harry potter and the half-blood prince

so I just finished the sixth book. and I am still stunned. so many things happened that I was not expecting (though, some of them were not surprising nonetheless). it is quite an emotional book, and much much darker than any of the previous ones. it is also probably my favorite of the six. I think this is due mainly to the way that all of the plot lines are interwoven so well so that the book flies by and keeps you interested all the way through. plus, there are so many revelations and explanations that bring together many of the things that have been questioned during the rest of the books. in that way, the ending is good because it answers a lot of questions. however, it also leaves you feeling very anxious and expectant because you can taste how close the last book is (even though you know it will be at least two years before we get it). the inevitable death that we all knew was coming was harder to take than expected, but this was mostly due to the person who did the killing. that part, more than anything, upset me and will keep me waiting to see what happens in the last book.
the romance in the book was highly amusing (and also with the pairings that I thought would happen) and that, along with the usual interesting little tidbits about the magical world that rowling throws in every now and then, make it a very enjoyable read. it had just the right mix of humor, mystery, adventure, and emotion to make it the best book of the series so far. just be sure to have a tissue on hand while reading the last few chapters.

5 weeks to go

the last week and a half has been particularly annoying. the studying for the comps has been kicked into high gear and it's slowly killing me. five weeks from yesterday is the first day of the test, so I'm starting to really freak out, and I'm hoping that it doesn't get much worse (but of course, it will). *sigh* anyway, I have lots and lots of studying to look forward to during the next five weeks and hopefully it won't entirely kill me. luckily tomorrow night the new harry potter book comes out (year six: harry potter and the half-blood prince) so that will help me have some enjoyable breaks from studying over the next week.

oh, and it's really freaking hot here. the high has been around 112-113 the last week and will probably continue that for the next two months or so. ugh. I had soccer practice tonight and it was still over 100 degrees when we finished up around 9pm. that is insane. insane!

san diego!

so, earlier in the week I decided to go down to san diego this weekend for the fourth of july (and for a reprise from the 112 degree phoenix heat). friday afternoon I set off to drive down there. I was expecting a really long boring drive, but it actually wasn't too awful. I had lots of cds to listen to (and a in-dash 6 disc changer so I didn't have to do much) and it went much quicker than I was anticipating. first of all, excluding the stop I took in Yuma for some dinner and a bit of a break, it only took me five and a half hours. so that's fairly amazing. also, my car totally rocks as I was able to make the entire 400 miles on only one tank of gas! woo hoo! so yeah, it wasn't too bad. I got in late last night, and hung out with jeremy and a few other people that were over at his apartment.

today, I had lunch with carolyn down in the gaslamp (at this nice little pizza place) and walked around horton plaza a bit. then we decided to drive up to san clemente so that we could go to the rainbow sandal factory store. even though it took a while and there was a bunch of traffic on the way back, it was totally worth it. I needed new sandals sooo badly and kept meaning to order them online, but I'm so glad I didn't. not only did they have the entire selection there, but they were super cheap. I ended up getting two pairs instead of just the one pair to replace my worn-out ones and I paid only a little bit more than I would have if I had ordered them online and paid for shipping. so that was fantastic.

tomorrow, the plan is to go to the beach and see some more people probably.

monkeys!!!

so I've had a busy last couple of weeks. I've been meaning to post, but just keep forgetting or running of out time. anywho, here goes nothing.

last weekend was pretty fun. friday night we had a surprise birthday party for one of my office mates, Jen. we surprised her at the phoenix zoo and then went to Jody's house for a bbq. the zoo pales in comparison to the wonderfulness that is the san diego zoo, but it did have two redeeming qualities: first, it was super cheap; on friday evenings you can get in for only $2. second, they had this exhibit that you can go in and all these crazy squirrel monkeys are running around, literally inches away from you. they were super cute and hilarious (as all monkeys are). I took some video on my digital camera. one of the videos is posted here for your viewing enjoyment: click here

last sunday we had a really good soccer game; we beat the first place team. it was great. yesterday we played them again for the championship, but unfortunately lost. they were playing a very physical game which our team is not as used to. oh well. second place is still pretty good. our team has improved so much since last fall.

last week was pretty crazy at work. there was lots of stuff to do and seemingly not enough to get it all done. I did get a bunch of studying done, so I feel pretty good about that.

thursday night we all went out because it was Katie's last night here for two weeks. it was lots of fun and definitely hilarious. saturday, steve, brian, and todd had a party at their house, so that was cool as well. there weren't as many people as some of their past parties but I think everyone had a really good time.

in other news, there is less than three weeks left until the new harry potter book comes out, so I have begun to re-read book five so I will be all up to date when the half blood prince arrives. it sucks because I don't know anyone else here who reads the books so I don't have anyone to talk about it. plus, they all think I'm crazy. whatever. they are missing out.

so Jeremy thinks that he is really funny:
http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=JeremyPaulGallagher&tab=weblogs&uid=288233913

but I know better.

