Notes · from · the · Underground

I woke up TERRIFIED this morning around 9:30am, because I just remembered that a friend of mine had asked me to sub for her at her office hours and to grade one assignment for her. I'd offered several weeks ago, because then she had the ability to go home and see her family in Oregon.

When I woke up this morning, I realized that I was probably the biggest asshole in the world, having spent all of last week wandering around, partying, enjoying good new company - and at NO point, heading anywhere near the math building to do her grading or office hours.

Gah. So I leap out of bed, get dressed (still wearing the "outfit" I chose in less than 5 seconds, a terrifying sight to behold you can be sure,) fight the urge to call Jen and apologize for being an asshole (either she's in Oregon and wouldn't appreciate a call at then-six-thirty-am, or she's back in Ithaca and already knows,) and run downstairs to put on my shoes... When I realize I should check my phone to see when she had called me to remind me that I'd offered to do this.

It was on July 9th. Today is July 13th. Her office hours and grading were (or rather, I know now, ARE) today, tomorrow, and Wednesday.

This has been one more reminder of how I need to keep my affairs a little more organized. I can't even tell how much time has passed between one event and another. Sounds like it's time to start keeping a schedule.

This afternoon, I got the following messages in sequences:

Doug (2:33 pm): You're actually very beautiful

Doug (3:41 pm): I've been freaking out all day overall im not sure what happened or at least triggered an all night ranting please call me back

Doug (4:04 pm): Im not sure what happened but im probably leaving soon but I hope we can talk at least to apologize

I can't (rather, won't) text him back right now. I'm not angry any more, but I don't really want anything to do with him.

Alright... I'll preface this with the fact that I've been looking, at least over the past week, for an excuse to break up with Doug. I mistyped that temporarily as Dough, and almost left it in - just to give you a hint of the slight bitterness and ick factor I've got about him right now.

That being said, tonight was a shit show at the bar that I work at, and I was working entirely alone (until Sully came on, uninvited but OH MY GOD so appreciated... Even though he'd been drinking, he was the release valve I needed to keep the bar running smoothly.) It was really hard, long, hot... Difficult, and rough on top of that because both customers and my friends were getting pissed at me for having to wait for drinks.

And then the guy I was seeing showed up. Yay for Doug/Dough. Earlier today I had hung out with him and we were supposed to go on a brief hike at 4, before I had to tutor at 5:30. I show up at his house at 4 to pick him up to find him sitting with no pants at his computer (ick, even though it's not like porn should be a surprise, it's just a little tacky.) He took almost a full hour to shower and get ready, so we make it to Collegetown to hit the Cascadilla trail at 5:05. We walk a bit, have some fun watching the waterfalls, then walk back up - and it's a little steep, admittedly, but not too bad - and Doug fell back. I waited for him, but as soon as he catches up, he pokes me in the stomach and volunteers the following bon mot:

"How can you go hiking so much and still be so fat?"

Awesome. He pseudo apologizes when I get upset, but then shows up at the bar, teases me, and tries to UNHOOK MY FUCKING BRA while I'm serving drinks. I get incredibly angry with him (to the point that the three customers closest to him see my face and take a step AWAY from him,) and tell him to stay away from me or leave the bar.

He doesn't stay away, but he does leave me alone. That is, until the end of the night (around 4) when I finally finish cleaning, and he starts trying to call me. We get into a bit of a verbal spat (I'll admit, I don't remember that much of it, it was something along the lines of him telling me that I was a horrible person that he doesn't like very much, and me telling him that I didn't care and if he didn't want to talk to me then it was okay, we could be done... Y'know, those type of spats.) I hang up on him, and this is the text message war that followed. It is so perfect that it made me want to keep laughing as it happened, but I figured I'd supply it here to save it for posterity (the typos, both his and mine, I leave in because they add to the amusement.) The bolded bits are things I'm kind of ashamed of saying (they're not particularly charitable) but they are funny as all hell:

Doug (4:12 am): "Go fucking kill you ugly fat self leave me alone and don't act like anyone wants you besides coked out fuck ups that only have grad scholl to feel like they're"

Doug (4:13 am): "Smart like you because grad schools only for people that talk to other grad students that are fuck ups like their grad student selves don't act like"

Doug (4:14 am): "You wanted me I saw you every night with your ex and his homo boyfriends keep snorting up your life with them I'm sorry buiut I thought you were special"

Doug (4:15 am): "Andi considered you to spend a lot of time with but everytime I wanted to see you you had to run away like batgirl with no explaination and a phone call litterally"

Doug (4:16 am): "Days later how can I live like that I actually liked you and you treat me like a whore"

Doug (4:21 am): "I knew from the beginning I wasn't the right guy you should hang out with you're great in your own right and im sorry I got involved forget about me"

Gwyn (4:31 am): "If you want to talk, call me sober. Otherwise, i'll miss you but i can't deal with this as is."

