A Nerd’s Haven

Last night was an odd night at work. It was quite busy, for one thing; we took about 330 calls from 19:00 to 22:00, so there was very little downtime for doing our homework. At any rate, my final call came in around 21:35, and as soon as I heard the voice on the line, I felt as though I had been punched in the gut. The voice was a slightly younger version of an old friend’s, one for whom I’ve nursed something more complicated than a crush for four years. Eerie. The guy needed help with geometry, and the call took about 20 minutes, definitely my longest call of the night. The types of questions he asked, the way he asked them, speech patterns, all reminiscent of the old buddy. After I got off the phone, the girl sitting next to me, a neighbor and one of the folks at the Negroid Party, looked at me like I was crazy, wondering why my hands were shaking. I had to stop myself from asking the guy if he was originally from Indiana, or if he had family with the last name of such-and-such, but that would have been way unprofessional and would have gotten me fired. But now I’m thinking about the old friend again, and I didn’t want to.

In addition to being reminded of old quasi-rejections (or implicit rejections), I was formally rejected from giving blood today, again on the basis on hemocrit values. I’m already taking iron pills, so that leaves beefing up the Vitamin C.

Tonight was also a dinner for women in Computer Science and Computer Engineering to discuss ways in which more women can be brought into the fold at various levels of education. I happen to think that the majority of the niche-settling happens in the first year of high school, and that middle school would be a great time to pimp computer fields and jobs to girls, as that seems to be where the split begins. In elementary school, the ratio is about 50/50 for girls’ and guys’ interest in computers. This seems to end with the advent of puberty (not that that’s a cause or anything). The ratio at Rose of girls to guys in Computer Science is lower than the school-wide ratio of girls to guys; out of 212 CS folks, 13 are girls (I am absolutely certain this statistic is correct now, as I heard it from the Head of the Dept. of CS and Software Engineering). About 18-20% of the folks at Rose are girls. So we had the Computer Science Department Chair from DePauw University, who’s active in ACM-W, chat with us a bit about things being done at DePauw that have helped the department’s numbers. It was a fascinating talk, and it was great to finally meet almost all of the oddballs in Computer Science and Software Engineers. I mean, sure, everyone in one of those majors is probably an oddball, but who can beat chick programmers and circuit designers, right? Right. (Note the reinforcement of the idea that all CS majors will become programmers and all Computer Engineers will design circuits, an issue that came up tonight, as a matter of fact.)

Back to studying for my first two major tests. Grr on Logic Design, by the way.

[Listening to: The Package - A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step (07:40)]

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The party was… entertaining. I got there around 21:00, then proceeded to bake brownies when no one wanted to make them, yet everyone wanted them. I won’t tell anyone that I accidentally dropped an itty-bitty piece of egg-shell in it. Consider it a preemptive strike against all the bitching about the 55 minute bake time. Like I wrote the fucking directions.

Some folks drank a little, some folks drank a lot. A bunch of us drank not at all. Although beer was offered to everyone, no one under age drank, which I found cool. Nor did my ride, which I found hella cool, ‘cuz all the girls on my floor had gone to a different party, and I would surely have been walking my ass home. I’ll have to make contingency plans for that next time.

I was only mildly nervous going in, as I knew most of the people there, and I knew I would be left alone, for the most part. People hassling me in party situations brings out the nervousness and panic, and thus the anger and violence and leaving. Never a good situation. Other than fixing the brownies, I pretty much focused on that ever-so-essential job of holding up the walls that someone at parties must dedicate their time to. There was plenty of gansta rap, plenty of popular rap (meaning radio stuff I was familiar with), and some “oldies”. Given that the oldest person there was about 22, oldies consisted of Babyface and other stuff from the late 80’s. The host kept joking that all us freshmen “didn’t know nothing ’bout this.” Negro, please. I can sing along just as well as you can, and I still remember where I was when I listened to these songs the first time. So what if I was only four or five years old? You weren’t that much older.

People played Taboo, dominoes, and several card games. No one really danced, although a couple of the guys kept getting asked if they could do some dance called the chicken-something-or-other. They claimed they couldn’t, but would do it when they thought no one was looking. Except I was, of course.