RENT!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/rent/

I am sooo excited. cannot wait until november. I think the most exciting thing is that they got so much of the original broadway cast in the movie (mark, roger, collins, benny, angel, and maureen). six out of eight ain't bad. check on the cast here.

30 days

so, there's this new show on fx called "30 days". morgan spurlock, the guy who only ate mcdonald's for one month in "super size me", has a new experiment. during each episode, he explores how it would be to live as someone else for 30 days. in this first episode, he and his fiancee moved to columbus, ohio and tried to live on minimum wage. it was a quite interesting and eye-opening exercise. the worst part came when both of them got sick on the same day and each had to make a trip to the emergency room. of course, they didn't have insurance, so the bills were enormous and completely ridiculous (I think they charged him $40 for an ace bandage). anyway, try to see it if you can. it's on wednesday nights at 10pm.

in other news, we won our soccer game on sunday (and I scored a goal!) so if we win the game this sunday, then we will play for the championship the following weekend. we will have to play really hard for that to happen, so hopefully our whole team will show up and give it their all.

my research is going well. I got a whole lot of new stuff to work on today, so that's good. being busy and productive is nice. studying is going slowly. I think we are making some progress, but I just don't know if we're making it fast enough. august 17th is creeping closer and closer.

"bank error in your favor, collect $200"

ok, so it wasn't a bank error, but basically I felt like I had picked up the best community chest card in monopoly when I got my mail a week or so ago. there was a sizable check and I had no idea what it was for (it was from ASU). the mystery persisted for about a week, and finally last friday I got the answer I was hoping for, namely that the check was not a mistake and that I could deposit the money without any guilt (some friends were trying to persuade me to just cash it and not say anything). it turns out that I received a fellowship when I first got here and no one told me about it (or the other person who got it). we were supposed to be getting a check each semester, but somehow they not only forgot to tell us about it, but forgot to give us the money. and so, a couple weeks ago they realized what happened and just sent us all the money now. so it's super exciting. I get to pay off all of my credit cards and have a bit of money left over. so that's the best news in a long time. yay for that.

in other news, the studying for my physics comps test is going alright. I think I am making some progress. Angel and I have scheduled about two hours of studying every day for this month. next month, we'll move it up to probably four hours a day, plus one day of just studying. should be fun.

tonight I'm going to a Bright Eyes show with Katie. should be cool.

work and last weekend

so I've gotten into the swing of things with my new research job. most days go something like this: roll into the office around 10am, read the newspaper online, work on something - usually this means reading one of the forty or so articles that are scattered around my desk, have lunch, read some more, argue with someone about what the article was saying, think about how to turn that person's research into some kind of research you can do, read some more, then go home.
only starting tomorrow, at the end of my "work" day I won't be going home, but instead going somewhere else to study for two or more hours for my crappy test I have at the end of the summer.
but I do like it. it's really interesting research and I feel like I actually can contribute something. so that's good.
oh, and today I got my new computer. ok, well, it's not actually new, it's a few years old, but it's hardly been used and it's pretty. it's a G3 iBook (soo cute). I'm updating the memory and getting a wireless card so it will be awesome in a couple days. I won't be complaining at all since it was free. and it works so much better than the other laptop I had at work which for some reason refused to let me view pdfs and doesn't like doing more than one thing at a time. what a lazy pc.

anyway, bought some new music today. yay for wilco (I got one of their older albums). I think that they are my new favourite band. even though I really like weezer's new album, I do think I have outgrown them a little bit. and wilco is really amazing. they make me happy. (radiohead's probably number two now I think.)

in other news, I had a pretty good weekend. had a couple of really nice long conversations with friends (carolyn and tom), and went to a couple really good parties (at katie's and jody's) for the memorial day weekend. it was lots of fun. thanks everyone.

way to go George!

just got back from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and I must say, I am very pleased. Mr. George Lucas pulled it off and didn't make this last one suck. yes, there were some moments of cheesiness (he clearly cannot write a love story), but overall it was really good. the first part of the movie is awesome, then the middle drags a tiny bit, but it picks up in the end. R2D2 is seriously hilarious and yoda still kicks ass. the only other thing I can say is, four lightsabers?! now, I need to get some sleep. I am off to LA tomorrow evening for the weekend and hopefully will miss the 109 degree heat predicted for this weekend. phew.

