Forms.

Aside from the final, no more analysis work.  I just finished up the last homework.  And — It’s 5:30 in the morning. 

You know, lately I’ve been going to bed later and later and waking up, consequently, later and later.  It’s really upsetting.

Last summer I spent all of my time home — usually, since I went to bed around 5 in the morning doing god-knows-what and woke up around 4 in the afternoon.  4!  And, really, there is no excuse for that.  No matter what I tried, it was always around 4 that I woke up.  I tried setting alarms, sleeping earlier, staying up all night…nothing worked.

Oh.  Playing Civ4.  That’s what I was doing.

But waking up at 4 in the afternoon sucks.  That’s after everyone else has already made plans — and usually after people have already been hanging out.  You have 5 good hours before the sun starts setting, and if you have to get ready [shower, clothes, waking up, brush teeth, food?,...] then you only have around 4 and a half, or even just 4.  And this is without knowing what’s going on!  Signing on to check your mail, see who’s on, call around, etc., all takes time. 

So, what did I do?  I usually just went to starbucks and read a book or I just sat home.  I was pretty lucky that my friends were nice enough to call me and give me the ups.  You know how it is.  And that way I had something to do.

This summer, though, looks a bit dismal.  Everyone has an internship or is busy working.  Most of my friends from home haven’t really had time to hang out with each other, apparently, so what chance do I have?  Of course I have to go home.  But what the hell am I going to do there?

Two Graph Theory classes, two Analysis classes, Graph Theory Final, Analysis Final, one Gesture Class, one Sosc Class, Sosc Paper.  That’s all I have left to do here.  On June 8th, I can go to my new apartment and get myself arranged there.  I have to send some of my books home with that media mail thing, so I gott’a get a move-on with that.  I ‘ought’a clean my room — which I might do tomorr’a.  I don’t know, this paragraph is just for me to orginize what I need to do in a list. 

Oh, I also got two C++ intro books in the math building — some guy was giving away a box of them, so I dug right in.  That might be kind’a fun to learn over the summ’a.  Which is, really, in 11 days, officially, for me.  But only 5 days until my analysis final.

Oh.  Play Civ4.  That’s what I can do at home.

Graphs.

It is official. Besides the final…
NO MORE GRAPH THEORY HOMEWORK EVER.

Gayest Dance Ever.

What did I get out of genderfuck?  I learned that it’s real hard to be a girl for a night.  And that those shoes kill after a little while.  Honestly, I was only standing for maybe 2 hours, and I was only walking around a little bit, but I couldn’t wait to take off those boots.

Similarly, creepy guys will scan you with their eyes.  If you were that creepy guy at genderfuck who was doing that:  stop it.  Really.  It’s gross.

Now, you may say, “Well, that’s what girls go through all the time when guys look at \ cat call \ undress with eyes \ objectify them,” and to this I said, “yep.”  But it’s gonna be way too hard to change myself, so I’m not even gonna start to try.

Exercise for the reader:  Construct a society with no men.  Now, construct one with no women.  Now, constrcut one with no wood.

Plot this.

This year is the first year that I’ve actively been intensely behind in my work.

Highschool was cake.  There was nothing that I turned in late, nothing that I needed to turn in late, and nothing that would have really been a horrible inconvenience to anyone if it were to be turned in late.

First year of college was tough.  I mean, there were several assignments where I turned them in later that day, or possibly even later the next day.  At one point, I think, I got an extension for a hume paper.  Either way, nothing was more than a few days late.

Currently, I have the homework for the last three weeks of graph theory here.  One is complete, one is half-complete, the last isn’t even started on yet.  Next week is literally the last week I can submit homework — though, the TA most likely will not be happy about this.  It’s really embarrassing that I let it go this far –  but, really, there is little I could do.  Analysis takes a solid two days for me to do, on Monday and Tuesday.  On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I’m essentially free to do whatever.  But my graph theory teacher assigns homework which is due on Wednesday, but he puts it up on the website sometime after Thursday.  At one point, it was on Friday, at another it was on Saturday.  Two days, though, is not enough for graph theory.  The weekend requires me to read, do analysis, and read s’more –

These problems are tough, too.  It’s not like analysis where I can figure them out given a long time and a lot of help.  I can’t even talk to the TA, because I have no idea who he is.  Nor can I speak to the others in the class, since only about three of the six kids in the class actually go to the class, and only one is willing to work on the homework together.  Unfortunately, the only time he’s free falls on one of the many times I am busy.

I’m not trying to whine, though.  I took this class knowing that it was going to be difficult.  I’m not saying that it should even be any easier — I’m saying, really, that I’m three weeks behind in my work and I really ought to be doing THAT instead of writing this blog entry.

Exercise for the reader:  This will show that K5 is non-planar.

