Spring Break is almost officially over. It’s definitely been nice to basically laze around for the past few days and be completely unproductive. That said, I still have two papers to work on that are due Wednesday, neither of which I have really started yet. Looks like that is what I’ll be dedicating today and tomorrow for!

Anyway, I flew home to my parent’s house for a few days in Southern California on Saturday and had the distinct pleasure of missing my plane! Totally my fault, since I misjudged the amount of time it’d take to BART across the bay. The person behind the counter told me I’d be put on a standby waiting list, but that all the flights for the rest of the evening were sold out! Luckily, the next plane had space (perhaps those people ran late as well?) and I was able to fly home an hour later.

I got to hang out with the gang every night I was down, so that was awesome to see them again. Of course this is the only time I’ll be able to go home this whole semester, so it’s kind of depressing that I didn’t get to spend more time there. It was definitely an awesome time of year. The orange groves are blossoming (at least what’s left of them before they’re torn down to make way for houses), tons of monarch butterflies are doing their migration as well, which was awesome to see. Just a bunch of awesome sights and smells.

I flew back up here on Tuesday and have been fairly lazy since then. We decided to hold a birthday-for-roommate/end-of-spring-break party at the place last night which was a wild success. David and Michelle came, as well as some of our friends from Southern California who were visiting. I’ll have to post some pictures later.

This past week hasn’t completely been a loss though! I applied for this internship yesterday, however it’s going to be quite competitive since there is only one spot open.

Anyway, time to start writing papers!

One more midterm to go! Got to school at 9am this morning… just got home! Oh yes. 15 hours today. Ugh. Might as well go to bed… last exam in roughly 7 and a half hours.

(Also, since a few people were curious… here is the banned page, as was described in an earlier post.)

So I’m leaving school today and walking up the platform to catch a train home. A little old lady is in front of me running up the platform. I notice that her backpack is open, so I jog up and catch her to inform her about this. As she pulls it off her back to close it, she drops a sweater and folder. Then she exclaims “OH MAN!!! I HAVE TO GET TO WORK!!!!” all while she’s trying to close her backpack (and having a bit of trouble). And then she starts wailing! “OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! OHHHH NO. OHHHHHHHHH!” Then she picks up her stuff, gets on the train and continues to wail. And wail. And wail for the entire ride home!

Oh man! I’m sorry to have brought bad news to her life. 🙁 Good grief, just by the mere act of me talking to people, I can make them cry. That makes me feel great. 😛

I encounter the craziest people on these trains. Last year, another little old lady sat next to me on the ride to school and proceeded to tell me her life story… despite me having headphones on! And then she mentioned her boyfriend Jason. Then she would ask me “Oh! Did I tell you about my boyfriend Jason?? He is great!” Then a few moments later, “You know my boyfriend Jason? He’s great!” And then she proceeded to ask me again if she told me about her boyfriend!

So cook some popcorn and pull up a chair, and I’ll tell you about how I discovered a roommate’s obsession with downloading PORN!

Beware, this post contains massive quantities of computer sleuthing/nerdiness and might be boring to your average reader… (more…)

A project that I’ve been wanting to get off the ground for quite awhile is coming to fruition! A site strictly dedicated to geology news! Check it out. 🙂

I’ve written about this before, but it’s really sad that two people who were awesome friends at one point in history probably won’t ever speak to each other again. It’s even worse when the friendship ended for rather dubiously weak reasons.

Anyway, for some odd reason, I had an urge to try to start our friendship over again. Perhaps it’s because she’s been on my mind lately. Or how random things associated with her seem to keep coincidentially popping up. Or her best friend sending me an email that said she “missed having me around.”

After exchanging a few emails dealing with random science stuff, I asked her if she’d like to get together for lunch one day, just to talk, when I’m home for spring break. The response I received flat out rejected that idea, or even the idea of friendship. So much for trying to be mature and extend an olive branch. That makes one feel like crap. The tone of this email (as well as the initial email that set things in motion a year ago, or rather, killed them) and its negative message make it seem as if I did something to wrong her. Why is there so much animosity there? For no apparent reason too.

Regardless, the email this evening stated that “I am being direct and honest when I say that I have moved on in life.” Moved on from what exactly? Not to mention a recent email reply that said, “I’ve been thinking about you lately.” It just seems rather curious to claim to have moved on and want nothing to do with someone when still interested about the events going on in their life (i.e., consistently checking their webpage roughly once a week… according to site access logs). Because “moving on” somehow involves knowing what’s going on in my life. Whatever.

So however petty it may seem, I’ve decided to ban that IP address from this website. I think it’s better for both of us. Though I have no illusions that the ban is fairly easy to circumvent if one is dedicated enough, but it is peace of mind for me. And it helps her to actually move on. Of course it probably makes me look like a petty asshole, but I no longer care what her opinion of me is anymore. What’s the point?

After thinking about it for quite awhile tonight, I feel better though. I basically got the (final) answer I needed, and I guess I can move on myself, rather than still clinging to some false hope of trying to be on friendly terms again. It also solidifies my feelings and opinion of her, in an unfortunately negative way. Perhaps that makes it easier to forget someone. Perhaps that explains the animosity of her previous letters.

It looks like I did well in the student research competition. I just found out today that I won in my category (Mathematical and Physical Sciences) and will be going to the statewide competition in Sacramento at the end of April! Yeah!!

So I decided to take the time and compile a list of freely downloadable programs that I think most people should check out, given time and patience (and in some cases, how much they value their sanity). Sorry Mac users, this post is fairly PC-centric. Let’s begin! (more…)

Just got back from a jog in Golden Gate Park. There is something about hearing the wind gently blow through the trees and seeing bats fly above you that is just downright freaky, not to mention being one of the only people out going for a run. However, it was an awesome and peaceful sight, all the same.

Spring break is a mere 2 weeks away! This semester is flying by surprisingly fast. Though this might have more to do with that fact that I’m constantly busy. Next week is going to be pretty brutal: Petrology lab exam on the 15th, Volcanology midterm on the 16th and a Petrology lecture exam on 17th. I almost feel like my fellow friends who are on the quarter system at other schools. That alone would make a pretty intense week of finals.

Lucky me though, I am only on the semester system… this means that we can add more work! So on top of finding time for 3 exams to study for, I also need to write a 10 page paper in Engineering Geology and create a presentation based off of it, which are due on the 16th. Also need to finish a lab and complete a load of work for my group in Quaternary Geology for our grant proposal. Oh yes!

Speaking of presentations, I haven’t heard back from the Office of Graduate Studies yet in regards to my presentation for the student research competition. In the Physical Sciences/Math category, I competed against 3 other people, who were all grad students! I think I managed to hold my own though… 😉 I had quite a few people from class come to check it out and my sister even managed to stop by. That was definitely awesome to have support from both friends and family.

Information Overload

Regarding the overall title of this post, it doesn’t just apply to school, but to my whole life in general at the moment. I was thinking about how much information we have access to at our fingertips and how much amazing it is, yet also time consuming. For example, in my case, I’m a member of many different web communities. Among them: Kuro5hin, Metafilter, PhysOrg, Slashdot, and Wikipedia. Checking each of these sites involves quite a chunk of time (though at the same time I learn quite a lot from them).

I need to find out where I heard a quote that goes something like, “We learn more in a single day than a peasant in the medieval era did in their entire life span.” Sadly, what all this information overloading means is that the day simply isn’t long enough.