Archive for category college life
The creative process (and blood!)
Posted by tom in college life on December 3, 2009
First things first: I gave blood today (Wednesday) for the first time! Duncan was doing it and my schedule was the same as his so I figured I may as well. It was kinda cool, in an ow-my-arm-hurts-in-a-weird-sore-way-will-this-needle-come-out-soon-please way. I’ll post a picture within the next couple dozen hours. (It won’t be gross.)
Second things second: I am reflecting upon the creative process. By this, I mean: I am attempting to write an essay. This is the third essay for my English class. It is due tomorrow (to a good approximation, at least – there are some complicated details). I’ve been thinking of things to write about, and referencing the text of the novel I’d like to write my topic on, for several days, and I even emailed my TF with a bunch of the ideas I’d collected. So, armed with a whole bunch of jotted-down observations, the page numbers referencing my favorite quotes, and a very vague idea of what my thesis might sort of be, I sat down four hours ago ready to write my essay.
This was a bad idea.
I know this because I did essentially the same thing for my first essay. I never really finished it, because I wasn’t able to write anything. I didn’t have a solid idea of exactly what I was going to do when I jumped into writing it, and as a result I sat staring at the mostly-blank text document for literal hours. The smallest temptations become irresistible distractions when you’re a little sleepy (or perhaps just caffeine-jittery) and don’t know really what you’re writing about. But when you’ve set out to write your essay and then go to sleep and then turn the essay in as soon as you wake up, it seems like the only good idea is to just write – there’s no time to stop and go back and outline your thoughts in detail! So you press on, but those distractions just get bigger.
Long overdue
Posted by duncan in Music, college life, computers, science, the Internet, videos on November 25, 2009
Hello readers; I realize that it’s been almost three weeks since I’ve posted, since exciting things like meteor showers, drastic concentration changes, and creepy conversations online with strangers aren’t things that happen to me. But the rest of the Blandfill has been good to me and hasn’t heckled me for not posting, as I have done to them many times. So here’s my update.
Will Ramsey bit me today at the hockey game. It was refreshing and terrifying. Read the rest of this entry »
Stars
Posted by danny in Music, Uncategorized, college life, computers, science, the Internet, videos on November 19, 2009
This one’s for Rachel. Thanks for taking care of our wet music.
As Tom mentioned below, we went, along with a bunch of other people, to see the stars. (Nominally the meteors, but there weren’t very many of them.) I’ve got a little tripod, so I took some long-exposure (15 seconds, so not really that long) shots of the sky.
Cassiopeia over the horizon.
Orion.
This is the PLEIADES.
And now for something completely different.
This is awesome. Someone should do this for a CS50 final project.
‘trospection
Posted by tom in Uncategorized, college life, computers, science on November 18, 2009
Tonight I went out of town with Danny (and around 30 other folks who I didn’t know) to check out the meteor shower. There weren’t many meteors but the sky was real, real nice and I enjoyed trying to figure out the constellations and chatting about space with Danny. It was a really worthwhile experience – sometimes I miss the Milky Way and the vast expanses of land that accompany not-the-city.
Now, I have a CS exam tomorrow, but I went on this five-hour excursion anyways. As it stands, I haven’t done any studying besides attend a review session (and overhear Duncan listening to videotaped lectures online), and Charles tells me that this exam looks a lot harder than the last one. I’ll do my best, but I wouldn’t be surprised if all I get is 65 +- 15 percent.
People here really care about academics – or at least grades. There’s strong peer pressure to get good grades in things, even if you aren’t learning that much. I definitely think it’s a good idea to be an organized person who can study well and manage time well and be disciplined, and I also believe that there’s a lot to be gained, at a personal level, through really understanding lots of interesting and new things. But are grades themselves important? There’s certainly a correlation between getting high marks and getting lots of understanding, but I will always value the latter far more than the former.
So, understanding. Wisdom, perhaps. I have very little. But I think I’m yearning for it. Wisdom enough to know what to do with my life. And it’s nights like tonight that make me pause, gain some perspective, and think.
Switching concentrations
Posted by charles in college life, computers, science on November 14, 2009
Four days ago, I made the decision to switch to computer science. I was actually very close to declaring econ; I was talking with an adviser to get my plan of study signed when he told me that I would have to add two more classes to replace skipping Ec 10. This event was the catalyst that set off my decision to consider CS as a viable choice. The decision to switch had been churning around in the back of my head for a few weeks, but I pushed aside those thoughts with the logic that I was already far enough on the econ track that switching would be detrimental to scheduling and to my future.
I want to go into finance after college, so I originally chose econ because Harvard doesn’t offer a business or finance degree, and I thought that econ was related to those fields. As it turns out, the relationship is tangential at best. (I also thought that skipping Ec 10 would give me a comparative advantage, but I have never been more wrong…)
I was already having trouble selecting econ courses to fill up my schedule because, surprisingly, classes like “Moral Perspectives on Economic Growth” and” The Historical Origins of Middle Eastern Development” don’t interest me at all. The thought of adding two more made me cringe.
