Minneapolis Adventures

I’ve been pretty stressed out lately over work, classes, other assignments, and...my statistics lab. As a result of this, I have also been very, very tired. Last night, I was staring at my computer screen, trying to generate intelligent answers to the lab questions and forcibly removing the cat from my desk every three minutes. I decided I needed a break and called IrishTenor to tell him my woes. After all, a boyfriend is supposed to lend a sympathetic ear when I want to complain about things that do not interest him and make his head hurt.

IrishTenor picked up the phone, and I started to tell him how sleepy I was and about my statistics lab.

IrishTenor: "Wait, is this something where I have to care?...Okay."

Me (reading from my assignment sheet): "Write the two-level hierarchical linear model for the main effects..."

IrishTenor (sounding dismayed and borderline violated): "And now you’re reading it to me. I was reading The Count of Monte Cristo."

Me (trying to conceal my amusement): "Should I let you go back to that?"

IrishTenor: "Yes. Goodnight, my dearest."

I went back to my computer. I saw instant messages from my ridiculously smart brother, who wanted to talk about psychometrics, statistics, and research methodology. Inwardly I groaned.

Those of you who know me know that these things are my main focus in graduate school and may be wondering why the prospect of discussing them with TheGoodOne made my head hurt. In fact, those of you who know me are probably wondering why I wasn’t literally jumping for joy. The thing to understand is that at any given time, 95-98% of my brain is devoted solely to keeping me from falling asleep in my chair. Also, TheGoodOne is a full-fledged, bona fide brainiac. I usually need to borrow about 50 IQ points from a neighbor or from someone on the street just to hold my own talking with him about anything. And we have completely different philosophies about approaching research, which methods to employ, how to employ them, and what kinds of questions we can ask.

TheGoodOne had many rather vague questions about coursework in research methodology, survey methods, psychometrics, and statistics. Fatigued and unable to clear the SAS syntax I was seeing inside my head, I finally asked him, “What specifically do you want to be able to do, with statistics?”

"Well, by the end of my political science stats training, I should have mastered regression in its various forms. But I'm looking for analysis other than regression."

There it was. My chance for small scale revenge. Because I am well enveloped in the nerdy evil that is statistics and because I like it that way, I felt enlightened rather than disillusioned when I finally learned this. I finally had a global understanding of all the things I'd been calculating and interpreting for years.

For my brother, I think this felt more like The Firm, when all the partners pull an associate into the office or conference room and reveal that they are merely a front for a Mafia money laundering scheme. I knew it would feel that way for him. But God help me, I said it anyway.

"Other than regression? Like what? Everything is regression."

No response. I pressed on.

"Analysis of variance is a special form of regression. Hierarchical linear modeling and longitudinal data analysis are based on regression. That t-test you might know and love? Well, it's really just an F-test, which is regression. When the numerator degrees of freedom equal one, F is equal to t-squared. To put this simplistically, all we are really doing in any of this is looking at variance and its possible sources."

Nothing from TheGoodOne for a few minutes. Finally he typed only, "That's kind of sad, that that's all we do."

Here I am, minding my own business, trying to work on my longitudinal data analysis project, when Arbusto sneaks up behind me - and when I say "sneak up," I really mean, "was standing behind me the whole time" - and decides to tie the hood of my sweatshirt around my head.

Well okay, so maybe I made fun of him. I said he was weird. But really, is there any question on that?

He wouldn't untie me until he'd garnered his fill of amusement at my expense. And to add insult to injury, he likened me to my cat: "Maya is gray and looks pissed off, and you're covered with gray and look pissed off."

Fuck you, Arbusto.

To the rest of you: Check out Osbasso and the rest of the nice HNT people. Happy HNT!

I just checked my statcounter and am once again glad I installed one of these. The entertainment value is sometimes fantastic.

There were hits from some of my "regulars" and a lot of hits from searches for "wonton soup," which is par for the course. But there was one hit from a never-before-seen-but-highly-ironic search:

A Google search from Ashland, Kentucky, on the "legalities of cousins marrying."

This is my very disgruntled cat, while visiting Arbusto at his apartment. Between the car trip, the unfamiliar environment, and all the new or newish people (Arbusto, Pinky, Pinky's girlfriend DeathPeppers), Maya was not a happy camper.

I recently threatened a hyperactive/psychotic Maya, "If you don't stop meowing incessantly and if you don't stop biting my toes, I am going to take you to Arbusto's to visit!" She immediately calmed down. Upon hearing the story later, Arbusto was deeply chagrined.

On Sunday, I was in a rush to leave my apartment, as I had promised to go shopping with Arbusto and to leave at noon. Maya came into the bathroom to use the litterbox while I was brushing my teeth, after which she sat by the toilet and stared at me. I finally asked her, "What?"

