Dilemmas

Wow, it's been almost a year... Screw the excuses, I just didn't feel like blogging. And I'm still not totally sure I do.

I thought that being funemployed would give a lot of time for blogging and that the stress of writing my thesis would encourage my to seek comfort in this diary-like therapy. Somehow that didn't happen. The thesis went as usual: it started with a feeling like "I'm writing the best thesis ever!" and ended with "I'm so tired of it! When will it be over?". Of one thing I am absolutely sure (got the Twilight allusion?): school is not my happy place. Happily, school is over: I graduated last December. I now have two masters. It's really cool when it's over.

What do you do when you graduate? You get a full-time job. (Well, depending on your industry, this my be easier said than done, but in mine, staying unemployed is more of a challenge than finding work.) That's what I did. Since it's only one query away, I'll just say it: it's at WebInterpret. (Now my physical location is only another query away - is that the way things should be? Dilemma... Can I openly write about where I am or is that an entry for please-rob-me.com? Dilemma...)

My life is so much more grown-up now. Grown-up in the sense that my party small talk involves tales of recent purchases and maintenance actions performed in my home. I come home from work tired (being tired is a common denominator for all adults) and cook and clean. When I browse the web, it's for cooking recipes. Am I interesting enough? Will I provide entertaining content? Dilemma...

Or maybe I'm just ranting too much? (Forgive me, I'm currently in bed with a cold.) Because on the other hand, I'm feeling like I'm gradually getting so much stronger. In October-December, I was just getting used to full-time work and it drained all my energy. I came home, made dinner, sat at the computer. In January, I added 3 hours of physical activity a week. In March, I was up to 6. (I still am.) Maybe it's time to add some more hobbies and interests to the mix. Maybe it's time to read, do and write more cool stuff. Let's hope it is!

Where the Geek is when she's not blogging (in Egypt or on a Eurotrip)

Hi there. Yeah, I know it's been a long time, my apologies. Thing is, I've been alternately getting sick and travelling - I am now in a sick phase, hopefully the last one in a while. Since my sicknesses are not half as interesting as my travels, let me tell you about those.

The first one was a total Eurotrip. The deal was that a friend of Marcin is currently working at Cern and he invited us to stay with him for what turned out to be an entire week. We took him with us on one way plus his brother both ways. That trip included:

• me crashing a Linux event in a Microsoft t-shirt (guys were staying, but hell knows if it was the t-shirt or the gender)
• a night and a morning in Prague
• visiting Bayreuth (but unfortunately not Bayreuth Festival Theatre because it had shorter opening hours than the student's office at my school)
• me meeting some friends I hadn't seen in at least 12 years (my, have they grown!)
• hanging at the Cern, especially at lunch time (which felt like being in a BBT episode, except they were many many more geeks - epic!)
• hanging at an English pub and playing some trivia games (there was a Star Trek category!)
• living maybe 50 meters from my middle school (ah, memories!)
• me visiting the place I grew up in, which is the most beautiful place in the world to me
• all of us visiting Geneva and Annecy
• the guys going to Milan to grab a pizza after climbing on the Matterhorn
• shopping
• drinking french wine
• losing a debit card and finding it soon after
  
• crossing the french/swiss border at least four times a day
• getting a flat tyre on the german highway.

All in all, that's more adventures than in Eurotrip. (Afterwards, I got scolded by my boss for taking all that overtime without asking him.) We're looking forward to organizing a similar trip next year.

Then I spent 3 days at home. These included working full time plus going to school on the evening (these were the first classes of the semester, so I didn't want to miss them). Consequently, cooking became microwaving and "taking everything out of the bags and dropping it on the floor" was the new unpacking.

Soon, we hit the road again, this time to a "real" summer vacation in the middle of October: we spent two weeks in Egypt. That trip included way less that the previous one:

• bathing
• sunbathing
• a bit of sightseeing.

That holiday did us both lots of good and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Okay, now, for the pictures: I'm still trying to get the ones that weren't taken with my camera, so below are a few of my own, featuring absolutely no one.

That's the nice place where I grew up:


That's the previously mentioned middle school:


And here is a little piece of Egypt (Deir el-Bahari):



Now, I'm back to the life I love! I recently came across a quote by Seth Godin:

"Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from."

