Grad School

It's time to announce it, I suppose: I've withdrawn from the Ph. D. program in Mathematics.

Don't worry, I feel good about it. I might return one day, but for now, I'm ready to stop being a student for a tiny bit.

This decision slowly came to me over the winter break. During the break, I took two weeks off from thinking about mathematics. I was happier during the break than I had been in as long as I could remember. Studying math had become a very large source of stress in my life.

Let me give you some history. I started grad school in September 2007. The math department hopes you'll complete your first round of exams within two years, one year ideally. I haven't. I took two tests, failed them both. I know why I failed, but I just didn't ever seem to get good enough to fill in the gaps that caused me to fail.

This past fall, someone finally told me "you need to know real analysis." I really hadn't studied it. I even prided myself in avoiding it during my undergraduate classes. So I've been at a serious disadvantage. In October, I resolved to start teaching it to myself. But all that did was bring about more stress. It was more that I needed to study, in addition to the classes I was taking and the classes I was learning. I still believe I could do it if I wanted to. But I don't want to kill myself over it anymore.

So here's where I am now. I will still be teaching at New York City College of Technology, at least for Spring 2010. I'm in the process of looking for a second job. And I'm happy.

Screen off the street

Alicia and I have learned to keep our eyes open while walking around the city. Especially in Brooklyn. Especially the night before the trash goes out. Here's why:



We found this! It's not broken, dirty, or punctured. It was just sitting on the curb in a big cardboard box. It was a pain in the butt walking it back, but we got a free screen out of it.

It even has double joints, so it can bend in any direction (Bonus points for spotting the cat):



Okay, maybe only 1 bonus point. We haven't figured out what to do with it, but it's too cool to throw away. It's folded up and leaning against a wall for now. Any ideas?

Displaying My Junk

One of the hard parts of living in a small space is enjoying all your junk. You know, that stuff that you really like or that has emotional significance, but doesn't do anything. In a big house, I'd probably have a basement where I could display it all. But here in Brooklyn, most of my favorite things end up in a box in the closet.

You may have read about how Alicia and I rearranged our bedroom. After buying a new Billy bookcase from Ikea for Christmas, I've suddenly got a small surplus of space in my desk area. Here's my little area:



See that spot, right there?



It's free space! Every week, I intend on putting one item on display there. I plan on cycling through the junk that's sitting in boxes, putting one thing on display every week. If I'm good, I will even write a blog post each week about my newest display item.

I'm really excited about enjoying my old stuff, even documenting and archiving my memories of it. I hope you'll join me.

Our Apartment Technology: Video Games

Alicia and I are fans of technology. We aren't rich, so we rarely get to indulge in the latest technology. But we try to make the best of what we've got. Let me give you a little tour of our set up in the Apartment.

Our Video Games

It took three years, but we've managed to acquire all the latest video game consoles. I purchased the Wii on the day it was released back in November 2006. Alicia and I saved up over the Summer of 2007 and purchased the Xbox 360 in October 2007 because we were too excited about Grand Theft Auto IV and Rock Band. We finally finished the collection in September 2009 using money given to us for the Wedding.

Here they are, on display using a Lerberg shelf (only $15 at Ikea!). I think it looks pretty darn good, if I don't say so myself.



Prior to the new TV (also a Wedding gift), we had to use a manual switch behind the TV to switch between games. But these fancy new digital televisions can auto-detect what signal it is receiving. I was very, very skeptical about buying an HD Tv. I just didn't see what the point was. DVD's were pretty enough for me, and I wasn't worried about size. But this auto detect feature is worth its weight in gold.

So all three systems are hooked up to the TV. To play one, just turn on the TV and turn on the gaming system. Simple as pi!

Bag of Crap

On Christmas Day at 1 am, Woot.com put up for sale a "Bag of Crap." They sell these about eight times a year, and they sell out almost instaniously. That's because they only cost $3 and can come with anything. There have been reports of flat screen TVs, appliances, etc. One guy got 2000 toy soldiers. The site warns you to expect nothing, especially because they call it crap. But Alicia and I were excited!

Flash forward three weeks later, and our bag of crap finally arrived in the mail.



Well, they were right. It is crap. Here's the nicest thing we got:



You can see the fact or crap daily calendar next to it. We haven't even opened it up yet, honestly. Spock is great, though.



We also got these "luxury" calculators. I bet they went all out on these.





Last but not least, we got some buckets. They had tags from a florist on the bottom. Huh.

Well, it was as advertised. Very fun, though. I'd do it again for $3!

Damages films on our street

Just going through some of my pictures from Fall 2009. Back in November, the FX show "Damages" filmed a few scenes in front of our building. They posted flyers all over the street two days prior to filming, then began to park trucks everywhere. I didn't see anyone famous walking by the apartment, but there were signs pointing to catering, trailers and principle photography. It was a cool insight into how a show is made (there were a lot of people!).

Here's some pictures I took from my roof:

Favorite Things

When I first made this blog, I created a sampling of things I liked along the bottom of the header of this blog. It's that strip of pictures of random things you can see directly below the title of this blog.

I just thought I'd share one my newest favorite things:




It's a clock from Ikea. I don't know how Ikea does it, but they are very good at pleasing me. I especially love it contrasting with the turquoise wall of our bedroom.

The clock actually has a lot of storage inside of it. It's a thin metal clock with a front panel that opens up. I've got no idea what to hide inside of it.

If your curious, those are Bucky Balls attached to the front. They are 216 rare earth magnets that stick to each other surprisingly well. I'm sure I'll post about those in the future.

