Dillo Day is an all-day concert ordeal at Northwestern and usually involves a lot of drinking.  My day was completely alcohol-free (Yay for me?).  Haha.  Yeah, it was a great day, in large part due to the weather.  It's amazing how significantly the weather affects everyone's mood here.  Third Eye Blind was very disappointing live...maybe they were just having an off day.  I've loved them for so long and to see them in a crappy performance like that was a little disheartening.  Common, on the other hand, was so hot and sexy live.  I mean his rapping was, of course =D.  I like =).

My life has become very unproductive and boring and un-insightful.  Things that captured me before no longer do so.  I've stopped trying to chime in on conversations with something smart and witty and have resorted to letting other people do most of the talking and just giving the standard prepared answers.  I've become complacent with sitting back and letting others do the talking (and thinking)...so when it comes time to actually say something, I feel dumb and bland and uninformed and 1D and not the same person I used to be.  I find myself just wanting to go home all the time so I can sit in front of the TV with Sean, or hear my mom ramble on, or just do nothing.  This is probably not completely true, but just what I'm feeling right now.

I miss having more structure to my life.  Before, my life was planned around classes.  Now that I don't have any to set my schedule, I've been having trouble disciplining myself...thus rendering me useless.  haha. sad, but true.  I think the hardest part of grad school is getting yourself to do the work, not the actual work itself.  I'm not exactly sure that you'd find all grad students agreeing to this, because, for the most part, it seems that everyone else is always working and doing research and getting "results"...whatever that means. 

I hope I really don't turn out to be that person who always needs something new and exciting to keep me interested.  Maybe grad school is the test for me and sticking to this same old research thing for 4+ years actually will be my greatest feat yet. 

Also...it's gonna be so painful when I have a baby!  How do mothers do it?  How did my mom have 3 of us?!  Ahhhh!  Well, I guess it won't be for a long while, but I'm still scared already!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

...so far, during my grad school time here, I've had dreams with.... 9 Mat Sci Guys, 2 Mat Sci Girls, and 2 Mat Sci Profs...

uhhh.....yeah.

I can only discuss maybe 1/3 of these dreams publicly.  Lol.

I have a lot of crazy dreams.  I was considering making this a dream blog instead.  But frankly, I'm quite embarrassed to share them all, so maybe not.

AS THEY LIKE IT

All the world's a lab,
And all the men and women merely subjects:
They have theri theses and exams,
And one doc in his time plans many experiments
His notes in seven stages.  At first the _undergrad_,
mewlink and puking at the frat house jams.
And then the winning _doctorate_, with his papers
And statistical analysis, doing just enough
If only to graduate.  And then the _postdoc_,
Wailing like hell, with a woeful ballad
Of experiments gone sour.  Then _assoicate prof_,
Full of strange theories and requiring a tech,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in temper,
Seeking the bubble reputation
While kissing the chairman's butt.  And then the _tenure_,
In fair round belly with good postdocs lined,
With eyes severe and pen to thesis cut,
Full of wise saws and forgotten techniques;
And so he plays his part.  The sixt stage shifts
To the lean and slippered _chair_
With spectacles on nose and job on the side,
His theories of youth, well saved, a world to weird
For his shrunk grant; and so his "go get'em" attitude
Turning again towards mild caution, tempered
Theories all around.  Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is status _emeritus_ and mere oblivion,
sans students, sans postdocs, sans grants, sans everything.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/8_3.html#0423_7

...I've finally gotten to the point where I prefer getting home earlier rather than later. 

Striking up conversations with random people at bars has lost its appeal, and for cereal, it did used to be appealing.  Not because I wanted people to be all interested in me, but because it was kind of like a test.  It was a test to see how "normal" I could be and how my socializing and small talk skills were.  Personally, I thought I was pretty darn good at it, but whatever now.  BORING. 

Maybe I just prefer to be a boring person...it feels good. =)

...BECAUSE I'M DONE WITH CLASSES!

hehe...

...and I don't know what to do with myself if I wake up too early.
...and it's so toasty under my covers
...it ain't So Cal.  (too cold to do anything really)
...I like sleeping
...I think better after 10 am
...I like eating breakfast and then eating lunch an hour later
...I like "sneaking" into my office through the ground floor of Tech so that there's a lower probability of people seeing me come in so late
...if I go in to work earlier, I'll get out earlier, and then I won't know what to do with myself
...it's just too early.

there's more...

