Dance Camp in a week.
Start teaching summer session in two weeks.
Move apartments in about five weeks.
Orals in seven weeks (ahh!)
Baby due in about 15 weeks (aaahhhh!? :D =o ?)

Wacky!

Not too much going on the last week or so; I have, however, finally found a research project that might actually fill some time. I found and downloaded a couple dozen papers to read yesterday and just reading through those ought to take another week or so, even if the idea doesn't pan out :).

Also, the last few days I went through and added tags to all the posts in this journal. Kinda interesting, partly because of the odd process of doing the tagging, and partly because it meant I more or less read through everything I've posted here over the last two years (aside: I've really been using it for a little over two years? huh.) Interesting seeing what my head (or at least the part of my head that I stuck out into cyberspace) was doing during the last two years. A couple observations: 1) Man, I sure was grouchy during fall semester of my senior year. 2) The tags "arg" and "awesome" ended up going on the same posts with surprising frequency. Not sure what that means.

So, the other day I got an e-mail from the graduate program coordinator at Davis with an e-mail list for the new grad students. I wasn't going to give it a second glance, but Dani openned it up and there's a bunch more information than just e-mails--BA schools and dates, country of origin for international students, and suchlike. ( Some interesting statisticsCollapse )

Sounds like an interesting bunch of people, potentially.

I think I have a more thoughtful post on relationships in me, probably for later today or tomorrow. Probably wait until this latest meme has gone through. In the meantime, I'll be a sheep.
( MemeCollapse )

So, I just got my passport in the mail. Silly thing took more than two months to arrive, but that's okay, really, because I'm still not going anywhere for another three months. I tell you though, the thing is cute and kinda hillarious. Almost every page has some random quote at the top--something vaguely patriotic/humanistic, all about freedom and honor. But some of them are kinda random, particularly the Mohawk Thanksgiving prayer.

And, to explain the title of this post, the information pamphlet that came with the passport is just plain funny. On the front:

"With Your U.S. Passport, the World is Yours!"

Punctuation and capitalization is theirs.

Bwa ha ha ha!

My life, starting now, breaks up into quite distinct chunks of three to four weeks, punctuated by a week or so of vacation. It goes something like this:

For the next three week and change, I'm finishing up with school. Then I'll be at home for a week to rest from my drive and visit with the parents.

For about 4 weeks after that, I'll be in Santa Barbara with Dani, hopefully working more or less full time to sock away some money for later on. Then I'll be snatched away by my parents for a last family vacation in New York.

For the three-four weeks after that, we'll be in Cameron Park, doing frantic wedding preparations, punctuated by a week of dance camp and probably a lot of boredom. Then, after the wedding, Dani and I will go on our honeymoon for a week.

For about three weeks after that, we'll be essentially at loose ends, but moved into our new place in Davis (wherever that ends up being), getting settled and getting ready for grad school to begin. No vacation after that; I think the honeymoon is actually for this one, and dance camp just isn't positioned right.

For the next three weeks, we'll be starting at Davis, with what they call "Math Camp", kinda pre-gradschool. Again, no rest for the weary.

Finally, on September 27, more than five months from now, classes officially begin at Davis and life will finally settle into a routine for more than a few weeks at a time.

I'm getting tired just thinking about it. Or maybe it's only that I just woke up from a nap. Anyway. Cheers, everyone :)

So, word has it that the Masked Dancer was on campus today. BUt y'know what? I ran all around campus looking for him and got all sweaty and tired, and I only ever caught a glimpse of him reflected in the window of the Bistro. But Jenny and Jessie and Devon saw him for the first time, as did scads of prospies, for today was Willamette's Preview day. Or so I'm told. *snerk*. That one never gets old.

In other news, in light of a deafening silence from UMass Amherst regarding waitlists, Dani and I have officially enrolled at UC Davis. Or, I think we have, anyway. I'm not sure at what point we become official. Anyway.

I'm now trying to finish my thesis, once and for all. Only most of the comments I got from my professor on my last draft are vague. And the others are, in my opinion, wrong. And I'm not sure how much I care. I'm increasingly tempted to just turn in what I've got now and see what happens. But I should make my conclusion better. *sigh*.

I've been quite bored lately. How bored? Bored enough that we ended up with way too much dessert in the apartment from all the baking I did. Bored enough that I actually started writing. I've been novel/story-izing the events of Brenton's RP. Wrote the very first scene and one of the very last thus far. Which has been really pretty satisfying. And I'm gratified to know the Jenny is interested in collaborating on novel-izing said story, because while I have, for the first time in years, the impetus to write certain scenes, I doubt I have it in me to write the whole thing. And it's a good story, with awesome characters, and the whole thing should get written, I think.

But now I think I'll be getting a respite from boredom--have to actually write this thesis, and I have a paper to write for sociology in a couple weeks, and the usual problem set for advanced calculus. And apparently I'm presenting the proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus to the class on tuesday. The first form of it, anyway. Go figure.

Alrighty, back to thesis-ing.

"[The FTC] pointed out that the demand analysis was based on shelf prices, not transaction prices, because it did not account for the effects of prootional coupons issued by Beech-Nut and Heinz."

Jonathan B. Baker, in The Antitrust Revolution: Economics, Competition and Policy.

Couldn't quite decide which of two books was actually closer; one was on the floor right next to my chair and this one was on my dresser just out of arm's reach. But the other one didn't have any sentences on page 161, so I opted for this one.

Your task:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 161.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

I'm pretty stoked. All of a sudden there are splotches of color around campus. Not a lot yet, but there's pink and yellow and red here and there. In just a few days or so, the whole place will blossom SPRING. Say what you will about how manicured or artificial that Willamette campus is, it is friggin' gorgeous in the spring :).

And, on a totally unrelated note, I've had an idea bouncing around for awhile (well, strictly speaking I think it was Max's idea originally. Or maybe Katie's?) for a one-shot/single session live RPG. I've told many of you about this previously. Basically, every single one of the players would play an magical, intelligent item--a talking sword, cloak, crown, boot, brassiere, what have you--which would be discovered by some poor schmuck (played by the game master--me).

Exactly what the (short and likely humourous) plot would be, I don't know yet. The powers of your items would be entirely up to your fiending imaginations, from super-powered to absurdly esoteric, just as you choose.

In terms of logistics, this would be some weekend day or night, probably a long-ish session (given that there will be only one of them) and would happen after spring break. The game rule system would be Savage Worlds to the extent that rules are needed. (and if this sounds interesting but that means nothing to you, don't worry, it's the easiest system ever and as an enchanted item you wouldn't have to know much anyway).

There is in theory no limit to the number of players for this, beyond the limitations of how much stuff a single person can carry (and there's always rings...). In practice, however, there may have to be some limit simply because at some point people won't fit in the same room and it will be a nightmare just being heard. So, more than the usual 6 or 7, but less than the 15+ who might conceivably express interest. And even then, it might be possible to work something out--for instance items which are found for a while, and then lost, allowing the player to leave or at least move to the sidelines.