Draw 5 dots on a piece of paper in the shape of a hexagon.  Connect each dot to every other dot.  Now show that no matter how you draw it, at least two lines will intersect each other.

Hint:  Jordan Curve Thm.  Or lots of Guess-and-Check.

Panic (or: not your daddy’s counter-culture.)

I was talking to this kid two or so days ago who gets panic attacks quite frequently. He’s been put on tons of medication for it, and the only thing that seems to work are beta-blockers. For those of you who are in the dark, Beta-blockers are to curing panic attacks the way that steamrollers are to killing spiders — slightly overkill, but gets the job done. The difference between him and most of the other people I know who panic, though, is his love for the sport.

It may seem strange that he would even consider panicking a desirable activity. Personally, my idea of a good time is not usually described as being in the state of fearing fear — but he brought up a good point.

Ordinarily, we go about our day with our heads in the clouds — academia is deadly to a practical life. But panic makes it hard to actually think logically about anything — everything you think and do is grounded in the NOW during a panic attack. Who cares about the future? Who cares about the past? I’m dying now — and this is mainly what a panic attack triggers.

You know when someone asks you, “If you had an hour to live, what would you do?” During a panic attack, the question is more like, “If you were dying and waiting for your body to finally turn off, what would you do?” And what do you do? You start to have all these crazy thoughts, and you start looking at things differently. You see your body as not being part of your mind, and you see your self as being different from your working-self. Lots of things start to not matter as much anymore, and your interests collapse onto themselves. Your body and brain are not entirely with you.

To someone who panics quite a bit, the usefulness of the attack as a way of “getting away” becomes almost synonymous with drug use — if the person having the attack can process the feeling of the attack in the right way.

It’s really an interesting idea that I, unfortunately, don’t have the courage to pursue. If I had the time and the strength, though, it might be nice to do — since, really, who’s going to be scared to die if they’ve done it hundreds of times before?

If Winter Ends.

I’m counting the days down until school ends.  18 days until I go into my apartment.

This is kind of exciting for two reasons:  1) this is the first home I will be paying for with mainly my own money.  2)  this is the first home, consequently, which will be my home, and no one else’s.

Tomorrow will be 84 degrees.  It really seems like yesterday when the weather didn’t get above 34.

Alright, I promise, audience, that I will write a complete and thought-out post at some point.  I’m just completely burnt out now.  I don’t want to do graph theory anymore.  I don’t want to do sosc anymore.  I don’t want to do gesture anymore.  I don’t want to do this particular homework for analysis — but, I hope, hope, hope that we have one that focuses on Lebesgue Integration.

So, 18 days.  This is including weekends.  I have a total of 1 gesture class left, 3 graph theory classes left, something like 7 analysis classes, and something like 6 sosc classes left.  This is 3 hours + ~3 hours + ~7 hours + ~7.2 hours = about 20.2 hours of class left.  Plus one final for analysis and a final paper for sosc and a final project for graph theory.  There isn’t much left.

Not much at all.

A day in the life.

Small post:  I just woke up now.  Completely missed my 10:30 and 11:30 classes.  I mean, that’s not too strange, people miss class all the time — but, I mean, I overslept 6 hours.  Six.  People go to school for that long.  While someone was in school, I was asleep.  For that amount of time.  In which they are in school.

Learning.

But really, this is all sorts of ridiculous.  Now, I need to go to Starbucks [for some reason, that's the only place I get work done] and do some damn work.  At this point, I’m only two weeks behind in the homework for graph theory.  Next week, we have no homework, so I’m hopin’ that — you know — if I do this homework set by Wednesday and the next one by the following Wednesday, I’ll be completely done with graph theory.  Whoo.

Speaking of which, I need to do a project by the end of graph theory.  I was thinking of doing a non-attacking knight problem [setting up a chess board and putting on the most amount of knights you can without any of them being able to attack any other in one move.] with colorings or something, but if anyone else has a good idea, I’m up for it.  Suggest, please.

So lonely.

 edit:  I’m leaving this unchanged, be

 edit x2:  I don’t know what I meant to say above, but apparently the edit wasn’t important enough for me to finish it.  jez.

Hair today.

Jerry Falwell died today.

We need a revolution.

Best.

Overheard at Hyde Park Co-op.

[re:  a quarter is needed for the slot machine there.  two kids who look about 5 or 6 years old are fighting over if a quarter is "money" or not.]

Kid 1:  Yeah, It’s money so you gott’a earn it you can’t just do it.

Kid 2:  No, cause money is made’a paper.

Father:  No, [name], a quarter’s money still, and ya gott’a earn it.

Kid 2:  That’s the dumbest ass thing I ever heard.

Father:  [Irritated] Now where’d you learn language like that shit?