Journal 2001-12

Current entries

2001-12-22, Sat (Day 541, temperature at 09:54: 20.2°C, difference: -1.8°C): I dreamed I was on Sellers Ave in Ridley Park near Chester Pike but I had a full horizon view where I could see the Philadelphia and Camden skylines. I hear a trailer for the movie “New York,” which is about the Sept. 11 attacks.

Later, I am going to some world convention in Philadelphia at a hotel on Penn’s Landing. While inside I am sitting on a couch in the convention hall, which is partitioned for the event. I think my parents are there. On one door that I am near are the words “bar mike bar” written repeatedly in black pen down the light red colored door. I thought the message was interesting as it could mean a bar, the microphone, and a bar were behind the door but it could also mean Mike needs to do law. Actually, the door to the partitioned area had a drinking bar with a mic for the convention.

I am going home today and the dorms are closing.

2001-12-21, Fri (Day 540, temperature at 10:44: 22.0°C, difference: -1.2°C): I went to lunch, which lasted a little longer as Jesse, Kai, and Drew sat with me. I studied for the research design final in the early afternoon. There were six people taking the final today whereas five took it for the Wednesday session. I needed to use the full exam time and so did the other guys who took the exam today.

I had dinner with Kai and lounged in his Mertz room for the evening. He still needed to finish his research design paper and I was curious of his work habits. Being there while he was writing his paper didn’t reveal anything obvious and I was surprised about how the 22:00 deadline rolled by so quickly.

I realized on walking back from Papazian after Kai dropped his paper off that I didn’t fill out a time slip for The Phoenix for the second half of the semester. I also thought that I didn’t have a time slip so Kai and I looked around Parrish for one but couldn’t find one. For amusement I did find large campus mail envelopes although I already have that.

So I went back to Kai’s room to get a time slip from him and then went back to Worth. While cleaning up to find graded papers I found a blank time slip as I then remembered I asked Dee for a time slip during The Phoenix interview earlier this month.

Around 00:00 I calculated what my grades this semester are so far.

2001-12-20, Thu (Day 539, temperature at 11:39: 23.2°C, difference: +0.3°C): In the afternoon until a few minutes after 15:00 I wrote my results and discussion for my research design paper. I then studied for my stat final in McCabe. My first two finals this semester were at 09:00, the research design final is tomorrow at 14:00 and last night’s final and tonight’s are both at 19:00.

The stat final was not that bad although Jesse was scaremongering at dinner that we were going to be screwed over. Following the final I finished my psych paper and did the course evaluation. I didn’t get to bed until 03:00, as I also needed a fair amount of time to unwind. I put myself in a bind though as going to bed late meant I wouldn’t get up early even though I haven’t gotten up early since Monday. As a result I wouldn’t have much time to study for my research design final tomorrow.

2001-12-19, Wed (Day 538, temperature at 10:51: 22.9°C, difference: +0.2°C): In the first half of the afternoon I worked on the notes for the stat final, which is tomorrow evening. I then continued studying for the comparative politics final tonight. My remaining finals are in a different room from the room that the class met in. The comparative final was in Kohlberg 115, the stat final will be in Kirby, and research design will be in Papazian 319.

Jeffrey had our final papers graded. I finished the stat sheet of notes after the final and then browsed the news, stopping on articles about the WTC evacuation and the nuclear power plant risk.

2001-12-18, Tue (Day 537, temperature at 10:54: 22.7°C, difference: +2.6°C): I dreamed as I was leaving Career Services in disgust I heard people shouting my name that there was a fire. I found a dry chemical fire extinguisher and dashed to the parlors. In Parrish Parlors east a child’s hair was on fire. A number of people were standing around. A police officer who also had a dry chemical extinguisher waited for me to look at him before we started putting the fire out on opposite sides of the child. While the fire was spreading to the floor I realized that we should have just smothered the fire since it was so small to begin with.

