Fall 2004
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25 December 2004
Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad!
24 December 2004: 1:30am
'Twas the late-night before the night before Christmas, and all through my laptop, my webpage was being edited, whoo-hoo that I have an external mouse... Uhh, ok yeah, hehe, I'll shut up, that was lame... Anyway, I am in the process of re-designing the whole entire website. Hopefully it will be ready by the time I go back to PA. I'll just say that it's looking good, and it is W3C compliant! Yay!!! In other news, Christmas is like 24 hours away or so, and I'm just 5 days and 13 hours away from picking up my gringuito in the airport, which is just so awesome. I'm very excited about having him here with me for two weeks. It's gonna be great... Ok, back to webpage re-designing!
21 December 2004
Happy Winter Solstice!
17 December 2004
My cell phone has signal again!!!
16 December 2004
Ahh, 88°F, with a heat index of 104°F, sooooo good :-) But, since nothing good comes for free, there is of course, a down side. Dial-up internet with a speed of 40kbps. Ugh, so slow. My parents don't have high-speed internet because they rarely use it anyway. I'm trying to convert them, and possibly maybe perhaps have a cable modem here before I leave in January (hey, a girl can dream, can't she?)... Oh! And my cell has no signal in my parents town! It had signal in San Juan when I landed, and last year when I came here it had signal, even in my room. And now, nowhere in the house nor outisde the house. I checked the Sprint PCS website, and looked at the coverage area in Puerto Rico, and Guayanilla seems to not be included anymore! They suck! Now I feel like my right arm has been cut off. To use my cell I'm gonna have go out of Guayanilla, maybe to Ponce. So not fair... But hey, 88°F. I'll take the no-cell and the slow-internet if it means 88° for a month during winter. No snow, no coats, no gloves, no hats, no scarves, no turtlenecks, etc. Awesome!
14 December 2004: 7pm
I just did the STUPIDEST thing ever. I wrote a shopping list on a sticky note, and put it on top of the envelope of a bill I was going to mail. When I left to run a couple of errands before leaving for my cousin's house, I grabbed my car keys and the envelope. I left the apartment, went to the mail drop-off, and put the envelope in the outbox... with the shopping list STILL stuck to it. AAARRGGHH!!! So stupid! The mailman's gonna have a blast with this one...
14 December 2004: 1:30am
Well, I am in a way better mood today. Last night I finished the Comp Phys homework that I had overdue for like two or three weeks, and I also finished the final draft of the Chandra proposal. This morning I got up around 10am and an hour later I headed out to Davey. I pass 11 traffic lights in my usual "morning commute" (and I use those terms loosely, since I rarely go to work in the morning and 3 miles hardly qualify as a commute). Most of the time I get at most two green lights, with all the others red. Well, today was totally fantastic and unusual. I got 10, you got that right, TEN green lights! Only the light at Park and Bigler was red (stupid red light). All others were GREEN! Even the left turn light at Park and Atherton, where I usually wait a few minutes. That was certainly a good start to the day. I got to Davey and turned in the Chandra proposal, then went to lunch, and then turned in the Comp Phys homework... And... I'M DONE! The semester is over! Finally! YAYYYY!!!! Ahh, feels so good. Now I'm in my apartment packing. Tonight I'm heading to New Jersey because I'm staying over at my cousin's house and then tomorrow she drives me to the airport. I'm going to Puerto Rico tomorrow!!! Yay! No more "light snow: 28°F feels like 16°F"; for about a month; exchange that for "mostly sunny: 84°F feels like 90°F". Allll riiiiight :-D And what makes it oh-so-much better: just two weeks left until my John gets to PR and spends two weeks with me in Paradise. Awesome :-) Oh, and before I forget, Feliz Cumpleaños, Luisito!
13 December 2004: 1:30am
This update will look like a blog entry in spanish since I
really don't feel like writing in english right now but feel the
need to write something anyway...
Current Mood: Terrible, mal, triste, decepcionada.
Stress Level: Altísimo. Estratoféricamente
alto. Infinitamente alto.
Reason: Charla con mi advisor acerca del research. Pablo
me regañó. Me dijo que no hice suficiente trabajo este
semestre. Me siento mal. Todavía no tengo buenos resultados en
el proyecto, y es todo mi culpa. Siento que no trabajé
suficientemente duro este semestre, y por eso es que estoy tan
estresada ahora que estoy en los últimos dos días del
semestre. Valgo la pena como estudiante graduado? Hay momentos en
que pienso que no... Las clases acapararon casi todo mi tiempo, y no
me organicé suficientemente bien como para tener tiempo
suficiente para dedicarle al research... Pero eso no es excusa...
Ayer tuve una charla con un amigo que se está sintiendo igual
o peor que yo con sus estudios ahora mismo y traté de subirle
los ánimos. Todas las cosas que le dije ayer debo quizá
aplicármelas a mí misma hoy. Pero me siento mal de
cualquier forma. Ciertas conversaciones después del
regaño también contribuyen a lo mal que me siento. Me
siento irresponsable, aunque bien sé que mi nivel de
responsabilidad es más o menos promedio... El semestre
próximo las cosas tienen que cambiar. Tengo que
aplicarme más aun. Tengo que pasar mis clases. Tengo que pasar
mi examen comprensivo. Tengo que obtener resultados buenos en mi
research... Aaaarrggghhh, tengo ganas de gritar y de llorar. Necesito
una cabina a prueba de ruido donde me pueda meter y gritar hasta
quedarme ronca...
12 December 2004
My room is a complete and total mess. There's dirty clothes on the floor, clean clothes on another side of the room, coats and sweaters thrown all over the place, my rug is all crumpled into a pile in the middle of the room, my blanket and comforter are in the floor besides the bed, there's bags of trash outside the bathroom door, empty bottles of Coke in the nightstand, unopened mail on my desk, and tons of books and binders and papers on my bed. Why don't I clean? Because the Fall Project report is due tomorrow. And I still have two Computational Physics problems to finish for my overdue homework. And the final draft of the Chandra proposal is due Tuesday. AAAAAAHHHHH!!!! So much work, so little time... But after all those things are done, I'll clean up, pack and head for sunny, tropical Puerto Rico. I can't wait...
