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| Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 | | 10:07 am |
How about some feedback?
So, job hunt time means I need to have a resume and cover letter fixed up and ready to send off. However, I'm really not sure what my cover letter should say, and the books I've found on the topic aren't really written for people fresh out of school. So, if anyone reading this page has a moment to spare, just click on this link and read over my cover letter, and please give me feedback. Thank you! ( Read more... ) | | Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 | | 12:47 am |
Another Valentine's Day come and gone
And I have to say that it really sucks to have to spend the day apart from the one person you want to be with on this day. Seriously. Top it off by the fact I'm frustrated by the Emory mail service's inability to deliver a letter from Jenn that should have already arrived. Seriously - today they delivered messages that were sent two weeks ago via on campus mail. You read that right, on campus. The messages were literally in the room with them for two weeks before they got around to putting them in the boxes. How pitiful is that? I mean, it completely defies all reason that it could take that long. So yeah, Pitney Bowes is extremely low on my list. In other news - for those of you who are in or around Atlanta, you may have noticed the strange white substance covering the ground early Monday morning. Yes, dear friends, it had snowed. I awoke to my alarm at 8:30, and the first thing I did was peek through the blinds. I saw a thin white covering on the field, so my next move was to the phone. I called the inclement weather line only to get the bad news - "Normal Business Hours." After a moment's consideration, I decided that a weak attempt at snow deserved a weak attempt at snow day - I would go to my afternoon class, and skip out on work that morning. And so I returned to bed until much closer to lunch time. That was a good morning. Classes are kinda blah, as usual. Linear Algebra isn't overly challenging, but isn't overly interesting either. I think we have a test next week, so i guess I should make sure I have all the topics straight in my head - you work all the problems and address each theme in such a similar way that it gets confusing what the result actually tells you. Statistical Mechanics - I'm lucky if I can keep up for half of the class. We had homework due today - four problems. The first I was close to having the answer, but off by a factor of 2, so when I couldn't find where I went wrong I just wrote next to my answer "factor of 2?" and moved on. The second problem I think I got right, the third made sense the way I did it but was probably overly simplified and wrong. For the fourth, I had to prove that some expression equaled [ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<e^2>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] And I have to say that it really sucks to have to spend the day apart from the one person you want to be with on this day. Seriously. Top it off by the fact I'm frustrated by the Emory mail service's inability to deliver a letter from Jenn that should have already arrived. Seriously - today they delivered messages that were sent two weeks ago via on campus mail. You read that right, <i>on campus</i>. The messages were literally in the room with them for two weeks before they got around to putting them in the boxes. How pitiful is that? I mean, it completely defies all reason that it could take that long.
So yeah, Pitney Bowes is extremely low on my list.
In other news - for those of you who are in or around Atlanta, you may have noticed the strange white substance covering the ground early Monday morning. Yes, dear friends, it had snowed. I awoke to my alarm at 8:30, and the first thing I did was peek through the blinds. I saw a thin white covering on the field, so my next move was to the phone. I called the inclement weather line only to get the bad news - "Normal Business Hours." After a moment's consideration, I decided that a weak attempt at snow deserved a weak attempt at snow day - I would go to my afternoon class, and skip out on work that morning. And so I returned to bed until much closer to lunch time. That was a good morning.
Classes are kinda blah, as usual. Linear Algebra isn't overly challenging, but isn't overly interesting either. I think we have a test next week, so i guess I should make sure I have all the topics straight in my head - you work all the problems and address each theme in such a similar way that it gets confusing what the result actually tells you.
Statistical Mechanics - I'm lucky if I can keep up for half of the class. We had homework due today - four problems. The first I was close to having the answer, but off by a factor of 2, so when I couldn't find where I went wrong I just wrote next to my answer "factor of 2?" and moved on. The second problem I think I got right, the third made sense the way I did it but was probably overly simplified and wrong. For the fourth, I had to prove that some expression equaled <E^2> - <E>^2. I was sorta able to do this, but I think my way you also find that <E^2> - <E>^2 is equal to zero, which is definitely not the case. Oh well - I spent a good while on it and gave my best efforts. At least Dr. Bowman can see where I am in the course and hopefully be merciful.
