Journal 2002-05
2002-05-19, Sun (Day 654, temperature at 08:45: 20.5°C, difference: -4.5°C): The dorms close early tomorrow for non-seniors so I need to leave today. I need to do almost all of my packing today.
2002-05-18, Sat (Day 653, temperature at 09:35: 25.0°C, difference: -0.5°C): I started sorting papers today, marking stuff to delete. Considering that I hadn’t really done this all academic year it took the entire day to do and I still had papers to sort at the end of the day.
I went to Lang at 19:30 for the Chester Children’s Chorus. Al and Cathy from the ellipsis… concert sat with me.
2002-05-17, Fri (Day 652, temperature at 06:58: 25.5°C, difference: +1.3°C): I got up a few minutes before my alarm went off at 07:00 and went to breakfast at 07:30. Alex sat with me briefly and then I sat with Nathan. He was studying for his last honors written exam this morning. Nathan also told me he was sticking his couch somewhere else this summer for lack of a better place. I told him I might be able to take it next year.
The econ final was in Kohlberg 115. Even though the final itself wasn’t that difficult since I didn’t study that much I had to think more to answer most of the questions. I was able to finish in two hours, which was how much time O’Connell thought it would take. I was one of the last ones to finish though.
I stopped by the service building to see if the keys for the student publications office were ready. They were and I went to Parrish to try them out. I received two keys so I initially thought one was for the exterior door of Parrish but I tried them on a back door and neither one inserted. Liz was up in the publications office and she determined based on the keys she had that the second key was for the Phoenix office. This key also opens the Halcyon office.
On going for my walk I thought I should see my Wharton room now so I can know ahead of time if the couch is going to fit. I called Alvaro, who lives in Wharton 150 now, and asked if I could come over. He agreed, and I went to Wharton. The room was smaller than I thought it would be and at first glance it seemed smaller than my current room. I told him why I came over and we agreed that it would be tough getting a couch to fit in there. However, I wanted to measure the room to see if there was some way to do it. I also measured the furniture already in the room.
Later this afternoon when I got a hold of Nathan I went to his room to measure his couch. The couch was smaller than I originally remembered it so the outlook seemed hopeful. I tried making a layout plan of where I could place the furniture in my room next year to get everything to fit. It took a while since there wasn’t a lot of space. I did come up with something but it involves putting my dresser in my closet and having my bookcase stick out from the wall. But I have the measurements and a summer to think about other possible combinations.
I took pictures of my room late this afternoon. Interestingly enough a year ago today I also took pictures of my room. I thought I was behind in doing that this year but I guess I really am not. I had dinner with Tom who is leaving tomorrow.
I archived and packaged my e-mail this evening, upgraded to Eudora 5.1 and tried out IMAP with the web-based Swatmail. I ran into a few problems along the way. First, Eudora decided to make a ‘mbox’ mailbox in addition to my ‘Inbox.’ However my ‘In’ mailbox is empty. I also have ‘sent-mail’ and ‘Out’ mailboxes depending on where I sent the message. Swatmail has a confusing navigation system. Also, when I would trash messages on Swatmail, when Eudora would resynchronize it deleted messages there as well. I wanted Eudora to keep all mail but I didn’t see a nice way to do that.
2002-05-16, Thu (Day 651, temperature at 13:08: 24.2°C, difference: +2.8°C): I heard my alarm go off at 07:00 but I didn’t have enough energy to get out of bed. I then decided to sleep until I was caught up so I could wake up early tomorrow. I also decided to stop early tonight so I could get up early the next day.
Today, I started studying for my econ final this afternoon and since I didn’t have enough time I felt panicked near the beginning. Things improved by the evening. I did stop studying at 22:00 and got in bed before 00:00 but it took a while to fall asleep since I wasn’t tired and it was intermittently noisy outside.
2002-05-15, Wed (Day 650, temperature at 12:27: 21.4°C, difference: -1.6°C): After lunch with Kiyo, Marilyn, and Ryan I went to the service building to try and get a key to the student publications office. I filled out a form and was told I would be called when the key was ready.