7 December 2004: night
And now for non-birthday related announcements. The last time I saw John was the day before Thanksgiving. The next time we're scheduled to see each other is December 29, when he gets to Puerto Rico. The time in between these two events is WAY too long. Both of us felt that way. I've been missing him like crazy, and he's been missing me a lot too. So, last Saturday, on a spur-of-the-moment kinda thing, my Papito booked a flight to State College using his frequent flyer miles. He got here Sunday afternoon, and left a few hours ago. Just two days, but oh-so-great. He's so sweet... I know, I know, I'm being completely cheesy, but I can't help it... And well, in one week I will be going home to 85°F weather. Yay to that. So I have one week to finish all the work I have to do: Computational Physics homework and study for exam, add correcting touches to the final draft of my Chandra proposal, and do some work for my Fall Project and write it up. Although, the work for the Fall Project doesn't really end once I turn in the report, because this is a long-term project, and I'll be working on it at times during my winter break in Paradise, I mean, Puerto Rico :-) But now it's time for "Sex and the City", so I'll take a little break from working, and then after it's done, I'll go back to work. Really. I'm serious...
7 December 2004
Feliz Cumpleaños, Jesús! Feliz Cumpleaños, Michel!
3 December 2004: late afternoon
Well, I turned in my Chandra proposal (first draft) on Monday. Today we had to turn in the reviews. We each had to read the other eight proposals and review them according to various parameters that Niel set, then assign a numerical score between 1 and 10 (there was a big controversy with that because someone gave somebody a 15, but later that person changed it), and we had 50 points to give away. And the scores had to be integers. So it was very hard to assign those scores. And it took a lot of time to write the reviews... So now all I have left to do is a few Computational Physics homeworks, lots of research, write-up the Fall project... Ugh, so much work... But yeah, here's an update: in the "Funny Stories" page (within the "Personal" page), I have added a new funny story, titled "Puertorrican Temperature Scale", so go check it out :-) hehehe... Other than that, counting down the days until the semester ends (one week 'til last day of classes), the days until I get to go home (12 days!), and most anxiously counting down the days until I see my cutie, my darling, my love, my John (25 days!)...
3 December 2004
Filling my car's gas tank when it's 28°F outside can easily be qualified as one of the most unpleasant experiences I have ever had in my life...
1 December 2004
The Weather Channel warned me about it yesterday. It said that there was going to be a "Wind Advisory" all day today. Man, oh man, it's WINDY out there! Damn! It's like trying to walk around in the middle of a tropical storm, only that it's not tropical and it's not a storm. It's cold (like low 40s or upper 30s), and there's a little bit of drizzle every now and then, and some snow flurries mixed in sometimes. But damn, it's windy. It doesn't help much that I'm a tiny little person who doesn't weigh all that much. A trashcan blew over in the wind, and those things are heavy! I thought that maybe with the four layers of clothing and the heavy backpack the wind wouldn't be having so much fun with me, but boy was I wrong. Sometimes it was making me walk faster as it pushed me from behind, while other times it was making me almost stand still as it pushed me from the front, making me loose the feeling in my face in the process... Ack... I just hope that the snow flurries don't accumulate, and that the wind has calmed down by the time I go home tonight. Damn, it's windy... In other news, congratulations to Yari and Carlos on getting pre-engaged over Thanksgiving! Felicidades! Espero que me inviten a la boda, jejeje...
29 November 2004
Murphy's Law... Oh, how it hounded me all day today. The Chandra proposal for Niel's class was due today. I worked on it ALL NIGHT LONG last night. Seriously, all night. I did NOT sleep a wink. I took a two hour nap around 9am this morning because I was exhausted, but I still hadn't finished. I finally finished the thing at 12:50pm, and that's when Murphy took over my life. Computer crash, wrong username, printer bugging out, wrong margins, single-side instead of double-side, etc. When I was finally able to get out of my apartment, it was almost 2pm. Then I got stuck behind a slowpoke on my way to Davey. When I got there and went to photocopy the proposal (had to give a copy to every person in the class), the copier was acting funny and so I had to copy each page separately and collate them by hand. So I was late for class. And my lunch consisted of a Snickers bar and an Aquafina during class. Ack. But we went to Chilli's after the class, so that was cool. And well, yeah, at least the proposal-writing is over. Now it's on to the peer review. Each one of us has to read everybody else's proposals. That's gonna take a lot of time and effort. Not to mention my Computational Physics homeworks, which are due this Thursday. And yeah, the Fall Project research, on which I am very, VERY behind. I need to do a lot of work in a very little amount of time. The work density is so high that it will probably exceed the Chandrasekhar limit any moment now (hehe, nerdy joke, hehe)... But soon it will all be over (well, the semester at least), and I'll go home. And exactly one month from now, John will arrive to the San Juan airport and I'll spend two weeks with my Papito in warm and sunny Puerto Rico. At least I have something to look forward to... And now, let's get back to work. Then some phone time with my gringuito, and then beddie-bye-bye, probably at midnight or maybe a half past midnight, because I am ridiculously tired and sleepy, and I have to get up early tomorrow to keep working. Ack, will it ever end?...
