why I love you (one of so many reasons)

(here's the link, by the way.)

Summer To-Do {1-10}

1) Make an anklet...if I can find the embroidery thread bracelet pattern book.

2) Get a membership to the rock gym and go climbing so I might start to be good at it.

3) Actually read the things I subscribe to via Google Reader.

4) Watch some movies on the list my friends compiled for me.

5) Fix my sleep schedule.

6) Get better at foosball...haha

7) Get my photography website designed, populated, and running.

8) Clean my laptop's fan out. This probably requires removal of the keyboard, but I don't care, because it's dying.

9) Write something.

10) Email companies I would like to work for next year; ask them what I have to do between now and then to be good enough.

thoughtstream 1

I have such conflicting interests. My body needs sleep (really, really badly..) but my mind doesn't want to give up on this day yet; I haven't accomplished enough to pass that line at which I can go to sleep satisfied with what I did (though when do I ever reach that point anyway?).

The 320 (algorithms) exam was seriously my worst exam experience ever. I never felt so helpless looking at problems before. To not be able to even start, or formulate like half an idea, felt pathetic. I gave up mentally way before I ran out of time. The few others I've talked to came out with similarly bad feelings on it, but I doubt any of them left as much blank as I did. I should try to get 100s on everything from now on in that class. (But is that even possible?)

I think part of my reluctance to work might be that I sit at my desk for so much time that I'm actually just sick of being in this spot. In one of Ted's tweets he said he was going to work in the rooftop lounge. I'm thinking I should try working there, or in Starbucks, or even in the library (which would be a first for me). I think of "The Publick Cup" - the coffee shop by the Yale campus where Rebecca and I spent the afternoon on the Saturday of the Yale/Brown band roadtrip. The atmosphere put me in the most pleasant mood the whole time. I also think daylight helps.. So maybe I will try working in Starbucks (in Commons, or the 34th/Walnut one might be a good change as well; I love the upstairs part) or the rooftop lounge. Anything to help my work efficiency and focus is a good thing...

Dance:
This time there were more than twice as many girls as guys, but actually it turned out to be alright. I'm really starting to like that one guy who's usually there; he's really friendly and easy to joke around with when we're both not quite sure we're doing it right. He definitely helped make the lesson fun for me tonight. I wish I knew his name. Also, the instructor was one I hadn't met before - Gene - and...eh, he seemed to focus a little less on form and more on teaching us steps than Christy or Wendi. I liked the traveling step we did in waltz, and I'm happy we did some tango, since I'm out of practice with it. That gaucho move was hilarious, but I'm thinking someday instead of laughing at its initially-seeming awkwardness, I'm going to really enjoy it. Also:
1) I danced with Aaron for the last tango sequence and of course, still felt a bit awkward sometimes. ugh.
2) I want ballroom heels. They would be good practice I'm sure, and if I compete (?...!) I'm sure I'd need a pair anyway. Unfortunately,
3) Those shoes would make me even taller. They'd probably make me taller than a few more of the guys. Sometimes I wish I was a cute short height.
4) As usual, Colin was oh-so-nicely dressed. If I remember right, tonight was an argyle sweater vest. Seriously, he has such style. I want to do something like take a picture of him and send it in to a fashion blog.

I walked the five blocks back after dance quite slowly while listening to one of the songs on Kenny G's Rhythm & Romance album - I think it was the [kind of] title track. Somehow, the music was perfect for Locust Walk in the night. It wasn't too cold out, so I kind of made it into a nice stroll. When I got back, I was tired enough that I didn't think I could really do work, and all I wanted was cuddling and a movie. Neither of those were fulfilled, and I didn't do anything, just spent some time sitting and feeling sad. There's a lot of comfort in physical closeness to another human being, I think, and that's probably why I want it so much when I'm tired like this. ... I have to thank David though, who noticed from my Pidgin status that I seemed kind of down and invited me to hang out if I wanted. :)

Running into Dan while I was with Tatini at Commons made me think again that we (Tatini and whoever included, if they want) really need to hang out more. I hardly get to talk to Dan - maybe just at the beginning of 320 since a bunch of us are usually there a little early. I feel a little like I could be losing him, which is quite sad.

