The flight attendants are wearing Santa-Hats.

That's what C told me when she got on the plane in Frankfurt this morning. She's been flying for almost all the time that I've been awake today (baking, cleaning, visiting with friends, dancing to music in the kitchen) and will be landing in about two hours in New York. She has to wait there a while and get through customs, but then I'll be seeing her in Pittsburgh at about 9:45 p.m. Seven hours from now?  I've waited since August. I can't believe it!

Sudden Snow in the 'Ville!

I have finished up my work for the week at the bookstore and will start working there again after C leaves in January. Grandparents on my father's side have arrived (a day before they planned to but for good reason - namely a huge sudden snowfall!) as has my sister.

Now, I just have to twiddle my thumbs and drink tea with various members of my family until Monday night, when I'll hop into the car and drive to Pittsburgh.  But until then, take a look at this!

Abby the Abominable Snow-Dog. :)

Should anything else of note happen, I will be sure to let you know. Now, as might have guessed, I need to go out and shovel!

So... it's over?

That semester was intense.

And now, I'm sitting on the little couch in my room at my dad's house, the dog asleep on the floor next to me. Meadville is all around me, just like I never left, like it's just been waiting here. And I made it through my finals - every last one of them.

I'm sorry I disappeared for those few days. There was more Algebra than I had brain space for, plus packing and saying goodbye to friends, stressing out about Christmas presents, and trying to organize where I'm going to live next semester. (sidenote: I got the official email - I'm moving OUT of the dorm and INTO an apartment on campus with friends and a KITCHEN! No more dining hall... I can't tell you how happy I am to cook again!!) But I survived. I turned in every last final paper, every piece of homework, attended each exam and wrote until I thought my hand would fall off (remember, I had my 3 hour Algebra exam, a one hour break for dinner, and then a 3 hour film exam -- after which there were celebratory chicken nuggets with other friends who had taken the finals), and still managed to feel like I wasn't getting enough done. But I did.

I'm watching Abby, my dog, dream right now. I can see her nose moving back and forth and her paws twitching, even her ears cocking to this side or the other. Her life makes me put mine in perspective sometimes.

And I made it back to PA, obviously. Tomorrow, I'm starting back at the Allegheny Bookstore - a job of helping students find books, stacking textbooks on shelves, and occasionally selling Allegheny paraphernalia to eager parents of students. My sister comes home on Thursday, and C one week from today. Actually, one week and about one hour- then she'll be landing at the Pittsburgh airport on Christmas Eve.

And now, as a jet-lagged, semester-worn student, I will go to bed. :)

Revelations (not to be confused with the book in the Bible)

You know, sometimes I can be so fantastically, hand-wringingly, head-shakingingly stupid. Have you ever had a revelation, something that makes other parts of your life much clearer than they were before (whether it be in an area of academics or even in interpersonal relations) and when you look back on that "revelation", it was something that should have been completely obvious all along?

Let me explain. I got up this morning at around 6:30, went to the computer lab in my building to print old homework solutions, wrote a blog entry, got back to my room about an hour later, breakfasted and then made a cup of coffee and sat down to study. I studied until about 10:30 or 11, took a break, then got my things together to head to Berkeley with a few friends to continue studying at a café. We were there from 12:45-3, and then I came back, went to the gym and went to dinner, and came back to my room.

And that's when the trouble started. One person is to blame for my extreme non-studying since dinner (really, throughout the day in snippets) and I couldn't be more grateful to him - Stephen Fry. I've blabbered about him before, but I'll do it once more via this lovely film about him (including Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, the Prince of Wales, Kenneth Branagh, and J.K. Rowling, just to name a few, all talking about how fantastic he is) and via this documentary that he made about bipolar disorder (quite eye-opening). So, since dinner, I have been maddeningly unable to do anything but play freecell on my laptop while watching these videos. And I do mean maddening. About once a minute, I'd pause the video, tell myself I needed to get up and study more, and then invariably freeze and go back to what I was doing before.

I found this quite upsetting and after having a rough time with this, I went outside the dorm to a nearby bench with a pen and a small notebook to write down all of the things I thought I should do (and the things I really do need to do, which are not the same) before my exams tomorrow. And in that quiet moment, I planned out what I need to do - in which order, tomorrow morning. And I know that my alarm is set for 6:40 and by 6:45 I'll be in the shower without trouble, and that at around 7:10 I'll have coffee, music, and be at my desk. Not a problem.

And I heard my thoughts clearly in my head: "I know we'll be fine in the morning, working then isn't a problem." Bombshell. Big, obvious, why-didn't-I-just-realize-this-before truth: I am a morning person. And certain people (C in particular) have known this and told me this for years, but I just thought that meant that I was unusually cheery in the mornings - but never, not in the 21 years that I have known myself, did I think that maybe that meant that I work better in the mornings, and should therefore give it my all then, but perhaps not bother trying after about 7:30 at night.

True, during college you don't always have that luxury of budgeting your time as you would wish to, but during the days leading up to finals, you happen to have exactly that.

But just to zoom back for a minute, in 22 hours, it'll all be over anyway. Both tests out of the way, semester over. Huzzah!!

I have absolutely no idea whether you have found any of this interesting or not, but I hope so, at least a little bit. Have a lovely December 14th, everyone.

Midnight Breakfast

So, at the end of the semester most colleges in the States have a "Reading Week" where classes have ended but final exams haven't started, so the students can get the chance to review for their exams. Mills is a bit different- we have "Reading Days" instead, and we have two of them, instead of a week.

However, it is during these Reading Days that the one tradition takes place on campus that I actually feel any connection to: Midnight Breakfast. Starting at 10 at night on the second Reading Day (so, a few short hours before the first finals start the next day at 9 a.m.), our cafe on campus is transformed into a gigantic breakfast buffet with eggs, potatoes, waffles, coffee, tea, bacon AND - anyone who is a true Mills student understands that the best part of the breakfast is---- the vegetarian sausage patties. Why are they so delicious? NO ONE KNOWS. But they are what I line up for!