My computer wouldn’t wake up this morning presumably because iDo ran out of memory and hung the computer. Since this has happened many times before it led me to add a piece to the radar + logger script to check if the iDo extension is going to run out of RAM and if so restart the extension. Implementing this fix took the afternoon. Since the Finder gave incorrect information on how much memory a process was using I needed to use Akua Sweets. I first ran into difficulty finding the right syntax. After figuring that out, finding the right value to enter for the low memory condition was a challenge, as iDo wouldn’t run scripts if the free memory itself was around 50,000 bytes or less. I eventually settled on 75,000 bytes.

In the evening I took a brief nap and went to McCabe to study for my comparative politics final tomorrow evening.

2001-12-17, Mon (Day 536, temperature at 07:30: 20.1°C, difference: -1.0°C): I had my psych of language final this morning. Not many people left early. I had lunch with Ryan and Ryan, Renee, Jeremy, Kai, and others in the Sharples big room for more than an hour. I took a nap in the mid-afternoon expecting to sleep for an hour as I slept for eight hours the previous night. Instead I slept for two hours and woke up a few minutes after 17:00. I revised my research design intro, wrote up my results, and started my discussion section in the evening. I went to the final SWIL movie of the semester, Soylent Green (1973) at 22:00.

2001-12-16, Sun (Day 535, temperature at 11:36: 21.1°C, difference: -2.1°C): I got up for lunch and skipped the Phoenix brainstorming meeting at 13:00 to study for my psych of language final tomorrow morning. I first needed to print out the slides and reading for the second half of the semester. In McCabe the Macs by the printers were occupied so I went to Beardsley public but it was closed even though an hour had past since its 12:00 opening time.

I returned to McCabe and found a Mac in the typing room on the third level but the lights in the room were broken so I had to work in the dark. I started printing but since I was doing different jobs that were reasonably complex I needed to go downstairs a few times to see if it worked. It took about an hour and a half to get everything printed. I then had a problem finding a seat on the rim of the second level so I needed to sit in the atrium. Weirdly enough no one else stayed in my seating area for long even though people used the area as a bag depository.

I had dinner with Drew, Jesse, and John. Tom is in Pittsburgh for the week as he leaves campus on the weekends frequently. I went to Kirby for the stat review session at 19:00. The session lasted longer and wasn’t filled like previous review sessions were. A good amount of people still came. Following that I continued studying for my psych final until 22:30.

2001-12-15, Sat (Day 534, temperature at 07:31: 23.2°C, difference: -0.1°C): I actually got up for good closer to 10:00. I went to the Springfield Mall first to get the “Twin Towers” book and I also thought to get the Y100 calendar and Sonic Session CDs while there. I was able to get the first two things but the Sonic Session CDs were sold out at Sam Goody. So I left the mall disappointed again, but at least I had the book. I went to lunch, not having eaten anything this morning and then did the wash. I didn’t finish by the time I needed to meet Andrew at 15:00 to analyze the research design survey data about music listening.

I went to the Black Cultural Center for the Phoenix dinner at 19:00. This dinner was nothing like the one last year. For one, it ended sooner and also fewer people were there. I left feeling pretty crappy but I felt better a short time later. I was going to go to bed early but since there was no point getting up early tomorrow, as McCabe and Beardsley public wouldn’t be open until 12:00, I stayed up late tonight.

2001-12-14, Fri (Day 533, temperature at 07:31: 23.3°C, difference: 0.0°C): I went to DuPont for my first final this morning. Kai was still sick so he had another prof proctor the exam. The exam also started late as Kai was having problems with his computer. Even though I studied what I felt would be on the final, the content of the actual exam had more than a couple of surprises.

I tested my UPS after lunch and the self-test passed. However, I can’t do a manual self-test with all of my equipment turned on and running so I won’t know until I get back from break if my battery is still having problems.

Originally I was going to take a nap this afternoon but when I realized that I wouldn’t have tomorrow afternoon to go to the mall I decided to go now. It had just rained and there was a slight fog so the conditions weren’t ideal for going for a walk on busy streets but I resolved to go anyway. It was nice walking around the Springfield Mall especially since I could wander around and take as much time as I wanted since I wasn’t with someone. The last time I went to the mall was on 2001-02-19.

