so what does it all mean anyway?

My. Brain. Hurts. I really really need to get some sensible results from the modeling part of my project, preferably by Tuesday, and even more preferably by Sunday night, so I can start writing it up all nice and neat by the end of the week. I spent half of this week trying to figure out what the best approach was (after several months of approaches that just didn't match up right) and finally found one that was giving me the best curve-fits I've ever found. I was thrilled and amazed at how good the curves looked, and continued to fit them for different parameters to get a nice relationship between two variables. After a whole day of this, by which time I've become a complete expert/professional/robot at clicking through to extract and plot this data, I compile the final results (thus far) and plot them on a single graph. Only to find that they are so crazily sloped that they certainly do not match with intuition! My advisor will definitely frown to see this, and I'd better come up with a GOOD explanation BEFORE I meet him next week. Nothing hand-wavy will do. I am still convinced that my curve-fits are correct, beautiful really. But now I have to explain them. Wahh! I've stared at this for so long that my head is full of jell-o and the laws of physics seem backwards. I'm not even sure which way backwards is. But I need to get this figured out! Will a cookie solve my problems? ....um. *shifty eyes*

In other news, wtf is up with the snow this morning? Are the powers that be trying to kill me? With despair? Please let spring arrive so all the crocuses can bloom happily! Crocuses have always been my favorite - I remember we used to have them at our old house in NY, blooming by the tiny evergreen tree in the front yard. Delicate purple stripes. I have a few tulip bulbs stuck in my freezer, because I had nowhere to plant them outside during winter, and I'm just waiting for the right moment to extract them and poke them into a trough of dirt in the mud room. Yes, in the mud room, and not outside where my arch nemesis, Mr. Squirrel, will immediately dig them up and chomp on them. Last time he left the half-chewed bulb on my front step, just to taunt me.

let me go, she said

I'm seriously trying to make this happen. I feel like I'm a little bit insane for believing it can be done, but I'd never finish at all if I didn't create my own deadlines and make a push for the end. I scheduled my last committee meeting, and I'm making thesis-writing my top priority right now. Hopefully it will not majorly curtail my ability to work out, but at least I won't have a 6-hour hockey commitment every weekend. I'll miss hockey, to be sure, but I really need that extra time right now. Not only time from not playing every week, but also from not having to find a goalie, process ref payments, figure out logistics. I need this thesis to be done! Thankfully, my advisor is a fan of concise writing, and I am shooting for no more than 150 pages of thesis. With lots of figures, because pictures speak more concisely than words. True? True.

When I'm sitting in front of my computer all day, toggling between windows, adjusting axes and typing sentences, it makes me incredibly antsy and I feel like snacking constantly. It takes serious willpower to say no to the slice of frosted lemon bread when I'm getting a coffee, and to eat only my healthy snacks brought from home. Otherwise in 2 months I will have 150 pages and maybe 15 more lbs. Nobody wants that. This is also exactly why I can't sacrifice going to the gym for this thesis. I think when I studied for quals, I spent all my time either studying, sleeping, or working out. No sacrificing health for career!

The weather is getting just warm enough to make everyone excited for the approach of spring. The sun is out, but it's still barely 50 degrees outside. The tulips and daffodils are poking through the dirt, which makes me beyond anxious for winter to really end. But you never know in Boston - it could snow a couple inches tomorrow. It's happened before.

bigger than my body

As soon as John Mayer took the stage, my internal body temperature rose by about 15 degrees and didn't go back down. I think I'm still a little warm right now. We were sitting in the top balcony, to the right of the stage, just a little too far to see his legendary lips with our own eyes, but luckily the jumbo screen periodically magnified him for our viewing pleasure. I had to duck and weave my head to see around one of the huge hanging speakers between his giant face and my seat, as well as the two teenage girls in front of me who felt compelled to stand up and dance whenever he played a song I knew. Even these challenges did not diminish the complete amazingness of the show. Whatever person he might be off-stage, he really is an amazing performer and musician! His fingers are so quick on the guitar, and he can sing any note he wants, usually requiring some strange contortions of his face. But I think every female (average age: 17?) in this sold-out arena was completely in love for two hours. I've been in love with him probably since I was 20, when Room for Squares came to my attention. Last night he would suddenly start playing snippets of other people's songs, in the middle of his song, before you even noticed a transition. Some Bill Withers, The Police, mmm, fantastic.

I was amused that when he played "Who Says" in his encore, I immediately smelled weed. I almost wondered if it was orchestrated. But I think it was just some well-prepared fans. After the show the entire garden seemed to empty out into North Station and tried to cram into the Green Line. Standing-room only, and I had to duck past a couple of dudes making out while holding the ceiling railing in order to get off at BU. I was the only person that got off there, and I walked through the fog across the quiet construction-laden bridge. I could see the water in the Charles below was unfrozen, and I immediately imagined a rowing shell with four oars snapping in and out of the water, in unison, in the dark. Wait a couple more months for that.

