"but I am le tired..."

yeah I'm exhausted. I need to sleep. yesterday I had one of those all day meetings (9:30am to 5pm). luckily they gave us lunch and coffee throughout the day as needed. which I definitely needed because I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before. totally couldn't fall asleep. soo annoying. so I figured that I would be able to sleep just fine last night. but, no, of course not. I probably got about four hours. ugh. somehow I did make it through today, though. but now it is time to sleep.

sorry about the sleep talk. it's one of the most important things in grad school, so really there's not much else to talk about. heh.

and for those of you not cool enough (or weren't around two years ago when we were quoting it everyday) to understand the title reference, here you go: http://www.endofworld.net/. enjoy!

picnic in the park

yesterday was such a nice day and some of us decided to have a little picnic in the Tempe Town Lake Beach Park (that's actually what it's called - don't look at me). it's a little grassy park by the fake lake here in Tempe. anyway, we had a good time. natalie brought her adorable dog and we ate lovely sandwiches and other things. katie and angel screamed like little girls every time the bees came by to smell our lemonade so that kept us amused for a while. :)

later that afternoon, katie and rosa came by and we had a grey's anatomy season 2 marathon until we all fell asleep.

most awesome video ever

this new video by OK Go has to be the most awesome music video ever made. heh. enjoy!

harry potter and nclb

I heard about this article the other day and I just had to post a link to it. it was written by one of the professors in the college of education here at asu. it is nominally a book review of the most recent Harry Potter book (this came out a while ago ), but is actually more about current education reforms and no child left behind (nclb). it's very interesting, especially if you are more familiar with the book itself and some of problems with nclb. happy reading!
http://edrev.asu.edu/reviews/rev246.htm

party pics!

So Saturday night Angel, Katie, and Rosa had a party at their new house for Angel's birthday and a housewarming sort of thing. most of the physics and astronomy grad students showed up (and some of our non-phy/ast friends) and everyone had a really good time. here are some pictures from the evening:

Angel's Bday party

Aug 27, 2006 - 21 Photos

more pics

I re-uploaded some of the 4th of July pictures to my other photo site (which I will probably be using instead of Flickr). it's a lot easier (integrated with iPhoto) and much more free space (250mb).

4th of July

Aug 5, 2006 - 18 Photos

happy birthday Angel!

today was Angel's (23rd) birthday. I made him some yummy cupcakes and we surprised him at school after he finished teaching his last class (at 10pm). he was super excited to see us and it was lots of fun.
click below to check out the pictures. (some of them are of Katie just being silly since we had some time to kill while we were waiting for Angel to finish).

Angel's Birthday!

Aug 22, 2006 - 13 Photos

a new semester

today begins a new semester of grad school. it started out by me sleeping in, which was very nice, and ended with me at school until almost 9pm and coming home during a thunderstorm to an apartment with no power. awesome. that about sums up the day.
it really seems to me like school never ended, so it's really kind of weird to even think about a new semester starting up. I worked all through the summer and the work is just continuing throughout this fall, hopefully culminating in me finishing my masters thesis (cross your fingers). I am only taking one actual class this semester, which only meets once a week (wednesday evenings for 3 hours) and the rest of my credits are tied up in my research and writing my thesis. so that's kind of nice. I am expanding my research stuff this semester to include some stuff on science & society, so hopefully that will go well.
along with that, all the new incoming grad students have kicked me out of my old TA office in the h-wing. but of course, even though I lost an office, I gained another one, with my new research group. so I still have three offices on campus. lol. I really shouldn't advertise that fact, because I know some people who barely have one office. hehe. oh well. I am just lucky to be working on well-funded projects right now. anyway, here's to a new semester full of new and interesting things (let's hope).

this movie looks interesting: Man of the Year

12 hours of fun

so today was one of those really long days at work. like almost 12 hours. which is really hilarious for a number of reasons. first, the meeting I was supposed to have at 9am to start off the day was pushed back to 9:30 after I had already gotten up and ready for school. then, the person running the meeting was half an hour late. so that was awesome. there goes an hour of sleep. anyway, the kicker to the whole thing is that since today officially starts the fall semester in terms of our RA hours and everything, I am only supposed to be spending about 10 hours total PER WEEK on this project. and I have meetings later in the week I have to go and I spent part of yesterday working on it already. so that's exciting. whatever. at least everything went well today. that makes it all worth it.

anyway, here's an awesome clip on YouTube that Angel sent me today. it's really amazing.

that's no moon...

nerdy link of the day: Star Wars Asciimation

I'm having one of those weeks. I can't believe it's only Tuesday. work is crazy. just crazy. and mostly in a bad way. ugh.

what a week

so the end of last week was crazy. the conference was so so tiring, but really good. I got back late on Friday and was exhausted. I spent most of Saturday sleeping, and was recharged enough to play some soccer on Sunday (it wasn't too hot - I think only like 105 or something - but it still felt like we were playing in a sauna).
I cooked dinner on Monday night. it was sort of a cooking experiment actually because I hadn't tried making eggplant parmigiana before. but I think it turned out really well (and Jody said he liked it, so there you go). then, some people came over and we watched Match Point which was really good.
the rest of the week has been a bit of a blur. lots of stuff going on at work, getting ready to start the semester and everything. and just lots of stuff going on in general. I'm glad tomorrow's Friday.