DONE with classes.  DONE with SRG. 

Life is fine and dandy right now.  It finally hit 50 degrees here!  yayyy.

Coming home tomorrow night!  I'm so excited.  Titus called me last night and asked when I was coming home and the time I would be home because he needed help with the computer.  He said Dad was going to get real upset because of some pictures on the computer.  Turns out he changed the wallpaper on the desktop to Power Rangers...hehe so funny.  But I told him not to worry and that it's easy to change, so he seemed a bit relieved afterward.

...classes done.  FOREVER!  It's a great relief, but not as much as it should be since I'm preparing for my first conference talk!  It's just my prof's conference - Steel Research Group - but still, it's a big deal, esp. for all of us in STEEL.  I remember last year, being a first year and not having to present, I visited Sean the week before, came back the night before the conference, and then literally slept through at least half the presentations.  Since it's in Ford, there's certain seats that are lit, and I just so happened to sit in one of those the first day.  So I was clearly visible to everyone and there were a few times when someone towards the back would ask a question and everyone would turn their heads, and I would wake up trying to shake it off.  Whoops.  This year, I'm the only student speaking on the first day.  Eek!  Yes, I'm way nervous and want eagerly to prove myself to the crowd of 60 year old white men of metallurgy.  I'm deathly afraid of question time afterward, but also know that GBO's got my back.  In the meantime, I'm trying to prepare for the talk, but can't even begin to start practicing because I still don't have all of my analysis done.  I really want to show all this new cool 3D tomographic stuff off, but I am currently limited by a number of things: 1) time 2) a key to the Voorhees lab 3) good IDL programming abilities 4) 3 people running IDL on the Voorhees supercomputer - quad core processor + 16 Gb RAM = apparently not enough and 5) homesickness.  Yes, I'm homesick!  I hate/love this part of the quarter where I'm dying to go home so I start reflecting on all the things of the past and present and of course, the future.  It feels good to take that step back and reflect on life, but it always seem like a dangerous thing for me since I start feeling this yearning for things to be different.  It's my constant dissatisfaction of my perfectly good situation.  I've been trying to get myself out of this for...for my whole life, really, but it never seems to pass completely.  Why can't I just be completely happy with what I've got right now?  A stellar academic record, a great professional career ahead of me, an unconditionally-loving family, a crazy boyfriend who is the most selfless person I know, a young healthy body, fun-filled friends, and food and a roof over my head every day.  What is there to complain about?  Nothing. 

I was going through my phone numbers today, also.  I was talking with my roommates last night, picked up one of their phones, and started going through the numbers.  None of her contacts have last names!  I mean, they have last names, but she didn't write any of them down.  I asked her in disbelief, "How can you not have last names???  Don't you know more than 1 David?  John? Chris?"  She said, No, I just rename them, and No I don't know multiple people of those names, etc.  So then I look in my phone...over 300 NUMBERS.  300!!!  What am I doing with 300 numbers?  I scrolled down them all to see how many of them I actually called, how many I called on a regular basis at one point in time, and how many I still call.  The outcome?  Uhh..I dunno.  It would take too much time to actually do that.  Lol.  But anyway, I still went through half the list and realized that I did actually call a lot of these people on a consistent basis at one point in time.  Now?  Not so much. There's probably 4-5 people I still talk to from home regularly, but the rest?  Never.  Yeah, I'll call them to meet up when I go home, but how long is this going to go on?  Do I keep the numbers in my phone?  Or do I simplify and delete everyone except for the select few? 

