The End of Uncertainty

So, it seems my last post was back in January.  I believe that means it is time for an update (okay, several updates).

• The proofs for my first published article have been reviewed and submitted.  So in a few months, I think, I will be a published author in a mathematical journal.
• My talk about that paper and a slight extension was accepted for the conference I am attending in Italy at the end of June.  However, I still have to cut 15 minutes of it out.
• My advisor and I submitted my second paper a couple of weeks ago.  We'll probably find out about it by the end of the year.
• My dissertation prospectus has been approved.  I am planning to defend in March.  Fortunately, I pretty much have over half of it written.
• I will in the next few weeks be getting a new computer.  I think it is time to retire, with full honors, the Gateway after nearly nine years.

But none of the above items even comes close to the biggest news in my life right now--I may be on the verge of no longer being single.  (A couple of you already know about this, and can skim this part of the post.)  She's a fellow applied math graduate student at Maryland, and, well, I'll refrain from gushing too much.  I have gotten farther in dating her than I have in dating anyone else since, well, since I had a girlfriend.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have attended a game night and potluck dinner with her, spent lots of time on campus talking, attended one of her choral concerts, had dinner with her out in Silver Spring, ate a lunch she made and brought to campus, and Saturday spent the day touring EU embassies with her and her roommate.  And today, we spent about 90 minutes to two hours just talking.  So, I am more than slightly optimistic. 

Yet, there is still uncertainty.  We will be going to lunch together sometime this week.  I'm not sure, but I think I may have THE talk with her then.  Hopefully, I can judge if it is a good idea.  But I have to do something; the uncertainty has started killing my mathematical productivity.  And while my advisor would almost certainly understand, I can't tell her why.  (Unless I want my life to get VERY interesting.)

So, yeah, expect a mood extreme from me in the next week or so.  I'm not sure which way it will go, but I am hopeful.  Wish me luck, because I am going to need it when I check Schrödinger's cat.

2011: A Look Back

Yes, I know it has been a while since my last post.  Granted, the only major event in my life that has been missed in that time was the trip to San Diego for a conference.  Now, in what has become an annual tradition, I give you a recap of my 2011.

1. At the beginning of the year, I officially advanced to candidacy.  Thus, my time at the university is spent on my research, with no more classes to take.
2. I served as a teaching assistant for what will probably be the last time as a graduate student.  Luckily, I did get a nice letter of recommendation for my file when I covered two sections at a time for four hours at the end of April.
3. The dateless streak fell on the Ides of March.  Granted, it hasn't led to anything lasting, but it is a step in the right direction.  And it absolves me from any forced blind dates as a agreed to at the beginning of the year.
4. The move occurred.  And after three years of living alone, I'm liking having a roommate.
5. I attended my first professional conferences this fall.  One was in Pittsburgh, the other in San Diego, marking the first time I have seen the Pacific Ocean and the farthest west I have been in my life.  It was also in the San Diego where I found out that I am my advisor's first doctoral student.
6. My first mathematical paper, co-written by my advisor, was submitted and accepted this December.  So in a few months, I officially will be published.
7. I was elected to another two-year term on my church council, despite having warned them that I am not sure where I'll be in eighteen months or so.  Oh well, I gave them an out.

Thus, 2011 was a very good year professionally, and not half-bad personally.  Here's hoping the trend continues.

Next post: A non-political look ahead to 2012.  (There will be plenty of opportunities for politics next year, I think.)

Standards (EC-10)

No, this is not a post about definitions for units of measurement.  Instead, it deals with a more personal issue in my life.  As you can probably guess with the lack of updates on the front, my dating life lately has been nonexistent.  OKCupid has been dry lately.  As such, I'm beginning to wonder a couple of things.  First, are my standards too high?  In a nutshell, they are

• Straight, single, non-smoking female
• Not on drugs
• Reasonably well-educated (i.e., college degree)
• Christian (just to clear up any confusion, Catholics count as Christian)
• Be willing to consider waiting until marriage (I'm not sure that this will happen, but I do want the option open to me.)
• Live nearby (within 25 or so miles)

N.B.: I consider dating a means to an end, the end being finding someone I would marry.  Hence some of the standards.

The other thing I've been wondering about lately is if it is in the cards for me to actually marry someone.  I know it is probably premature for me to be thinking such thoughts (I am only 26, after all), but it has been almost five and a half years of being single now.  It is getting very, very old.  It also doesn't help that I know of three couples getting married next year, and another one who just got engaged.  So, yeah, that explains the emo post.  Hey, it has been ten months since the last EC-10 post (yes, I went back and checked).  But I needed to write it down/verbalize it at some point.

In happier news, research is coming along well.  I give a talk next week, and will likely have two papers submitted in the next couple of months.  At least that part of my life is coming along.

Also, since I haven't had to preach a sermon in a while, but have had some good sermon ideas pop into my mind, I am thinking of starting a second blog for that.  I would probably also want others who are interested in writing their own Christian sermons/homilies/musings to join in as well (you know who you are).  I still want to think about this for a bit though, especially about the details, but if you are interested, let me know.

Okay, that's enough for this post (and hopefully this insomnia, as you can tell from the time-stamp).  I think I need to update a bit more frequently so that I'm not writing a mini-dissertation for each post.

Year Number Four

My fourth, and probably second-to-last, year as a graduate student has begun.  Hopefully the earthquake and hurricane from the previous week aren't omens of things to come.  I don't get to teach this year, mainly so that I can focus on my research and go to conferences like the one in Pittsburgh in October and possibly one in San Diego in mid-November.  If I go to the San Diego conference, I may get to visit my aunt and uncle in Albuquerque on the way back.

