advantages of public transportation

Cute, darker skinned, east asian-y(?, I am so not good at pinning down ethnicities) looking guy with goatee, and a clearly homemade bike, wearing spiky metal bits on leather belt & wrist band, maybe a couple years younger than me? Sits down facing me a few seats away. Eye contact, smile, look away… look back, smile bigger, rinse, lather, repeat, like 3 times. I get up, sit by him, and conversation ensues. He gives me his email address. Woo. =)

Berkeley application & quigley recommendation

So, I get home from work today to an email declaring that I haven’t sent them transcripts, gre scores, and all three letters of recommendation. So, I immediately tried calling them (fuck voicemail) and then walked down the hill to have a little heart to heart with the relevant parties.

Ya see, I’m a returning applicant. They already have all that stuff. Furthermore, I included a letter of recommendation from Ro, in the package they recieved. Grrr. The young lady there (assistant admissions person, she looked familiar, I think she was in my class) was apologetic and helpful, and said she’d do all the right things. I’ll be printing out another letter of recommendation from Ro and having him sign it.

I also zoomed on over to professor quigley’s office, knocked on his door, and asked for him to write me a letter of recommendation. He said, basically “sure, but I’m busy now come back and talk to me about it later.” Woo. Appointment with him a week from tomorrow at 7:30am. Joy. I can now put him on my cornell application and complete it. Before their (thursday) deadline. (2, 2 on time applications, ah, ah, ah…)

Key idea — not just screwing around

One of the key things I didn’t mention either in my talk with Simon, or in my post related to it, is that I’m not just sitting at home jerking off. I am working on developing some employment oriented skills, or at least, skills that would improve my employability. (see also my little contact info database thing, and it certainly has not stopped there). And finding that more rewarding, in the non-fiscal sense, than the computer vision work I’m doing. And, I’m thinking, it could lead to significantly more rewarding opportunities in the fiscal sense.

I would like to keep working for Ro, out of loyalty. I’m not sure how much I’m contributing, because, at the moment, I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. We’ve hit a pretty major technical hurdle, and alot of it is dependent on a complex three-d rotation thingie (attempting to relate pixel coordinates to an absolute position and orientation in the outside world, no matter how the camera is moved, shaken, or rotated), that I neither took part it in the writing of, nor have the code for. (and how do you deal with dangling participles in such a ‘neither/nor’ case other than completely recomposing the thought? Dumb rule). And, while I enjoyed the three-d, least squares math quite a bit, it is a distinct minority of the project, and, by and large, long past.

It’s been interesting and educational to do the work in computer vision, but I think this project will mark the end of my involvement in this particular field.

One of “The Talks” — from Simon

So, Simon was pretty direct and asked me why I’m fucking my life up. You know, I have a job, I don’t work anywhere near the hours I could work on it, and if I did work those hours, I could pay the rent and then some with few worries. So why not “just stick your nose to the grindstone and put in the hours.” I empathised with his frustration. It’s a frustration I’ve felt. And he’s not the first person to say such things, by a long shot. I surround myself with eminently logical people, who point this out to me, repeatedly.

But I am not driven by logic. I know logic intimately, and I use it skillfully. But I cannot use logic to convince me to go where I feel no drive. It would have made total sense to finish out the year at motorola. It would be perfectly logical to keep doing what I’m doing for now, and hope Ro pulls out another contract (though still hedging my bets by looking for other work). Computer science is creative work, at least the way I do it. And if there is no emotion urging me to the work, it will not get done.

Nobody’s paying for omphaloskepsis these days. More’s the pity. I’d make a killing.

To Simon, my explanations (perhaps more detailed, perhaps less articulate than the one I just provided) sounded like excuses. And regardless of the articulation, maybe they are. Yeah, I’m hoping my parents help pull my fiscal bacon out of the fire. They probably can keep my head above water for a little while, job or no. And they’d probably be willing to. They can’t buy meaning or a sense of accomplishment for me (duh), and that sort of matters more at the moment (ask me again, if/when I become flat broke).

Ro would like to know whether or not he can rely on me to keep with the work we’re doing now. I’m currently giving it about as much as I have motivation to give. Ro is one of those supremely logical people. I’ve seen no sign that he speaks the right language to light a fire under my ass for the work we’re doing, if that’s even possible. and , each in their own way, speak the language. I’d hate to place the strain on either friendship that the inevitable frustrations of work would bring, but I think I might work better with one or the other of them than with Ro.

Then again, Ro is my longest running employer ever. My lengthy whatever of last night ended on a note of personal disappointment. I didn’t inject the obvious “but things are actually improving appreciably. Look at this, that, and the other thing.” Learning not to tack up the “it’s all okay, no gaping wounds here” in front of disfunctionality was a little goal I’d set for myself awhile ago. Disfunctionality happens, and should not be feared. No more than it should be nurtured.

I don’t think I’ll find further coherence tonight, and so until tomorrow, I bid you, rest well.

Grades — Housing and the Urban Economy

Final: B-
Paper: A-

Overall: B.

Yay =)

Better than I thought I did. Especially the paper. A little disappointed on the final, but the paper is more important anyway. I’ll be talking with him a little later about how I did in the class, particular recommendations he has, etc, etc. Will also ask for a recommendation. =)

*pats self on back*

to clarify

No, I have not recieved an offer yet. The hr chick on the phone did sound interested & impressed, and their time frame is very short. This was very “end of the day on friday”, so we’ll see if anything shows up on monday. I am not betting on it. If I do get the offer and decide not to take the job, it won’t be because I fear I would spontaneously combust in Louisville, but because I think I could do better. That is all. =)