christmas greetings

I am in a church during Christmas mass. It's held in spanish, so I don't know what the priest is saying (which may be for the best). But the singing is beautiful, and just now the audience turned to each other and shook hands. Two old men in expensive trenchcoats shook my hand.

I hope you are well during this holiday season. Merry Christmas! And bah humbug. May the spirit of the season blend with your sarcasm to form a perfect storm!

grrr, gmail ad

Why is this my gmail inbox ad?

"Female Cougars - www.DateACougar.com - Female Cougars On The Prowl. 100% Free. Join Now."

I know how we do the algorithm to determine the ad, and I cannot figure out how this happened!

hmm

Nanowrimo is causing me to not go out at all. I sit in front of my computer all day and night. So I've IM'ed with something like 30 people in the past three days, but I've talked to no one outside of work.

It's weird!

some of my friends are apparently much freakier than I am

"We did some crazy stuff last night."

"Like what?"

"Freaky stuff."

"Were you cutting each other?"

"No! [looks away in thought] That's interesting though."

"Okay, then what kind of stuff?"

"For example, I actually threw up at one point during it."

"What?? [shocked pause] How did he react when that happened?"

"I don't think he noticed."

"What???? What on earth were you doing?"

"I'm telling you, crazy stuff."

hehe

IM with my guy friend "Randy".

niniane: a lot of guys start going to the gym more when they start dating a girl
randy: they do???
randy: i've been pretty good about going to the gym...but that's cause i consider myself single
randy: but once i meet a girl, this gym nonsense can stop

tip to headhunters

If you are trying to headhunt two people who work at the same company and went to the same 900-student university together, perhaps you should send slight variations of the email! They might talk to each other, and laugh at how tacky it is to send out the exact same email to every person.

A worse example happened at Caltech though, when my friend John received an email from the Oracle recruiter which was addressed "Dear Niniane".

sophisticated humor

Exiting my car with my brother, outside his apartment.

Me: [picking up package of instant noodles from my backseat] "Do you want this yakisoba?

Tom: "It's been in your car for five months, but sure. It's time to give the yakisoba a home."

Me: "By home, do you mean your apartment, or your stomach?"

Tom: "First one, and then the other."

Me: [laughing very hard] "And then the one again."

and at work, i paste my novel into the code comments

rory: how's your nanowrimo.org thing going ?
rory: are you simply dumping huge chunks of code into your novel ?
rory: "and then.. the programmer wrote this: ...."
niniane: lol
niniane: yeah!

Steve Jobs

Tom: "Do you know who wrote the game Breakout?"



Me: "No. Who?"

Tom: "Steve Jobs."

Me: "Wow. [pause] Well, he'll never top that one."

Tom: [raise eyebrow]

...

Tom: "Can't skill at work be transferred to dating?"

Me: "No, definitely not."

Tom: "It would work for Steve Jobs though. He can just convince you that he's good in bed."

Me: [laughing]

Tom: "Steve Jobs will show you something amazing tonight."

Gorgeous art

Why don't we have an art museum like this in San Fran??


Architecture is all high ceilings and glass.


Clouds.


Some of my real-life friends aren't this alive.


I was there in 2000. I want to be there again in 2008.


Rodin. Remarkable.


I sat in front of this painting for 20 minutes. I know it's because of my current frame of mind, which is contemplative about the important things in life and how family and friends are so important, and I need to devote time to them during our limited time on this earth.


Enormous mystic clock in the gift shop. Less than $200. Almost bought it. Just didn't want to carry in suitcase.


Reminded me of Frank Capra house from when I visited as a Caltech student.


The color, the shape, the texture. Two thumbs up.


Brunch and coffee with Kater-bean. Sitting at the bar just like the first time we met...

i miss her already

Wow, what would it be like to have a roommate that is also your very good friend? Would life just be completely perfect?

never knew Grace Hopper was so funny

Neha posted this Letterman interview with Grace Hopper:


She's very funny!

Letterman: You're known as the Queen of Software. Is that right?

Grace Hopper: [nodding matter-of-factly]

So bad-ass! You go, Grace Hopper! Show 'em, sister!

Ronald McDonald

Tonight I went for my introduction meeting at Ronald McDonald House. I met the two staff people, got a tour of the house, and ate dinner with three families staying there.

It was very interesting, and different from the rest of my life. The house is three stories, with ten guest rooms. Most of the families are young parents with premature newborns.

One American family was acting perfectly normally -- joking with each other, talking loudly. Two Hispanic families sat and ate quietly. Elizabeth, the staff person who gave me the tour, spoke to them in Spanish about their baby girl who was born weighing only two pounds.

It had the sense of community that I feel is missing from the rest of the US. People were thrown there by circumstance, and they were each doing their own thing, but also wanted to be congenial to each other. It felt more real somehow, because people were dealing with crisis rather than trying to promote some goal or get ahead in their careers or something. Everyone was fighting for their baby to get well, and not competing against each other in any way.

I learned that 90+% of babies who are born very premature actually end up fine. This is surprising, because when a coworker's baby was born three months premature, I looked up the stats, and the survival rate was below 25%.

I am starting my first official volunteer shift in two weeks. I'm really looking forward to it. I want to learn basic Spanish so that I can speak with the Hispanic families (20% of the families).

I feel really inspired.

I'm going to be working two shifts per month. My duties are to help tidy up the rooms, generally clean up the house, and run other errands such as pick up a basket of donated pastries from Starbucks. I was very happy about that last -- it combines my love for Starbucks, baked goods, and FREE food.