26 November 2004
Thanksgiving update! Where to start... Well, first of all, I still have a TON of work to do, and so I will be working all weekend long, non-stop... On Tuesday I went to Youngstown (Ohio) to meet with my beloved John. He is spending Thanksgiving with his family in Tennessee, and so we could only spend one half of a day together. But it was sooo worth it. I missed him so much. Now I have to wait like 30 days or more until I see him again (in Puerto Rico! yay!). How will I deal with not seeing my papito chulito for a whole month? *sniff* :'( I'm gonna miss him like crazy... In other news, yesterday (Thursday) I drove to Sewell (New Jersey) to my cousin Norma's house for Thanksgiving. Driving there was stressful. Why? Because I took US-322 ALL THE WAY from State College to Sewell. This road goes thru some VERY SMALL towns! Places where the speed limit is 30mph. There were Amish people riding buggies in the road, going extremely slooooowly. When the road finally turned into a two-lane highway again (after three hours of driving thru the teeny tiny towns with the single-lane roads and the 30mph speed limits), I felt like I was finally getting back to civilization. I was happy that I could easily go 70mph again. Anyway, I got to Norma's house without getting lost! Yay! Thanksgiving there was really fun. I met a bunch of people who are Norma's in-laws, and the food was oh-so-good. I also met a cousin of mine who I had never met before. He's Norma's cousin, therefore my cousin too (like fifth cousin or something like that). After dinner, Norma, Ricky (cousin) and I started talking in Spanish about a whole bunch of things while her son, husband and in-laws all talked in English on the other side of the room. Hehehe. It was fun. Then around 10:30pm I headed back. Norma wanted me to stay there overnight, but since I have soooo much work to do, I needed to get back so that I could use all day Friday (today) for work. And so, I drove back. But I did NOT take US-322 all the way back. No way, nuh-uh, no siree. I took the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I really dislike the PA Turnpike, but I have realized that I dislike US-322 a lot more. Therefore, I took the highway. Yay to that. Got here in three and a half hours (instead of the almost four and a half hours that it took me to get there). When I was about 40 miles away from State College, I noticed some white streaks moving in front of me that looked like a meteor shower with the radiant right ahead of my car. I was like "What the hell is that?", and then I realized what they were... SNOW!!! Well, ok, not *snow* snow, more like just a lot of flurries. MANY, many flurries, moving very fast. There was even a bit of accumulation on the road, a very thin layer of dusting. When I got home and I parked, I noticed that the car I parked next to had a layer of snow on top of it. And when I went up the front stairs, they were also covered in a layer of snow dusting... So I guess it snowed in State College today, huh? Phew, I missed it... Still dreading the thought of driving in snow. I don't wanna slip and slide in my car... *sigh*... Well, I'll get used to it, eventually... Ok, I've written enough. I'll shut up now.
21 November 2004
Yesterday was fun. I went to my first football game. I must say, it was very interesting. Hehe, Penn State beat the crap out of Michigan State. We won 37-13, much to Scott's dismay (he went to MSU), hehehe. Then after the game we had a BBQ/party at my apartment. A bunch of people showed up, and we had a lot of food (hot dogs, burgers, brats, chips, meatballs, etc) that Lisa brought. We played some pool, darts, played with the cat (Sophie was happy with all the attention). I lost to Hélène in a "Friends Trivia Game" challenge. Grrr. She got a lot of easy questions, and also Jeff said that she's been watching four episodes per day, so the odds were really in her favor. A bunch of us also played Cranium for a long time. Man, that game is weird. But man, oh man, it was so much fun. All in all, pretty good day. Lisa and Scott left this morning, and now I'm working. John helped me make a schedule for the next week, and I have pretty much booked every single minute for work, except Thanksgiving day (because I'm going to New Jersey), and tuesday night/wednesday morning (because I'm meeting my John in Ohio). But yeah, every single minute is scheduled. Therefore, I should stop writing this and get back to work. Ok, bye!
20 November 2004
Feliz Cumpleaños, María!
19 November 2004
Many things going on today, and I just got up! Primero que nada, Feliz Día del Descubrimiento de Puerto Rico! Segundo, Feliz Cumpleaños, Glorieli! And last but most certainly not least, Happy Birthday, John! Mi papito is turning the big two-five, a quarter century old (hee hee hee). Happy B-day, Papito! I love you! ... In other news, tomorrow I'm going to a football game with Lisa and Scott, who are coming here from Maryland for the game. It's Michigan State vs Penn State. Scott graduated from MSU, so he'll be wearing green and chanting for the visitors. I'll be wearing blue, I guess, since it's the last game of the season and Penn Staters are supposed to go to the game wearing blue. Or so I've been told... This should be interesting, my first football game. Hehehe...
16 November 2004
Well, I've been happily surprised at the fact that we've had high temperatures in the mid-50s (°F) for about a week now, and these are supposed to stay with us at least until early next week. It hasn't even snowed yet! Although, Pete told me that we've had a few flurries which I seem to have missed entirely. But hey, flurries don't count. There isn't any snow in the ground, nor on the grass, nor does it seem likely to start snowing for at least another week. And this is GOOD. I still don't know how to drive in the snow, and so I am very happy that I haven't had to deal with it yet... I have to enjoy the "warmth" (and I use the term loosely) while it lasts ;-) ... In other news, after an entire year without leaving the continental U.S., I am finally going home! Yay tropics! I'll go to Puerto Rico for almost a month, starting December 15th. Yay to that and a woot-woot. And what makes it even better, oh-so-much better, is that... John is going to Puerto Rico too!!! He's getting there on December 29th and staying with me until we both come back (in the same flight, yay) on January 10th. Whoo-hoo!!! I'm soooo happy that I'll get 13 days with my papito at 18°N, 66°W, hee hee hee... Other than that, I'm working like crazy now because I've procrastinated a little bit lately and I still have a LOT of work leftover from the week that I was sick, and since the semester is coming to an end, a lot more work piles up... Sooo, back to work!
14 November 2004
Some new stuff here: lots of new links (mostly in the "Fun Links" page), two more Fall pictures to add to the "Seasons" page, and most importantly, pictures from John's visit a couple of weeks ago (Halloween 2004) in the "Mi Gringuito" page. Enjoy!
