Ktria's Little World

You knew the frequent updates of this blog wouldn't last too long...:) Really, there's nothing too new and exciting to report in my life. Classes are starting to pick up a bit; digital logic looks like it might take over my life by the end of the semester, though in a good way. Still, this is the least stressful semester I've had since...um...high school? Which is fine by me. Now that I have the job situation all settled, I'm ready to be done with grad school and move on to the real world. Saying goodbye to all my friends here is going to suck, and I'm glad I don't have to do that quite yet.

Carolina basketball is also picking up in a good way, with two impressive blowout wins against NC State and Maryland. I watched the State game at Hamm's with Jeff and Sasa, and I think that's my new favorite place to watch basketball. Plenty of TVs, reasonably priced beer, and everybody there gets really into the games. To add to the general amusement in the restaurant during this game, there was a random group of hot girls wearing tight, low-cut versions of referee shirts. I thought at first that they had come up with a creative way of attracting guys. Later it turned out they were doing some sort of promotional thing for Miller Lite, but I still think it would be a good way to attract guys. It was certainly working on my tablemates *cough cough*

Also, my brother's birthday was last week - happy 21st, Tim! Unfortunately, he resisted my best efforts to get him drunk, but he did have a few pints of Guinness with dinner :) He has promised that he'll still come visit me in Chapel Hill now that he doesn't need me to buy him alcohol anymore. I guess I'll have to start cooking him dinner or something...

I went up to Richmond this weekend to visit Ed and his family, and that was nice and lazy. Ed also made the mistake of taking me to a used bookstore, so now I have a whole pile of fun new books. (New to me, anyway...although of course I've read them all before!) We're making plans to go apartment hunting in NoVA (that's northern Virginia for you non-W&Mers) in a few weeks, over spring break. That should be new and exciting, since I've never actually looked for an apartment in an unfamiliar city. Anybody have advice about places to live in the Reston/Fairfax/McLean area?

Today what makes me happy is making new friends. :)

I guess today has been a day for following my whims. I got into campus early and put in a couple of hours of work on my project. Lately I've been stuck in Javascript hell, so I've had to force myself to actually work on it, but today I really got into it and felt like I was accomplishing something. My agile methods seminar was a lot of fun - Julia gave a talk about her "real world" experiences working as a developer. Now I'm not quite sure what I'm getting myself into in the consulting world - it sounds kind of crazy! But in a good way. :) I actually stayed awake in Digital Logic, for once. When I got back to my office afterwards, I had an email from someone at Intel who had come across my resume and wanted me to interview for a job writing CAD tools. Just for the record: when I said I was going to rewrite Xilinx myself because it sucked so much, I didn't actually mean it! But it was a nice ego boost, anyway.

At that point it was getting kind of close to busy time at the gym, so I headed over there. It was nice and warm out and everybody was sitting outside on the quad. It felt just like being back in the Sunken Gardens...people throwing frisbees around, professors lecturing outside, nice warm sunshine...fire truck sirens in the background and billows of smoke overhead? Hang on a second. There was definitely a large amount of smoke coming from somewhere behind the bell tower. I was in no particular hurry, and I was curious, so I followed it. And just on the other side of the parking lot, there was definitely a building on fire:
I couldn't tell exactly what was going on - there's some sort of machinery on top of the building, like an air conditioning unit, and that's where the fire was. About five fire trucks were maneuvering around the parking lot, but didn't seem to be doing much else. I gawked for a while and then left.

The gym was fairly empty when I got there, so I did a half-hour on the elliptical and another half-hour on the bike. Oof! I hadn't worked out in over a week, so I definitely felt it. I went out to the bus stop, realized I had just missed my bus, and decided to pick up dinner on campus. I wandered around indecisively for a while, still in no particular hurry and stopping to watch things whenever I felt like it. Eventually I ended up at Quizno's and got dinner there. It still wasn't time for the next bus, and I was halfway home already, so I just walked home. I'm sure my legs will hate me tomorrow, but oh well. The weather was too gorgeous not to spend some time outside.