Doug (4:34 am): "Well just keep igorning me I love it like just n when I called real awesome"

Doug (4:37 am): "Sober? You don't even know what that fucking means and that's what drives me nuts... No more ....Have your coke babies ya alcoholic..... leave me be"

Gwyn (4:37 am): "Okay."

Doug (4:40 am): "Ok what"

Gwyn (4:41 am): "If you feel that way then there's nothing more for me to say. So okay. I hope you sleep well."

Doug (4:41 am): "You have no passion" [<--This one accidentally got deleted, it was something along those lines.]

Gwyn (4:44 am): "I have plenty of passion. I'm just as of this moment done investing any of it in you."

Doug (4:47 am): "fine im glad you're admitting to directing it to other dudes cuz it was really weak ... im really insulted"

Gwyn (4:49 am): "Don't worry. You can go back to chasing all those "hot" fat white trailer trash bitches that think you're just awesome."

Doug (4:50 am): "Wow"

Doug (4:51 am): "You're the fatest one I've chased in my life"

Gwyn (4:51 am): "Doubtful. Then again... Maybe you used to be hot."

Doug (4:52 am): "Im done chasing you I thought you had one thing... Class but I guess not keep doping up and being in grad school someone will love you"

Gwyn (4:54 am): "You never chased. You made me ashamed of everything that defined me. You're just a shallow small man with a grudge."

Doug (4:55 am): "I fucked up just relax and deal with little girls that think they're cool and act like they're big"

Doug (4:55 am): "Made you ashamed? A small man with a grudge was enough to make you feeel that wow who's small"

Doug (4:57 am): "I have no gruge other than you never felt big enough to act like a grown woman but like a coffee drinking cornell groupie"

Gwyn (4:58 am): "*sigh* just go to bed doug... This is done and you killed it so go sleep it off. And don't bother calling me tomorrow after all."

Doug (4:59 am): "Usually I don't call you??? But you sober up and call me which is fucking annoying as shit cause you're so spaced out it's ridiculous"

Gwyn (5:00 am): "Okay. We're done so don't stress. Go find some new chick and leave me alone."

Doug (5:03 am): "I don't find new chicks I keep to myself and your behavior and chating is no prize I hope you and you ugly homo fag boyfriends are fun and keep you from k"

Gwyn (5:04 am): "Okay whatever. I never cheated on you but you can bet by tomorrow I'll have replaced you with someone that'll at least be nice to me."

Doug (5:06 am): "By tomorrow? Sure that reinforces you havnt been fucking other homo bitches why do you mess with me I hope you die"

Gwyn (5:07 am): "You started this. I liked you and tried to make it work and ya kept kicking me in the teeth every time. So you can just go find someone else."

Doug (5:08 am): "Your teeth are beautiful I wouldn't kick you there go make out with kuruna I don't know how I started this im sorry"

Doug (5:12 am): I don't have a gun please shoot me in the brain"

Doug (5:14 am): "You answered my call earlier witha nother guy with you don't act fucking perfect that's grosss how care you make me feel like an asshole you whore"

Gwyn (5:16 am): "Stop texting me. I'm tired. And don't care. I did before. But I don't now."

Doug (5:17 am): "I hate you so much you tell me to go die multiple times but I hope you're alive to watch me dive down a gorge"

Gwyn (5:18 am): "Don't pretend you care whether this keeps going or not. I liked you and you pissed all ever my feelings."

Doug (5:20 am): "Wow you can't qualify how whorish you are by how much you say you're hurt you're not and you just are numb to life its so fucking sad and depressing"

Gwyn (5:21 am): "Okay drunky go to bed."

Doug (5:22 am): "Drunky? I havnt drank since you served me"

Doug (5:23 am): "You're so annoying you keep calling me drunkie and don't even realize life"

LJ/FB Scattegories
The rules: It's harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours and tag 10 people. USE THE FIRST LETTER OF YOUR NAME to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real... nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question. Have Fun!
1. What is your name: Gwyn
2. A four Letter Word: game
3. A boy's Name: Gregory
4. A girl's Name: Grace
5. An occupation: gravedigger
6. A color: grey
7. Something you wear: garters
8. A food: grapes
9. Something found in the bathroom: gaskets (on the tub)
10. A place: garden
11. A reason for being late: gawking
12. Something you shout: GO TO HELL
13. A movie title: Gattica
14. Something you drink: Grappa (ick... I have, but ick)
15. A musical group: Goldfrapp
16. An animal: goose
17. A street name: Green Street
18. A type of car: Grand Prix racer
19. A song title: Graceland
20. A verb: grasp

I guess I was thinking, "That's totally a great idea that'll never come back to bite me."

