S-s-surveyo
You know the drill.
Do you think any of your exs still want to be with you?
Hahahaha, I seriously doubt it.
Has a boyfriend/girlfriend ever put alcohol/drugs before you?
Nope. Not that I know of.
Let’s say you had a baby with the last person you kissed.
That would be rough. Neither of us want kids.
Will this Friday be a good one?
Tomorrow? Who the hell knows. Everything is chaos and fear right now.
When was the last time you completely broke down?
A couple weeks or so ago when I realized that this damn virus was going to fuck up the whole summer (and probably beyond).
Do you know anyone that smokes pot?
Probably.
Are you nice to the people you dislike?
There aren’t many people I dislike. I don’t interact with them.
Do you have someone you can spill your heart out to?
To an extent, yes.
What are you excited for?
Not much.
Your ex shows up randomly at your house, what do you say?
HOW DID YOU FIND ME
Is there a person that you would do absolutely anything and everything for?
Yup.
Does sex mean love?
No.
Have you ever fallen asleep on someone?
Hahaha. Yes.
What’s something you really want right now?
Normalcy.
What was the first thing you did this morning?
Probably pet Jazzy. I’m not super coherent in the mornings.
What is your relationship status?
Married to the best man in the world.
What did the last text in your inbox say? From Who.
“Hahahaha” from my mom.
What was the longest time you’ve wasted on a certain person?
Half a year-ish. God, 2008 was a suck hole.
Are you listening to music right now?
No, surprisingly.
Anyone you would like to get things straight with?
Nah.
What’s in your purse?
I don’t have a purse.
Is your name a common name?
I would say it’s not super common. I remember a lady at the Moscow DMV was named Claudia, but that’s the only “real life” Claudia I think I’ve met.
What is your favorite color out of these 5: Green, yellow, blue, pink, or red?
Yellow.
What are you doing tomorrow?
Walking and not working (it’s my “day off”).
You receive $500 without any reason, what do you spend it on?
Probably clothes. Or broccoli. Or walking shoes.
Where will you be in an hour?
Still here at my compy!
Is anything bothering you right now?
HAVE YOU SEEN THE CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS?
What do you think about math?
YAY!
How is your mood?
Mild panic.
What time is it?
3:30 AM.
Where’s your phone?
On the bookshelf beside me.
Who was your last text from?
My mom.
Why did you last cry?
Because I’m me and that’s just what I do.
In the past week have you cried?
Oh god yes.
Do you want to see somebody right now?
I miss my mom.
Which is worse for you: being hot, or being cold?
Being cold is basically my default state; I can deal with it. Being too hot sucks.
How many cell phones have you had in your life?
I’d say…six?
Are you happy with the way things are going?
Personally? Sure. As far as the whole world goes? Ha.
Here Are Some Internet Humors
Because I’m sure we could all use a laugh right now, here is a set of random crap I’ve found on the internet over the past few days that has made me laugh hysterically.
(I legit laughed for like 20 minutes over this stupid thing)
(This is an older one but every time I see it I laugh)
A Campus Without Students
I submit to you some very creepy photos of the University of Calgary without students.
It’s…it’s weird in here.
I will now be delivering my courses through The Tubes
So MATH 249, SCIE 301, and STAT 323 have now been frantically converted to online format!
Freaking joy.
Classes have been cancelled today, too, because it sounds like they realized that asking instructors to completely readjust their courses with less than 48 hours’ notice was a little rough.
Which is good for me, since it’ll put my video lecture recordings two days ahead of when they need to be posted rather than just one. Buffers are good.
BLAH SORRY too busy to blog.
(Also, I will never tire of referring to the internet as a series of tubes. Never.)
Favorite Movies
Heyo, buttbandits.
So remember back in February sometime when I did my “Top 5 Books” blog post? Let’s do movies today.
‘Cause I’m trying to avoid all the work I’m going to need to do to move my three classes online for the rest of the semester.
From fifth to first:
#5: Toy Story
This movie came out around the time I was in first grade and I loved it so very much. As in, “let’s-force-the-whole-first-grade-class-to-pick-characters-and-then-make-our-own-version-of-it,-‘cause-I-was-mini-Stephen-Spielberg-and-no-one-was-going-to-stop-me” level of love. It still holds a very special place in my heart. Also, Tom Hanks.
#4: Armageddon
Armageddon kind of terrified me when I first saw it as a kid (specifically when the Independence shuttle bit it in the debris, that was horrifying to me as a little). But I love it now. It’s just such an American film, yeah? Awesome music. Bruce Willis. Manly drilling…in space. I love it.