I expected to not buy anything and instead just feel good seeing people buy stuff. When I went into Waldenbooks however I found a number of good titles. I passed on getting “Twin Towers” since I didn’t have much money and I was uneasy at the time on getting a book about the WTC since once I have it I have it. Instead I got a book about psychic ability and another about graphology. I left the mall feeling weird that I hadn’t gotten the WTC book.

I saw Amy, Geoff, and Laura at the mall twice on both levels going in opposite directions. I said ‘hey’ the second time I saw them. Ironically when walking back from dinner on campus, Alyssa crossed my path at Magill Walk.

I tried the LimeWire 1.9 beta this afternoon, which has many new features including swarmed downloads and ultrapeers. In the evening I went to upper Tarble to watch “Road Trip” and “The Skulls.” While watching the second movie I felt more compelled to get the “Twin Towers” book tomorrow morning. I coded the remainder of the psych surveys around 00:00 and sent the data file to Andrew.

2001-12-13, Thu (Day 532, temperature at 10:41: 23.3°C, difference: +3.0°C): I ate lunch, took a brief nap and spent the rest of the afternoon in Beardsley public revising my psych of language paper. I took an even shorter nap after dinner and then studied for my first final tomorrow morning, which is in Math 6c. I went to bed soon after 23:00 thinking I would be awakened at 00:00 by the primal scream. Instead the fire alarm woke me up at 04:30.

I waited outside for the alarm to turn off and Jessica told me that no one in Worth partook in the primal scream, which I found disappointing. The trouble area that set the alarm off was on the third floor of Worth in either M or N. The alarm was silenced rather quickly but when I got up that morning the strobes were still going off at least until soon before 08:00. The panel still said there was a fire even though there wasn’t and that there was system trouble as well.

2001-12-12, Wed (Day 531, temperature at 08:55: 20.3°C, difference: -0.9°C): I dreamed I was sitting across from Blair in the big room at Sharples. I was facing towards the beach. Then we are in the Wharton courtyard and she later wanders off, stops, and looks in the southwest direction. I leave her alone and go to where the tennis courts should be but another dorm that is similar to Wharton is there. The extra building that I admire looking at completes the quad. Also, the hill didn’t slope down but it went up slightly.

In real life I saw Blair at lunch yesterday in the big room and she sat a few tables away facing me.

I resumed my write-up for my stat final project before lunch. The old and new Phoenix editorial board meeting was at 11:30 and following that, pizza. I met with Karen at 13:00. In the afternoon I continued working on the stat write-up and the final problem set. That was a bear and I ran out of time to complete some of the problems since I was unable to do them.

I went to night of scenes in the Frear at 20:00. Even though the performance didn’t end until 22:30 I needed a break, as I felt really rotten from the stat sludge this afternoon. This evening I coded 90 replies to my final project for research design. My response rate was below 50% so I sent a second e-mail out.

A few minutes before 01:44 my UPS did a standard self-test like it does every two weeks. However the self-test failed, a red Replace Battery lamp went on, and the unit beeped for a bit. I had no idea what to do and after consulting the manual it said to wait overnight and try the self-test again to see if the battery would actually need to be replaced. This may have been the first self-test since the power outage on 2001-11-28.

2001-12-11, Tue (Day 530, temperature at 07:31: 21.2°C, difference: -2.5°C): I dreamed about earth’s mysterious e-fields in a class taught by Ed but not in a typical classroom on campus. I am looking at a chalk drawing of the earth with diagonal lines going across the globe representing the electrical field. The blackboard was actually tan colored and the chalk would be black. The diagram had a key in the lower right corner to what the elements on the drawing meant.

Today was the final day of classes for the semester. I started the write-up for my stat project late this afternoon. Following dinner I got much less done. I setup Retrospect to back up to an FTP server but that ran into some difficulty with various configuration issues. I went to the memorial service for Sept. 11 victims in Lang Concert Hall at 19:30.

