting to dip at this point, for various reasons. After that, I went to the BART station to pick up a friend of mine and while I was waiting, I was overwhelmed by some of the conversations I had heard during the day. By now, everyone has heard about the court case and verdict with Zimmerman. Here, too, a film called Fruitvale (the name of another BART station) has recently come out and it's about a shooting at that BART station. My friend was telling her boyfriend, a black man, that she was worried about him wearing a hoodie with the police actions the way they have been in Oakland. A friend of mine from growing up was robbed at gunpoint in San Francisco last week. Two cooks were shot at a restaurant last week that I've walked past at least fifty times in downtown Oakland.

I was about to cry with all of these thoughts in my head when I saw a homeless man outside the train station holding a puppy that couldn't have been more than five weeks old. He was tugging it around on a leash and as a woman walked by, he scooped it up and it squealed like it was in pain. The woman said something to him, and he responded harshly but I couldn't hear what they said. The sunlight was so bright and I shaded my eyes and couldn't tell which was putting tears in them more.
The woman walked towards me - "He needs a puppy like I need a hole in the head," she said. "God bless that puppy." I nodded, and she walked away while shaking her head. About ten paces away, she turned back. "You know, " she said, "Maybe he does need that puppy. Mine sure helped me." The dog she had on a leash looked up at her. She sighed and walked away.

The tears felt a little different then.

After my friend got to the station, we walked to the grocery store and then back home. Draped gently over the front fence we found a bag with a jar of jam from a neighbor. It was such a lovely welcoming home. We made ourselves a nice dinner with some fish that her father had brought, lemons from the backyard, and lots of vegetables. And afterwards, we made shortbread cookies.

Some of them we dipped in chocolate.

And served them with tea.

Tea and this jam. This is not the jam I found when I got back to the house - though I think I'd be capable of eating it that fast.

 Eventually, we took our tea and cookies to the back steps and looked out at the sky, the trees, the chickens.

A few more berries were ripe. Berries and jam - it's like the circle of life.

 Then we came back inside and finished our tea while she revealed her early birthday present to me - an earring-making kit that she had brought with her to make me my present. I mentioned to hear about four months ago that I thought I didn't have enough earrings - she remembered that, made two pairs right in front of me and we had a lovely, lovely time.

I didn't make it into bed. It's 10:09. I think it was worth it.

Returning the favor

Today is Saturday. I woke up, got out of bed, jogged over to a gym and went to a workout class that's led by the boyfriend of a friend of mine. After that, I jogged back, made my coffee and got to studying. After an hour and a half, I took a bubble bath and then enjoyed some zone-out time before heading to the back yard, feeding the chickens, watering the plants, etc. I should say I returned from that venture with this:

The egg simply reflected light from every angle, but that's what that in the center-right is. It was delicious.  There were also at least half a cup's worth of blackberries out there but when I returned from my jog, they didn't last long at all. They didn't even make it inside.

This pretty blissful, I have to say.

As I was finishing up my lunch, I got an email from my grandmother, who suggested I check out today's post on my great-uncle's blog. He recommended my blog there a while back and I have him to thank for some increased traffic in the weeks since. I thoroughly enjoyed the post that was recommended to me (as well as his blog in general) and I encourage you to check it out - his blog is entitled The Philosopher's Stone and the post from today is called 'Perambulatory Musings'. I hope you enjoy it.

I gave an apple to a homeless woman today.

I've seen her around a few times and she's always cheery - she sits outside the Walgreens that I sometimes frequent - when I need something tiny like deodorant or a sponge and can then buy that there and get cash back, therefore avoiding ATM fees (a skill any college student knows)  - she looks up and says things like, "Happy Friday, girl!" And it makes me smile. She never asks for anything, except that she does, by the placement of her body next to the store. So today, I got her an apple. I gave it to her and she looked a little puzzled before thanking me and smiling.

You just never know. She might be completely self-sufficient. She might have a home in a different part of the city. Some coworkers of mine were at a gas station a week ago and a young woman came over to them, said she was on the way to a certain venue in Napa to play a bluegrass show but needed money for gas. She gave the name of her band, of the venue, of the website where they could find her music, and thanked them when they gave her five dollars. They looked it up after - the venue existed. Not the website. Not the band. You just never know.

