my eclectic room

This is a slice of a beautiful corner from my retro teal/white heaven. Right angles are boring...but diagonals are fun. My fish tank is actually in my closet (Yes, there is a huge hole in the wall where the fish tank fits). The story is that the inhabitant of my room was extremely trashed a few years ago and knocked off a part of a chunk of the wall with a sledgehammer. For aesthetic and safety purposes, there's now a fish tank there.

I have a molly, two gold dusts, and one non-functional algae eater. I did have a swordtail and a huge Japanese goldfish, but they succumbed to old age. Only guys have lived in this room before me. Apparently the fish are good for luring girls into the room (like that'll help me), who swoon over the cuteness of a sensitive man taking care of fish.

amsterdam encore

What most of Amsterdam's streets look like. Amsterdam is composed of 100 small islands.

The street where the Anne Frank house is located. The graffiti is courtesy of Neo-nazis who believe that Anne Frank and the concentration camps never existed.

The Anne Frank house is the second building on the right.


Anne Frank: Transported to Auschwitz on September 3, 1944. Died at Bergen-Belsen in March of 1945.

The central square in Amsterdam. The royal palace is on the left.



Tulips...what is Amsterdam without them?
Rembrandt: Along with Van Gogh, one of Amsterdam's gifts to fine art.
Dutch soldiers: Also at Rembrandtplein.

Amsterdam

How I spent Tuesday-Friday of this week: Touring the wonders of Amsterdam and interviewing for Optiver.

slices of pie

I was talking with one of my friends yesterday at 2AM in the morning (what normal person wouldn't be holding deep conversations at 2AM?), and she compared an individual's social network and personal connections to a pie. Her pie seemed to be divided into fewer slices since she doesn't have close family except for her parents and a few good friends. For those of us that are fortunate or unfortunate enough to give everyone large slices of our pie, each connection and each person seems more important. For people with extended families and large groups of friends, there are so many slices to keep track of and each person gets a smaller slice...

But then again, it's not like everyone's pie is the same size to begin with, and not everyone belongs on the same pie. Personally, I like pumpkin pie. Apple pie is also good, but sometimes too sweet. Chicken pies are good too and fantastically easy to make. The only downside is that the chicken pies I make are very heavy (maybe I need to go lighter on the flour). Mince pies annoy me, but cheesecake...mmmmmmmm. Or ice cream...cookie dough, or especially Hagen Daas's Dulce de Leche. Or Toscanini's...If it weren't 2AM in the morning, I'd go get myself a scoop of mango. Never mind that the temperature outside is probably a good twenty degrees lower than the actual ice cream itself. It's never the wrong season for ice cream, nor is ice cream ever too sweet.

much ado about nothing...

Stupid 18.04 pset. I couldn't do it on tuesday, and I still couldn't do it today. Go figure. Why is it that 18.04 is harder than 18.100A? At least I could get through 80% of my 18.100A pset. But 18.04 is just about stupid imaginary numbers. It's 1AM, and I don't anticipate getting more done in the next 11 hours.

There's just so much to learn...so much insanity. Looking forward to a weekend of work, UROP, and interview preparation. Wheeeeeee.

work work work

So...I've been doing my UROP for four days straight. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. I've been running regressions and creating Excel tables all of Saturday and Sunday and part of the time on Monday and Tuesday. My UROP supervisor is on sabbatical, but doing research at Stanford University (how does that work?). I'm convinced that she sits in front of her computer 24/7, becuase she responds to my emails instantly. That might be a good thing, because she's keeping me on my toes. I also sit with my eyes glued to the computer screen. Seriously, my butt hurts from sitting so much.

As a woman in academia (or in lots of fields), I guess you need to be a hardass (note for future reference). Or, as one of my friends put it, it's a self-selection process. It's hard to get to the top and there are just so many sacrifices that you have to make to get there. Allowing yourself to feel or regret or doubt makes it all the harder, which is why the women in academia seem tougher than men. Moreover, there's always the issue of sexism, which I desperately hate and don't see the point of discussing. Women in academia are seen as more extreme because they move further away from the perceived average. I wonder what brought this on?

Roses are red, violets are blue...

The following is courtesy of a friend/fellow humorist:

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.

But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty and so is your head.

I thought that I could love no other

Until, that is, I met your brother.

Kind, intelligent, loving and hot

This describes everything you are not.

I want to feel your sweet embrace

But don't take that paper bag off of your face.

I love your smile, your face, and your eyes

Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:

Marrying you screwed up my life.

I see your face when I am dreaming.

That's why I always wake up screaming.

My love, you take my breath away.

What have you stepped in to smell this way?

My feelings for you no words can tell

Except for maybe "Go To Hell".

What inspired this amorous rhyme?

Two parts vodka, one part lime.

For all of you young lovers out there, I'm not bashing Valentine's Day. I just thought some of these rhymes were clever/cute.

ihtfp

And so it is...my last semester at this place. I spent the first week shuffling and reshuffling classes. I dropped Developmental Economics and Intro to Java and kept Economics and Psychology, Complex Variables, Analysis I, and Options, Futures, and other Derviatives. I'm also thinking about adding an advanced graduate class in corporate finance. I've also started on two UROPS. I should also look for jobs in case I don't get into any graduate schools (Unlikely, but who knows).

I'm not sure what I feel about these last 3.5 years. Some part of me wants to go back in time. Another part of me just wants it to be over. I just wonder who I'm going to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years and whether I'd be any different if I hadn't been here for these last few years. Who knows. Let me live to the best of my ability and keep my head above the waves.

v.v. belated birthday pictures

Thank you Yun for the lovely pics!

The duel of P&Ps

If you're wondering if I spend all my days in front of a tv screen and munching on popcorn and pretzels, I can tell you plainly that it's not the case. I'm just behind on quite a few posts, so...

I finally watched the BBC miniseries of P&P with two friends of mine. The running time was 5.5 hours. Seriously, it was a piece of cake. As an ardent fan of Pride and Prejudice (along with ~50M other females in the US and probably over ~1B other females throughout the world), I wasn't disappointed. The BBC version was extremely faithful to the book, down to the ugly empire-waisted gowns that made every girl pregnant regardless of her age.

Colin Firth was an admirable Darcy...I felt his transition from jackass to moderately pleasing to adorable most strongly. Futrhermore, Jennifer Ehle played Elizabeth extremely well, managing to smile and be sarcastic at the same time. She was quite lovely and didn't look quite as pregnant as her sister Jane.

The acting was extremely good, and the movie, although not lavish, conveyed Austen's sentiments well. After I saw this version of P&P, I immediately realized where 80% of the material came from. I am convinced that the producer and director of the recent P&P sat the crew and cast down in a darkened theater and made them watch the BBC version at least ten times each.

Keira Knightly probably had to watch the BBC version at least twenty times. Her mannerisms and way of speaking imitated Ehle's Lizzy extremely closely. Or maybe it's a British thing. The current P&P has gorgeous scenery and is a more dramatic version of Austen's novel. I really enjoyed this movie as well as the BBC series.

Matthew Macfadyen was wonderful as Darcy. He and Keira Knightly had so much more passion than Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle (The only complaint of the BBC version). He's so gloomy and passionate and dark and moody...except for the last few scenes, where the whole thing dissolves into a puddle of sappiness. The last scene (US version) was positively vile in its sappiness.

On the whole, I loved the BBC version, adored the current version, and am still deeply in love with the paper version.