9 November 2004
BRRRR!!! It is SO cold today. Right now it's 2:30pm and it is barely 39°F. And windy. Very windy. I had to whip out the big coat, the one that is ten sizes too big and goes down to more than halfway between my knees and my ankles... BRRRR!!!!! And, well, I miss my papito... He's back in Cali (went back yesterday), and I miss him sooo very much... Aw, I wish he was here to keep me warm... In other news, I have lots of work because of not having done anything for an entire week, so this week will be one fun-filled workaholic fiesta for me :-P hehehehe...
8 November 2004, at 6:11am
I have much to say, considering that this is a six AM update. First of all, for those that may be wondering, I'm feeling better, thank you very much. The fever finally went away, and my sore throat is no more. I still feel very weak (could be because of the whole week of eating pudding, soup and milkshakes exclusively). This afternoon I have a follow-up visit with Dr. Patterson, and hopefully it will be the last one. I still have a few days of prescriptions left that I think I have to finish, but that's fine, it's no big deal to take a couple pills for a few more days to make sure I stay well. Much of my recovery I have to say is thanks to John, because he stayed by my side all week long, giving me my medicines, taking me to the doctor, making me soup, etc. He's the best, he's just so great. I'm so lucky to have him... Which brings me to the reason for my six AM update: I just came back from the State College Airport. I was taking my papito (John, in case you get lost with the cutesy nicknames) to the airport for him to catch his six AM flight into Philly, which will connect him to his 8am flight from Philly to San Fran to go home after spending 13 days with me. He was supposed to leave yesterday, but his flight from State College was delayed so much that he would have been unable to catch his connecting flight, so the woman in the airport told him to stay one more night in State College and then catch the first flight in the morning today. And that's just what he did. He stayed last night, and we got up at 4am and I just came back from crying my eyes out when I had to say good-bye. I'm gonna miss him so much. I don't know when I'll see him again... Probably around Thanksgiving? Maybe... But if we do see each other then, it will be very briefly, like a day or two. Then I don't see him anymore until perhaps late December if/when he goes to Puerto Rico (!) with me... Ok, I'm getting teary-eyed again, so I'll stop talking about that... On the other hand, we saw something that I would usually not see: Venus and Jupiter within about 3 degrees of each other, both of them about 10 or 15 degrees below a thin sliver of Moon, high above the Eastern horizon about an hour and a half before sunrise (warning: my estimates of angular distances may be WAY off --I'm a theorist hehehe--, and yes, it's so early that the Sun is still not up)... Ok, I'm going back to bed now for a few hours, then I'll get up around 9:30am or 10am, keep working on my Chandra proposal thingie for my AGNs class (we have to do a 10 minute presentation today about the topic we chose to do our proposal on), then drive to campus around 1:30pm, go to my doctor's appointment, and then to class. Then come home right after class, around 4pm, when my papito should be calling to let me know he's in SLAC already. And then, to do some Computational Physics homework that was due last week, but that I couldn't work on because I was too sick... Yup, that'll be my day today. Whew, getting sleepy just thinking about it... No wait, I'm sleepy 'cause it's so early right now. Yeah. Ok, beddie-bye-bye time for me, right now... Nighty-night *yawn* ...
5 November 2004
Still sick. Getting a bit better, but I still pretty much feel like crap. I'm a walking pharmacy with all the medications I'm taking. *whiiiine* I wanna get better soon :'( Papito is still here, taking care of me, and I'm very thankful for that. He's the best boyfriend in the whole entire universe. He's leaving on Sunday, so I really hope to get better, and fast.
4 November 2004
Feliz Cumpleaños, Vanessa!
3 November 2004
I'm still sick. Still with fever. Still with sore throat. Had to go back to the doctor, and she told me that I have some kind of viral infection or something like that, so she gave me some medicines that are aparently very drowsy and told me to stay home. I have to miss a whole week of classes and work. This sucks. And Kerry lost, which sucks too. Big time. And I've had the hiccups for the last six minutes or so and they won't go away, which sucks too. But hey, at least Rosselló didn't win for governor of Puerto Rico, which is a good thing (or at least it seems that way; the margin is very small)... The only thing that doesn't suck is that John is staying here until Sunday (instead of leaving today), to take care of me. Don't I have the greatest boyfriend in the whole entire universe?
2 November 2004
I'm sick. I feel like crap. I hate it. *sniff* :'( The only good thing is that John is here with me and taking care of me. But he leaves tomorrow and then I'll be all alone and probably still sick, which sucks big time...
28 October 2004
Yesterday morning was all sunny. Then, at night it got cloudy and I couldn't see the lunar eclipse all that well. I did see the moon all red and stuff, but the clouds were making it a bit hard to see. And today is such a pretty day! All sunny, not a single cloud in the sky, but still not warm enough. It must have been that my papito brought the good weather with him from California, hee hee hee hee... Aww, it's so great having him here with me. We're in Davey right now and he's doing some work from his laptop in the desk right across from mine... *sigh* so cute... Tan chulo mi papito... And to think that he'll be here a whole week! Yayy!!! I'm sooo very happy!!!
26 October 2004
Happy 1/4 Century Birthday, Justin! Hehehehe :-D What else? Well, today was actually a sunny day. We haven't had a pretty sunny day in a really long time. It was cold, though. Upper 50s. Which is, yeah, warmer than what we've had for the last week or so, but it's still not warm enough for me... Not much more to say for now, except that John, mi papito chulito, is coming here TOMORROW, and he's staying for a whole week! Yay!
20 October 2004
I just saw a guy trying to parallel-park a big Ford pick-up truck into a space that was barely big enough to fit my car (a Honda Civic)... Also, it's 48 degrees and drizzling, and there was a guy in the bus stop wearing slacks and a shirt, just a shirt, whereas I am wearing a shirt, a turtleneck sweater, a coat, gloves and a hat. I could not stop thinking "Dude, aren't you cold?"... Aaaand, just six more days until my papito chulito gets here! Yay!!!
