February 2010 Archives
10 miles!
I ran 10 miles this morning. That feels like a big important step, since it’s a nice round number. It’s good to know that I can do it. I felt great when I finished – I bet I could have continued on for another 3.1 miles to go full half-marathon distance. But I will stick to my training schedule – no injuries for me! I’m now almost 2/3 of the way through the program – I have 5 more weeks to go until the half marathon. I’m going to officially register for it, now that I’m pretty much certain that my knees or some other body part aren’t going to give out on me and stop me from doing it. (Knock on wood!)
When I ran my first 5K, C and I started the tradition that we go out for cheeseburgers after the race to celebrate. (Well, usually several hours after the race, since races often get done around 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning.) When I ran my first 10K, I added a milkshake to the celebratory meal for races of that distance. After the half marathon, I think I should get to add something else. Maybe I’ll have pancakes or a cinnamon roll for breakfast, and THEN a cheeseburger. And milkshake. Mmmm. I know that running 13.1 miles doesn’t work off ALL of that, but it’s not just the running of the race itself that I’m celebrating, but also the months of training to get me there. So I think it’s a fine way to celebrate.
Two weeks from now, I’ll run the Shamrock Run 15K. It’s an intimidating race, since it goes from the waterfront up to Terwilliger by OHSU and then back down Barbur. That’s some pretty good hills there, in addition to being a longer distance than I’ve ever raced before. We’ll see how it goes!
Websites are fun.
I’m making a wedding website for my cousin, using Drupal. One of the awesome things about making websites is that lay-people tend to be really impressed by how much you can do relatively quickly, especially if you’re making a static website. Or if you’re using Drupal and there’s a module for everything you could possibly want to do (for a simple webpage, anyway) and all you have to do is download, activate and configure it. It makes me feel like I’m really smart – much smarter than I actually am.
That’s what I enjoy most about CS – making things with tangible results that make life easier in some small way. Of course, a mostly static Drupal website is a very very simple example of this, but I’m still enjoying it a lot. What I really need to do now is learn how to write some modules for open source software that I use. I should write a Firefox add-on that I can actually use, or Notepad++, or Drupal, or whatever. I’ll get right on that, in all of my spare time. :) But for now, time to get back to homework!
Weddings
I’ve been hearing a lot lately about how horrible, stressful, and generally “not worth it” big weddings are. (And by “big” I mean more than 10 people attending.) We had a big, fairly traditional wedding, and I thought it went fantastically. So I feel like sharing some of what made it work.
- First and foremost, people need to be laid back. I wasn’t a bridezilla, C wasn’t a groomzilla, and our parents were generally pretty easy to deal with and supportive – not demanding. Of course, you can’t pick how your parents or soon-to-be-in-laws will act, but the two of you can make a conscious decision not to worry about every little detail.
- Include your fiance/e in the planning as much as they want to be included! (Traditionally it’s the bride who wants to plan and the groom who doesn’t want to and/or gets shut out – but it could be the other way around, or it could be a same sex couple, so I won’t be specific.) However, don’t assume that “I don’t care what kind of soup we serve” means “I don’t love you”.
- Treat your wedding party well. This means not making your bridesmaids/groomsmen spend several hundred dollars on clothes they’ll never wear again, demand extremely expensive bachelor/ette parties and wedding showers, etc. And if your parents are paying, don’t demand more from them than they’re willing to spend.
- Compromise. This means bride & groom compromise with each other, the couple compromises with each of their parents, etc.
- Delegate/ask for help. I got TONS and TONS of offers for help, all very genuine, from tons of people. So don’t try to do everything yourself, or just you and your mom. Spread the work, and in doing so spend some quality with friends and family.
- Make lists. Lots of lists. Start making them months beforehand if possible, and every time you think of something, add it to the appropriate list. “Things to bring the night before”, “Things that need to get done after we leave”, “Honeymoon packing list”, “Who will take what home for us after the reception”, “Wedding party/important contact cell phone numbers”…the longer in advance you start thinking about it, the less likely you are to forget something – and the less stressed you will be on the day of the wedding.
- Don’t be railroaded into doing something you really don’t want to do, or not doing something you really want to do. But if there’s a big conflict, think carefully about whether this is a big enough issue to you refuse to compromise on.
Some things from our wedding that I think were good examples:
- I put my mom and grandmother in charge of decorations. They are good at that sort of thing, had the time to work on it, and enjoyed doing it. And I didn’t have to worry about it at all.
- C and I settled on certain individual items that each of us really cared about, and we didn’t interfere with each other in those items, other than to give opinions when asked.
- If you can afford it, pay for some or all of your groomsmen/bridesmaids’ clothing. We did, and it fostered good will all around.
- When we went to the florist, I gave her my general ideas – colors, specific flower ideas, and some general shapes that I liked. Then I said, “Do whatever you think is pretty.” I didn’t check in again after that – and the flowers turned out just fine. Well, C didn’t like the boutonnieres, but when he saw what they looked like, he didn’t stress about it – he just went with it.
- If there was something neither of us cared about but had to make SOME kind of decision about, we often copied what my parents did at their wedding. That’s where we got the song that my dad walked me down the aisle to, the cake cutter, etc.
- When presented with a last minute request that I didn’t want to accommodate (adding an extra person, changing something we’d already decided on, etc.) I found that things went better if I waited a few hours or a day before answering. My immediate response might be to get angry at last minute changes – but usually after an hour or so I realized that it doesn’t matter, so if it makes someone else happy, go ahead and do it.
- We had pizza for our rehearsal dinner in C’s mom’s backyard. That was SO much better than going to a fancy, expensive restaurant.
- C wrote most of the ceremony, and I wrote most of the vows, but we consulted each other on everything, so they were very personal to us.
Of course, it’s not like there was no stress involved. But over all, I have warm fuzzy feelings about planning the wedding, and of course, about the wedding itself. Everything went right, we had a wonderful time, and I can’t look at the pictures without smiling.
So you see, it is possible to have a big wedding and still have fun!
Picking classes
It’s already that time again – time to pick classes for next term! (I haven’t even taken my midterms yet.) I know that I’m going to take Relational Database Management and Algorithm Design/Analysis. I have 5 classes that I have to decide on for my third class, but really I’m leaning towards either Parallel Programming or Advanced AI: Combinatorial Search. The latter sounds pretty awesome, but it would mean that I have evening classes three nights a week – and I wonder if the Parallel Programming class would be more useful? I’ve learned about parallel programming, but never actually done any.