Tarnation

so I haven't slept very much the last three nights. it's mostly because I'm stupid (and I have to be at work at a decent hour in the morning - I started on my research project this week). here's why: sunday night I had a couple cokes with the celebratory dinner after our soccer game. couldn't fall asleep (it was very reminiscent of my insomnia days from last semester. not fun).

monday night, Angel and I cooked dinner for Katie, Adam, and Oscar at Katie's house. we all watched 'Raising Arizona' and laughed at the Tempe "accents" (the movie is set where we live now). great movie. anyway, I didn't get home until like 2am or something. very stupid.

last night, I rented the movie 'Tarnation' and watched that. Jeremy had told me about it a few weeks ago and it looked really interesting. it's a documentary by this guy Jonathan Caouette about his life growing up with a dysfunctional family (including his schizophrenic mother). he started making the movie when he was about 11 years old and continued filming his life up until now (he's about 30). he had a budget of about $200 and edited the whole thing on apple's iMovie. considering all of this, it's really quite an amazing movie. it's not always easy to watch a documentary (especially if you're not used to watching a movie without a real plot), but this one was very different. there was a real emotional core to it that pulled you in and didn't let go. Jonathan's story is both amazing and heart-wrenching. and the way that he tells it is so unique and spellbinding that it's hard to look away. anyway, I really liked it. the love he has for his mother despite all of her problems (and the problems they have caused him) is really inspiring and beautiful.

tonight I won't be sleeping much either since I and a bunch of friends are going to a midnight showing of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. should be lots of fun (and hopefully - please Lucas don't let us down - a good movie too).

pics of the car!

so here are some pictures of my brand-spanking new car:





it was a pretty good weekend. saturday morning I bought a car (yay!). then that afternoon I drove katie and angel to the mall (even though I had no money left to spend). we got some chipotle and enjoyed the mass consumerism.

that evening, me, katie, angel, and adam went to this free reggae festival at the tempe town beach lake (or whatever it is called, since it's not really a lake or a beach). it was pretty fun, especially all the people-watching (old drunk people are really hilarious). as we were walking back after the concert on mill, some little kid came up to adam and said, "the world is flat". we were like, "what?!". it turns out that one of the astronomy professors and his family were right behind us and the professor paid his kid two bucks to say that to adam. it was pretty funny.

today, I did a bit of cleaning (after sleeping in) and then went to trader joe's with katie (she had never been there before, so that was fun). it was sooo hot! today was the first day it was over 100 degrees. it's all downhill from here. then I had my weekly soccer game at 6pm (it still pretty hot, but not too horrible). it was a pretty decent game, we won 8-1. the best part, though, is that I played forward for a little while and I scored one of the goals. woo hoo! I think they're not going to let me play only defense anymore. but that's cool. it was fun.

I am no longer car-less!

so, folks, it is official. I now have a car. I went in this morning at 9am to the toyota dealership and emerged only two hours later a proud new owner of a corolla (phantom gray le in case anyone really cares). yay for that. (thanks again mike for driving me over there.) everyone was really nice and helpful and made the whole thing really easy. they even gave us a free lunch afterwards. woo hoo.

so, yeah, I'm super excited. don't need other people dragging my sorry ass around anymore. first order of business: the mall with angel later this afternoon (although I don't have any money left to spend unfortunately). hehe. oh well. at least I have a car!

done! one year down, five (?) to go

well, the day I have been waiting for has finally arrived. I have finished my first year of grad school. somehow, I survived. whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger (and builds character, as calvin's dad always said) so I am filled with a new strength.

