random Sunday thoughts

I have been meaning to document this for some time, so here it is:

There is a lady who lives on the sidewalk outside of Trader Joe's, as far as I can tell.  She is always there, and she always has multiple signs with angry things written on them.  One is about how she's hungry, but she will only accept organic food, or $20, because GMOs are evil, or something like that.

My favorite sign of hers looks something like this:

i am a poet
i write poems
i make words
i am like a radio
BLACK PRIDE


She is white, if that matters at all.  (And I think it does.)

It occurred to me recently that there aren't going to be any homeless people in State College, and it's going to be a little weird.  Homeless people always make me a little uncomfortable, because I want to help them, but I realize there's nothing I can really do to help them, besides volunteering at a soup kitchen or something like that.  I have gotten used to having them around, though, because there are so, so many homeless people in Berkeley.  They camp out on the sidewalks downtown and near campus, and you see the same ones over and over again.  There's also a special breed of weirdo that inhabits Berkeley, and that I've never seen anywhere but here, which is the maybe-homeless.  As in, they look kind of unkempt and disheveled, but you can't tell if they're crazy and homeless or just crazy.  Most of these people have at least a few signs, and they don't seem to care whether you notice them or not.  It's as if they see their life's work as standing on the street corner outside the games store with a big poster identifying animals' footprints, for some reason.  (That's just one guy.  My favorite of this type is probably the guy who walks around with sandwich boards on, with an arrow pointing to the left and big angry letters proclaiming "PASS ON THE LEFT!!!".)

There are many things I will miss about Berkeley, and actually, the crazy people are probably one of them.

I need to do some work today, and instead I have been wasting time on the internet and cooking.  It's been a good day, really, but now I think it's time to do some statistics while my rice cooks.  And then I'll probably go for a bike ride to enjoy this nice day.

Oh!  Speaking of nice days, Jevon and I went to the hipstery-est wedding I could ever have imagined yesterday.  It was in a backyard in San Francisco, replete with thrift store clothing, sideburns, and tongues planted firmly in cheek.  It was actually very lovely, too, in a weird way, but some of the people there made me feel a bit out of place.  Like the very fact that I would allow them to let me feel out of place probably meant that I Care Too Much About Things.

Anyway, rice is almost done.  Bye for now.

o hai, VOT measurements

Why yes, I do have to re-take 4000 VOT measurements today.  It's what I do every day!

I have spent literally every day this week cycling through the same 110 sound files, labeling and relabeling and relabeling them.  Another team of researchers was awesome enough to share their data with me, and my first order of business was to replicate their findings.  (That's only the first order of business.  The more interesting part is supposed to be what I do after I successfully replicate their findings.)  I finally got some results this morning, and much to my chagrin, I did not replicate their findings.  So now I have to re-measure everything again.  Carefully.  By hand.

And if I still don't replicate their findings, then I have a very awkward situation on my hands.  Because they were kind enough to share their data with me, and then I have to be like, "Actually, I did this like four times, and there is now no possible way I can believe what you wrote in your paper.  Because no matter how carefully I do this, I am not getting what you got."

So... cross your fingers that this re-measurement results in a successful replication?  Because I am not re-doing these measurements another blasted time.  And I don't really want to have to write a paper where I say "um thanks but you guys were wrong".

Saaaaaad faaaaaaaace.  :-(((((

o hai, dissertation chapter

Whew!  First dissertation chapter finished and submitted for comments.  It's not perfect, but I think it's pretty good.  As good as can be achieved without knowing what's going to happen in my next two studies.

So... on to the next one!

ETA: funny that this link is getting passed around on my Facebook feed today.  Trust me, these are questions I have considered.

I'm me! I'm me!

Guys!  Guys!  The six month waiting period is up, and my finalized divorce paperwork came in the mail today.  I never thought it would feel good to be officially divorced, but there it is.  I'm just so relieved to be able to get my name back.  So I went to the bank and changed my name on my account this afternoon.  It was the only thing I could do so far, because the social security administration, campus registrar's office, DMV, etc. are all closed today.  But it's a start, and it felt really good.

Now I'm sitting in my apartment with the windows and door wide open, eating delicious, delicious strawberries from the farmer's market with Greek yogurt, and the lady with the massive garden whose backyard adjoins mine is out gardening in the sunshine, and the people in the apartment building next door are having a party and blasting bossa nova music and laughing.

It's a good day.

"...trying to memorize every corner, letting my eyes rest on all of the things I have loved..."

We have a very Berkeley, very local news blog that I like to keep up on, and a guest contributor posted this article this past week.  It hits home a little bit too hard right now.  Read the article for an idea of how I'm feeling these days, and read the comments for an idea of what the annoying parts of Berkeley are...

Today is another writing day.  I've been coding, staring at data, and trying to figure out what I should say for the past week.  But today, it's time to sit down and make myself write.  It's already May, and that's freaking me out in multiple ways.  I've looked at my data in every way I can think of over the past two weeks, and now I have to just say something, even if it's not going to be as good or as conclusive or as tied-up-in-a-bow as I would like it to be.  Then I can come back to it in a few weeks and make it better, once I've gotten comments from my advisors, and I can also compare these results with whatever I find in my other chapters.

To work!