Tech

In a week, I'm going back to Caltech to give a talk. I've been back a few times for talks and career fairs, but this time I am anticipating it more.


Millikan Pond in the morning light. I saw this sight a few times when walking to hand in a problem set after staying up all night.


View down the Olive Walk toward the Athenaeum. Olives fell from the trees during the summer, and the brick walkway became completely covered in crushed olives.


I have the most ambivalence about Dabney House. Having lived there for four years, it is the location with the most emotional draw. Simultaneously, it is a private residence of sorts, and I feel as though I'm intruding by walking through the House. The graffiti on the bathroom walls no longer look like art -- now they look messy.

I'm looking forward to getting a chocolate milkshake with chocolate chips, from the student coffeehouse.

Bustling around my dining room, getting ready to carpool to work with Sha-mayn.

Me: Did you see I brought out an 8-ball for the party?



Sha-mayn: Hehe, yeah.

Me: [shaking the 8-ball] Will my party be a smashing success? [reading 8-ball] "My sources say no."

Sha-mayn: Aw.

Me: [shaking 8-ball again] Is that because it will be an EXTREME smashing success? [reading 8-ball] "Very doubtful."

Sha-mayn: Heh.

Me: Maybe this thing is broken. [shaking 8-ball] Does Sha-mayn still love me? [reading 8-ball] "As I see it, yes." Damn, it's working! Oh, no! That means my party isn't going to be a smashing success.

Sha-mayn: [ushering me down the stairs to the front door] Niniane, I'm not going to console you on this one.

Tom & Tech

Tom: I had dinner with nine Caltech people on Sunday.

Me: Oh cool.

Tom: They were telling me about the personality of the Houses. Avery House has no personality.

Me: That's always been true.

Tom: Guess what they said about Dabney House.

Me: Hippies?

Tom: Exactly. Hippie-loving treehuggers. Guess which House they would've put me in?

Me: Lloyd.

Tom: What's the personality of Lloyd House?

Me: Nice, upstanding citizen.

Tom: Okay. They all said I should go to Page House.

Me: Page is just like Lloyd House, with a LOT of drinking.

Tom: Nothing has changed.

...

(a few exchanges later)

Me: You have a reputation for drinking? You're not even of age!

Tom: I don't know why they think that. Some of them had only known me for thirty minutes!

Me: Good God, how much did you drink during those thirty minutes?

Crackberry compulsiveness

In the past two weeks, the severity of my crackberry addiction has started to scare me.

I joined a Facebook group called "I check my email an unhealthy number of times per day". How true it is.

I delayed 2+ years to get the blackberry, for fear this would happen. I finally caved in order to be able to look up directions and yelp reviews on the road.

But now look at the obsessive shell of a human I have become.

I need to wean myself off this addiction. Unfortunately I think it's more powerful than cigarettes are for smokers.

that's going a little beyond mischievous, don't you think?

Drinking tea and eating moon cake with Clarissa (name changed). Talking about our Caltech classmates from college.

Me: "What's going on with David Ramsey?"

Clarissa: "He's dating some guy."

Me: "Is he gay or straight? He always said he's gay, but he was dating Joyce."

Clarissa: "He's gay."

Me: "But he and Joyce would openly talk about their sex life!"

Clarissa: "Oh, you know how he's mischievous. He'll say, 'Want to date me?' Then if you say yes, he'll actually go ahead and date you and fuck you, but he's actually gay."

Me: [shocked]

wish I could live for a week here

Can I rent this for a week, and take my family?



or here:

moonlight run

In the gym a few days ago, DE urged me to do the Palo Alto Moonlight 5k Run. I resisted.

"No," I said. "I hate running."

He kept pressuring me every day, but I continued to stand firm. Like this: "No."

Then he added it as an entry on my calendar, so I had to go.

We arrived an hour early. After registering, we sat down on the bleachers to wait. As we sat bored, the announcer declared that the 10k race was starting.

On impulse, we ran the 10k instead of the 5k! I ran the entire time without walking.

I was god-awful slow. By the end, there was almost no one around me, because everyone else had finished. During the last half-mile, I passed at least 500 people going the other direction. It was a sea of people exiting in waves, after having already completed the race, high-fived each other, stretched, eaten bagels, chitchatted, and finally began walking to their cars.

But who cares! I finished! 10k race with no training!

I rock. That was only opinion, before. Now it's fact.

The marshlands under the full moon were stunning. Lakes that looked as though the water froze into a still snapshot. Reedy grass swaying. Chinese music playing on my iPod.

save the Königin

Edx told us about a game they play at Cambridge. At formal dinner, if your friend slips a coin into your wine, you must drink the entire glass of wine at once. This is calling "saving the queen" because the coin has an imprint of her head.

Alipé: The Queen is actually descended from Germany, you know. [Edx is German.]

Edx: I know!

Me: So you should care even more about saving her.

Edx: Yeah, I should drink when other people get coins in their glasses! [mimes grabbing a glass from across the table and downing the contents] 'I can't let that happen to the Queen!'

touché

Upon seeing a copy of Conan O'Brien's commencement speech at Stuyvesant earlier this year:

Me: "Even Stuyvesant High School could get Conan O'Brien for their graduation speaker, and Stanford couldn't???"

Tom: "No. But we can get mass murderer Donald Rumsfeld."