I finished the image callouts and continued reading mail this afternoon into the evening. I got caught up more or less but I couldn’t do finalization stuff such as archiving my mail and upgrading Eudora since I just received a long e-mail and it got too late. So I went to bed after 04:30, with the expectation to get up at 07:00 to practice getting up early for Friday as my econ final is at 09:00. I didn’t realize until a couple days ago that this final started in the morning; otherwise I would have gotten up earlier more often.
2002-05-14, Tue (Day 649, temperature at 10:49: 23.0°C, difference: -3.0°C): I took care of Swat mail for much of the day. I went to an Econ 1 review session at 19:30. The fix that Nathan sent for Phoenix Online front page text to display at the same size on IE Mac didn’t work on my computer. I spent the better part of the evening to fix this problem. I got something working but so much time went by that I could not finish reading February mail. I worked on integrating Nathan’s image callout script with The Phoenix Online late this evening but it got too late and I was too tired to finish.
2002-05-13, Mon (Day 648, temperature at 09:57: 26.0°C, difference: +2.7°C): I got my psych T-shirt today and read mail for the afternoon. I went to the monthly Swarthmore borough meeting at 19:30 and the SWIL movie “Star Trek IV: Voyage Home” in Kirby at 22:00.
2002-05-12, Sun (Day 647, temperature at 12:47: 23.3°C, difference: +0.2°C, Mother’s Day): I got up somewhat later than normal since I went to bed late. I went to Sharples immediately, in time for standard brunch. I read e-mail this afternoon and lost track of time.
In the evening I continued reading mail, taking a break for making hashes from AppleScript and PHP. It was real easy finding an AppleScript OSAX that made SHA1 hashes but PHP complained about an undefined function, which I asked the SCCS about. I developed a workaround with CRC 32 hashes, the Akua Sweets OSAX, and some extra code since the hashes between the two programming environments didn’t exactly match but the difference appeared to be predictable. I plan on using hashes for confirming that web server owned files aren’t modified improperly such as for The Phoenix Online author pages and forum.
I went to the Worth J lounge for a pizza party, which was much shorter than I expected. It seemed like others were less inclined to socialize than I was. Worth really is an unsociable dorm.
I didn’t go to bed until after 04:00. Part of the reason for this delay is I wanted to take a shower earlier but there was lightning in the sky and I felt that I could wait to reduce the risk.
2002-05-11, Sat (Day 646, temperature at 10:28: 23.1°C, difference: -1.0°C): I dreamed that I got up at around 15:45 for my 14:00 final today. I also had to go to a funeral at HUP and Pop-pop was helping out. His floor was furnished very nicely.
I got up early, which is no surprise considering that in my dream I overslept through my final. I had a full hour to study after eating lunch but it didn’t seem like it since I kept thinking about stuff I wanted to do for the publications office.
The social psych final this afternoon proved to be just as hard as the self-control final. Some questions were easy to answer but there were 46 of them to do. The first page of questions took the longest. Afterwards, two other Swatties from the class agreed that the final was quite difficult.
I ate dinner with John. Drew sat down with us and talked about the Hybrid Electric Vehicle project. After dinner I continued reading Swat mail and did the laundry, probably for the last time this semester. The middle washer didn’t agitate properly during the wash cycle but the spin cycle worked properly so it wasn’t a total failure.
I went to Kohlberg 115 for the 22:00 showing of Arcadia’s last MST3K showing. She showed two shorts, “Mr. B Natural” and “Hired Part 2.” The full-length film was episode #424, “Manos: The Hands of Fate.” The second short was in episode #424. The first short was in episode #319.
I didn’t go to bed until 04:00 since I was browsing someone’s shared stuff. I hadn’t browsed her stuff this extensively before and she will probably be home by this time next week. I didn’t finish; what made me stop is she shut her computer down at 03:00.
2002-05-10, Fri (Day 645, temperature at 10:59: 24.1°C, difference: +1.6°C): I ate lunch with a number of people including Marilyn, Ryan, Andrew, Kevin, Kai, and Caroline. Everyone did not show up at once although I was there for 90 minutes. I didn’t mind that much since I would be studying all day today.
