MSRI week 1

So this week's been pretty stressful and pretty monotonous. The schedule is as follows:

7AM get up
8-830 eat breakfast
9-12 work/lectures
12-2 Lunch and talks w/ important people
2-6 work/lectures
6-7 bus home/dinner
7-11 or 12 work

Yeah, we don't get to get out much, but that's what the weekends are for. On Friday I found out that The Goo Goo Dolls were playing a concert at the theater next door to the dorm (Oh, that's what that thing is!) And Norah Jones played there last night, but I wasn't listening. On Saturday we went on a group field trip to Monterey to see the aquarium. I ate clam chowder for the first time. It wasn't bad. Tried to take lots of pictures, but they didn't come out all that well. The otter exhibit was a letdown, but I bought a cuddly one to take home. I was gonna send it to my mom, but now I'm thinking I'll use it here as a pillow. I'll put up a picture of it soon.

The people here are pretty cool. Thomas, my roommate, goes to Texas. Luis and Donnie are from UC Davis and Harvey Mudd, respectively. Pat and Sean are from Villanova and Morehouse. Gina and Greta are both from New Jersey schools. Carmen goes to Spelman and Talea goes to Grambling St. in LA. Sophia goes to DePaul and Natalie goes to Claremont. And Lastly we have Edgar and Tamara, our going-way-beyond-expectations TAs. Cool people from all over. It's also pretty cool that we're all minorities. The program specified that it gave extra attention to "underrepresented groups in the math community" but we didn't expect all of us to be in that category. We some some Latino/as, a couple Filipinos, some African-Americans, and one Jamaican. We all get along pretty well. Most everyone is over 21 and drinks, so that pushes me off to the side a bit, but whatever. I went to church with Patrick and Sophia this morning. There's a Newman church nearby, so we just walked. I haven't been to church in a while, and I don't know what it was, but when they started singing a song that I actually remembered I got really moved. But they sing too much here.

The work is Computational Analysis, using computers to do math. We're using MATLAB, which I knew a little bit about, but everyone else has already caught up. We haven't picked projects yet, but hopefully I'll get to do either the supernova project or the electron path determination. Maybe the "find formulas to approximate various numbers to N digits, though we don't know how to actually PROVE these formulas."I forget the formula for pi, but it's something like sum(1:n) (16^-n)(4/(8n + 1) + 2/(8n + 2) - 1/(8n + 3) - 1/(8n + 7)) or something totally weird like that. Ok well, that's a basic outline of what we've been doing for this past week. All work and only weekend play makes Mitch a tired boy. We've got another week of lectures to go, and then we start our projects, but hopefully something cool will come out of this.

the long road ahead

So I'm in Berkeley now. Woot! And as you can tell I don't blog here as often as I used to. I guess it's an ebb and flow type of thing, but this has been a really long ebb. Or is it a long flow? Whatever.

I might be the only one here without a laptop. Oh well. Such is life. It was either get a laptop or live at home. For me, the choice was simple. There are plenty of computers here (as evidenced by me blogging) but it does feel like you're in the lag sometimes.

My mom left for Tucson at 3. She called in halfway from Vegas, so so far so good. These last few days have been pretty mellow. Went to check out the Berkeley campus. Toured a bit of San Fran. Saw two "robot" guys having a dance-off. That was a sight to see. Saw the seals and the Golden Gate Bridge on a boat tour. They cut off part of my face on the greenscreened photoshop picture of me at Alcatraz. Oh well. I admit, I was a nervous wreck all the way til now. Met a couple of the MSRI people. They're mostly cool. Some are older. Some have different philosophies. (Glug). But hopefully we'll get into groups of like minded mentalities. That might be redundant. Whether or not that's redundant, I'm not sure. And I saw the last episode of Price is Right. That was sweet. Nobody expected the girl to win the Corvette. But she did. NObody expected her to also win the Cadillac convertible, but she did. Of course, I have my own connections with a Cadillac convertible. Hands high. Cruisin' under Arizona sky. And I can see the stars. It's hard to tell how enjoyable this whole thing will be, but so far it hasn't sucked, which is saying a lot. MIT sucked on the first day. Cornell did, too, if I remember right. Can't say I'm an overnight convert- I already miss everybody tremendously. Oh well. We all go on separate paths. We can't stay side by side forever. But the people you meet on that path change your life, and hopefully you change theirs for the better, as well.

Things I'm gonna miss in Tucson:

My cousin's graduation
This northward view from my fourth floor balcony and the sunsets
My friends and family
Kyra Torres' wedding
The start of the monsoon

Cali, here I come!