I stayed up most of last night working on my take-home advanced electromagnetism final. and it was tons of fun, let me tell you. I think I slept about four hours and woke up around 7am (like I have the past three days - which in and of itself is quite an accomplishment for me) to get it all finished. it's definitely not perfect, but it should get me a passing grade.

now I have the rest of the week to relax, re-organize my office to get ready to start my research on monday, and clean my apartment. (and possibly buy a car). sounds good.

pretty picture

the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) today is really beautiful. check it out here: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
here's a close up of it: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0505/saturnplane_cassini_big.jpg
it is a new picture of saturn taken from the cassini satellite. it's super cool because of the angle it is taken from. the rings are totally edge-on so you almost can't see them. also, there is a shadow on the planet from the rings that is really cool. hope you enjoy.

it is 8:30pm and I am still at school and probably will be here until at least 11pm. such is life. I can't wait for next wednesday when I will be done! today was interesting because we had the end-of-the-year physics department party-like thing. there was some free food (so the grad students would attend) and they gave out some awards to people we didn't know. the funniest thing was just watching the other people in the party. katie remarked it was like junior high all over again. everyone was standing on one side of the room, only talking to people they knew. the only difference from junior high was that the topics of conversation were physics-related. physicists are funny like that.

finals, music, and a paranoid android

I can't believe it's May. holy crap. that means I'm almost done with school. one week from tomorrow I will be all finished with my first year of grad school. that is a scary thought. this semester has gone by so fast (especially compared to the long hell last fall). I have one class tomorrow, lots of grading to do, and lots of homework to work on. wednesday is "reading day" (or as one of my students called it, "the day off of school to play video games"). I won't be doing that, but I will be studying and homeworking. more of the same on thursday. then on friday I have to turn in some quantum mechanics homework and take my statistical mechanics final. should be tons of fun. the weekend will be spent working on my electricity and magnetism take-home final (due tuesday) and studying for my quantum mechanics final (on monday). so, once I finish all that I'll be done! then I get the rest of next week off to sleep and do lots of useless stuff. I start working on my research project the following monday.

I saw the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy on friday night and it was really good. I was a bit worried because the movies have a bad habit of screwing up really good books, but it was actually really funny and carried along the spirit of the book really well. the stuff they added was cool (especially the yarn vomit) and the stuff in the book was done well. and I guarantee you will come out of the theatre singing the theme song, "so long and thanks for all the fish". it was great.

I also finally went to the music store on campus. hadn't been in like almost a month. I got the new stereophonics cd (which I really like), donnie darko on dvd, and pre-ordered the new weezer cd that comes out next week. I'm really hoping that it's good, but my expectations aren't too high. the green album was not so wonderful and I only really like about half the songs on maladroit, so we'll see what happens. I have to say that when I first heard "beverly hills" I was kind of disapointed (I'm not really sure why, it just wasn't what I was expecting), but after listening to it a bit more, it got stuck in my head, so that's a good sign. I'll let you know about the rest in a week. I also listened to the new ben folds cd in my friend's car over the weekend and I think I might pick that up too. it's pretty good.

oh, and the new soccer season started yesterday. and I already have a massive bruise on my knee. some guy who is twice my size totally ran into me and I fell on my knees in the dirt (our fields suck and there's very little grass). so I have these really beautiful bruises and future scabs forming on my knees. it's hot.

champions

so we won our soccer game last night. it was actually a pretty boring game (we won 5-2), especially when compared to the two horrible games we had the previous weekend. both of those games were against our arch-rivals, the "twinkies" (yes, that's their actual team name, I'm not making fun of them) who are probably the meanest team in the league. they were hard games physically but they also weren't any fun because most of the guys on their team are jerks. so that kind of sucks. we won the first game and lost the second, mostly due to some really awful referee-ing. the guy actual didn't know some of the rules of the game and we were tempted to bring him a copy next time we saw him just so he would know what to call. it was ridiculous. anyway, that is over now, and we triumphed over them because we are first place in the league. woo hoo! go brilliant! so that's exciting.

what else is new:
-only two and a half weeks until the semester is over. I cannot wait. then I can start working on research and not have any more homework to do for a while. I will be working full time and studying all summer, but I think that will be good for me. hopefully it won't suck.
-I will be buying a car very shortly (probably in less than a month). still trying to finalize my decision as to what to get. I'm leaning towards a toyota corolla right now because of the reasonable price and the good gas mileage. we'll see. I kind of want a civic, but those get stolen so often it just doesn't seem smart. I don't know.
-weezer has a new cd coming out in a couple weeks. should be interesting. they are on the cover of rolling stone this week. very interesting article. rivers just keeps getting weirder and weirder. I just don't get it. I'm not still obsessed with them, but I am very curious to see what the new album will be like. I really really want to go to coachella this year to see them (and wilco since their show in arizona is now sold out - I am stupid and waited too long to get tickets) but it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen. so sad.
-it's starting to get hot here. last week was pushing into the 90s. but then it rained over the weekend, so I'm not sure what's going to happen. hopefully the weather waits a bit longer before it gets really gross. summer in phoenix; what was I thinking?