And that's what makes me happy today - weather nice enough that I was actually enjoying being outside. In February. I love the South. :)

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I actually watch football these days - Ed's brainwashing attempts haven't been that successful - but I'm definitely more aware of it than I have been in the past. I actually followed the playoffs this year (though that was mostly due to a lot of weekends in Williamsburg) and I'm developing a bit more of a sense of how the game is played. So I was looking forward to the Super Bowl this year. Of course, in my mind at least, the Super Bowl is only a little bit about football. It's also about the commercials, the halftime show, having a party, eating chili and drinking beer. And since my roommate Julia was providing the last three, I was ready to have fun!

Of course, the real fans wouldn't confine themselves to a party in the evening. At church yesterday morning, the bread and wine were brought up to the altar by a proud family (mom, dad, and two little boys) all decked out in Steelers jerseys. When they got to the front of the church and everybody figured out what was happening, there was a spontaneous burst of applause. I got an attack of the giggles, which was something of a problem, since I was supposed to be singing. :)

The afternoon consisted mostly of party setup. In true party mode, of course, I was perfectly willing to move furniture and vacuum floors but couldn't bring myself to do any homework. The party guests (Julia's friends from the history department) finally arrived, and we had a great time. The chili was yummy, there was plenty of beer, and the company was good. Amanda and I discussed the possibilities of learning the refs' hand signals and using them on guys in real life. (Your boyfriend won't commit? "Delay of game!" He's hitting on another girl? "Unsportsmanlike conduct!") The commercials were mostly pretty dumb, but some of the beer ones were funny. Oh, and the game was fairly good too, but I'm not confident enough in my opinions about football to post them here. :) Afterwards we kept sitting around and drinking, watched Grey's Anatomy and decided it was not as cool as the commercials had made it out to be, and finally broke up the party around 11. Good times. It's fun throwing parties - we really need to do it more often, even if it does entail a lot of cleaning before and after.

Today what makes me happy is new library books!

Last night I went contra dancing with Sarah, Jason and Jeff. We've been talking about this for ages, and finally actually made plans and went. We started off the evening with dinner at Sarah and Jason's (yummy eggplant curry!) and then headed to downtown Carrboro, where the dance was just getting started. There were a lot of people there - all ages and all skill levels - so we jumped right in. I had been contra dancing once or twice before and liked it, but now I'm definitely hooked! The people were all very friendly, and I caught on quickly - it's the kind of dance that you can have fun with even if you're new at it. It's all about patterns, which is pretty cool as well. But best of all, these dances were designed for women with twirly skirts. As I'm sure most of you know, I've been crazy about twirly skirts - the long full kind that fly out around you when you spin - well, probably since I was old enough to stand up and spin around. Just about every woman at this dance, including me, was wearing a full skirt (and one or two of the guys were as well - this is Carrboro!) and I got to twirl to my heart's content. When the dance finally ended, it was too soon, but I was exhausted! We went out for a drink afterward, had some trouble finding a place on Franklin Street where we could actually sit down, and eventually ended up at the Carolina Brewery along with Vince and Tynia. Good beer, and a good time hanging out with friends. :)

Today what makes me happy is the Super Bowl party that my roommate Julia is throwing this afternoon. Chili, beer, and awesome commercials - and who knows, I might even watch the game this year! :-P

Well, today has been a mixed bag. On the minus side: my Digital Logic textbook is utterly useless, I remembered why I hate writing Javascript, and the server I'm supposed to be doing my research on decided to have issues. On the plus side: stuffed shells for dinner, Carolina won (decisively!) and it's almost the weekend. Also, I found all kinds of amusing stuff on the Internet today. So if you're in need of a time-waster (and clearly you are, since you're reading blogs) check these out...

• Ever wonder what Star Wars would be like in Engrish? Would Yoda make any less sense? Now we know.
• The source of the above link, and many more - somebody on Wikipedia has compiled a list of Internet phenomena. This could double as a geek test - how many have you seen?
• An article by my new favorite Wired columnist (I've been reading his stuff for ages, ever since Brunching Shuttlecocks was actually alive).
  

This last article has inspired me to a bit of geeky mischief...details to follow. :)