Anyway, it's definitely bedtime for me. | | Sunday, February 12th, 2006 | | 5:50 pm |
| | Thursday, February 9th, 2006 | | 9:27 am |
| | Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 | | 12:33 am |
Stolen from who knows how many people
Open iTunes/iPod or Windows Media Player to answer the following. Go to your library. Answer, no matter how embarrassing it is. How many songs: 1134 Sort by song First Song: #41 - Dave Matthews Band Last Song: Zero's Theme - MegaMan X6 Sort by time: Shortest song: 0:33 - Dane Cook - Super Hero Longest Song: 15:14 - Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture Sort by artist: First Artist: 30 Seconds to Mars Last Artist: ZZ Top Sort by album: First Album: ... somewhere more familiar Last Album: Yourself or Someone Like You Top Five Most Played Songs (not including repeat artists): 1. "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" - Weezer 2. "Porcelain" - Moby 3. "Everything" - Lifehouse 4. "Benedictus" - Pachelbel 5. "Tonight Tonight" - Smashing Pumpkins First song that comes up on Shuffle: "Fur Elise" - Beethoven Search .... "sex", how many songs come up? 2 "dead", how many songs come up? 0 "love", how many songs come up? 19 "you", how many songs come up? 96 | | Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 | | 12:10 am |
| | Friday, February 3rd, 2006 | | 10:51 pm |
Emory Career Fair =/= Opportunities for Chemists
So today I went to the Spring 2006 Career Fair. Big waste of time. It was a fair basically designed for three different majors - business, economics, and mathematics/CS. A lot of banking and finance places. A couple of computer places. Some more PR and consulting firms. Government agencies. And even a big pharmaceutical company. Should have had some potential, right? I made my first stop the pharmaceutical people. Surely, I thought, this would be the place where I can float my resume, get some leads on working in research. I ask the guy. He directs me towards ... sales. I ask about research. He tells me that they're only here to recruit sales, but if I want information on research... I can check out the website. I made my second stop the FBI table. Surely, I thought, this would be a place where I can float my resume, get some leads on working in forensics. I ask the guy. He directs me towards ... being a special agent. I ask about forensics. He hands me the pamphlet on professional support, but if I want specifici information on research... I can check out the website. After scouring the list twice more (with the likes of Waffle House, UPN, Abercrombie & Fitch, & TBS), I picked out one last potential emplyer - a PR firm who for some reason was requesting chem majors. Turns out they do a pretty good bit of business with health care companies, so having people do their sales who actually fathom science benefits them. Overall, really just kind of an "eh.." impression. So, back to my original plan of mailing my resume to every potential employer in the Research Triangle Park area. Now to just get myself a cover letter written and actually send them. Ah, the joys of work. Current Music: Batman Begins | | Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 | | 4:59 pm |
One step closer to finished with Emory
Yesterday I turned in my degree application. Now all that remains is completing my thesis (and thus my Senior Writing Requirement), so that I'm technically done and can graduate. Grad course + thesis = graduate with honors. Throw in Linear and I graduate with a math minor. So I'm basically taking the minimum load to accomplish everything. Could be worse, I suppose. Jenn has sent me a couple of e-mails. She says that the area of Baja where they're staying is absolutlely gorgeous. The food is sorta blah, though. (apparently it all tastes the same. Whodathunkit? Oh well - after Oxford, most anything has to be better, or at least you're used to it) They got a tour of the town today. I'm not sure when they'll get started with work, or at least more exciting orientation stuff. Other than that, not too much else going on. Let's see what's on TV... Current Music: Sealab 2021 - In the Closet | | Sunday, January 29th, 2006 | | 5:17 pm |
Brushing the dust off this thing
It's been a while since I actually posted anything substantial to this. It had really gotten to the point I was thinking of deleting all the back entries, and just keeping it for a friends page. I went so far as actually going back through old entries to delete them before I realized how nice it was when I was actually writing stuff. Thus I've resolved, at least for the time being, to harken back to the days of Freshman and Sophomore years when livejournal actually got updates that were not "Check out my quiz result. You should take it too." Hmm... I'm using a new livejournal client and it just turned my quoted text pink. We'll see whether it posts that way. The following cut has a description of my recent computer upgrades, for those who care. ( Read more... )So now that the computer nerdiness is done, what else is going on? Classes have been going for a week and a half now. I'm