Journal Entries
lost for words
Posted Oct 7, 2006
16:15:02 Lily enters this room
16:15:03 >[Lily] Welcome to Mirrors. You are expected to obey The Chat Code of Conduct
16:15:38 [Lily] I stink at life, folks.
16:15:49 [Lara] Hi Lily!
16:15:58 [Quibby] That's because none of us get a practice run
16:16:09 [Lara] *hugs tightly* What's up?
16:16:45 [Sirayn] I suppose I could always hint at something really awesome and dramatic and have it be completely made up (or get approval for it later if I return to playing the character)
16:16:56 [Lily] my jacket got caught on a bottle of lotion and it spewed all over the bathroom floor. By the time I got it cleaned up I was late for work and I didn't know where the room was. Then my supervisor Don asks what happened? I needed Andy elsewhere but he had to cover for you. You need to do better.
16:17:22 [swisstony] Awwww... *hugs Lily*
16:17:32 [Lily] *mimicks* this is a high profile job and you have to know what time to turn up
16:17:38 [Lara] *hugs Lily*
16:17:56 [Lily] * Lily hugs back. bad week, dang
16:18:27 [Quibby] * Quibby grimaces* I'm sorry to hear that
16:18:37 [Lily] I feel so terrible. I can't be trusted now
16:19:00 [Lara] *hugs*
16:19:09 [Quibby] *hugs* It'll get better for you
16:19:20 [Lily] speaking of runs "lily, we time you w/ a calender" *chuckles*
16:19:23 [swisstony] Yes you can Lily. It was just a blip, that's all.
16:20:16 [Lily] but I did mix things up I should have gotten ready w/ more time to spare. Now I know.
16:20:38 [Lily] and next time find out beforehand where a room is.
16:21:01 [Lara] It is a learning process, love. I'm sure next time you'll be absolutely perfect
16:21:14 [Lily] thanks folks. sorry just had to get it out of my system
16:21:38 [Quibby] Not a problem; everyone has to do it on occasion
16:21:44 [Lily] I often learn through failure but I don't want to be a total failure
16:22:47 [Lily] it's usually other's bad decisions. *squares shoulders and cheers up* back to maths
16:23:06 [Lily] at least I have more free time now that work doesn't want me
16:23:26 [swisstony] We all learn through our mistakes, Lily. Well, most of us.
16:23:27 [Lara] I've done it more times than I care to remember. It hurts every time though
16:23:51 [Lily] * Lily is not looking forward to explaining at the monday work meeting
16:24:46 [Lily] yeah.
16:25:46 [Lara] *hugs Lily* I'll be thinking of you
16:27:51 [Sirayn] ... I'm having removal-from-Tar Valon ideas
16:27:57 [Lily] lol I'm still breathing *hugs*
16:27:59 [Sirayn] I've read too much Vorkosigan
16:28:12 [Lily] Who/what's that? *perks up*
16:29:03 [swisstony] Blimey - while I've been sitting at home, the promenade in my town has been closed due to flooding, caused by storms and high tides, the police had to close part of the town off and divert traffic.
16:29:12 [Lara] Wow
16:30:08 [Lily] *blinks*
16:31:10 [Lily] * Lily grins. there are always people w/ bigger problems than yours, lily
16:34:25 [Lara] How did you find out, Russ?
16:35:20 [swisstony] I just saw it on the local news.
Discuss this Journal entry [14]
Latest reply: Oct 7, 2006
more on maths
Posted Oct 5, 2006
that there's a hiatus in the malestrom that is currently chaotic crunch times I am suddenly quite wary and unsure what's happening to find that instead of rushing late to work now that labs tend to run overtime (especially in chemistry) I've arrived 2 hours before the bio lecture tonight by Dr. Blobel. So I actually have one lovely hour to reflect just how gloriously I failed my first math 171 test. This momentous moment in a liliocentric world will be marked by a blog. Aw, shucks...
Maths is okay, usually. Today we were actually delving/burrowing our way into infinity, to which he asks "what's infinity?" and told us to think of the largest number and then add one to it. The highest number I could think of was a google, 10 raised to the 100th power or 10^(10^2)... which actually came from somebody writing a maths textbook and asks his infant to come up with a word that would stand for the most unimaginably large value hence "google") now the owners of google also own a googleplex, the name of the garage they first were working in but a googleplex apparently is 10 raised to the 1000th power or 10^(10^3) or in other words numbers so large that they don't make sense to finite beings like us. I could talk about how in bio lab tody a girl tells me that one of her instructors told her "if you wrap parafilm around a bottle, you can pass it through a metal detector easier" as he used to smuggle chemical samples into the country. Despite that fascinating fact or that one of the 8 boys in my chinese class has dressed up as a lady in purple for a skit that got videotaped, ponytails and flowers and all, cross-dressing doesn't beat out maths, which is all I can think about still. Bear with me.
