Sunday, September 17, 2006, 08:49 - General
I stopped at Petter's on my way back from a bum visit to the tax office for a coffee. Hadn't seen him in a while since we've both been busy and he's been a bit sick. His thesis advisor (my teacher for introduction to Modal Logic) is going to Australia for like a month (to attend among other things the same conference at which Gaelle is giving her talk). Not sure why I said that.I think Wednesday day night I took it rather easy, doing some combinatorics homework on my balcony. I've been loving the balcony immensely as of late since the weather has been continuously perfect until today. Sadly, the forecast predicts colder temperatures (upper 60s) and gloomier skies, but I can hope beyond hope that I'll have another few sunny topless mornings on the balcony. Mmm.
Thursday I had class, class, and more class from 11-3 and then 6-8, with homework in between. I always start the semester well by looking at homework as soon as it's released, then slipping into a lazy state later on. I hope that I can buck the trend. After class Masha came over. She's been trying to get a job but not having much luck and from 6-8 she'd been trying out to be a waitress of sorts at a small Asian restaurant. She ended up turning the job down, though, since it was just a bit too crazy there for her tastes. We took it very easy, both of us being rather tired, and went to bed pretty early.
Friday we again spent hours on the balcony before I went off to my lectures which lasted from 1-6. The former I didn't especially enjoy (I really don't like AI for some reason) while I find myself loving the latter, combinatorics. What the hell, I'm supposed to hate math. I then walked over to Kriterion and met up with Olivia and Andi and we picked up Raul and also an Indian woman who's a postdoc here, Salvador who's a new Master's student, and Daisuke who's a PhD student under Benedikt. We all went out to eat at Pasta Villa (where else?) and my favorite waitor had returned from Turkey to give us the royal treatment of pulling out two tables into the street just for us. The food took forever to arrive and I had been starving since before my classes had gotten out, but we had quite a good time anyway. I then biked home after being called a loser by David for not coming out drinking but really I'm finding it much less appealing lately. I need to get work done and be focused, and I got a couple modal logic problems completed before heading to bed.
The next day I got up before 10 and just before I was about ready to head to the MoL room to work on Sverre's thesis Masha gave me a call so I met her for breakfast over near Waterlooplein. She told a tail of a crazy day, but really, it seems that every day is crazy with her. We had some bread at a cafe and then some pumpkin soup (yes!) at soup en zo, also hitting up de Wegschaal and Fort van Sjakoo, before I biked over to Raul's place to pick up his Euclides key (I'd lent mine to this new Yun Qi Xue, a new Chinese Master's student). He lives near Muiderpoort, but I didn't really know where that was, so I called Ansten to ask him for directions. I ended up biking way out of the way to Flevopark, but the day was so nice and the trees were so green that I didn't really mind. I went up to Raul's flat, which reminds me of many a student flat I've seen in Madison, and had a coffee and a Kit Kat before heading to work. I spent a few hours there before picking Masha up at het Schuim, a bar on Spuistraat. We went over to AH to pick up some food to make a stir-fry only to find that Ansten and David had already made one. The only problem was that theirs had chicken and neither Masha nor I eats meat so we made our own anyway. It took us a while to get moving, but eventually we all biked over to the ferries behind Centraal on our way to attending another party at the houseboat. It was quite a fun time and Job even showed up. I met this girl Loesha from St. Martin and spoke some Dutch and a tiny bit of German and just relaxed. It's pretty amazing how international these gatherings are -- there were people there from at least the following countries: the United States, Russia, the Netherlands, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, England, Canada, Colombia, Italy, the Antilles, Sweden, Norway, Turkey, Israel, Ukraine, etc. Masha met these German professors who seemed pretty cool, one of them offering her a room in which to stay for the coming weeks. I was by far the most sober of the group who biked home together a bit before 3. There David peed off the balcony onto the street, something which was bound to happen eventually I guess.
This morning Masha and I again had a hard time getting moving, but I eventually made it to the MoL room to work on the thesis, which is where I find myself now. Oh, and it's raining now.
I just had a short email conversation with Chris Jesshope, my future thesis advisor. We're going to meet tomorrow to discuss the possibilities for my thesis. He also suggested that he might have contacts in some schools to help me with getting in which is exciting, though of course not a guarantee of any kind. I can't stress how much getting into a position is on my mind right now and how much I really really want it. Like really.