Maya looked pointedly at her litterbox and then back at me.

Me: "Can't you wait until tonight? I have to leave."
Maya (irritated): "Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow..."
Me: "I'm going to Arbusto's, and I swear to God I will take you with me if you're not quiet."

Maya looked even angrier, but she stopped meowing right away (again, much to Arbusto's disappointment upon hearing the story). After a moment, she looked back at the litterbox and then back up at me and let out a small, hopeful, "Mew?"

I had no firm plans last night for St. Patrick's Day. Everyone with whom I regularly hang out, with the exception of Arbusto, was out of town or otherwise occupied. I was actually tempted to spend the evening at IrishTenor's with his cat, his cable TV, and a bottle of wine. Instead, I ended up deciding to find Arbusto after his law school function and go out in search of entertainment.

Around eight o'clock, I went and tried to pick up Arbusto and his roommate near downtown Minneapolis. This did not work well, as I had no real idea where they were and cannot map things in my head (e.g., if I know a specific route from Point A to Point B but am forced to stray from my course for any reason, I will become hopelessly lost). I ended up having to turn off Washington Ave in order to prevent driving into downtown and knew that if I tried to turn myself around, I would just end up confused. So I decided that rather than drive aimlessly through downtown Minneapolis, I would stay right where I was while staying on the phone with Arbusto.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone who was driving in the vicinity last night shortly after eight, because "right where I was" meant sitting in the right lane at a stoplight at the corner of 3rd Ave and S. 2nd St., with my hazards flashing. I was deathly afraid that one of the approaching cars would be a Minneapolis police cruiser driven by an officer who would give me a ticket I couldn't afford, but my fear of becoming lost was far stronger. I kept telling Arbusto, who was trying to ascertain my exact location, that there was a Dunn Brothers coffee shop on my right, after which I would ask him where I was. It was a whole new low for Marco Polo.

After being honked at only twice and NOT being discovered by the Minneapolis police, I finally saw Arbusto and his roommate approaching my car. They hopped in, and we set off toward I-94, which I also could not find. (Arbusto pointed at the turn; I looked wildly in the other direction.) When I finally successfully found the freeway and merged, Arbusto cheered because that meant I couldn't kill them.

And there we have it. The final installment. Whew!

67. I am the worst procrastinator EVER. This list has been sitting in my qeue of posts for over a month now, waiting to be finished.

68. I was more amused than anyone should be to find that my phone has an option called "Driving Mode," in which the ring tone is replaced by a voice telling you who is calling. From now on, I am going to leave my phone on Driving Mode so that I can hear it talk to me when people call.

69. I giggled to myself when I heard my phone mispronounce IrishTenor's last name in exactly the way he hates the most.

70. When ParadiseLost called me the other night, I didn't have my phone set to Driving Mode, so I didn't get to hear it talk to me. I actually took her up on her offer to call me back so that I could hear my phone verbally alert me to her call.

71. My favorite shots are Jager bombs and tequila.

72. I love taking pictures of IrishTenor with his cat almost as much as I love taking pictures of Arbusto doing random things.

73. I have quite a few, but Mona, Lex, and Damian are three of my blogging idols. I really love their writing styles, all for totally different reasons.

74. When I was a small child, I was of course prohibited from playing in the street. I would go and stand in the street in front of my house and make a big show of spanking and scolding myself, in order to illustrate that I understood that playing in the street was bad.

75. I am the extreme opposite of photogenic. I usually show up on film looking drugged or worse. It is next to impossible to get a really good picture of me.

76. I sometimes speak to my cat in her native language. It never fails to amuse me when she talks back.

77. When I was in grade school, I had a horrendously bad perm. Note to anyone of East Asian descent: Do not perm your hair. It probably doesn't look good, and it most certainly doesn't look natural. Pictures of me from that time period would be enough to induce nightmares in small children.

78. ParadiseLost once told me that her inner character was a sandals-wearing hippie. Upon self-reflection, I realized that my inner character was probably a happily enslaved corporate employee wearing trendy clothes made in sweatshops. Yet I am liberal. It's like being a pastor's kid who has totally bought into Darwinism and positivist philosophy. (Oh wait, that's me too.)

79. After one day at my new internship, I am convinced that my inner character is indeed a happily enslaved but well dressed corporate employee.

80. Once, my brother and I were sitting at the dining room table with my father and uncle. I poked my brother in the stomach and made the noise like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. My brother looked irate; my father and uncle laughed aloud.

81. The above took place when I was 22. I am hopelessly immature.

82. One of the worst things I have ever heard was a pep band rendition of Blink 182's song "All the Small Things." Imagine Say it ain't so/I will not go/Turn the lights off/Carry me home/Na na na na na na na na na na, na na na na na na na na na na... as played by off-key clarinets in their high register. No thank you.