I don't know if I made that woman happy or not. I'm not sure who that kind of giving is for, anyway. Is it for me or her? Or the people who see me do it and think there might be some hope in the world? I expected to feel awesome, I have to admit. But I felt so awkward as I walked away. I've toyed with the idea of doing that a lot - giving a coffee to the man who hangs around outside the Peets near the BART station where I arrive each morning. Humans are so damn complicated. These kind of exchanges are some of the most awkward - the ones where someone asks for money and you pretend not to hear, or someone asks for money and you mumble about not being able to, or the time that you actually give away some money and wonder what it's going to be used for and whether or not you're just a sucker. Man. Not a simple gesture today. I suppose by giving an apple I didn't do anything wrong - I can take solace in that.

The huge gap in the world is pretty incredible, it must be said. I work in a skyscraper jungle, though in the basement so far, so to speak. Some people have so much money that the only thing they can do with it is try to make more money with it - and at my internship, I think we're developing a way for them to do just that activity but as a byproduct, normal people can benefit. Or the people I consider normal.  Inequality, bias, rose-tinted glasses. This world is complicated.

Giving A Visual

So, the few things I have mentioned about where I am staying:

The lemons.

The plums.

The chickens!

And some gems like this that I find while rereading my old math notes when I study.

Also, in brief, the event last night went well. The technology went haywire, we couldn't at all give the presentation we had planned on due to that malfunction, but we did get something together and people listened. And I jumped up and grabbed the microphone and talked, and while waiting at our table during the mixer portion of the evening before the pitches, I lost count of how many people I talked to and explained the company, so by the time it was our turn to go and officially pitch, I felt like I had done it a hundred times. People were interested. It felt good, and it feels even better to not have it hanging over my head anymore.

Just a few more hours, and then the weekend. :)

First of a few goodbyes.

Yesterday, one member of the Primarq team left on a family-related trip and he won't be back in the office until after I leave, so it was our last day working together. (I believe he'll be back maybe two days before I fly out but on a weekend, so perhaps the team will go and get dinner or something.) He's been so friendly and supportive from the get-go and has taught me a lot, and I wanted to thank him for that before he left, so we had this very short message exchange:

The last line about the Postal Service is particularly sweet because I only mentioned in passing once that I enjoyed their music and he passed along to me information about a concert of theirs in Berkeley next weekend (I don't know if I'll be going or not, but the gesture is still lovely).

Tonight is a big get-together for tech startups in the Bay Area along with people who are interested in such startups and potential small-scale investors in such startups. 25 companies who are attending (a lot more are coming than that) get to do a 4-5 minute pitch. Primarq is one of those 25 companies. Guess who's pitching? (AAAAAAAH). This was Yaniv's idea, the guy who just left. Anyways, I'm nervous and was rehearsing the pitch up until I couldn't keep my eyes open last night, but after all - it's only a few minutes. I think I'll be okay. Only about 500 people are supposed to be there.

Ever want to separate your brain from your body? Or your emotions from your brain and your brain from your body? Then tonight, I could send the portion of my brain that understands Primarq along with my body to this event. The rest of my brain could go study for the GRE, and my emotions? Well, they can go and take a bubble bath, if there is such a thing for emotions. That'd be grand.

Today's Realizations

1. Biking through Berkeley at 6:30 is fun.

2. I still get confused about whether there's 50 cards in a deck and 52 states in the US or the other way around.

3. I've gone into the shower with my glasses on 3 times this month, and twice with my watch.

4. If you google the words "weight" and "index", instead of learning about a weighted index, you get a lot of articles about effing BMI. This country needs to sort out its priorities.

5. I am, apparently, totally capable of becoming that person who says "No thanks, I think I just want to sit here and manipulate these numbers and figure out stuff...." instead of going to get lunch with people. I know I'm not alone in that, but I did not expect to ever exhibit that tendency. I'm sure it won't be me all the time.

