running.

Small update.  Nothing’s been going on lately.  I’ll post most info later [I don't know why I haven't already --- there's really nothing to do all day] but for now suffice it to say: I’ve been hanging with my mom, my dad, and a few friends.

I’ve been trying my best to reread Hatcher.  I’m barely done with homology, but I feel like I get the “idea” better now — I think that I’ll read it once more during winter break or something to really try and “get” it.  But, overall, my goal was to learn Cohomology this summer.  That’s what I’m going to be focusing on this week.

Mozilla Foxfire 3 with Ad Blocker Plus, Stock Tracker, Weather Tracker, Download Video Plugin, Ebay Plugin, and spybot s&d.

I wish my diffigeometry book would get here already.  ugh.

Because this is an exceedingly boring entry, I’ll put in something about myself that’s more personal.

Sometimes I’m afraid to go places, but most of the time I’m more afraid that I’ll be afraid to go places.

I’m checking out Grad schools now.  Nothing too interesting.  I wanna discuss it with some teacher befo’ I choose my school.  Oh, I went to NYC yesterday, got 4 sweaters and a button-up shirt.  or a button-down shirt.  the one with a lot of buttons.  and I walked for a while.  It was sweet, but, ultimately, I was wishing I wasn’t with my dad and I was wishing I were in Chicago.

I met a lactose-intolerant waitress who grew out of being lactose intolerant.  I hope I do that, because I really miss icecream.

A lot.  Like, you don’t even know.

landmarkkkk.

first: 3000 hits.  cute, right?

second: for anyone who doesn’t know this trick, get someone’s ip and put it after the = sign in:

http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=

lots of useful info.

So, today, I’m going out to get some shirts, maybe, and read a bunch.  I haven’t read a bunch in a while, and I think I should probably catch up.

I guess I’ll wait until all my random ordered crap shows up at my doorstep befo’ I go back to the ol’ chicago.  This way, I don’t have to ask my parents to ship all of it.  Which is, you know, a hassle.

Firefox 3 is fine, but for some reason my spellcheck won’t work.  I don’t know what it is.  So if I start spelling ridiculous things wrong, that’s why.  In truth, I’m really an awful, awful speller.

family ties.

It’s been a while — at least 5 years, if not more — since I’ve last admitted to being proud of my brother.  But when I saw all of the books he’s reading, and when I hear about all this stuff he’s excited about learning, I can’t help but feel a bit of pride stirring around my insides.

It’s like having a foot doctor in your family: not always useful, unless you have something wrong with your feet.  Brian has an amazing memory for roads, regardless of the state they’re in or their importance.  He, also, has quite an impressive grasp of history and elementary philosophy.  Not bad, not bad at all.

My father, of course, could have worked more or become something more with his life, I feel — he’s pretty good where he is now, but for the time and effort he puts into his job, he should be much more successful than he is now.  His shortcoming [no pun intended]?  He is essentially a scared boy in a man-suit.  He will not take risks if it means hurting others or potentially himself.  He is selfless, but, in this case, selfless to a fault.  He’s spent his entire life taking care of others, but [as freud might have said] this is only because the idea of taking care of himself terrifies him.

My mother is slow-witted, but this is something of a charm, as well.  Her unwavering ability to not be embarassed in potentially embarassing situation, and her strength for overcoming anxiety and agoraphobia puts her at least a rung above mothers who drink themselves to death.

In all, my family is fine.  But, it’s hit me recently [since I've been living with my dad] that, essentially, my parents are just like overprotective friends.  They’re not stern.  They’re not threatening.  They don’t try to teach me lessons — in fact, quite the opposite.  They completely trust, in many major ways, that I have it totally together; which, of course, is good, because that’s the facade that I’d like to have.  The truth is, I don’t have it all together.  I could use some parents at some point; but, for now, this will do.

I bought $150 worth of stocks.  I’m going to see if they go up.  This is mainly just a training exercise to see what the whole stock-world is about.  I’m sort of exciting, since I rarely ever do anything risky — but after I saw my father, night after night, with nothing to do but watch the TV and fall asleep, it sort of dawned on me that I wasn’t going to go anywhere or be anything if I didn’t take risks.

I’m sick and tired of NJ, already.  I want to go back to Chicago.  It’ s such a pain here.  I’ve just watched nip/tuck, read, went to starbucks, and went to the book store.

I guess I don’t really do too much more in chicago.  But at least I get exercise on my bike.  And at least I don’t have to be living in my dad’s house.  And at least they have good hummus there.

i’m waitin’ fo’ my man.

I can’t figure out my dad’s washer.  But all my clothes are in it.  So I have to wait for him to get home to tell me how to use it.  This is kind of dumb.

So far, my time home has been this sort of thing: Cry, Wake up, Look at Internet, Go out to X, [see friends?], Come Home.

I wanted it to go like this: Cry, Wake up, Look at Internet, Go out to Starbucks, Read, Come Home.

