i will be bald soon

because i'm pulling my hair out.

blasted entropy

well...

it's practically the end of may. and this month certainly rushed, vroom-ed, and zoomed past without much room to breathe... but with lots of room to think stuffed in there somehow. somewhere in the past 30 days, summer arrived. pretty quickly, i'd say. and with the same viciousness and intensity as all dc summers seem to have -- hot and humid, rather unrelenting. yum.



la familia came to visit over memorial day weekend for my cousin diana's wedding in suburban maryland. and suprisingly, it was generally painless. always a bit hectic, always a little frustrating, but overall, kinda nice actually. nowadays, it seems so hard to get everyone together in one place. and they actually got to visit me... so that's sorta cool. in the end, you can never really escape family. and i got to see my bazillion cousins (and their kiddos!!) too.. which is always fun. it's sorta amusing to see how we're all related. i dunno why, but it is.

so here's my nerdy jabbering -- you know how thermodynamics and fluids classes and dear ole basic chem and physics lectures always mentioned one of those laws? that we tend towards entropy? chaos? i finally believe it. it's true. a bedroom naturally gets messy. life can never stay too organized: it's like boring-ness isn't an option for me. settling down? nature says, "hahaha, funny! try again, biatch. back to entropy for you!" sigh. there are, obviously, technicalities associated with this law -- stuff about closed systems and dS/dt and those crazy now-greek-to-me equations that i conveniently forgot after final exams. but in general, tis totally true. i tend towards entropy.

awesome.

in the next few days, like the last few months, i plan on continuing my battle against entropy. waging war! or at least, figuring out how to accept it to a certain degree. or work with it. wait, that's it -- i'll work with it. enemies can be friends, right? entropy, be my friend. the question remains however... will you be my friend in california or dc? or somewhere else altogether?

simplicity.

i've been itching with thoughts recently.. all random, as always. there's no common theme to whatever i usually think, just blabberings that somehow make sense to me.

i was sitting in the park today, chowing down on lunch, enjoying the strong breeze and ever-lovely sunshine, reading the latest patagonia catalog. (yes, patagonia catalogs are awesome). the summer/surf 2006 issue has stories, like it often does, about conservation and oceans and water and environment... but the introductory story, this time, resonated quite a bit. it was a quick hello about the founders (i think) of patagonia, a climber and a surfer. the last sentence of the story --

when asked separately about their quests to push the experience to new levels, they both gave the exact same response: "i'm after the cleanest line on the steepest part of the face."

the cleanest line on the steepest part of the face. it's just so amazingly appropriate :)

and it's so wonderfully simple, so wonderfully true. but but but.. is it really that simple?

see, i love nature. that much should be pretty obvious. but i like cities too -- filled with tall skyscrapers and hot dog carts, metallic beams, large-pane windows, honks, stupid tourists, flashy billboards, rattling subway lines, dust, grime, and potholes. really. i really do love cities... there's some sort of unexplainable simplicity to them too. after all, no one purposely makes things complicated, do they? nooo.. the last scraps of naiviete in me say "no steph, no one would create complication." the buildings are built to serve their function (uh oh, i'm getting thoughts of the fountainhead now), aren't they?

okay, but if cities aren't perfectly simple, neither is nature. so there. how am i allowed to love both nature and urbanity simultaneously? i think i'm destined to a life of paradox and indecision.

pardon me, i'm totally jabbering stream-of-consciousness.

i had this professor in college -- one of very few professors whom i ever found interesting outside of class, and ironically, he had nothing to do with biology... hmm.. -- who has a website/blog devoted to "simplicity." well, i think his work revolves around the idea of simplicity as well. he's the uber-cool type of guy who busts out code in a moment's notice and creates some beautiful graphic with deep meaning but still takes the time to smell the roses and notice the artistic pattern in italian salad dressing. i'm not kidding.

the first day of class, as the 10-12 of us sat around a rectangular table in the media lab staring uncertainly at each other, the professor told us a story. (i like stories). it was about his beginnings, as a young boy in japan whose parents owned and operated a small tofu-making business at home. apparently, tofu undergoes a rather complicated process of mashing, grinding, heating, cooling, cutting, etc before it gets packaged into convenient little cubes for our culinary enjoyment. his dad would wake up each morning and work amidst the vats 'o soybean, day in and day out, to make this family-sustaining tofu. i guess the kiddos helped out too. later on, as the years progressed, dear professor made it to university and abroad and ended up at mit's media lab, given resources and funding necessary to do exploratory research on computation and media and arts and a combination of those three elements and more. how cool.

so really, besides it being a good story about his life, what was the point? in some ways, even though he's still pretty young, his life has kinda come full circle. the media lab is a large white building, composed of small white squares with a few lines of windows in between, rather cube-like in shape. my professor went from white cube to white cube.

simple, huh? it makes me wonder.

lists are good

here's what's exciting:
i know how to sport lead! yay for clipping in and whippers and quickdraws.
the week is almost over. and it went fast. really can't ask for more.
upcoming weekend in nyc with -- ooooh yahoooo -- care and va :)
new-fangled clothing and bag from last weekend
tennis balls lying around my room, happy from being used last sunday
i ate a really yummy subway sandwich today
leftover grins from last weekend


here's what's not so exciting:
washington, dc is minus one man. pooh.
it's nearing the end of may, and i continue to go BOING
i said no thanks to L.A. good? bad? who knows?
today's climbing was sorta depressing
BOING boing boing boing BOING boing
the weather fluctuates rapidly
the biodefense budget analysis chugs on.
tennis balls lying around my room, sad to be left alone


this is honestly how my brain works.

epoh

i know, i'm supposed to be asleep. but...