19 October 2004
Ugh, stupid migraine... I woke up with a migraine today and I had to stay in bed until like 2pm or something... I hate it when I wake up with a migraine. Grrrr, stupid migraines... Anyhoo, I took my migraine medicine and now I'm fine... A little while ago, I went out to get some ice cream (mmmmm chocolate brownie batter), and as soon as I stepped outside I realized that it's finally cold enough to see your breath. Brrr... And it's cloudy and raining on-and-off. Ack, such sucky weather lately... And while the high temperatures here are in the upper 40s and lower 50s (Fahrenheit), back home (Guayanilla, PR) the highs are in the upper 80s and lower 90s. The LOWS over there are about 20 degrees warmer than the highs here. Ack. Stupid mid-northern latitudes... In other weather-related news, the first winter storm arrived to northern California. John loves it! He's having a blast with the wind and the waves and the rain over there, hehehe...
18 October 2004
New stuff: I updated my CV to include the two talks I've done in the past week (my research lunch talk and my AGN seminar from today). By the way, the AGN seminar went just fine. I mean, for having slept only four hours last night from working on the damn thing all weekend long, and finishing the presentation at 11:30am today, just shy of three hours before showtime, hehehe... I liked my title slide... And people seemed to like it too. I had a picture of Dr. Evil next to an AGN model, and a picture of Mini-me next to an artist rendering of a galactic black hole binary, hehehe. Oh yeah, the talk is also here in my website, in the "Grad School Projects" page within the "Research Page". What else? Oh! Fall pictures! I've been going around taking pictures of the pretty colors that the trees have. Yeah, I know that a few weeks ago I said that I wasn't too excited about the Fall colors, but now all the trees are at their peak colors and they all look sooo pretty that I can't help but be all giddy about looking at them, and so I took a bunch of pictures and they're here, in the "Seasons" page of the Photo Gallery... And there's also some new pictures in the "Family and Friends" page, and in the "Mi Gringuito" page. Aaand, as of right now there's only a little bit over 8 days left until John comes here!!! Yay! My papito is going to be here with me for a whole week! *sigh* I can't wait...
16 October 2004
Saturday afternoon. Rain. Cold. The temperature is around 45°F, but with the wind and the rain it feels a lot colder than that. I wish I could just lay in bed all day and do nothing. But where am I? In my office in Davey. Working on my galactic black hole binaries seminar, which I have to do on Monday. Yesterday I didn't come here, I decided to work from home to avoid the sucky weather. So why am I here today? Well, there was a "Jimmy Neutron" marathon on Nickelodeon, and when that's over they'll probably show "Fairly Oddparents" or "Danny Phantom", and if I stay home I'll just watch those cartoons all day and not work at all, not even a teeny tiny bit. But I need to work, and so I decided to come to Davey, where I'd have no distractions. And I was right: there's absolutely no one here today. Either that or they're all hiding in their offices with the doors closed and the lights off. But it's more likely that no one's here... Ok, I should get back to work... Oh! Oh! I just have to wait 10 more days to see my gringuito! And he'll be here a whole week!!! Isn't that just wonderful? *sigh* I miss him sooo much...
12 October 2004: afternoon
Well, I already did my research lunch talk. I think it went well, except for maybe the fact that I probably talked too fast and my talk lasted only around 12 minutes instead of 20. And that maybe people were a bit bored with all the equations. But I couldn't help it, I *had* to write the equations... Meh, the talk went well anyway... Now, the computational physics midterm, now that's a whole other story... You know that feeling you get when you are asked to write a definition for something, and you look at the word, and you recognize the word, and you know that you've done that procedure many, many times before, and you really, really KNOW that you know the definition, and you have it in the tip of your tongue... but your brain refuses to spit it out? Well, I just had that experience. It is VERY frustrating. One question in the exam asked to define "pivoting" while solving linear systems of equations. I know I've done that before. It has something to do with Gaussian elimination. I'm sure I know what it is... But AARRRGGGHHHH, I cannot come up with a definition!!! I sit there and stare at the word... pivoting... pivoting... pivoting... I'm totally blank... So I write that it has something to do with Gaussian elimination and it is used to make the linear system easier to solve. So after I turn in the test, I come back to the office and take a looksy in my textbook. There it is: "Algorithms that rearrange the equations when they spot a small diagonal element are said to pivot". AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Re-arranging the equations! I KNEW THAT!!!! Why couldn't I remember it??? Grrrrr... Oh well, I'm going home now. I'm frustrated and I want some ice cream...
12 October 2004: morning
Ok, much to talk about today, and it's still early... First off, today is my first day with ℓ ≥ 3, which means that it's the first day of this cold season in which I wear three layers: sweater, jacket and coat. Not my big, long and heavy winter coat, but a shorter, lighter one. Still, it was really cold when I got out of my apartment this morning, like 40°F or something like that... Anyhoo, don't you just love it when you get an elevator tour of every floor in your building? And by "love", I of course mean "hate, abhor, detest"... When I got to Davey I waited for the elevator for about three or four minutes, then the thing finally got to the first floor. Another woman got in the elevator with me and pushed "4", and I obviously pushed "5". The elevator starts going up and stops in the second floor, where some guy had a cart thingie with library books. He gets in the elevator and pushes "3". The elevator goes up to the third floor, stops, guy gets out, door closes. Elevators goes up, stops in the fourth floor, woman gets out, door closes. Elevator keeps going up, finally reaching the fifth floor, and I can get out. It's not that I really actually "hate it" when that happens, it's just that it's really annoying... What else? Oh, well today I have to do my research lunch talk at 12:15pm, so about an hour and a half from now (it's still early, I told you). I already uploaded it, so you can find the link to the presentation somewhere in my "Research" page (inside the "Grad School Projects" page to be precise). The talk is about my summer research (which I'm still doing as part of my Fall Research Project). The title of the talk is the same as the talk I gave in Goddard, but the content is a bit different, and the approach is definitely more mathematical (I basically "teched-up" the Goddard presentation). So yeah, wish me luck with that... Oh, and wish me luck also with my Computational Physics midterm, which is today at 2:30pm... Oh, and I just realized that I left my laser pointer at home... Argh... So I'll have to use the yardstick to point during my talk... I always forget the stupid laser pointer... Grrr... Meh, whatever, yardstick's better at hiding presentation jitters ;-) hee hee hee... And to finish this long rant, I'd just like to say that I miss my gringuito very, very much, and I'm really happy that I get to see him again in just two more weeks...
