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| Reporting in from PDX on my way back to Michigan after a much appreciated an enjoyed winter break. It was wonderful to be back in the pleasant city of Corvallis, but this too must end. Just signed up for my Math Learning Center hour for the next semester. All in all it looks like I have a quite acceptable schedule. Made it to the airport and through security fine, so my travel woes are likely over until Lansing. Apparently I wasn't put on an early enough flight to make my connection in Seattle, I thought I was on a 7:00 flight, the system thought I was flying out at 7:30, so to rectify the situation I will be on a 6:30 flight, amazing how much air traffic there is between Portland and Seattle. Well that's it, catch you on the flip side. | | |
| Sorry the site is such an eyesore. I got tired of the jarring nature of the bright green and blue I had been enduring, and wanted to go back to a mellower grey dominated scheme similar to the sites original decoration. Trouble is, I haven't a good enough conceptualization how the site originally looked, and I grew bored with playing with color combinations before finishing changing all of the colors. Anyway, I'll get around to tidying up the colors eventually. In the mean time, have a Merry Christmas!
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| I don't know that I'll post regularly, I also doubt people are reading this anymore, and yes there is a causal relation. However, being back in Corvallis (with nothing to do on this wonderfully melancholy day) puts me in the mood to Xanga. "Back in Corvallis?" one might ask (although hopefully you've had a little more information about my life than that). Indeed, having graduated from OSU I have thrown myself into the meat grinder known as the MSU (Michigan State University) math doctoral program. Gone are the days of expecting myself to get A's, I was estatic to receive a B (or 3.0 as MSU grades are reported) in my Real Analysis test, I believe I had good answers to 2 of the 8 questiongs on the final, yikes!
But MSU is over 2,000 miles behind me now (apparently the snow is stalking me thought, ick, I had thought to have a break from this). I spent a few days visiting a fellow OSU alumni and ex-roommate (if you know me you ought to know who this is) up in Victoria at the beginning of the break. This was a pretty cool experience because Victoria really captures the big urban center feel (buildings tall and close together, rather than endless parking lot-scapes), and it was great to see him again. Plus, I enjoy visiting Canada, so much math involved in shopping (exchange rate). The latter part of the visit was made more interesting due to the icy death trap that roads and sidewalks became, ce la vie.
Now I'm back in Corvallis, at least until the weekend, and then for another week around New Years. Although I enjoy being here, it is a little saddening for at least two reasons. Visiting is not the same as living here, there is a much stronger feeling of transience to the experience, as well as a loss of independence that comes as part of being someone else's guest. I appreciate my host, but over the past week I realized how much I value the independence I developed during my time at OSU and carried with me to MSU. In fact, loosing regular interaction with my friends has probably pushed me to become even more independent, though this is not a sure thing. Visiting also strenghthens the already powerful emotional connection I feel to this place and its residents of the past five years, I imagine that this will make it hard to once again return to East Lansing (which is a lovely place in its own right, a bit spread out to be pedestrain friendly though). My consolation is that what I am attached to is the Corvallis, or OSU, or even McNary or UHC, community that existed in the past, and even were I to remain here this community is, if not gone, then at least morphed into something that is sometimes unrecognizeable to an extent that scares me.
As I felt in my last year at McNary, if I remain in one place too long, whilst others move around me, I will become a part of the past rather than the present. This is a fate that I prefer to avoid.
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| Gary Gygax, one of the co-founders of the Dungeons & Dragons game, died yesterday. Although I did not begin playing D&D regularly until last year, he has still had a profound impact upon my life. Sometime when I was in elementary school I was in the library, perusing my favorite spot, YA Sci-Fi (Young Adult Science Fiction), when what should I spy but a row full of new books from a series I had never heard of. Not knowing what they were I picked one to see if they were any good. The book, Red Magic, the series, Forgotten Realms. I still berate myself for not checking all the available books out when they were conveniently in one spot.
Although they are young adult books, the Forgotten Realms still is a very important, if mythical, place for me. In the Forgotten Realms I found some of my favorite authors, RA Salvatore, Jeff Grubb, and Kate Novak, some of my favorite heroes, Drizzt Do'Urden and the Heroes of Icewind Dale, Cadderly, and Alias, danger, adventure, the importance of friends and love, vocabulary words, wonder, and a home away from home. It turns out that the Forgotten Realms are based on the D&D game, so, indirectly Gary Gygax is responsible for a large part of my childhood.
Thank you Gary Gygax, you are one of my rainbow connections.
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| I just found out that Isaac Asimov has been dead for over 11 years. It is always a very odd feeling to find out that something important to me has been gone but just not noticed for so long. It must be near New Years if I'm feeling like this...
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