2001-12-10, Mon (Day 529, temperature at 07:31: 18.7°C, difference: -3.1°C): John dreamed that I was in the marching band and I had a clarinet solo for 10 minutes. When it was time for me to play there was silence and then I started talking that I didn’t have enough time to do it. Booing resulted. I was wearing green and white although more white than green.

Today was the last day of class for comparative politics, calculus, and MedX. Math prof Kai was sick so he ended class a little early. Jeffrey also ended class a couple minutes early and was elated about our class based on the entire semester. I sat at the other Kai’s table for lunch in the big room. The table was full and I met Tamika, a sophomore who wants to major in psychobiology.

I revised my comparative paper this afternoon in Beardsley. After dinner I went to the Swarthmore Borough Hall for the monthly council meeting. While walking there I felt weird as the last and first meeting I went to was also on the 10th of the month and Sept. 10 was the day before Sept. 11. Nevertheless I felt that I wasn’t afraid and I wasn’t superstitious. I felt that it was my mission to go to the meeting. This meeting was well attended and all of council was there. This also was the last meeting with the current members and this was the last meeting for two long-time members of council, the council president, and the mayor.

There were a lot of compliments sent during the meeting and an ordinance about occupancy was tabled, as multi-occupancy owners were not completely sure of what they would need to do. A couple of them voiced their concerns during the comment period. I left the meeting feeling really good. I then went to Kirby for the penultimate SWIL movie of the semester, Wallace and Gromit shorts and “Grendel, Grendel, Grendel” (1982). This movie was a very odd cartoon and reminded me of the South Park animation style without the gore.

2001-12-09, Sun (Day 528, temperature at 10:21: 21.8°C, difference: +0.3°C): I dream I am at home and Dad is on the computer. He changes the desktop picture from the weather radar to an image of the World Trade Center. This image would persist until the next update by the iDo scheduler to return to the weather image.

In the next part of my dream I am at ed board trying to work out a contract between workers and management. Discussion seems strained. Also we apparently were using the conference room when someone else reserved it so we had to leave.

Since I didn’t work on my poly sci paper yesterday I had to do a substantial amount of it today since it is due tomorrow at 17:00. I slept in today and ate a big lunch. The amount of food made me want to take a nap, which I did for an hour until sometime after 13:00. I worked in McCabe in the afternoon and evening. I had some difficulty finding an open iMac in the 12-cluster on the second level but I did eventually. I needed to be in the library as my sources were there and the reference materials, which can’t be checked out, are also on the second level. I wrote all ten pages by 00:00. Following that I worked on calculus problems and then went to bed.

2001-12-08, Sat (Day 527, temperature at 07:35: 21.5°C, difference: -3.6°C): I dream I am in a room with large windows that let light in but are covered by curtains that give the room a light sunlit yellow cast. A couple and a guy with a wristwatch are in the room. The guy in the couple asked, “How long did it take? 100 seconds?” in reference to the time on reaching a connection between his partner. The timer responded, “9.9.”

I got up early this morning but I kept falling asleep today so I got very little done. I did the wash this morning while falling asleep and taking naps and trying to get the psych survey e-mail out. It also rained all day today, which is a welcome sight although it made it easy to fall asleep. After lunch I thought I sent the psych mail out but Eudora got messed up on a mistyped address and wouldn’t send the message to anyone.

I had my Phoenix interview at 14:15 and following that I tried to take a nap but the dorm was somewhat noisy making it difficult to fall asleep. Jesse called me at 16:00, which woke me up. His Mac OS upgrade had some problems and I was troubleshooting just coming from a nap so that was a guess in the dark and my room was like that as well. I got the survey e-mail to go out right before 17:00. I sent the message to 209 people.

After dinner I went to Palmer and chilled in Tom’s room with Jesse before returning to Worth briefly and then going to LPAC for the student dance concert at 20:00. Blair sat a few seats away from me and Jeremy joined her. Jeremy then sat next to me and we periodically chatted about stuff.