taking three courses: Chem 495WR: Honors Thesis Chem 536: Statistical Mechanics Math 221: Linear Algebra I had a hard time choosing which grad course to do. None of my options really fell into the category of "first grad course", most were continuations of the previous semester. I was really choosing between 536 and 524, which was Organic Spectroscopy, and the 4th and final course in the introductory graduate organic sequence. I went to two sessions of that class, but it just moved too fast and created too much work. Stat Mech is probably just as difficult (albeit extremely different material), but the class is small, the professor is really nice, and it could be useful in my research work. Hopefully this one was for the best. Have I mentioned lately I'm so ready to be done with all this? The other main thing in my life thus far has been dealing with a big part of it not being here. Jenn leaves for Mexico tomorrow morning at 7:10 AM. She'll be there until May 4. I keep telling myself that the time will just fly by (and I sure hope it does). I'm not sure yet what kind of contact I'll be able to have with her while she's down there - it may be restricted to biweekly phone calls & very slow letters. Apparently it takes over two weeks for mail to get to her research station. She'll be in the southern part of the Baja peninsula, playing with whales and sea turtles. Heck of a way to spend your last semester in school, right? Meanwhile, the job hunt is ready to begin in full force. On Friday, Emory is having recruiters out for the Spring Career Fair. I'm not expecting much in the way of interest in Chemistry, but I figure it can't hurt to explore, since I'm not exactly devoted to working in my major anyway. I sent off my resume to be critiques by the career center, but I don't think I especially liked their feedback. I figure since I don't think I'll have too much that's especially promising, maybe I can ask some of the recruiting people what they think of my resume, content-wise. It's very heavy on education because, shocker, that's about all I have. I mean, I've been in school for seventeen years. Before school, I was quite adept at building with blocks. Somehow I don't think that needs to make my resume. And on a final, humorous, note - if you haven't seen this, you should. And then you should thank Emily for sharing it with me: http://www.ultimateshowdown.org/ Current Mood:  listlessCurrent Music: Weezer - The World Has Turned and Left Me Here | | Sunday, January 1st, 2006 | | 12:18 pm |
It's 2006...
And I really don't have much to say right now besides: Happy New Year! | | Friday, December 23rd, 2005 | | 11:47 pm |
Happy Festivus
Seriously. Let's all just celebrate a made up holiday taken from an episode of Seinfeld. At least it gets away from this Happy Holidays PC crap. Today at the grocery store we ran into a friend of ours from church, who was in fact going to a Festivus celebration that very afternoon. I'm dead serious - they have the Festivus pole decorated, they have the "Festivus Feats of Strength" (complete with trophy), and the "Airing of Grievances" over dinner. Granted, the whole thing is rather tongue-in-cheek, but I think it's hilarious. So yeah, my exams would up being tougher than they should have been. A large part of that started two weeks before finals. I was feeling tired and had been running a low grade fever for a couple of days, so I went to student health. They were stumped by my apparent lack of other symptoms (except for a stuffy nose that had lasted for a month - I had believed it to be allergies), so they gave me an antibiotic. Five days later my fevers have gone from constant to nightly and I'm tired but otherwise sorta OK. Then my throat starts hurting as my sinuses clear up. It really hurt to swallow. Back again to student health. New doc, not sure what the deal is since I'm lacking most of the symptoms for the two usual suspects - mono and strep. He decides to run tests for both. Sure enough, word comes back - I had mono. Loads of fun. On the plus side, I was apparently in the declining end of it. That was nice, considering at the point when I got the diagnosis, I had my first exam in 3 hours. CS wound up being tougher than it had any right to be (though the fact I only studied from the time I left the health center to the exam didn't help much), but I was pretty much OK in that class anyway. Inorganic was marred by a huge fiasco wherein our room was triple-booked for the exam time, meaning we had to wander over to a vacant room to finish that one. This was most definitely the exam where I could not focus to study - when you really just want to sleep, Inorganic chemistry does little to stimulate you out of that. It was about what I expected though - a marathon session, but straightforward and similar to the practice exam. Biochem beckoned after a semi-restful weekend and an actual decent amount of studying. However, after our relatively easy third exam, Dr. Gallivan decided it was time to restore his reputation - this exam was hard, and quite different from the two previous years' finals. Even