The January List
- This trigonometry reference circle would make an excellent tattoo (ha, and he designed it for that purpose!)
- These socks ain’t takin’ none of my crap:
- Every once and awhile, I really just need to be Claude.
- I’m just…I’m just going to put this here.
- Back when I was working on “Walking Treadmill Desk Prototype I” I used a rubber mallet to hammer some boards together to make the desk (didn’t work; using stacked-up dresser drawers now). I’ve kept the mallet in the house because Annabelle is freakishly attached to it. I have to put her food and water next to it or else she gets mad. Evidence:
- The biggest thing that bothered me about the movie Titanic was the scene right before Jack drew Rose nude—where she paid him a dime for the drawing. I’d have to watch the movie again to be sure, but I’m 99% sure the dime she gave him had FDR’s head on it. He wouldn’t be President until 1933 and wouldn’t be the face of the dime until 1946. This is the design of the dime that would have been used:
SCHOOL SCHOOL SCHOOL SCHOOL
YAY YAY YAY YAY
HERE ARE THE CLASS REVIEWS!
Mathematical Statistics (STAT 452): Part II of the “Journey to Fuse Math and Stats in a Glory of Distribution Orgies.” Super excited.
Complex Variables (MATH 420): DUDE THIS CLASS ALREADY LOOKS SO FREAKING INTERESTING. At one point in the semester we’re going to be doing calculus with imaginary numbers. Whaaaaaaaaaat I can’t wait.
Stochastic Methods (STAT 453): I think this is going to be the hardest class of the semester. Stochastic methods, from what I’ve gathered thus far, involve attempts to model randomly-behaving variables based on how they have acted in the past (or in the present).
Analysis of Algorithms (MATH 395): I’m going to flip out once we get to the sorting algorithms, I know I am. Excited about this, too!
Looks like a good semester so far. I have Concert Band tomorrow, which doesn’t really need a review, but once we finally meet for Advanced Nonfiction on the 27th, I’ll let you all know how that goes.
‘Cause I’m sure you all give a crap.
Stats Land
Just some stats-related links today! Too nervous about school to do anything else.
- Probability and Statistics Cookbook
- Free stats software!
- This is such an interesting blog!
- A Tour through the Visualization Zoo
- I’ve probably already liked to the Probability and Statistics Blog here somewhere, but I don’t care!
RESPECT THE TRIANGLE
So remember this Approximate Number System aptitude test I did back in 2012? I decided to try it again. I’ve been doing so much more math since then, I wondered if that would affect my performance at all.
Results:
OLD (2012)
NEW (today)
HAHA, nope. My Weber fraction (w = .13) is exactly the same. That’s hilarious.
Though to be fair, it’s 4:30 in the morning and I’m kinda hyper, so maybe that’s affecting stuff.
But I’m always like that, so maybe not.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The Shirts that Bind
Yo!
I have no idea how useful this information will be for anyone who regularly reads my blog (or for anyone who just happens by this post), but here it is:
For anyone who wishes to bind, here are some awesome links for some (seemingly very) effective and quite cheap chest binders. I really like how the original set posted has the tanktop-esque style. Check the other links for other styles/prices, if you’re interested.
And yes, I know it’s a Tumblr post, but I’m mentioning it here rather than Tumblr ‘cause even fewer people follow me on Tumblr than on Eigenblogger.
OoOoOoOo
Tra-la-la-la-la, I wish my coping mechanisms weren’t so self-destructive. And I don’t trust Gritman, so fuck that nonsense.
(Sorry, ignore me tonight.)
HULA!
I’ve reached the “everything is hilarious and nothing hurts” stage of sleep deprivation.
However, I can’t tell if this infomercial is hysterical because I haven’t slept or because it’s just so freaking absurd.
I laughed for like 15 minutes straight at this. And as often happens with a funny YouTube video, the comments section is just as great:
- Statistically, 79% of this galaxy’s species became extinct within 10 generations after inventing the Hawaii chair.
- Einstein had also a hawaii chair
- When you sit, you can get fit, while looking like a tit
- she looks like she’s spinning on a cock
- Thikljankds fojkrjr reachinfinfg outtt sennnnt irhjdf from mmmmqy yyy Hawaasii ii iii chaaasidsdiiirr
- Oh good, now I can simulate what having Parkinsons is like.
- Notice the spokesman has solid black eyes
- The one girl has her hands up at 0:14 like it’s some kind of god damn theme park ride lol
- what the fuck is a hula motor
- “that feels great on my abs” thats your balls mate
- boss : “write this neatly; don’t fuck it up!” you : ” can’t ”
- DEAR SANTA…
Wow.