Anyway, since it apparently has been about a month and a half since I last updated this thing, I guess a status report is in order.

• The move is completed, as many of you have seen.  I also finally got the move-out voucher from Graduate Hills last week, so that lease is ended with no damage charges.  Looks like those pictures I took weren't needed after all.
• On the subject of pictures: during the cleaning for the move, my cell phone fell into a bucket of water.  Fortunately, after a night of drying out, it worked the next day, but since two years had elapsed since I got it, I was able to replace it just in case.  Thus, I now have a cell phone with a camera, QWERTY keyboard (the one without was more expensive for some reason), and Internet capabilities.  This last feature came in handy for
• Hurricane Irene.  We lost power here for about 24 hours, but I still got to check email.  And I still am adjusting to having water without electricity.
• I have had another date since the last post, but nothing is going to come of it.
• I have watched Frederick County politics devolve into corruption that even the DC government would shake its head about.  The county commissioners are now proposing that instead of county inspectors, developers would hire their own inspectors to inspect new buildings.  Yeah, that's not a conflict of interest at all.  Maybe the General Assembly will consider legislation allowing for recalls of county commissions in the next session.
• And time to rant about CNN: CNN.com recently had a poll asking people if they believed the US is in a recession.  By the definition, the country is not.  However, about 80% of people think it is.  Guess what, CNN--it doesn't matter that the majority of people think we are in a recession.  If the economic conditions do not meet the requirements of the definition, we are not in one.  So I guess that means 80% of the respondents to the poll question do not know what they are talking about.  Of course, a better question to ask would be "Do you think the United States will soon be in a recession?"  That to me is a reasonable question to ask as a poll question.  Chalk it up to another case of the "news" media screwing up our political system.  Okay, rant over.

So, that is my life over the past month or so in a nutshell.  Not very exciting, but productive.

FNP for Vendetta?

Either the Frederick News-Post has massively incompetent editors, or it has a vendetta against Frederick County Public Schools (or possibly a combination of the two).

Over the past few years, the paper of record in Frederick has published stories that because they lack all the facts, seem to make FCPS look bad (the story about FCPS saying it wouldn't do immigration checks comes to mind).  However, today's paper (since corrected on the webpage), ran a headline saying the school board approved a decision that was actually voted on by the county commissioners.  The decision essentially gives the developers in the county the right to develop anywhere even if there are not adequate public facilities like roads and schools by paying a mitigation fee.  Unfortunately, paying fees does not guarantee that the infrastructure will be upgraded.  Knowing this board of commissioners, the money will probably go to more short-sighted privatization studies.  Even though a few weeks ago the BOE voted unanimously to oppose this policy, the editor put the wrong board in the headline.  Either this is a subconscious response to the institutional bias against the public schools at the FNP, or is the height of incompetence for the editor.  Either way, I would hope the editor (a term I can only use loosely at this point) suffers at least a suspension with pay.  I'm not too sure this isn't a firing offense.  Imagine, sending out 40,000 newspapers with the wrong headline.  On the bright side, I think I have a nice scenario for a word problem at the Frederick County Academic Tournament next winter.

So, yeah, I can't say that I miss living in Frederick County right now.

Godspeed, Atlantis

Today for the last time, an American space shuttle took off for orbit.  In about twelve days, Atlantis will land, bringing a close to the shuttle program.  Good luck to the astronauts, and all those involved with the program.  Now, for a few thoughts:

• When I went to sleep last night, there was only a 30% chance of the weather cooperating with the launch.  Looks like things turned out well on that front (no pun intended).
• The launch pad almost didn't let the launch happen.  At T minus 31 seconds, control reported a failure.  The "beanie cap" for the liquid fuel tank had not fully retracted.  However, a quick check on the cameras showed it had retracted enough, and the countdown resumed.
• The major networks (ABC, Fox, CBS, NBC) cut it close when breaking in for the launch.  I think ABC cut in about a minute before the scheduled launch at 11:26.  For crying out loud, this was the LAST ONE!  Couldn't they have cut in around 11:15 at the latest?
• President Obama also cut things close with his address on the jobs report.  I'm sure people will complain about not waiting until the shuttle launched.

In more personal news, I have signed the lease at the new place, set up the accounts for electric and gas, set a date for discontinuation of service for my cable account, and given my 30 days notice here.  Next week, I will be moving things over each day.  So if anyone has any free time and wants to help...

Also, I found out I'm getting an extra thousand dollars this summer.  Yay for advisors' research grants.  However, I do have to have a first draft of my paper ready by next Friday.  At least I'm a third of the way there.

And So Begins the Summer

According to any of the calendars in my apartment, we have passed the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere.  And I am beginning to realize just how much I have to do this summer.

1. Finish the calculations for my research project and write the paper.  This will also count as chapter one of ?? of my dissertation.
2. Move.  The paperwork allowing me to move in with Jon should be completed tomorrow.  I will almost immediately begin moving stuff into the new place, with the large stuff hopefully being moved around July 9th.  If it weren't for the bed and dresser, I might have been able to get away without renting a U-Haul.  So, who wants to help me move?  (The official call for volunteers will come later.)  The move will require a lot of change of address notifications, and will allow to (finally) get a passport (no sense in getting one with an old address right now).
3. Plan and help lead the orientation for the incoming first-year math graduate students.
4. Maybe help my sister move on July 23rd.  (I've helped her move before and she has never helped me, so I'll have to see.  My mom isn't exactly pushing hard for me to help.)

So, yeah, a good deal of things to do this summer.  At least it looks like I don't have to preach in the next few months.

Oh, yeah, I need to make sure I'm free on July 8th, the scheduled day for the last ever space shuttle launch.  Definitely want to watch that one.