6. Setting weights in an index is hard (i.e. which of these component bits are more important in determining the total outcome of some thing - for example, if I'm setting up an index for GPAs of students, some relevant component bits are 1. how much sleep they get, 2. how much they study, 3. how often they play Bejeweled, 4. how often they watch Real Housewives of Whatever,  - and then I would have to determine how important those factors are in relation to each other). And equally hard to stop manipulating once you've started.

7. Starting off the day with jasmine tea, a friend, and four dogs in the woods really puts things in place for the morning.

8. I still don't know what to do when I'm asked for money on the street by homeless people. In SF, it gets pretty cruel - right next to the BART station at which I arrive every morning, there's a woman who sits with her tiny (I presume) daughter and asks for money. As soon as I get my next paycheck, I've vowed to go into a Peets or something and get at least one person a cup of coffee or something similar, but man, it still makes me so uncomfortable.

Nature

So, I just made one of perhaps the prettiest dinners I've ever eaten or seen. I peeled and thinly sliced some red beets, mixed them with equally thinly sliced onion and carrots and let that mixture marinate in balsamic vinegar, a bit of olive oil, salt, dill, and lemon juice - from a lemon from the tree outside - for about two hours. Then, I heated that slowly for a few minutes and at the last moment, tossed in some fresh kale and let it wilt slightly. The purple-green-orange stuff tumbled onto my plate as I quickly tossed an egg into the pan (it would be cheesy and fitting to say it was the egg that I got from the chickens this morning, but it wasn't, since there were still some in the fridge from before and I thought I should use them in order - but it was a lovely egg nonetheless! Let us not judge it by its potential supermarket origins...). This egg topped off the pile of greens and beets and I served it (to myself) with half an avocado.

Why, you may ask, if the colors were so vibrant and the overall meal so picturesque did I not upload a picture of it here? Well, the answer is simple and slightly pathetic. The pan I was used professed to be non-stick while I cooked the beets and greens and then proceeded to be less so as soon as the egg was involved, so the final plate was - well, perhaps it wasn't so pretty as it was, but I could see its potential. I'm sure I'll do this again and I'll manage with the pan this time. :)

Instead of the morning studying, today it will be evening studying. After I wash up my plates, I'll hang out with my books for a bit. So far, Berkeley is pretty cool.

Am I really moving to Budapest??

Okay. This just hit me this morning. I've been telling people about it since I got accepted in March, and I knew I wanted to go since October. But - but it's actually happening. I've been so wrapped up in graduation, family stuff, and now work and studying that I actually haven't been able to see past the end of my own nose. But right now, staring at my trusty parcel of pencils and pens that has carried me through math in Minnesota, Mainz, and California, I realized that it's going to come with me to Hungary and - I'm going to live there. This is a terribly exciting realization.

Starting the day in the East Bay

Cup of coffee? Check. Music? Check. GRE study book? Check.

All those parts of my morning are the same - but here, there's no Golden Gate Park, but there is a plum tree. No muni to get to work, but there is Bart, and thank goodness, right now the strike is on hold. No Samuel and Athena to make me smile, but for that, there's two hilarious chickens in the backyard, and they provide me with eggs which I suppose is something Samuel and Athena didn't do, but they aren't as good for conversation. 

I am going to do some math work and then start this work week, though the four day weekend was proper bliss. I wish everyone luck on this Monday. Also, in the meantime, here's a picture everyone should see. Xkcd really is one of the best webcomics of all time.

The " " Person

You know, I was thought of as Rachel's sister for a long time. And after that, as "the dance person" for a while, too. Then, "that girl who was an exchange student". And at Mills last year (and since) - "the math person". It happened really suddenly to me. I declared my major as a sophomore and nobody really noticed and nobody needed to - I had friends, classes, etc. But all of a sudden, as a tutor in my senior year, it became apparent that people thought of me that way! I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them thought of me like this.  Man, that cracked me up today.

It has been the mother of all struggles to get myself to do work today, but I think that means it was time to take a break. Well, I should clarify. In the morning, for about three hours, I made myself take a practice Math subject GRE - I haven't laughed so much in a while. Some of those words describing the problems I hadn't read in at least three years, let alone actually been able to do the problems, and some of the things on there I had never ever heard of! But getting a score like the one I did this morning (not telling) in July when the test is in October is alright. Especially because it was so much better than the "studying" I've been doing before, because I actually do need to work on problems and it's hard to know where to start, but a practice test gives you a great opportunity. I'm working through the answers to the practice test (one of my prep books came with 6 complete practice tests, which is awesome) and it's been fun to re-learn and learn new things. I found my math brain. I thought I was mistaken and a different Emily had been at Mills for all those years, especially given how I felt while studying for the general GRE. Turns out, being interested in what it is you are studying makes a hell of a difference. I guess that's why I majored in math in the first place.