8 October 2004
Well, John got here wednesday night. We had a really fun couple of days: hanging out, watching movies, eating a really good Puertorrican dinner that I cooked for him and my roommates... *sigh* ... And today he went back. He just left about an hour ago. I miss him so much already... *sigh* ... But, but! I'll see him again in 19 days! And! He'll be here for an entire week! Yay!!!
6 October 2004
Today is such a pretty day. It's all sunny, with just a few fluffy clouds in the sky. The air is crisp and dry, the trees are approaching peak fall colors, *sigh*, so pretty... Well, except for the high temps in the lower 60s, everything else is soooo awesome... And well, of course, the one thing that makes this day totally and completely absolutely perfect is the fact that my gringuito is coming to visit me today and is staying in State College for a couple of days. *giggle* I'm so happy that he's gonna be here with me, even if it is just for a couple of days...
1 October 2004
Well, my computer at work now functions normally again. Finally. The helpdesk people told me what to do to make it all better, and I did, and then I lost all my configurations (number of desktops, colors, backgrounds... you know, the important stuff that makes it *my* computer)... Well, in trying to recover said configurations, I managed to screw up the computer again. Ack. So I did the magic tricky thingie again, and once more, configurations were lost. Repeat a couple more times, and then I finally managed to save my number of desktops, my backgrounds, my fonts, and the colors. But not the color scheme. At least the individual colors were saved, so I was able to quickly reassemble my color scheme... Oh, and today I saw a moving billboard here in State College, driving down Park Ave. Weeeeiiirrrd. I'd never seen one of those in this town... Ok, back to work! Gotta do that Computational Physics homework, and then work on my lunch talk and maybe cram some studying in also because my gringuito is coming next week and I want to give him all my attention :-)
30 September 2004
Today has been quite a day... I went to Subway and got my usual chicken pizziola sub. BUT, when the girl asked me if I wanted lettuce and tomato on it, I said "Put a little bit of lettuce in"... *gasp*... If you're reading this, then you most probably know me and my strong dislike of all things vegetable. I must say, the sub tasted very interesting, and I actually enjoyed the new twist that the lettuce put on a personal favorite... In other news, my computer at work (in Davey Lab) got all weird on me today. For about 2/3 of the day it wouldn't let me ssh into it from anywhere. Then, late in the afternoon, it decided that it wanted to get all Windows on me (the thing runs KDE-based linux), and an Emacs window froze. I tried to close it by clicking on the little "x" on the top-right corner, but that did nothing. I tried right-clicking the thing on the taskbar that indicated I was using Emacs and clicking on "close window", but again, that did nothing. So, let's go for the kill. I tried killing the process... Guess... Yeah, that didn't work either. Then I tried the one command that should have done away with the frozen Emacs window: kill -9. Oddly enough, that did nothing. NOTHING! I was frustrated. So I closed everything, logged out and then logged back in. Of course, no more frozen Emacs window. But then I opened a konsole and the fonts are all screwed up. And not just the konsole, but also the xterm windows and the taskbar. Very weird. I tried many things. I asked for help to pretty much everyone I could find. I asked Britton. His suggestions didn't work. I asked Mike. His suggestions didn't work. I asked John (mi gringuito chulito) over IM. His suggestions didn't work. John asked Matt. He had no idea what to do (and this is quite a shocker, because Matt's always the UNIX supergenius who knows everything).. So, by now I want to kick the computer. And so, I fell back on my last resort: email helpdesk. And so, I did. But of course, it's after-hours and the helpdesk people already left, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow for whatever's wrong to be fixed... Ack, computers hate me... And now I should do my Computational Physics homework (which I was going to start doing when the computer went haywire)...
29 September 2004: noon
Well, now it's a more reasonable time of day, don't ya think? *sigh* I've calmed down from my horrible nightmare from this morning, I took my car in for an oil change, I've exchanged a few emails with my papito lindo who gets up really early over there in Cali, and now I'm having lunch... And I just wanted to make note of the fact that today is my first "turtleneck day" of the season. The high temperature for the day is around 65°F, and so, the cold days have started. Ergo, out come the turtleneck sweaters. But, but! I'm still not wearing gloves or a winter coat. I'm just wearing my turtleneck and my warm Goddard sweatshirt. No three layers, no gloves, no heavy coat, no hat. I'm getting used to the cold, aren't I? Whoo-hoo! :-)
29 September 2004
So, what happens when I finally go to bed early one night, so that I can wake up early today? I have a nightmare. A horribly, terribly scary nightmare from which I finally woke up at six-frickin-thirty in the morning. Now it is 7:30am. I just finished emailing my gringuito the story of my horrible nightmare, and of course, now I can't go back to sleep because first of all I'm still scared from the nightmare, and also most importantly because my alarm is supposed to go off at 8am anyway, and that's just a mere 30 minutes away. Ack. My heart is still beating incredibly fast and I'm still all sweaty from the huge scare. Stupid nightmares... At least there's something good going on. Only one more week until I see my gringuito again!!! Oh, oh, and if you want to know exactly how much time is left until my gringuito is here with me, you can check out the countdown that he has on his website. Isn't he sooo incredibly cute? *sigh* Tan lindo, mi papito chulo...
