In Which Intensity Takes On A New Meaning
December 7, 2014
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As a special surprise for our new week, Nadia released a new crypto homework. Implementing the Coppersmith partial information attack using lattices (discrete additive subgroups of $\mathbb{R}^n$ (better not to ask)). While the actual code wasn’t going to be long, taking the time to understand the material would detract from time spent on our projects, and other assignments.
Machine learning lectures had lessened in intensity and increased in interest. However, with the project deadlines looming, every spare waking moment was dedicated to improving our score. The gist of it was given the text of advertisements, predict house prices for a bunch of homes being sold.
To add to the intensity, the algorithms final was two weeks away and we were still learning new material! More than that I had a lot of doctors appointments scheduled that were taking valuable time away.
On the rehearsal side of things, that night was long. First was a few hours of Glee Club and then a few of Choral Society. The intensity was increased due to two upcoming gigs for Glee, an hour long holiday concert at Penn and then a high profile one elsewhere. The Choral Society concert was also that week and so three rehearsals and the show were scheduled. More than that, the Penn Pipers had new repertoire for us to learn for both Glee Gigs and two of our own over the weekend.
After a really long day, and a night of rehearsal, project work took me till about 3AM. After that I couldn’t work anymore and fell asleep at my desk.
In Which I Dress Semi Formally
November 27, 2014
Wednesday was a mad rush to get enough homework done. Normal onslaught of classes. Crypto has been good recently in that I’m starting to understand some of the abstract algebra underlying the harder bits. Wednesday night was the usual rehearsal and work combo.
Thursday was back to Physics and an attempt to be productive. My interest in the physics died down a little this week as we were focused mainly on computing some coefficients I didn’t have too much interest in (Clebsch-Gordan). However, Thursday night was a little different. I ended up chatting to Nadia in the lab till quite late, and then pretty much ran back to my room to get dressed. I donned my 70s style shirt, binary tie, pants and jacket and walked to the Radian to accompany Natalie Eisner to drinks before Glee Club and Penn Dance’s annual semi formal.
Teddy, Natalie and I
Drinks were at Jane Dobkin’s place with the Junior class (and the lone grad student!) It was a nice chance to actually get to talk a little more with a number of them with whom until that point I’d had limited interaction.
Following that, I and a few of the PD girls and their dates caught the SEPTA (south eastern pennsylvanian public transit authority) train to Pulse Bar, Center City where our function was being held. For once I actually spent the largest chunk on the dance floor, and though it was not my regular choice of environs I managed to have quite a good time. One further point of note was that there were three Australians present! The other two being the dates of Katrina and Arjun respectively.
At just past midnight Natalie and I cabbed home and then I promptly went to sleep before my 9AM machine learning class.
In Which I Experience Male Gazing
November 4, 2014
Today was a little bit of struggle. An early wake up followed by a few hours of study for algorithms didn’t help me stay awake during the days classes. Cryptography was still in a very maths heavy phase (as it would be for most of the remainder of semester) and that didn’t help my focus either.
I and a few other students left crypto early in order to walk the twenty minutes to the other side of campus where the algorithms midterm would be held. The problems on the midterm turned out to be interesting and fun, however I didn’t manage to solve them to my satisfaction and knew that it would be a close thing with getting a passing grade yet again. My latest machine learning homework came in with a more than satisfactory score so that made me feel a little better.
After all that, I would’ve liked to take a nap, however there’s no rest for the wicked and I raced off to an appointment at Penn Presbyterian Hospital. Wait times there were not great and a fifteen minute visit with the actual doctor took over two hours in total.
I had enough time for a proper dinner due to the cancellation of rehearsal (too many sick clubbers), grabbed my bag and walked over to the Zellerbach Auditorium for the Mr and Ms Penn competition. For those uninitiated, this was Penn’s annual bodybuilding competition. Luke was participating, so as a dutiful friend I attended with a few of the other PhD students. Never having been to such an event before, it was eye opening. I was a little frustrated with some of the misogynistic comments from the row behind, but otherwise it was very interesting. Luke himself put on a good show, decked out in little more than speedos and a small number tag indicating him as the third contestant. My favorite moment was when one of the girls did her routine to the tune of “I’ll make a man out of you” from Disney’s Mulan. I also had the chance to meet Luke’s girlfriend Emily, which was lovely.
Leaving a little early for choral society, I quickly called home. My next two hours were spent enjoying Haydn and Bruckner and when my day was finally over, spent an hour with a friend and then returned home to sleep.