I am eating too many scones and muffins and other such things and substituting them for actual meals. I doubt this is good. I also want to eat at all random times these days. Damnit, I don't want to add to my stomach.

Phillip wasn't at either of the team lessons this week, so I texted him saying "where've you been" and now he thinks "someone has been missing me a lot". Uhh, or that's just what he wants to think. I missed him a little though.

While I was trying get my thinking going and produce anything of value on the 320 exam today, I realized I had a compilation of songs from my Pandora station going through my head constantly. I guess I'm listening to it too much. Maybe it's more distracting than I think, as well, but it would feel so empty for me to try to do homework in silence.

How do you become friends with someone? Usually I don't even think about this because it happens by itself. It also seems to purposefully not-happen all by itself just as naturally. I want to break that pattern, but I'd have to be not so shy as I have been, to do that.

Xav is so cute. I was heading out of the lobby and he was just coming in, so he jumps over in front of me to catch my attention and gives me a hug. :) (I think I would like the friendliness that seems to be more of a social norm in Europe. Or at least that's my uneducated perception of it.) I was telling him a bit about how I joined team and what the team lessons are like, and I feel bad that every couple of sentences I have to say "hmm?" because I didn't catch what he said, with his French accent. Anyway he doesn't seem to mind. I definitely need to figure out when we can go to Chris's again, because he even asked me on a Facebook comment and it's just too adorable of a night to pass up.

I want to go shopping - clothes, shoes, earrings. It's girly of me, I know, but I embrace that.

I think I might read (for fun, not school) before I go to sleep...it's relaxing.

resolutions and goals for the year

I was planning on making this list kind of before the semester started (lol) but unsurprisingly I didn't get around to it O:-) . Nonetheless, by writing it towards the end of the first month of the semester allows me to see how I'm doing so far. Overall I'd say I'm definitely accomplishing some things, but failing on others, haha..

• be more organized with email (as in...try to read it when it arrives, put events on calendar right away, respond in a more timely fashion, and delete more things that I probably don't need)
• reduce dependence on dining plan and cook more
• actually go to the gym???? (I haven't gone once, all the time I've attended Penn)...or at least play some DDR...
• perform at a Third Thursday (composing would be even cooler, but definitely more difficult)
• sleep [more] (this is really important and so far I am doing badly. I should ask people to remind me to go to bed or something.)
• respond to people on facebook in a reasonable amount of time lest they start wondering if I hate them
• danceeeee :D
• balance work with hanging out/fun stuff
• do some art (I really want to improve, as I feel it is my lacking side in DMD)
• program things I want to, not for any class
• talk, hang out, keep in touch with people
• and meet new people :)
• do something crazy enough to tell Matt about (..??)
• keep in touch with family (especially brothers) more
• take more pictures!
• keep desk a little messy (as opposed to very messy, haha, it feels too pristine if there are no papers on it or anything)
• play clarinet with choir at Mass
• stay on top of work/studying ... ...
• make my seas website. I mean really. haha.
• get a cool internship/job for the summer.. (don't know what, though)
• watch a little bit of tv :)
• expand musical tastes even further

yup. Plenty to work on!

geek-out moment :D

i'm up at 4:42am and for once it's not just because of facebook or other things (seriously i don't even know what i'm doing when i stay up late on the computer...). for my linux class the first thing we have to do is get access to linux somehow, either eniac or install on our own computers. well it'd be even more awesome if i could repartition my hard drive and actually install linux, but i think i'll save that for later. (i did actually spend a bunch of hours one time researching this possibility but was a bit nervous about actually doing such things to my hard drive.) so instead i'm using virtualbox to run a virtual machine on my laptop and install ubuntu on it. so basically i dl'd ubuntu as an iso image and mounted it into the virtual machine's cd-rom drive, then "installed" linux to a virtual hard drive on my machine (the "host" machine..gotta have my terminology down :P ). while it was installing i even did some online banking, downloaded music (REO Speedwagon... John mentioned some lyrics to me and I listened to one song on playlist.com and decided to download some and check it out), and started renewing my ruckus licenses. woot for multitasking!