Oops. Two for two this week.

~Gwyn

I'm going to try and make a new start this semester. I had avoided making a resolutions list around New Years because that has a certain air of inevitable failure lying about it. I guess now's as good a time as ever to start trying to write down these semi-resolutions that I'd left percolating.

Whoo.

Even though this one is not the most urgent, it is probably the one tying for most important to me personally. As it's beginning to bother me, I'm going to try and get back in to shape. Specifics of the plan to lose weight/get back to being fit include:

1. Daily walks with Penny. Non-negotiable. I have snow boots, a warm coat, a good scarf, gloves, etc. In some ways, the winter weather is even MORE manageable than the summer weather, in that snow can be walked through (whereas rain is just debilitatingly depressing.) Preferably, these walks will take place in the morning, allowing me to dodge more neatly my intense laziness taking control.

2. Attend the gym classes that I'm signed up for. These run M-Th, every morning from 9:05-9:55 am or so. Yeah, it's early. Yeah, I hate the mornings. Yeah, I've let myself slide on exercise this whole year. Combining these facts, does my signing up for these classes sound unreasonably ambitious then? NO! Why? Because I am not INCAPABLE of getting up that early, especially if I put in the effort to stop going out and staying up so late. This will put me on a better schedule in general, and I'm sure within a few weeks (if I start going and don't stop) I'll start to love them enough to not backslide. The classes themselves look awesome too - Introduction to Boxing and Weight-Lifting for Women. Awesome! The second one even included a free Cornell gym membership, which starts next week.

3. On days when I'm not working out, make an extra effort to walk to/around/near campus and (IF I'm watching TV, which I'd also like to cut down on) make sure to stretch and do ab work or squats or whatever when chilling in front of the TV.

4. Don't eat out so much and try to gradually shift my food choices to healthier options. I think I spent about two weeks last semester with no meals other than pizza, beer, wings, or mini potato pancakes and eggs at Hal's diner. NOT good. It's not that I particular regret my eating choices (that was a fucking awesome few weeks,) and I won't feel guilty about any past or future food choices (it is my body after all,) but I do know better. These things add up.

And now one that bridges the gap between "I want to become more fit" into "I want to be less broke." This is another huge area in my life I need to work on... My credit score dropped from the high seven hundreds to the mid five hundreds across the past year and a half, because I spent recklessly and poorly. Among the major things that will help get this back together:

5. Less going out drinking. I spent over a thousand dollars (maybe "thousands" would even be more accurate) over the past year going out drinking. I shit you not. My friends will go out and not think about running up a sixty, seventy, a(n?) hundred dollar tab. Not all of them, admittedly - but a standard evenings worth of drinking expenses normally runs between twenty and sixty for me, Dhruva, Jason, Peter, Sully, etc. And that's not even power drinking... That's just a semi-reasonable dancing/drinking night. Last night I went out to hang out with the Level B crew and spent the least by FAR of any of them at $19 (including tip, admittedly, but still.) And this is when I have virtually no money and am having to budget how many cups of coffee I drink in a day. Insane. Apart from the crazy calories and financial cost, I need to become more productive mathematically, and the strain of the never-ending party won't make that more likely.

6. No more smoking. I've gotten it down to only a cigarette or two when I'm absolutely plastered, so I'm not stressed about this one anymore - I don't even crave it, which is awesome - but it would be better to just be all done with that one. It's hard, because it really is a central focal point in my friends' hanging out scene - but y'know, peer pressure, while awesome and all, is a manageable thing.

7. No more clothes. I mean, wearing clothes, good and all - and I probably do need to buy a few more pairs of pants before implementing this totally, as mine are all in a sorry state of disrepair - but no more indiscriminate buying of any cute shirt/sweater/hoodie/hat that I see. Insanity when I'm broke, again.

8. Paying bills on time / making a budget and sticking to it. This one I'm going to have to work on seriously, but tied to intentions 5-7 up there, I think I can do this.