#3: Mystery Men
I had my appendix removed in 2000 (literally as I was supposed to be attending my 6th grade graduation). I couldn’t do much for a few weeks after that, so there were two movies I watched incessantly while I had to stay home: The Music Man and Mystery Men. Mystery Men is kind of a nostalgia trip for me because it just brings me back to that time of my life. It’s funny and weird and has a lot of very quotable lines in it (“you threw a spoon at the guy, Jeff!” “Yeah, what was up with that?”).
#2: Apollo 13
I’ve loved this movie ever since the first time I saw it. It’s a very beautifully-put together movie with AWESOME music. Seriously. The music is probably what pushes this over the top for me. My favorite is “The Launch.” Also, Tom Hanks.
#1: Sunshine
(I have a thing for space disaster movies, can you tell?) Not a lot of people know about Sunshine, which is a shame because it’s freaking fantastic. You look at the DVD cover or you read a brief synopsis of it and you’re like, “oh, so it’s Armageddon but with the sun instead of an asteroid?” Nope, not even close. It’s so different from Armageddon, and I think that’s why I like it. Oh, right, and THE MUSIC OMFG. Here’s one of my favorite scenes with one of my favorite parts of the soundtrack.
It’s so beautiful. And yeah, the whole movie is about that level of intensity.
Online Party 2K20
Yup, I was right. We got the email today that we’re supposed to use this weekend to convert our classes to some sort of format that can be delivered online; students will not be coming back to campus for the foreseeable future.
Converting to an online format won’t be too hard for my courses, but I imagine there are a lot of profs who are in a bit of a panic right now. Two days is not a lot of time to make this transition…
Cancellations
So classes were cancelled today.
Classes are never cancelled here.
It can be -40 degrees with ice covering every inch of every road and the U of C will still be like “lol campus beckons, children.”
From what I’ve heard, the last time classes were cancelled was during the 2013 floods.
I suspect they’re going to have us move to some sort of online format. When? Who knows. It wouldn’t surprise me if we have to do it over the weekend, even though as I’m writing this it’s 5 PM and we haven’t gotten any information yet other than that classes are closed today and are supposed to resume “in some format” on Monday.
So fun times.
Edit: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BASEBALL IS BEING POSTPONED
HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO L I V E
SUCKY SUCK SUCKERSON
So I’m calling it right now: things will not be back to normal enough by the end of June for us to go on our super cool retirement trip for my mom.
Which sucks ass.
That is pretty much the only thing in my life that I’m looking forward to right now.
Balls.
Edit from mid-April: hahahaha, yeah, no way in hell is that trip happening. I’d be surprised if I could visit my mom at Christmas.
How Worthless AM I?
Answer: pretty worthless.
Reaction time? GARBAGE!
Typing speed is meh. I can do better.
Hearing? GARBAGE!
Verbal memory? Meh.
Visual Memory? GARBAGE!
Number memory? GARBAGE!
One Word, Two Words, Red Words, Blue Words
This and this. Try them. How did you do?
I’m sure a (big?) portion of your ability to see the words has to do with the color/brightness/contrast settings on your monitor, but still. It’s fun to try.
I got 9/10 on the blue one and 8/10 on the red one.
Seriously, what the hell is that? There’s no word in there. Liars.
TO MS PAINT!
Fuck.
Long Hair? DON’T CARE!
Seriously, why did I ever have long hair? It was a pain in the ass and looked terrible. Not like I’m a supermodel or anything with short hair (I’m still just as ugly and stupid-looking), but at least I look more “naturally” ugly and stupid-looking, if that makes any sense.
Probably not.
Freaking Virus, Yo
I want to preface this blog by saying that given the current circumstances, Nate and I have it pretty good.
We both still have jobs and neither job is in danger (probably).
We can still pay our condo fees, mortgage, bills, etc.
We are both healthy (as far as we know).
Everyone we care about is healthy (as far as we know).
So our situation could be much, much worse in many different ways.
But that doesn’t change the fact that I am angry and disappointed.
I’m angry that my mom is finally able to retire this year but won’t get to travel (at least for a while), which is what she immediately wanted to do. Hell, she can’t even go to, like, a mall to celebrate.
I’m angry that Nate and I had an awesome retirement trip planned out for her that was going to be awesome for all three of us. Redwoods? Mets games? Family hangout time? Gone.
I’m angry that I’ve finally gotten a semester completely off for the first time since 2017 and most of the long walks that I haven’t been able to do because I’ve been too busy I now can’t do because of social distancing restrictions (or just general “I don’t want to take the risk by going to Walmart/taking the bus/sharing this path with 100 people who don’t understand the concept of covering their mouth when they cough).
I’m angry about not knowing how long all this will last.
I’m angry that my parents are in one of the most at-risk populations and, due to the border being closed and airlines being NOPE, it would be very difficult for me to get down to them if either of them got sick.