I remember going Freshman year and hanging out with a few people, shifting from foot to foot in line as we waited for the doors to open and for the tons of people who had lined up in front of us to get food. Last night, I was hanging out with friends (all seniors) and we decided to walk down so we'd be at the cafe at about 9:30 - and we were the first ones there. During the first fifteen minutes of waiting, a trickle of students came to the plaza outside the cafe and the line grew longer - and all of the people at the front of the line were seniors. We know how this goes by now. :)

By 10 I couldn't even see the end of the line since it had turned a corner around the side of a  building. We sauntered in to get our food (veggie patties!!) and sat down to enjoy it. Forty-five minutes later as we were heading back to the dorm, they were still letting people in through the door!

It was kind of fun to be a cynical senior last night, to look around at the other people who were dancing and singing along to the music was playing and to think, as my friend Carly put it, "Man, why are they all so happy?" Several people at the table I was sitting at have their theses due on Friday, Carly and I have an Abstract Algebra exam, and in general we feel we are ready to move on from this place --- but then again, I'm sure I will also think as I sit down with my cup of coffee at my desk in a half hour or so to study that it is just incredible that I get to be a student here - to have the sole objective be the expansion of my own knowledge. That's pretty fantastic.

In any case, sentimental or no, I have to go and try to expand my brain a bit around some Sylow P-Subgroups and things, and also try not to forget that my algebra exam is from 2-5 on Friday afternoon (yikes! which is tomorrow!) but that also, from 6-9, I have a film exam. So, I'll trade off between the two as I study. Wish me luck.

Last Day of Classes

 

Last day of classes, December 10th. It's 18 degrees celsius, so 64 fahrenheit - I could be in a t-shirt if I wanted to be. One more algebra class and then optional kickboxing, and I am DONE. Well, okay, two finals on Friday, but other than that-- 7/8 done with my Mills career.  ?!?!?

It's a stunning day. I was in my room this morning and on Skype with C as she did some work for her classes and I worked on my review sheet for Algebra. We talked about some things we wanted to do when, in TWO WEEKS, we see each other again. I have my flight booked for Sunday, the 16th, and will be working at the Allegheny College bookstore for a few days before C gets there, and spending some time with my family. A few more program applications (I've gotten my first rejections, by the way - right of passage, right? Happens to everyone? I hope so.) and a great deal of tea, sitting by the fire, and hoping that we'll get at least a little snow.

In other news, I went Christmas shopping in Rockridge with Erin a few days ago and had a blast (found bacon chocolate bars, a coffee mixture called Obama ((due to the origins of the coffee beans - oh, California...)), one of the most beautiful notebooks I have ever seen ((Erin did her duty as a good friend and dragged me away, knowing my addiction to office supplies and my limited finances)), and sticky notes that said "Oy Vey" at the top with a checkbox for "Oh, Shalom." at the bottom, and so many other fun things) - I hope to go back either tomorrow or Wednesday and wander around, though I really don't need to get any more presents for anyone. A student is coming to meet me for tutoring soon, so I should go, but I hope that everyone else is having just as lovely a day as I am.

Sneaky Academic Desire

So, my Abstract Algebra final is a week from yesterday. Actually, a week from today, I will be done with EVERYTHING for this semester. A week from tomorrow, I will be flying back to Pennsylvania. I'm not quite sure why it is that each year, time seems to go faster, but by the time I'm fifty, I can't imagine how it will seem.

So, today, I was starting to think about studying for Abstract and for this final, we're allowed to bring in one piece of  paper (front and back) with notes or other things written on it (this is a first for me at Mills, though it was rather commonplace last year in Germany). So, feeling nostalgic, I picked up the piece of paper tucked in a fancy folder in my bottom drawer where I had written all of my notes for the Stochastics exam last year. Remember when I was in that class? So, my notes looked like this:

 And I was reading over some of them, and as usually happens when I look at old work that I've done in math, I think: "Man.... remember when I could do that? It was so long ago!"And then I start to feel sad, but then - and this is a new thing that has just begun to happen -  I look at the things in those notes that I didn't understand at the time. And they start to look more familiar. And I think - wait. At that time, I just wrote down 'homomorphismus' when they told me to, now I know what a homomorphism is. And - I know what this is, and what that is - I now know what I was probably supposed to know as background for that class, and all that I've forgotten is actually the Stochastics part of it. But this desire comes up that I have felt pretty much every day for the last two months: the desire to take all of the math classes I've ever taken over again, because I would understand them so completely now. Understanding - is a tricky thing. It doesn't always mean the same thing when you talk to two different people. But I know exactly what it feels like when I actually understand something in math. This beautiful clarity, this almost three-dimensional feel of the idea in my head - and I know I didn't have that in many classes that I've taken before. Often, you don't get it until after the class is over. Maybe while you study for the final, you get that clarity for the concepts you did in the first few weeks. But with my mathematical maturity now, why can I go back and take Linear Algebra I, II, Real Analysis, Complex Analysis, Differential Equations, Lie Theory and P-adic Analysis all over again? You have no idea how much I really want to.

On a different note, take a look at this:

How beautiful is that?

It's fifty and sunny in CA (so about 10 for you Celsius folks), and in PA it's raining. And in Mainz? That beautiful snow over the trains. I can see the Mainz Hbf sign in the background. I miss it like a hole in my heart. Honestly. I'm so glad I get to spend Christmas with my family this year, but - I really did leave part of me in at Pankratiusstr. 28.

Morocco-Night!

Mills by night, before we left.

An outfit worthy of a sneaky foto, I thought.

Christmas lights in San Francisco!

Beautiful room where we ate our dinner... Dinner not pictured. We ate it too quickly!

A glass of a beer called Casablanca, just to add to the ambiance. ;)

My darling friend Carly - fellow math major and fantastic person.

Left to right: Myself, Carly, Shelby, Karis, Erin (the last three commiserating as they all have to turn in their theses next week, all in the same major - International Relations). Also, notice the crumbs on the table. All that is left of our meal!

 

There was also a belly dancer, but since it was so dark, I don't have very many good pictures of her. But there was food, drink, dancing (oh yes, we got up and danced with the belly dancer) and all in all, a lovely evening. :) Anyone who comes to visit me out here, we may be going back!