I definitely don't feel the need to escape from my life, but a vacation now and again is a great way to spend more time with loved ones and friends, get a fresh perspective on everything, load your batteries, etc. etc.

Geek gets surgery

A few days ago, I underwent my first surgery ever. The surgery itself wasn't as much of a big deal as the experience - I have wondered how it felt like since my childhood, when my little brother underwent one and I didn't. My curiosity finally got satisfied.

Wednesday, July 14th

I arrive at the hospital at noon. Waiting, paperwork, waiting, questions, waiting. Boring. They tell me not to eat to be ready the next day at 7h45 - I set my alarm clock to 7h30. I take a nap, then answer some e-mails, then go to bead early. Sleeping is something I'm actually really good at.

Thursday, July 15th

They wake me up at six and tell me to get ready now. I do. Then boredom comes back and I get back to sleep. (I guess there should be a part when I'm worried, but I'm really better at sleeping.) They wake me up just before eight. "Come on, it's time to go. (...) Okay, now the door on the right. No, on the right! But I can see you're smiling - that's the spirit!" When they lie me on the table, that's when I start to get nervous, but not for long: within a few minutes, I am asleep again.

I wake up to a doctor calling my name. Phew, I made it! Something is hurting me in the head. It must be the hair elastic I'm lying on. The algorithm to solve that problem is simple: lift head, move elastic, lay head back down. Ouch - lifting my head hurts. Oh yeah, they had to cut through my neck so now I can't really move it. I mange to pull the elastic away. Now what? Let's get back to sleep.

I wake up quite a few times that day and it's not pleasant. I miss Marcin, take a look at the clock and count the hours down to his visit on the following day. I want to drink - they give me a 9 ml bottle. I want to go to the bathroom. I want to cough. I want to lie on my side. I want to see Marcin. None of these are possible, but the deprivations are really bearable, as within a few minutes I am asleep again. I pass those minutes by observing all the IO interfaces I am connected to.

Friday, July 16th

I am back in my room at the hospital and am encouraged to start moving. I get to the promised land of the bathroom. I enjoy my position: no work obligations, no school ones, no social ones. I don't have to do anything. I can sleep all I want - and hell, I do! Visitors brighten my day, but I can't stay awake for the whole four hours when visits are allowed. As soon as they leave, I am asleep again.

Saturday, July 17th

Time to go! My stitches and all my IO interfaces get removed. I go to my Mom's for the week-end and spend most of the time - you guessed it - asleep.

Later on

I get two weeks of sick leave from work. So cool. So much time to sit at the computer, and, of course, so much time to sleep.

[Picture credit]

On my wishlist: the Tetris dress

I want that dress. Period.



Or that fabric.



Then I'd make a jumper out of it and I'd wear it over my loads of brightly-colored T-shirts.

I guess this is the part where I should come up with some eloquent words of praise for both the design of the fabric and the realisation of the dress, but you must forgive me, for I have partied until 3 a.m. last night. (See pics on Facebook.) I just love them.

Dear diary

This week was really tough, but the best is yet to come (next week).

My AI exam on Tuesday went pretty well. I was well prepared in June and after a bit of revisons, I was able to solve all the problems. Results will be available on Monday.

Coming up: compilers on Monday, partial differentail equations on Thursday, networks on Friday, but no time to study: I'm typing the networks projects as hard as... well, it's not going very well. I can't concentrate - too many websites outhere are calling me from the recently closed tabs. The weather is wierd, my head is aaching and I'm very sleepy in spite of having slept in. It's the weekend and I'm tired. But as I sit here, listing my excuses, the clock keeps on ticking, the deadlines are approaching.

I left work for almost two weeks to focus on school. Work is by far much easier and more rewarding - I get paid and appreciated. At school, it's an honor for you if they let you study there. I can't wait for school to be over.

Yet another bro entered college, majoring of course in computer science. Yet another bro to fight for textbooks with. (We've already started and classes haven't even begun!)

All good things must come to an end - Hubby and I have finished watching (or re-watching, in his case) the first season of House M.D.

Gotta keep on coding.

