Geek girl, part 1

Today I needed to buy a new pair of boots, so I headed off to DSW. But I realized that every time I thought of it, I was saying "DS9." (I guess I've got Trek on the brain.)

I mentioned this to my friends, and my friend Andrew said "DS9 > DSW."

I gasped. "Star Trek or shoe shopping?? Andrew, you can't make me choose. I need both in my life."

Yeah, I'm a geek. And a girl.

The Writer In Me

Recently at work I've been doing a lot of writing (for an engineer). And I realized...I'd forgotten how much I like to write. I like sitting down with a pen and a piece of paper, and organizing my thoughts, and putting what I want to say in order, and thinking about how to transition from one point to the next. I like crafting paragraphs, closing my eyes and listening to the rhythmic tapping of my fingers on computer keys, feeling the flow of thoughts pass onto the screen. I like searching for a particular word to express what I want to communicate.

It just suddenly hit me. I've been away from writing (serious writing) for so long, and it was like a little aspect of myself popped up and went, "Oh hey, remember me? We used to have such fun together!"

In that vein, I'm hoping to participate in NaNoWriMo this year; I've never written anything novel-length before, so I expect it will be quite a challenge. Usually I start strong with a story, but then peter out and end it quickly. So I figured I should spend a year planning everything and making detailed notes. Then, when November comes, I can just write flat-out. I was getting a little nervous, because it's nearly the end of December and I still had no idea what to write about. I wanted to just get the seed of an idea by the end of the year; then I'd spend the rest of the time before November fleshing things out and creating a plot and characters and setting. I want to have a lot of notes and a detailed outline so that I know I won't lose steam on the plot.

And finally (cliche alert) it came to me in a dream.

No, I'm not going to say what the idea is. I want to flesh it out and determine a direction for the plot. But I'm certainly hoping that, come November, I'll be able to turn it into a novel.

Stay tuned...

Union!!!

Just so y'all know...my team made the play-offs.

"I'm a mouse now. Mice are cool."

This year, for the first time in a long time, I decided to decorate for Halloween. Usually I'm too busy, between work and school, but this year I really wanted to make the extra effort and add some spooky cheer to the house. So I went to a flea market and found an armful of stuff for about $3, including this little beauty:

Is the Doctor dressing up as a mouse for Halloween?

At first I thought, "Oh how cute, a mouse with a pumpkin!" Then I saw he was wearing a fez, and I snatched him up before anyone else could come close to buying him. My friend suggested I make a bow tie for him (because bow ties are cool), so I added that detail.

Fast-forward a few weeks to my birthday. My friend had let me know to expect his present to arrive, so I wasn't terribly surprised when I found a box from ThinkGeek on my doorstep. I rushed inside to cut open the tape when I heard the Tardis.

For the first second, I thought it was my phone, until I remembered that my phone no longer has the Tardis ring-tone (boo). Then, for a good 2 seconds, I was convinced that THIS WAS IT, the Tardis was really going to materialize, and I was going to start my adventures with the Doctor.

Then I realized the sound was coming from inside the Think Geek box. I opened the box to find a Tardis cookie jar! Cookies + Doctor Who = awesome, amirite? Also, as my friend said, "It's a talking cookie jar. How could I not get it for you?" I think it goes perfectly with my Halloween Doctor-Mouse. :-)

After Halloween, I'm thinking of making a voodoo doll of myself and storing it in the Tardis cookie jar. Maybe that'll encourage the Doctor to finally show up.

On the advantages of using LaTex

me (writing a report): Oh hey, Word has an automatic table of contents.
(inserts template)
computer: Your table of contents is empty! Just highlight whatever text you'd like added to the table of contents, change it's font to a "heading" font, and we'll add it automatically!
me: Awesome.
(changes all appropriate bullet points to "heading" fonts)
(clicks "update table of contents")
computer: Your table of contents is empty! Just highlight whatever text you'd like added to the table of contents, change it's font to a "heading" font, and we'll add it automatically!
me: Huh. Maybe at least one heading had to be set before I inserted the table?
(deletes table of contents, adds a new one)
computer: Your table of contents is empty! Just highlight whatever text you'd like added to the table of contents, change it's font to a "heading" font, and we'll add it automatically!
me: What the?
(goes back, re-highlights several bullet points, clicks "update table of contents")
computer: Your table of contents is empty! Just highlight whatever text you'd like added to the table of contents, change it's font to a "heading" font, and we'll add it automatically!
me: Dammit Microsoft, this would have been so much easier using LaTex.