Grrr, the professor has a sense of humour. He tells us how the numbers originate from the middle east it was before 2000 bc or something but he couldn't recall. Anyway he seems to get distracted by his own thinking a lot which is always good, I reckon, just not while teaching some vital technique (hahaha those exist?). So it seems the somarians would get their fish to market have somebody else sell it and if you don't count the fish you give the other then there's an argument so what they would do to keep tally of the fish given vs the fish sold was to make clay little fish and put them into another clay ball and when the time comes just break open the clay ball to see how many clay fish are in there. However you won't always want to break these so after a while they have clay fish drawn on the outside, marking that there are three inside the ball, and later the writing was known as more stylized fish (weird marks made by sticking the stylus in that run vertically) and somehow still later they moved the symbols 90 degrees and there's your maths in the middle east.
What was the point of the blast from the past other than to watch the man grin rather endearing to see such enthusiasm in one so weathered?
"Are there more integers than even integers?" If my first set is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... and the second set is: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10... and they both go up to inifinity.
Yes. Back to infinity. And no, there isn't more integers than even integers.
Why? Perhaps it would help to look at the sets like this.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
2, 4, 6, 8, 10...
as long as there is a one to one correspondance it won't matter the values
Oh cool! we would mutter as we students "get it"
But do we really understand? He quickly skims over that there are more than just integers i.e. fractions etc thanks to a german mathematician but we won't go into it now as my 5 mins are almost up...
He says I have a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. # rooms = infinite
now each one of these rooms are filled w/ one person and is considered to be full
one dark stormy night a traveller walks up in the lobbey and asks for a room...
"sorry we're full"
"but you have to give me a place to stay"
"sure, no problem" and the hotel folks found the room for one more...
How since all the rooms are full?
I thought about the dorms, ours actually since I have two roommates. can't he just share but nope, the prof says no sharing allowed.
How?
A minute passes... I can see him grinning.
"Easily. You just get on the intercom and say 'sorry everybody get your belongings and move to the room next to yours"
so in room 1 goes to 2, 2 goes to 3, 3 goes to 4, 4 goes to 5...
and so on. the stranger takes the first room, room #1.
Okaaaaay. We get that, sorta. Just keep 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... in mind. So we think. Another minute passes.
Different scenario: Hotel A inifinite # of rooms, full. There's another hotel, Hotel B, same setup and full except they had bad spinach or something that makes Hotel B inhabitable and somehow they have to move all their folks to Hotel A... How would we make room for an infinite host of patrons?
"can we ask them to move a floor up?" a guy asks. "no, you must have a specific number in mind"
Hotel A: "Easy. You get on the intercom and ask "sorry everybody gather your belongings and move to the room w/ twice your room number."
1 would move to 2, 2 to 4, 3 to 6, 4 to 8, 5 to 10...
Remember the integers and even integers correspondance? Infinity, indeed!
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... pairs w/ 2, 4, 6, 8, 10...
Hotel B: "Everybody please move to the room with twice your room number plus 1"
So whoever in room 1 would be moving to room 3 which was just emptied out, room 2 to room 5, etc etc. You figure it out. So simple, but nonsensical piffling!
Well that took more than 5 mins explaining but hey I enjoyed it... what's it? maths!!
Give the teacher what he likes? I think he just likes folks to try harder, which I shall do, with practice, zeal, prudence and hopefully more brain cells left by the time final exams roll around! As we'd say in history "if at once you don't succeed try to fail again."
I'm going back to work. Thanks for reading,
Lil
Discuss this Journal entry [7]
Latest reply: Oct 5, 2006
I skived maths
Posted Sep 27, 2006
that's what I did today. It seemed pointless to come to class unprepared so I did chemistry work instead for an hour and a half. Cheered up immensely as I walked around savouring the last of the fresh air before the wet snow strikes.
tomorrow I have work. Huzzah 
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Sep 27, 2006
in spa rations - or simply muse-less?
Posted Sep 25, 2006
I just realised today (while stuck in my workshop) what's wrong w/ my schedule
so far I have three labs a week (bio, chem, maths) and chinese
and the pure application of plug and play method is killing me slowly
I feel caged. seems to me I haven't taken any lit or history courses in ages
don't let me rot, please
here's to hoping the creative juices secrete 
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Sep 25, 2006
w00t for myspace intros
Posted Sep 25, 2006
Currently Reading Living Loving and Learning By Leo F. Buscaglia see related Accept that I am human: I want to learn. I want to understand, but lately I realise why I've been so not motivated because with every bit I learn the new revaluates the old and find it confusing. But I am not the same Lily as a second ago, and every change on me is what I used to love and still do about learning! Dear God to have finally figured this out makes me happy to be human, and alive. Thank you, thank you. I need people, and I want to share my knowledge, my love with everybody if I can. I want to be better as a person and be a guide, so not to teach others but to show, and revel in ourselves! If only we learn that we could be dependent earlier so there won't be so many people lonely in this world, wasting in quiet despair. What I have I have to give, and in sharing it takes nothing, no knowledge or potential of love away from me, yet gives me incredible joy.
ta! 
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Sep 25, 2006
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