One guy came in with his own beer, a long case of Bud that, silly me, I thought was simply a contribution to the party. Uh-uh. Said guy proceeded to drink beer after beer, participating little in the activities, and just sort of went into this slurry, shit-faced stupor in a chair after about an hour and a half of straight drinking. When I drew attention to him by asking The Other One if he was going to be driving home, she laughed, coaxed him out of the chair, and drove him home. It was kinda sad, ‘cuz I was gonna talk to him a little bit before he started drinking, but the smell of beer is enough to turn my stomach. He was probably the most inebriated, and although the other host drank straight through the night, I didn’t notice any particular attitude changes other than an increased tendency to space out. Thank goodness he lived there, though.

I spent the evening watching the proceedings, not feeling much of an urge to even jump in, although I could have whooped some ass in Spades. But not in poker. Never in poker. A strip poker incident in a corner of a building of my high school (before the cameras were installed) in the tenth grade taught me that, officially, I suck ass at poker. It was such a miracle that we didn’t get caught.

Anyway, I managed not to ask if I could steal someone’s computer, although The Other One was one of the recipients of a PocketPC for use at Rose, which I found pretty interesting. I’m a Palm girl, myself, though. I like my shit to be able to run for more than three hours with a backlight on, thankyouverymuch. My laptop does better than that. I will admit Microsoft Reader is a nice piece of software, however. But that’s all I’ll admit.

Around 23:00, I stole a chair (the first time I’d sat down that evening–I can’t just walk into someone else’s “space” and make myself at home. I don’t usually want people doing it to me, and I most definitely won’t do it to them, even if they think I’m weird. That’s the hardest part about dorm life for me: people just walking in and sitting on my bed and looking over my shoulder at my computer screen and shit. I’ve put up enough “keep out of my shit, or at least ask before entering” signs with attitude that this is slowing, but still…). I then proceeded to fall asleep. What? It was the most comfy computer chair I’ve ever been in, I’d been awake since 05:45 that morning, and my muscles were aching from my two hour walk that morning. They laughed at me, but let me be for the most part.

Sometime after midnight, I was roused and we went home. The girls on my floor were still gone to a sorority party, so I just blasted my new A Perfect Circle CD. Okay, well, one song on it. On repeat. I suspect I’ll be there for a while. I went to bed around 01:30 with full intentions of getting up at 05:45 for another walk. Um, yeah, right. That alarm went off and I about snatched the plug out of the wall to turn it off quickly. I then crawled back into my warm, comfy bed and snored some more.

[Listening to: Blue - A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step (04:14)]

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Mom,

I did a horrible thing today. When I went out to buy my shirt for the business casual dinner on Monday (a nice pale blue one to go with my black pants, by the way), an F.Y.E. found me. I swear, it just walked up to me and said, “Yo, Liss. Remember that list of CDs you’ve been wanting? I got ‘em.” So I went in. And bought a CD. Or two. I stopped myself at two, because the other two I wanted weren’t on sale, and we know how friggin’ expensive F.Y.E. is. So I have Seal’s latest and A Perfect Circle’s latest. And I’m lovin’ A Perfect Circle’s right now. Oh, yeah. 311’s was $20, and I didn’t see Limp Bizkit’s.

But I’m only out the cost of the CDs, because of my gift card for Sears. Grassy-ass to Aunt Lisa.

How are things there? Everyone healthy and all that?

I’m skipping the Singing Hoosiers (oh, no…) tonight and cooling it until the Negroid Party at 21:00. I’m not keen on the exclusivity of that, but it may be fun… Did I tell you about that? Essentially, Danielle (The Other One) randomly decided to throw a little get-together at her house. So I was like, cool. Something to do on a Saturday night. I asked her how she had such extensive knowledge of all the freshman when she was talking about people to invite, and she informed me she only knew the black folks. That’s kinda a small number, you know? I think there are about 13 in the class of ‘07 (my class). Then, all the members of NSBE were invited via e-mail, and it became the Negroid Party (not officially, of course; I don’t know anyone else that says “Negroid”). Minus the fact that there’s one white guy in NSBE that may be in attendance. Anyway, it’ll be fun, and I’m supposed to be networking and all that, right? Lots of these guys are seniors and juniors and very nice…

I went to the football game today. We lost 29-10, but it was a fun game. Up until there were 5 minutes left, I was certain we could make the 3 touchdowns (and field kick things) necessary to win. And there were two fights. On the field. I guess we aren’t called the “Fighting Engineers” for nothing, although the bums on the other side started both fights, methinks. Our band is so funny. They have more ooph and enthusiasm than the cheerleaders, and say little cheers like, “Pi! 3.14159! Square root of two! 1.414213! [insert lots more dorky things like sines and cosines]… Go Red, Go White, Go Rose, Fight!” Very cool and funny.