Okay, I think that might take care of all of my financial worries if I implemented those four things. And that's pretty much it for urgent things in my life I need to deal with. It's funny, but I realized that I hadn't listed any romantic or professional goals up there, but those two main areas (getting back in shape and crawling out of crippling debt) have sort of swept the field. Lemme see... Less explanation will go in to the following (I need to get back to work,) but still important:

9. Organize my work-life better. Make sure that I am getting paid by my various jobs and that I don't overbook myself to much.

10. Try to hang out with a more diverse crowd. Brad, Doug, Andrew, Peter and I have talked about going out to Greek Peak to go skiing (maybe a weekly thing even,) and I'd really like that. I need to do more "going-out-not-drinking" activities, and that ski trip with the Level B people (especially Brad and Doug, and later on Jocelyn,) was just amazing - both physically and emotionally. I had a blast and felt really pumped to be more productive after. I think that might have been a lot of the impetus to finally start DOING all the things I'd been planning to change around New Years.

I also want to keep with this reading group that Andrew suggested (we're reading "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Borges for next week,) maybe start going to either Marissa's movie night or to the math girls' knitting night (no, really... not kidding on this one... it was more fun than I thought,) and try going to the Go team's practice rather than out with the Level B people on Monday. The crowd at Level B is absolutely fabulous in some ways - I always just feel warm and fuzzy around them - but in terms of challenge and change and doing things... Not so much.

It's to the point that Brad, who is the person I most enjoy non-drinking hanging out with in the group, generally won't come out with us any more on Monday nights - it's always the same bar, the same shots, the same drink until you can't see your hands, the same songs, etc. I see his point - last night was a bit disappointing. I showed up at eleven thirty or so - I hadn't really planned on doing any serious drinking out, just wanted a bit of hang out time - and they were all just so plastered that I'm surprised they recognized me. I had a few drinks, but never made a serious attempt at catching them - and they just went from plastered to peel-off-the-floor. We would up hanging out until four, mostly because even when they couldn't see they wanted to keep drinking, and eventually I put them all to bed around four AM (after Amy puked in/near/all-over my bathroom and herself, Seth forgot his coat then refused to get it, and Sully and Brynna started cuddling and probably hooked up.) Weird to be the sober(-ish) observer in all that. No long term damage, although I hope Brynna is okay with the Sully thing (she's been mooning over him for months, and I can't tell if he was serious or not.)

...

Okay, moving back to resolutions and away from random bar gossip. I'm going to just pretend nothing happened and hope everybody had an awesomely non-awkward morning.

11. Stay on top of the Commutative Ring Theory book - jeeze it's good! - and be one of the go-to people in the Comm.Alg. section, rather than a passive observer. It was awesome on Monday attending a combinatorics talk and realizing that what Eran was working on was REALLY similar to what I was working on - and I had some stuff that I'd love to talk to him later that might help finish his problem (and maybe mine too!!!)

Awesome!

12. Read more books/magazines, watch less TV. Okay, with the exception of "Battlestar Galactica" and "How I Met Your Mother", and maybe "Kings" after it comes out. A girl can only be blamed for so much.

Okay... That's it. I'm sure there are more things in my life that I'd like to work out (at some point, I'll post here my hilarious "break-up" with Ben last night,) but I think those are all of the ones I'm concerned about deeply at this moment.

Hope y'all are well and see ya later!

~Gwyn

I just found a journal that I started shortly after I turned ten up until just a little bit before my eleventh birthday. It is sparsely filled out to say the least, but the entries are hilarious. It does make it clear that mental organization developed over even just four or five years can mean worlds of difference in coherence - and in levels of optimism. (This is all written in relatively neat cursive, on a small but amusing side-note.)

January 1st, 1994

The first day of the New Year. It is going to be a great year. I'm going to have a great day tomorrow too.

I made a cute sail boat today. It is a pin.[[I remember this pin... I wonder what I did with it.]] I will finish it tomorrow

I wonder if I will make more friends this year. It would be nice.

I invited Shannon over for a sleep **scratched out stuff** over on the 14 of Jan.

January 2nd, 1994

I had a great day today. I wore my new dinosaur earrings all day. I wore my sailboat pin and a striped shirt with a navy blue pair of pants and a sailor hat with Mickey on it. [[Oh god, this now makes me weep.]] I am going back to school tomorrow. In extended care I am going to wear my dino earrings, a pteratodon t-shirt, and pair of black pants. Oops! I forget to say I got new boots today. They are nice black ones. I like them alot.

I hope I have a good day tomorrow.

January 3rd, 1994

Today was out of uniform day. We didn't have to wear a stupid jumper.

Update - My mom got me a pair of triceratops earrings and she got my sister a pair of brontosauruses.

I had a nice day today.