Framed
New specs! Check ‘em:
There’s Gold in Them Thar Hips!
I had a dream last night in which I was bedridden for some reason and all my major muscles very quickly atrophied. However, as they atrophied, they all turned into gold and I had thousands of doctors from around the world wanting to operate on me just so that they could get their hands on said gold.
In the dream, I kept trying to force myself to stay awake so that the doctors couldn’t come in at night and cut me up, but I accidentally keep falling asleep and each time I woke up I had more and more gaping cuts all over my arms and legs from where the doctors would come and try to harvest the gold as I slept. I woke up (in real life) when it got to the point where the doctors had taken all the gold and were starting to take my bones to see if I had gold in the marrow.
Red Bull is a hell of a drug.
Welcome to Mediocrity City. Population: Claudia
I am so fantastically stupid.
Let’s relive some humiliation, shall we?
Hahaha, so this might seem like a totally random thing to post (isn’t everything I post like that, though?), but I was reminded of this incident a few nights ago and I still think it’s hilarious, so I want to actually write it down somewhere so that if I ever forget about it, I can have a good laugh upon rediscovering it.
Alright. So. Matt (and Maggie, if you read this), you guys might remember our first Band Camp for Marching Band back in 2006. Recall that, at the end of that week, the sousas handed out little flyers to all of us, urging us to attend the “band seminar” in the evening. It wasn’t required, they said, but attendance was recommended.
As you also probably recall, the “seminar” was basically a drinking party held at one of the sousa’s apartments (I think the “distinguished speaker” was Dr. Winehard or something).
And everyone who got the flyer pretty much knew that this was just a party in disguise, right?
Well…wrong.
I distinctly remember Beau walking over to me and going, “I don’t really want to go, but we probably should, ‘cause it’d make us look good.” And with my matching level of naivety about college, I agreed and said that we should walk over together.
So later that night, with our freaking backpacks and notebooks, we head over to the address on the flyer, fully expecting an hour-long seminar where we would have to take notes (I’m not even kidding, oh my god, we were dumb).
We get like two houses away from the address and all we can hear is this booming music an a lot of people singing/shouting/being rowdy. And Beau looks at me and says, “I think it’s a party.” I agree. We slink back to the dorms, ashamed of our inability to have figured it out beforehand like EVERYONE ELSE.
I brought this story up to Beau the semester I graduated (fall 2008, so like two years later) and he totally denied it ever happening. But it did! He’s so embarrassed by it still I bet, haha.
So yeah. Just a funny little “we were stupid and didn’t know what college was” anecdote.
I still think it’s hilarious.
Post It!
So remember that interactive chart of statistical distributions? Remember how I said it would be cool if that was offered as a poster?
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
2013 in 12 Sentences
Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, why not.
- January: Super obnoxious depression hits just as the semester starts, ‘cause my brain is just awesome like that!
- February: “Hey, these Achievement Hunter guys look funny…” *50 videos later* “….aaaaaaaaaaaaand I’m addicted.”
- March: Cue incredible amounts of frustration regarding everything school-related (mainly CS 120).
- April: Decide to write about my time in Vancouver for my long essay in Nonfic because I feel like torturing myself.
- May: Yaaaaaay, the semester from hell is over and I get a 4.0 and oh hey it’s time for calc III.
- June: Teach in the morning, calculus in the afternoon, walk in the evening…rinse and repeat.
- July: LEIBNIZ LEIBNIZ LEIBNIZ LEIBNIZ!
- August: I get one week of “doing nothing” and then school starts again.
- September: I write a lot of short stories, most of them horrible.
- October: Kloktober!!
- November: I hit 1,000 miles on my shoes and have multiple freakouts over my second Proofs midterm.
- December: Cold snap and finals and goodbyes, oh my!
2014!
Greetings from 2014! I hope this year goes well. 2013 wasn’t horrible (at least, May – December wasn’t horrible), but I still hope this year is better.
Anyway.
In true Claudia spirit, let’s start the blogging year off with one of my failures* from last year: my walking** data!
From January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013…
- I walked a total of 1,361.2 miles, taking a total of 2,870,552 steps
- I went walking on 246 of the 365 days (67.4% of the days)
- My average walk was 5.53 miles long
- Graph of miles by month:
- Graph of miles by day of the week:
1,361.2 miles is approximately the same distance as…
Moscow, ID to Tucson, AZ
or…
Madrid, Spain to Prague, Czech Republic
Yaaay.
