On Being Female and at MIT

This quote from a current graduate student (last paragraph) at the MIT Operations Research Center:

"As far as being a female grad student at MIT, I always tell my friends that my experience can be summarized as this: my sense of my IQ level has gone down, and my sense of physical attractiveness has gone up."

Combatant Camaraderie

I went to see my little brother's junior high basketball game last night and there was an absolutely classic moment, worthy of a painting or at least a stategic photograph.

Officiating at this level often is not very good. But that's to be expected, honestly, considering the experience and training that many of these refs have (or don't have). But these two were probably worse than most.

Of course, the coaches thought the refereeing was much worse than I thought it was. Especially the coach for the other team. He'd yell and stalk and raise his hands in wonderment.

During the game, at a particularly bad officiating stretch, both coaches were utterly flabbergasted with the calls, or lack of them. In disbelief they both turn and walk toward center court where they stew in their frustration and incredulity. Suddenly, they are both there, squatting down in front of the scorers table, face to face. They look at each other, shake their heads, shrug their shoulders, and raise their arms as if to say "What can you do in the face of such blatant ineptitude?" Though their teams were fighting tooth and nail to defeat the other, two coaches are united in the face of officiating incompetence.

My Lord

I'm reading Tolstoy's War and Peace. It's difficult at times to follow each of the various storylines as he moves from one group of Russian names to another. It's engaging, however, and if it doesn't have the sheer page-turning excitement of a modern novel, it requires a certain effort that is rewarded by the realization of an interesting and epic story.

There is a young man--Rostov--who is serving in the Russian army during the time of the French onslaught of the world with Napoleon at their head. At one point, the emperor of Russia comes to visit part of his army.

And oh, Rostov melts at the sight of his leader. The emperor seems so beautiful and glorious and perfect that he would gladly die for him. No questions asked, no death to horrible, anything for his lord. And when the emperor looks at him, though only for two seconds, Rostov feels a bliss that before this he could only have imagined. His acquaintance said of Rostov that there were no women to fall in love with, so he has fallen in love with the emperor.

Tolstoy, of course, describes this more movingly that I, but as I read those passages I wished for the same breathless wonder at my Lord. I wish I could feel what Rostov felt toward his emperor, fully and achingly in love with Him, ready - but more than ready, really, more like desiring - to run to a certain death for His glory.

I can feel Rostov's awe, but I can't feel it.

(Lack of) Christmas Break II

So I can't quite get off of this "woe is me, I have to work on Christmas Break" kick. But indulge me one more time.

Imagine you are a 12-year old boy and your dad is a grass-seed farmer. Times are a bit hard, so he wants you to help him with the harvest this summer. In addition to paying you a minimal wage, he promises that if you work really hard for him, at the end of the summer he'll buy you a brand new bicycle that you've dreamed of for some time.

So you work faithfully. The long hours, the hot days, the lack of playing with your 12-year old friends in the creek, you sacrifice for your dad--and because you know that come September you are going to be wheeling in style.

But September comes, and annual ryegrass prices tank big-time. Since your dad currently raises mostly annual ryegrass (he didn't know about linear programming and a group of IE undergrads that could have helped him out with his crop mix) this is a problem. There's no way he can spare the money to buy your bike. He asks if you understand. You nod, but not really.

That's sort of how I feel about my Christmas break. I was all keyed up, ready to relax, and boom. Work rises up and bites me. It makes it all the worse that I was planning to take it easy. If school would have lasted 3 more weeks, and I would have known that from the beginning, fine. But I had my mind set on something that hasn't happened yet.

Ach, there's always next week though, the week that I truly will take it easy - I hope.

Faithful reader tt (haha) asked me to wrap up the term. Well, it was very successful academically. I am extremely ready for vacation, but at the same time I'm looking forward to next term with all the fun, challenging classes. But I need some relax time to make sure I'm recharged. I think I'll get it though, just not quite as soon as I had previously hoped.

Grad School Update

I'm applying to six schools: Berkeley, MIT, Purdue, Chicago, Penn State, and Oregon State.

Berkeley's one of the top two stats programs in the country. MIT is one of the top O.R. programs in the country. Then Chicago and Purdue are also top-10 type stat/probability schools. Penn State is solid in stats as well (one ranking I saw had them 16th in the world), and has a dual Master's degree program in Stat and O.R. By applying to OSU I have a school I'm comfortable with and know, even though it doesn't sport the quality the other programs do.

It's interesting because I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if all of them will accept me or just a few. And I don't know which I'd choose if all accepted and gave equal money.

I know that I can't be better equipped as a statistician anywhere than at Berkeley. I know MIT would offer an unbelievable place to live and incredible opportunities to interact with other disciplines. Chicago is purportedly located in a bad part of town, but it has a nice, small department and would also would give me a top-notch stats education. Purdue is really good, though larger, and it's relatively close to an area where I know some people--Goshen. Penn State offers that really attractive dual degree, and it has Mennonites in its vicinity as well. OSU is close to home.

All have advantages and disadvantages. It'll be interesting to see where I end up.

Vacation

So much for a glorious, completely relaxed close to a month of Christmas vacation. And I was looking forward to it, after the raggedness of the end of the term and finals. But alas, the workload has been greater than anticipated, both because of things in my control and outside of it.

So I get up at 8:30 or 9:30 and go to work.

Tough life I know.

But boy, things were going bad on Monday. But boy, they sure went better today.

I was all gunshy with my profs. I've given them more assignments than most of them have given me in awhile, with all the letters of recommendation that I've asked them to write for me. So I think they're tired of it, and maybe even annoyed at me for pestering them. But I talked to them today, and it seems all cool.

Parental Clamor

I missed church this morning because I went to Winston with my Aunt and spoke there. But this morning, I heard, AK talked about raising children and used as an illustration some parents who went on strike (camped outside their house) because their children wouldn't help around the house.

Of course I thought that was stupid and ridiculous. Parents should have enough authority to make their children clean up their rooms when they tell them to.

But then I thought, my mother has given up even mentioning to us to clean up our room. Oops.

She's threatening to clean it up, but I won't hear of it. I want to clean my OWN room!

So, you say, why haven't you?

Go away, I don't want to talk to you.