Saturday, February 15, 2003

 

Ugh. Frustrating afternoon at the library. I went expecting to get a lot of my diff eq homework accomplished but I got virtually nothing done. It's not that I wasn't concentrating or was getting distracted from my work; my brain was churning wildly for three hours. It's just that I plain old don't understand the last four sections we've covered in this class. I was reading and re-reading the chapters and my notes, trying to use the examples to work through the problems and not having a clue what I was doing the whole time. I succeeded in completing most of one problem set -- the one that was due on Wednesday that I didn't turn in because I didn't understand it -- but I still have two more due on Monday, then two on Wednesday. And that's not even thinking about my physics exam on Monday or the problem set and lab due Wednesday. Ugh. I don't like not understanding things. Especially when I work this hard at it. Humph.

On a happier note, my Big Boy cookies were a huge success and got scarfed up quite happily by both my morris team on Thursday night and everybody at work on Friday (I had two people ask for the recipe!). It made me feel good to have something to give people, since I didn't have my act together enough to do cards or anything this year. I did enjoy all of the valentines that I received, all the more because I wasn't expecting anything -- thank you all so much! Especially the wonderfully nifty pink tie-dyed socks that Cass sent me; yay for happy socks! :) It was a pretty low-key V-day for me. I had a long day at work, came home and slept for an hour or so, then Hugo and I went for a bit of a walk and ate dinner at a Thai restaurant down the street. Yum.

Hugo got good news on the immigration front on Wednesday. He's been granted a 240-day extension on the greencard process, for all the days that he has worked outside the US since he's been here, so he has more time to get everything taken care of (not that he can do much more than wait still, but at least things aren't so urgent now). Big sigh of relief! Thanks to Mom and Graham for love and support and "sending American thoughts." :)

# posted by Lacey 9:09 PM

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

 

Mmmmm..... cheap champagne and cookie dough, that's my idea of dinner. :P Well, it's good as an appetizer. The leftover champagne I couldn't drink last night because I had schoolwork, and the makings of Valentine's Day cookies (Big Boy cookie recipe from Monee - yay!). Yum. Now the cookie dough is chilling in the fridge and I'm eating a quesadilla (with corn and tomatoes - my favorite!) and waiting until it's ready to be cookie-cutted and baked into cute little hearts and frosted. Hugo's out at BMM (Bridgetown Morris Men) practice tonight, so I have the apartment (and more importantly, the kitchen) to myself for another hour or so.

I've decided that I shouldn't even try to do homework at home anymore. I was struggling and fighting with concepts and problems last night and not getting anywhere on my diff eq problem set that was due today. I finally gave up and went to bed. Today I got out of physics lab early, sat outside in the sun (and wind), ate my lunch, and did the problem set in an hour! I suppose this teaches me that I focus better on academics when I'm not at home with all of the distractions of everything that needs to be done non-academically. I'm also learning that I really miss the library hours at Stanford - the public libraries here just can't compare. One of my main days for homework is Sunday, and the library downtown is only open from 12-5! The times that I'd much rather be out enjoying the gorgeous sunshine we've been having, or doing other things, leaving studying for morning and night. Sigh. I guess on-campus college libraries are a rather unique thing, and one I never would have expected to miss this much. I rarely studied in the libraries when I was at Stanford, but I find myself wishing several times a week that I had that study-area available to me here. Oh, well. I'll cope. But maybe I'll appreciate the libraries better when I come back to Stanford. :)

I think I might actually be getting into some sort of running routine here, which is really exciting. I'd love to do more exercising on a regular basis. Hugo and I have been jogging for the last two Saturdays, and we went yesterday afternoon. If I can keep that up, maybe with one more day a week thrown in, I think I'll start feeling really good (as long as my shins behave). I'm actually impressed at how well my body remembers how to run. I know it sounds silly when I put it that way, but that's what it is. Even after only a couple runs in two weeks, I could feel a significant difference in my stamina during yesterday's run. We did a shorter total distance, but ran the whole time rather than stopping to stretch in the middle like we've been doing. I was breathing hard, but I was still fine by the end of it, not dying like I was halfway through the first run we did a week and a half ago, and I felt like I could have gone farther. So that makes me hopeful.

I think it's time to go make some cookies now. Yum!
# posted by Lacey 9:27 PM

Sunday, February 09, 2003

 

Yay for morris dancing! Boo for meetings about morris dancing! We had a two hour meeting this afternoon to discuss Renegade Rose/Trillium issues, figure out officers, kit, dues, and all sorts of stuph. It's still not entirely certain whether Trillium is indeed folding completely into Renegade Rose or whether they will continue to retain their own identity, but they're in for now, especially since three of them are now officers of Renegade Rose. Hugo was unanimously voted Foreman, and Nancy (from Trillium) and I are deputy forepersons, which basically means we're in on all of the decision-making processes. Lev (Trillium muso) is now squire, and Marti (of Trillium) is bag, or money-person. Everybody seemed pretty happy with all of this, as well as most of the other conclusions we came to, though it was a bloody long process getting everybody to agree on things. Whew! I'm glad that's over. But it's not, really. We've deferred the kit discussion to email, so that will go on a bit longer. But it will all turn out well in the end, as long as we pick my favorite. ;P

Hugo's dad sent him a really funny song that he's playing right now, called "Leopold Allcox," by Jake Thackeray. It's about a distant relation who comes to visit and totally destroys everything. The last line of it is: I saw him waving goodbye this last minute, waving his hand with my doorknob still in it. I had to listen to it a few times before I actually understood everything, but it's absolutely hilarious. Very English. It makes me glad I don't have any clumsy or obnoxious relatives -- you're all wonderful!
# posted by Lacey 11:00 PM