Music

Yesterday was a Metallica day - so I had 'Enter Sandman' while writing a paper for Women's Studies.
And today? Die Ärzte and The Fundamental Theorem of Finitely Generated Abelian Groups. :)

:)

So, it's December 5th - how did that happen? I swear I was just starting my senior year, I swear I just left Germany a few days ago - somehow, here we are. Four more days of classes, a few tests, and then Christmas break!  I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to the non-stress of those days. Yes, I'm trading response papers and Algebra homework for writing Christmas cards, but I think I'll make out pretty well on that trade.

In the meantime, we're spicing up the end of the semester here. There's a holiday party at a friend's place on Friday night, and that should be good fun. But first, tonight, I believe there will be an excursion to Berkeley - hopefully to Café Milano where we can *sigh* work and study, but at least do so in a slightly new environment. There's not too much we can do to change the workload of the end of the semester, but my friends and I are doing our best to make it fun.

On Thursday, I'm giving a talk on my experience at the Carleton Summer Math Program along with another girl who did a different REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates). I'm going to meet with her in a few minutes to organize our presentation, and that should be good fun! I like talking in front of people, so I'm looking forward to it. :)

But the best part of this week is what will happen after that presentation: heading to San Francisco with a bunch of friends to go eat Moroccan food!  (Since Erin is writing her thesis on Morocco and it's due quite soon, we're convincing her to go by saying that it qualifies as "research") Yes, I have things due Friday, I have class then, there's always work to do -- but relaxing and having fun is so important! And as I've mentioned here before, active relaxation is so important - I can sit here in my comfy green chair and "veg" for two hours and still not feel like I've actually relaxed. But going out? This kind of thing is good for the soul. :) I will take pictures!

What I do at my office hours when no one comes to see me:

In other news...

A water main broke on campus, so about eight buildings (including my dorm, of course) are without water. They say they hope to have it fixed by 6 tomorrow morning, but it actually could be out until tomorrow evening. In an email warning everyone about this, they said they had some extra water available at the front gate if anyone wanted it ("emergency water").

So, not quite wanting to go to bed yet, I bundled up in my wool coat, a hat, and a scarf (it's upper 40s, low 50s here and rainy and wet - around 10 degrees, for you Celsius folks - cold for CA!) and trudged down to the main gate. It's maybe a ten minute walk from my dorm - up to the top of the hill on whose side I live and then all the way down the hill on the other side. The air was nice and cool and I passed the group of trucks and men in thick coats, digging a hole to get to the pipe that was the problem. They'll be working through the night on it. And that's really, really good of them. I'm quite thankful for it.

I got the water - it looked like they had enough to spare, so I didn't feel bad for taking "emergency" water when my only "emergency" would be brushing my teeth and maybe having a cup of coffee in the morning. But it was lovely to walk. Maybe I should see campus by night more often! Perhaps with company next time.

But now, I'm back and bed and warm and will soon be asleep. Cheers, everyone. Happy December 2!

Visual reflections on the day.

Cue Sheet notes for our studio time today. It went so well!! I look forward to sharing the finished clip with all of you.

Waterfall down the stairs behind the music building.

Amazing recording equipment in the studio.

A Few Things to Share

1. It's Sunday, Dec. 2nd and today is the day I go to the recording studio with the folks in my Film Music class to score our clip! We're scheduled for about five hours in a professional studio in Oakland with a guy who has done music for big name folks, including MGM. And we get this studio time for free - I mean, yes, we pay to go to this college, but this much studio time is pretty incredible! I'm the studio manager, so today I get to be the bad guy and tell people to stay on track and not waste time. Lovely! I think I'll enjoy that. ;) Actually, I don't think we'll have a problem with people slacking off or taking too long - my group has worked really well together so far. I hope I get a copy somehow of the final clip with the music so I can show it to people. I'm so excited about it - and today, really, to see how it comes together! Right now, I know how the clip looks with my guitar piece because we've synched those files together, but the rest of the "music" (sounds, really) we've come up with haven't been synched yet - that's what we get to do today. And we get to figure out if it only sounded good in our heads or if it was actually a good idea! I'm psyched. :)

2. Yes, there are flash flood warnings for this area of California - and we have to drive today to get to the studio, and I'm sure the roads aren't in good condition. Yes, we will be careful. No, they probably won't cancel class tomorrow. Unfortunately. Also, the campus is soaking wet but I live on top of a hill, so it's not quite as bad. Still, rainboots would be nice. I'll get by without 'em! The rain is the perfect excuse to stay in and read and drink tea.

3.  Guess what? This blog now has over 200 posts and over 7000 views. I didn't expect that when I started it last year! Also, every time I check and see what exactly my "audience " is (a neat feature of this website), a large portion of my views are technically coming from France. Does anyone know who in France is reading this? If you do, let me know!

4. Six more days of classes!!!!!

5. A song I can't get out of my head these days and and can't get enough of -- So Many Nights by The Cat Empire. Look it up and dance!

Rainy Friday in Oakland

Hey, there.

So, today's been a fantastic day so far. Breakfast with Erin while watching an episode of Lost, a surprise phone call from C, and even though I messed up the application date, I got all the materials ready in time to send off my application to a program next year. It will be in New York by tomorrow, as it should be. I'm not at all convinced that I will get any of the things that I am applying for, but still - it's progress.

Also, it's raining. I love the rain. I took a few pictures of it for you...

The constant rain all through the night and this morning caused a tiny stream on our campus to turn into a river... this is taken from a bridge you have to cross to get to the math building from my dorm.

A bench with stones laid in the ground near Mills Hall - Each stone in the ground underneath the bench has a different year on it, probably donated by the classes who graduated in those years.

A view from the plaza steps, looking toward Mills Hall. I love how shiny the rain makes the ground.

From my Advisor

Please, if you have ten minutes, read this! Absolutely fantastic. :)

Last few things about Thanksgiving

In addition to hanging out and cooking, one of the things I did this weekend with my aunt, uncle and grandfather is to go on a tour of a few fantastic microbreweries around where they live. In the San Diego area, there are around 80 of these breweries - and we sampled three of them in one afternoon. You can see all of us during our tour below:

I think you can tell who is who. :)

I'm back at school now, as you know, and we have 9.5 days of classes left, two reading days, and a few days of finals. And in that time, I have to do the following:  response paper (3 pages), a term paper (at least 12 pages), one essay final (8 pages), six math homework assignments, and two final exams. Oh, and don't forget some job applications since some are due quite, quite soon. And all that Christmas shopping and Christmas card writing.