Also, quick question. What would they do if I were to write 'this space left intentionally blank' on some of my answers on the GRE, or on any test for that matter? Legitimate forms and tests do that all the time. In the meantime, here's something to chuckle at (for those of you who haven't seen it before). Some groovy dance moves.

"Being that I flow in grief, the smallest twine may lead me."

I just got back from seeing Joss Whedon's 'Much Ado About Nothing'. It is really, really worth seeing. The above quote was one I must have heard before (I've seen movie and live versions of the play at least four times) but I actually heard the words this time, not just the gyst, and I thought it was beautiful.

It's also lovely to be in Santa Cruz. I liked going to San Jose by train yesterday - I just love trains. Something about that form of travel really fits me - I wish it were an option more often.  I made myself laugh repeating in my head all the phrases that the conductors on the DB say on trains in Germany - it was funny to imagine that on Caltrain. The trains are a bit different, but I enjoy both nonetheless. It certainly brought up memories of last year, however different the trains may be.

And finally, one other fantastic quote from the play/film to end with.

I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

Beatrice and Benedick's romance is so much fun to watch. And I love how all the same issues (how to express love, being to proud, messing around with friends - minus the throwing a bride aside because she's not a virgin) are still so accessible today. Shakespeare knew a thing or two.

What Recent Mills Grads Talk About

My friends have jobs over the summer - one a real job that she's had since January (graduated mid year), and the other a summer internship, both in fields related to their majors. And the other day, we had this conversation over a group chat.

--

Friend One (recent grad in International Relations):
    Spending my afternoon criticizing the work of NGOs in Nigeria. Dear god, help me! I didn't think I'd become a corporate robot this fast!!

Friend Two (also a recent grad in International Relations):
    Haha, it's fine. I backstop Americas export of capitalism. Literally my job. Had to defend US actions in Poland after the fall of communism yesterday.

Me:
    I'm hobnobing with real estate investors. We've all lost our souls.

Friend Two:
    Never too early to sell out.

----


Wonder how all the other members of the Class of 2013 are doing!

Last night, waiting for friends.

There's a blog entry written on that - underneath some probability formulas. But I'm not sure if the entry is actually good enough to write and post here - but it was enough to keep me from feeling too lonely while I waited for my friends to get there. Waiting at a bar alone - only takes a few minutes to feel completely pathetic. You can go the "hide in the screen of my phone" route, which I don't like, or you can be brave and sit there, just be in that space. Nope. A bit too insecure for that. So instead, I scrambled in my bag, found a piece of a notecard (notes for GRE studying all over it) and a pen, and hoped that I looked artistic.

Why do we care so much what we think other people are thinking of us, when all that they're worrying about is what we think of them?

Humble the hard way

So, I spent today with my nose in a book. Or with my nose rather close to the computer screen at times when I had to look up numerous words. Every sentence in this book that I'm reading generates a fractal, where one line splits into about ten as I have to find the definitions of ten terms in the sentence, each of those individual definitions contain words I need to look up, and I wind up with a bit of a headache and thinking, "So, that's cool and I kinda get it." I suppose this is what I get for being a financial modeling intern with no economics, no econometrics, no statistics, and purely theoretical probability. Oops.

Good news is that even though it was an extremely basic definition, I forgot a definition at the end of the day (my brain has reached saturation for the next little while, a.k.a. til after dinner) and was on my way through the internet to find that definition, when all of a sudden I remembered it. A teeensy tiny victory, like tying a shoe at the bottom of Mount Everest - pathetic on its own, but still necessary to reach the summit.

In other news, xkcd was great again today: check it out. I witnessed an argument/discussion about this exact topic a few days ago and have mixed feelings myself about it. But this is a great jab at the issue at hand.