As a former professor used to opine, "I don't consider myself computer-illiterate; I simply don't share the same perspective as Microsoft."

UPDATE: I found it. Apparently "headings" is different from "heading-style fonts."

Halloween

Halloween's coming up! Costumes and candy! Huzzah!

So let's say you're a girl, and you'd like to dress up, and show off your femininity, but you don't want to be a "slutty" version of anything. (Seriously guys, there's a "slutty Big Bird" costume. Humanity is doomed.)

What are your options?

1) Princess
OK this one's easy. Find a pretty dress, add some costume jewelry and a tiara, maybe some long white gloves, and you're ready to go. Burst into song at random moments and the transformation is complete.

2) On the flip side, you could try a Disney villain. Not quite as easy as the princess costume, but about as many characters to choose from. Maleficent, the Wicked Queen, the Evil Stepmother, Madam Medusa or Madam Mim, even Ursula, are iconic and playfully wicked. Bonus points if you dress up as Maleficent in her dragon form.

But what if you're not a Disney person? (Get the hell out of my blog.)

OK, OK, what if you'd rather be a little more kick-ass? May I suggest:

3) Sci-fi babe
There are a ton to choose from: Zoe from Firefly, Janeway from Star Trek, Ivanova from Babylon 5, Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, River Song from Doctor Who. Get some old military-ish clothing, a fake gun (or heck, a squirt gun, and call it "irony"), and perfect your steely gaze. (I'd recommend not going as Leia, because you know half a dozen douche-canoes are gonna ask you to go put on your metal bikini.)

Oh, you're not a sci-fi fan? You're more literary? How about:

4) Literary lady
Any character from Austen or the Bronte sisters would work. Liz Bennett, Anne Eliot, Jane Eyre...Find a nice period dress, do your hair in a bazillion curls, and practice being headstrong while following perfect etiquette.

But guys, it's Halloween! It's supposed to be scary!

5) Spooky stuff
There are always the old standards: ghost, vampire, zombie, the Grim Reaper. Death from Sandman is a fairly low-key costume to pull off, and appropriate for the season. Or wear a nightgown backwards, dribble green food coloring on your chin, and go as that girl from The Exorcist.

As a last resort, if you have no time to throw together a costume, just wear your regular clothes and say you're a hipster and that "Halloween is just another commercialized extravaganza." Then drink your Pabst Blue Ribbon and expound on the reasons mainstream culture is turning everyone else into sheep.

Why I'm not afraid of dying

NB: This post is going to be a lot weightier than what I normally write. If you're only interested in my quirky inanities, go ahead and skip this one.

When people find out I don't believe in god, the first question they normally ask is, "What do you think happens when you die?" And the answer, for me at least, is pretty easy: I don't think *anything* happens. I think I'll just...stop.

That idea is really upsetting to most people, and I understand why. We all like existing - being aware of our surroundings, making decisions, loving our friends and family. The idea that some day, all of that will be gone, can be frightening. And I certainly don't mean to belittle that fear. Nor do I wish to seem condescending to those who do believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in a god; that doesn't mean you shouldn't.

That being said, I'm not particularly afraid of dying. I mean, I don't want it to happen soon (I have a lot I'd like to do with my life), but I don't feel overly sad when I contemplate the end of my existence. And here's why: just look at this.

That's about what our own solar system will look like, billions of years from now. Isn't it beautiful? Some day, that will be us - our sun, our planet, our pets, our own atoms and particles. Billions of years after I die, the atoms that once comprised my body will be part of a brilliant nebula, and maybe some astronomer in some distant star system will look at it and notice how beautiful it is.

There's a great quote (alternately attributed to Carl Sagan and Delenn) that says roughly: "We are the universe made conscious, trying to figure itself out."

I'm so happy to be a part of that. One of the things I really want to do in my life, one of my main driving forces, is to expand humanity's knowledge in some small way. That's why I'm getting a PhD; I want to do research, and learn things nobody's known before. I want to help "figure things out" - just a bit more. And that connection - to humanity, and ultimately, the universe, is why I'm not afraid of dying. Even when I'm gone, my contribution will remain.

A Lovely Weekend

Last night (Friday), I went to the Art Museum for Art After 5. There was some live jazz playing; I had a glass of red wine; and I wandered through the galleries. (And Impressionism looks even better when you're slightly buzzed!) It was a wonderful date - with myself. I need to take me out more often. ;-)

This morning, when I woke up, I found out that New York has now legalized same-sex marriage! 6 states down, 44 to go. And when I looked outside my window, there was a baby bunny in my front yard. I tried to take a few pictures without scaring it away.

