Class, Moving, and Loneliness

Ok. So it is truly absurd how long it has been since I updated this blog. I could point fingers at a number of things, but really I just haven't had the energy to put together an entry, and it has been becoming more and more daunting as more things happened that I want to mention... I want to thank those of you who have steadfastly pestered me to update this blog again. It really does help get me off my butt and on the keyboard.

So, what *has* happened to Jason since he last updated? Well, its been long enough that I'm just a little bit hazy on it myself. However, probably the biggest thing thing was me enrolling in CS224N, Natural Language Processing at Stanford. This is a full-scale grad-level CS/Linguistics course that I was taking through Stanford's online distance-learning program (even though I am about 1mi from the school). Once enrolled I proceeded to have my life eaten by said course (note that this is when I stopped updating this blog).

So, the course has just ended (hallelujah for short classes in the quarter system) as of this past Tuesday. Now, I am really glad I took the class. I learned a lot about NLP, and I also feel like I finally understand a bunch of larger concepts in AI and Machine Learning that I have been working with since summer-after-sophomore-year but never really had completely understood till now (naïve bayes, discriminative vs. generative models, exponential models, ... the list goes on). That said, the class was a *lot* of work [here is another lesson: don't do assignments that are meant for pair-programming completely in isolation]. Most of my weekends since that class started that I did not travel were me working on NLP. I also learned that while I *love* learning and *love* school, the massive work ethic that has always been by my side when I work on anything school-like is linked quite a bit to the people I am around. So, when I take a class online and don't really have any contact with other students in the course, I don't feel nearly as interested, I don't process the material as well, and -worst of all- I don't have the motivation I usually do. I'm still planning on taking more online classes (really, I'm addicted to learning), but I'm definitely going to try to establish contact with other students in the class *much* earlier in future classes.

Ok, so that was NLP. What else... Well, I've been down to Mudd *twice* (I think...) since the last time I posted. The first time was for Donut Man (wooo! 17.4 miles of unicycling, awesome people and *delicious* strawberry donuts!) and Slinky Dress. It was an *awesome* weekend, really great to be around so many good friends, and really brought up my spirits (which had not been all that high) up a lot. The second time was for graduation. It was also really great to visit, thought I did not get to see nearly everyone I would have liked (which is particularly sad, as I have no idea when I will see most of them again :-/). I also had too much to drink that weekend and really owe Scott, Shusta, and a bunch of others a huge debt for taking care of me so well. Sorry for being a dumbass, but it is really nice to know I have such amazing friends.

Through those two trips to Mudd I became aware of something. I didn't realize how much I had missed being around... science. Between conversations with Helen and Ben during drives to and from Mudd (about StatMech and BioChem respectively) and a conversation over dinner with Mike about the actual physics of black holes (white dwarfs, neutron stars, and how Hawking radiation could be used to make a small black hole into a perfect matter to energy converter) [and now a subsequent conversation about what the Grand Unified Theory means!] I have picked up (if not understood as well as I would like) a fair bit of a few different subjects. And it makes me *incredibly* happy. I have *hugely* missed this feeling, of learning *new* things, not just refinements or explanations of things I had some inkling how to do before. That is the problem with computer science for me right now. I'm still learning new things every day, but they are not generally *big* things or new *ideas*.

This sort of feeling makes me feel even more so that I will be going to grad school in the next few years, if maybe not for computer science... Don't worry, since this is one of my bigger existential crises right now, there will definitely be future posts about such things ^_^. For now, I'll move on

So, housing has changed around quite a bit for me as well. Mike moved out, Brett (after he graduated) moved in, and we all moved to a new place. The move actually happened *last* weekend, and I have come to the conclusion that moves are *exhausting*, take *way* too long (we moved all our crap in two days, including cleaning the old house, but I'm still trying to get moved into the new place [but I have bookshelves now!!! I actually have all my books from Mudd out on shelves! It is awesome {if you didn't already know, I passionately love books (I want to have a personal library, and already have a good start) so it makes me really happy to have all the books out of boxes}]). Also, moving being tired and crotchety for a week after the actual move is not a great way to appreciate your new house or roomates...

So, the new house. We are now closer to Stanford and generally closer (i.e. walking distance) to a bunch of nice places like a used bookstore and a Safeway (that is open 24hrs a day). We also happen to be a couple of blocks from the Tesla dealership (Tesla == electric *sports* car). However, we're now living in an apartment instead of a house. This means there are other people around, so we have to deal with their noise and try not to piss them off with ours. That said, there are actually other people around. I think think the main thing that I miss is having a big, airy room with lots of natural light, surrounded by greenery.

The feeling is lessening a bit now, but all the moving and change (moving houses, finishing a class, seeing class of '09 graduate, and even moving my desk at work) has made me a bit pensive and lonely. I still really miss having the people I hung out with all the time at Mudd around me, and I really miss the closeness and companionship of a relationship. I've learned a lot over the last few years about self-sufficiency, independence, and making myself happy, but I guess this current shakeup has make me start missing the good times. Maybe this is what it will take to get me out and trying to meet some girls.

Incidentally, no real progress on that front. Its been a year since I graduated college and I still haven't met or really started hanging out with many new people. This is in no small part my own fault, but I'm still not really sure how to start...

Ok, this is starting to get long and to the point that I might never finish it if I don't just cut my losses and post now. There are a few more things that I wanted to mention, but I'll keep them in bullet form:
-Marry, Boff, Kill: Entertaining game where X gives Y a list of three people, A, B, and C. Y must choose which Y would marry, which Y would boff, and which Y would kill (or, for those people that are just too nice, banish). Best between friends who can give each other really really hard triples.
-Been keeping up w/ summer movies: wolverine (awesome), star trek (surprisingly good), terminator (enjoyed it while I was there, but didn't make much of an impact on me). Still need to see Up!
-Turned 23: holy crap!
-Paul is starting @ Yelp! Yay Mudder goodness!
-Got new glasses (and they're pretty hot ~_^).
-My cousin Andrew was here to visit this weekend! (*Awesome* visit. I haven't seen him since I was in 8th grade. Got to catch up a *lot*, find we have enough similarities it is almost creepy ^_^, and had a ton of fun [hanging out, Stanford Dish, and I FINALLY GOT OUT TO ALCATRAZ!!!]).
-Had a great suggestion from a guy at work to use blogging as a way to clear my thoughts when I'm trying to learn something. This means there will probably start being technical posts in addition to write-about-my-life posts.

Ok, thats all for now folks! Thanks for still reading!

Cheers,
Jason