on going for the gold

I'm super obsessed with the Olympics. I think I always have been. When I was a kid, my dream job was to be an Olympic soccer player. At some point I realized that wasn't going to happen. I always wanted to go watch them, and I remember when they were hosted in Atlanta, I was so disappointed that my parents wouldn't take me to go see them. As it turned out, we moved to Taiwan during the summer of 1996, so I ended up watching those games from the suite of our room in the Grand Hotel, an huge rectangular hotel in Taipei with Chinese architecture and decor, where we stayed while our furniture made the trip from New York to Taipei. We had to walk through the main hotel lobby and down a long corridor to get to our suite. It wasn't very Western-styled but it became our home for the first couple weeks of school. I remember watching all the men's gymnastics events and falling in schoolgirl-crush-love with some Russian gymnast who was not only good-looking, but also won a bunch of medals. I think his name was Alexei. Anyway, to this day there's something about the Olympics that really makes my heart pump. Every time I see some athlete's parents cheering wildly in the the crowd, or a gold-medal athlete singing his national anthem on the podium, I always tear up! I can't help it! There's something inspiring about their determination and drive to be the best. Awesome.

Anyway I wish that NBC would show some more variety of sports. Particularly women's ice hockey! At least show us some highlights of the games! They have all these adorable, heartwarming commercials of moms sending their daughters onto the ice, and then they can't even show us those girls all grown up and playing for the USA Olympic team! Come on... come on. I'd even take some men's hockey at this point. Figure skating is beautiful and all, but every competitor has to perform the same jumps and spins - it just gets boring after a while! The races though, they are awesome. Snowboard cross and speed skating - so exciting to watch! Yay! People are falling right and left, and it's all part of the race. Excellent.

give and go

This morning J shaved off his beard and went off to his first day of work. I never thought I liked beards very much, but it looked good on him. I was a little sad to see it go. I felt a little like I was sending a kid off to school, with a shiny apple and a turkey sandwich on wheat. I am really glad that the timing of his master's defense and this job worked out so well. Huge sigh of relief!

I've been playing a lot of hockey this year, and I'm really enjoying it because my skillz are improving - the biggest challenge for an inexperienced hockey player is to be able to go where you want to go. Even if you see where the puck is going behind you, if you can't move your feet and get over there, you just feel ineffective. I feel like this is becoming less and less of a problem for me, and it's awesome! However, the other side of playing with the club team for me is that I'm a captain. I've been a captain for 3 years now, and it's never been as much work as it is this year. Being responsible for making the team run smoothly is incentive to really make sure everything is taken care of and done right! But sometimes I really get tired of dealing with some things, like convincing people to come to practice, convincing people to play in goal, bugging people for dues, and dealing with people who come to practice with attitude. I mean, this isn't my job, but I do care about the team and I put a lot of thought and work into making sure everything is taken care of! So it would be nice for some people to realize that and maybe give back a little! I will be happy when it's time to elect new captains...

little thrills

James got me a piano keyboard for Christmas, and it is just about the greatest thing ever. I wake up in the morning and put on a hoodie, and before even entering the kitchen for breakfast, I turn on the piano and start banging out a Regina Spektor intro and attempting to sing some words over it. Sounds a little groggy after I just woke up. It's been like 10 years since I've lived in a house with a piano, and I am reminded how awesome it is to be able to sit down any time and pick out a tune I recently heard! Okay, I don't have a piano bench yet, so right now I just stand, but it's just as good. I taught James how to play chopsticks, and it seems that he likes to play as if there's a fire chasing him, i.e. as fast as possible, allegro, presto!

I am growing a mini cactus farm in the office - I ordered some seeds for cacti and succulents, figuring that they are some of the few plant types that I haven't yet killed. I bought some cactus soil (a little sandy) and hitched a bright light above their tray. Now I have a bunch of tiny cacti growing in row! They are only like 4 mm tall, or less. So cute!

three strikes of inspiration

It is incredibly daunting to start writing one's PhD thesis. I have a blank page in front of me, which means that even writing a single word would constitute progress, and still I can barely look at the document for more than five seconds. I've extracted myself from my office, where I sometimes get uncomfortably antsy and start glossing over art blogs without reading a single word, and have situated myself in the stata center with a caramel macchiato and three lab research notebooks. The place is only about 15% full, but I've managed to park myself next to a girl with an annoyingly loud laugh, or so it seems to one trying to concentrate on work. I know I just need to get into the groove and my brains will just start working like they need to.

As a side project this month (like I really need another one), I am redesigning my dad's blog. Currently the overall layout and color scheme just drives me crazy, especially when I get lucky and see one of those header pictures that are all stretched out. It's visually painful! And this is not my dad's area of expertise, so maybe I can give his blog a little boost, and then I won't be embarrassed to pass on the link to other people I know. His blog is done through Wordpress, which I have never used before, but I figure it's probably one of the easier interfaces to work with, right? Otherwise it wouldn't be so popular? The challenge is turning the visual layout in my head (which I sketched on paper) into an actual webpage, without having to learn html. Stay tuned.

I am excited about this year. Besides my renewed resolve to graduate (which is exciting in itself), I'm looking forward to continuing to cook amazing food with J, knit cute things for J's soon-to-be niece, and keep playing hockey (with my new shin pads!). Plus things couldn't have worked out better with J getting a job that's only 20 minutes away and starts at the end of the month! Yay and yay.

Okay, thesis time.