summer days are here again (random events written to the tune of sigur ros)

[nibot]

So, I went to campuswide Commencement today. Lacking a ticket, I had to sneak into the Greek Theatre in order to attend, scaling the chain-link fence in the back --- Let me tell you, that's a metaphor for the UC Berkeley experience if there ever was one.

Oh, no, wait, it isn't a true story. They had extra tickets at the gate and I just walked up and asked for one. The desperate can draw a new metaphor.

* * *

I almost left near the beginning --- the RallyCom and Californians and other student group speeches were so boring. But the other speakers were interesting, so I stayed. It was almost like they conspired in writing their speeches... lots of common references to "it takes a village," two speakers calling for the establishment of a mandatory two years of service (military, public health, civil service, peace corps, americorps, etc); and lots of (de)motivational warnings about the precarious state of the world: no jobs in the economy, huge budget deficits, tax cuts borrowing from future generations, American without allies... It was not really an uplifting Commencement. Funny, too, because I was sitting with the audience (not the graduates), and because it's so sparsely attended. At least there was free food.

* * *

These days are good ones. I went for a run yesterday morning, in the prenoon overcastness, loops around Clark Kerr Campus and the track. Shower, coffee, went to work feeling refreshed and energized. I joined Michelle, Chuck, and Luis for some time on one of the electron microscopes...

Let me tell you, it's like Mission Control in there, with all of the illuminated plastic buttons, the checklists, the TV monitors, the subdued lighting. The microscope works in almost exactly the same way as a light microscope, except --- in addition to costing millions of dollars and filling a room --- illuminated with electons shed from a filament and accelerated through a 400 kilovolt potential and focused with a sequence of field-producing coils (yeah, electromagnets!). All of these magnetic lenses have to be aligned just right, or you lose the beam into the side of the microscope or somewhere. Comments about the "flux capacitors" defuse the frustration of steering the beam... Eventually the beam is found.. focused... and there in the phosphors at the bottom of the microscope column, there's the image of our zinc crystals...

* * *

At dinner I started building an icosahedron from newspaper and masking tape, but then I had to go so I just turned it into a tetrahedron. The edges are easy, but I need to find a better way to make verticies.

* * *

Jamie emailed me from Chile, a "quick hello to the little red head bundle of joy." To Jason she wrote, "Give Tobin a big kiss for me." Hmm. Eeeue? I think something is lost in the transfer. She's sweet and sentimental, and expresses her desire to go travelling together, sometime in the indefinite, imaginary future.

* * *

After dinner Alex and I wandered over to Cory Hall to meet IEEE for the `subsidized' Matrix viewing. That group's done well in the last two years, with a fun group of people percolating up to the officer level, and now the student branch spends their money doing fun things... the play about Buckminster Fuller, the Dim Sum in Oakland, Midnight Matrix at the Metreon. They joke that I am in the representative member since I'm apparently the only non-officer member to go on these little escapades.

At the last minute Nadia joined our little crew and we were off to the Metreon, driven by this guy Jason who seemed pretty cool and who I had apparently met some years ago. I feel like I have some special status with this group of IEEE'ers, from being Micromouse chair during their freshman year, or something.

It was fun spending time with Nadia; she's sweet and clever and we seem to have at least a few common interests; travel, research, and general geekdom among them. Too bad we have only one common language between us --- something will have to be done about that.

* * *

Listening to Sigur Ros with headphones, sitting in the cool dark. Talked to Eric yesterday, he promises we can have some Scandinavian music at our slumber party after special dinner. It could be great. Yay for vemod! I was thinking I could pipe in some Radio AF via RealMedia... but I would probably be the only one to appreciate that station identification... ``Du lysnar på... RADIO A-F, direkt från LUNDAGÅRD!'' And words in Hopelandic. There is a tender happiness in vemod that I quite like. And that dance music popular in Europe 2000-2002 goes right to the heart of anyone who was there then -- Kenny and me at least.

* * *

One of my coworkers brought to my attention the movie Crash, and specifically the fact that it is rated NC-17 due to the following automobile-related fetishes: ``man / woman sex, woman / woman sex, man / man sex, woman / aircraft sex, man / tailpipe sex, woman / parking brake sex, man / car cigarette lighter sex and woman / woman / strap-on-rearview-mirror sex.''

* * *

There was a lunar eclipse tonight.

Comments

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

That graduation story is so sad!! It sounds like what I've heard about the Berkeley undergrad experience. Making you pay for your own blue books indeed...

It still sounds like a metaphor for the Berkeley undergrad experience. They require people to have tickets to go to graduation. And they have it in the middle of exam week. And they had a lot of random speakers about stuff instead of one semi-interesting speaker. And seniors are apathetic enough to sit in the audience instead of with the seniors.

Isn't graduation an experience at Berkeley?

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

At Lakehead University, you have to pay an additional 60$ as a diploma printing fee or something...

[(Anonymous)]

So I guess those "free" bluebooks at Stanford make the astronomical tuition a good deal?

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

The bluebooks are just one aspect of being treated as a respected human being instead of just a source of tuition and government money. Like Tobin has noticed, at Stanford people can try out various activity classes without having to buy equipment, and live in on-campus housing all four years (without even hating it!), and just do a bunch of other things that Berkeley doesn't allow its students to do. I suppose it's not nice to have to pay so much, but these are formative years of one's life, and it's worth paying for these opportunities.

And for a certain percentage of students, Stanford would cost no more than Berkeley, because of financial aid. Of course, for people in a certain range of the middle class it doesn't work out like that, which I agree is quite unfortunate. But if you're poor enough, then it doesn't make a difference, and if you're rich enough, then the money shouldn't make a difference.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

Certainly right about the grade inflation. But as a grad student I get even better grade inflation (at almost any university!) for free!

And I'm not exactly claiming that I paid for my education - just that Stanford treated me better than Berkeley would have done as an undergrad. It may cost more to go to Stanford, but that doesn't mean the money is going to the things that make a difference. Most of what makes a difference gets paid for by other sources anyway (the state at Berkeley, government funding at both schools, and alumni donations). The tuition at Stanford mainly goes to replace palm trees that die because they're not in their native climate. Even the buildings have to be maintained by alumni.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Bluebooks were free here, too, until recently. Ned's used to give them away.