the same material was asked in very different styles of questions. The grade distribution wound up being very broad, with 5 people getting less than a 5. In the end, though, it seems I managed to triumph. I had written off this semester long ago as the semester when my grade point would finally go down. But 'twas not the case. I was pleasantly surprised last night to check my grades, and not only to see that not one but all were up, but also that all were better than I'd dared hope. One more semester, then I'm all done. One more... Anyway, Christmas here in LaGrange will consist of lunch with my mom's family tomorrow, then our more immediate family Christmas exchange tomorrow night. Christmas morning we'll have breakfast together, then head for the airport. I'll fly down to Orlando in the early afternoon, just in time to join Jenn's family for the holiday festivities. Life, as they say, is pretty good. Merry Christmas, everyone! | | Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 | | 11:24 am |
Probably my coolest homework ever
So for my last CS homework of the semester, we were given a momentous task - using a program called "Robocode", we were to write the artificial intelligence that would teach our very own robots how to fight. Some basics of robocode: - each robot is a little tank where the gun and track can turn independently - you have adjustable firepower - your robot gets 100.0 units of energy. You lose energy when hitting a wall, firing, or getting shot or rammed by another robot. You regain energy when shooting other robots - your robot can do a "victory dance" when it wins - you can print messages to the console when you win. So my partner and I set to work on our robot design. The first task (aka, securing half our grade) was to manage to beat this sample robot called Walls. Walls was a cheap little bugger - he would turn immediately to the wall, point the gun inward, and move around the perimeter of the arena, shooting whenever another robot crossed its path. The variety of sample robots provided with the program did not provide a strategy that seemed even potentially adequate to beat this little guy. Our solution? Be even cheaper. Our robot follows the same pattern of sticking to the wall, but instead of pointing inwards to find targets, points backwards, along the wall. Exactly where Walls would be. We also tweaked its speed so it is slower, and adjusted it to never actually hit the wall, just stay close. The result? Total pwn4g3 of Walls. Every time. A few little tweaks to handle the occasional exceptional cirumstances that might even make the match close, and we had a devastating Walls-killing robot. And we named him Trogdor. Now Trogdor had to have some kind of strategy for fighting the rest of the class's robots. Since it is final exam season and Jessica and I didn't have tons of time to devote to this, Trogdor had a very simple strategy - whenever it wasn't fighing a single robot named "sample.Walls", it would follow the same pattern described above, but instead of leaving the turret always pointed back, it would spin 360 degrees constantly. This method worked quite well when fighting large numbers of the sample robots, and was easy to implement. Fully expecting to get thoroughly owned in the class tournament (after all, everyone wrote robots designed to kill the one ours is somewhat modeled on), we scrounged for bonus points. Points for creativity: whenever another robot dies at Trogdor's hand, the console prints "[name] was burninated!". upon the eventual death of Trogdor himself: "Trogdor, No!!". The final touch - a victory dance. Trogdor's dance was inspired by Final Fantasy III (or 6, whatever). Upon victory, the party turns in a circle and jumps up and down while the experience, etc. is displayed. So of course, Trogdor needed to turn to the vertical, turn the gun completely around twice, the moves up and down to simulate the jumping. It is hilarious to watch. Satisfied that Trogdor had secured enough points to not negatively affect either of us, we weant into the tournament expecting to get destroyed. It was decided to do 4 robot matches in a double elimination tournament. In order to get everyone's initial seed in the tournament, there was a giant melee of all 16 robots. Your place in that match was your seed. Trogdor fought hard, but scraped a meager 11th. Once the tournament began, however, Trogdor was unstoppable. In the four robot matches, the top 2 scorers would advance, while the low 2 would collect a loss and move to the loser's bracket. Trogdor won four straight, finding himself in the semi-finals. Just to give you an idea, the semifinals consisted of the #1 seed, #2, #5, and #11. We were heavily outclassed. Sure enough, 1 & 2 won, knocking Trogdor to the loser' s bracket and eventually a 4-2 record. But all things considered, I was quite impressed with how well we did. It was a fun little project. I'll post more on the semester later. Current Mood: accomplishedCurrent Music: Fatboy Slim - Magic Carpet Ride | | Saturday, December 17th, 2005 | | 12:44 pm |
I live on...
