Archive for June, 2008

I’d Settle for a Slowdown

Summer is now officially over halfway done, which is a very scary thought. Part of me is excited for school to start up since I will get to see all of my friends again and begin my classes, which I’m very excited for. However, at the same time, I could still really use some relaxing and a nice, quiet break. I still haven’t had hardly any breaks since Christmas due to classes, my alternative spring break, research, and working with the Admissions Office. With that said, I’m very excited for this upcoming week. My parents and younger brother and sister are flying out to visit me and I’m going to take my personal days from work and visit the Outer Banks and Williamsburg with them. It’ll be the first time since Christmas that I have seen anyone from my family or even from back home for that matter.

So, that’s what lies in my future. Right now, one of the most exciting things is the fact that the campus lake is still drained while they clean it out, which says a lot. Yes, I managed to get in some volleyball with friends, but that was about as social as I got this week on-campus. I’ve mainly stayed in my apartment, done a little reading, watched some TV, and continued with my list of “Classic Movies I Have Yet To See”. The past week I finally got to “The Rock” and “North by “Northwest” (which were both very good) as well as “Vertigo”, “Some Like it Hot”, and “Jesus Christ Superstar”. I’ve also started doing a lot of my own cooking. It’s a bit easier at times and saves me some money on my meal plan. Since I’m still not a fantastic chef, I stick to a lot of rice, pasta, soup, etc…

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The lake has been drained for a while now to clean it

Finally, I had lots of free time since my disc golf course project is on hold, so I felt like I needed a new project. So, I recalled an idea we had for Collegiate Disaster Relief Team (CDRT). CDRT is comprised of Univeristy of Richmond students who travel to New Orleans for an Alternative Spring Break. We each had to pay over $200 to go this past year to go, so we’re trying to fundraise more so that it can be free like in the past. I am on the leadership team for CDRT and we thought it would help to present to businesses a video about what our group is about and why New Orleans still needs our help. I thought that it would be a simple project, but it took a lot longer than expected. It took about ten hours, but that may be solely because I wasn’t used to the computer program and had issues with syncing the audio and video. However, the initial draft is done and I’m happy with it. It will still require some editing with the voiceover and a bit more, but I need a break from it for now. I’ve posted it below.

This was the video I created this week for the CDRT proposal

Research was very trying this week. The first two days covered tons of new materials such as eigenvalues and eigenvectors and directional derivatives. It was way over my head and very frustrating. I basically had a glazed over look for two days straight. I just wanted everything to slow down for a while. However, at the end of the second day, my mentor told me that we had covered in those two days what he thought would take a week, which was some good news. It just goes to show that, although research may provide some breakthroughs and times of discovery, not all days and weeks are as rewarding. There are times when it seems like you’re going nowhere and just won’t get anything accomplished.

Also with research, our group went off-campus for our weekly lunch to Kuba Kuba, which is a really fun Cuban restaurant in Richmond. Finally, those of us who are on-campus doing research were invited to a Richmond Braves baseball game for free. The Richmond Braves are a minor league team that plays in Richmond. It was a fun game and a beautiful night for baseball.

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Lunch at Kuba Kuba
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The Richmond Braves baseball game
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A game at the Richmond Braves game where contestants
created a human hamburger

Finally, I met up with one of my good friends from Richmond. We hung out at a local swimming pool and then at his house, which was a much needed break from campus life. For the first time since Christmas, I had a true home-cooked meal, which was definitely welcome. That’s all on my end for this week. Keep on enjoying summer because it’ll be over before you know it.

Quote of the Week: “Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I assure you mine are much greater.” -Albert Einstein
Thought to Ponder: If an escalator breaks down, does it become stairs?
YouTube Video of the Week:

For some reason, I thought this was very fun and entertaining
14 months in 42 countries

Published on June 29, 2008 in Miscellaneous. 0 Comments

Breakthrough

Welcome back to the adventure (or lack thereof) that I call my life. Not much changes from week to week right now, which is a blessing and a curse. You can get settled into a routine, which is nice, but it’s also not so great because there isn’t always a ton of activity in that routine, which can make life pretty dull.