"happiness is in the doing, not getting what you want." -Before Sunset (such an amazing movie)

a busy couple of weeks

so I haven't really posted since I got back from my spring break trip to Puerto Rico which is because I've super busy back at school. I'm still not used to this semester thing. we still have another month left of school, but then I'll be done in the beginning of may. what is that about? oh well, whatever, I'm not going to complain. only it feels like the semester will never end. I'm so glad we had quarters at ucsd. so much better.

anyway, school is going well in most respects. the really good news is that I have a research position for the summer months (for the parts of the day when I'm not studying my butt off for the stupid comprehensive exam at the end of august). so that should be fun (or at least interesting which almost as good). the other excellent news is that I'm going to the aapt (american association of physics teachers) national meeting in august as well and will be presenting a poster on some of the stuff I will be working on this summer. so that's cool. I'm super excited.
I also got another office, so now I have two offices in my building (one for TA stuff and one for research stuff). but the best part about it is that in my new office I also have my own laptop computer to use (with wireless) so I don't have to wait on the abysmally slow shared computers downstairs in the other office. haha suckers! lol.

and my soccer team kicks ass. we are 1 point away from first place now. brilliant!

also, the weather here is beautiful right now. I am trying to enjoy every day because I know that in about a month it is going to be hot and gross. oh well. at least it's nice right now.

Puerto Rico!

so I spent last week in Puerto Rico and it was totally wonderful. we had such a great time, we saw the most beautiful places and hung out with some cool people (and ate lots and lots of great food...mofongo!). I think I ate one form or another of plantains at almost every meal. they are so good. anyway, it was lots of fun. here is a smattering of pictures to give you an idea of some of the things we saw and did.


one of our first views of puerto rico as we drove around the town of naranjito, where angel grew up


after our trip to mayaguez, we went to this fabulous beach in cabo rojo


another view of the beach (that is the very southwestern tip of the island...and beyond that, the caribbean ocean!)


a view down the beach


adam, angel, katie and me


later that night, we went out to celebrate katie's friend's birthday. this was taken after we each had a couple rum and cokes.


the next day, we headed up the west coast and stopped in rincon where we saw some humpback whales that migrate here annually. it was really cool.


one of the beautiful cliffs in rincon


another beautiful shot of rincon


they also had a lighthouse and some really good pina coladas there


that night, we headed up to old san juan. this is an old fort called El Morro.


a shot from the fort towards the north coast of the island


angel and adam striking a pose


another beautiful sunset while we were walking around old san juan


the next day we headed over to arecibo to see the big radio telescope. here are the computers that are searching for "little green men". hehe. just kidding. on the left is the computer for the serendip project and on the right, you can see the feed for the seti at home project. (we also saw the computer that discovered the first pulsar)


we were very lucky because adam knew one of the researchers there, so we got a personal tour of the telescope. this picture is taken from the middle of the telescope.


some of you might recognize part of this from the movie goldeneye where james bond was fighting some bad guy. i don't remember. but the telescope is cool.


here is paolo (adam's advisor) showing us one of the new detectors. we are inside the gregorian dome at this point (if you know what i'm talking about - if you don't, don't worry about it, it's the big dome thing in one of the following pictures).


katie, angel, and me in the fun hard hats we had to wear while we were up on the telescope.


here is the cat walk that we had to climb up to get to the telescope. you can see the visitor's center for here where everyone else had to stay. haha! isn't it beautiful there?


here is a view of the dish from the cat walk with a shadow of the detectors and all that stuff (we were up pretty high).


back at the visitor's center, me and the telescope


another beautiful sunset at another beautiful beach


the next day, we travelled to the rainforest, el yunque. here is a view from an observation tower.


hiking through the rainforest


at one of the waterfalls


maybe angel really is a monkey?


at yet another beach, this time on the northeast corner of the island


katie and me


one more sunset


palm trees and the last sunset

midterms over, spring break here I come

okay, so I survived the week of midterm hell. what a ridiculous week! aaah! anyway, it's over now and I think I did alright. now I'm off to Puerto Rico for a fun spring break!