Despite three-ish weeks of illness and two final exams - I live. At least until Monday morning at 8:30 when Biochem comes a'knockin' Now to go and partake of my study fuel - Krispy Kreme donuts and cereal. Two days... Current Mood:  indescribableCurrent Music: Green Day - She | | Friday, December 16th, 2005 | | 2:05 pm |
| | Friday, December 9th, 2005 | | 3:43 pm |
| | 10:06 am |
64%
Start at 100% and take away 1% for each of these you have done in the past or are doing right now. When complete put your total in the subject box and repost in a new post. Have fun and be completely honest. I was. Smoked. Drank alcohol. Cried when someone died. Been drunk. Had sex. Been to a concert. Given a handjob/gotten a handjob. Given a blowjob/gotten a blowjob. Been verbally/sexually harassed. Verbally sexually/harassed somebody. Felt someone up and/or been felt up. Laughed so hard something came out of your nose. Cheated on a boyfriend/girlfriend before. Been cheated on by a boyfriend/girlfriend. Been to prom. Cried at school. Gotten lost in a WalMart or a department store. Went streaking. Given a lap dance. Had someone of the opposite sex in your room. Had someone of the opposite sex sleep over. Slept over at someone of the opposite sex's house. Kissed a stranger. Hugged a stranger. Went scuba diving. Driven a car. Gotten an xray. Hit by a car. Had a party. Done drugs. Played strip poker. Got paid to strip for someone. Ran away from home. Broken a bone. Eaten sushi. Bought porn. Watched porn. Made porn. Had a crush on someone of the same sex. Been in love. Frenched kissed. Laughed so hard you cried. Cried yourself to sleep. Laughed yourself to sleep. Stabbed yourself. Shot a gun. Trash talked someone and then acted like their best friend the next day. Watched TV for 9 consecutive hours. Been online for 9 consecutive hours. Watched an animal die. Watched a person die. Had sex and/or messed around somewhere with at least 1 person present. Pranked somebody. Put somebody in the hospital. Snuck into someone's room and/or your own room after being out. Kissed somebody of the same sex. Dressed punk. Dressed goth. Dressed preppy. Been to a motocross race. Avoided somebody. Been stalked. Stalked someone. Met a celebrity Played an instrument. Ridden a horse. Cut yourself. Bungee jumped. Ding dong ditched somebody. Been to a wild party. Got caught stealing something. Kicked a guy in the balls. Stolen a boyfriend/girlfriend from a friend. Went out with your friend's crush. Got arrested. Been pregnant. Babysat. Been to another country. Started your house on fire. Had an encounter with a ghost. Donated your hair to cancer patients. Been asked out by someone that you never though you'd to be asked out by. Cried over a member of the opposite sex. Had a boyfriend/girlfriend for over 3 months. Sat on your ass all day. Ate a whole carton of ice cream all by yourself. Had a job. Gotten cut from a sports team. Been called a whore. Danced like a whore. Been mistaken for a celebrity. Been in a car accident. Been told you have beautiful eyes. Been told you have beautiful hair. Raped somebody. Danced in the rain. Been rejected. Walked out of a restaurant without paying. Punched someone/slapped someone in the face | | Tuesday, November 15th, 2005 | | 9:17 am |
Random Quizzes...