after it finished installing, i mounted the iso for the "guest additions" thing from virtual box (which adds a bunch of ease-of-use features, like increased virtual box screen resolution and options for "capturing" the mouse on the guest vs. the host) and ran my first ever linux installation via commands in the terminal!!! i wish i'd taken a screenshot, however.... i did save it as a text file (gedit is the text editor) ANDDD since i have the guest additions installed, i can now copy and paste to and from the guest and host!! so here it is!!

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo ".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

tory@tory-vmlinux:~$ ls
Desktop  Documents  Examples  Music  Pictures  Public  Templates  Videos
tory@tory-vmlinux:~$ cd ..
tory@tory-vmlinux:/home$ cd ..
tory@tory-vmlinux:/$ ls
bin   cdrom  etc   initrd      lib         media  opt   root  srv  tmp  var
boot  dev    home  initrd.img  lost+found  mnt    proc  sbin  sys  usr  vmlinuz
tory@tory-vmlinux:/$ cdrom
bash: cdrom: command not found
tory@tory-vmlinux:/$ cd cdrom
tory@tory-vmlinux:/cdrom$ sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run
[sudo] password for tory:
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox 2.0.2 Guest Additions for Linux installation............
.................................................................................
.................................................................................
...........
VirtualBox 2.0.2 Guest Additions installation
Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel module...
Building the shared folder support kernel module...
Installing the VirtualBox Guest Additions...

Successfully installed the VirtualBox Guest Additions.
You must restart your guest system in order to complete the installation.
tory@tory-vmlinux:/cdrom$

...THIS IS SO COOL!!!

Freshman year at Penn ... v.3

This (and similar future posts) are inspired by a Facebook note written by Keelan... hope he doesn't mind me stealing the idea :)

The following is a list of things that happened in my freshman year of college, in a fairly random order, as I think of them:

• first roommate I met - running into Erica in the Rodin lobby when I was checking in
• my dad helping Tatini and her parents install her mirror on her room door
• wearing my beach towel to the NSO toga party
• "sketchy toga party guys" and Jen (me), Lee (Simone), Natasha (Tatini), Monica Sanchez (Marcela) and...crap what was Ben's ?? [thanks to Simone for remembering Marcela's code name haha]
  
• fire drills at 4am and 7am, everyone trudging out to the stairway in pajamas
• the wind tunnel
• baking Nick's bday cake (buying stuff at Fresh Grocer, borrowing the heart-shaped pan, spelling the words on it with Cheerios)
• running from DDF to wind ensemble (only a half hour in between) on Thursday nights
• slipping on Locust Walk in the rain in my clogs and flip flops
• keeping the list of funny quotes ("Penn Quotes")
• discovering when I first arrived at Penn that I'd been missing out on Facebook (because EVERYBODY was talking about it), and hence getting it immediately when I set up my computer haha
• listening to Mae all the time on purevolume.com (before Ruckus)
  
