saturday, april 29

•••    happiness is getting an instant message from a friend you really wish you hadn't drifted so far apart from and agreeing to catch up over the summer. yay! :)
11:44 PM +

•••    I have the sudden urge to make a cloud of flour explode right now.
10:36 PM +

•••    tonight I saw macbeth, staged outdoors and surrounded by trees and torches. it was definitely a good setting. still, even though I've read the play and seen it several times, I can never fully grasp the plot or keep track of the characters. it seems like you could get rid of about half the acts and at least half of the people and it would work just as well.
10:10 PM +

•••    okay, I'm an idiot. when I wrote that last post, I didn't realize that brian had just linked to me, and then I was momentarily very perplexed when I saw his url in my referrer stats. for a minute I thought I had forgotten how the web works.
6:47 PM +

•••    I voted for the soon-to-be-name of brian's blog, but I'm a little sad that I couldn't vote for "brian droppings," which was suggested after the poll started. I also wish I could vote for its description (scroll about halfway down) to be included somehow, because it makes me laugh every time I see it. maybe that's just because I'm a college person too.
6:01 PM +

•••    rugby songs are fun. (unless you're easily offended.)
3:50 PM +

•••    I give up. it is much too beautiful to be inside doing math homework.
2:07 PM +

•••    today I am playing rugby for the last time this spring, in the alumnae (that looks silly) game. it's very sad. :(
9:30 AM +

•••    I inadvertantly saw being john malkovich last night. I am pretty sure I didn't get all of it - there was a lot of stuff to think about, and most of it didn't make a whole lot of sense. or maybe it made too much sense; I'm not really sure. one thing I will say, though . . . the puppetry was breathtaking.
2:07 AM +

friday, april 28

•••    tofu pup, gardenburger, french fries, ketchup, pink lemonade, wide open windows, and my computer. what more could you ask for at a picnic? :)
7:31 PM +

•••    it's kegball time!
(think kickball. plus beer.)
I don't drink, but I have a lot of fun being the only person on the field who can run straight. ;)
5:22 PM +

•••    I just turned in my last-ever mechanics lab, and let me tell you, it is ten pages of pure awfulness. but it's done. and in on time. yay.
meanwhile, campus is going completely bonkers. there are so many parties and barbeques going on, I can hardly hear or breathe.
5:08 PM +

•••    so many distractions. so little time.
(ooh, quantum entanglement.)
1:33 PM +

•••    well - all this stuff about webgirls is certainly interesting. (too much of it to link to, though may I say I found steve's comments at nowthis thoughtful and insightful.) the web is good for sparking controversy. it keeps life exciting.

anyway, I think I agree that the whole "congratulations, you're speaking your mind" sentiment deserved some sort of reaction. I hated it when I got comments like that from teachers in grade school or high school - "wow, you like math and science? that's so unusual for a girl." any sort of expectation based on gender (or any other category lump), in any direction, is bad. let's all just be people, shall we?

if anyone came off well in this whole thing, it's mark. while I sometimes find myself a little disturbed by some of the things he writes about girls and women and sex and eating and style and body image, I think he deserves a lot of credit for thinking and writing as honestly as he does. (hmm, does that sound like "congratulations mark, you're speaking your mind"?) and he has responded to this whole thing respectfully and intelligently. plus I've been intrigued by some of the gender-issue links he's been coming up with.
also, I like being a girl - but I think that's because I like being a kid. I don't want to be an adult yet. I still trip over sentences in which I refer to myself as a woman, in any context. 18 isn't so old. a lot of the time I feel like I'm about five.

finally, I like mark. I read his site several times daily. he has a way of expressing his personality that comes across as genuine and entertaining at the same time. I guess I should join the crowd and link to him already. :)
11:23 AM +

•••    last day of classes.
now the real fun starts.
10:29 AM +

•••    I've been listening to the sounds of silence all night. I had no idea it was so relevant to physics. physics is everywhere! aahhhh!
3:31 AM +

