I just got back from doing some whitewater rafting. We did Gauley run, which is along a river held back by a dam. They release the dam on weekends in the fall, increasing the flow along the river dramatically. The total run was 26 miles or so, and there were several class V rapids along the way. I fell out once, at a rapid called ‘gaping mother.’ I thought it was pretty fun, but honestly had more fun doing the simpler New River back in august. I think that may be beacuse the water was warmer, more of my friends were there, we did more surfing, swimming, and jumping, and there was a really pretty girl in my boat with me. This time it was much colder, our boat was larger (which means the ride is less violent) and I was just with Bob, his brother Luke, and their dad. It was good to see Luke, though. Hopefully Bob and I will do more climibing and camping together this year.
I have been looking at Grad Schools for a while, and recently, University of Illinois has started to make a ton of sense. They have an extremely good Computer Science program. Eeveryone says to ignore rankings but they’re tied for #5, with 4 schools tied for #1 according to the U.S. News rankings. They’re a big school which means I have a better chance of finding something I enjoy. They’re pretty close to chicago (2 hours) so I’ll be able to see all the friends I have living there, but they’re a college town which means housing is very cheap. The professor I spent all summer working with got his Ph. D. there, and one of the professors in their theory department wrote a paper that I spent a significant amount of time trying to digest. Theory is the brance of computer science I plan to go into – it deals with studying what can be computed, how efficiently, and how best to go about solving mathematical problems, among other interesting (nerdy) things. I then remembered my friend Jacob Osborne’s cousin goes there, and he too is apparently interested in C.S. Theory. I’m planing to visit the school over my fall break. Hopefully I like it.
The school year has started and I’m very busy. I figured I’d waste a little time after getting home from rafting, then I’ll probably make some food and get some homework done. Quantum Mechanics is interesting but the work of doing math is ugly. I hated the math in E&M and don’t really care for this. I like math, just the abstract stuff that you can do in your head and think about and nosh on for a while, not cranking out solutions to complicated integrals and keeping track of all the terms in a nasty equation and other boring things. I tend to make a lot of mistakes, and it really sucks to evaluate and find a solution to a nasty integral, only to realize that you were supposed to integrate |Ψ|2 instead of |Ψ|. On the other hand, Abstract Algebra 2 is pretty enjoyable. I’m glad that I’m taking Operating Systems and Machine Organization at the same time (Machine Organization is a sophomore level course that I was never able to fit into my schedule) because two courses mesh really well, and I’ll also be able to meet more of the sophomores. Number Theory so far has been entirely review for me. I like the teacher, though, and for my project I’ll probably look into random number generators, which I’ve been curious about for years.
I finally learned to play some eels on my guitar. ‘Blinking Lights (For Me)’, ‘Railroad Man’, ‘Things the Grandchildren Should Know,’ and ‘Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living!)’ are all under my belt, with more to come, hopefully.
. I plan to probably buy some rock climbing gear if I keep enjoying it; it’s a good excuse to take trips places. I also started doing fencing. Those people are the biggest bunch of dorks ever. Sometimes hanging around really nerdy people annoys me because they’re just so… nerdy! But it should be a fun time, and some of them seemed pretty cool.