Student life comes with a very distinct kind of stress. I might whine now, but I think there will be more and different whining to come when I join the working world.

However, for now, I'm going to leave my responsibilities and head to the gym where for an hour, I can mostly ignore the world and listen to The Name of the Rose -- it's getting exciting! Another monk died and we don't know whodunnit... I recommend it so far!

--
Also, C sent me this picture of Mainz the other day:

Beautiful.

And one more thing:
My dearest friend Josi sent me a hand-made Advent calendar - and I mean for each day, there is an individually wrapped gift for me to unwrap, each with a tag for the day of the month I am to open it. Thoughtfulness, thy name is Josi. Thank you so very much!!!

Thanksgiving!

I was strolling across the campus today and thinking about all of the wonderful things that happened last week, and I wanted to give you a brief overview of them. In addition to cooking and chatting with my aunt and losing terribly to my cousins at MarioKart, there were just some completely wonderful moments. I got the chance to just be, for the first time in a long time. My days at Mills start with some kind of work around 8:30 in the morning and usually don't end until 9:30 at night, and over this weekend, I went to bed at about 9 and woke up at 6 with the rest of the house - tea, walks, food-- I can't even explain. A few more pictures will be coming, but I have to go to class now, so here's this to start.

Finn McCool, my grandfather's dog, who I saw on Saturday and Sunday. :)

Watson, my aunt and uncle's dog - half Chihuahua, half Pomeranian

Thanksgiving dinner!

Cafe Milano (a post that somehow didn't publish a few days ago, but did now!)

I'm studying for my (almost) last algebra exam (the last one before the final) in Cafe Milano, possibly one of the things I miss most about the Bay Area when I'm not here. And I don't quite know why. It's full to the brim with Berkeley students that I don't know, I don't come here often enough for the staff to know me, and transportation over here is very inconvenient. But I feel so at home when I'm here. I feel this is the epitome of student life. I remember sitting here with C, with my mother, with friends who I'm not friends with anymore- I remember being frustrated by homework, applying to study abroad programs, and burning my tongue on cups of coffee. And I just love it.

Silly airlines

You just shouldn't overbook flights on the days before holidays. No one will volunteer for another flight. Then you get this situation... Oy vey. And this isn't even my flight yet - just watching the drama of other ones.

Brave New World of Capitalism

I’m in the San Francisco airport – it’s about three hours before my flight leaves, and I’m already at the gate. I overestimated how much traffic there would be at the security checkpoint and gave myself a lot of extra time. But that’s alright. Much better than worrying.

So, I figured I would hop online (they advertise free wifi here) and give you an update about some things. I selected the ‚SF Airport’ wifi option and it said „connecting“ – and do you know what ? In order to get your free wifi (45 minutes of it), you have to watch an ad on the airport’s website. If you skip it, you can’t connect to the internet. Not only that, but I found the ad so astounding and maddening that I wanted to come to this word document and write about it immediate, but as soon as my word document was in front of the internet window where the ad was playing, the ad paused itself! I had to get out of the word window and go „watch“ it (I really played solitaire on my phone) in order to get internet access... Capitalism is freaking scary.

We talked about it a bit in my women’s studies class the other day (which is going on right now! Huh... weird! I’m skipping, obviously. They cancel classes starting at 2:30 on this Wednesday, but so many students skip the morning classes anyway an the professors have to do everything over again on the Monday after this break that I really don’t think it’s worth it to have class at all) – about how we confuse „choice“ with „freedom“ – we think, in a capitalist society, that we are free because we have the freedom to chose between things – ways we live, what peanut butter we buy, etc. But what we don’t see is that the system dictates the things we choose between in the first place.

But that wasn’t what I was going to talk to you about at all! I was going to tell you that I got my grade for my algebra exam – as I expected, not fantastic, but not half bad either. And actually, in comparison to the rest of the class, pretty damn good.

I think I’ll explore in the airport a bit and maybe find some lunch, then wander back here in time for boarding.

Six Minutes to Nine

I'm sitting on a bench in the back courtyard of the math and computer science building. I just finished my third algebra exam - which I calculated is the 28th math exam I have written at this college. There will only be five more. Wow. I really am close to being done.

And this one was... alright. I wasn't terrified and confused, but I also didn't think it was particularly easy - but that's probably a good thing. When I find them easy, it usually means that I make a few careless mistakes. I hope I avoided those this time around. I'm still outside here and not in my room because I decided to wait for a fellow student. Then I'll hike up the hill (possibly purchasing some ice cream first?), do some laundry, and convince myself tomorrow morning that even though it doesn't feel like it, I do have class. My break only starts on Wednesday.

And for this Thanksgiving break, I'm flying down to San Diego to visit my dad's sister and her family.  I haven't actually been to there house since -- goodness. Since I was considerably younger - young enough to have one of my biggest desires be to go to Lego Land, which we did. :)  There's going to be food, tea (I imagine), and hanging out with family -- all things that I very much need after this semester.

And when I get back, not that much changes. I have no thesis due (unlike a few of my friends) and though I will have a final exam in algebra (which will be a bit bigger than our other exams have been) and a few papers to finish, I think the semester will end relatively well. Without too much panic, I hope.

The job front? Well, that's still a looming demon, but I deal with it when I can. Applications here, references there, cover letters and more cover letters. It will get done.

I can hear the bells chiming 9 o'clock. I'll wrap this up and walk up to the dorm soon, and will check in later.

Fractal Broccoli at the Farmer's Market

...James Bond.

It was so much fun!

I should remember to have fun more often. On another note, it's hailing in Oakland. Lovely sound to go to sleep to.

G'night!

New App

So, I told Erin that I had downloaded a graphing app on my phone (after needing some graphs during tutoring appointments this week) and I told her rather excitedly about it, and she swiftly replied, "Aha. So you can graph on the go?" Sometimes, I don't even realize when I'm being made fun of. :) But it was in a loving way!

Some math folks and some other folks are heading out to see the new Bond film tonight- formalist entertainment, here we come! After our intro into French New Wave last night, I just can't wait!

Group Actions Visualized as a Fractal

Last note:

Also, all of my trips to the gym were justified today when a girl in the music building ran up to me, verzweifelt, and said, "Please, can you help me? A piano leg has collapsed and we need someone to help hold it up while we fix it!" My inner superhero swelled with pride. And we fixed the piano. Booyah!