Summer is here!

Yeah, Summer is here!


I had my last exam yesterday. Yep, on a Saturday, at 9 a.m. Finally, it's over!!!

Now, I know I just came back from a two-week vacation in Tunisia, but believe me, I'm tired like crazy again. Honeymoons are absolutely well-deserved vacations for the whole emotional weight of getting married, no matter how wonderful marrying one's loved one is. By going to school at the same time, you totally earn the right to another trip. And we're totally planning one. Kinda. Someday.

For now, my plans are:

• getting my butt back to the office Monday morning
• pushing my master thesis (I wonder if my advisor remembers me and that's not good)
• learning some python and cooking
  
• erm, blogging more, doing some Silverlight stuff again would be really cool...
  
• taking advantage of the fact that I now live next to the forest!
  

I hope you're excited for Summer as well. If you need, here are some activities suggestions, and here's some advice about how to put things off and stop caring to realize your dreams. Have a great Summer everyone!

[Picture credit]

I'm going to Tunisia

I promised myself never to write a post where I apologize for not blogging (because if I don't write, I don't write and that's all) and promise to do better (because better would be getting to the good stuff right away).

Well, I apologize and hope you understand how busy I have been recently. (I also got hit on the forehead with a wii-mote, but it's not related.) About that doing better part, however... better will be later. Right now, I'm going to Tunisia on my honeymoon, so I can't really commit to producing blog content. But here's the good news: I'm intensively using Google Reader and try my best to pick the best stuff and share it, so if you want something fresh and geek to read, check it out here.

Besides the usual feeds, my reading list now contains lots of Tunisia-related content. Namely:

1. Tunisia on Wikipedia
2. Tunisia in the CIA World Factbook
3. Tunisia.com
4. Tunisia on Wikitravel
5. Tunisia on Travelistic

Travelistic, by the way, is "the YouTube of worldwide destinations". I was planning a daydreaming session on this site, by the way. It could be great to see all the places I'd love to see for free. I'll do that someday.

I'm married!

Okay, not much more to say than the fact that I'm married, but it's really big news, so it deserves a post of its own.

I'm thinking of posting a bit of wisdom I acquired along the way in a separate post. In short, we managed to make a small wedding reception (for 50 people) at a really reasonable cost, without looking cheap. I say if you're smart, creative and can negotiate, money doesn't really get in the way. This example is impressive, but every couple has to find its own balance between wedding size and resources, as well as between contributing time and money. Here are more ideas.

I'm still waiting for the pictures and hoping to find one when you can see how great I look but not Husband's face because he doesn't want to be tagged on a picture on the interwebs. I'll let you know when I find one!

Random stuff

I haven't been blogging for a while (only going to school, moving, marrying - you know, the usual) and something deep in my heart tell me I should be getting back on the blogging train. So here I am, with lots of random stuff.

First, private life. I'm getting married in two weeks. Dress? Not ready. Dozens of pounds to me lost on that occasion? Not happening. (I blame the lifestyle. Losing weight is hard work, doing cardio is hard to start, as you need to get in shape a bit, and while I'm getting two degrees at a time, I'm really working hard and putting a lot of pressure on myself. Can't have it all.) But, I'm marrying a great guy, for the one and only right reason to marry, so I couldn't be happier.

I'm going to an Arabic-speaking country for my honeymoon. I'm so excited! I will finally learn to count and order food! And buy Al Jamila and many more magazines!

Silverlight 3 Beta is out and I know nothing about it, expect you need to have two development environments to work in both 2 and Beta 3 at once, which is really uncool as I work in 2 but would like to explore 3 because blogging about 2 is so yesterday. You can perfectly well develop for .net 2 having 3.5 installed and everything should work that way.

I bought a box of 5 albums by Kasia Kowalska.

And I wonder who buys that. I mean, either you're a fan, so you've got the albums already, or you're not, so you buy a "best of" or nothing, you don't spend that kind of money at once. Who does that?

I am super-motivated to procrastinate write my master paper just like the other grad students all over the world and the ones portrayed on Piled Higher and Deeper. It's scary how accurate these comics are, while the behaviors shown seem so irrational:

Please tell me I'm not like that! And don't ask how the paper is going, that would be rude.