Then this evening I tried a new local beer (well, new to me, anyway) and watched the Philly Union game. The first half had me worried, but we pulled it off in the end! My poor cat; she was very confused by my chants of "DOOP DOOP DOOP!!"

All in all, it was quite a nice weekend.

Oh, mechanical engineering

I'm hoping to study nonlinear vibrations for my PhD work. My dad was telling me about the response this gets when he's talking to his friends about me.

Dad: You've chosen an awkward area of study. I tell people you're studying mechanical engineering, and for most of them, their eyes glaze over. But then there are the people who ask, "What area?" and I have to tell them "Vibrations." And that leads to a lot of jokes.

me: You could always say "Nonlinear systems."

Dad: Hmm. That's an idea. Then everyone's eyes will glaze over.

me: It could be worse. I could be studying lubrication.

(pause)

Dad: If that were the case, and people asked me what area of mechanical engineering you were studying, I think I'd tell them I didn't know.

Rugby

I like to have a ballgame on in the background while I study. I prefer baseball, but pretty much anything is fine. (I've watched a soccer game on the Spanish channel. That was fun.) So last night I'm flipping though channels and come across a rugby game: England vs. US. Fantastic! I hadn't seen a rugby game since I was in New Zealand.

I had forgotten how physical that game is. It seems like 90% of it is large men ramming into each other head-first. And they don't wear safety equipment. Like, no pads or helmets. They have basically the equivalent of a swim cap they can wear, but that's only to prevent them from getting cuts and bleeding all over the field (according to the announcer) because if you bleed you have to leave the field.

THIS IS A PROBLEM. Bleeding profusely from one's head is such a problem that they made special caps to prevent it. And they're "optional" equipment.

It was morbidly fascinating.

And we got creamed. When I first saw the game, I was like, "Does that say England 23 - USA 3? That seems like a large disparity." Yeah, it was England 59 - USA 3 when I finally turned it off.

So You Think You Can Dance

A: hello

me: hello yourself

A: what are you up to tonight? homework?

me: supposedly
also watched So You Think You Can Dance auditions

A: yeah, i don't know what that's all about - you should probably stop watching that

me: well I just like the auditions
once they get into the "people stories" I stop watching
I'm like, "I don't care about these people. Just dance."

A: you sound like some sort of deranged dr. frankenfurter

me: I'm laughing so hard my upstairs neighbor is probably wondering what the hell is wrong with me

Overreacting

Did you ever have one of those times where you're in a place, and you're supposed to be there, but it's a place that not everyone is allowed to go, and you're not normally there, and then someone official sees you, and you feel like you need to launch into a 10-minute explanation of why you're there, and that you're allowed to be there?

I'm doing a "girls in engineering" thing tomorrow at a local high school, and today was the set-up. So I wandered around until I found the classroom I'll be in, so I could put all the supplies there. Now, when I was in high school, I was often in school after-hours. Between theatre and a half-dozen other clubs, most of the teachers / administrators / custodians at least knew me by sight, and knew that if I was going into a classroom or supply closet it was probably for a legitimate purpose and no cause for alarm. But that was a decade ago, and this was not my school. No one there knows me. So I'm stumbling around, looking for the light switch, when I see this very professionally-dressed woman coming down the hall. Oh no - a teacher?? She probably knows the teacher who works in this room, and is wondering what the heck I think I'm doing, and here I am in jeans and a sweatshirt (that I realized, upon arrival, had stains in about 6 places...I should have just taken it off but I was cold DON'T JUDGE ME). Looking like some kind of vagabond, and not at all like a reputable engineer preparing to encourage young ladies to explore careers in math and science.

It was a moment of panic.

Luckily, she was a fellow presenter. And did not question my right to be in someone else's classroom, at all.

(This post doesn't really have a point, sorry. I'm waiting for my friend to call me; we're going to watch Rocky Horror Picture Show and eat chocolate ice cream because we've both had a bad week and nothing cheers you up like Tim Curry in fishnets and a big bowl of ice cream. So I'm blogging to keep myself occupied. Also, we don't actually live near each other, so we'll be watching the movie simultaneously and messaging each other to keep a running commentary. It's an experiment!)