•••    what to do when you can't sleep. they left out math homework and physics labs. :)
3:29 AM +

thursday, april 27

•••    it seems like there should be a way to make this do my atwood's machine lab calculations for me, but it won't let me change the moment of inertia. foiled by simplicity again. :P
11:46 PM +

•••    lnbb revealed. (sort of.)
8:55 PM +

•••    this is the first time I have ever seen electric conducivity included in someone's about me page.
8:46 PM +

•••    hey melanie, I love rugby - women's rugby, even. I think the best way to make people love rugby is to get them to play rugby.
6:51 PM +

•••    jabber:packets! I like the name. ;)
6:16 PM +

•••    I am fiery and fierce. yes I am. :)

(while I'm being self indulgent and blogging things that no one else cares about, I might as well mention that rugby showed up in not one but two columns this week. woo!)
4:05 PM +

•••    today is a good web day.
11:14 AM +

•••    ask and ye shall be enlightened. no longer a secret: there are current pictures, too. these two are from last fall. (blurry because I took them myself with my barely-more-than-a-toy camera at arm's length . . . I like them though.) maybe if you're lucky you'll get a smiling picture sometime in the near future. :)
10:29 AM +

•••    look, pictures of the baby universe. awwww . . .
10:15 AM +

•••    of course, there are those who would applaud my non-participation in take your daughter to work day as a political statement. (a better choice of screen name would have gone a long way towards giving this person some sort of credibility.)
8:23 AM +

•••    I was startled to discover someone younger than me poking around in the housekeeping closet this morning. apparently it's take your daughter to work day, which is one of those things I was never involved in. I guess I thought whatever it was my dad did all day was probably even less interesting than whatever was going on in school.
8:15 AM +

•••    I fell asleep on top of my linear algebra book tonight.
you would think some of it could have seeped into my brain, but no. :P
1:53 AM +

wednesday, april 26

•••    my chocolove bar has part of the eve of st agnes printed on the inside of its wrapper. did you know there is moaning and panting in this poem? I guess chocolate really is an aphrodesiac.
9:44 PM +

•••    the union of concerned scientists (which is based in cambridge, my other home) is concerned about national missile defense - so concerned, in fact, that they've decided to demonstrate exactly how to defeat the system!
do you feel safe?
7:37 PM +

•••    I am curious too, but I figured it was something I'm just not cool enough to know about.
3:21 PM +

•••    of all the analyses I have ever read of any of my names, I've found kabalarian's to be among the least accurate. but, while I was poking around with it today, I found something really freaky:
kazzie is the name I am most often called on the web (and it's an occasional real-life nickname).
jasper is what I would have been named if I had been a boy.
they're completely identical!
weird weird weird. (the description is only about half right - I do make light of things and I'm not so big on companionship. still.)

as for rabi . . .
I am good natured but sometimes sarcastic.
I do not meet and make friends with many people.
I am independent in making decisions, but I do not need encouragement.
I am a musician. I am not an interior decorator!!
I do not like entertaining or being social in general.
I am neat, I make lists, I have a routine, and I do plan things ahead of time (though I don't always follow my plans).
who doesn't like carefree activities??
and there is absolutely nothing wrong with my liver.

the first half of my name is audrey, but I never use it. I think that's good; I don't especially like the idea of lacking ambition, strength and initiative. (I do things with my imagination and my idealism!) and I think the kidney thing was just a lucky guess.

does anyone else find it incredibly strange that they think they can link specific health problems to specific names? what a guilt trip to lay on your parents! (and it makes so much more sense than genetics . . . :P)
12:39 PM +

•••    (it's about time. stupid blogger. grrr.)
it's really sad how it feels so wrong when I can't post my pointless thoughts on things like my outfit (I look silly today because I'm only half-dressed-up for this afternoon's chamber concert) and my physics homework (gyroscopes are much cooler than I ever imagined).
jeez I'm pathetic.
10:41 AM +