Christmas 2009

The Holidays have come and gone and we're already well into the new year. But I've got one fantastic picture to share.

On Christmas Eve, Alicia and I were busy talking to our family on the phone, eating a wide variety of junk, and slowly opening presents. So we did a terrible job of taking pictures. But I managed to snap these pictures of Alicia opening a gift from her parents:

Is that a girl whom loves her Legos ®, or what? I promised I'd post this picture about two weeks ago. I hope it was worth the wait!

Just to round out the holiday pictures, here's the kitties:

Secret Santa

I've been using a community website called Reddit for some time now. Anyone can submit a link (funny pictures, news, How To Guides...) to the site and the users vote on the pages. There aren't any guidelines for voting, just whatever you feel like. The links with the highest votes make their way to the front page and become popular. It's a fun way to surf the web and it has developed into quite the community.

In November, someone decided to try running an internet Secret Santa program. All you had to do was provide your address and you'd be anonymously paired with someone else to shop for. $15 was the suggested dollar amount. I trusted the website pretty well and though it would be a lot of fun. I was right!I spent the first ten days of December trying to find the strangest collection of stuff for a guy living in Washington DC. Here's what I assembled for him:







The second picture was actually posted on the internet by the guy I was giving to. All told, he got:

• Bucky Balls
• A light for his toilet
• A light for his cell phone
• A USB fan

Here's what he wrote:

"All of these gifts are AWESOME! When the mailman pulled up, I was so damn excited I ran out the door to greet him in order to get my package seconds sooner. Thanks SS!"

He's living in Washington D.C. and still doesn't know who I am.

I sent that gift out December 10th. That same day, I received my Secret Santa gift. I can't tell you how excited Alicia and I were at this mystery box. It could have been practically anything. The excitement was too much to wait for Christmas and I opened it up that night. Here's what I got:







My Secret Santa clearly found out I was a mathematician. It's a Klein bottle, which is actually a one sided shape. I actually recognized the box before I opened it, since the same manufacturer made my Klein bottle from last year. Now I've got a set!It was an extremely awesome experience, one I'll happily repeat next year!

Update #1 for the New Year

The Bad News: I've been bad lately, in just about every area but cleaning. I haven't studied much, I haven't blogged much, I haven't produced much! I hope you'll forgive me, internet. There's just been so much to do that I had put off all semester. We rearranged our furniture, I set up computers, I played video games, I cleaned... It's felt great knocking things off my to do list, though.

The Good News: The holidays went well, despite being stuck in Brooklyn. Alicia and I were grounded when flight ticket prices skyrocketed. Rather than spend approximately $1,200 to fly home, we hunkered down and spent the holidays in New York. It was sad, sure. But we were on the phone as much as our families would bear talking to us. We even managed to enjoy each other. To be frank, we were lucky. Weather in Minnesota would have almost certainly ruined our trip home. Who knows what would have happened to our flight.

To enjoy ourselves, we went to the grocery store and ate very well. We watched the neighbors cat, finally paying him back for watching our cats during the Wedding. Overall, it was a decent holiday. We'll be back to Minnesota next year, though. Absolutely.

The Great News: My classes are done for the year. They've been done for a few weeks now, but I really haven't mentioned it here. Grades were almost perfectly average, which lifts my spirits. Next semester, I'll be teaching a Saturday morning course at 8:30am. It'll be strange, but I'm excited to have extra time off during the week. I'm hoping it'll really help me keep a good sleeping schedule. I'd have declined the class, but it's Pre Calculus, the most interesting course I've ever taught. They tend to be the most interested students, too. So I'm excited.

What I've Been Thinking About: Technology. I've finally gotten time to set up our electronics in a nifty way. We've got Alicia's laptop hooked up to the monitor in the living room. I've hooked up the Xbox to the bedroom television, which is finally getting some good use. I've even installed Windows 7 on our homemade computer, so I can play around with that. I'll have a lot more to say about this in a later post.

What I've Enjoyed: Reading. Reading is actually one of my New Year's resolutions. Not just reading, but enjoying reading. It's one thing to force yourself to sit and read a book. That isn't fun, and I rarely finish what I start. For 2010, I'm hoping to actually enjoy reading. I want to want to sit down with a book and hammer through it.

Alicia's been a big inspiration lately. She can finish a book in one to two days. I forget that it's possible to read a book that fast. In my head, especially thanks to Math text books, books last weeks to months.

So far this year, I've read SuperFreakonomics and Lord of the Flies. Let's hope the trend continues!

A New Year, New Motivation!

Hello!

Well, I've been less than good writing here. For the new year, I've taken a step back from my blogging and Twittering and given it some thought. I realized that there are two walls that have stood in the way of me blogging:

The big one is picture posts. I know pictures are fun, but it's a hassle to take them, transfer them to the computer, load them onto the internet then finally format them on the blog. I had a policy of posting a picture with every post. I think that breaking this habit will make it easier to write a lot more! I'm hoping pictureless posts can be likened to letters home. I can keep everyone updated with what's going on and maybe sprinkle some photographs at my convenience.

Secondly, Twitter really ruined a lot of blog posts I would have normally written. I would "tweet" a tiny little snippet (that you used to be able to see on the right side of this blog), but then I would have no motivation to write about it later. So, for the new year, I'm going to cut Twitter out of the picture. It's probably a good idea, anyway. I don't need to make the personal details of my day to day life public knowledge!

I'm really going to give blogging again the old college try. Check back periodically to see how I do. Wish me luck!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy new year from the Copelands!