So you see my dilemma.  I like my friends, but I really need to get down to reading crap.  Moreover, I need to finish my math project, and start on that other one I wanted to do.  Why is it that when I go home, I get SO lazy?  I’m getting fatter [I keep eating!] and I’m exercising basically no time out of the day [no bike, no walking, etc.] and, to top it off, I’m all anxious lately.  I don’t know if it has to do with the not-biking or what, but I just feel so strange being home and doing essentially nothing.

I watched three seasons of Nip/Tuck so far, plus the last season that I prematurely watched.  I don’t remember how many episodes are in each season, but let’s say 15 for easy calculation.  On average, Nip/Tuck is around 45 minutes [some are much longer!  but most are around this].  An elementary calculation shows that this is 1700 minutes.  You might also know this figure as 45 hours.  Aka, a little less than two days.

This is not even including the episodes of [ugh.] Bones and [ugh!] Son of the Beach [I will explain this at some point.] that I’ve watched, and does not even THINK about including any of the other random shows I watched while I was doing random other things [30rock, Simpsons, American Dad!, etc.].

I started looking at stuff on eBay.  Pretty addictive.

I bought a book from the American Locksmith whatever whatever that starts on the basics of locksmithery.  I find it really fascinating.  I want to become accredited eventually.  Useless?  Maybe.  Fun?  Fo’sho.

Let’s make a tiny note here to correspond to the magnitude that the following topic affects my life: despite popular belief, I do not care about burnt bridges.  I have no desire to re-rope those bridges, and I’m much happier with them down.

unreasonable. ONreasonable.

Do you ever wonder if, right now, someone is thinking about you?  Or looking through your pictures on facebook, myspace, lj, dj, xanga, whatever?  It’s really easy to find information on people on the internet if you try.  Scary easy.

After learning the basics of lockpicking, I don’t really feel safe in my home anymore.  Even if it is “locked”.  After looking at identity thefts, and seeing how easy it is to do them, I don’t even feel safe in my skin anymore.

So, what am I reduced to.  A homeless nobody.  But at least I’m not a houseless nobody, so I won’t freeze in the winter.  One problem solved.  One to go.

I guess it would just be nice to be a somebody to somebody.  To be some sort of obsession of theirs, you know?  Some sort of reaffirmation, but one that hits you in the face rather than whispers in your ear.

It comes up, more than you think, that people disapprove of me “worshiping” liars.  I just think that, after years of doing mathematics, the implied truth can be somewhat dull.  In order to be a liar, what do you haft’a do?  Lie, and lie well.

It’s like a businessman who’s in control all day and wants a dominatrix to control him for part of his night.  I just want a liar to trick me into believing that if P implies Q and Q implies R, then P implies S.

you can’t. always. get. what’chu want.

Well, it’s happened.  I’m tired of being home.

But let’s do this in some sort of an order this time — I’ll start with leaving.

Soon before leaving chicago, Comcast kicked out.  They’ve been nothing but trouble ever since, and I’m not down there to help Anna fix it.  Luckily, she’s a good kid, and she can take care of business like it’s her job.  I also discovered, weeks before, that I needed to go to O’hare instead of Midway.

Muy irritating.

So I did just that.  I had a lot of luggage, so I took a taxi to the blue line, and took the blue line into O’hare.  I got on the plane [I found an earlier flight and basically had to RUN to it!] and got in sometime around 10pm.

I got home, — oh, but wait, I don’t live in my mom’s house in my room anymore.  No.  That went from being my room, to being the cat room, to being the cat room with a wood flooring, to being unusable.  My mom is selling our old house [it's just too much to keep up.] so I can’t sleep there.  I’d need to be out at a moment’s notice, and that just isn’t my style.  So I’m sleeping in the upstairs of my father’s house.

Not that I mind it — no, no, no.  In fact, I think that it even gives me some motivation to go out and read.  But, unlike last year, I don’t have the motivation to read tons and tons of philosophy books.  No, instead, I’ve been reading math books.  Today, I paged through Allen Clark’s Abstract Algebra, which was a good review, and some book about ZFSet theory, which was one of the most boring books I’ve ever read, in my life.  Tomorrow, I plan to go through Roy McWeeny’s Symmetry, which looks promising but — I’ve been fooled before.

I’m still typing up my paper, but I only have three things left to do.  Then I send the draft back, fix up the little things that need fixing up, send it back, and then, from there, it’s a stone’s throw from finishing up the REU.  I’m sort of upset that I didn’t stay — I sort of wanted to.  Everyone is always so excited about math there.

Here, I was at starbucks, and this math-guy that I know who used to talk math with me sometimes [but, usually in a bragging-type tone.] came up to me and was like, “oh, differential geometry?  yeah, I wish I paid more attention in calc 3.”  And it upset me that I literally have no one [except pete, maybz.] to talk to about maths here.

My friends here are fine.  It’s confusing that literally no one is around anymore.  I don’t know where people hang out anymore.

I need to study: logic, rep theory, and discrete before I go back to school.

I’ve been having a sort of existential crisis.  Well, more of a “what-do-i-do!” crisis.  I want to go to grad school, but I don’t know if I want to take a year off or not.  A lot of people are taking actuarial exams, but I wouldn’t be happy in that field.  I don’t know if I want to get into a “real” science or not.

I just love math.

Ugh.