AAPT

so I'm in Syracuse, NY for a conference (AAPT = American Association of Physics Teachers) this week. I left the insane heat in Phoenix (it was 117 on Friday) to the relative cool of central New York on Sunday morning. the day of travel was not so exciting, especially since I had only gotten about three and a half hours of sleep the previous night, and then the airline lost my luggage, so that just added to the headache of the day. luckily my bag showed up the next morning and so I wouldn't have to go buy clothes for the conference. anyway, yesterday was the first full day of the conference, 8am to 10pm, and it was exhausting. I ran into some people I hadn't seen since the conference last year, so that was nice. this morning I gave my talk (on STEM behaviors of high school math and science teachers, in case you care) and I think it went really well, so that is good. I wasn't able to show the video clip I wanted to, but I think it's for the best, because otherwise my talk would've run over the eight minute (!) time limit. so it all worked out for the best. now I'm just taking a break before lunch and more sessions. today we will end at 10pm again, and the same tomorrow, but Thursday (the last day of the conference) won't go as late. I'll be back in the heat on Friday.

little miss sunshine

so Angel and I just got back from an advanced screening of the new movie Little Miss Sunshine. I saw a thing online on imdb to get a ticket for this free screening a few weeks ago, so we were super excited to go. we showed up about an hour ahead of time and had to wait in the heat for a bit before they finally let us, searched my bags (for recording devices), and then finally let us to the theatre. the wait was definitely worth it, though. the movie was really good. it was more serious in parts than I was expecting, but overall was really hilarious (especially the last part of the movie). I would definitely recommend it when it finally comes out.

schork

just thought I needed to post something. can't sleep (again). I'm having one of those weeks. crappiness interspersed with periods of happiness. which isn't so bad, when you look at it all at once. school/work (or, schork, if you prefer) has been crazy this week. I am leaving for a conference this weekend and I have all of this stuff I have to get done before that. oh, and I have to prepare my talk for the conference as well. somehow, that got to the bottom of my to-do list so I only actually starting writing the slides this afternoon. but no worries, it'll be fine. also, I'm just so happy that I saved our project from near-death last week, I almost don't mind working on the stuff this week.

I can't believe July is more than half over. where did it all go?

happy birthday Jody. "we're sonic fucking death monkey!"

4th o' July pics

I put up some of my favorite photos from my crazy 4th of July adventure in Washington, DC on Flickr. they have an upload limit, so that's all that will be up there for a while. I will put some others on this blog also and I will also be putting together a movie of all the fun we had (surviving the storm, watching the fireworks, etc.).
here's the link: my Flickr 4th of July photos

the truth is out there

I just got back from seeing An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's movie on global warming, with Jeremy David Cogan (for some reason, he wanted me to use his whole name). it was a surprisingly good and entertaining movie, and of course, very informative and educational. EVERYONE needs to go see it. as soon as possible. and bring a friend. and then see what you can do to be part of the solution. check out the website for ideas.

welcome Stephen!

Jen and Lynn had their baby last night! he's so big! and lots of hair. (and very very tired.) Jody and I went to go see them in the hospital today and little Stephen looked great (and Jen looked good too, especially considering she was in labor for like 30 something hours). so, we have a new member to our soccer team (well, in a few years anyway).

hot hot hot

I went home to LA for the weekend for my dad's birthday. it was actually kind of nice there compared to here, even though everyone in my family said it was awful. I was like, look it's 112 in phoenix, 94 and a bit muggy isn't bad at all. they didn't get it. anyway, after driving back last night, I was hoping to come home and just crash. but, of course, it's never that easy. the air conditioning in our apartment seemed to be non-functioning. the fan works and is blowing air, but it's not cold. it is currently 89 degrees inside my apartment! ick. it is a bit cooler in my room with the fan running, but it's still not great. ugh. they are going to try to fix it tonight. let's hope they can get it to work. I guess the only good news is that it's a little bit cooler outside today since it looks like the start of monsoon season. a bit of rain sounds good to me (even if accompanied by dust and wind). it's hot!

update: it is now fixed. hooray!

the I hate Bruce Arena fan club

um yeah. so I am going to blame two people for the outcome today: Bruce Arena for many many bad decisions and Landon Donovan for being a wanker and playing horribly (and then again Bruce Arena for letting him play horribly). so there.
considering all that, we played ok. there were a lot of good opportunities in the second half. but that penalty at the end of the first half really pissed me off. such a bad call. and I hate blaming refs for game outcomes (although, see my post on the last game). whatever. I am disappointed. we should have done better. but I am happy for Ghana. I think it's great that they advanced and proved everyone wrong about them. (and what happened to the Czech Republic? craziness.) anyway, the US is done with the world cup, but I am not. there are still many great games left to watch. and I will continue to watch my favorite sport throughout the tournament.