Money and love...or am I just paying for sex?

Money is coming in...money I didn't expect...money I could definitely use. I'll spare you the details but it boils down to $2,000 of financial aid money I didn't know I was supposed to get because of a glitch in the system. So I'm sitting here wondering what I should spend it on...

Christmas won't be a big affair here. I'm so tired of the over importance of the "give me". So I'll buy Aidan a couple of things, send Devon a gift card to buy more clothes and that'll be the end of that day.

I'm thinking seriously about going to Washington to visit an online friend of mine. I've known him for about 3 or 4 years now. We flirt shamelessly...mostly because the chance of us meeting is rare and so we're safe. So there's a part of me that wants to believe (but I know better) that when I get there we will click and it will be wonderful and even romantic (or just a lot of hot, sweaty monkey sex - which is quite fine by me thankyouverymuch!)....and yet, even if it's not sexual at all I know that we will still click and it will be wonderful to be with him, because he's an amazing man. Of course it doesn't hurt that he's omg-sexy.

I'm cautiously excited...mostly because I don't have the money and I haven't made the plans yet....I don't want him to feel pressured so I tell him so and remind myself that I don't even have the ticket yet so I should really not worry about it. Besides, by the time I do get the money, the prices will probably have gone up too much and I won't be able to do it.

Figures.

______________________________
"Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I haven't tried." ~Mae West

Mathabulous

Is it totally awful that I'm excited to be done with this semester?  Not that I don't totally enjoy myself in school...I just think that Anatomy is the devil.  Well, my teacher to be exact.  As long as I don't completely fail my next exam and the two finals in there, I should manage to squeek by with a decent C and while that doesn't normally make me happy enough to celebrate, I'm willing to host a party for that.  It means that I'm done with that class and that it didn't fudge up my overall GPA horrendously.  I refuse to take another semester of it so next year I'm doing Physics...(which I actually should have done anyway but I had a previous traumatic experience with it that Anatomy has cured me of).

Next semester though!  I have 3 math classes and biology....and this makes me orgasmic.  What classes do I have you ask?  Well I'll tell you!  Calc 2, Linear Algebra, and Mathematical Computations.  I may actually pick up one more class because I'm really ready to be done with my Bachelor's as quick as possible.  I've got 8 years of school behind me now and 5-6 more ahead of me for my Doctorate....I'm anxious to move on to my next step.

Plus, next semester I get to study less words and more numbers....and that's what it's all about! :)

Is there more?

I keep coming back to my blog to try and write something more...but I keep seeing my last post and nothing seems pertinant anymore.  That's really kinda sad, and it bothers me.

I'm planning a trip to NY this summer.  I'd love to get a bunch of my online and RL friends together for a weekend or so.  I'm even hoping that some of my overseas friends will be able to make it.  Gosh that would be the best weekend ever!

I need to go work out and then get some sleep...showed the girls the joy of google tonight *giggle*

EDIT:  I have no qualms about putting that link in my blog because no one reads it besides me and I'm well over the age of 18 and don't mind adult material...however, if in the future someone actually starts to read my stuff and they're not at least 18 or are offended by adult material....DON'T CLICK THE LINK!  - You've been warned...now quit whining!

Twilight Madness

I've ignored it for long enough....and I got bored Friday, so while I was at K-Mart I saw the book, remembered my friends telling me I had to read it, remembered my love of vampire stories (no matter how cheesy), realized I had the $6 in the bank to buy the book so I did.  I took it home Friday night and read it. I didn't finish it, but only because it was 2am on Saturday by now and I had to get up at 7am to support my fraternity and eat pancakes.  After the pancakey goodness I went home and finished the book in roughly 30-45 minutes.

I really thought it was a good book.  Nothing like everyone else's enjoyment/obsession ("OMG I'm going to die because I want Edward to be real so I can live every teenage girl's fantasy!!!") of it, but it was really good.  I loved it because it wasn't a vampire story...it was a human story.  Yeah ok, I couldn't ignor that the Cullen's were vampires of course, but Stephanie Meyer was amazing at making it real and human.  The emotions drew me in...the inner struggles, the complexities, they were deep and real.  Even the struggles that Edward had...those internal struggles of a tortured soul, were human (well, aside from the blood drinking thing).  The story captured my heart quickly and kept it long after I put the book down.

So now we're into Saturday and I would have been fine.  I said I liked the book, not that I was obsessed with it.  I would have been able to wait till next payday to buy the next book New Moon....but then I made the mistake of reading the teaser in the back of Twilight....I called my friend then and asked to borrow the next two books.  She, of course, said yes and I ran out the door, in my pajamas and dinner in the oven, to her apartment down the street.

I finished New Moon and started on Eclipse Saturday.  Sunday was finishing Eclipse and starting on Breaking Dawn.  Monday I finished Breaking Dawn and thought I was done.  Heaven knows I was exhausted from lack of sleep.  Yet I felt so ... alive ... It was almost as if those books renewed a passion in me that had long been dormant....I loved it, but it frustrated me at the same time.  You see, a passion like that isn't good if you don't have someone else to share it with *sigh*.  Oh well. 

I thought for sure I was free of the bonds...but my friends are asking if I'm going to see the movie.  I was hesitant because I really feel that the movie would ruin the story for me.  They would take the honest and heart felt humanity from it and stuff it full of action, sex, and vampires (not that I would complain...but I really feel like I should protect the story...I don't want it to be corrupted).  

So I started surfing around aimlessly, and I remembered a work partner had said something about the trailor being pretty good.  He was in the same boat as me...had never heard of the story but was going to the movie because his "it's complicated" girl wanted to go see it.  Yeah, I watched the trailor...8 times....I guess I'm going to see the movie. ((Edit: I just watched the trailor again...damn I hate obsessing))

Then I found a gem...Midnight Sun the first half of Twilight written from Edwards point of view.  It was amazing to be able to compair the manuscript to the book and fill in the few blanks.

