Diary03/05/01hey what's that frown? SNOWDAY SNOWDAY SNOWDAY! It's been so long since RPI has cancelled classes for a whole day! I don't have to go to my 8am lab! I will some time, but that's not the point! I wish I had known this before I drank a big cup of tea though, because now I'm not going to get back to sleep. You win some and lose some. I guess this means that I'll be able to get all of my work done, though. Yay. 03/03/01 on a dark raging sea... How did you spend your saturday night? I spent mine still working on that same goddamn physics lab. Fuck resistivity, fuck MatLab, motherfuck goddamn fucking linear regressions. I feel better now. Sorry about that. Anyway, today was pretty much the average saturday (except for the fact that I was doing school work): went to the healthfood store, sat around, failed to get together with Ariel, and so on. I did, however, get a microwave for my room. Rock. My mom bought if for me, so that's even better. I was just going to get an electric teapot, but we couldn't find one, so she bought me a microwave instead. I don't mind. Now I don't have to use the nasty one the whole dorm shares for all of my fake food. I did get a good start on one of my other essays, and my goal with it now is to make it so sappy and depressing that my professor with either cry or vomit. I'm just in that kind of mood. np: Low - Things We Lost in the Fire 03/02/01 (...contact) watch you swim by above me... I really don't know why I'm a physics major. I hate it. I don't mean, "oh the work's hard but it's still fun". I mean hate. So there's this lab... Yeah, so this weekend is going to suck. I have a lab due on monday, another one due on tuesday, and essay due on tuesday (7 pages, I still have to do the reading), and another due on wednesday (15 pages, I still have to do the reading). I've been working all day on the monday lab and what do I have to show for it? nothing. Well, a few graphs and a value that's off by a factor of ten. Great. I probably should have started on the other things instead, but it's a bit late now. If I somehow manage to get everything done it time, I'll be amazed. If I don't update this in a while, it's because I tied lead bricks to my shoes and jumped in the Hudson. 02/27/01 *trudge* Essay due thursday. Test thursday. Essay due Wednesday? I hope not. This is my life at the moment. Work work work. The thing is, it's all for the classes I would normally enjoy if I was able to keep my eyes open long enough during the day to do all of the work. Unlike experimental physics, which I'm beginning to hate with a passion, even though I do have fun in the lab. And that's the class that sort of it what being a physics major is all about. Something tells me I've made some bad decisions. But I'm not doing anything rash. I'm just complaining. np: Geoff Farina - Reverse Eclipse 02/25/01 for great justice Ok, so I beat Zero Wing today. Yeah, I know. Wanna know what the ending is? Another wonderful cut scene? Brilliant special effects? No. Dancing eggplants. I beat that impossible game to watch a fucking group of fucking space eggplants. You can't make shit like this up. Also, I had to go back to school yesterday instead of today because of the weather. Which meant that I spend my first saturday at college since more than a year ago. It's just as boring as ever, too. Oh well. 02/22/01 you ran toward the light... Yay I go home tomorrow. This week wasn't that bad, but it wasn't anything special. I pretty much put off all of the work I could be doing for next week, which pretty much insures that next week will suck, but you know what? That's next week. And I do like the way that I'm referring to the week in the past tense on thursday night. I upgraded the memory on my computer today. Easy, quick thing, and it would have been quicker if I didn't have to go buy a screwdriver to put it in. Now I have virtual memory off and still have a bigger block of unused memory than I ever had before. I'm feeling dorky today... "Embrace" on the new Low album is one of those songs that's so beautiful that I dropped what I was doing the first time I heard it. np: Low - Things We Lost in the Fire 02/21/01 hrmph I'm too tired to complain right now. 02/19/01 it's been six days? So, when I got back to school from my four-day weekend, I found something out. Something terrible. I had left a tupperware container that still had some of that weird water that tofu comes packed in sitting out over the whole weekend. A just God wouldn't allow such a smell to exist. Really, it was the most horrible thing to attack my nose in a very long time, and the strangest thing was that it was a new kind of smell. Normal bad smells are similar to other, less severe, smells - like rotten eggs and so on. This was