Ahhh Cambridge!
I really ought to get out more, and I need to eat more, but those are both under control, I think. This weekend is full of magical plans of lunching and skirt-shopping and bookstores.
Mmyep. There is also the minor bit of gender-role angst that occurred after I realized some of the things I really like genuinely fall into the sadistic, somewhat-beyond-norms category, which is, like, whoa! role reversal!
It's been noted to me -- and it's interesting to think on it -- that coming out as a sadist or top is considerably less socially acceptable than coming out as a submissive, for relatively straightforward reasons, I suppose. I realize it might be TMI, but I think explaining what I enjoy about it is relevant and important.
I like inflicting pleasure, and with my second gf, who was a masochist, "inflicting" was definitely the right word. Drawing out extended pleasure, dancing along the edge of orgasm for as long as possible, is gorgeous, and I loved seeing the desperation and pleasure in her face.
I feel totally, ethically comfortable with that last paragraph. I'm not qualified to describe what most sadists feel -- I haven't asked one, or researched it, or anything really considered it -- but that described something I feel, and it falls into that general category.
I'm not entirely sure what category I fall into anymore, and I'm pretty sure that my identifying as a sub simply became a self-fulfilling statement, and I'm not sure how much of it was actually me. Mrrrrrr.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
oh dear
Penultimate day at the U of C before the summer.
Last night was the last day of the BJ dining hall -- it's getting wrecked to merge it with the dorm next door or something. Breckinridge (my dorm, if I haven't mentioned this) has a very strong culture, and a well-deserved reputation for loudness, rudeness, excitement, etcetera. We wanted to send the dining hall out in true Breck fashion.
We wrote a Brecklamation thanking BJ for being loyal subjects of the Breckimpire, expressing our regret at the necessity of moving our capital (Breckital?), and our desire to continue our tradition of ruling with iron fist and iron heel. We passed out copies of this over all the dining hall tables.
Salisbury House's table is immediately next to ours, and we frequently occupy it when we run out of space at our table (our house is considerably larger than most BJ houses, among other things...) While extolling the virtues of BJ, we listed each of the houses -- e.g. "snow-capped mountains of Mathews" -- and specifically excluded Salisbury, as they're simply part of our capital now.
Within a very short period of time, the Head of Housing expressed great amusement at our Brecklamation, and specifically asked that it be read out loud to the entire hall. (We had already planned that, of course.) Next, a Salisbury RA asked one of our RHs if we had specifically excluded Salisbury from the list. She told the RA that he'd have to ask the people who wrote it. (Reportedly, he turned around to the Head of Housing and said, "Yeah, it was intentional.")
We all got dressed up and brought tablecloths, bubbles, balloons, wavy things, et cetera.
Finally, we brought a set of speakers and treated BJ to a music and eventually dance party. We started out with something classical, and gradually deteriorated, moving through "It's Raining Men" to "I Touch Myself." (At several points, for excellent songs, we got up and danced or sang along, particularly for "Don't Stop Believing.")
The whole thing lasted over 3 hours. It was pretty much the best party evar.
And then there was drunken Star Wars, and brownies. It was pretty fucking sweet.
In other news:
The fact that my relationship is going long-term in, like, the second week is pretty much teh suck. We've been spending a fair bit of time together, given that it's exam week and we both really need to pack.
Not coming up with anything deep right now, will update later.
Last night was the last day of the BJ dining hall -- it's getting wrecked to merge it with the dorm next door or something. Breckinridge (my dorm, if I haven't mentioned this) has a very strong culture, and a well-deserved reputation for loudness, rudeness, excitement, etcetera. We wanted to send the dining hall out in true Breck fashion.
We wrote a Brecklamation thanking BJ for being loyal subjects of the Breckimpire, expressing our regret at the necessity of moving our capital (Breckital?), and our desire to continue our tradition of ruling with iron fist and iron heel. We passed out copies of this over all the dining hall tables.
Salisbury House's table is immediately next to ours, and we frequently occupy it when we run out of space at our table (our house is considerably larger than most BJ houses, among other things...) While extolling the virtues of BJ, we listed each of the houses -- e.g. "snow-capped mountains of Mathews" -- and specifically excluded Salisbury, as they're simply part of our capital now.
Within a very short period of time, the Head of Housing expressed great amusement at our Brecklamation, and specifically asked that it be read out loud to the entire hall. (We had already planned that, of course.) Next, a Salisbury RA asked one of our RHs if we had specifically excluded Salisbury from the list. She told the RA that he'd have to ask the people who wrote it. (Reportedly, he turned around to the Head of Housing and said, "Yeah, it was intentional.")
We all got dressed up and brought tablecloths, bubbles, balloons, wavy things, et cetera.