Ok, enough for today, test coming up on Monday about lexical analysis.

My biggest dream is to marry well (and that's not pathetic)

My biggest dream is to marry well. Is it. And some people find it pathetic. And I'm gonna prove it's not.

Just marry? And that's it?

People ask when I speak my mind. The thing is, it's not just marry and it's never it.

It's never it because marriage is forever, for better or for worse. I don't want to just get into it, but to stay in it. For life.

It's not just marry because it's about love everyday, it's about making a great commitment, it's about a lot more than just going through a certain ceremony. Love is easy on Valentine's day. It's easy when things are good. It's harder when you have to sacrifice a dream for it or the person you loved hurt you. Still, I wanna do it without exceptions: love that man every single day, even if he lies to me, cheats on me, put something above me... Of course, I want my husband to love me that way as well.

In the TV shows I watch, the protagonists keep on changing partners - otherwise, not much would happen. But they have someone predestined for them in a way that the viewers know it from the start. They might end up together after seven seasons of stupidity (or soon but drift apart and back), but they will, and when they do, everyone knows this relationship is not like the others - it's forever. That's what I want - to marry my Mr Right (I'll pass on the seven seasons of stupidity).

Attentive readers will ask:

But you're already engaged!

That's right, I am. Therefore, my biggest dream is to marry my fiance. There - I found a way to say it that sounds dumb even to me! What's a fiance for if not to marry him? But, if you read that post attentively, you should understand how much this means to me.

Update

So I haven't updated for a while... here's what I've been doing lately:

• celebrating Chritsmas with lots of family singing
• deciding to get married in April or May
• buying stuff for our new house
• handling wedding stuff
• writing my masters paper
  
• hosting a New Year's party
• getting rid of clutter

Most of that stuff is going/gone good, except that the cat vomited on my bridal magazines.

Coming next: back to work, learning Python, preparing for the 70-something exam... Enough to keep a girl busy, right?

I'm engaged!

Great news people - I am engaged! Boyfriend proposed to me yesterday in our new apartment!

As a very professional blogger, I said that I needed a picture to post here, so Boyfriend took a few with the camera in his phone. If you use your imagination look really close, you can see the ring on my finger!

Yet another math presentation

The geek life has been a bit harder lately. I spent an entire day and then an entire evening preparing a presentation about the Weil Pairing. Don't ask me what it is - I have been trying to understand it for two years! (Well, I have been trying other things as well during those years, but still, you get the idea.)

"Sweetie, I know you're busy, but I gotta ask you one thing: who's the long unseen friend from the previous post?" messaged me Boyfriend. The brief explanation of Long Unseen Friend being an ex of mine didn't really satisfy him, nor the fact that he missed our appointment and still I set a new one.

But let's not allow the boys to distract us from the Weil Pairing, because I have great news! After those two years, I have finally understood what the Weil Pairing is and how to evaluate it! There's a bad news too: I understood it fully during my presentation. I realized that the example I had picked was by far too simple and I still have a lot of work to do. But hey, I finally got it!

For those of you who speak Polish, know a bit of math and aren't easily scared (anyone still reading?), here are my slides:

Time to set some goals

The good lazy days of holidays are over. School has started, it's just two days a week, but with three days of work, it's hard to catch me home. And it's at least imprudent for me to stay lazy. So it's time to get organized and set some goals.

First goal, of course, it to do all the required schoolwork. That's three exams, one lab and one master paper. School... I've done that ten times already.

Second, professional goals: get my salary up and get certificates. I got a raise recently, but my work speed is still very limited by the need of learning how to do something before actually doing it. Well, it's not like in this job you get to a point where you know everything, but you do get to a point where you know the given technology, you know the available tools, you know which to choose and all that kind of stuff I often have to ask my workmates or Boyfriend.

Third, a personal goal: get rid of as much stuff as possible. I will most probably be moving out next summer and I don't want my first adult flat to be as messy over-stuffed as my room is now. In our society, everyone owns too much stuff anyway. Lifehacker has a lot of advice about that and when I started reading it, I very quickly started watching more what I buy. I want to have control over everything that enters my personal space. I can't just leave a mess at my parent's place, so a lot of things have to go. So, this morning, two dozens of magazines are gone. I also got some ideas about some other stuff.

