Nest of Vectors

The Storm to Come

2009-08-16T19:07:13Z

No, not the tropical depression off the coast... not exactly. Tomorrow, the graduate program starts kicking in, leaving me now to await how schedules are going to be shuffled for TAs covering sections. 20 hours a week!

In all, I'm feeling an odd sense of deja vu from when I first went to college. It was a two year unit of Emory, CCU's program is ideally a two year program to get a degree before going onto a job or PhD program... everything seems to go in stages. Of course, my support from home is drastically reduced, and my cats are going to cling to me when I visit during the winter, but I can't get anywhere without dramatically serious research experience (and higher grades. But really amazing research can go even further, I'm told).

Also, fresh, raw spinach on cheese pizza is as delicious as I recalled. I just need to make sure I won't get hypervitaminosis A.

Secondary Productivity

2009-06-29T18:13:42Z

There's a lineage of spiders that's lived in my windowsill, just between the actual window and the storm window, for many years now. Apparently, its latest scion has become so successful in snagging the insects that get between those two windows that a cardinal spotted said spider, and made a few frustrated pecks at the arachnid's position. Another reason to get UV-absorptive window stickers; in the mean time, moving around sufficed.

The Painful Voice of Experience

2009-05-22T01:02:04Z

Folks, never do full situps. Crunches, yes, but never full situps. You'll end up paying for it even after you think the mistake has been corrected.

Rude Awakening

2009-04-23T14:09:15Z

So, after getting out of bed, I turn on the TV. It's on the Weather Channel. It reports that there are wildfires in northern Myrtle Beach, and that 5000 acres have been burned thus far.

By the way, that's where I applied to grad school. FFFFFFFFF...

Another update

2009-03-31T15:42:56Z

Still Waiting: CSU Fullerton

GREAT SUCCESS!: Coastal Carolina Univeristy

Developments

2009-03-21T16:58:18Z

Still waiting on MS programs. PhD programs, predictably enough, had better candidates to admit.

I started practice with drawing several weeks ago. What I've found is that sharks are easier to draw than humans, and even then, it's not that easy. Lions, also tricky. At least I've started to be able to go about with that "break down into shapes" method.

Finally, whenever I try to write pitches up to send in to WW/CCP NA, I look at them and wonder if they're worth sending in. I wonder if I'm being defeatist, or just giving myself time to look over them with a different mindset so I can catch errors (which seems to work out well with recreational creative writing).

Not two days from now, now!

2009-02-12T16:02:55Z

In during Darwin Day. May a selection pressure correct errors in the cells of your tissues.

Trembling Hands

2008-12-13T00:48:55Z

I just finished one of two PhD program applications. After I get the other one done, it'll be time to work on the MS programs.

It's a good thing I baked banana bread, because I could certainly use the energy in it.

gausshawk @ 2008-12-08T13:47:00

2008-12-08T18:49:51Z

For whatever reason, I'm able to intellectually accept that time passes, but frequently wonder where it went. My head hangs onto the past so tenaciously that everything around me just kind of passes by at 10x speed.

On Applications

2008-11-19T20:51:45Z

Quite tiring, somehow. But at least everything is as automated as it could be. Except for Oxford College's transcript system, of course. But that serves the purpose of getting you out in the open air and breathing comfortably, at least.

Looking Onward

2008-11-14T21:22:54Z

I poked the shoulders of various academic institutions today regarding graduate programs. I do hope.

Unit of Cultural Information

2008-09-22T21:01:53Z

Ask (ye two others on my friends list), and I will:

a) Tell you why I friended you.

b) Associate you with something -- a fandom, song, color, photo, etc.

c) Tell you something I like about you.

d) Tell you a memory I have of you.

e) Ask you something I've wanted to know about you

f) Tell you my favorite userpic from your list

g) In return, you need to post this on your own

RE: Dragoncon

2008-09-03T05:44:23Z

It's apparently so difficult for me to work around my relentless scheduling that a room at the con proper would be necessary to actually do anything, or at least, it would be the only way to make a solid first step. That, of course, falls by the wayside of being a fixture of life to cats, but burning myself out walking all over the con like a nomad doesn't really help.

gausshawk @ 2008-08-23T15:20:00

2008-08-23T19:21:42Z

Due to wire failure, I have a new mouse. It uses no wire at all, and I'm now able to use it all the way across the room!

On the downside, batteries.

Not the procrastination you would expect

2008-07-10T18:11:30Z

I'll never know why it is that I continually wait, almost on purpose, to pay more money for DragonCon. It's like I want them to take more money in hopes that next year's memberships become cheaper (laugh with me).

Also, day passes have shown themselves to be more trouble than they're worth. Nothing like standing in line for three hours or so to pay almost as much as the full membership and ending up soaked in your own perspiration to start out the con-going experience.

GRE Again

2008-07-01T20:58:23Z

Oh, we met again, but this time, I was the one who triumphed!

Total of 1350 on the General Test, 710 Math and 640 Verbal. Now I can potentially have that be more visible than my B- final average.

