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.
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2009
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
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