So, what's going on exactly?

Today, I met with my group for Film Music, the group of people with whom I am scoring the movie clip. By the way, I found a version of the clip on youtube - here. However, there isn't supposed to be any music to the clip - the person who uploaded it there put their own music to it. I would listen to it with the volume on mute to get the full effect. The director is Maya Deren. It's an interesting clip, to say the least! It's definitely growing on me.

When we met up today, we crowded into a tiny practice room in the music building - piano, guitar, enough room for a piano bench and one chair, and four people. Quite exciting. And we brainstormed! We had good ideas, bad ideas, tried things out, laughed at old ideas, and put together a list of what we will probably do. Next time we meet, we're going to try to record some ideas so that we don't have to try and get all the recording done in the studio in December. I'm quite pleased with how our group is working together - I've got a good feeling about the project.

In other news, cover letters and resumes are still really hard to write. I'm clawing my way through some of them and am finding new opportunities each day - of course, I never feel like I'm actually qualified for any of the positions, but some of that is in my head. And if a good proportion of it isn't just in my head and a I actually shouldn't apply for a certain position, usually I realize that. No new applications have gone out yet, but they will soon.

Also, 41 days until I see C again. You can imagine how happy that makes me.

Also, yesterday, I had an inspiration for an algebra-art project and as soon as I find a scanner, I will upload it and do my best to explain it briefly. I said in class that a concept we were discussing reminded me of fractals, and no one understood why- then I drew a picture, and now they know what I mean. :)

Speaking of, it's time for algebra homework. A friend of mine told me yesterday that she had calculated, based on the average time it takes her to do a homework assignment for our professor, that over the course of the semester, she will spend 8 full 24 hour days just doing algebra homework. Not counting rereading notes for class, not counting going to class, not counting studying for exams. Oy vey! I'd better go and make a dent in that myself. ;)

Something New

Do you ever do something that is out of your comfort zone and in doing so, realize what life might be like if you were a different person? Just, like, a little snippet of a potential existence?

This morning, I was thinking about my final project for my Film Music class. We have been put into groups and as a group, have to score a five-minute film clip. We can use preexisting music, we can compose, we have to go into a recording studio in about three weeks and put whatever music it is we do want to the clip, add any other sound design we think needs to be there, mix it, and have a clip ready to present on the last day of class. The neat thing is that on that day, we will see three completely different versions of the same clip, since each group is working with the same one. But we don't know what the other groups are doing.

This film clip is strange, to say the least. But it's growing on me. Black and white, ghostly, people who are there one second and gone the next -- very odd. But the thing that I got to experience this morning was neat. I'm sitting on the floor, leaning against my bed and have my guitar. I just watched the clip two or three times and improvised on the guitar, playing to it. And I found something - not sure if I would call it a melody - that goes with a certain character. I focused on the notes I was using, found some new ones that went along with it. I was composing to a film clip. And I just had the thought that there are some people who do this for a living. I'm nowhere near good enough and I have serious doubts that that's a direction I will ever go in, but - it was fun to try it out. I'm not sure if the rest of my group will like anything that I've come up with, and it's okay if they think it's nothing special or if they think it doesn't fit. I'm just glad to have had the experience of it so far.

First Experience of Cinema Modernism

Next week, I'll have my exam on realism in my film class. To "clear our minds" before then and give us something completely new (which I actually do think can help the brain study, or better analyze what it already knows), our professor showed us Persona tonight, our first example of modernism, - written, directed, and produced by Ingmar Bergman.

Oh. My. Goodness. So, this film is quite well known or at least heard of for those who have studied film, but I'm not sure about the rest of the world. I feel like an older generation would know it better - but even so, it's not a blockbuster type movie. Not at all. It deals with the question of whether there really is anything within an individual person that makes them an individual, that informs their actions, that is specific to that person. Is there anything that makes me different from you, from my professor, from an enemy of mine? How much influence do we have on each other? Can one person make another person do something?

I highly, highly recommend it. 83 minutes that will feel like 10. Yes, it's weird -- it's modernism, people -- but it is absolutely worth it.

In case you didn't see the full Halloween costume:

The real thing up there, and then me...

Not bad, right? :)

I'm not sure how many of you were privy to the ongoing struggles between me and Mills to get all of my credits from my year abroad, but finally, they trusted me enough (trusted me that I wasn't just goofing off last year in Mainz and that I did actually go to some classes, even if the grades aren't here yet) to let me register for next semester. My last registration here. And there were still open spots in the Tango class: without a doubt, the class I am most excited for next semester.

No, my credits aren't here yet. No, they still aren't giving me my financial aid because of that. BUT - they have let me register. Little victory.

"Obama hat es noch einmal geschafft" - tagesschau.de

Thank goodness.

In a turn of events that is very, very "mills", I was in class during most of the exciting bits of the election today. I sent in my vote about a week and a half ago and got a text message from my father about two hours into class saying that PA had gone for Obama, and that was the first victory. By the time my class ended, it was pretty much certain that he would take the country again - I have to admit, I was a bit bummed I couldn't join in a tense atmosphere that would (in my head) have a miraculously sudden turn for Obama at about 10:00 in the Student Union room where a party was going on. Instead, as I left my lecture, from across campus I could already hear the cheers coming from that room. Erin and I popped in for a few minutes (a friend of ours who was running the tickets for this event ((3$ apiece, to pay for food, etc.)) saw us, smiled, and when I took out my wallet simply said "It's on Obama." and waved us inside) but not long. Then, we trudged back up the hill where we watched the live coverage on youtube and google and tried to understand the electoral college just a bit better.

Yes, I'm excited. Quite excited, actually. But really -- I can't help thinking that we've just managed NOT to be a complete laughingstock. Hooray, we managed to NOT elect a leader of this country who would send us backwards. Maybe that's a bit too pessimistic, but it's how I'm feeling at the moment. It still makes me concerned that someone like Romney has so much support in this country. Concerned, but unfortunately not surprised.

BUT - support or no, undeniable charm or no, it wasn't enough. Thank goodness.

