Woik

So I've been going to school for almost two weeks now in the middle of the summer, and getting paid for it! Too bad I won't see my first paycheck until next week. I remember last year, in Cali, three weeks in we each get this check worth 1500 bucks. It was awesome. This time, three weeks in, I'll be lucky if I get 400. But I didn't stay here for the money. I stayed here because it was more certain. More comfortable. More secure. Less confidential.

The project I'm working with Dave on has to do with computational geometry. There are two other guys also working with me, Alex and Tom. They're pretty cool folk. Alex is a double Math/CS major, rising junior I think. Tom is a Math major/ Comp Sci minor who was gonna go into Math Ed but just switched a little while ago into the pure branch. He's the oldest of the three of us by a couple of years I think, but that's no big deal. Alex is 20 and 3 months, so it looks like going to get a drink with the guys might be out of the question. But I digress.

Basically we're trying to mathematically run a bunch of stuff on a computer. Since we're dealing with "triangulations" that contain numerous edges, vertices and faces, we have computer issues and math issues in computing it. We're working in C++, and I get most of it from my one Java class, but I don't think I'll be working too much on programming; Alex seems to have that pretty under control. We don't really have assigned jobs yet; I tend to move around from researching methods to looking for usable code to checking my email to playing with wooden blocks to typing up our report that's due in a few weeks. Oh yeah, we're expected to return a paper on the order of 40-50 pages after the 4th of July. Eep. Hopefully we'll have enough stuff to take it as far as we need. But we need to go for quality over quantity. The program director (not Dave) just wants to make sure that a three-person team is doing the work of three people (We looked up that most one person papers run on the order of 15 pages, so multiply by 3 and there you go.)

So I work pretty much from 9-3, with travel time at the beginning and end, and a small lunch break. Sometimes the three of us go eat together, sometimes no. It varies. We all have our own little schedules. Like today Alex didn't come in cause he was gonna watch a soccer game. It's cool.

I'm hoping that I can earn enough money on these first two paychecks to pay for a summer class I want to take during Summer session II. I'm signed up for the class in the fall as it is, but if I could take it now then I can take another class I really want to take and that will make my schedule somewhat happy. Although I'll still be taking 6 classes for 15 units. Eep. With 2 labs.. Wah! I hate labs.

So again working on just math is making me look at my options again for grad school. I need to look into more programs, but I have a short list of places I want to apply to. I just wonder if I can get in to them. My GRE scores are not so GREat. They're pretty good, but not super awesome. I need to sign up for the Math subject GRE test. Plus I need to find out what the heck a ring and a field is.

I miss summer vacation.