Sometimes I don't like being alone....

So just lock me in a closet till it's over.

I mean really...I just want to curl up in a ball and die this semester.  I hate Anatomy and just so you know, I've never been ok with getting a 64 on an exam but in this class for me, that's like getting a friggin' A....too bad I got a 52 on this last one.  

I hate anatomy so much....a monkey could do better than me. :(

Wordle Fun

I forget what this was from:

Pi in the Bible:

All thanks to http://www.wordle.net

Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hot Dogs - wikiHow

Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hot Dogs - wikiHow

How to Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hot Dogs

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
Throwing a pie in someone's face is good. Throwing food at pi is better. Believe it or not, of all the countless ways to approximate the most prolific irrational number in the universe, there are none quite as interesting or as surprisingly satisfying as throwing perfectly good food around your kitchen. In fewer steps than it takes to circumscribe your house in a circle of baguettes, you, too, can easily add a slice of pi into your dinner menu tonight. The best part is...it really works!

Steps

1. Select your food item to throw. There are a couple of qualifications. First, it must be long, thin, and straight, like a frozen hot dog, for example. There are lots of other items that fit this criterion including Otter Pops, celery sticks, and churros. (If you simply can't come to grips with throwing perfectly good food, see the Tips section for some additional ideas.) Second, it must be a reasonably stiff item. Third, it should be somewhere between six and eighteen inches long. The experiment can be performed otherwise, but read on, and you will see why this size is optimal.
2. Select the spot from where you will throw your mathematical cuisine. You will probably need about 6-10 feet in front of you as you will be throwing straight ahead.
3. Clear the area. The place at which you are throwing should be devoid of objects that your food item could possibly run in to. So, if you are throwing in your kitchen, consider moving the table into another room or at least throwing in such a way that your food won't hit the table during its flight.
4. Measure the length of your projectile (e.g. your frozen hot dogs). A tape measure should do the trick. Be as accurate as you can, even down to the millimeter, for best results.
5. Lay down masking tape in parallel strips across the floor as far apart as your projectile is long. The strips should be perpendicular to the direction you will be throwing (see picture below). Do about 6-10 strips if your item is 6-18 inches long; fewer, if longer; more, if shorter.
6. Get a piece of paper and across the top make a column for “Tosses” and another column for "Crosses." The "Tosses" column is to keep track of how many times you throw your food item. The "Crosses" column is to keep track of how many times your item, once it lands and stops moving, is lying across one of the lines.
7. Now, get into position, and THROW YOUR FOOD! Throw just one item at a time. Once it is at rest, observe whether or not it is crossing one of the lines. If it is, put a tick under "Crosses" and a tick under "Tosses." If it isn't, just put a tick under "Tosses." Repeat this as many times as you like. You should start seeing some interesting results by around 100 to 200 throws (it doesn't take as long as it sounds, especially if you use a pack of 10 frozen hot dogs so you're not out retrieving the one hot dog after every throw).
8. Once you are done throwing your food, multiply the number of tosses by two and divide by the number of crosses. For example, if you threw 500 times, and it crossed 320 times, you would calculate 500 x 2 / 320. And, to your amazement, you will now have an approximation for pi! Now, don't you feel less stressed?

Tips

• For those who are troubled by throwing perfectly good food, consider throwing sticks, dowels, or pencils. In fact, any item will do so long as it is long, thin, straight, and stiff.
• If room is a concern, consider just drawing lines on a piece of paper and dropping toothpicks onto the paper from about three feet up. This definitely is not as refreshing as throwing food across the room, but it works.
• The more the merrier! If two or three throw food together, you will get a better approximation faster because you will be able to get more throws in a shorter amount of time.
• For the mathematically-inclined, this experiment is actually real! The proof and other details can be found at mathworld.wolfram.com: Buffon Needle Problem
• This type of approach (essentially, using random numbers to experimentally solve a problem) is also known as Monte Carlo Simulation.
• A quick estimation of pi is 22/7; a much better one is 355/113 (note the memorable pattern of the digits); an even better estimate than that is 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944. Or, you could just press the "pi" key on your calculator.

Warnings

• Remember that this is an experiment, so the idea is not to TRY and get the food to land on one of the lines. Just throw it randomly towards the lines. It should still land amongst them, but don't jinx the experiment by encouraging your dinner to land onto the tape.
• Resist the temptation to use bananas. Not only are they not really straight, but they really won't last more than 50 throws before creating a big mess. Really.
• Though there is no food that is more fun to throw than hot dogs, the math buff will note that greater accuracy will be found the thinner the lines of tape and the thinner the food. Try uncooked spaghetti sticks, for example, for greater accuracy.
• Hitting someone in the eye with a hot dog, especially if it is frozen, is generally not a good idea.
• Also if you have a pet (aka dog or cat), they may feel inclined to eat the hot dogs, and thus ruin your experiment. Try putting them outside (or in another room if they have to stay inside) for this experiment.

Things You'll Need

• Pen and Paper
• Masking Tape
• Calculator
• Long, Thin, Straight, Stiff Food. Preferably a pack of frozen hot dogs

Related wikiHows

• How to Memorize Pi
• How to Celebrate Pi Day
• How to Calculate the Area of a Circle
• How to Find a Gift for a Self Proclaimed Nerd or Geek
• How to Write an Ode About Math
• How to Calculate Your Age by Chocolate
• How to Add 5 Consecutive Numbers Quickly

Sources and Citations

• This article is a humorous rendition of a real experiment called the Buffon Needle Problem
• A Buffon Approximation Experiment lesson plan for classrooms
• An applet simulating the experiment

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hot Dogs. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.