So... Oregon.

The flight was long but uneventful. I got my first look at the Grand Canyon. It was big.

After checking into the hotel in Portland, my dad and I walked around a bit. We went to this Chinese garden thing. It was really beautiful - they had all sorts of plants I've never seen before, and some really magnificent bonsai. While there, I saw an American Crow chasing an Osprey. When we walked into another section of the garden, I saw it again, this time sitting on the top of a little building thing. After a moment, it flew away. Earlier as we were crossing the bridge, I'd seen a large bird of prey hovering, but it was too far away for me to determine what species it was. Later, I looked in the field guide to confirm my suspicions - Ospreys hover while looking for fish. It was an absolutely beautiful bird.

Also, after a while we saw a medium-sized blue bird fly down to the side of a pond. I rushed around to a better viewing point, and it flew on top of a building. It was a Western Scrub-Jay. It was much more beautiful than the pictures that I'd ogled in the field guide.

Yesterday, we went to Powell's books. Holy. Crap. First we went to the technical bookstore, which was about the size of a normal bookstore. Being me, I immediately looked for the math section, although I found the CS section first. Almost immediately, I found this book called the Algebraic Theory of Automata. This book is exactly what it sounds like - it applies all these things from algebra to describe automata. It is quite awesome.

Then, I looked for some TeX books, and, getting impatient, started a determined search for the math section. I soon found it - a whole lot of stuff on applied math and a little geometry. I was disappointed, but I got ready to look around at the computational biology stuff and then head back to the CS section.

Then, I turned around.

There were two whole rows devoted to just math, no explicit applications. There were entire sections as big as an entire bookcase devoted to topology, differential geometry, algebraic geometry, linear algebra, abstract algebra, lie algebra, other algebra, number theory, group theory, foundations, analysis, calculus, differential equations... I almost expired from joy. I ambled around, enjoying being in the presence of a lot of math stuff I didn't know. At one point I just sat down in front of some algebra shelf and read the titles. I know I don't know anything... but let's just say it has been further impressed on me. It was pretty exciting. :-)

Needless to say, I rabidly grabbed a lot of books. I then headed back to the CS section and found the section on TeX. They had the book I wanted... well, books I wanted, but I was trying not to spend too much money to begin with since we hadn't even visited the main store yet.

Fortunately, that was soon remedied. I had never been in a bookstore before that could accurately be described as "bustling", but this one certainly merited that description. There were people everywhere hurrying about on the business of buying books. It was, I have to say, pretty great.

I immediately headed for the Blue Room, where they keep literature and poetry. I found a lot of Russian translations and some poetry by some modern French guys that I like. However, I had a feeling that I was missing something. I started wandering around through other rooms, trying to find the language area. Finally, I found it. I passed the Spanish section, the French section, the Italian section... eventually, I got to the Russian and Slavic languages.

There was quite a bit of Russian stuff - a case of grammars and dictionaries and similar, and several cases of books in Russian (more about that later). But when I started looking for other languages, I saw first Ukrainian... then Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian... Um, I was pretty happy. I grabbed a Ukrainian textbook (one of the only ones I'd ever seen, and it's a language I've been interested in for some time), a Polish textbook and dictionary, a Czech texbook, and a Serbo-Croatian textbook. I also got a dual-language book of Wisława Szymborska's poetry, a Czech translation of Fitzgerald, some of Yevtushenko's poetry in Russian... I suppose you get the point.

After an additional visit today, in which I got a collection of Chekhov in Russian, I am
1.) Almost completely broke.
2.) Really, really happy.

I returned most of the literature in English so I would have enough money to buy a lot of things that I won't be able to use for a rather long time. I know maybe five words in Polish that aren't really similar to English. My knowledge of Russian lets me ask you how much gas is in your car or if you would like something to eat, but is certainly insufficient to allow me to read Chekhov. Even my reading of Cyrillic is not much better than my reading of Hiragana - slow and stumbling. I don't know anything in Ukrainian or any of the other random languages I got textbooks for. But... I'm really interested, and I have to try. I don't anticipate having access to books like these again anytime soon (well, maybe...), so I got the best I could find.

I also got my French poetry - only this time, in French. :-) French is nice - I'm nowhere near fluent, but at least I can sort of get the gist of what I'm reading.

Did I mention that Oregon has no sales tax, and that Powell's offers free shipping for orders over $50 (which is a good thing, or we would have never gotten all this on the plane... the math books and some other assorted books are going to be difficult enough to stuff in our luggage). That bookstore... is pretty awesome.

Stevens Institute of Technology sent me a free music download a while ago. I found the card on my desk the other day and downloaded the song that is currently in my music field. Slowly, I'm managing to build my Scriabin collection. I suppose I've known about him for a long time, but I only really "discovered" him maybe a year ago. He is rather awesome.

I got my grades today. They were good.