• had a crush on a guy I'd started talking to over the summer; decided later on that it was probably superficial O:-)
• freaking out in my first CSE110 recitation because the TA TOTALLY confused me when he tried to explain something like x = x + 5 in Java, telling Eric Fisher about it, and ending up switching into his recitation
• getting breakfast at Commons with Dan every Thursday morning (because I had class from 9:30 to 1:30 I think?), then walking to our math104 recitation
• learning what spooning is, and discovering I'd already done it haha
• getting hot chocolate with Rebecca after band field rehearsals on our way back to the high rises...
• ...and eventually transferring to mochas, then lattes, and declaring myself a Starbucks coffee person (after years of thinking I don't like coffee!)
• falling asleep ALL THE TIME in the first row in music theory!
• eating chocolate covered espresso beans and absolutely cracking up over whatever with Rebecca instead of studying for something
• first time I ever slept in the same bed with a guy
• exchanging "stories" all the time online with Henri
• room switching in Rodin 108 halfway through the year
• over spring break, a 260 problem defeated both me and my dad for hours one night; then as I was falling asleep I figured it out, and later led Dan through the steps to figure it out :)
• doing math104 homework with Dan during his ITA lab hours on Wednesday nights (the night before it was due in recitation, of course)
• spending hours playing Stepmania with Evan one night instead of doing our homework (my first time playing it, and hence the beginning of my addiction haha)
• shopping for Freshman Formal attire at King of Prussia with Erica, Tatini, and John (and the craziness of the buses to get there and back!)
• going to Chris's Jazz Cafe with Rebecca (for my jazz history class) and with my jazz writing seminar class
• after playing Sweet Child o' Mine all the time in Penn Band, I finally listened to the real song and liked it so much that I listened to it over and over till Erica came in and asked me what was going on! haha
• eating dinner at Commons with everyone: Erica, Tatini, and Simone; Matt (our GA); sometimes Ben and Chris from across the hall
• when the washing machine left my clothes soaking wet so that after 2 runs through the dryer, they still had to be hung up on the clothes rack for awhile to dry
• late-night bus trip with John to the art store Pearl on South Street cuz I needed gray paper last minute for drawing class
• Keelan wearing someone's high heels at the Penn Band Semiformal (hilarious!!)
• staying up till about 5:15am finishing my jazz history final paper on Praful (latest I'd stayed up up to that point, I think)
  
• Rodin ski trip to Camelback with John: discovering maybe I'm only good enough to ski double green circles (apparently those Montage black diamonds were nothing much, haha), falling once and losing a ski, falling again via crashing into someone and getting impressive bruises on both knees, getting run over by a lift (hahaha), the bus breaking down (or did it hit another vehicle?) when we were almost back... good times :D
• discovering that rainboots are fashionable (never would have guessed!)
• fell madly in "like" just after it was too late (as usual), spent a couple months or so pining away reading over saved online conversations and listening to supposedly emo music, finally got angry enough to let go, and slowly redeveloped a friendship
• experienced my first kiss
• nudged two friends into converting to DMD (my major)
• savored the glory of having only one class on Fridays (first semester), and the icing on the cake: it was not till 1pm!
• played Outdoor Overture AGAIN - after having the solo part in high school concert band, I found out what the third part is like thanks to the wind ensemble...
• came home for fall break and visited my high school marching band, where I was smothered by hugs from my clarinets - it felt so amazing :)
• carved the beginning of my downhill curve in calculus: math 104 was okay, but math 114 started getting harder... (maybe it was the professor's approach to teaching, but still.) I started thinking maybe I don't like math so much anymore?
  
• confused my shoulder for my elbow one day in said math 114 class (hahahahha Grace...)
• began experiencing the great ups and downs of being in a relationship
• wrote perhaps the most inefficient program I've written so far in my life: every time I wanted to write a line to a file, I opened/closed a FileWriter. Let me tell you, it was SLOW. And absolutely hilarious - after I figured out what was going on, hahaha.
• woke up 15 minutes before my jazz history class, put on the first clothes I found, walked as fast as I could to Fisher Bennett, and climbed 4 flights of stairs to get to the room - and still arrived while people were moseying on in with their coffee/breakfast
• got caught in pouring rain after a band field rehearsal... walked back to Platt with Jenn and Keelan and got drenched since my umbrella was back in Platt, then had to stand dripping in the lobby while my forgotten Penn Card was fetched for me from downstairs. Returned to my room and hung up my pants to dry for like 3 days lol.
• sat between Dan and Evan while the two of them doodled and wrote little notes back and forth on my 260 notebook - so much for paying attention in class that day, hahaha
• making the "ADD in DMD" Facebook group with Michelle...during DDF...haha
• watching Nirav and Luke play guitar just inside the quad entrance till like 3am
  
• ..more to come?