Research continues to carry on. I can’t believe it, but it is already halfway done. I had no clue what was going on in our group on Monday and Tuesday. Then, we got an e-mail from our adviser Tuesday evening congratulating us on the great things that we had accomplished. We had, apparently, proved some fantastic mathematical point using a method that no one else had ever used before, which is very exciting. Unfortunately, it was news to me and I had no idea that what we were doing was so exciting and innovative until I was told, since I’m a little lost in the complicated ways of slicing methods and osculating circles and cycloids and Euler’s method. It took most of Wednesday for my fellow research assistant and myself to grasp what was really going on. After such a productive week, we took part of Friday afternoon off to socialize as a group, which was much needed. We finally got to see each other outside of the work environment and find out a little about each other. I learned that that my fellow research assistant was on Singapore’s national ping-pong team, that the busiest airport in the U.S. is Atlanta (which I should have known since I always go through there to get to Richmond), and that my adviser was the Wisconsin State Champion in French when he was in high school.

Even more socializing occurred with our weekly LURE group event. I had suggested the idea for this week and also planned it, so I was really excited. I had put together a scavenger hunt and the groups had two hours to scour campus and come up with the roughly eighty items on the list. Some were tangible objects and others were photos that the group had to take using their digital cameras. Amazingly, they found and did almost everything even though I thought I had made it difficult. The only things that all three groups could not find were: silk boxers, a receipt for under $2.00, a sand pail, fishnet stockings, a portable cassette player, a Chia pet, a photo of a non-group member singing in our Greek Theater, a Furby, a beanie baby, and a Massachusetts license plate. There was an item for a photo of a group member in the back of a police car or in handcuffs that was the biggest scorer with 12 points, but we ran into issues of protocol with the police department and no one was able to get the points. Overall, everyone had a good time and I had fun creating the list.

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6 Points: A library book with “LURE” in the title
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3 points: Photo of 3+ group members in the Gumenick fountain
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Photo of 2+ group members with the gym’s lifeguard
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Photo of group member touching Tryceragoose/King Duck
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Winner of “Most creative pose with Robins statue”
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Winner of “I can’t believe we all fit in here!”
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9 points: Random stranger’s phone number and a photo with them
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Winner for most creative of “Group performing Disney scene”
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All of the items being scored after the hunt

Other than that, life is the same as before. The gym sees me almost every day of the week and I’m actually getting back into shape. I guess that’s what happens when you have nothing else going on in your life. I also played some beach volleyball now that my sunburn is all better. Finally, I’m continuing on with my quest to bring disc golf to UR. I met with the designers again and we’re really excited about some of the hole locations, but we’re still waiting on the administration. Sadly, you’ve heard this all before and so have I. I’m ready to get back home and add some more excitement to my life. I will see my family in a little over a week and I’ll get a vacation (what I firmly believe is my first 3+ day break from classes, my job, or hard labor since Christmas).

To help me with the boredom, I’m incredibly grateful that our Media Resource Center is open and has lots of movies. I’ve created a list of “Famous Movies of All-Time that I Have Yet to See” and plan to start getting around to them. Most of the selections are based off of the American Film Institutes’s Top 100 List. So, I embark on that adventure starting this weekend with, I believe, “The Producers” and “Psycho”. Maybe your weekend will be more entertaining. Best of luck and I’ll report again next week.

Quotes of the Week: Math pick-up lines courtesy of another research group’s presentation. I may be the only one who understands them , but I find them funny.

“Honey, you’re sweeter than pi.”
“The Kerckhove group likes cycloids, but my favorite curves are yours”
“I wish I were sin²(x) and you were cos²(x) so that together we’d be 1.”
“Are you the square root of 2? Because I feel irrational when I’m around you.”
“How can I know hundreds of digits of pi and no the seven digits of your phone number?”