[ 1 comment ] ( 12 views ) | permalink |
( 3.4 / 13 )Thursday, September 14, 2006, 07:08 - Blurbs
While biking to class today (with slightly sore legs considering I spent over 2 hours on my bike yesterday) I noticed that it is still strange to see men in business suits biking to work on dilapidated old cruiser bikes.[ add comment ] | permalink |
( 2.7 / 18 )Wednesday, September 13, 2006, 12:24 - General
The weather for the past days has been unbelieveable - really the summer weather that I remember from last September and that I was hoping would be here for me during the summer. Supposedly the next two or so days will also be just as nice, but I'm enjoying every moment that I can - I don't trust the Dutch weather at all.In the last few days I've worked quite a bit on Sverre's thesis, and he seems quite pleased with the results so that's cool. Classes are going ok so far but I haven't really had to work on much homework yet so we'll see. I'm taking a heavy load as I've said, so I might be quite busy and stressed. Also in the past few days Masha's spent another few nights at my place and we seem to be hitting it off which is fun and interesting. We went to Sappho again on Tuesday night and Ken was there but in a really bad mood due to the "Sue situation" (they recently broke up). I also met a few of Masha's crazy acquaintances - good times.
Today I biked for 45 minutes all the way to the very edge of town to the tax department to get my Sofinummer - the equivalent of a SSN for tax purposes - so that I can get paid for my TAship. However, my new residence permit hasn't arrived yet (even though I paid for it like 2 weeks ago) so I arrived with a just-expired one. Apparently that wasn't good enough. So I had to leave. Only to have to come back another day. What bastards.
I've been thinking a lot about my life direction. David and I discussed getting really fucking good PhD positions and I'm realizing how much I want one. More than anything else I've wanted in at least a long while. I've been compiling a list of schools in the U.S. with cool sounding programs and I think I'll apply to somewhere around 10 and see where I get in while also applying to at least Dresden if not Karlsruhe, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Cambridge. The Cambridge name is kinda scary for me though. I've also been realizing how fucking cool it is to be doing what I'm doing - studying what I want to, living wherever I feel like, learning foreign languages, enjoying a beautiful safe bike-friendly music-filled international city, and just being optimistic and happy about all and everything. It's really quite wonderful.
My tinfoil needs to be tamed - it rustles in the wind a tad much for my tastes.
[ 1 comment ] ( 11 views ) | permalink |
( 2.8 / 20 )Saturday, September 9, 2006, 07:59 - Blurbs
The last 2 days have been absolutely spectacular. Well, they've been slightly chilly (highs in the mid-60s for you Amis) but they've been really sunny at least. I've discovered that starting the day topless with a coffee while reading a paper on my balcony in the sun is pretty damn cool.[ add comment ] | permalink |
( 2.9 / 26 )Saturday, September 9, 2006, 07:27 - Announcements
They're coming to Amsterdam I'm told by Ansten. November 6 at OCCII of all places. Mark your calendars.[ add comment ] | permalink |
( 2.9 / 32 )Saturday, September 9, 2006, 07:04 - Blurbs
I've been waking up around 3am for the past week, unable to fall back asleep for a few hours. This is rather annoying, both when I have to get up at a specific time (thus becoming quite tired) and when I don't (thus wasting a large part of the morning sleeping until 11).[ add comment ] | permalink |
( 3.1 / 29 )Thursday, September 7, 2006, 04:50 - Computers
It appears that the PHP settings for my webspace may have changed, disallowing the exec() function which is an integral part of how the Gallery app creates the smaller images. I'm investigating...[ add comment ] | permalink |
( 2.8 / 36 )Wednesday, September 6, 2006, 15:55 - General
So I'm looking into taking the GRE because I'm planning on applying to PhD positions in North America and I found out the following not-so-cool facts:1. The test center in the Netherlands only offers the general test on Tuesdays, and that's the day that I give my lab sessions. Maybe I can get around this by taking it during my exam week, but it's still annoying.
2. The test center in the Netherlands doesn't offer the computer science subject test, and neither do any centers in Belgium or Luxembourg. Further, it's only offered on November 4th, so my planning has to be very tight. At least that's a Saturday so I can fly somewhere on Friday night and back here on Sunday, but still, that's a rather lot of work to take a test.
[ add comment ] | permalink |
( 2.9 / 24 )Back Next