I’m angry that there are probably enough people who are still not taking this seriously enough that a second surge of this thing is probably going to hit once we start gradually opening things back up.
I’m just. Angry.
Sorry for the complaining. I need to do it somewhere.
Well this has never happened before.
I had not one, not two, but THREE migraines today.
THREE. WHAT THE HELL.
The first one happened in SCIE 301 around 11, which was the first time I’ve ever had one while lecturing. The scintillating scotoma started about 20 minutes before class was supposed to end. The scotoma is actually a good thing, because once it starts, I know I have about a five-minute window to take some Excedrin before it’s too late for its effects to lessen the migraine pain. Knowing I had office hours later that afternoon and another class to teach at 4, I had to pause the lecture and apologize to my students as I explained the situation and took a few Excedrin in front of them.
Great look.
The Excedrin deadened the actual migraine part, which is always good. But by the time my calculus class was ending at around 5 PM, my vision was starting to go wonky again, indicating another migraine was starting.
Which it did. And I had to text my mom and ask her if she could look up the drug info on Excedrin to see if it was safe to take an additional dose so close to the first one. It wasn’t, so that was fun.
And then my brain was like ONE MORE TIIIIIIIIIME! and I had yet another scotoma around 7 or so, followed by another surge in headache pain.
So yeah. Super fun. Also kind of worrying, because I’ve never had more than two migraines in a week’s span, let alone three in a single day. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
Edit: I guess that was a one-time thing? Haven’t had a migraine since and it’s now April.
Three Tiny Things for One Tiny Blog Post
One: This would make a beautiful tattoo. I love cardioids.
Two: “Steamed Hams Inc.” came on over shuffle while I was walking today and it made me remember what a treasure of the internet that song/video is.
Three: I feel like I will never be able to understand math the way a true mathematician understands math. I was hoping that my understanding and intuition of math would improve as I took more math courses (especially ones outside the more narrow focus of mathematical statistics, such as complex analysis), but I don’t think it ever really did. Maybe my focus was still too narrow, or maybe I’m lacking some basic fundamentals that help tie everything together. Or maybe I just don’t think like a mathematician. Or maybe even I’m still letting that basal fear of math that I’ve always had buried in my psyche prevent me from being able to look at math from different angles. Who knows. But it’s sad and embarrassing.
COME ON, IDAHO TRUCKIN’
Ever since SCS Software announced that Idaho was the next state to be added to American Truck Simulator, I’ve had the expansion at the top of my wishlist on Steam.
I have never been so excited for a game expansion in my life.
They’re even putting in those little historical marker signs. I recognize those little buggers!
ALSKJFLSFJSALFKAJSFAKSLJF I don’t know if you’ll be able to drive through Moscow, but there’s no way they’re not putting Lewiston and the Lewiston grade in there.
EEEEEEEEE EXCITED
FLUFFERNUTTER
Dudes, look at the amount of fluff I just combed out of Jazzy.
That’s like a fourth of her size. We could make a mini-Jazzy out of it if we wanted.
Sorry, that’s all I’ve got for today! I was going to go running outside once I got home from teaching because it was so freaking nice and sunny and (relatively) warm, but about five minutes after I got home it REALLY started to get windy out there, so I guess it’s good I stayed home.
(Even though I always feel guilty when I don’t exercise, even when it’s my scheduled off-day.)
I’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER
The Approximate Number System aptitude test is something I’ve taken three times before: in 2012 (before I started my math degree), 2014 (right before I got my math degree), and 2016 (right before I got my MS in stats). So let’s take it again after several years of teaching math and stats and see if anything’s changed!
Eh, they’ve changed a little. My w was 0.13 all the other times I’ve taken this. Probably means I’m getting dumber. If that’s even possible.
Some Days I Really Miss Vancouver
Today, for whatever reason, is one of those days.
So here we go with random Google Streetview screencaps of Vanland, ‘cause I’m sad and my blog is as pathetic as I am.
My first place in Vancouver. It was a shithole. I wonder if it still has as many silverfish in it as it did when I was living there.
I visited this Superstore a lot during the summer of my thesis defense. It was a pain in the ass to walk to, but it was the closest Superstore to my apartment.
I walked across this bridge a lot.
PERSON, NO! You’re in the middle of Kingsway!
This park was the place I walked to on that one summer day in 2010 when I was feeling all claustrophobic in my apartment and had to get out and do something. It was only like half a mile from my apartment, but it was more than I had voluntarily walked in a long time (sad, I know). And it felt good. I mark this walk as my first walk walk and the thing that started all this current madness and obsession with walking.
Yay.
