Pollywog's Log of Life

pos·i·tive adj .   \ ˈ pä-zə-tiv, ˈ päz-tiv\ 8.   a : having a good effect : favorable <a positive role model>         b : marked by optimism <the positive point of view>   So, of recent, positive-ness is hard to find. Not really , but that's how it feels so often these days. I make it a point to try and stay positive when those around me seem to be negative about everything they talk about. Or the people who complain a lot; I'm trying to consciously avoid vocalizing my complaints because: a) most people probably don't care to hear them, b) complaining brings the mood of the room down a notch or two and I don't want to be that person, and c) complaining won't get me anywhere soo it should probably stay in my head anyway.   Plus! I've noticed more and more than when a group of people starts complaining about something, or being negative that it's a rapidly descending spiral that gets harder and harder to get o

Ah, a new day. It's really nice that we get to sort of start over each day. For whatever reason yesterday was not the best day. The little things kept bothering me throughout the entire day. When I arrived on campus, the girl who was supposed to be working was not only late, but seems to leave within 10-15 minutes (every week) for what seems like longer than a "potty break". Now, I say she was supposed to be working; as a student funded by a department at a university, typically you have hours where you either teach, hold office hours for tutoring undergraduates, or you may grade assignments for professors. This student has office hours and, reiterating, was late and just left without concern that she was leaving a computer lab open for anyone to walk into. One of the things we are told when we begin here and if we teach/tutor, is to never leave the computer labs open if there isn't a graduate student in there. This may seem like a small thing since she was only gone

So in the last 24 hours I have somehow gone into consolidation mode. Yesterday it was because of one of the classes I'm taking. The professor doesn't have an actual textbook assigned for the class. What he does have are his "notes" which are not complete, so we get updates as the class progresses (somewhat annoying). Then, he also gave us two other books to look up which can be downloaded for free chapter by chapter (which is nice that they're free) as supplements to his notes. I also found another book online about the subject which seems to be the one I'll learn the most from. But let's count. I have four different sources to get the same information from, and should probably follow the notation used by my professor in his notes, yet the notation in the other sources is all slightly different. Hence, consolidation commences... Yesterday evening I started to combine definitions, notations, and explanations of all four sources so that I can remember which

Haha, ok, so I pretty much love the movie Easy A. It doesn't have the best plot, adultery, lying, high school girls, but it's funny. I really like Emma Stone, every movie I've seen her in I like. The funny ones and the serious ones. Ho hum, there's not much today. My birthday is coming up on Monday =) I'll write back later when I come up with something.

So I've read in articles somewhere that when people have too many choices they actually become less happy and more agitated, anxious, or upset. I am currently a victim to this feeling. I received an iTunes gift card this past Christmas which I'm pretty happy about because I don't usually have any money to spend on fun items like new dvds or music. On the other hand, I was just browsing the iTunes store trying to get an idea of what I actually wanted to spend this gift card on. Well, I gave up after about 10 minutes or so because there are just too many choices. Not to mention the fact that in the music category I'm just not up to snuff with the most recent releases or artists. I find new music through friends who play stuff they like and if I like it, then sweet! new music for me, and if not then I wait until I hear something I do like from a friend. So, this gift card will probably be spent some a movie or two, or possibly a TV show, but there really are so many to cho

This is by far the weirdest winter I've lived through yet. Supposedly there is some snow on the way, say weather forecasters, but I'm skeptical. Even if there is some, it's probably only going to stick around for a day or two. On the bright side, I haven't had to deal with icy sidewalks on steep hills, or walking to campus in deep snow or slush. In other news, my workload has just cranked up a notch. One homework due Friday, another Monday, and whenever I have free time I need to begin writing my project report that will be my golden ticket out of here. I am getting more excited about my topic though, text mining. It's a relatively new area, in addition to being pretty difficult. This is only because usually statistics deals with numbers. We can calculate to our hearts delight with numbers, but with words...well, it's complicated. Now it's not numbers anymore. In addition to dealing with words, there are all the intricacies of the English language to take