Things are going good, and I hope it stays that way.

Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" is out

Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" is out. Actually, it has been since Thursday, so I guess I'm a little late for the party.

Well, I visited the download page on Thursday, unuware of anything, because I had a fast connection at school, so it was a good time to get it just in case I ever felt like updating, and there was still 7.10. I must have been a few hours early. I got some beta instead.

Okay, you know when you're a geek when you're concerned about missing the new OS' premiere. If it makes you feel any better, I have a few other concerns, like not having been told that one of my friends is getting married today, but I don't feel like elaborating on these.

Back to Ubuntu. LifeHacker has a very enthousiastic review, and my friend just blogged about an interesting way to make the system use the memory in a more efficient way, claiming Hardy is the best OS he has ever had installed. Looking great, but in just a month after formatting my hard drive and reinstalling everything, I don't really feel like updating. And three weeks after completing the Operating Systems class, I'm not touching the system with a pole.

My new schedule at school

I'm starting to feel better, crawling out of bed and slowly coming back to life. I'm not happy about having to spend my entire winter break in bed when I have so much work to do. And on Monday, school is starting again!
Anyway, here's my new schedule. Pretty nice, huh?

Geek goes to school

I went to school yesterday. That's a big event now, last time I set foot there was 8 days earlier (and only for two hours). It was cool, I got a nice break from kernel hacking. Instead, I was chillin' with the guys (I had semantics and operating systems and I'm the only girl in both classes) and talking about partying and movies and games... Nah, I'm fooling you. What do you honestly think we were talking about?

I learned a few useful things at school, like the fact that the number of major page faults is indeed in the task_struct (click here for exclusive information!) and that the semantics teacher still doesn't want to teach us about program verification. Why would he? The verification assignement was due that day and everyone did it somehow. Oh yeah, and I learned how to do the verification assignement on a short trip to the computer lab and did it too. See kids how useful going to school is?

Going to school has also some major disadvantages. My coffee milk got kindly donated to Fifa. Two classes strategically planned can take the whole day (2-6p.m. but I had to get there two hours earlier to do some administrative stuff, getting there takes an hour...) and I'm still tired. Still, it was a nice break from kernel hacking, but now I'm back to it.

What geeks do according to xkcd

My bro sent me a link to xkcd yesterday. It's a great comic site and describes geeks really accurately.
First, what does xcfd mean?
1. My boyfriend did it a few days ago, but to the left.
2. I did it with my boyfriend a few days ago (the phone was next to his glasses). I did it with a friend recently... I don't think that's really geek though. Normal people do it too.
3. I'd never do that. That's sick.
4. I did that a lot when I was a kid. I've moved on to bigger and geekier things.
[Source]
Here are some social issues geeks face. Oh, how well I can relate!
[Source, source]
These illustrate the science obsession well. Really true.
Yep, I've caught myself thinking about math in romantic situations. That's why I only date geeks - then we can talk about it together. [Source]
Factoring time, I've never done it. But when you leave your coat at school, you can always hear a "Hey, mine's prime!". I always factor the number I get. [Source]
Geek on Wiki:
That's totally an everyday situation. [Source]
This one is really funny:
I've caught myself fantasising about SQL injection a lot recently. Too bad it's mean and illegal. [Source]

Your blog alone is not enough

I grew very fond of blogging and just started a second blog: "Lila loves yoga". It's more personal, intented to keep track of my yoga progress and not really share something new with the world, but if you find interesting, it's cool. Can't wait to find a bit of free time and style it nicely.
I also started a Picassa Web album and loaded loads of pictures of my private life. It's here.
Enjoy!

Meet my cat

Meet my cat: her name is Fifa, she must be 8 years old.

Isn't she beautiful? She most certainly is, but she's also bored to tears. And that's what happens when a cat is bored:

But you haven't seen the worst yet. Here's a picture of cakes Mom made today:

As you can see, a part is missing. No one in the family confessed having tasted the cake this way, and since Fifa has been caught quite a few times on the kitchen counter recently, who could have done this?