Striped Horses and Academia

2008-04-23T19:33:02Z

So, I paid another visit to Oxford College today (a satellite of Emory University, in case you're unfamiliar), tagging along with my brother, and discovered that some group of people had abducted a zebra from a petting zoo, transported said animal to the top floor of the administration and math building, and subsequently broke the elevator to avoid using it to transport the zebra back down.

Methinks expulsions are in order.

LizardJournal

2008-01-15T18:46:59Z

Some time ago, an anole made her way into my house. After narrowly escaping the cats at the loss of her tail, she spent some time around the plants in front of the window before a vivarium was rigged up for her use, at which point my brother and I started going to pet shops and getting crickets and grubs.

A few days ago, she vanished from the vivarium, much to the likely elation of the crickets that had been placed therein. As it turned out, she had crawled through the vents that one finds in the wire-mesh and plastic tops made for aquarium tanks, and had been hanging out on various potted plants, afforded her cover and basking spots. Not much food though; when we finally heard a rustling in the plants, we found that she had worked off the wax worms in no time.

So, closing her escape routes, we put her in a tank with some of the terrain cleaned out and remodeled, and she immediately tried to escape before diving at a cricket and grasping onto the wire mesh to warm herself very close to the UV lamp. She seems to have taken back her perch on the stick-on thermometer, from which she is on watch for tasty, calcium-dusted morsels hopping along the ground. Or just enjoying the nice, warm light.

(As to how I know that the anole is female, she lacks the flaring, exaggerated crest I've seen at Petco and Petsmart)

At present, the lan is still to let her winter in the vivarium and release her back into the yard when it gets warmer out. She certainly doesn't feel very much like staying where she is, instead most likely wishing that we would just let the crickets loose and leave the UV-B lamp on around the plants. Unfortunately, as mentioned, the cats would not make that a very good option, so she stays safe from them beind the glass.

RPG Angst (well, not really)

2007-12-11T06:29:31Z

I continually wonder why I bothered to pick up a copy of the new World of Darkness book. I was waiting for something to come out that interested me, but so far, the only use I've gotten out of it was stitching the Resolve and Composure Attributes into Exalted.

I waited some time to see what Werewolf: the Forsaken would be like, and found that it wasn't to taste. Very little else in the WoD, mind, ever was; it was the one piece of that meta-setting that I actually enjoyed, and the new game had a focus that was too far to the side.

So, now there's a book on Changing Breeds, which has a large variety of changers in it that do the same thing - rage over a false dichotomy (Human versus animal, the fallacy stemming from the fact that humans are one small type of animal). While it might conceivably see use later on amongst company that doesn't go in for over the top action with Heavenly-empowered demigods, I've also come to grips many times that sometimes no gaming is better than bad gaming or potentially good gaming with a particular game that holds nothing for you.

Nonetheless, it calls, but I'm afraid I'll have to tell it that it will have to wait for Dreams of the First Age. And when I get the Shadowrun Companion, it drops down further, whenever that might be.

On that note, FASA Interactive is back with the individuals that own more of FASA's IPs. Hopefully they can get out a Shadowrun computer game that is an improvement on the Genesis version, instead of one inferior in all ways to Warhawk.

Yet more on further education

2007-11-03T21:39:41Z

Today, I woke up exceedingly early and took my GRE subject test on biology. After a late lunch, the mail arrives.

In said delivery, was my official Biology GRE practice book. Kind of funny, but not quite as disastrous, as I had a review book for it. It didn't come with the test, but it was more useful than doing nothing.

Further Education

2007-10-22T22:46:18Z

Serenity is not having to go on a four-plus hour car ride to get to your paper-based subject test, only a trip to downtown Atlanta. Of course, I'm cutting it quite close with deadlines, if I manage to get through in time at all, and three out of five of the institutions I'll be sending my scores to are in an area that now has severe wildfires...

gausshawk @ 2007-06-29T14:47:00

2007-06-29T18:47:40Z

Ha Ha! Diploma!

gausshawk @ 2007-05-08T21:58:00

2007-05-09T02:00:08Z

All the trouble to remove the EAS minor at the end of the year because I didn't take Biogeochemical Cycles, and what does the final grades page list? My minor as EAS.

Laugh with me, Freakazoid.

Spoils of a Day

2006-09-03T19:03:53Z

Yesterday, I helped get Napoleon out of the tree he was stuck in, went to DragonCon, and learned a few things while there. I'll concentrate on the fact that I feel like drawing now, in addition to spoiling Scroll of the Monk (a martial arts society and styles book for Exalted) until November 15th.

So, did you know that you can have the challenge of a martial artist killing armies with a yo-yo? Because now, you can. A bladed yo-yo, no less. I predict much Bridgetification in two months or so, to say nothing of Kratos-copiers crawling out from under the crinkly floorboards (sorry, I couldn't stop the alliteration) thanks to the chain daiklave. Probably a few Ivy Imitators too... (This post ended for Stream of Consciousness)

A Test Post

2006-08-04T15:37:22Z

Much procrastinated/delayed, I present my friends and random passers by with... JoJo's Bizarre Adventure stickfigure copypasta from /b/!

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