In the afternoon and evening I studied in the McCabe level 2 lounge for my social psych final tomorrow. I read the chapter summaries near the end and it was tough getting through all of them when it got past 00:00.
2002-05-09, Thu (Day 644, temperature at 10:53: 22.5°C, difference: -3.6°C): I dreamed that I was in a building in Center City Philadelphia. I needed to hold a three floor express elevator for Dad, who still needed to do something in the office behind the elevator. He tried entering the cab directly from the office but that was causing problems. A fair amount of time goes by and he finally gets on the elevator, holding up at least two other people not including me. The elevator is called express since it holds a lot of people, not because it covers three floors consecutively, which would not be an express elevator.
I ate lunch with Jeff, who told me some more stuff about the publications office. I finished my semantics paper this afternoon. After a brief break in my room I went to the Presser Room in Lang for a Music 4 opera open rehearsal. Jesse and John were in the performance. I get to the Presser Room at 16:50 for a 17:00 start and when I walk in they are still practicing. I put my stuff down and try to leave the room but then the performers rehearsing an act block the aisles. I finally get out of the room and wait for things to get a little more organized.
Following the rehearsal, I got Swat e-mail caught up through October early this evening and then went to McCabe to start studying for my social psych final Saturday. However, since I felt worn out by this point I spent a fair amount reading the Time cover story about autism and Asperger’s syndrome. The Phoenix staff hiring meeting started at 22:00 and lasted until 23:20. I continued studying for a bit afterwards and eventually went to bed. I had a hard time falling asleep since I was anxious thinking about what I wanted to do to the publications office computers this summer.
2002-05-08, Wed (Day 643, temperature at 10:59: 26.1°C, difference: +0.8°C): I ate lunch with Phoenix people and Jeff, student publications coordinator. Jeff told me that I was hired for the tech position for the publications office.
I studied for a half-hour before going to Papazian 324 for my self-control final at 14:00. Not too many self-control people showed up but social psych people showed up in fair number.
Following dinner I went to Palmer for a last meeting of sorts with Jesse, John, and Tom since Tom is leaving briefly tomorrow. This evening in McCabe I redid my fourth semantics problem set, which is due tomorrow at 17:00 along with my squib.
The final SWIL Schlock movie was in Kohlberg 115. “Blood Freak” had good 1970s music but the tape snapped halfway through the movie. Dan and I tried to get it working again and while we were able to get the video cassette apart and rejoin the two ends of tape, on reassembly a plastic guidepost broke so that made the cassette broken for the time being.
I finished my problem set following this abrupt end and went back to my room.
2002-05-07, Tue (Day 642, temperature at 10:59: 25.3°C, difference: +0.8°C): I had a dream that instead of going to the Inquirer trip today I went home and by the time I realized this I didn’t have enough time to go on the trip. I really go on about what a blunder I made.
Today, after a quick lunch I went to the train station to meet Phoenix people for the second wave of The Philadelphia Inquirer trip. There was a group that went early this morning. Ben and Lillie show up and we find out that since there was a suicide on the tracks the trains weren’t running. We go to Lillie’s room in PPR to call someone who has a car so we can go into Philly and get the first wave of Phoenix people out since they are now stranded. After not finding anyone we leave and as I am walking back to Worth I hear a train go by. I change and prep to study for my self-control final. I am about to leave and Lillie calls me to tell me that the trains are running again. She is going to try and catch the train leaving in one minute but I decide to go to McCabe and study.
My studying productivity for most of the day was pretty bad. I continued studying into the evening. I went to Kirby for “Death Race 2000,” which was an unusually gory movie. After the movie I continued studying.
2002-05-06, Mon (Day 641, temperature at 10:59: 24.5°C, difference: +0.5°C): My dream apparently was a movie with shooting in a classroom, a mall scene, a Diet Coke plug, and weird music.
I wrote the draft for my semantics paper this afternoon and in the evening I revised and finished my self-control paper. I turned the self-control paper in and went to The Phoenix party at the Mertz courtyard for almost an hour. I went up the hill to Kirby for the Schlock showing of “At the Earth’s Core” at 22:00.