January 4th, 1994

Today it rained and snowed. Almost all schools were closed. Except Anne Arundle County. My school is in Anne Arundle County. Almost all the students protested. A couple sang this song:

School close down,
School close down,
School, School please close down.

I hate rainy days.

They suck.

January 5th, 1994

We went to school again. Today was more exciting, though. We had class pictures. I am the tallest person in the class. That means I am the last person in line at class.

Mary still didn't find her earring. I hope she finds it.

A couple of the boys in my class haven't finished reading their book yet and the book report is due the day after tomorrow. They have one day to finish reading their book and write the book report. They are in deep trouble.

Ah, childhood. Apparently the primary function of this diary was to list things that had happened to me in a given day as is, with no real detail or comments. There are a few more mysterious entries before I stopped writing in that diary entirely, my favorites being on consecutive days:

January 10th, 1994

Monday Monday, my musical day. Today's the day I have music and choir. I like Mondays. They are fun.

I had a strange dream last night. I hope I will have more of it tonight. [[WTF? What would I have been dreaming about that I'd like it to turn into a serial?]]

January 11th, 1994

Horrible day. No need to comment.

Part of me wishes that I had kept a more steady journal from then onward. It'd be interesting to see what amount of time must have passed before my journaling turned into (slightly) more than just a listing of semi-current events.

January 23rd, 1994

We had been watching Action Pack, when my dumb brother came and starting firing this little soldier gun. I got in trouble for pushing him off a chair.

My mom is ok. Sometimes she is mean.

Hahaha... Okay, that's enough. There are only perhaps twenty five to thirty entries in this thing, and I think those are most of them gems.

G'night folks!

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me -
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well -
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

.

In secret we met -
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive,
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee? -
With silence and tears.

~Lord Byron

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/fashion/30love.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2

I read this and felt vaguely overwhelmed. It isn't quite that I sympathize with her position - I'll admit, in many ways, I've too much embraced my sexuality, rather than allow it to alienate me from my real life persona, ambitions, and daily life - but the language she uses was distracting. I especially liked the following:

"There is nothing so intimate as the sounds of sex, which are a shared secret between lovers, part of the glue that binds them together. We have our regular speaking voices, and then we have our sexual voices. While these voices may be odd, disturbing, even disorienting, especially if overheard, they serve a special purpose: to bring us close."

If that hadn't followed immediately after a description of her having her first orgasm and resenting/hating/despising her boyfriend for that, I would have perhaps been less moved somehow. The idea that there is an essential disconnect between our intellectual and personal lives and our sexual life isn't somehow a new or different idea - but the idea that they aren't just separate, but occasionally entirely at odds with one another is disturbingly reflective of my own life and reality.

Kinda sad, no? I don't know if I can even put into words at this point many of the things I've been feeling over the past year romantically and personally. I feel as though I've been leading numerous people on, even without ever making an explicit commitment.

The guy I've started seeing now has been good to me. Even as I type this, I realize the irony - he's expressed an interest, we've kissed a few times, he's told me he liked me enough to not want to jump in to sex, we see each other at work and talk, etc... And that constitutes "being good" to me. A little depressing that the stakes have been lowered that much, but it isn't a reflection on him. He isn't quite what I was looking for, but he's good as a person, he likes me, and I like him.

Gah. The reservations that I feel at the beginning should be RED FLAGS. It isn't an intelligence factor, although I'd imagine it will show up. It's a difference in experience level and lifetime goals.

...pause for new input...

Now I'm going to have to encrypt this communique unfortunately, because I'm going to include information that's not technically public. While writing about Ben, he has been texting me with his (typical) new-age text-speak, and I think it's worth including for context. And as I typed that, I got from him another message that is more than a bit distressing. And bear with me, I've hit the tipsy level and working my way towards drunk.

Phone Speak (typos included again for context, both mine and his):

Ben: "Sigh.. Y do u like me? Having a bad self esteem day?"

Me: "Hug. Sexy, i like you a lot. And not just cause you're cute either."

Ben: "Y then..?"

Me: "You seen like a smart, loyal and good man. What more can a person ask for?"

Me: "Seem even. Typos in romantic communiques aside, don't be down on yourself."

Ben: "You are amazing.. I love that u use words that are totally out of most ppls vocab."

End Phone Speak.

Oh god in heaven. Am I elitist to be bothered by this exchange? I don't think that pulling out the word "communiques" should rate even a bit of comment. Honestly, except for Livejournal's spell checking measures, I wouldn't even be certain it was spelled correctly.