like nothing I had ever encountered in my life. There is no way for me to descibe it since I can't make any comparisons to anything else. You'd have to smell it yourself, and I care about you so I would never want that to happen. But really, I almost puked on my way to dump it in the sink. Ugh. Anyway, the weekend before I got back was significantly better. Zak was back and we did a whole lot of nothing in particular, which is the way I prefer to spend my weekends. I bought Labyrinth on DVD. There is no possible way for a movie not to be great if it contains both David Bowie and muppets. Today I ordered a 256 megabyte upgrade for my computer, which will bring the total up to 320 (I have to take out one of the 64s in there since I only have two slots). There's this certain person I know who also has a powerbook that might want it, but she's hard to get a hold of these days... Also, I have ninja stars now. Don't step. 02/13/01 when. you act. so hopeless... Yeah, I haven't written in my diary in a few days. I've been writing other things - essays, lab reports, you know, fun stuff. Yeah. Anyway, there are a couple of new photographs up. Three, actually. I took three away, too. I'm a jerk like that. Um. Other than that, I think that sums up my life over the past few days pretty well. The only other thing is that I'm finally done buying camera stuff. My last lens is in the mail (24mm, yay). Now if I just had the time to take more pictures... np: Heavenly - P.U.N.K. Girl 02/10/00 I should put myself away... Nick's guide to making a complete idiot out of yourself: 1.) Go to health food store (this doesn't make you seem like an idiot, but is essential for the following chain of events)Ta da! Sometimes it seems like bumbling idiocy is the only thing I'm good at. np: Jonah's Onelinedrawing - Sketchy EP #1 02/09/01 oh how nice! I don't often think that companies rock, but Kingston Technologies rocks. A while back, my digital camera decided that it wanted to go crazy and destroy its memory card, right in the middle of an Ida show. Agfa, who made the camera, said there was nothing wrong with the camera, so they weren't even going to look at it and said that it was probably my fault. Huh. On a whim, I decided to see if Kingston, who made the memory card, might be able to help me out. I gave them a call and they were like "sure, we'll replace the card!" I sent it in, they gave me a new $100 card and sent it FedEx overnight. Damn. And of course, once I felt like such a playa with my Nikon FM2, they release the FM3. Damn... the FM2 has been around since before I was born. I'm not jealous though, auto-exposure is fo suckas anyway. I think I'm going to wander off somewhere this weekend. I don't know where, but I really want to go on a trip. Maybe... 02/08/00 Nick doesn't resist the urge to eat the bathtub Another lazy day for this week. Yesterday I was so lazy that I didn't even update my diary... Anyway, I didn't have class until 6pm today, which was weird. I really don't mind, though. It let me spend some quality time with Breath of Fire III. So, yesterday I joined the photo club at RPI, which is weird, because I've never been much of a joining clubs person. But they a) have a big darkroom, b)are going to MassMoCA next month and c) seem pretty nice. So yeah. Tomorrow I don't have class, then I go home and get my cutie lens which just got modified, and the replacement memory card for my digital camera, maybe see Ariel (if she's not baking a cake) and chill. I've been doing a lot of chilling this week. It's been nice. Too bad that my optics professor had to get really sick and not be able to have class for a week for it to happen... And that reminds me (it's unrelated, except for illness in general) - I had to get a meningitis innoculation yesterday, since a kid at my school caught it. It sucked - the vacciene doesn't start working for 10 days, and I had to sit around for 20 minutes after getting stuck with a needle so they could make sure I didn't die. It wouldn't have been so bad had I known this beforehand, but I didn't go with anyone and I didn't bring anything to read, so it was just me and a chair for 20 minutes. Oy. 02/06/01 hee... Dustin Hoffman Yeah, so still more nothing-happened-whatsoever days at school. I read philosophy stuff and played video games most of the day. I also got in my pre-order for MacOS Ten, since I get a 30 dollar discount for being a beta tester. Tra la la. I only have two more classes this week! Ok, one of them is four hours long and I have to go do a physics lab at some point, but it sounds a lot better when I say I only have two more classes this week. So there. np: Of Montreal - The Early Four Track Recordings 02/04/01 ladeda Not much going on in Nickland today. I'm back at school, mildly bored, a bit tired, but done with my lab and a bunch of reading. So whatever. 