2002-05-05, Sun (Day 640, temperature at 11:00: 24.0°C, difference: +0.7°C): I ate lunch with Alex and found out what he is going to do this summer. I wrote a draft of my psych of self-control paper this afternoon. Following dinner I went to Palmer with Jesse, John, and Tom to watch “Beowulf” (1999). This movie was sort of like pre-Schlock festivities in that it was bad. Each fight scene had this techno music and things seemed sort of odd editing-wise.
I found a source and topic for my semantics paper this evening. I went to Kirby for the first Schlock film, “Future Wars.” However, the people with the video did not show up after 30 minutes so a bunch of us left. I wrote a page of my semantics paper and then went to sleep.
2002-05-04, Sat (Day 639, temperature at 10:55: 23.3°C, difference: +0.3°C): I ate lunch with Brendan and Ani in Sharples. I did the laundry in the early afternoon. This task finished late enough where I didn’t have enough time to go to Beardsley to start my psych of self-control paper before the McCabe achievement awards dinner. I met at the Rose Garden by 16:15 but it took a while to get going since finding enough drivers was difficult.
The dinner did not finish until about 20:00, later than I expected. I got back to campus at 20:24 so I had just enough time to go to Paces for the ellipsis… concert. I get there and the band is still setting up since the sound equipment was just used at Worthstock today. The concert starts after 21:05 but lasts until 23:00. For the first act I sat with Cathy, Kim, and Jessica, but all of them left at the break.
I went to bed earlier than in days past since there was not much point in staying up given that there was no time block today where I could work on my paper in Beardsley.
2002-05-03, Fri (Day 638, temperature at 09:56: 23.0°C, difference: -2.7°C): I dreamed that I was on a highway near the south end of New York City. I took a look behind me of the skyline, which included the World Trade Center.
Today was the last day of classes. Andrew had good snacks for social psych. After lunch I went to the annual E6 bridge break competition. One bridge exploded at the top under load and held more weight than the others. I spent more time at this event than I would have liked so that delayed and compressed completion of my social psych paper.
I went to Beardsley public at about 15:00 and worked until 17:00. The lab was really crowded for this period but when I returned at about 18:00 to finish my paper far fewer people were there. I finished my paper before 21:00. Originally I was going to the movie night on the beach, which Jesse, John, and Tom presumably went to. However, I have already seen “Shrek” and I did not feel like sitting out in the cold. I wanted time to myself and since I have been to a number of campus events throughout the semester now is a time to get work done.
I cleaned up the code for the Phoenix dynamic archives page and went to bed at about 02:00.
2002-05-02, Thu (Day 637, temperature at 10:59: 25.7°C, difference: +0.6°C): Today was the last class meeting for semantics and psych of self-control. The psych picnic in front of Papazian started at 16:15. Around 17:00 when more people were there it started to sprinkle, which made many go inside or leave. I left soon after to start my social psych paper. I went to the last regular Phoenix ed board meeting this semester at 18:45. Following that I settled on a paper topic and started writing in Beardsley public. I had a full draft done by 00:00 so I called it a day and went back to Worth.
2002-05-01, Wed (Day 636, temperature at 10:00: 25.1°C, difference: +2.2°C): I dreamed I was talking with Mom about the WTC collapse and I was correcting her on the height of the towers although I gave a number that was still too low.
After briefly meeting Kari this afternoon about the last semantics problem set I revised my answer to the question and wrote the problems up in McCabe. Following that I sent workbox an e-mail about the toilet, which broke today. I also followed up on my radiator handle, which doesn’t have a screw to hold the handle in place. In addition I found another course to take the place of the sociology course I didn’t get in to.
I did the early edition for the last Phoenix of the semester and went to Trotter for the last regular showing of MST3K. Tonight’s episode was #317, “Viking Woman vs. the Sea Serpent.” This episode also had the short, “The Home Economics Story.”
I started looking through the “Try it!” exercises in my social psych text after the movie since I could do this option for my paper due Friday. I went up to the office later this evening to do the rest of The Phoenix articles. I had some good conversation with Nathan, considering that he is graduating and this is one of the last few times we will talk to each other in person while still with The Phoenix.
I didn’t get to bed until 05:00.