My response might have been too snooty sounding too: "I don't mean to sound stuck up. If we hang out for any length of time it'll probably come up. For all i'm a mathematician i love language."

Even with that, the lack of capitalization and appropriate punctuation kinda hurt as I was texting it. Language is a fucking ART form. An art form. And admittedly, I enjoy perverting it as much as the next person for a quick joke or an amusing quip, but that falls within the purview of a linguist - to exploit structure, pun, cadence, homophones, or whatever. Part of the joy of language is its amusing flexibility.

Actually, I did see a line in a recent thing I was reading that made me both reel in pain and amusement...

Here ya go... A present.

“You have not exactly shown patients for such things in the past.”

Oh god in heaven.

Okay, that's enough of a rant. I think I'm going to bed at this point. I'll finish the original thought later when I've got enough presence of mind to do it.

~Gwyn

"Prepare to begin the epic struggle between good and neutral!" ~Futurama

Seems like an appropriate quote with which to begin the New Year. This has been a somewhat tumultuous year for me, and has been chronicled with approximately four or five Livejournal posts across the entire annum. Lovely, no? I haven't really managed any dating across this period, minus some brief romantic forays, but I have developed a number of new skills (incredibly high alcohol tolerance surprisingly low on that list!) Learned some new programming (Macaulay 2, a commutative algebra software,) made some academic connections (went to a great conference where I could hang out with David Eisenbud himself,) learned to tend bar (been working at Level B, a great Collegetown bar/club in Ithaca,) and started teaching more seriously (taught two sections of Calculus I, started running the Ithaca High School math competition club, and started teaching the GRE and GMAT at Kaplan.)

All in a year... Gradually across this year, I've been laying out my plans for after grad school as well. Although I'm going to be applying to both research and teaching positions at the beginning of next year, I'm probably also going to be applying to most of the governmental agencies as well. While I've primarily been doing combinatorial commutative algebra research, I think across the next year I'm going to try and flesh out a little bit more of my general math knowledge.

Monday is the start of the Joint Math Meetings here in DC... Ten thousand mathematicians all converging on two hotels down in the City! It'll be fabulous... And Monday evening, there's a St. Mary's College of MD alumni/faculty reunion meeting over at Tryst coffeeshop, where I'll get to see a lot of professors/old friends all in one place. Wednesday there's the MEC commutative algebra meeting all day, picking up where the summer conference I attended left off - algebraic geometry and resolutions research. I'm not sure how many of the attendees at that summer conference are doing research in the topic of the workshop (the Boij-Soederberg conjectures,) but if they were interested in that in the first place, I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy their research talks.

It's not really a hard and fast resolution, but I think I'll try to post here more often. I think I'll start duplicating this blog over at blogspot too, so we'll see what happens.

For the moment, I'm going to return to the primary activity that's been occupying my time across this holiday season - working my way through all ten seasons of Stargate SG1. No, really... I bought all ten seasons (only $120!!!) and have worked my way through seasons 4-8 and a half or so over the past week. Season three is around the last point that I'd watched previously, as the end of that season corresponded to my moving off to college. While the show does have a bit of a pension for melodrama, there's something fabulously comforting about it - just the right level of sci-fi meets silliness. I watched a bit of Atlantis (the first two seasons) without having followed SG1 simultaneously, but I lost interest in that shortly after the season 3 opener. It'll be interesting to catch up on that after season through season 10 of Stargate - all in preparation of course for the premier of Stargate Universe this summer.

Alright, toning down the complete geek out moments. I'm gonna go. Ciao all, and happy new year!

~Gwyn

Ah, the joys of stealing your friends random surveys.

Five Things I was Doing 10 Years Ago
1. Had just kissed my first boy ever. Logan Byam, sweet nerdy thing. Not my usual type. (*wink*)
2. Getting to know melodiousaphony and octobertrain.
3. Meeting Brad Farrow, old-at-the-time-brand-new flame.
4. Attending Academic Bowl meetings/practice every Tuesday.
5. Working at Edna Lee Dance Studio as a secretary.

[Okay, now I understand why melodiousaphony went eight or nine years back instead. Ten years ago was really early high school.

Five Things on My To Do List Today:
1. Finish writing prelim problems for my students.
2. Finish prepping my lesson for Kaplan tomorrow.
3. Beat up dog/cats in the house.
4. Knit another five inches on the scarf I started.
5. Do some research on edge ideals.