02/03/01 it's the bizarre little things sometimes I was at the health-food store today and this oldish hippie-type lady came over and stuck up a conversation. After a while, this exchange occurred: her: are those your teeth?Heehee Anyway, I didn't do anything much for the rest of the day. I spent a lot of money, though. Once I get a 24mm lens, I'm done buying camera things, though. I mean it. I also bought nine rolls of black and white film and got miscellaneous doodads for my new but very old camera that finally came in the mail on friday (I didn't mention it because I had more important things going on). I got 3 rolls of ISO 25 film - yayaya! I'm such a dork... Anyway the new camera - it's so cute! It's about the same size as my other one, but while the FM2n is kind of heavy, the Nikkormat feels like a lead brick - I love it! I bet I could really cause some damage with it... hee np: eric Metronome - the Two-Eared Man (really, I mean it - I'm loving this album as much as I love the new Karate album [they're really different, though]) 02/02/01 ...and while being in your car with the windows fogged, listening to you cry and trying to say something comforting when I know that nothing will work but feeling I should try and convey that I and other people do actually care isn't my favorite thing in the world to do, don't think that there's anything else that I would have wanted to do instead at that moment and never think that I think you're being selfish or that you're alone. We're beyond the point where I could be mad at you, and no matter what happens, how you feel, what you say, where you are, that won't change. 02/01/01 merry un-thursday! Ok, so not much happened today. Still no sign of my camera (rrr), but at least my memory card made it back home and hopefully I'll be getting a replacement soon (or I'll be kicking some ass). Teresa's boyfriend came by, although I haven't seen them much... Anyway, yeah, the rest of today was reading and class, which I won't bore you with - exept in optics today we learned in excruciating detail why the sky is blue. The formula for it (or at least Rayleigh scattering, which is at the heart of it) is comically long. According to this test, I'm a girl. It has the surprising ability to always get your gender wrong. Every other person that I know that has taken it was told they were the opposite gender. heehee - maybe it's intentional? np: eric Metronome - The Two-Eared Man (he is so my hero...) 01/31/00 oohlaalaaooeychachaooohlalachachacha Only one more school day to drag myself through! And hopefully by tomorrow I'll have my second camera body - this time it's a Nikkormat FTN (eBay auction page and huge page all about it). I'm kickin it old-skool with this one, but it works with all my lenses, so it's all good. Plus I like the idea of using a camera that was discontinued 6 years before I was born. And yeah, it works kind of stupid since you can't get quite the right batteries for the meter anymore (they used mercury - oops), but for 66 bucks, I'll deal. Ariel is probably the only one who will get the full meaning of this, but since I don't have class on fridays anymore, thursdays have effectively become fridays and thus: THURSDAY NO LONGER EXISTS! Hooray! 01/30/01 432countdowntoone I win! I win! The system has defeated itself! You see... RPI has this scheduling policy where they make it impossible to schedule your classes to have friday or monday off because they want people staying here on the weekends (God knows why, there's absolutely nothing to do). I now have no classes on fridays. Previously I only had one class on fridays, the lecture for experimental physics, but now that class is going to an all lab format, which means no more lecture, which means three hours less class each week, no class until two on tuesdays, no class until noon on wednesdays and thursdays and a three day weekend every week. yayayayaya! I got my Big Box Full of Records and Tapes and CDs from Twee Kitten today. I've got a lot of listening to do. This brings the things to be reviewed here backlog to 39. Oops. I was so pissed, though - I heard that the crows won the superbowl, I'm not mad because I care but because I prided myself on not even knowing who was playing in it. I'm such a snob... One more long school day tomorrow and then I'll be better. Yeah. 01/29/01 z I really can't keep up with this 8am lab thing. I've taken two naps today and I'm still about to fall asleep (it's 10). At least I finished that last one and the new one looks a heck of a lot easier (I'm actually done with the bit I have to do in the lab, now I just need to do the write-up). I still have to finish the optics