Thought to Ponder: Are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
Shout Outs: My family
YouTube Video of the Week:

And you thought your ride to school was interesting

Published on June 20, 2008 in Miscellaneous. 0 Comments

Exploring Virginia

June 12, 2008

The last I left you, I was still getting into my math research here. Now, I’m concluding my first month and it’s been quite an experience. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I just wanted to see if I liked what I saw in my future as far as math was concerned. Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that math probably won’t be in my future as far as a major. Yes, I am dealing with geometry (my least favorite branch of mathematics) and yes, it has only been a month, but it’s getting much more abstract and my interest hasn’t been piqued like I had hoped. This might be because we’re still learning concepts and haven’t applied it to real life very much. However, I am glad for the experience and am curious as to how the next few weeks will unfold. I will be doing my first solo presentation to the rest of the group tomorrow regarding what our group has covered this week. I am one of the least experienced research participants as far as math knowledge goes, so I’ve been worried about this for a while. I will show everyone a geometric proof that we’ve been working on that minimizes time of travel by a process known as the slicing method. I’ll leave it at that since it gets too complicated if I say much more, both for you and for me.

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The front board showing all of our hard workp6034918-1.jpg
The back board showing math at its finest

As math researchers, we also had a really cool opportunity today. We left Richmond early and traveled to Washington D.C. to visit the National Security Agency (NSA). We toured the museum and were given two lectures about cryptography. We heard about the German “Enigmas” as well as cryptography throughout the centuries as well as codes used by hobos and what it takes to work for the NSA. I was so excited for this trip because my dream job just a few years ago was to be a cryptographer at the NSA. Getting to hear some of the talks made it look really cool again, but it’s much more technical and mathematical than most people imagine. Almost everyone who works there has majored in math or computer science and has extensive experience through graduate school. Still, I am really intrigued by cryptography and that line of work, but the process of getting there is daunting and I’m not sure if that’s what I am meant for. I’m starting to feel the pressure of being pulled in too many different directions and I’m not sure what I want anymore.

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The National Security Agency
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Welcome to the National Cryptologic Museump6124939-1.jpg
Artifacts at the NSA Museum
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Me at the NSA Museum
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Having fun on the way home from Washington D.C. with
puzzles and games from a VA DOT brochure we found at a rest stop

Besides math, I’m still keeping busy. I put in a lot of work communicating with people and meeting with people regarding the disc golf course I am trying to bring to campus. I met with a bunch of local disc golfers and walked the grounds, mapping out a potential course. I then wrote an 8-page proposal with all of our suggestions and submitted that. In response, I have had very positive feedback on it. However, we’ve been told that we will most likely be put on hold while the details are discussed, which is frustrating.

Also, we had a game night as well as a movie night with all of us math researchers. I have taken charge of next week’s social event and have planned an on-campus scavenger hunt that I am really excited about.

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Game night with LURE

Finally, I got off-campus with my friends this past weekend when two of my friends and I went to Virginia Beach. I had yet to go there and could have used a road trip to the beach. It was over 100 degrees and had been for the prior few days, making the beach that much more appealing. We watched several matches of the North American Sand Soccer Tournament that was being held there and also enjoyed the ocean. However, the sunscreen that we had on did not protect us as well as we had hoped and all three of us got sunburnt. My sunburn was so bad that I could hardly move the next day. Everything was painful. I tried every remedy in the book and it still has taken forever for it to feel better. Almost a week later, the pain has slowly diminished and now I am only peeling. Well, I’ve learned my lesson the hard way and hope that I never have to experience that again. The trip was fun, but the ensuing week has not been. The burn was so irritating and limiting that I didn’t get to the gym this past week to continue my regiment. I never envisioned that sunburn would be the reason that I stopped going.

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Welcome to Virginia Beach
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The North American Sand Soccer Tournamentp6074922-1.jpg
Fun at the beach
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My friends relaxing at the beach

That’s been my life. Once again, my life has been rather full. My parents and siblings will be coming to visit me in a few weeks which I am very excited about. It’ll be the first time since Christmas that I’ll have seen them.

Quote of the Week: “A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.” - James Dent
Thought to Ponder: When does it stop being partly cloudy and start being partly sunny?
Shout Outs: Anyone who is busy throwing a grad party and dealing with all of those fun details and plans.
YouTube Video of the Week:

 

This is pretty unfortunate

Published on June 12, 2008 in Miscellaneous. 0 Comments