Circulation problems
I’m pretty sure I’ve got some sort of circulation problem in my hands. Either that or my cold tolerance is just pathetic. I don’t think that’s the case, though, as I can walk in -15 degree weather and be reasonably comfortable…
…except for my hands.
Like, in temperatures where I see a lot of other people either not wearing gloves or just wearing those thin little $2 gloves you can get at Walmart, I’ve got my thick winter gloves on and my fingers still feel like they’re on the verge of getting frostbite.
I don’t know if constantly exposing them to cold weather is making this worse, either. It’s to the point now that if I’m out for long enough in the cold, they ache like hell once I get back inside and get them warmed up (we’re talking aching for several hours here).
I’ve Googled “how to improve circulation” and of course the first result is “exercise!”
Fool, I do that for four hours a day, so that’s not going to help anything if it’s not already doing so. Do they make compression gloves? Maybe I should try compression gloves.
Freaking winter.
Total Eclipse of the BUTT
what’s your favorite way to dress?
As colorfully and obnoxiously as possible. And in comfortable clothes.
if you could change anything about yourself, what would it be?
All. All of it.
what movie/game/etc. helps you calm down?
Euro/American Truck Simulator. So calming, yo.
what does your room smell like?
GREAT QUESTION I HAVE NO IDEA LOLOLOLOLOL
do you like to organize?
I do indeed.
what kind of music would you listen to if you could only choose one?
Like, what genre? That’s a tough one. Electronic, maybe, ‘cause that gives a decently wide range of types of songs.
what color do you think goes best with your personality?
What color is anger? Red? Red.
do you believe in auras?
Sure, why not?
is there someone you have mixed feelings towards?
Nah.
talk about a story you came up with
Uhhhhhh so I wrote this story in 4th grade about this family of like eleven kids where one of the kids was a super genius and she was hell bent on making a canoe out of soda cans in order to enter it in a canoe race. I wrote it all in a purple journal. It took up the whole journal. It was a weird-ass story, but it was the first and last time I ever wrote a story of that length from start to finish without jumping round.
do you like makeup?
I do indeed. I’m not very good with it; I mainly put on a metric ton of super bright eyeshadow and call it good.
do you prefer space or the ocean?
Ocean, but only if I can stay on top of it (in a ship). I like ships.
if you could pick any planet besides earth, where would you live?
Jupiter!
what animal would you keep as a pet, if you could?
Cats are all I need.
what do you think our purpose is in the universe?
To be.
is there a song you can’t handle listening to, even though you like it?
I have trouble with Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters because that song is so heavily associated with Rob and all that garbage that surrounded that whole situation. It’s a great song, though.
what is your favorite thing to learn about?
I like learning about mathematicians and statisticians and/or the history of math and stats.
what country’s history do you find the most interesting?
United States. It’s such a fascinating history in my opinion.
what breakup was the hardest, if you had one?
The one with Rob, ‘cause he wouldn’t go away. Oh my god that was hell.
do you have someone where you can’t decide if you like them romantically or just as a friend?
I used to. 2008, man. 2008.
what instrument do you wish you could master?
I’d love to be good at the cello, ‘cause cellos are beautiful.
how easy is it for you to be honest?
Pretty easy, I’d say. Or am I lying?!?!?!?
do you have any strange interests?
Hah. Hahaha. Um. I don’t know if any *strange* interests, per se. “Unusual” is probably a better descriptor. I like cloud typing. The kilogram. Units of measurement in general. Leibniz. The sun. Wallpaper groups. Mathematical conflicts during the European Age of Enlightenment. That kind of stuff.
do you have any strange fears?
I really don’t like dragonflies. I don’t know if I fear them, but I definitely don’t like them.
when you get angry, how do you show it?
I cry. I yell. I brood. “But Claudia,” you say, “you’re always doing one of those three things!” Exactly.
what do you listen to music on?
S E N N H E I S E R S
earbuds or headphones?
Oh god, headphones please.
do you like light blankets or heavy blankets?
My weighted blanket is so calming. I love him.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
So on Tuesdays and Thursdays I get up at 5:30 AM so that I can go walking from 6 AM – 10 AM before I teach at 11 AM. Last semester I had to get up even earlier so that I could walk before my 9:30 AM class. As we transitioned from fall into winter, it of course got both darker and colder in the morning, which is very demotivating for someone who is basically powered by the sun.
But today was the first day I noticed that it is finally finally getting lighter outside. Not a lot lighter, but lighter.
It was still cold as all hell, but as I was turning around in Bowness to head back to campus, the sky was definitely lighter.
YAY.
I NEED LIGHT.
Spring Training!!!!!
FREAKING YAY I AM SO EXCITED FOR BASEBALL YOU HAVE NO IDEA
Baseball season = the warm, sunny, long-days part of the year. The best part of the year. I neeeeed.
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