With CS, all of the classes that I have to take seem very interesting, and with an econ secondary I only have to take the classes that I want to take, namely Capital Markets and Corporate Finance. One of my stat electives will also count toward the CS requirements, so everything just works out better.
My adviser told me that if anything, a CS degree can only help with getting a finance job; it can’t hurt my chances. He also told me a story of a friend of his. The guy graduated with a CS degree, worked for a startup firm that got bought out by Microsoft, made a decent sum of money, went to Stanford B-school, and is now working for McKinsey. (Actually, is it sad that this sounds like an ideal life to me? I’ll have to address this issue someday)
All of this being said, I’m still leaving the option open to switch back to econ in case things really don’t work out.
On an unrelated note, the weight room in our dorm is surprisingly stocked with equipment, and it’s really close and convenient. I don’t know why I didn’t go earlier.
Blogs are wonderful means of procrastination
Posted by duncan in Music, college life, science, the Internet on November 1, 2009
This has been a pretty fun weekend. I’m going to tell you about it. Lucky you! As an aside, everything I’ve done in the following had the effect of postponing the completion of my CS50 problem set that was due 26 hours ago (as of yet uncompleted). But I digress.
This turned out to be Freshman Parents’ Weekend, which involved some fun awkward gigs for band, and a great Glee Club concert. We went to Sanders Theater and played some fight songs. They had a very strange panel table, and two comfy red chairs enclosed by two coffee tables with water jugs and glasses on them. Obviously, when it come time to play Ten Thou, Ed and I sat in those chairs. I had a good time with that. Then there was a rehearsal from 4-6, which made getting to Sanders in tails at 6:30 a bit of an issue, but an easily resolved one (and resolved it was, by leaving the rehearsal early).
The Glee Club concert went fantastically. It was great to be on stage in front of an almost full house, although I had forgotten how much I sweat while under those bright lights.
Everything you just read was written about a week ago, mostly because I got tired of blogging and stopped. Then I felt guilty for not blogging in three weeks, so I’m going to finish this now. Isn’t that fun? Since the last time I posted, my cell phone has been acting strange. I woke up about 6 hours after going to sleep Sunday morning and discovered that my cell phone had a funny colored bar on the left side o the screen. I was perturbed, but not too worried; I could still use it, right? Well. As the day went on, I found that every other row of pixels had turned white, so I could only half see what was on the screen. Again, not a huge deal, I could see what I was doing, but I was beginning to get a little worried. By the time I went to sleep that night, my cell phone screen had turned completely white, and as of right now it has a lovely crack across the screen from me banging it to see if that would make it work better. Turns out it didn’t. Regardless, my phone still works, but now I just don’t text, and I have to hope that whoever calls me is someone I actually want to talk to.
Oh yes, the HUB 90th reunion was this past weekend, and it was fantastic; I’ll be posting the video of it as soon as it goes online. It’s worth a watch. Granted, there are bands that are 300+ without alumni, but something about seeing 40 years worth of crusties and undergrads scramble on a field is very impressive; it’s like Brownian motion, but with a purpose. Pretty cool, eh? That in itself makes this post a science post. I’ll link to the wikipedia article on Brownian Motion as well. Now this post can be about the Internet as well! Fantastic!
From the infirmary
Posted by charles in college life on October 27, 2009
I’m in quarantine right now because I’m displaying symptoms of a “flu-like illness”. Luckily, Tom brought me my laptop yesterday, so I don’t have to be incredibly bored during my stay. However, this means that I also have to do schoolwork.
Stuck
Posted by charles in college life, the Internet on October 14, 2009
Funny things can happen when you’re the moderator for a mailing list but don’t have the password. You would think that I would be able to post emails to the list, but I am required to approve my own messages.
xeyes!
Posted by danny in Music, Uncategorized, college life, computers, the Internet, videos on October 5, 2009
Sometimes when I’m not using my giant CRT monitor, I put xclock on it. (Okay, so I’ve only done it once before today.) Today I decided that that was boring, so I remembered xeyes:
They stare into your soul.
Unrelatedly:
Winning the bet dollar
Posted by duncan in college life on September 29, 2009
About a year ago, I was playing a word video game on facebook, which involved shooting electronic birds and then obtaining a letter. It was like hangman, except you weren’t allowed to run out of bullets. At one point, I decided that the game was too taxing on my fragile brain to attempt it by myself, so enlisted the help of the rest of the Blandfill. At one point, there was a word that had me completely stumped; Tom assured me that it was in fact a word that is so ridiculous that I wiped it from my memory. I said to Tom, “I will bet you a dollar that you are wrong.” It turns out that he was right, and despite it just being a dollar, I felt obligated to make good on my bet, so he received the dollar.
Now, a year later, I received the dollar for being the first to perform a mildly creepy task for Charles (I won’t repeat it here or anywhere, in case you’re wondering. And no, it was not sexual). As the owner of the dollar, it was necessary for me to make another bet so that someone else could receive it. This time, I offered the dollar to the first one of us who posted a new blog. It’s been 3 days since anyone’s posted, so I’m going to think of a new bet.