SemiAntics

Well, it happened. One of our old junk buckets from 1994 finally gave out. Nathaniel’s Mazda is no longer with us. Now we have a nice shiny 2007 Mazda6! It has 20,900 miles on it.

4 to go. Yep, it’s been a long year, but one is over. I survived! That’s really all I can say about this past year. I survived. I’m hoping that I can use induction and say I’ll make it 4 more years.

I’ve learned that math is hard, grad school is harder, and each year I learn more about how much I don’t know.

My plan is still to finish the Ph.D. program here, and then go teach at some university.

By the way, there are two reasons that we haven’t updated this website much lately. One is that I’ve been busy with school, the other is that I needed to update the software (wordpress) that runs our website, and so Grace couldn’t really put anything new up until I did that. Hopefully everything is cool now.

Life in the new apartment is quite different. It feels rather odd to have rooms. I feel like I’m wandering around someone else’s house. I’m also still getting used to the fact that, as our apartment no longer spans only one room, Nathaniel usually can’t hear my hollering at him unless I actually go into the room where he is located.

With the exception of the kitchen and the bathrooms, our entire apartment is carpeted. What a luxury! Since moving here, I’ve discovered that I have a propensity for laying on the floor. Why sit on the furniture to do anything when you can sit on the floor and do it? Maybe it’s just that I’ve lived in tile-floored places for the past 4 years, and my carpet sitting and laying needs have built up and are just now being fulfilled. Interestingly enough, I haven’t felt the urge to sleep on the floor. I guess I’ve done enough sleeping on the floor (or near to it) in the past few years that the urge to forgo my comfy bed hasn’t built up as much.

We found a cockroach in our dishwasher. Nathaniel decided to let him stay in the dishwasher and drown with the next load, but of course, he got out somehow. The next day we saw him scurrying behind the washer and dryer. Fortunately, we were able to dispatch Mr. Cockroach with our lightening fast broom skills. We are hoping that there aren’t any more cockroaches lurking in the shadows. We asked our neighbors, who have lived here a couple of years, about the cockroaches. They said that they have had very few cockroaches. Instead, they occasionally get Palmetto Bugs. In fact, they said, our creature was most likely a Palmetto Bug. The Palmetto Bugs like the pine trees you see….they also like damp things like the dish washer. They aren’t that much of a menace. It’s not the Palmetto Bug’s fault that apartment complex was built in a pine forest. The Palmetto Bug is an innocent invader–it is merely a grieving, little-ish insect wandering in search of its lost territory. And, although the neighbors had seen some Palmetto Bugs as big as two inches, they assured us that this was a rare occurrence. We felt somewhat reassured that our guest was only a Palmetto Bug.  The Palmetto Bug didn’t sound nearly as disgusting as a Roach. When we got home, I decided to do some research on Palmetto Bugs….alas, it turns out that “Palmetto Bug” is what southerners call Roaches…I don’t want to create the impression that the place is roach infested…we’ve only seen one, and we killed it..

We do have a healthy population of those tiny black ants that like to eat sweet things. I don’t view this as a bad thing though. It serves as a motivation not to leave dirty dishes out on the counter over night. They only bother sweet things like the dirty ice cream scoop. I left some biscuits I made out on the counter last night, and the ants didn’t bother them at all. I was a little bit offended. Those little ants don’t know what they are missing.

To see pictures of the new place, check out our gallery at Picasa.

I just got the call tonight from the North Carolina State University Math department. They wanted to tell me that I will be accepted into their Ph.D. program in Mathematics, as well as to offer me a teaching assistantship. This is just what I was hoping to hear! I’ll be going down to visit in February for the recruitment weekend.

At slightly more than 30,000 students, NC-State University is just about the same size as VCU. But if you compare campus size, NCSU has a much larger campus. It’s also a lot greener, (as in grassy, with trees) and much more pleasant. NC-State has a good reputation with science, engineering, math, etc.

Wish me luck!

So, the summer is supposed to be a fun time for students because they get a much-needed break from studying. That’s not exactly how it’s turning out for me. Somehow I ended up taking a summer class, doing research through the Honors College, and working two jobs. Grace is working full-time also. Plus, with all the planning and wedding stuff, there is also the backlash (there is plenty of work to do after you get married, also!) So, while we do have a few nice fun things planned, most of our leisure time is spent trying to learn how to make those fancy dishes like the ones in the cookbooks. This is fun, but sometimes it turns out to be a headache.

So, my jobs are cool-ish. I guess you could call that fun. One is doing web-site work for the VCU T/TAC. Another is working on the same research grant that my research seminar is for. That is, I’m working for Dr. Chan and Dr. Dyer at the dyerlab doing C++ coding to simulate pollen spreading. Not bad. My class is pretty fun, and it’s exposing me to new ideas, which is always cool.

So, all in all, I’m really pretty busy. I don’t have time to write much, read comments on facebook, chit-chat on the phone, or drive over to Charlottesville and hang out with old friends. That kind of stinks, but so does the gas situation, so it is a blessing in disguise. Netflix and Mary Stewart are my wasting-time diversions for the summer when my brain is just too fried to do anything useful.

How’s your summer been?

We have put up some wedding photos up on the Sequent gallery. We will add more as we get them, so please send us your pictures if you have any good ones!