lab for tomorrow, but that's a much easier class and I can do the bit I have to do in the morning. Yay. So today was the first time I (Teresa, too) got scolded by the RA for being too loud. It was just Fugazi! I think I'm going to be in the mood for Melt-Banana a lot now... heh heh. 01/28/01 oy Is it a universal rule that when I've finished the write-up for a lab that's due the morning after and it's around midnight that my printer decides to be stupid? It's like fucking clockwork. rr. I've been working on physics all day and I'm grumpy, ok? I'm going to have to take the 10% off from handing the lab in late (I haven't been able to get the second part...), even though I swear I've spent 24 hours on the fucking thing in the past week. I'm swearing too much in this post. Sorry. 01/25/01 the rollercoaster ride.. I swear that I wrote an update today. I mean it. Anyway, everything lately has been a blur so it doesn't really matter. Yesterday, I had a total of ten minutes to relax/eat lunch between the hours of 9:30 and 6, since I was in physics lab or class the rest of the time. It takes its toll... I should actually be doing physics homework right now, as I only have partial solutions to three out of the five problems on it, but you know what? I've spent at least 14 hours on that class already this week, and if that doesn't even allow me to pass, the extra 30 minutes before I pass out right now isn't going to help. I really wish this wasn't the first week where things got into full gear because that means that everything is just going to get harder and I already can't keep up. Or maybe it was just this week. Either way, I'm not looking forward to tomorrow, or at least the beginning of it. Once I leave school I'll be fine again. I have to finish that lab writeup some time, though... In other news, I finally sent in the memory card on my digital camera that has been broken for almost three months. I'm a little slow sometimes... 01/23/01 (why didn't anyone tell me that I was saying 01/.../00 all this month?...) ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow Yeah so it's my birthday. I'm twenty years old today. I wish I wasn't. If I use today as a typical example of what being twenty feels like, it means being really tired and busy. But I have a feeling that that's just today. Yesterday was much better. Mostly. The not so good was that my lab partner in experimental physics left the lab a few hours early. In an ambulance. He's fine. He just fainted, the hospital couldn't figure out what was wrong and they just sent him on his way... Anyway, the better part of yesterday was when Ariel, Zak and Ka-Man picked me up from school and we went to see Kurt Vonnegut (and John Ashbery, who teaches at Bard) get big New York State awards and give lectures/read. It was cute. I think we got the last four seats in the place... I would normally get all reflective on how it changes my life not to be a teenager, but that's actually all bs because I'm still the same person I was yesterday. Which is to say I'm lazy, boring, stupid, but love my friends very much and am glad that at least sometimes they manage to feel the same way. 01/21/01 bank error in your favor... So, what does Nick do when he gets free money? He gets rid of it as soon as possible. Lemme explain... See I had this bank account - it had a bunch of money in it and I sort of forgot about it after I left high school - I checked it again and I got $500 in interest. I have 21 various CDs, cassettes, and records coming in the mail, and a new lens. And most of the free money is still left. Yay! I'm a menace. Of course, the downside of things I found out this weekend is that the other lens I just got that I love to death will eventually destroy my camera if I continue to use it on it. Oops. I can get it modified, though - it's just a matter of finding a place that can do it. Hassles, hassles. 01/19/01 we will always talk this way... Yeah so Frank Black is playing at Valentine's right now and I'm not there. Spoot. It just turned out that if I went I would have to go alone and it's snowing and yucky out and I just preferred to chill at Zak's. So there. In three days, I'm going to be twenty. Eww. 01/16/01 white as Snow Another boring, sleepy day at school. I'm digging the fact that there wasn't a monday this week, since tomorrow is wednesday already. Yay for inane things. On sunday, I bought the Princess Mononoke DVD, but I still haven't gotten a chance to watch it, which is a shame because it's the only movie to ever be both anime and not lame. I wish I could go to a show right now, if only to try out my phatty new lens (that I actually got last week but never mentioned) - super fast 50mm Nikkor guy that opens up to f1.4. Which means that I might be able to take pictures that aren't blurry and have correct colors. What a brave new world... Also, since this is about the only place in the world that has music reviews but no best-of-the-year list, I'll say that the best record of 1878 was "Mary Had A Little Lamb" by Thomas A. Edison, in celebration of how behind I am at writing reviews. 