Blair and Jeremy also went to “Chocolat” (2000) in Kirby and so did I but I went much before 22:00 and they showed up after 22:00. The movie started 15 minutes late as the projectionist arrived late. This movie was also good. It was about a lady and her child moving to a church-going village set in their ways and traditions. She opens a chocolate store to make the town livelier.

2001-12-07, Fri (Day 526, temperature at 07:31: 25.1°C, difference: +1.2°C): I dreamed that Pakistani terrorists and another radical group were staying at a hotel. I had a view of the hotel slightly off the ground while a voice over, presumably a media or government information source told me that particular information.

Late this afternoon I started to make the random list of e-mail addresses for my survey on music listening in research design class. I went to the orchestra performance at 20:00 and following that the movie “Amores Perros” (2001) in Kirby at 22:00. The movie was briefly moved to LPAC Cinema but then moved back to Kirby. The setting of the movie was in Mexico City and it was in Spanish with English subtitles. This film reminded me of “Fight Club” but it was more bearable to watch as it also highlighted the human condition.

2001-12-06, Thu (Day 525, temperature at 07:32: 23.9°C, difference: +1.5°C): I dreamed I was turning pages of a children’s book and I turned to an image of the World Trade Center while it was still intact.

I finished this morning before Stat the draft of my intro to turn in today for research design. I sat with Jeremy and Ryan at lunch and worked on calculus problems in McCabe. Then I saw Kai and then John, both of whom were printing out their introductions for research design.

I went to the Scheuer Room with Kai for the psych colloquium and Jesse and John went to it too. I went to Sharples with Kai. We put our stuff down in the big room and when I returned with my food Alyssa and her friends namely Geoff and David were setting their stuff down at the same table. I said hi to Geoff. I had good conversation with Kai as seats were being taken around us for other tables.

I went to a Phoenix ed board meeting this evening that was anti-climatic. Afterwards I worked on calculus problems on the second level of McCabe. I sat at a six-seat table where someone already had their stuff at. She returned later and her friends took up more seats. Ironically they (the initial three, two women and a guy) sat at my table at lunch tomorrow and in the same configuration.

2001-12-05, Wed (Day 524, temperature at 07:31: 22.4°C, difference: +3.0°C): I took a nap early this afternoon and Dee and Liz slept to 14:00 since they stayed up late last night. I sat with them at breakfast. I worked on my introduction for Psych 25 until 16:30 and then I went up to the student publications office for The Phoenix. Jeff got the office a water cooler, which many people were using frequently. Four pizzas from Swarthmore Pizza were for dinner among those in the office. One of them was sausage, which went quickly. A few people commented on how good the pizzas were and Seth said they were salty, which may be why they tasted good.

I got the text of the early edition up in the early evening and then I worked on my psych paper. Following the second deadline of the last Phoenix for this semester, I put the remaining text up and eventually got to bed. I didn’t fall asleep until after 02:00 and I was waken at about 02:35 by the fire alarm. I opened my door and there was a strong smell of burnt food in the hall that Norense later identified as fish. The alarm was reset rather quickly and I tried falling asleep again but it took much longer to do so.

2001-12-04, Tue (Day 523, temperature at 07:31: 19.4°C, difference: +0.3°C): Even though I got up at my normal time and went to breakfast soon thereafter I overslept the first 15 minutes of my first class. I returned from breakfast and took a nap. I woke up at 09:05 to take another nap, which lasted until 10:05. I dreamed I was at home but when I referenced my room on campus I realized that I was in my room but I should be in class so I woke up. I was able to get the seat I normally get in stat class despite being late.

I got my stat second midterm back. The rest of my day was mucked up. In psychology of language Ed’s computer was giving problems where QuickTime wouldn’t play MPEGs but Windows Media Player would and Windows Media Player initially wouldn’t play its native file format.

In the early afternoon I took another brief nap and then went to research design. In the mailroom I saw a large campus mail envelope empty on top of a trash can and at that point I flipped out. I said something, grabbed that envelope, and proceeded to grab other campus mail envelopes even though they were of the small type and I already had a few of them.