Also, two more states (Maine and Maryland) voted yes on marriage equality tonight. :)

The servers here are so overrun I can barely get my blog page to load, let alone listen to Obama's speech, so I think it's bedtime for me and I'll catch a rerun in the morning. Well done, USA. See you again soon.

Back

Hey.

It's been forever, I know. I had a whirlwind of a weekend - car, plane, plane, car, home, out, home, out, and then do it all over again in the other direction. It was a fantastic weekend for so many reasons. My reason for going home - attending a dedication service at my church to a lovely 8-month-old, at long last officially adopted by two women who mean a lot to me - turned out to be one of several things I did while I was there. I also saw my father in a play, heard my mother play music, visited a friend I hadn't seen in a very long time, and had some nice inner revelations on top of that. Plus, all the time on the plane meant that I finally got the time to read my most recent book and listen to some of another book.

Meadville, as you can see below, was beautiful in late autumn. My body is still confused at the transition from mildly chilly Oakland when I left, to hovering-around-freezing with snow/rain/sleet in Meadville, and now back out 80-degree Oakland. Here at Mills, this week is the calm before the storm of the downhill race to the end of the semester - nothing due this week, no exams, but starting next week? At least one paper or one exam due each and every week until the end of the semester -which is only five weeks away! Someone told me that yesterday. I still don't quite believe it.

Travel Day

A few gems from Southwest:

1. "Alright... flight attendants, prepare for blast-off." - Captain on first flight
2. "Welcome aboard this B2-400 and-- oops. 300.  Umm...yes, welcome aboard..."  - flight attendant on first flight
3. "Paging Mr. Mark... everyone is boarding except you! Come to your gate, please!" - announcer in terminal in Phoenix

Also, it was stunning this morning on campus before I left:

About to go to kickboxing... Looking like this!

!

At least four people have recognized my costume. Yes. :)

Thank goodness!

Thank goodness for several things. Some of these things are:

1) That I heard my alarm go off this morning even though the volume on my phone was down very low. Nothing like starting out a day by oversleeping, and this day is so full, that wouldn't have been an option today! So, yay for good ears. I guess my tendency to listen to music way too loud on my iPod while working out hasn't killed my hearing yet. Awesome!

2) Today is Halloween! That means my friends and I will be dressing up - I've never dressed up while at college. However, today, the ideas are too good to pass up. I will be Tim Minchin and if you are reading this blog and have somehow managed to avoid learning who he is, please go check this out, or this! I will look that awesome. And I'm going to carry around post-it notes with his name and a song of his to search on youtube, and I'll give those post-its to people who ask me who I'm supposed to be...

3) I'm going to Meadville this weekend! I've never done such a spontaneous or brief trip home, and I'm really excited to be doing it now. :)


4)Yesterday was beautiful.

 

5) Managed 10k (6.2 ish miles) yesterday - I've been getting really bad stitches in my side at around 4 miles lately and haven't been able to keep going, but yesterday, - perfect! 10k in 57 ish minutes. :) Woohoo!

Scent Memory

Last winter, it got cold in Germany. There were a few wintry nights with temperature levels that made it into the news back home in Pennsylvania.  It was during the end of my first semester, after Christmas, and the skin on my hands kept cracking in the cold. To try and keep the dryness and pain at bay, I put lotion on my hands each morning before I went out, and once again when I returned in the evening. I used one particular kind of cream, and didn’t think much of it at the time.

This morning, my hands were a bit dry. I rummaged through my bathroom bag hanging on the towel bar in my room and found a tiny container of the same lotion I had used last winter. Rushing out the door with my backpack on one shoulder, keys and water bottle in the other hand, I rubbed some of the lotion on my hands and walked swiftly to class.

I took my seat at one of the tables arranged in a rectangle, all seats facing in. We started discussing the welfare system in the US and the policies put in place in 1996, and as the lecture got started, I put my elbows on the table in front of me and laced my fingers together, rested my chin against them.

The smell of the lotion reached my nose. With my eyes open, I saw the classroom swim away. I saw crosswalks and pigeons and the train station sliding out of view from the bus window.  My head was leaned against my hands which were folded on top of my backpack. I could smell the instant coffee from tiny mugs in the Uni Mensa (cafeteria) and see the sidewalk sparkle under a thin sheet of ice in front of the math building.

As I looked down at my notebook in the classroom, I could see past the desk to the tips of the boots I had stolen from Claudia growing darker and darker grey from the slush at the bus stop.  When I pushed my glasses up my nose as I took notes on the welfare system, I remembered how my glasses didn’t fog up with the heat when I walked into the stairwell leading to our apartment since there was no heat in the halls, but that they did fog up when I opened the door into our kitchen.

For some reason, I feel very absent from here today. True, this scent memory is a big part of it, but I also think I go through cycles of living here. At first, it’s a vacation – exciting and new. Then it becomes every day life. And now – today is one of the days that doesn’t make sense to me. The friends I spoke with and experiences I had in Mainz are still so close to my heart. The me that I am now, that me which changes every year bit by bit, is more comfortable in an apartment than in a dorm room, perhaps more comfortable in Germany than California. 

The point is that today, my mind was far enough away from here that it only took a small breath of the scent of the perfume to send me back. And it made me wonder if in five years, when I smell eucalyptus somewhere, I will remember today and my time here just as strongly.

Aha-Moment

Hey!

I'm sitting with the last bit of a large mug of coffee and my algebra book in front of me, getting ready for my exam tomorrow. I just had a lovely "aha-moment" - reading something that I know to be true but never quite grasped why, and all of a sudden, without thinking about it further, I knew exactly why it was true. I think math has really taught me what actual understanding feels like. I know how I feel when I'm only "getting" something enough to be able to use it in a proof, for example, but it's not tangible to me yet. I don't have a picture of it in my head, if that makes sense. When I really do understand a concept or a statement, though, it appears in my head whenever I read it. There's no question about whether that statement is true or what that abstract object is really like - I have the blueprint of it in my head and it so clearly couldn't be, couldn't exist any other way - it simply has to be true. And it feels great!

However, knowing what real understanding feels like, I also know when I don't understand something fully, and then I can't help but be impatient. That's the thing about math sometimes. Sometimes, you could read the definition fifty times in a hour and still not "get" it. Sometimes, you just have to wait. Then, in the shower, during your second cup of coffee, while you're walking the dog - there it is! It appears in your head, fully formed, just like the simplest thing in the world. And you think, "well, brain, if it was so damn simple, why didn't you just let me understand it before!?!"  Humbling, I suppose. :)

I hope I have a few more of those moments during studying today. That would make me feel good about tomorrow.

