From littlebuhnee

( Behind the cut )

I'm on the tail end of reformatting my desktop (Dell XPS 630). New HD, more memory ... slightly different OS.



Technically, it's "not supported" by Dell, but every single device except the video card worked properly with drivers on the DVD. And I now have more memory than I previously had memory + pagefile.

It's a little bit like geek heaven.

This summer, I'm doing summer school, and working. I didn't think ahead on this at all. I'm a freaking university student now and this is what I'm doing with my summer? WTF? (On the plus side, I get to go see beginning graduate, and that's serious awesomeness right there, so that makes up for it, mostly.)

So, I'm trying to decide what I want to do next summer now. One thought is to apply to summer school at MIT. Yes, it's still summer school, but it's at MIT and that's automatically awesome. I'm also considering applying for a summer abroad, well, somewhere ... I need to think about that more.

Need more options. Unlike applying for school, I'm planning to overreach for next summer so I actually have a few choices to choose from.

Just got back from seeing Iron Man.

Again.

It was still awesome.

I ran around today some with my little Nikon snapping photos of the ongoing snow. Still snowing now, but it's down to a light flurry from the near blizzard whiteout conditions we had earlier.

Amusingly (possibly also sadly), Brown seems to be the only school that didn't close down due to weather in the whole of New England.

Zipcar. This is awesome for college students (who happen to be over 21). Daily or hourly car rentals, free gas, insurance included in the base rate. If anyone out there has been thinking about joining (even though I think most of you probably have cars), click the below icon and give me $50 in credit for referring you. If anyone I don't know has googled across this and has been thinking about joining, help a college student out. You know you want to.



In other random news, I think I broke my toe. Managed to accidentally kick the bed while barefoot, apparently just so. I haven't actually been to the doctor to get it x-rayed because, well, it's not like they can actually do anything to help it. This (potentially) qualifies as my first ever broken bone. Not bad for 33 years.

School. The semester is almost over, final classes are this Friday, and my first final exam is on the 15th (yes, on a Saturday. Go figure). I think college campuses dilate time oddly, the first few weeks seem like they took a month each (Wow, we're at Brown!), then, BAM, suddenly it's the end of the semester and I feel like I'm behind in pretty much everything. This semester has been a learning experience in more than one way. I actually have to study here (or at least, I do if I want to get a decent grade). I'm pretty much writing this semester off as an adjustment semester, and may even be getting my first ever college Cs.

Am I still enjoying it all? Hell yeah.

Woot on new Project Runway starting up. I think I see who this season's jackass is already.

Our upstairs neighbor (singular) sounds like a herd of elephants all by himself. I keep waiting for him to fall through the ceiling and land on something expensive (probably the TV).

Wonder if it would be rude to put a post-it note on his door one day asking him to please not stomp around all the time.

Semester 2 pre-registration was today (get this, if you don't pre-register before they close it, you get charged a $15 "Late Pre-Registration" charge at the start of the next semester. wtf?).

Anyways, classes!

CSCI0160 - Introduction to Algorithms and Data Structures

APMA1660 - Statistical Inference II
ECON1210 - Intermediate Macroeconomics
ECON1720 - Corporate Finance
MATH0520 - Linear Algebra
MATH1010 - Analysis: Functions of One Variable

I'm only allowed to take a max of 5 classes, so I obviously have some trimming to do. I'm waffling on the CS class. On one hand I'd like to skim through to some interesting theory (AI and combinatorial optimization, mostly). On the other hand, I'm not sure I could survive the low level classes. I need to go talk to a CS adviser.

I'm hoping to get a few slightly less geeky classes in starting next year. Right now I'm having to pile on the intermediate theory heavy so I can hit the classes that are only offered once every other year the next time they come up. Part of the joy of only having 3 years here instead of four.

God, reading that list I feel like so much of an egghead. A tired egghead. But, I'm having fun and learning, and that's what counts I guess.

When planning on working on math homework while at laundromat, it is helpful to take a calculator with. And a pencil.

Is it sad that I'm ordering a book from Amazon UK because I don't feel like waiting for its US publication in January? :)

This is mostly (all?) school related, so if you don't care about that just skip it.

I have discovered that doing well with little effort at a community college doesn't necessarily directly translate to doing well with little effort at a school like Brown. I'm actually having to study, and work, and put effort in. This is awesome. Granted, the easy As at MCC were nice, especially considering how little time I had to study given work demands, but, actually applying and challenging myself is great in a whole different way. I'm loving it.

Just got back from the study abroad fair. I'm seriously giving consideration to spending next year at LSE. I need to talk with my concentration adviser to make sure that with me being a transfer student that I won't lose too much time to graduate on time, and also talk with the study abroad coordinator to see how living, working, travel, etc works for stuff like that. LSE only offers year programs because of the way their curriculum works (4 courses taught over a year, instead of 4 courses for each of 2 semesters). We'll see what happens.

And now for some WoW to relax before I head back to the library.

I don't know why this amuses me so much, but it does.

Maybe school is melting my brain.

Thank god for shopping period. I've bought, returned, and bought more textbooks this semester than I think I have in the entire time I was at MCC.

The freedom to explore is very liberating. It's also kinda whealming (not quite over, thankfully). Needless to say, the course list I posted isn't quite right anymore. I think it's settling down, but I need to track down an academic advisor first, just to make sure I'm not accidentally doing something stupid.

I'm having so much fun already.

I have a Grandcentral account now (which I haven't played with much yet).

This also means I have 10 invitations for other people to join. Anyone want one?

Anyone else out there a PDA geek? I just got a Palm TX. First impressions after having it for a bit over a day: it's nice. But the hardcase that came in the bundle is complete crap. I'm glad I didn't actually pay anything extra for it. I'm thinking about buying the Rhinoskin case for it that actually has cutouts for the headphone jack and lets me easily get the stylus out. I also need to buy a couple of 2 gig SD cards to carry music around on.

Softwarewise, I think I'm going to actually register Pocket Tunes. Blazer seems like a decent enough webbrowser (I managed to reserve a car from Avis and pay my credit card bill earlier, so it looks like it does all of the basics well). pssh isn't great, but I can't find anything better yet. I already have iSilo for eBook reading and DateBk6 for appointment keeping from where I bought them for my old Z22 that ducktape74 just inherited. SMBMate looks good for allowing me to access my campus file share from where ever, just in case.

Am I missing any must-have applications to make this thing even more useful? Or any comments on my planned items?

Gosh, it's hot.

Finished Deathly Hallows over the weekend. Since I know at least one person that has me friended is still reading it, I'll avoid spoilers and just say that Rowling delivered, in spades. Read faster. :)

This link was provided to me on IRC earlier today. I knew I had to share, there's at least a few fellow geeks on here who can appreciate this.