lately
slowly settling in...
the longer we've lived in this apartment, the happier I am with it. now that Mike is back with all our stuff, we've bought some things we didn't have yet, such as a bedframe and a TV stand! and we're hanging pictures on the walls, so it's feeling less and less like piles of stuff and more and more like a home. I decided the other day that you can really call a place "home" if you stick your razor holder to the shower wall with the semi-permanent adhesive deals it comes with.
meanwhile at school, I finally have a homework assignment, but it's presented rather vaguely and needs to be tackled tomorrow. I'm starting to teach myself fortran and it really sucks. instead of "hello, world" I did "hello, world - I'm fortran and I suck." at least iraf is playing nice. I may be starting some binary star related paid research soon, which may involve some long-term observations (i.e. camping out at the observatory for weeks) as well as data reduction and light curve modeling. whee? honestly it sounds cool, but the first thing I've been asked to do is programming related, which is the one thing I suck at. why oh why couldn't CS60 have fit into my schedule at Mudd?? I haven't touched programming with a 10 foot pole since CS5 frosh year.
one cool thing on Saturday was the astro dept picnic, preceded by a hike and followed by telescope training for the TAs. even though I'm not a TA, I tagged along and learned how to use a 21" telescope that is in a dome but is basically a blown up old school manual telescope. the only automated thing is it will track objects. it's actually for looking through!! and it's so pristinely dark up at Mt. Laguna that you can look at basically anything and it looks spectacular. you can even see the milky way before it's pitch black out. the observatory is at 6000-someodd feet and the light pollution has only increased 10% I think (versus at Palomar where it has increased more like 50%, boo Los Angeles).
aaanyway. Mike and I have found an awesome church here. st. paul's episcopal cathedral. they actually have a 20s and 30s young adult group called "urban collective," and they routinely do brunches as well as a little something called "theology on tap." as in, they meet at a bar and discuss theology over booze. yes. :) we also signed up to do the Great Urban Race here in San Diego next month, which a handful of urban collective folks are doing. go google it; it sounds like basically a super scavenger hunt like the one we got my frosh year in south after the frosh chem prank. only BETTER, and in teams of two. we have to have a team name with some kind of matching uniform, so of course we're M&M and we ordered M&M shirts...hehe.
our neighbors sometimes talk loudly and swear often, then the other neighbor (who is a nun) has a bazillion birds that sound like they're dying. then the loud neighbors tell the birds to shut up, and I am amused. sometimes the bird says "hello" too, and a dog barks or a cat meows.
on that random note, back to organizing slash pretending to do work... :)
the longer we've lived in this apartment, the happier I am with it. now that Mike is back with all our stuff, we've bought some things we didn't have yet, such as a bedframe and a TV stand! and we're hanging pictures on the walls, so it's feeling less and less like piles of stuff and more and more like a home. I decided the other day that you can really call a place "home" if you stick your razor holder to the shower wall with the semi-permanent adhesive deals it comes with.
meanwhile at school, I finally have a homework assignment, but it's presented rather vaguely and needs to be tackled tomorrow. I'm starting to teach myself fortran and it really sucks. instead of "hello, world" I did "hello, world - I'm fortran and I suck." at least iraf is playing nice. I may be starting some binary star related paid research soon, which may involve some long-term observations (i.e. camping out at the observatory for weeks) as well as data reduction and light curve modeling. whee? honestly it sounds cool, but the first thing I've been asked to do is programming related, which is the one thing I suck at. why oh why couldn't CS60 have fit into my schedule at Mudd?? I haven't touched programming with a 10 foot pole since CS5 frosh year.
one cool thing on Saturday was the astro dept picnic, preceded by a hike and followed by telescope training for the TAs. even though I'm not a TA, I tagged along and learned how to use a 21" telescope that is in a dome but is basically a blown up old school manual telescope. the only automated thing is it will track objects. it's actually for looking through!! and it's so pristinely dark up at Mt. Laguna that you can look at basically anything and it looks spectacular. you can even see the milky way before it's pitch black out. the observatory is at 6000-someodd feet and the light pollution has only increased 10% I think (versus at Palomar where it has increased more like 50%, boo Los Angeles).
aaanyway. Mike and I have found an awesome church here. st. paul's episcopal cathedral. they actually have a 20s and 30s young adult group called "urban collective," and they routinely do brunches as well as a little something called "theology on tap." as in, they meet at a bar and discuss theology over booze. yes. :) we also signed up to do the Great Urban Race here in San Diego next month, which a handful of urban collective folks are doing. go google it; it sounds like basically a super scavenger hunt like the one we got my frosh year in south after the frosh chem prank. only BETTER, and in teams of two. we have to have a team name with some kind of matching uniform, so of course we're M&M and we ordered M&M shirts...hehe.
our neighbors sometimes talk loudly and swear often, then the other neighbor (who is a nun) has a bazillion birds that sound like they're dying. then the loud neighbors tell the birds to shut up, and I am amused. sometimes the bird says "hello" too, and a dog barks or a cat meows.
on that random note, back to organizing slash pretending to do work... :)