I worked on calculus problems in McCabe before dinner. After dinner I took another nap before going to the problem session in Whittier for Stat 2 at 19:00. Phil went over modified problems found on the midterm. Following that I went to McCabe to finish the calculus problems and then start my introduction for research design. I worked until 22:30 and then took the customary hour and a half to wind down before taking a shower.

2001-12-03, Mon (Day 522, temperature at 07:31: 19.1°C, difference: -4.6°C): In the afternoon I did my Phoenix application for next semester. Like last year it was a pain getting it together. My computer froze while printing the documents initially. The printer I sent the documents to was unavailable so I had to print again. The copiers were replaced this summer and work substantially better but since I didn’t trade in my old copy card last semester I forfeited about $5 in credit.

I also didn’t have a large campus mail envelope or at least I couldn’t find one so I trolled around my dorm, Willets, and Parrish looking for one. Willets is more decorated this year but it smells much worse, especially the second floor. I found time slips on the third floor north hall and occupied large campus mail envelopes in two spots but no empty envelopes. I ended up fishing a large envelope out of the trash in the mailroom.

After dinner I tried doing research for my introduction in Psych 25 but that didn’t turn up many matches. Andrew extended the deadline for the section from tomorrow to Thursday. I left at 19:25 for the monthly Ridley School Board meeting at 20:00. I arrived at the high school right before that time to find a large crowd outside the entrance. The teachers have been working without a contract since 1999, picketed at the Thanksgiving football game, and were congregating now.

Inside, I said hi to Kevin and found a seat. The only seats left in the crowded boardroom were in the center front. After the president of the Ridley Education Association spoke during the public comment period a large portion of the audience got up and left. I then heard chanting outside, which soon quieted down. The rest of the meeting continued until 21:30. I got back on campus right before 22:00 so after stopping by Worth I went to the SWIL movie, “Ghostbusters.”

2001-12-02, Sun (Day 521, temperature at 12:41: 23.7°C, difference: -0.5°C): I slept late thinking I wouldn’t need the early morning bandwidth surplus. However right before I got up I thought about making use of the network as I had 50 megs of disk space left to fill. Doing this activity took the afternoon.

The B drive for iMac backups filled up this morning so I recycled that backup starting at 17:00. Consequently my computer would best not be used for the next three hours. I also wanted to rebuild the desktop this morning but this backup recycle thing delayed me.

I returned from dinner with John and Tom. We dropped in on the judging portion of Iron Chef PPR in Palmer lounge. Pittenger won. Tom and I played a military shoot-em up game and then I went up the hill to Lang to join John at a Brahms concert. The concert was at 19:30 and I was able to enter without queuing in the lobby, which was a relief considering recent debacles. The concert was good.

I ran the ‘Save file comments’ script when I got back. Since I paused dnetc the job finished in an hour, a third of the time that it normally takes. I then ran Virex, TechTool, Disk First Aid, and then rebuilt the desktop. The ‘restore file comments’ script worked as expected.

At around 01:00 a group of people were congregating around the heating exhaust pipe on the path between the Worth courtyard and Willets near Ben West. A few minutes prior I looked at the area and thought it looked cool seeing the smoke blow out of the pipe and move in the direction of my window. The people congregating were making the pipe look like a red-striped candy cane. I thought they wrapped ribbons around the pipe but when I walked by it Monday morning they had painted the pipe to look like a candy cane.

2001-12-01, Sat (Day 520, temperature at 07:34: 24.2°C, difference: -0.6°C): I got up tired this morning but I had a few things to do. Last night I tried seeing if I could get anywhere with the Gnutella search query logger but CodeWarrior didn’t like compiling the sample projects. I tried a few more things this morning but soon gave up. I don’t know that I am having problems since my CodeWarrior is too old (1996–1997 academic version) or I’m just doing something else wrong. At the moment this project is not technically feasible.

I e-mailed workbox directly about the dead mouse that is trapped in the connector to the N section of Worth on the third floor. I sent Thursday morning a message to my RA, who forwarded it on to workbox a few hours later but workbox this semester has been slow in responding to calls.

Journal 2001-11