* I say “failures” because my goal mileage for the year was 1,500 and I didn’t hit it
** “Walking” is defined by the times I have my pedometer turned on and am walking for recreation. This excludes walking to/from classes on campus, walking to campus from the car, walking around in the grocery store, walking around at home, etc.
Claudia’s 365 Days of Music: Year 4 – A Review
It’s year four! I think this was the best year yet as far as this project goes. Let’s get to it!
Total songs: 365
Total time: 24 hours, 18 minutes, and 28 seconds
Total size: 2.69 GB
Mean song length: 4:17.4
The Five Stars
Listed in order of acquisition!
Best of All Possible Worlds by Bourgeois Tagg
Gold by Owl City
One O Six (A.N.D.Y. Remix) by Jupiter
I Love It (feat. Charli XCX) by Icona Pop
Doin’ It Right by Daft Punk
Chocolate by The 1975
Wake Me Up by Avicii
Mirrors (Radio Edit) by Justin Timberlake
Hey Brother by Avicii
Pompeii by Bastille
United State of Pop (Living the Fantasy) by DJ Earworm
The five most beautiful/touching songs of the year:
Allegri – Miserere mei, Deus by Géza Pécsi, József Gregor & Liszt Ferenc Kamarazenekar
Alleluia by Eric Whitacre
Cajun Folk Songs: La Belle et le Capitaine by Frank Ticheli (yay Ticheli!)
O Vos Omnes by Paul Mealor
Warning Sign by Coldplay
The Overall Top Five
Doin’ It Right – Daft Punk
Preeeeeetty sure this song is perfection. I love how simple and repetitive it is. That’s what makes it GREAT. Plus, the tempo is just right. Go find and awesome pair of speakers (or headphones) and crank this up.
One O Six (A.N.D.Y. Remix) – Jupiter
This is a very “Claudia” song. That’s really all I can say about it.
Chocolate – The 1975
I didn’t like this song too much when I first got it—probably because I didn’t think the vocals fit the music—but it grew on me. Also, this was the iTunes freebie offered on Leibniz’ birthday, so I’m reminded of him every time I listen to it. ;)
Mirrors (Radio Edit) – Justin Timberlake
THOSE OPENING NOTES ARE SO FREAKING BEAUTIFUL NNNNNNNNNNNNF.
I like the lyrics to this song for some reason. Not sure why. I also love how Justin still has that “boy band” sound to him.
Pompeii – Bastille
I really, really like Dan Smith’s voice, especially in the chorus. This is another song whose lyrics I actually pay attention to. There’s almost a euphoric feeling to it even though it’s titled “Pompeii” and is apparently inspired by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Now, want some pie charts? Yeah, I know you do!
END! Bring it, 2014.
Resolutions Review (Alternate Title: Claudia Sucks)
So I pretty much failed at everything this year.
Punishment: going through all of this year’s resolutions and seeing exactly how many I failed.
Let’s do this!
FAILED: Walk 1,500 miles. NOPE! I’ll be about 150 miles short of 1,500. No excuse for that other than I suck.
ACCOMPLISHED: Blog daily. Pfft, big deal.
FAILED: Win NaNoWriMo 2013. I DIDN’T EVEN START WOW I’M SUCH AN AWESOME PERSON
ACCOMPLISHED: Continue my 365 Days of Music project. This is like automatic for me now, so this doesn’t count.
FAILED: Draw at least two new thingies a month. Ha.
SORT OF ACCOMPLISHED: Do something with my writing. I actually made substantial progress on this, so I guess this is a “sort of.”
FAILED: Study for the GRE this time before I take the damn thing. Didn’t take the GRE. Got waaaaaaay too busy to study for it.
FAILED: Learn as much as possible. I learned a lot, but I don’t think I learned enough to say I learned “as much as possible” for the year.
ACCOMPLISHED: Revamp and start over with my book list. I actually did this one! Granted, I’ve only read 3.5 books on the list as of now, but as I said above, I got waaaaaaay too busy to do pretty much anything but school.
ACCOMPLISHED: Uh…try not to die? Like this one even counts, either.
This year’s:
Ugh, jeez. I don’t even know.
- Blog daily (a standard).
- Continue my 365 Days of Music project (another standard).
- Continue working on my writing project thingy.
- Win NaNoWriMo 2014.
- I’m not setting a walking distance goal ‘cause I’m not sure what’s going down this year in terms of “big super happy life plans.” I’d explain further, but I don’t want to.