•••    is blogger working yet?
10:34 AM +

•••    yay, vermont!
12:11 AM +

•••    ooh! new pretty pictures of jupiter's moons from the galileo spacecraft. I think europa is one of the most fascinating places in the entire solar system. sulfuric acid . . . yum.
12:06 AM +

tuesday, april 25

•••    I feel like the quintessential stressed out college student: running around the music building in my sock feet, pajama bottoms, and the shirt I wore to class today. it's checkered and my pajamas are plaid. my shoes are in my backpack. haha. :)
9:20 PM +

•••    today's physics colloquium is on multiple astronomical images and gravitational lensing. I don't know how they expect me to get any homework done when they keep bringing all these interesting people to campus! :P (you can play with a gravitational lensing demo right here on the web. go ahead . . . explore your physics geek side! :)
4:34 PM +

•••    one of my new goals in life is to use the words "diagonable" and "idempotent" in casual conversation. (linear algebra is so ridiculous.)
10:12 AM +

monday, april 24

•••    adam's blueblog entry from saturday is pretty interesting. I think most people have experienced that "I need to do something rut" - I have days when I feel like none of the stuff I put on the web matters at all. I want to do something that matters.

I think maybe this matters more than we think it does. adam's vast wilderness analogy is a good one, but I think the wilderness isn't a thick dense jungle so much as a teeming metropolis. the net is so full of people. in real (offline) life, you see little slivers of lives in passing. you overhear bits of conversations. maybe you smile at the person who sells you food or books or music or clothes or whatever else it is you don't buy online. sometimes you can only watch from afar; most of the time you're unaware of who's watching you. life is a whirlwind and the moments are fleeting.

the web lets you keep the moments. it lets you revisit them. the slivers of peoples' lives are scattered all over the web, frozen in pixels and text and bits and bytes. . . you can watch from afar, you can exchange a smile, you can get to know people, and if you're lucky you can make friends.

we're not just exploring the internet. we're exploring the lives of the people we walk past on city sidewalks, and the people we see from train windows, and the people we will never meet. I think, in the end, the sum of all the little moments and insignificant day to day happenings are more important than the big important events. it matters.

I still want to do something - on the web and off the web. I think I need to remember that even when I'm not doing something with a definite goal, artistic or scientific or introspective or otherwise, it doesn't mean I'm doing nothing.

I hope adam gets inspired again; he inspired me.
10:53 PM +

•••    my hair was getting all over the place, so I put my wispies up in little pigtails. now I look like cindy lou who. or maybe a bug. ;)
9:25 PM +

•••    eric cornell is giving a talk here today on bose-einstein condensation. superatoms! new matter states! really cold temperatures! see how cool physics is? (it's easier to understand than you think.)
11:18 AM +

•••    sixty degrees and sunny
flowers everywhere
passing grade on my last physics exam
laundry in the washing machine
my one class for the day canceled
package in the mail
today is a good day. :)
10:13 AM +

•••    at least we get a beautiful sunny day to start off the last week of classes before the rain comes back. I'll have to come up with some good excuses for spending a lot of time outside.
8:44 AM +

sunday, april 23

•••    there is food everywhere! it is all a giant conspiracy to keep me perpetually stuffed! oranges and strawberries and candy and nuts and crackers . . .
(so I went from rugbyblog to wannabe foodlog. hmm. what's next?)
11:48 PM +

•••    my chocolate survived the three hour train ride home, but my peeps got a little squished. one of them has its beak sticking straight up in the air. it's cute. ;)
8:07 PM +

•••    I was avoiding blogging and talking about elian-related things, because I figured it had been pretty well covered (at places like metafilter and the breakfast table this morning). but the more I read about it, the more I think I just don't understand any of it. it seems like none of the adults involved really care about how this is affecting elian. I'm sure I don't know enough about the situational politics or what will actually happen to elian in any given scenario to decide what should be done. I just think a little less selfishness and a little more compassion on all sides would go a long way. I feel so sorry for that boy.
1:43 PM +

•••    I have jelly belly beans and dairy-free chocolate. my easter bunny is the best. :)
11:17 AM +