Finally, we brought a set of speakers and treated BJ to a music and eventually dance party. We started out with something classical, and gradually deteriorated, moving through "It's Raining Men" to "I Touch Myself." (At several points, for excellent songs, we got up and danced or sang along, particularly for "Don't Stop Believing.")
The whole thing lasted over 3 hours. It was pretty much the best party evar.
And then there was drunken Star Wars, and brownies. It was pretty fucking sweet.
In other news:
The fact that my relationship is going long-term in, like, the second week is pretty much teh suck. We've been spending a fair bit of time together, given that it's exam week and we both really need to pack.
Not coming up with anything deep right now, will update later.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Wooooo excellent day
Lovely day, excellent date, contra, snuggles.
Except that we had perhaps the single worst caller it has ever been my displeasure to dance to. After running out of ideas for n00b-friendly dances, he simply called lame dances. Too many mixers, too many squares, and basically, just undiluted lamesauce.
There was, however, much snuggles afterwards.
Interesting point: The Shoreland is very, very different from Breck. Breck has a very strong lounge culture: anyone who's just hanging around is doing it in the lounge. Moreover, people drink perhaps two nights a week. Maybe.
Shoreland does have a kitchen and a bathroom in each suite, though.
Will elaborate in the morning maybe.
**elaboration**
Oh dear, I am very tired and sore and have two papers to write. Dancing barefoot very much for the lose, but the heel of my left shoe has been damaged and moderately sharp plastic is sticking out, and that's not pleasant, so I danced barefoot and got pwned for it.
I need to go get work done. I think I'm going to take a half-hour nap, because I feel like I'll be more productive afterwards.
Except that we had perhaps the single worst caller it has ever been my displeasure to dance to. After running out of ideas for n00b-friendly dances, he simply called lame dances. Too many mixers, too many squares, and basically, just undiluted lamesauce.
There was, however, much snuggles afterwards.
Interesting point: The Shoreland is very, very different from Breck. Breck has a very strong lounge culture: anyone who's just hanging around is doing it in the lounge. Moreover, people drink perhaps two nights a week. Maybe.
Shoreland does have a kitchen and a bathroom in each suite, though.
Will elaborate in the morning maybe.
**elaboration**
Oh dear, I am very tired and sore and have two papers to write. Dancing barefoot very much for the lose, but the heel of my left shoe has been damaged and moderately sharp plastic is sticking out, and that's not pleasant, so I danced barefoot and got pwned for it.
I need to go get work done. I think I'm going to take a half-hour nap, because I feel like I'll be more productive afterwards.
Friday, June 5, 2009
a capella smexy
Last night we went to a fucking amazing a capella concert, yo!
Mkay. Highlights include:
Anyway, we went, there were lulz, and snuggles. Woooooo!
Oh dear, so the last contra of the academic year is on Saturday, and I have a list of six people I really want to dance with, and four I absolutely must dance with. (Three of those last are graduating, and one I am dating. There's one more who I must dance with if she comes...mrrrrr.) I'm probably going to end up writing down the whole list and scheduling myself several dances deep. Ahhhhhh!
(I'm totally going to need to count dances done for the lesson.)
Mkay. Highlights include:
- An all-male a capella group singing I Kissed A Girl. Hifuckinglarious.
- I adore Rhythm & Jews, seriously. Of the five girls, one is one of my best friends, one is a good friend, and one is very nearly my fave dance partner evar. (The last was wearing absolutely obscenely painful heels. I saw them. Owowowowowow. And she had to jump in them. Her expression as she landed still makes me cringe in empathy.)
- R&J has a hilarious sense of humor, and it shows, hehehehehe. ("A message from our sponsors," they say, and launch into a brief song-and-dance for Manischewitz matzah.) Lots of other lulz, too...
Anyway, we went, there were lulz, and snuggles. Woooooo!
Oh dear, so the last contra of the academic year is on Saturday, and I have a list of six people I really want to dance with, and four I absolutely must dance with. (Three of those last are graduating, and one I am dating. There's one more who I must dance with if she comes...mrrrrr.) I'm probably going to end up writing down the whole list and scheduling myself several dances deep. Ahhhhhh!
(I'm totally going to need to count dances done for the lesson.)
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Mathematical beauty and assorted updates
Wooo!
So, gf and I are going to Rhythm & Jews tonight, to a 57th Street art thingy on Saturday, and then later that night to contra. Wooooooooo
Last night I went to see The Last 90 Minutes in the Life of Nikola Tesla at UT, which was absolutely outstandingawesomelulzy. (For your amusement: There were five Teslas. Two, including the most prominent one, were played by females.) It was entertaining, thoughtful, and well-executed, though there were a few occasional points at which it occasionally hit a bit closer to home than I'd've liked. Anyway, it was fantastic excitingness.