Nathan Fillion is an Awesome Donut

A conversation between myself and two (equally nerdy) friends (edited for clarity):

A: i never quite got into firefly
does that make me evil?
everyone loves it?

B: did you watch it from the beginning?
i didn't get it at first either

A: i did

B: i still don't like the movie

A: well, the movie was a bit tacked on

me: the movie was just totally different in tone
and I'm not sure hating it makes you evil, but it might make you crazy

A: oh no, i don't hate it
just not in love

B: but nathon fillion...
nathan

A: mmmmmmm...........
i mean, yeah he's alright

B: he's not your type

me: ok, see this is what makes me certifiably insane
I <3 <3 <3 Nathan FIllion

B: but platonically

me:EXACTLY
he's pretty much awesome sauce covered in awesome
but I don't find him attractive at all.

B: i don't really find him attractive
nice body in Dr. horrible, but not really
shouldn't the awesome be covered in awesome sauce
not the other way around

me: either way
maybe he's an awesome jelly donut with stuffed awesome sauce O_o

B:ookay
he's an awesome donut

me: he is an awesome donut!

4 books

I read an interesting hypothetical online today: "If you could prevent four books (or series) from being destroyed forever, which would you choose?"

There are two answers to this, I guess. One would be if I had to choose four books just for myself. That was the slightly easier question. I would choose:
Asimov's Foundation series
The Three Musketeers Saga
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
The Feynman Lectures on Physics

These are books I could not live without.

But, if I had to choose for all of humanity? That becomes a more difficult problem. Should I choose Great Works of Literature? By whose metric? What should I choose from Shakespeare, or Homer, or Dante; Goethe or Moliere? What about non-Western literature, about which I know far less than I should? What about science texts? Could humanity afford to lose Newton's Principia Mathematica? Or Darwin's On the Origin of the Species? Do I need to choose the Bible, or the Koran, or the Torah, or some other religious or holy book?

Faced with these dilemmas, I think I'd have to choose books that challenged me personally, or forced me to think, or contained ideas I think others should consider. To Kill a Mockingbird makes the list, hands-down. So does Inherit the Wind. I would probably add 1984. And Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, by Tom Mula.

Look for upcoming posts on what those books mean to me.

You Are Beautiful

Today on twitter, one of the trending topics is #youarebeautiful. Normally I don't pay much attention, but The Bloggess asked her followers to share the reasons they are beautiful. Our "assignment" really made me think. What do I love about myself? I've mentioned previously that I suffered from depression (still do, but the medication makes it a negligible influence these days), so finding reasons to love myself is still somewhat difficult for me.

The response I gave was: "I am resilient. Somehow, even when the world seems dark, I find a way to believe in myself and keep going."

This is true. I've been having a tough year, with lots of stress coming from various sources, but I keep telling myself that I'll get through it. And somehow, I will. I've been in tough spots before, feeling like a failure, and I've always managed to get through it, and come out the other end stronger. I'll do it again.

Why else do I love myself?

• I care about others. I'm a self-described "bleeding heart." I genuinely like people, and I want to help. I feel that my purpose in life is help others, to improve the world in some way. That's what drives me.
• I give others the benefit of the doubt, probably to the point of naivete. I always try to assume that other people have good intentions, and to try to understand their point of view even when I don't agree.
• I try not to let the small things bother me. Life is so precious, it seems silly to waste time and effort worrying about little irritations.
• I have a good sense of humor and love to laugh at myself. I try really hard not to take myself too seriously.
• I am strong. Not physically, but mentally. I have a lot of willpower and determination. I know I can get through whatever life throws at me without breaking.

What makes you beautiful?

They're practically the same movie!

Recently, I spent a weekend visiting some friends. Since a few of them had never seen "Rocky Horror Picture Show", we watched it. Then, being in the mood for another movie in which Tim Curry is ridiculous, we watched "Clue." And it struck me that there are similarities between the two:

1) Tim Curry stars in them (duh)
2) Both include scenes of a dinner party gone wrong
3) The butler did it (ok ok, technically Riff-raff is a "handyman." I think my point stands.)
4) The "bad guy" gets kneed in the groin
5) Aggressive dogs keep people from leaving
6) Both take place in a castle / mansion in the US
7) It's raining when the guests arrive
8) The guests don't know what they're eating until it's too late
9) Someone comes "back from the dead", only to be killed again a short while later (Eddie, Mr. Boddy)
10) Alcoholic beverages get splashed all over the table, in between glasses.