Sweet - I get to shoot a tank full of compressed air with a rifle and completely defy physics! <td>
<table border="0" width="450" bgcolor="#000000">
| Your arch-nemesis is: | Jaws |
|
| Why? | Because you stole their pie cooling on the window |
| The winner will be... | You are going to kill them |
| Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com |
</td>
</table>Ahh, movie classics. The irony - just last week my Mafia partner and I won against the town. This does not bode well for the next game... I really need to work on that habit... <td>
<table border="0" width="450" bgcolor="#000000">
| You will go to jail for: | You were mistaken for a serial killer because of your habit of wringing your hands in the air and yelling 'kill them all!' |
|
| Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com |
</td>
</table><td align="center">Love is most important in your life.
A high love concentration indicates that you want love in your life. It is very important to you and something that you strive to attain.
Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com</td> | | Thursday, November 10th, 2005 | | 11:25 pm |
All-Around Smart
You are all-around smart. Essentially, that means that you are a good combination of your own knowledge and experience, along with having learned through instruction - and you are equally as good with theoretical things as you are with real-world, applied things. You have a well-rounded brain.
0% applied intelligence
20% natural intelligence
|
|
Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com
|
| | Tuesday, November 8th, 2005 | | 1:46 am |
So what's new?
I spent this evening watching Star Wars: Episode III. The best of the prequels, but I still felt like there was a lot of squandered potential. Before that, Jenn and I took a walk around campus then went all around Decatur in search of dinner after our first choice was closed. We wound up at a bar & grill. I had a decent Cuban sandwich and a pretty crappy salad - but our next stop was Dunkin Donuts, so all was made right. I really have to say - I love going out and spending time with Jenn doing these random, admittedly kinda pointless outings. They really do make my days. Prior to that, I registered for classes for next semester. I'm looking at: Math 221: Linear Algebra (MWF 12:50) - need it to complete the minor Chem 495WR: Honors Thesis - my last writing requirement, and one of the remaining things for honors Chem 536: Statistical Thermodynamics - a graduate level course, somewhat related to my research. It could be helpful, it shouldn't be too much work (though the material itself will be challenging) and I would get a concentration in computational chem for completing it. Chem 524: Organic Spectroscopy - another grad course, I know less about it, only that the material seems more interesting and the prof gets good reviews for his organic 200 level courses. I've signed up for both, but I'll likely drop one once the semester starts. Finally, today I ordered my birthday present - a video iPod, 30 GB. Far more space than I will ever use, but hey - I got the student discount, and it's lighter and smaller than the previous model with an extra 10 gigs (and a bigger screen). Considering I would not have gotten said discount on the older one, all the new perks become a matter of $20 in price difference. Fair deal, I'd say. ( If you care: Other things I'd like )now to bed. | | Monday, November 7th, 2005 | | 9:49 am |
 | You scored as The Amazing Spider-Man. After being bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker was transformed from a nerdy high school student into New York's greatest hero. Peter enjoys the thrill of being a super hero, but he struggles with the burdens of leading a double life. He hopes someday to win the heart of his true love Mary Jane, the woman he's loved since before he even liked girls. Right now, he just wants to make it through college and pay his bills.
The Amazing Spider-Man | | 75% | Indiana Jones | | 71% | Maximus | | 63% | Batman, the Dark Knight | | 58% | Lara Croft | | 54% | Neo, the "One" | | 54% | William Wallace | | 50% | The Terminator | | 46% | El Zorro | | 38% | James Bond, Agent 007 | | 33% | Captain Jack Sparrow | | 33% | </td>
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
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