01/15/00 zzz Ok, so I waited to long to write in my diary, so I'm too tired to feel like writing much of anything. I'll just say that getting back to school was a big pain, but other than that I had a nice long weekend. I can deal with a four day week, no problem. Now if only I did the Moral Development assignment that's due tomorrow... I don't have class until 6pm anyway, though. And I like the idea of Steve Jobs swearing at 300 people. I'd like to see Bill Gates try that! 01/13/01 Statue of Liberty Statin Island Ferry Ooooohh Ohhhhhh! Of all the hare-brained... Zak, Kevin and I went on a little adventure today - we decided to go visit Eric in New York City, and off we went. Of course, we neglected to actually tell Eric that we were coming, so of course he wasn't home. So we wandered around for a while and then went back. It was still fun, though and it's not like we had anything else to do... 01/09/01 never disobey the liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight... Hey today wasn't bad. I had some class, found out one of those classes is going to be a LOT of work (4 hours of lecture and 6 in the lab each week), but then just chilled. Luckily my new neighbor is nice and I'm finally living next to someone social... 01/07/01 chronic solution on your t.v. So I'm back at school. It's not so bad. I have a new neighbor, and she seems pretty nice... Anyway, I felt back about neglecting my web page for so long, and decided to write something here, even if I don't have much to say. I guess I usually don't have much to say anyway, but usually if you don't hear from someone in a long time, you expect them to say something important when they contact you again, right? Well, I haven't had anything important to say in a while, so there. 12/29/00 gamblin's a hard life... I didn't do much of all today, but I did an adequate amout of running around. Lots of banking stuff that I won't bore anybody with... So the plan was that I was to pick up Ariel and go to Zak's. When I arrived at her house, she and her mother were in the midst of a card game, but not any card game - this one is an ill-tempered, frenzied, ferocious cousin of soliataire for two people. I forgot it's name but Ariel lost. Oh lordy did she lose. By a lot. (I'm just saying that to bug her =) ). When the game was done she was so exhausted that she went straight to bed and didn't actually come with me to Zak's. Zak and I just chilled. I went home and took a night time pictures of my house. I want to strangle whoever made the cheap shutter release cable I have. It falls apart when it's cold out. Grr... I wasted like 3 exposures on one roll of film because of it. Actually, I don't want to strangle whoever made it because he's probably five. 12/27/00 ...and they won't know where I've gone I trust everyone's holidays were nice? Yay for my presents! Now I can scan the pictures I take with my FM2N. Yippie So today I did lots of movie watching. First I went over to Ariel's and she, Zak and I watched the Virgin Suicides and later on, Zak, his dad, Matt and I watched Dolemite. I've had my fill of tan sets today. 12/23/00 you're invited... rah holidays with the fambly. I'm sitting in a chair with my camera stuff at my feet and my computer on my lap, trying to drown out the sounds of televised football. I got bored not too long ago and took pictures of the stars at night. It's cold up in here. It's hard enough taking pictures at night on a tripod pointed almost vertically - you have to kneel down in an awkward position to see through the viewfinder, you have to set the aperature and exposure without seeing what's on the dials, and since you're doing an open shutter exposure, you have to use a shutter release cable which is annoying to hook up when you can't see where it screws in. Then add the fact that it's minus a billion degrees out and you can't feel your fingers. But it's fun! Anyway, this kinda sucks but it's a tradition. I always go up to my dad's before Chrissymas because me and my brother get our dad-family gifts on Chrissymas (annoying you, am I?) Eve and then go back to our mom's for normal holidayness. But now there are things that I need to know people I need to talk to so that I feel bad about not being home. Actually I don't think anything would be happening today anyway, but the separation make me worry, you know? There's a phone here, anyway I guess. The older entries are here... |
