As part of my job as a TA, today I joined the other seven TAs and our professor in grading the midterms that the students took yesterday. Actually, I helped proctor the exam itself with my fellow TA Greg. The two of us sat in front of the class and ran around answering questions whenever they arose. As a result, we had an intimate understanding of the exam when it came time to grade it.

However, that intimate understanding did not stop me from making a poor decision as to which section I’d like to grade and as a result, I stupidly chosen to grade the “find the bugs in this code” section as opposed to the “define these terms” section that others more wisely chose.

After about three hours, I finished grading my section. After four hours, the full grading was done. In between, we had pizza, and great conversation, because frankly Professor Cannon (the professor of this class) is awesome. And thus my week of hell ended, and spring break began.

• 2 “Camp Rock” Twin Bell Alarm Clocks (which I will mod by replacing the faces)
• A 4GB SanDisk Sansa e260 MP3 player (which I’m giving to my mother who has a need for such a device)
• A Brother Label Maker (with which I have no idea what I’ll do)
• A Picnic basket that unzips into a picnic mat (which I will use in Central Park in the near future, once it’s officially warm enough)
• A “Flush Light” light-up flusher for a toilet (??)

 

It snowed in NYC pretty hard on February 26, eleven days ago. It was a ridiculous snowstorm, called by the media various nicknames such as Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse. Because I don’t fare well in snow, I got sick.

But that’s not the point. I am now recovered from my illness. It’s in the 50s outside and I’m not wearing my puffy jacket anymore. It’s going to rain tomorrow. Spring has all but officially sprung.

Yet there are still, eleven days later, mounds of snow, covered with all kinds of nasty, all over the streets. This is ridiculous. Examples below:

Every year when I watch the Oscars, my favorite part is the “Death Reel” where they go through the list of all the important people who died since the last Oscars. This year they left out Farrah Fawcett but included some Public Relations guy.

This is the reason why it’s my favorite part. Every year I call my mom and we laugh about whichever the most ridiculous tribute was. PR was it this year. We always joke that they left out our favorite late Key Grip or Best Boy or Caterer.

After all, if some PR guy can make the cut, how come the 2nd Assistant Cameraman can’t?

I have to say James Taylor was not the best choice, as he managed to turn a beautiful song into a boring lullaby. Between his performance and Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, it was a shame there weren’t a few more names in the memorial montage.

This week alone I have two database assignments, an OS assignment, a Computers and Society paper, an Astronomy Midterm, and an OS midterm. I have papers to grade for tomorrow, midterms to grade on Thursday, and at least two of the assignments above are group assignments, meaning I also have to work within the schedules of others.

It’s bad news. Even writing this is a way of taking a break from one of my database assignments, which I’m going to get right back to in a few minutes.

I won’t say that you shouldn’t expect the quality of posts to drop this week, because that’s pretty much inevitable. However, I will attempt to trade off size instead. So hopefully this week will be filled by good but short posts. Stay tuned.

When Adir and I visited Vancouver for the Olympics, one of the things he noticed is that every time we took a bus trip, I fell asleep almost immediately. He would attempt to fall asleep, but in the meantime, I had already dozed off, not to awaken again until we reached our destination.

See the trick is that I put in my ear-buds, attached to my now pretty-much-dead iPod, put on any album, and let the vibrations of whatever vehicle in which I’m enclosed lull me to sleep. This is true on bus trips, trains (I usually stand on the subway if I’m alone, so as to avoid missing my stop), planes (thank god – with the amount I fly, if I didn’t fall asleep I’d hate life), and in cars (when I’m not driving. When I am, I have a beverage.)

The combination of music and vehicle guarantees me sleep, yet you shouldn’t feel jealous. I pretty much never wake up feeling refreshed like after a nap. Au contraire, I usually awake more exhausted than when I began sawing logs. And if I’m with someone, I have to deal with the added guilt of having been able to sleep while they were stuck awake in the real world.

To add to that, sometimes I miss cool sights. I can’t remember the last time I flew and saw something interesting out of the window. By the time the plane takes off, I’m fast asleep, and I usually only awake for meals and after we’ve landed. In Vancouver, I missed the entire countryside between Vancouver and Whistler, which Adir informed me was splendid.

So there’s ups and downs. I don’t know which way I’d rather have because I’ve really only had it one way. What do you think? Do you sleep in transit or not? And either way, which way would you find better?