In other news, it's still kind of rainy in Oakland and I can't find my raincoat. Unfortunate, but we persevere! :)

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It got sunny at the end of the day - thought I'd share a bit with you:

I love the rain.

Hey.

So, back from that glorious three-day weekend (three and a half, since I skipped my Thursday night class to go to Santa Cruz). I learned some things this weekend - like, for example, the important thing to do is to walk down the coast to the lighthouse on West Cliff Drive with my grandfather, not necessarily to get a headstart on studying for the Algebra exam coming up. It's okay that I didn't go for a run while I was there, because instead, I got to read some of that book that I've been wanting to read for weeks. It's alright that I didn't start research for my film paper because instead, I picked vegetables from the garden and made a salad, cooked with my dad, and bought a small birthday gift for a friend.

I think I've been going crazy lately because I feel like "real life" is out of my reach. I've been holed up in a cocoon of studying in a self-perpetuating way. Every second has to be used for something, I can't just "do nothing" - and "nothing" is anything that isn't for a class. So, it was refreshing and I think a lifeline to my inner person who is more than just a student to be in Santa Cruz and actually live a little. It was a fantastic weekend.

I'm gonna try to balance that stuff more in the upcoming weeks. Also, - the semester is more than half over. What? How did that happen?

I have to run now, but I wanted to clue you in. I'm sure I'll write again soon. Greetings from beautiful, rainy Oakland. I love rain. It always helps me feel in the moment.

What have I actually been learning?

Hello, all. Right now, I want to give you a quick spin through some of the things I've been learning about in my liberal arts education right now. It will be quick because I am exhausted and each ticking of the clock takes me closer to my alarm going off in the morning, but I miss this, so here I go!

1. From Algebra: don't panic. I'm just going to explain one elementary concept. Please understand that what we are actually doing in class involves a lot more than this (and I'm convinced that some of it could be explained to non-math people, but I'm not sure if the one direction, me writing --> you reading format of this blog would be adequate to explain the more layered concepts), but this is an idea that I only heard about for the first time in this class, and I thought it was quite interesting. 

You might recall from elementary school that certain numbers (certain integers, actually - integers are all the whole numbers, negative and positive, including zero) have the property of being prime. That means that those certain numbers have only 1 and themselves as factors (factors being things you multiply together to get that number).  I'm sure most people know the first few prime numbers: 1, 2 (weird, huh? the only even prime number... :D ), 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 23... etc, etc. There are lots of interesting facts about primes. First of all, they seem to be distributed in a rather arbitrary way throughout the integers - 7 and 11 are further away from each other than 11 and 13, but then then 13 is farther away from 17 than that, etc. Several branches of mathematics deal with the properties of prime numbers, looking at them from different ways and in great detail. You may have also learned in school that every integer can be written as a product of prime numbers - called a number's prime factorization. One way to look at this is as the prime numbers as the letters of the alphabet, and the whole set of all integers (from negative infinity to positive infinity) as all the words we can form with those letters. In this sense, the primes are the building blocks of the integers. Atoms. Cool, right?

The other neat thing about primes is that I think they are a fantastic medium through which to explain one basic structure of a proof. You're about to prove something. Like, PROVE something, in the mathematical sense. Are you ready? It's gonna feel awesome.

Let's prove that there are an infinite number of prime numbers.
---- hold on a sec. Think about what that means. It's always good to understand what you're proving before you try to prove it. So, we want to show that there's an infinite number of prime numbers - that means that the further out you go on the number line, if you will, you'll always find another prime number - and another after that, another after that. There is no positive integer so big that a prime number can't be found that's bigger than it.

So, we've understood the question. Now we can prove it. Let's assume for the sake of contradiction (you're learning awesome math language now) that there only finitely many prime numbers. Let's say there's n of them. (Sneaky math talk, using a letter to represent a number. It's not fancy, it's just notation, okay? Don't get intimidated by little ol' n.) Since each of those numbers is prime, but I don't know individually what each of them are, I'm just going to call them p1, p2, p3,...., pn. Now I have a group of n (a number n) prime numbers. With me so far?

I'm also assuming that THAT'S IT. There's no prime number bigger than pn, the last prime number. But hold on a second.

What if I took the product of all of those little p's -- p1*p2*p3*.....*pn?
If I multiply them all together, I get some big number - some big number that's divisible by p1, p2, p3 --- by all of the p's, since they are all in that product. So you know what I'll do to that product? I'll ADD ONE TO IT.

So, we have (p1*p2*p3*.....*pn)+1.  And you know what? That thing I just wrote? That number is prime. Its only factors are 1 and itself, since I used up all of the rest of the primes in the product.

--> there are an infinite number of prime numbers. You give me a finite number of them, I can find you the NEXT one. And I can do that no matter how big the finite number you give me is. QED.

Doesn't that feel awesome?

Okay, but that's not the concept I wanted to share with you. No, with all that as sort of background information, I want you to think about something else: say you have two numbers like 7 and 12.  Yes, 7 is prime, 12 is not. If we look at each of those numbers, we notice that they don't have any factors in common other than 1. And we have a name for numbers like that. We call them relatively prime. Just think of all the fantastic things we can learn about them! :)

----

2. I must say, 1 ended up being quite a lot longer than I'd planned! I was just having too much fun. :) Okay, so besides numbers and their properties, what have I been thinking about? In my RSS course, I have been learning about the idea of dependency and the welfare state - the idea that welfare actually encompasses any redistribution of state wealth (collected through taxes) through resources for citizens. However, we don't think of all welfare the same way. In fact, a lot of welfare programs aren't associated with the hot-button word "welfare" at all. We don't consider Social Security to be a "government hand-out", just for one small example. There's something quite odd in that system. Welfare, in the minds of most people, goes to single mothers and lazy people who don't get off their asses to work. Is this a correct thing to think? No. Is it my automatic to the word 'welfare'? Yes, unfortunately. That just goes to show part of a recurring theme in my class that the rhetoric, the vocabulary we use to discuss a subject greatly influences our understanding of the topic itself.
(If I had more time, I could tell you so much more! I have a long weekend coming up - maybe I will then!)