83. I own at least two Britney Spears CDs. I enjoy singing and dancing to them in my car on long road trips, along with the entire score of Les Miserables.

84. A few years ago, my mother experimented with a new recipe: Enlarged meat balls made from ham. My brothers and father decided that they resembled the male anatomy. Throughout the meal, they made countless off-color remarks and quoted a Saturday Night Live sketch about a chef named Joe Schvetty whose specialty was "Joe Schvetty's 'Schvetty Balls'." SenatorJoe (my boyfriend at the time) was doubled over in his chair. Even my mother was laughing. I was so disturbed by the profound resemblance that I couldn't eat my dinner.

85. When my permanent teeth were growing in, my dentist tried to offset the crooked growth of my two front teeth by having me push on them with a popsicle stick. It worked a little, but I still needed braces.

86. IrishTenor doesn't know my middle name. It had never come up, and when he did ask me about it, I was so surprised he didn't know that I didn't get around to telling him.

87. I have been at the University of Minnesota for three years now; however, I still got lost trying to find a certain campus building the other day. I got all excited when I saw a visitor information booth...until I realized that the map of the East Bank was of no use to me because in order to utilize it, I would have to know where I was to begin with.

88. For no discernible reason, I sent text messages to both Mona and BluesMan informing them of my predicament.

89. I have an amazing ability to mess up my taxes when I do them myself. I actually got a letter from the IRS my senior year of college because I added something incorrectly, and as a result I owed them money.

90. The form I was using was the 1040EZ; I messed up my taxes anyway.

91. I met with my advisor the other day to discuss my degree program paperwork. I went to the lab beforehand to print the forms and became scared when I saw how closely they seemed to resemble tax forms.

92. My excitement of the past week was that my hair is now long enough for a messy ponytail.

93. I am currently craving bulgogi and kimchi.

94. One of my guilty pleasures is listening to the Dave Ryan in the Morning show on KDWB - I feel stupid for being so entertained, but I love it. War of the Roses is my favorite.

95. I'm supposed to be thinking of dissertation topics, but I'm up a creek. I'm considering having a dissertation topic contest. I'll mail the winner an Oreo cookie.

96. After Monday's heavy snowfall, I managed to get my car stuck in the snow while trying to park it a block from IrishTenor's house. I had to call him and ask him to come and push me out of the snow.

97. When I arrived at work this morning, something on the inside of my wool pea coat caught on the button of my back pocket. It was not readily detached. Until I freed myself, I had my coat hanging from my ass while I stood in the corridor between rows of cubicles.

98. A sales associate at the Mall of America Gap store once had to cut me out of a top with a jammed zipper. After I tried and failed to rip the shirt loose, and after the sales associate tried to rip the shirt from my body while I braced myself against the door of the fitting room (get your minds out of the gutter), she finally retrieved a pair of scissors and cut the top in half so I could get out of it.

99. Today I was buzzing on too much free coffee and wrote a song about coffee, to be sung inside one's head to the tune of "Sing a song of sixpence." Lyrics are below:

Sing a song of coffee, the fourth now empty cup
Soon I'll get so bored that I'll go fill it up
When I've drunk the fifth one, my brain will start to go
And then I'll install software that has code I'll never know

100. I am very VERY relieved to be finished with this list.

I am officially snowed in.

I was supposed to start an internship today; however, at 7:30 this morning, parts of the southwest metro were without power. My start date was therefore postponed until Wednesday. So I've been hanging out at home and enjoying the fact that my desk is by the window.

I would like to be a compassionate person who feels bad for the people struggling down the street with their bicycles. However, the overwhelming urge is to say, "It's been snowing since the wee hours of the morning. I don't know why you thought it was a good idea to take that anywhere. Dumbass."

Lest you think the people in question were trying to ride their bikes in a foot of snow - they were not. They were walking their bicycles down the street. In my mind, this is actually worse, because they obviously knew enough to not ride the bicycle, yet they apparently did not know enough to leave it at home.

I just spent quite a bit of money that I do not have on a top and a ridiculous little beaded necklace for no reason other than, "Oh, that's cute."

I could have been studying. I could have been reading for pleasure or cleaning my apartment or spending time with my cat or accomplishing countless other productive, useful things. But no. I succumbed to the kryptonite of Express and the idea, "Hey, I should remind IrishTenor that he actually has a cute girlfriend underneath all those layers of sweatshirt!"

So today, I have

1. Discussed assessment in statistics education
   
2. Finished a stats lab, and
3. Contributed to child labor in foreign sweatshops.

I am awesome.