| i am not in fact going to be able to defend before next fall. this means that i need to stop looking at jobs and getting my hopes up about post-docs i'm not qualified to apply for. instead, i'll be living off dave's loans, writing my dissertation, and possibly waiting tables.
at 30, i'd like more financial security than my meager savings account and tips. and i'd like health insurance, which both of us will lose when we leave cornell.
oh well. what would i do with myself if i had a real job anyway? it's not like i'm very good at working hard. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP.
Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!!
Thanks ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mhwest and dnewhall for helping out!
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On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.
Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.
We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!
As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work. | | comments: 39 comments or Leave a comment |
| there have been a lot of muggings and attacks in ithaca recently. and by a lot, i mean several, because there are usually none.
Monday night, the night i did my 10 mile run, a guy was robbed walking a 0.1 of a mile stretch of woods that i run in frequently to get from triphammer to highland. and in fact, i debated running through it about 3 hours before he was reportedly robbed. i had a flashlight with me, but i looked down it, and it was so dark, i decided i'd better go the long way around, even though the entire journey would have taken a minute or less.
i don't like the idea that i might not be safe running in ithaca after dark, which these days comes around 6.
Edit: i was wrong on two counts: 1) i did not in fact run on Monday, it was Sunday. i have apparently tried to block it from my memory, though my right calf won't let me completely forget it. stairs remain painful. 2) i was wrong about what block the attack (and stabbing!) happened on. why? because i ran right by it tonight. the place it happened is about where someone would be taking a short-cut after getting off the 30 bus. i think that worries me more than it happening in a dark wooded area, it was practically on campus: by a church, two fraternities, and an apartment complex, right along two bus lines.
i know that often in college areas, there's a false sense of security; i had it even at Penn State, knowing people who had been attacked AND with a serial rapist on the loose, not to mention being harassed and followed late at night in my dorm area. i took the usual precautions, most of the time, always had someone walk me home, only ran in neighborhoods and not usually at night, walked in well lit areas. prayed on occasion walking home from the HUB at 2am.
perhaps it was the "it won't happen to me mentality". the "i'm 20 and invincible" mentality. or, i think, it was the false sense of security because nothing bad ever happened to me.
but ithaca feels like my home. more than any other place ever has. and it's disturbing to me, that in a neighborhood i consider to be mine (although not technically the one i live in) someone gets stabbed and mugged, probably walking home from campus, or the bus.
actually, it makes me mad. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| i got frustrated with dave and his law school applications, or more specifically the fact it's November and he still hasn't finished his personal statement. he was on my couch complaining about why he couldn't or why what he deleted was stupid. and how he knew where he wanted to go, but couldn't get there. and why he couldn't just finish it.
now, i know a thing or two about writing. i'm good at it, when i want to be, which isn't often, because my hatred of writing supersedes the desire to write something good. grad school has taught me to write something passable and not care about whether it's written well or is perfect. i care that it's coherent, grammatically correct, and thorough, but i gave up on perfect years ago.
and if i've learned anything about writing, it's that you just have to finish that first draft. no matter how bad it is, you have to finish it, because until you get where you want to go, you will never know how to get there. and also, the process of writing aids your understanding. i keep trying to tell him this and he keeps rejecting it. and so he's left with the same page after a month.
there are times to be a perfectionist and finishing the first draft is not one of those times.
so finally, i said "just finish the fucking statement. and then finish your fucking applications. you either want to go to law school, or you don't. and if you do, finish the fucking statement. and if you don't, stop writing it." i probably said this very loudly and probably swore more. but where he gets accepted affects me, and if he doesn't get these in soon his choices narrow, which means my already narrow set of job prospects become a sliver. this is frustrating.
yesterday, as i was obsessing over the introduction to my paper that i hate, it suddenly occurred to me that i was avoiding even complete sentences because i didn't know what i wanted to say (and because i don't really want to write this paper, but that can't be avoided with all the work i've put into the data analysis). i realized i needed to take my own advice and just write the damn thing. i needed to get it from beginning paragraph to "the purpose of this research" no matter how bad it is. because the first draft is never the final, but you have to have a starting place.
i stayed in my office until 8:40, when i had to leave to catch the bus and go eat something.
at 12:45am, he sent me what i think is a completed statement.
my introduction remains incomplete.