27 September 2004
Feliz Cumpleaños, Angélica!
25 September 2004
Put up some pictures of my office in Davey Lab. And ever so importantly, I added a page with pictures of me and my gringuito, and our fantabulous weekend together in the Bay Area...
24 September 2004
Holy crap, I've worked like crazy today. It's 10:36pm and I'm still at work (today is Friday), so imagine how much I've done today. Wow. I amaze myself at how much of a slacker I can be sometimes, but when I get in "work-mode", it's very hard to stop... Anyhoo, there's something new in my page. I have added a "Research Blog" with important info about one of my research projects (Massive Black Hole Binary Merger Rates), in order to keep all my collaborators (at Goddard, Penn State and UT Austin) up-to-date with what's going on. Later on in the semester I will add more information about the research in the main page for that project, but for now the research blog is the important thing that me and my advisors need to keep an eye on... Also, soon I'll create a page to describe a little bit my other research project (GR-SPH modelings of NS-BH binaries). Right now I can say that I set up a simulation yesterday around 6pm and right now it's only about 1/10 done, so yeah, this simulation will take a really looong time... And also, very soon I will add the pictures of my fantabulous weekend with my gringuito chulo... Mmmmm, only 12 more days until he comes to State College, yay! Oh, oh! And, oh my god, it's already Fall and the temperatures are still warm! I know, I know, I shouldn't be celebrating that too much because soon enough it will get really cold. But yeah, either this year has been warmer, or I'm getting used to the cooler temperatures. Either way, it's all good :-)
23 September 2004: a bit later
Holy wow! Yay! I'm soooo incredibly happy! I get to see my gringuito in 13 days!!! And, and, and... I see him for two days and then I wait 18 more days and he'll come back and be here with me for an entire week!!! Ooooo, yayyyy!!! I'm soooooo happy!!!
23 September 2004
Well, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that some trees were already changing into their Fall colors. Today I noticed, while riding the bus from the parking lot to campus, that there are more and more trees that are changing into their Fall colors. This makes a lot of sense, because after all, it is Fall. So what's so weird about that? That this year I'm not all that giddy and happy and excited about seeing the leaves change colors. Have I become accustomed to the fact that seasons actually do change? I mean, Fall colors are by no means at the peak; right now it's all blotchy. But still... This time last year I'd see one non-green leaf and jump from excitement... Oh man, I'm turning Pennsylvanian. Let's see how I react when all the trees are orange and red and pretty... In other news, I have a ton of work, and it seems like 24 hours in a day are not enough to handle it all... Maybe I took on more than I can handle this semester? Dunno... Shall have to try out and see... So now I'm trying to think what planet I should go to so that I can get more than 24 hours in a day and maybe that way I'll have time to deal with everything, but ack, Jupiter and Saturn have much shorter days than Earth, Mars's is pretty much the same length, Mercury and Venus have "days" that last for months, and I really don't feel like going to Uranus, Neptune or Pluto because they're too darn far away and it's gonna be too cold... Ok, I got that out of my system; no more planet jokes for me this year... What else can I talk about before I get back to work? Hmmm... Well, I miss my gringuito. I miss him a lot. But hopefully I'll get to see him soon enough, yay! :-) And now I shall stop procrastinating and get back to work...
22 September 2004
Happy Autumnal Equinox!
21 September 2004
Ahhh, I just had the most wonderfully fantastic weekend with John (mi gringuito chulo, *giggle*). I took a whole bunch of pictures and I'll put them up soon (probably not today because I have a killer long day ahead of me, but maybe tomorrow)... *sigh* I miss my gringuito already...
14 September 2004
Feliz Cumpleaños, Carlos!
13 September 2004: a bit later
Sometimes in life, things happen totally by surprise. When you least expect it, something really, really cool happens, and you have no choice but to be all giddy and happy :-)
13 September 2004
Feliz Cumpleaños, Javier!
12 September 2004
Ahh, d ∼ 3000 miles... *sigh*
10 September 2004: a bit later
Update: Added a page with a description of my research at Goddard this past summer (a project that I'm still working on from Penn State). The page also has links to the abstract, paper and presentation that I made. BTW, it is SO unbelievably cool to update webpages now that emacs has color syntax. Yay!!!
10 September 2004
Well, today is all sunny and pretty. Way better than yesterday. A bit on the chilly side, though. Lower 70's... Update: Added another pic to my "Family and Friends" page: John W's picture from his SLAC ID badge. Go check it out!
10 September 2004, at 1:52am
Oh my god! This is just awesome. Warning: very nerdy update... For the past year or so, I've been trying to get emacs to do color syntax when I work on an HTML document. The stupid thing did color syntax for C, FORTRAN, IDL, LaTeX, shell scripts, you name it. Everything except HTML. So I just happen to mention my conundrum to John W, and he works his magic and now emacs is doing color syntax for HTML!!! Holy wow! John, you are a genius! Thank youuuu!!! I am soo giddy right now, jejeje... And not only that, but I discovered what a ".plan" file is! Isn't this just an amazingly nerdy day for me! And the day just started a bit under two hours ago!!! Yay!!!
9 September 2004: A bit later
New pictures! "Family and Friends", a picture of my little niece Luimary Yamil (she's my cousin's daughter, but I claim her as a niece since I don't have brothers or sisters, and so this is my chance at being an aunt, hehehe). Go see her! She's SOOO cute!!!
9 September 2004
The weather here has been sucky all day long... It's rainy and windy and cold. Sucky, very, very sucky...
9 September 2004, at 2:50am
Well, I just watched the Tropical Update on the Weather Channel... Man... Hurricane Ivan now has winds of 160mph! It's a Category 5. A Category 5, people! Do you have any idea how unbelievably strong that thing is? I haven't seen a Cat. 5 hurricane in a long time... Damn... I am all impressed here with that storm... Wow, just wow... Unfortunately, it's headed straight for Jamaica, so if it doesn't weaken by the time it hits them, they're gonna be in quite a pickle...