Five Snacks I Enjoy:
1. pizza
2. dumplings
3. big green olives
4. tequila
5. white chocolate macadamia nut cookies

Five Things I Would Do If I Were a Millionaire, in no particular order:
1. Travel to Hawaii for a month to de-stress and de-frost
2. Take a cross country trip, visiting all of my friends for -at least- a week each across the whole U.S.)
3. Build my own bar (like a business, not a personal in home thing)
4. Spend six months in Europe wandering around, then maybe head to northern africa or the middle east for another six months
5. Buy excellent ski equipment and go skiing a weekend or two a month in Colorado.

[You may notice a theme.]

Five Places I Have Lived:
1. Severn, MD
2. St. Mary's County, MD
3. Ithaca, NY
4. (really, that's about it...)
5. (no, really... kinda sad)

Five Jobs I Have Had

1. secretary at Edna Lee Dance Studio
2. barn hand at If Only Farms
3. bartender at Level B
4. teacher (Ithaca High School, Cornell University, Kaplan Centers...)
5. assistant manager of The Daily Grind at St. Mary's College of Maryland

Gah. The morning is the worst time of day.

The "four hours" turned into about half an hour, as I had trouble going to sleep... And now I have a pretty bad cold.

*sigh* At least though, I'm less pissed off come the morning (albeit a little more tired.) Next time, I'll just know better than to jump in as a bartender (even though it was strongly hinted by Sully that I should and even though it kept the guests happy.) They don't want to tip me out fairly, that's fine - but I'll be damned if I help up the tips by a hundred dollars or more bucks (between the three of us, and later Brad hopping in, we made about $340 or so) just to get tipped out $70.

On a more cheerful note as well, I'm off tonight, and actually ON tomorrow night as a bartender (so none of this "on call, maybe maybe not" crap) and tomorrow is the Ithaca Brew Fest, which looks to be a great deal of fun!

~Gwyn

Gah... I'm tired and getting more and more pissed off. I worked tonight for Brynna, one of the bar backs. That's cool, I expected (at the time) to just be doing bar-back type stuff, so it'd be fine if I wasn't tipped out as a bartender. Problem is, the new bartender (that they ONLY hired for purposes of getting her to drag in people on an otherwise a little slow night) ABSOLUTELY FUCKING BLOWS at bartending. I had to cover all of the bar-back work (cleaning glassware, the bar, collecting napkins/glasses/garnish that was on the bar, etc.) AND a good deal of her bartending work. She's really slow, gets in the way, it fucking awkward to work with, is remarkably stupid and incurious on a deep level... And god damn it, she's been put on a night that I used to work on and like a lot.

After covering all of her shit AND mine, the tip out tonight...

Sully - $120
BITCH - $120
Gwyn - $70

What the holy fucking god. If I'd only have to do my own tasks, that'd be a pretty OKAY tip out (bar-backs are supposed to make around half of what the bartenders make any given night.) Not good, but okay. But I was doing ALL of her stuff.

Jesus Christ. I'm really hurt and pissed off because it was Sully that split the tips. He KNEW I was doing her work. And he KNEW that my hours have gradually been stolen, by her, Saj, and miscellaneous other people. So instead of making the money that I'd been making over the summer (which was great) over the semester, when it's harder and I have less time to just be free to waste there, I'm making about half as much.

This is really hurtful and pisses me off a good deal.

And now, I get to have four hours of sleep before getting up to prepare my class, take a class at 9am, and then teach aforementioned previous class at 10am.

Gah.

~Gwyn

This has been a fun couple of weeks... Visited Jim in Oneanta last week, over the weekend Erica, Erin, Nicky, and Becca all came up to visit me, followed immediately after by Jim coming to Ithaca for a night to wander around and hang out with me. He even let himself be dragged (minimal kicking and screaming) to Ruloff's for karaoke on Monday!

And now, Jason is back from Switzerland as of this evening, I work for a bit at Level B starting at nine, then off for galavanting and mischief.

Oh yeah... And for those of you that haven't done so already, watch Joss Whedon's new project, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It's great.

In fact, it's fabulous.

~Gwyn

I just realized that I've seen almost every movie in theatres already...

So far, I've seen (in order that they were watched, ending with Hancock last night):

Iron Man
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Kung Fu Panda
Sex and the City
You Don't Mess With the Zohan
Wanted
Wall-E
Hancock

The only one's that I'm missing:
Get Smart
The Strangers
The Incredible Hulk
Kitt Kittredge
The Love Gury

What's especially sad is that I've only seen three movies in the past two weeks, so I must have been going crazy the month before that.