Yesterday morning, I opened the box of a cereal I had purchased a few weeks back since it was on sale at my favorite neighborhood supermarket, Met Foods. It was called “Honey Bunches of Oats: Just Bunches.” The box showed a cute image of a fan blowing the flakes out of a bowl filled with HBO and milk. However, no matter how cute the outside of the box was, it was the inside that would change my life forever.

I poured a bowl of Just Bunches, added my 2% milk, and took my first bite. To say that I was amazed would be an understatement. It would be an injustice to the magnitude of that first bite. It would not come close to adequately explaining how different of a person I am now that I have tried Just Bunches.

The first bite tasted like pure honey. My milk had turned to honey. What I’m about to say draws on my experience of living in Israel for a year: it wasn’t until I took my first bite of Just Bunches that I truly understood the idea of “Milk and Honey.”

My taste-buds were in for a wild ride, as each bite tasted like the amazingness of a milky, honey-y deliciousness combined with the crunch of a bunch of oats. In fact, it was the crunch that I noticed most as I took further bites. See, Honey Bunches of Oats (with Almonds, please) is easily one of the best cereals yet there is one problem: the flakes. The flakes get so soggy so fast. And frankly, they aren’t that great. They’re not even frosted. They’re just a waste of space and sog.

So when I say that Just Bunches is infinitely better without the flakes, I’m again understating the importance of this invention. Post Cereals, you’ve outdone yourselves. Please allow me to (virtually) shake your hand. Thank you.

See, it’s been a while since I started this blog, and when I began it, I promised you, the audience, that I would have more than just “Superfluous Paragraphs.” (Okay, actually I made no such promise. Actually it was pretty much the opposite. But I guess in a way I’m making it now.) Part of this promise, in my mind, was images, and part of this subcategory of images was self-made flowcharts.

Until two days ago, I had failed you. And for that I apologize. But this shall not be the case in the future. Whenever I see an opportunity to make a flowchart, I will do so:

See? This post is already infinitely better!

Anyway, I don’t just love flowcharts, but rather charts of all kinds. I’m a big fan, for example, of charts of songs, and even made a pretty detailed set of charts for the first verse of N.W.A.’s “Gangsta Gangsta” after I had a dream about said flowcharts. These are lost somewhere in the depths of my hard drives, but it’s worth discussing the dream, because I rarely remember dreams and as you shall learn, this particular dream was quite pleasant.

In the dream, I was talking to Jacob Slosberg, and telling him “I think someone should graph ‘Resemblance to Ice Cube’ and ‘Ideal date of prison release’ on a line graph.” This, of course, corresponds to the first lyrics of the song. He started laughing and I started laughing, which caused me to laugh in real life, loud enough to wake me up. I woke up laughing. That’s it.

Speaking of sleeping, stay tuned for tomorrow’s post on how my sleep patterns and vehicles get along unlike that of most people!

So they created a Texas Declaration of Independence which was then adopted on March 2, 1836. Of course, just as in 1776, though the Nation was born, the war had yet to end. Two months later, on May 14, Sam Houston managed to secure defeat of the Mexican forces, and the Texian Army was able to stand down, allowing the Republic of Texas to elect its first President, Sam Houston.

The following year, the United States recognized the Texas Republic. Ten years after independence (1845), Texas would join the union, to cement its status as greatest state in the union.

There are very important lessons to be learned from the story of Texas Independence, and while today is a celebratory day (I recommend following John’s suggestions to “Drink a Shiner, give someone a Shiner, talk with an accent, wear a Texas flag as a cape, and make Santa Anna surrender”) it should also be a day to recall the bravery of those who fought and died to make Texas free. Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad!

Texas, Our Texas! all hail the mighty State! Texas, Our Texas! so wonderful so great! Boldest and grandest, withstanding ev’ry test, O Empire wide and glorious, you stand supremely blest. God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong, that you may grow in power and wealth throughout the ages long.

Admittedly there are some things about me that are a little OCD. Along with eating in order, I also like to prepare my food according to routines. These are harmless routines and usually I’m not even aware I’m following them. However, I make a lot of sandwiches, and recently I noticed a pattern with my mayonnaise spreading that can be best described with the help of this flow-chart:

As I said, it’s perfectly harmless, but where I spread my mayonnaise dictates the entire makeup of the sandwich. Everything goes on top of the foundation that the mayo creates, so my whole sandwich ends up on the left side. Finally I place the last piece of bread on top, and boom, my plate is left-heavy.

Actually this left-heaviness, now that I think of it, is convenient since I hold my plate with my left hand and my glass of whatever beverage I’m consuming with my right. So far from being harmless, this particular OCDness is a major benefit to my sandwich mechanics!