Today

• I found this really awesome applied math paper called "Forecasting Hourly Electricity Using Time-Varying Splines."
• I read half of said paper before recalling that I should be doing more pressing homework.
• I wrote about half a sentence more on my "better get done in the next few weeks" paper. Note to self: work faster.
• I rewrote my abstract (will anyone notice if it doesn't match the one on the poster?)
• I sent an email stating that my poster is free-standing.
• I took an accidental 1.5 hour nap. I got out of the shower, wrapped myself up in a towel and began to read Act II of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." The next thing I knew, I was lying groggily on my side and Shelby was saying "If you don't respond to the question of when you're eating dinner, I'm going to unwrap you." I fortunately discovered that I only have three pages of the act left.
• I ate dinner with my mother. We talked about how I've already picked up the MIT habit of referring to everything by either an acronym or a number.
• I freaked out about how much work I had to do.
• I decided I really like applied math and drew up more drafts of courses. If I take the math courses, plus the energy studies program, the 5 electrical engineering courses I want to take and the flex major in physics, I will have a reasonable schedule (4 courses a semester (yes, I factored in HASS and GIRs). If I do the focused option, it would result in overloading. I suppose this is something I can worry about in another 1.5 years, once I've taken more of these courses and have a better idea of what I actually enjoy.
• I wrote a blog post.
• I became hungry and went to eat more food.

Well, I will anyway.

On Organization

I have decided to start using Google Calendar. So as not to overwhelm myself, I am programming in regular activities one day at a time for the next week (thus far--great success!). I am making bunches of calendars so that I can color code (well, like 3...but they are well color-coded). I feel on top of the world. Something about preparing to do work makes me feel very productive.

This is kind of like how, in my attempts to get going on creating a research paper out of battery project, I wrote half of an abstract (still need to write the paper to determine how I want to phrase the whole "results" thing, what with this being a design rather than an actual experiment), worried about the fact that I haven't done an experiment (I'm going to faiiiil, etc. Particularly since I could always just submit my other project). I then copy and pasted the introduction from the relevant patent (the one I wrote...I am not plagiarizing, thank you very much). I panicked due to the fact that I had an insane number of windows. I spent a good half an hour enabling and setting up "Spaces" on my computer. I hate spaces. I want ubuntu, where I can just drop windows off into different desktops. This stupid thing makes me separate by application, which means all recreational web use is currently relegated to Chrome, and Firefox has been updated and is now being put to use running programming tutorials and displaying papers. I also dropped TeXShop, TeXWorks (yeah, my capitalization is probably funky) and NeoOffice in that space, so I'm using MS Word in space one, which means my poor compy is running about 10,000 applications, which is stressing it out a little bit.

I also discovered Asus is coming out with a new laptop that is not unreasonably priced, and is light, and pretty. I like pretty things. I like Asus. Yay laptops.

In other news, I have paid off 44% of the fees due to my *cough* errant driving. Oooooh, we're (almost) halfway there (wooooaaaah).

Moving along, moving along.

It's late. I'm hungry. I always get hungry right before I want to go to bed. I'm pretty sure it's giving me tooth decay (cue a round of "my shiny teeth and me" for no reason other than that I want it to get stuck in someone else's head). I suppose this is why JSHS allows for a "Late Night Snack." Fortunate, that.

I also apparently never got a sixth judge in the science fair. I assumed 2 groups, like it said on my sheet, was what was necessary, but apparently I should have waited through lunch for that additional judge. So weird. Certainly a bit of a confidence-booster, though.

Also, the AMC was fun. So much fun! I love math! I love fun! Wheeeeeeeee =)

Another Month Begins

February. It's almost Shelby's birthday (I have bought her nothing). Nyx's has already passed. Mine is coming up. I'll be 18. Old. Very old. But only two years after I started this blog.

It feels like longer. But then, so does the time since I've been in high school, the weeks since I got into college, the months since this summer. My perception of time is horribly skewed.

Part of that, though, is that I don't do anything with it. My computer and I are very well acquainted, but there's not much aside from that. Especially given that the current weather is keeping me from getting out of the house.

Stupid snow, pretty though it is.