This has been the worst god damned day of my life. I went to bed at 10 last night so I could be up for the conference in time, and was so sick that I slept through my alarm and only woke up at 8:30am (when the first talk was at 9.) Running late, I rushed out to get there, got stuck behind the slowest mother fucking moron I've ever had the misfortune to drive behind, and FINALLY after being stuck behind him for a full five minutes at an unlighted left turn, when he STILL wouldn't turn with WAY more than enough time, I went around him... And straight into a cop. Who of course pulled me over, and took another ten minutes of my time (and god knows how much of my money, since in NY state they establish fine AFTER you plead guilty or not) making me late for Guilio Caviglia's talk (the only talk I was really fucking exciting about for the whole god damned conference.) Finally got away from the cop (plus ticket,) parked, showed up 20 minutes late for the hour long talk, sat through that and two others, walked back to my car and find a parking ticket on there. Great. I HAD paid for the spot, so I had to then go over to the parking office (during my increasingly disappearing lunch break,) then to the bank to get a statement that I'd paid, then back to the parking office, only to find nobody there was around/cared.

FUCKING A.

I get back to the house, eat some lunch, take out the dogs... Then pack up my stuff to go, grabbing my gym stuff... Just to find one of the GOD DAMN FUCKING CATS PEED all over my gym bag.

Then, when I'm already about to just start screaming and screaming alone in the house, I realize that I can't find my keys, so even though I had about two seconds before I'd have to leave if I was gonna make it to Josephine's talk on Tropical Varities... Now my keys are gone.

And nobody with a car will answer their god damned phones.

Thanks a fucking bunch. Jesus Christ, I'm done. Oh yeah, and on top of ALL of this, I accidentally cut up my BANK CARD when I meant to cut up an old credit card, so now I have exactly $5 in ones to my name and no way to get more for about a week. And since none of my other credit cards have any MORE credit on them, I have no way to get ANYTHING for the next fucking week.

Not everything is a contest... But pretty much anything worth doing probably is.

I'm cooking some food for dinner tonight (as Liz and Jason are coming over soon) and I decided on pink beans and rice as a good easy tasty meal choice... And the recipe I'm using is from Goya. One of their "required" ingredients is "Sazon Goya con Culantro y Achiote" - and all the package said on it was "just cook the way you always cook, the same recipes, the same seasonings, changing nothing" and "inside this box you'll find... and absolutely fool proof way to make everything taste not just good, or even great, but sensational - every time." I should've been more naturally suspicious, but because I was in a hurry, I didn't check what was in it before leaving the store with it... And now that I've gotten it home and know what this "Sazon" really is, I think it's awesome.

It's just packets of straight up MSG.

I need to learn to read BEFORE purchasing these things.

I FINALLY finished Immortality - I have no idea why that book took me forever to get through, just kept getting a few pages more pages in and then having to go do something - and have moved on to "Nobody's Perfect," by Anthony Lane. It's on loan from Liz, and it is fabulous - a compilation of movie reviews by Anthony Lane for The New Yorker.

I'll admit, I've got a not-so-secret soft spot for well-written movie reviews. There's nothing so satisfying as hearing a critic slice into a film and peel off its ludicrous bits with gusto - then stomp on it for a while, followed by pouring a heaping helping of battery acid on it. Just lovely. Even if it's a movie that I rather enjoyed (while I do like art films, slow moving film noir, bleak foreign comedy, and various other thought-provoking examples of cinema, I've got a soft spot for awful feel-good films that makes me perhaps a bit uncomfortable,) I LOVE hearing witty attacks lighting into it's soft underbelly.

Here's some of my favorite lines so far:

From the review of The Fugitive...

"Despite the tight job that Davis does on the movie, a few of these cliches still leak in. Most damaging of all is the soundtrack, which was composed by James Newton Howard, and is even more mindless than the one here wrote for The Prince of Tides. It appears to be based on the principle that nothing is as scary as hitting a drum apart from hitting it harder."

"The Fugitive represents quite a jump for Andrew Davis; until now, his most successful work has starred Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris, both of whom look as if they only just discovered fire last week."

From the review of Poetic Justice...

"Poetic Justice proceeds on the dreary principle that the only possible cause of poetry is self expression-the confessing of inward torment and the itch for better times. "Alone," Justice [note: main character played by Janet Jackson] murmurs. "Lying, thinking. Last night. How to find my soul a home... I came up with one thing. And I don't believe I'm wrong." When I heard this, I thought that Singleton had made it up for the movie. Then I decided that it must be a bunch of old, unused lyrics that Jackson had borrowed from her brother Michael. At the end of the movie, however, I discovered that every single word of verse had been written by Maya Angelou. Whoops."

It's almost six AM, and I'm still up reading book reviews... I think I'm gonna end this here and go to bed.