Anywho, wish me luck at the shindig, and I’ll be sure to tell you how it goes.

Lissa Avery
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~averymd
BSB #307
812-877-8796

Why does she bother to still read my nearly-daily e-mails?

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It’s my very first night at work, and I just took my very first call. Go me. Without a geometry book, without the figure being used, I managed to help someone figure out some angles. I’m a happy girl. It’d be cool with me if that was the only call I took, as I’ve been sitting here for two hours, and my nose is extremely stuffed and my head hurts, and I’m tearing through someone’s Kleenex (I didn’t think it would be cool for me to bring my roll of paper towel, which is all I have), but the homework (mine) is getting done, and the panic about using telephones is starting to abate a bit. I doubt it ever will fade completely. Am I the only one that suffers near panic attacks when phones ring? Yeah? I thought so. Perhaps this is a form of social phobia (thanks to Karsh for the link)? I think so-o-o. (Why am I thinking about Cereal Killer from Hackers right now?)

Anyway, I have idle hands right now, and although the physics mos def needs to get done by tomorrow, I thought I’d post a pointless post lamenting my sickness while I eagerly await the latest news from my broken friend. Or a phone call. Which is not so eagerly awaited. By any means. I like helping the kiddos, but I don’t like using the phone. Hook me up with some e-mail, and I’ll help some folks out happily. However, only supervisors are allowed to answer the e-mail questions, which leaves me out of the loop. Grr.

Back to the physics homework. And awaiting calls. Neither task is done with enthusiasm.

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I’m sick. As I told my mother in an e-mail, I’ve got the “back-to-school-and-living-on-a-floor-with-55-girls” bug that caused me to sleep my weekend away. It’s nothing abnormal, just my usual runny nose, sneezing, very blurred vision, fatigue, dizziness, headaches and clogged ears that over-the-counter drugs don’t help much. This is nothing compared to the fact that my friend Hannah managed to either dislocate, seriously sprain, or break her ankle during a rugby scrimmage. Ouch.

Friday, I was interviewed for a job at the Homework Hotline, a service where kiddos all over the state of Indiana can call in with math and science questions and get help. So I’m essentially a tutor. This will fill my Sunday and Monday nights from now until… whenever. The second part of my orientation is tonight, and I just hope I don’t put my icky sickness germs on the phone or sneeze while trying to help some kid with their physics homework. Is that tale about not running a fever meaning you aren’t contagious true? I dunno.

In addition to the job (yay!) and the sickness (grr), I also have the new experience of attending a school football game. Much like that anonymous, poetry-writing person that I don’t know and didn’t go to school with, I found the experience enlightening and generally fun, despite the killer sun and the beginnings of my sickness conspiring to make me even more dizzy than I usually am near sets of stairs. I only stayed for the first half, although by this point, the enemy opposing team was catching up (University of the South, if memory serves).

Just because I know everyone wants to be me, imagine this: you’re walking down a sidewalk heading from class to the comfort of your residence hall, head raised just enough to keep the sinus problems from becoming too apparent, and lowered almost enough to minimize the blinding effect of the entirely-too-damned-bright sun, and who should you run almost smack into in your disheveled, icky, tired, and distracted state? You guessed it. A cute guy. In fact, a very particular cute guy. After bombing a math test (and the first thus far, at that), and practically sleeping through physics (in the front row of the classroom), and having my Logic Design teacher run in verbal circles around me again, I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. Actually, given that I found a beautiful (note the sarcasm) spider in my bed this morning (after I had crawled out), I don’t think I want to be under any rocks. Who knows what one may find?

I went to see the Matchstick Men this weekend. That would be the Nicolas Cage movie. I still don’t see how the title fits the movie. The theater was nearly empty (are there enough people in Terre Haute not partying on a Friday night to fill a theater?), but nearly everyone seemed to think the movie was very funny. I didn’t, really. I certainly liked the movie, and thought the little kid was great, and the the directing was great, and the plot was hella great. Cage played the part and the disease (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD) well, but I didn’t find the OCD symptoms funny. Of course, I’m the same girl who squirmed and wanted to cry while reading that book in the Ender’s Game series in which the royalty of a particular planet were strongly inflicted with OCD. I just can’t find that funny or entertaining. Maybe I’m overly sensitive, but I wouldn’t laugh at a hemophiliac bleeding to death from a relatively small cut, either. The movie was good, however, and worth at least one viewing.

>

I now must go finish my homework before work. I would do the Happy Dance about getting a job, but my sinuses would retaliate viciously, I’m sure.

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