- Graduate.
- Try not to be such a horrible freaking failure at everything I do.
Yay.
.gif of the Magi (pretty sure I’ve used this title before but WHATEV)
Do you want a gif-related survey today?
No?
WELL TOO BAD!
8th Gif- Sense of Humor
16th Gif – Attitude Toward the World
23rd – Love Life
13th – Social Life
30th – Ideal Life
1st – Your Future
10th – Your Past
18th – Your Present
35th – Future Partner
(He does seem quite…Ritzy.)
2nd – How the Same Sex Sees You
27th – How The Opposite Sex Sees You
15th – How You See Yourself
(Pretty much.)
20th – What Your Parents Are Like
26th – What Your Kids Will Be Like
(HAHAHAHA)
5th – What Your Neighbors Will Be Like
11th – Last Day on Earth
9th – Sexual Preference
3rd – Emotions Toward Music
21st – Favorite TV Show/Movie
End of the Year Survey
1. What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?
Took a 400-level math class (this is also something I never thought I’d do).
2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
That’s coming up in a later blog!
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Matt and Lindsey had two itty bitties!
4. Did anyone close to you die?
I don’t think so.
5. What countries did you visit?
I actually stayed in the freaking States for the first time in 4 years.
6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
A more consistent year.
7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don’t think there’s any particular date that stuck out this year. It’s been up and down, but there weren’t any extremes.
That freaking Proofs study session was hilarious, though. That entire Tuesday, December 17th, was a fun day, now that I think back.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Teaching in Spring, Summer, and Fall, and then being told I get TWO sections this coming semester. WOO!
9. What was your biggest failure?
Haha, everything else?
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
NEVER I AM ZEUS
11. What was the best thing you bought?
The best thing I bought? Probably my replacement Hume shirt (my other one was really old and was getting holey).
14. Where did most of your money go?
Towards school.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The European Enlightenment. I mean, even more so than before. The Clockwork Universe helped with that.
16. What song will always remind you of 2013?
Definitely Daft Punk’s Doin’ It Right, just ‘cause I’ve listened to it SO MUCH.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Learned.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Procrastinated.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent Christmas with my mom and my cat, opening presents and playing Geometry Wars.
21. Did you fall in love in 2013?
No.
23. How many one-night stands?
Zero!
24. What was your favourite TV program?
I still love Metalocalypse, man. DOOMSTAR REQUIEM!
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nopers.
26. What was the best book you read?
Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography. It’s an incredibly thorough account of a remarkable human being. I highly recommend it (of course).
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I really, really, really love this song. You’ll hear more about this year’s music on the 31st, so I’m going to leave it at that for now.
28. What did you want and get?
A 4.0 for spring semester and a 4.0 for fall semester.
29. What did you want and not get?
I was hoping to get hired as a permanent employee at UI, but that’s not going to happen for several reasons (though I’m still hopeful!).
30. What was your favourite film of this year?
I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen a “new” movie this year (that is, a movie I haven’t seen before). So I’m saying Sunshine.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 25 and I honestly can’t remember what I did. I think I was still freaking out over my first calc II test and so I didn’t do anything exciting.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably satisfying?
Going to RTX would have been awesome. But I was teaching during that time anyway, so it wouldn’t have worked out even if I could have afforded it.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
COLORZ!
34. What kept you sane?
Ha. “Sane.”
35. Which celebrity/public figure(s) did you fancy the most?
Does AH count? AH, definitely.
37. Who did you miss?
I miss my old Moscow friends.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
Man, I can’t choose! All of the awesome people in Linear and Proofs.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:
Math majors are the dorkiest, most hilarious people ever.
Holiday Vroom
Yay, Christmas with my mom! We hung out upstairs and utilized my dad’s super giant TV to watch YouTube vids and play Geometry Wars.
Look what she got me:
LEIBNIZ STAMP!!!
TOWER OF PIMPS SHIRT!!! (Pic is from the RT store ’cause my battery’s almost dead on my iPad and I have no idea where my camera is)
She knows me so well. She also got me a new pot to replace the one that currently provides me with more than my daily allowance of Teflon flakes.
Bonus: Annabelle got catnip and toy mice! She still seemed pretty miffed that we were in her part of the house, though, haha.
NOW break can start
WOOOOOOOOOOOO!
4.0 GPA plus my highest teaching evaluations yet (3.6/4.0 with a 37% student response rate).
Damn good early Christmas presents, if you ask me.
:(
Goodbyes suck.
That is all.
Eigenblogger 