placeholder entry...

I'm still here :)

It's been an interesting weekend -- rather a lot happened, and during a good portion of the daylight hours, I was asleep, and during most of the nighttimes, I've been awake...

... and I should probably put head to pillow pretty soon, because I'm getting up early to do some more studying (furious, last-minute, last-ditch cramming) for the Combinatorics test tomorrow... we'll see how this goes. It ... might not be too bad... I think I've got a handle on the graphs and the rook polynomials and maybe on generating functions, and I think by 1000 tomorrow (7 hours from now... yow...) I'll be able to work out recurrence relations passably...

Lessee... before I completely forget, I had this dream... this afternoon... in which, for some reason, I was in the Chattahoochee river, underwater, either swimming around or getting pulled behind this little motorized thing, the sort that divers sometimes use to scoot around reefs and shipwrecks on TV, and it was very narrow and shallow, and suddenly, for some reason, Corey shows up, and I think he was looking for me for some reason, and I think to myself -- "This is very strange -- how did he know that I was in the Chattahoochee river? Maybe I'm dreaming." So I wake up, look around, realize that Corey was off somewhere else, conclude that I was, in fact, dreaming, and then plop back down and pass out again.

Relay for Life really took it out of me. That was quite an experience -- All Night is a long time, especially if all you can really be doing is walking (or in my case, for a good portion of the night, running) around in circles... there were some interesting people there, though. The ceremonial aspect was somewhat strange, and I think I'll write about that next I get the opportunity to sit and write for a while.

Today I did church, went back to bed, did group meetings for Squeak and Practicum, and managed to get One Way Letter, one of the bands that played at Relay, to agree to let us use their music for the soundtrack to our version of Scorch. Rawk! (the ultimate goal for this business arrangement, of course, has nothing to do with trying to get Corey hooked up with the bass player)

More about these things later... 0700 aproaches rapidly.

unrelated thoughts and the story of the weekend

So today, I got up, went to Woody's, looked over some combinatorics over pancakes and coffee, and eventually found my way over to the class, where people were haning around outside beforehand and comparing notes on how bad things looked... it was bleak for most of the people out there, and the test itself didn't do well to alleviate people's fears. Ah well. These things happen. My prediction is that I broke into the double-digits but did not, in fact, get 100% (*laughs* Putting down answers for everything helps, if you want 100...) These things happen. It's passed.

Aside from that, today's been sort of ambiently low-content and happy. I hung around and tried to figure out how to get some particular Squeak software (either SmaCC or T-Gen, which are like yacc for Squeak, if that's meaningful) that we're going to need for this next Squeak milestone and then went to teach recitation.

The students seemed pretty well passed out today. It's questionable, whether they're really getting anything, but they sure don't ask any questions. I guess there's a certain point where you think "eh, I'm screwed... I don't even know what questions to ask" and then either give up or just resolve to figure things out on one's own. Or maybe they really do grasp everything and didn't want us to keep on reviewing for the test. It's a conundrum...

Interesting things I've seen today: the CoC has a hummer, apparently, and it's labelled "Mobile Robot Lab". Is that not the coolest thing there's ever been? "Oh no! Giant monsters are terrorizing downtown Atlanta! ... but here comes Professor Koenig in the Mobile Robot Lab to save the day!"

Also, there's at least one Tech student who carries a messenger bag with a big red hammer 'n' sickle on it, and there was a group of older gentlemen running up the SAC hill, and I was on my way to Skiles and carrying a backpack, but ran along with them for about a minute. One of them jokingly exclaimed something about having just done a brisk ten miles, which was amusing :)

I think I said "y'all" today, twice... really, really strange... since when do I have a "y'all"? It almost seems to fit, addressing a large number of people, like a 2130 recitation. "You" is supposed to pluralize into "youse" or "youse guys", right? Sometimes "all of youse" for emphasis...

hrumm... and this weekend was mostly taken up with the Relay -- preparation for, the thing itself, and then the aftermath...

Colin and myself went to Publix and made a bunch of PB&J sammiches, and then the Wesley crew mostly collected itself and we headed over to SAC field, where things proceeded to get set up and started, and where we proceeded to walk (or run, in many people's cases) around in circles for a while -- there were rather a large number of fraternities and sororities out, as well as a bunch of random clubs, including, notably the Chinese Student Association, who were running the Relay one lap at a time, passing off a kickball at each lap...

So I saw a bunch of people I knew, and eventually the thunder and lightning and rain started, and we went into the gym and continued walking around in circles... and this continued until about 6:30. About midway through the event, there was ... sort of an ill-defined ceremony, where people stood around holding candles, names were read out, and somebody sang "Amazing Grace"... although there wasn't any particular mentioning of any deities involved. It went on for a very long time.

Also at the Relay, I spoke with this young lady whom I hadn't met before (from the Lutheran center -- the Lutherans jumped on our Heathen Bandwagon), by the name of Erika, who has sort of a quiet, half-sardonic manner where it's semiambiguous how seriously she's taking you, or herself, or the conversation at hand (although she's clearly really sharp)... and apparently she's on the Equestrian team, gradually gets this anxious look on her face and asks if she can play with your hands, and then proceeds to knead your hands until all the muscles in them relax, and gets urges to bake things. She popped off in the middle of the Relay and returned an hour or so later with an apple pie. Interesting interesting person...

Over the 12-hour stretch of Relay, the crowd thinned out appreciably -- probably more than 2/3 of everybody left before it was over. But eventually, it ended, and we packed up our stuff and headed out, and I went home and passed out for a few hours, then got up, did church, and passed out again. I was sore the next day -- that was probably the most miles I'd done on foot in a 12-hour stretch.

So that's the (riveting and intense) story of my weekend. Tonight: Practicum and Squeak...

Ooh! And the Mighty Mighty Bosstones are Coming To Tech!! *squeal* I know where I'll be next Thursday... this is wonderful, because they're playing in the evening... and last year, I (stupidly) went to class instead of staying to see Reel Big Fish, when they played on the campus... See, you know that I like the Bosstones, because they're in my "interests" list. You can check. Really, go check, right now...

Yah :) That's exciting.

Okay, off to draw UML diagrams...