so my goal today is to finish the fucking introduction, get it behind me, and start working on the paper that i do like. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | T-13 days | | Time: | 10:30 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/nolegs/exhausted.gif) exhausted |
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| i ran 10.2 miles today in 100 minutes and 12 seconds. i brought water with me (~ 1 cup, much of which i spilled trying to drink and run) and jelly beans, which i think helped. however,
it was really hard. my legs started hurting around mile 7 or so, but strangely my knee never did.
i am really sore right now. of course, i was sore when i started, from playing soccer yesterday. but that was mostly my hamstrings, hip flexors, and groin. now we've got my quads, my back, and my calves (my left threatens a charlie hoarse, my right feels like i've been stabbed) not to mention, i twisted my ankle in a pothole due to being blinded by some cars brights and it's sort of throbbing right now.
despite my whining, i'm actually pretty proud of myself. i ran ten miles! still,
i'm a bit concerned, as i have been all along. 6 miles is "easy". 10, not so much. and i have 13 days to keep myself going.
i'm banking on Philadelphia being MUCH flatter than Ithaca. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| my pace in running has definitely improved. i usually use a 10 minute mile as a gauge: if i want to run 4 miles, i say to myself, "well, you're running 40 minutes". and so it's really exciting to find that when i get home, that 40 minutes was actually 4.5 miles.
i wasn't going to run today, because i'm going to happy hour and then sabs is coming over for butternut squash gnocchi (i hope they taste as beautiful as the dough looks, and for as much effort as i put into that dough). but i "had" to run, because i hadn't met my weekly quota. (T-17 days until the big Run).
the reason i didn't make it, is because yesterday i had some sort of hypoglycemic episode and almost blacked out on Hanshaw. i was really pissed about that too, because i made myself eat before i went running and drank gatorade. i also felt it early on in the run and ignored it, which i won't do again. i should have gone to the pizza place and asked them for a soda, but i just walked/wobbled my way back, which at that point was about a mile and a quarter. i probably should have also eaten more during the day, but i didn't have much food at my house (which has been remedied, after $140 grocery trip).
but that's twice now this week, i've had problems running that weren't related to being tired or being out of shape. so, today i took two precautions: i ate more and i took jelly beans with me. and i was fine.
i don't care what the research says about weight loss and physical activity. running has caused me to lose about 5 pounds, without even trying AND i'm eating more. i'm starting to think maybe researchers should look specifically at running and weight loss... | | comments: Leave a comment |
| i had white wine and apple crisp for dinner. two glasses of sauvignon blanc to be exact, and i made the apple crisp from scratch. the mix of empire and gingercrisp was perfect, though the gingercrisp should have been cut thinner. cinnamon was the correct choice over nutmeg. i will probably eat it for breakfast tomorrow, sans the wine of course.
i got brave and actually reached out to someone, and got out of my own head. it's good to let your thoughts out to walk around in the company of someone else's thoughts.
moreover, i actually talked about my problems. i even almost allowed myself to cry. it was refreshing, reassuring, and motivating. dare i admit, it made me feel better. she put some things into perspective for me, agreed that i needed to act, and made me laugh. and she calmed me down, which i didn't realize i needed. after two glasses, i thought i was smoothly sailing.
there's a reason they call them best friends. and i have a very very good one.
Edit: Thursday. more good things:
beer with angela at 2:30 and getting to talk to her for 2 hours.
getting complimented two days in a row for my "guns". all i do is attempt pull ups every time i'm at Dave's (my record is 1 1/2) and 10 push-ups after a majority of my runs.
still have said headache though. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| we're coming back from michigan today. dave's dad is doing okay. we made him about 2 weeks worth of low sodium cashew chili and chicken noodle soup, which i hope he eats over the canned food in his cupboard. if it were my dad, i'd have cleared the pantry out and bought all new stuff. but i don't want to be the over bearing daughter in law.
i had the worst 4 mile run and a pretty good 6+ mile run. i was joined by an exuberant dog in one of the neighborhoods, who at first scared me and was then entertaining as she thought it was great fun to run circles around me while i ran. i had to find a neighbor who knew the dog because she was following me out of the neighborhood, which was about 3 miles from dave's dad.
we did a lot of eating. i ate more chicken (chicken cordon bleu in fact). and i tried a piece of crab leg, which i did not enjoy. and i have learned to tolerate instant coffee with skim milk, which just shows my desperation.
we'll be back at Christmas. i really like Dave's family, and they seem to really like me, so i don't mind sharing holidays. besides Thanksgiving this year is at my Aunt's and Uncle's, and those Thanksgivings are always entertaining.
today looks like a good day to drive. now if only we can leave before noon... | | comments: Leave a comment |
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