Category Archives: Personal

Updates

Personal, , , ,

House

We’ve officially decided to stay in the same house next year. There are some drawbacks (mostly temperature related), but we generally like the place and none of us really wants to deal with moving again. It’s also nice to be in a house as opposed to an apartment. I think we are going to try and plant a vegetable garden in the spring.

Summer

I’m definitely going to be in Ithaca for the summer, continuing to work on the games project. There were a couple of weeks there when I was trying to deal with applying for internships, but I think it will work out better to be at Cornell. It will be nice to have some good quality research time, and I’m looking forward to the chance to explore Ithaca and its environs in more hospitable weather.

Courses

Logic is pretty tough, but I suppose I should have expected as much from a grad level math course. I think I’ll make it through the course just fine, but I’m going to have to revisit my decision to minor in math. I like learning math, and I can certainly find other math courses I would like to take, but I’ll have to balance that with the extra work and stress that they tend to create.

Databases is also tough at the moment, though the work isn’t as intense. We’re starting with some very theoretical material, which is interesting but dense. Still, I’m enjoying the opportunity to work through some of the foundational material in my research area.

Cornell, Personal, Travel

Claes Oldenburg In DC 
I just got back from visiting Divya in D.C. for the weekend. I had an excellent time: good company, good food, and good art. We visited the National Gallery and sculpture garden (with ice skating), went to a free chamber music concert at the Kennedy Center, and partook of restaurant week at Marrakesh Palace. 

(The sculpture above is by Claes Oldenburg — the same artist who did Spoonbridge and Cherry in Minneapolis. It’s the sculpture garden at the National Gallery.) 

Classes start tomorrow. This semester I’m planning on taking

  • Logic
  • Database Systems

 Hope it goes well.

(Not Quite) Back in Ithaca

Personal, , ,

I think I’ve discovered a new inverse-square law: The probability of a hassle free trip is proportional to one over the square of the number of planes involved. Since my trip involved three separate aircraft, it was doomed from the start. I got out of Omaha in time, though it was on a plane that was supposed to leave two-and-a-half hours earlier, but Chicago was a different story. They had some bad weather, and my flight to Philadelphia was delayed by two-and-a-half hours. This of course caused me to miss my last-of-the-day connection to Ithaca, and I spent the night in the Philadelphia airport listening to International CNN endlessly looping through the New Hampshire results and British soccer scores. It’s now 6:00am, and I’ve got another four hours before I finally get out of here. I even paid for the ridiculously expensive wireless because I finished my book and the only way to survive airports is to spend money freely on junk food (I hit up Dunkin’ Donuts at 5:00) and entertainment.

Ah well, at least I should accumulate a disproportionally large number of travel stories over the next five years.