3.  I'll combine my two film-related classes. In music, we have discussed recently the very huge change around the 50s and 60s in cinema when the film genres and film industry itself had become established enough that films could reference other films. We see this in the form of parodies all the time. We know film and film music conventions so well that it doesn't even seem so important to talk about it, but  it is! Why is it that we laugh when we see someone sitting at a table eating a bowl of spaghetti with music so dramatic it could have played in Jaws? Because we know that type of music is designed for a film like Jaws, not for a film about someone eating noodles. That transition took a while, and the results are really fascinating once you look for them.

In my other film course, we have recently shifted from studying the genre of Formalism in film to Realism. Formalism encompasses about 80% of the films that are made worldwide. Formalism is about entertainment, for the most part. It's about the narrative, it's about providing a conclusion at the end of the narrative that feels like a conclusion - whether it's happy or not. Blockbuster films are formalist, almost 100% of the time. In these films, so much emphasis is placed on the technical aspect of it that we end up having what is called invisible editing, among other things - technique that is so clean, sound design, music, acting, lighting, cinematography - everything done so seamlessly that we don't notice it at all in our willing suspension of disbelief in the theater. We only see the narrative. And it delivers what we want - plot, plot, satisfying conclusion. Fun, entertaining movies. (Batman, Harry Potter, Casablanca, Psycho, etc.)

Realism, however, refers to films that are a bit more ambiguous. Most of the time, there are no noble characters in realist films - no innocent ones either. Everyone is flawed. These movies examine the human condition and what we are apt to do under less than perfect circumstances. On a strictly technical level, one difference between formalism and realism can be seen in the fact that there are very few close-up shots in realism films. In formalism, we quite often get shots that are so close, we have no doubt about what in the scene we are supposed to be focusing on. The editing effectively tells us what is important. This isn't the case in realism. In realism, we see the whole shot - the whole room with characters in it, or the whole house, road, tent - whatever it may be. The camera holds itself back - the viewer is told "You make your own decision. What's going on here? Why? Is it right or wrong? Is there even a right or wrong?" Realism films are quite often more about character study than about the furthering of a plot. (City Lights, Memento, Grapes of Wrath, The Master, etc.)

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Whew! I got caught up in writing. I need to sleep! I hope you found that at least a little interesting. :) I'll write again soon.

Video!

Hey! I put together some clips from our adventure on Saturday and uploaded it to YouTube - you can check it out here. I hope you enjoy it! It felt good to do some video editing again. :)

San Francisco Day!

So, yesterday, I didn't open a single book, read a singe article, or prove a single proposition. No, it was a homework free day. Erin and I went to San Francisco for the day. It was partially because I found my wardrobe woefully lacking in appropriate winter-wear (i.e. long sleeved shirts and a sweater) and Erin had a few things to pick up. So, we ate breakfast together in my room and then headed into The City, as it's referred to around here.

In the Mall, giving our tired feet a rest...

A lovely San Fran street - the hill was much more dramatic in real life than it looks here.

In case we'd forgotten we were in America.

A fantastic jacket that, don't worry, I did NOT purchase. But the spikes are quite becoming, don't you think?

Then I turned into Humphrey Bogart for a bit.

And finally, a scene outside the restaurant where we'd had dinner with friends of Erin's parents - the nighttime café life made me think once again about how much I miss Mainz.

All in all, quite a lovely day. There will be more soon - I just have to organize it all technologically.

Also, big news: except for one letter of recommendation, my Fulbright application is finished! :)

Fall outside the Music Building

Before it all begins...

My day is planned out to the hour, and that plan starts in about 23 minutes, so before that train starts a-rollin', I wanted to tell you some quick things that I have found fascinating in the last 24 hours.

First of all, in my reading for Film Music, I learned a bit about silence in film. We all know that it's one of the big faux-pas in film to have an actor look directly at the camera. It's cheesy, looks weird, etc, etc. Lots of problems. That we know even as an audience member. What we don't know is that even when there is silence in a film, it isn't silence. There is a very low level of white noise, always (in popular films). Without that "protection of this sound blanket" (Figgis, page 2 of Silence), everything becomes so harsh. We feel as an audience member as if the floor has dropped out beneath us and suddenly, we're faced with actual silence. I feel like some of us may have experienced that more in live theater - that moment when you are jolted out of your willful suspension of disbelief and realize that you're sitting with a bunch of strangers in the dark watching other strangers on a stage. The walls come down when there is no sound and we all suddenly remember reality.

Secondly, I have been reading Black Swan Green lately, a book given to me by my grandmother and written by David Mitchell. Last night, I came across some things I wanted to share here. First of all, there was a scene in which a young boy was chased by some dogs (dobermans) since their owner thought the boy was stuck up given where he had grown up.

"The dog man despised me for not being born here. He despised me for living down Kingfisher Meadows. That's a hate you can't argue with. No more than you can argue with mad Dobermans."

(p. 72)

That made me think of my RSS course, about how I don't mind hearing opinions opposed to mine. It's the blind dismissal of other points of view that bothers me - precisely what Mitchell stated above, that it's something (in many cases hatred in that class) that "you can't argue with".  Very hard to deal with.

The last thing I wanted to say was inspired not only by passages in the book but also by clips that I have watched in both of my film-related classes this week. I feel like everywhere I look, I see paths, roads, trees and greenery, people walking or driving or hiking - just being out there. I want to go walking down paths I haven't seen before - walk with some food in a bag and spend the day without reading an article, book, or internet page - without typing anything or turning in homework. Next Friday (the 19th) is our mid-semester break. Yes, only one day. Pathetic. On the other hand, mid-semester. YIKES!  Anyway, on that weekend, I will be in Santa Cruz and I can't wait to do some serious walking. This morning on my run I discovered two corners of the campus that I hadn't seen before - something that surprises me after my years here, but makes me happy nonetheless. I do get to live on a beautiful campus, and I'm quite grateful for that.  If I can invent something that helps a camera move more smoothly while the camera person walks or rides a bike, I will give you some video proof of this campus' beauty. (I realize something has been invented for just that, but I'm not working on a Hollywood budget, here. :)  )