busy weekend
Mar 20th 2005WallabyGeneral & nerd alert & site news
1. Recruiting weekend! Didn’t have to do a lot for it, thankfully; I seem to have dropped off the list of people asked to hang out with the prospective students, which I don’t miss. We did show a group poster during lunch on Saturday, so I stood beside that and answered a ton of questions about the group (some) and about the department (much more). I never made it to a recruiting weekend when I was applying to grad school, although I did remember asking every single question I was asked today myself. (Clearly I’m not in a program on how to write clear sentences.)
2. Problems with the site being down — the database server gets rebooted pretty frequently, or goes down of its own free will (”Do database servers have free will? Discuss.” — from a final exam in ‘Philosophy of Computer Science’). Which means that practically everything is unavailable until it comes back up. I’m upgrading to a better plan, which guarantees 99% uptime overall — and “we have not experienced downtime due to [the database being down]“. Which could well mean they just haven’t realized it. Not encouraging, but this is the easiest way to fix things, I think.
3. Video card works. Ordered a super-duper heatsink and fan (Vantec Iceberq 4 Pro) and now everything’s stable for hours. Called the place I bought the card from, told them my sorrows; they basically agreed to refund 40% of the price I’d paid since it didn’t have the fan. Which more than covers the cost of the fan that worked, but not the other two, which I suspect I’ve done too much with to return to CompUSA. C’est la VGA.
4. Most excellent chat on the phone last night…. Basically, first confirmation since she moved away that, if/when I move to NC, she’ll be interested. Very hard at the end not to add, after three rounds of “I miss you”, “I miss you too”, “I love you”. I’ll wait to say it in person, though.
2 Responses to “busy weekend”
Mo on 12 Apr 2005 at 10:12 pm #
I just noticed the comment you left on my site (which wasn’t emailed to me for some reason). I don’t get a lot of traffic, so I’m always psyched when strangers comment. Anyway, I’m wondering if you are perhaps high on your bitterness curve, and this is why you aren’t invited to help with recruiting?
Wallaby on 13 Apr 2005 at 12:03 am #
Eh, not really. I actually enjoy both research and grad school still, which surprises me occasionally. I suspect it’s more that the department generally picks 1st and 2nd year students, or those involved in “special” programs (hot interdisciplinary topics, big training grants, etc.) for recruitment fun. I’ve lost track of which year I am and I’d rather spend my time at work on research anyway, so they don’t ask and I don’t offer. But I’m bitter-free (”now 110% less bitter than ever before!”) — a fantastic advisor helps a lot on that.