6 September 2004
Procrastination. According to Google, the definition of this word is "putting off or delaying or defering an action to a later time". Why is it so much fun to procrastinate, huh? Why have I been procrastinating all weekend long? Here I am, sitting in front of the computer, typing this during commercials of "Seventh Heaven" (yes, I watch that, it's another one of my guilty pleasures), and with the AGN textbook open to the middle of Chapter 1. I need to read five chapters of this book by Wednesday, and I've only read one half of the first chapter... And I needed to do a LOT of other things... Did I do them during this long weekend? NO... Argh... I seriously have to stop procrastinating, especially during this very busy semester that I'm gonna have... *whine* but procrastinating is so much fun :'-(
5 September 2004: Sunday evening
I've added another story to the "Funny Stories" page. This one is actually at the end of the page, because it happend in December 2003. I'm writing about it now because it's a very funny thing that happend the day of the Astro 501 final, and so it is worthy of display in that page. The title? "When Matt Bit Justin's Forehead". Very funny stuff indeed...
5 September 2004: Little bit later
So I've decided to put this separate from the last post, even though it's been only one hour since I wrote that, but this is a separate topic. I just finished reading a book, "A Hole in Texas", by Herman Wouk. Amazing! Just awesome. It's science, politics and human nature. The novel is a work of fiction centered around the real-life fact that the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) was killed off by Congress in 1993. This collider would have created energies high enough to produce and detect the elusive Higgs boson, a particle that bestows all other particles with mass after their fields interact. It's quite an abstract and complicated part of Quantum Field Theory. Anyways, the novel's main character is Guy Carpenter, a physicist who worked on the collider project for five and a half years before Congress canceled funding. He is married to a very smart woman, a microbiologist, but one who is very jeaolous at times. Guy went to grad school in Cornell, and there he dated Wen Mei Li, a Chinese physics grad student. She has since gone back to China, but they've kept in touch by writing two or three yearly letters to each other, letters which Guy has hidden from his wife. What happens is that an article gets published in Nature, in which a team of Chinese physicists claim to have discovered the Higgs boson. The leader of that team? Wen Mei Li, of course. The US government is now up and about, all fuzzed up because "the Chinese beat us to the Higgs", and saying that American science has "lost face". Not only that, but paranoia spreads out because some people believe that this Higgs particle can be used to create a powerful "boson bomb", and so the safety of the nation is in peril. The main character, Guy, gets caught up in the middle of a media frenzy when a snoopy reporter for the Washington Post publishes an article in which he states that Guy kept in touch with Wen, and over the years he might have leaked out information about the Higgs boson, and nicknames him "Deep Throat Physicist", in reference to the whole deal with Nixon and Deep Throat squealing him out. So basically the CIA is on his tail, his wife gets mad at him when she finds out he's kept in touch with this other woman behind her back, and his job is in danger. Why? Because now Congress wants to revive the SSC, and this would basically hog all the science funding. Guy now works on the Terrestrial Planet Finder, and even though he truly believes that killing the SSC was a big mistake, reviving it now would be a really bad idea, as it would take money away from all other projects, including the one he currently works on. Guy is basically accused of espionage, gets called to testify in a hearing in Congress, and all hell has broken loose in his life. If my summary is a little confusing, I apologize, but I've never been good at summarizing stuff :-P All in all, really good novel. Good plot, very interesting drama, and a happy ending for our physicist. Who wouldn't enjoy that?
5 September 2004
Well, it's barely Sunday. Just a couple minutes after midnight, so I guess I had to make the date Sept. 5, hehehe. Um, what so say... Well, I'll mention a bit about the update that I sorta skimmed over in the last couple of posts. Ever since I remodeled the Grad Bios page, I keep looking at that page and thinking how much I like the design. I sorta like it better than the design for this page, just a little bit, you know? So I was thinking of maybe re-working this website... Just a little bit of a face-lift, you know? But, but, but... I'd have to give up my pretty pseudo-buttons on the left... And also the big banners that top the main pages... Thing is, I really, really like my buttons and banners. It took me quite a while to make them, and I'm pretty fond of the font. I have NO IDEA what font it is, and I don't have it in my laptop. It's a font I had on my old computer back home (HOME home, Puerto Rico), so I can't tell what font it is and as such I can't make any more buttons like that (believe me, I tried). So I opted for just cleaning-up the HTML, still in my undying quest to make it W3C compliant (at the time being it is not, and this really bothers me). I guess this is just me being an anal perfectionist, but what the hell, I get that way sometimes... Besides cleaning up the HTML, I have decided to add navigation links at the bottom of each page, just like I did for the Grad Bios page. This way, the pages are better connected to each other. So yeah, that's the "big" update. It's not that big of a deal, it's just annoying. Trying to make more than two dozen pages of HTML code look pretty much the same is very, very tedious. I really should learn CSS. That would make this so much simpler...
4 September 2004: Later that night (or earlier that morning, take your pick)
So sleepy... Tired... Update not done yet. Still have to do Personal, Pictures and Links... So sleepy... I'll finish this update tomorrow. Now I'm going beddie-bye-bye... zzzzzzzzz...
4 September 2004: Around 2:00am
Updating website... Updating website... Updating website... Updating website... Updating website...
3 September 2004
Happy one-year anniversary, Emily's Universe! Wow, it's already been a year... I've been in grad school now officially for one entire year... And I haven't been home (i.e. Puerto Rico) in about 8 months... And soon it will get really, really cold here... *sigh* ... By the way, the Grad Bios page is done! If you want to take a look at it, go right ahead...
2 September 2004
Congratulations to my dear friend Carlos Santana (the theoretical physics grad student, not the guitarrist) for passing his MIT-Physics qualifying exam!!! I knew you could do it! Felicidades!!!