Since I feel obligated not to simply recapitulate events here, here's something new and interesting. This year my Analysis class has been in the IBL format, which means that we get statements of theorems, definitions, and exercises, and the students work their way through them, proving everything from start to finish with a bare minimum of input from the instructor and no textbooks. I have been quoted describing this class as "as good as sex."
Our final "unit" was everything I could've asked for. It's deeper than any continuous mathematics I have yet encountered, it involved building up a gorgeous and rich framework and letting the result simply fall out, and oh dear it was the most exciting thing evar!
Throughout the year the one continuous theme from my math and CS classes has been building up linear algebra to a height that I couldn't have appreciated, much less imagined, a year ago. The richness of the concepts of eigenstuff were the culmination of Laci Babai's Discrete class, Quantum introduced the concept of tensors and exploited it and eigenstuff gloriously, and finally Analysis has introduced me to a fully pure, well-formed concept of tensors, tensor spaces, and has built on top of the complete development of tensors an even richer collection of tools to work with.
It is almost an aside that from the sizable collection of resources we've created that some of the most powerful theorems of analysis fall out easily. It's such that one can progress if and only if one understands the definitions, understands how everything fits together, and once one has that understanding things fall out easily. It's beautiful and gorgeous and requires a lot of effort simply to wrap your head around things.
In pure mathematics, it is simply a requirement that you can devote a lot of thought to wrapping your head around a very detailed, sophisticated definition and reach a correct intuitive understanding. High school mathematics had a fair amount of this, but it was primarily algorithmic: learn to apply methods to obtain results, as opposed to understanding at a very deep, intuitive level what it was you were working with.
The job of a mathematics student, quite simply, is to grok.
Also, a bonus cutesyanecdote if you read this whole thing! I was going to go get some dinner, and I gave gf a few goodbye spins, because, y'know, we dance, and I like spinning people, and she tells me:
So, gf and I are going to Rhythm & Jews tonight, to a 57th Street art thingy on Saturday, and then later that night to contra. Wooooooooo
Last night I went to see The Last 90 Minutes in the Life of Nikola Tesla at UT, which was absolutely outstandingawesomelulzy. (For your amusement: There were five Teslas. Two, including the most prominent one, were played by females.) It was entertaining, thoughtful, and well-executed, though there were a few occasional points at which it occasionally hit a bit closer to home than I'd've liked. Anyway, it was fantastic excitingness.
Since I feel obligated not to simply recapitulate events here, here's something new and interesting. This year my Analysis class has been in the IBL format, which means that we get statements of theorems, definitions, and exercises, and the students work their way through them, proving everything from start to finish with a bare minimum of input from the instructor and no textbooks. I have been quoted describing this class as "as good as sex."
Our final "unit" was everything I could've asked for. It's deeper than any continuous mathematics I have yet encountered, it involved building up a gorgeous and rich framework and letting the result simply fall out, and oh dear it was the most exciting thing evar!
Throughout the year the one continuous theme from my math and CS classes has been building up linear algebra to a height that I couldn't have appreciated, much less imagined, a year ago. The richness of the concepts of eigenstuff were the culmination of Laci Babai's Discrete class, Quantum introduced the concept of tensors and exploited it and eigenstuff gloriously, and finally Analysis has introduced me to a fully pure, well-formed concept of tensors, tensor spaces, and has built on top of the complete development of tensors an even richer collection of tools to work with.
It is almost an aside that from the sizable collection of resources we've created that some of the most powerful theorems of analysis fall out easily. It's such that one can progress if and only if one understands the definitions, understands how everything fits together, and once one has that understanding things fall out easily. It's beautiful and gorgeous and requires a lot of effort simply to wrap your head around things.
In pure mathematics, it is simply a requirement that you can devote a lot of thought to wrapping your head around a very detailed, sophisticated definition and reach a correct intuitive understanding. High school mathematics had a fair amount of this, but it was primarily algorithmic: learn to apply methods to obtain results, as opposed to understanding at a very deep, intuitive level what it was you were working with.
The job of a mathematics student, quite simply, is to grok.
Also, a bonus cutesyanecdote if you read this whole thing! I was going to go get some dinner, and I gave gf a few goodbye spins, because, y'know, we dance, and I like spinning people, and she tells me:
"Louis, one of these days you're going to sweep me off my feet."There was really only one way to respond.
"Absolutely."<333333
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
surprise!
My relationship status is no longer "Single."
It was a totally spur-of-the-moment decision. She loves dancing, she doesn't have an emotional disorder, which I've learned the hard way is a deal-breaker, and she is snuggly!
Also, relationships are totally good for me, in the sense of considerably boosting my emotional state, and so on. Woooooo.
It was a totally spur-of-the-moment decision. She loves dancing, she doesn't have an emotional disorder, which I've learned the hard way is a deal-breaker, and she is snuggly!
Also, relationships are totally good for me, in the sense of considerably boosting my emotional state, and so on. Woooooo.
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