I decided that I wanted to do a major spring cleaning after I go home.  Clean up my room, my office, my room at home, my phone numbers, the whole freaking messy apartment, and my life.  Not sure how I'll go about doing the last, but I think I'll start investing my time and money into other more worthwhile things.  For one, I really want to exercise on a regular basis and maybe take up tennis or gymnastics again.  There's a club gymnastics team here, but I'll be nowhere near their level.  I really want to keep some sort of skill level up so maybe this is my chance to do that.  Or...I'll finally try to serve properly in tennis, maybe take the group lessons at the gym.  The other thing is sewing.  I'm going to bring the sewing machine that my mom bought me 2 Christmases ago and make curtains!  Dani's going to make a dress out of the cute polka dot fabric she got for the toga party.  I also want to be able to hem my own jeans.  I know it's not that hard, but I never learned how to do it properly.  Continuing on with the list, I'd like to read more.  A lot more.  Both for fun and for school.  I think I need to read a lot more journal articles - as does everyone.  Along with the rest is: newspapers (or online news articles), the Bible, this book on Energy that I still didn't finish, this book about a guy becoming homeless for a year, and literary classics.  As for money, I want to open up a CD or invest my savings somehow.  I've managed to save quite a bit, but now I don't know what to do with it.  I also want to be giving regularly, to the church and to charities, because I think it's time that I stop just thinking about how it's nice and a good thing to do, and to just start doing it.  Same goes with my time.  I waste a lot of time - as does everyone else - but I think I ought to start doing something with it, outside of work/school, and something not for myself.  How hard is that to do?  Very hard, I think.  We are so wrapped up in our own lives, and I personally don't know if I could become less self-centered in the way I live.  I'm just poorly self-disciplined when it comes to things that others aren't giving me credit for - i.e. grades, research and getting a degree, etc.  Anyway..enough rambling, time for work.  Thank you, Xanga, for helping me waste time (even though I heard your stock is going down down down the drain).

Vote for Kaba Modern!

http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dance_crew/voting.jhtml?episodeId=6543

...I really don't think many people use Xanga still, but I'm sticking with it, to see how long I can keep it up.  Yeah, you can post on Facebook, do your own blogspot thing, or just make your own page, but remember when Xanga first came out?  We thought it was so cool!  Well, I did at least and still do.  I remember the days where I'd write everyday, sometimes 2 entries a day.  I'd go through life noticing little things, quirky things, anything really, that I could go home and write about in my Xanga that night.  That made me so excited about life.  Now, if you haven't noticed, I definitely don't update daily, and it's more like monthly if I'm lucky.  I think it's an indication that I really don't have anything too exciting to write about.  Clearly I speak the absolute truth, because I am a grad student and doomed for all eternity to my thesis. 

hehe, in actuality, things are going quite well.  Research isn't so blah and I'm pretty interested in where it's all going, wherever it's going.  Everyday I have the same goal: wake up early!  and everday, I fail to achieve this goal.  Why?  Because it's so nice and comfy in my bed, and if class isn't starting until 12:30 or 3 p.m., why should I get up?  Oh right, to do research.  What the heck are people doing everyday anyway?  I really don't understand it.  Are they actually doing work for 8 hours of the day?  Are people doing experiments everyday?  Reading?  What are they doing?!?  I really don't know.  I look at my office mates and they are obviously not a good indicator of real grad student life.  One of them watches Indian movies and music videos and plays basketball in the office all day, the other, I don't know.  He's "updating the database".  What the heck does that mean?  Seems like he's punching a lot of keys but to no avail.  I personally think I'm an efficient worker, in terms of research.  Problem is, I really don't spend enough hours doing it.  Now, is this efficiency a result of my actual work ethics?  Or is it just that I don't spend much time on it anyway, so that when I do, I must get something done since it's such a rare occurrence?  No clue...but I'm planning on Qualifying before Fall this year, so I think I should probably get a move on with everything.

As for real edumacation, I'm trying to be more in tune with the world, meaning reading the news (digg.com and news.google.com), watching bad popular tv shows (aka MTV reality shows and comedy central stuff), and listening to the radio (cliche easy-to-digest pop music).  These are the things that the majority of people expose themselves to on a regular basis.  I am trying to do the same, and maybe I am turning more like everyone else.  But that's ok, because now I can talk with other people!  Before I felt like I had no idea what people were talking about since I had no remote idea what was going on in the world through these media.  Now, I can have a conversation with my fellow classmates about shows like "Rock of Love," "What not to wear," and "SouthPark."  Isn't that great?!  =D  Oh yeah, don't tell, but I started downloading again.  Well, that only lasted a week.  But the reason I stopped downloading was because it took so much of my darn time.  I'd literally sit there for hours on end downloading more and more music and movies and programs and...well, you know how it goes.  You've all been there, don't lie.  I finally decided that I was so unaware of new music (besides what the radio played) that I needed to start downloading again.  Well, I did, but I stopped again.  Why?  Cuz it ain't so easy now?!  Why can't we have DC++ again?  It was sooo suh-weet.  I miss it like crazy.  So..no more downloading for me.

One last thing...my dad has Facebook!  That is so wrong!  Parents should NOT be on Facebook and should not be allowed into the world of their kids.  Facebook should've stayed a college thing