for the past few years, every month of may has garnered mixed emotions. usually, i was ecstatic that classes were ending, that the ginormous hills of brown snow were finally melting, that the river began to flow, that the days were long enough to let the sunlight linger. the trees outside my window also provided the first signs of spring, with tiny little green sprouts bursting forth, and once i saw that the rowers and sailors were brave enough for training on the charles, i knew that i could venture out and enjoy the month of may too. freedom soon! warmth and sunshine soon! the lights at fenway! freedom.. and 3 months with no limits on sleep.

but may was always stressful. final exams, term papers, research presentations, conclusion paragraphs... getting that last damn piece of the machine to function, figuring out the final bit of data analysis so that i could interpret a semester's worth of labwork, cramming 783 pages worth of material into my brain in one night. it honestly wasn't the most joyous time of year. i didn't exactly put on merry clothes and dance around the halls -- unless it was a result of too much caffeine intake.

and i always had to decide on summer jobs and determine the logistical details. where to go? how to get there? who, what, when.. why?

a whirlwind. a kaleidoscope. mixed emotions.

and as the hour-hand furiously spins around its axis, may is here again. may 2006. and somehow, i find myself, once again, in familiar territory, wedged in-between happiness, frustration, and utter confusion. i need to flick the "repeat" button to off.

.... so here's to hoping that next may -- may of 2007 -- will be calm and content, filled with splendiferous weekends and only the normal bag of feelings. here's to hoping...

the near future

the next few weeks are gonna be interesting...

booger

BOOGER.

everybody is a booger. big, slimy, yellow, creepy boogers. everywhere, everybody! booger.



i'm going to become a hermit in new zealand. see, it's pretty.

excuse me

i just burped.

monday mornings are not conducive to work at all. currently, my brain is fuzzy (probably due to lack of sleep, rapid intake of coffee, and 20 million other thoughts un-related to work); the hem of my right pant leg is wet because part of the hem's stitching fell out recently and it dragged along the soppy ground this morning on the way to work; and the tree outside the nearby window is waving around and i'm concerned that a branch will fall off, smack some tourist in the leg, break his femur, and i'll have to run outside to save him and remember all the things that i learned at wilderness first aid this past weekend.

so in other words, i'm sorta dazed and staring blankly at my computer screen. and REI has an awesome sale going on.

work? huh?

diagnosis: steph, female, 20s, in good health but with a fluctuating level of consciousness. alert and oriented? umm... that's to be decided.

treatment: sleep and ice cream.

zoom

there might be this slight possibility that i have way too many things going on all at once right now. but it keeps me distracted. isn't that a good thing?

education?

ed-yu-kay-shun.

ehhhhhhh. education is a touchy subject, methinks. not touchy as in ooh-bad-she's-gonna-get-bitchy type of touchy, but touchy because it's a difficult topic in general.

why all these odd thoughts about education?

gps.

and no, that's not the global positioning system. that's girls preparatory school, my trusty high school alma mater. girls with power and strength, or whatever cheesy motto they came up with in the dwindling hours of my senior year there.

it seems like a decade ago since i was last in chattanooga, floundering around the southern town in my colorful school uniforms, overly-packed backpack, and thoughts of SAT and whatever else on my mind. it's been a half-decade at least.

tonight, in the throes of washington, dc, just steps away from grand ole white house, gps had an alumnae gathering. a centennial celebration of sorts because it's officially 100 this year. happy bday, dear. random alumnae from all years, who happen to have found themselves in this capitol city, got together and awkwardly said hello and how are you doing and g'bye. it was fun, kinda strange, and definitely amusing. like the baseball fan i am, i'm also a conflicted high school grad. as odd as that school is, and as contradictory as its practices and traditions and goals are, i thoroughly enjoyed my time there, and i appreciate everything that i learned and absorbed as a student.

but it's hard to stay complacent about those things. nowadays, kiddos in 8th grade are being bogged down with college information and dreaded thoughts of transcripts and expectations and standardized test scores. whyyyyyyy. gps, in all its glory and success, is a complete contradiction of terms. situated in a small city in the buckle of the bible belt, it preaches (though not in a strictly christian manner, or so it attempts to) the power and ability of girls to succeed in a crazy world. but we wear uniforms, and family status and old money are almost as important as academic achievements.. and just as significant is the car you drive, the sneakers you wear, and the dress you acquire for the fertility celebration of may day. girls are told to embrace their individuality and their interests, told to open their arms to the open world. but a good 60% remain in the south for college. granted, almost 100% go to college, which is awesome. but in the cookie-cutter mold that's presented, it wouldn't be acceptable to NOT go to college. the community, though relatively accepting, is not diverse, and although the graduates find themselves with grand opportunities for career exploration and whatnot, SO many return to marry and repopulate.

there's no solution; it's just a commentary on a bizarre bizarre experience.

and better yet, i remain conflicted about mit. and with the news about lacrosse players at duke and a now-rejected and plagiarizing fool of an author at harvard, i have to wonder why there's so much hype about ed-yu-kay-shun. everything.. everything is relative.

and this week's Newsweek cover is.... 2006: America's Best High Schools. The Top 100. hmm.

i'm a conflicted fan.

may 1, 2006: red sox, 7. yankees, 3. at fenway.

yay mirabelli! boo damon. yay ortiz! boo yankees.
but well, thanks johnny damon? for everything from before? but of all places, the yankees...?! i'm still not over it. money is the root of all evil.

sigh. clean-shaven and all navy-grey striped. poop.

well, at least he saluted. grace under fire? to lots of BOOOOOs and a few claps.

yay!!! he made it to fenway from logan in 12 minutes. that's magic itself.

awww.. it makes me teary.


i'm such a nutty fan.