Various people gave me various things for graduation, mostly money, which is something I like as it is easily transformed into books and similar (or food, Jennifer! I am, after all, going to college soon.). The best gift was from my mom. She told me I had something in my room. When I opened my door, I saw the one of the most beautiful plants I'd ever seen - a Japanese Maple. This one has something I'd never seen before - branches like a willow or similar (I think it is called "waterfall ____" or something). The leaves are typical of Japanese maples - very finely cut - and are green with pinkish stem bits. The tree is around two feet tall from the base. I am thinking of pruning it and making it into a sort of bonsai. I want to take it with me to school, but I am not so sure about the airplane regulations on plants, and I don't want to hurt it.

Regardless, it is beautiful.

It is storming rather mightily outside, and as a consequence my mom has turned the internet off. I assume this will be posted when the internet returns. XJournal is something I always wanted to install but never had a chance to. Well, now I do.

Now it is quieter. I should probably take this opportunity to finish my letters. I've written two and have finished with three (one just required a check mark in its response). I don't think I will, though. I'm in more of a journalish mood at the moment, and as a rule I try to do what I want to when I want to do it, assuming something of Dire Importance doesn't need to be done. Of course, this particular scheduling algorithm is prone to starvation for jobs like... well, un-fun jobs. I can't think of anything particularly appropriate at present.

It used to be that I couldn't believe that I was going to college. I'm not quite so surprised when I think of it now. I find myself doing little things to prepare - reorganizing my documents so that OSSM stuff is just a folder instead of almost everything, saving my money instead of rabidly spending it on books (although with my trip to Powell's next week I'll find it difficult to actually accomplish that one...) and plants.

I still miss OSSM. I wonder if I will always miss it a little. I haven't been out of school a week, but it feels like I've been away forever. It helps that I'm trying to keep in contact (with varying degrees of success) with some of the people there. I must admit that it is nice to not have the Evil One (alarm clock) jolting me out of sleep at obscenely early hours, but I was so very busy all the time there that time passed quickly. I was mostly happy, sometimes very happy. I had both of the best teachers I've ever had my senior year there. I saw some bird species for the first time. I learned a lot of Bach practicing alone in my room.

I know how to program in Haskell and Java and a little Python and C++, and I knew almost nothing about programming before I came. I can write a specification in Z and tell you whether something is a ring and recite the history of Archimedes' Cattle Problem. I've learned to get along with people I love, people I like, and people who annoy me. I took seven math courses while I was there, plus a mentorship in the history of math. I simply cannot compare the level of preparation in math I would have had at my home school and the level I obtained at OSSM. A few of those courses so radically affected my views on math that I cannot imagine not having taken them - or rather I can, and it rather frightens me. OSSM gave me the confidence to take all those courses and to seriously consider a math major. Before I came to OSSM, I wanted to study math but thought that I had to do something else because I wasn't very good at it. Well, I still don't think I'm that amazing, but at least now I think it is worth trying.

At OSSM, I played soccer, volleyball, and flag football. I had my first encounter with areobics machines. I was absolutely abysmal at these sports, but at least I played them, and sometimes I even had fun. I came to OSSM thinking I wanted to be a physicist, and left with no inclination to study that field, but with a healthy respect for those that do. This is a realization I would have had to make in college had I not gone to OSSM. I learned to take care of all the plants that crowded my desk so they would look lovely. I learned how to move a ridiculous number of books in and out of the dorms, and how to justify hauling "just a few more" back in.

For those two years, OSSM was practically my entire life. Now, I'm free of it. This means that I can't drop by faculty offices to have random and interesting conversations, that I can't rabidly check out too many library books, that I can't talk to my roommate whenever I want. I knew everyone at OSSM; I'll know a grand total of five people at MIT. But I feel that I'm really prepared to go to college now, that I've gained some amount of bravery in participating in classes and projects and in doing as much as I feel that I'm capable of.

The question is often asked from one senior to another - would you do it again? Yes, definitely.

So, my new MacBook came in the mail. It is pretty much the most awesome machine ever. I've spent the evening setting everything up and rabidly downloading things. I just lost yet another battle with macports (to get hugs) but I will try again in the morning.


Man, this machine is nice. I'm so glad my parents were able to get it for me.

 So, it's the second day of summer, and I'm already wanting to get back to work. I don't remember ever being this motivated before during the summer. Maybe it is OSSM's influence. Maybe it is that I did so many really interesting things last year that it feels odd to not be working on a project. I tried to slack off today, to do all the things I normally do at my dad's house to waste time, but it wasn't satisfying and I couldn't do any of it for long. I had the most success with reading more of A Fire Upon the Deep, but I suspect that is because at least when I am reading, I feel like I'm accomplishing something. I really wanted to read more Chekhov, but my book didn't make it into the bag I took to my dad's, so for the moment I'm stuck with sci-fi. Mind you, I have my Haskell book (I'm so glad I bought it!) and my cryptography textbook (written by Christopher Swenson, an OSSM graduate. :-D). I think I'll end up reading that book more than anything this week, until Wednesday, when my dad and I will go to the OU library and get the textbooks I'll need to study for the ASEs (Advanced Standing Examinations) this summer. I find myself wanting my vacation that I'm going on for the next couple of weeks to be over with so that I can get to work studying and practicing like mad and working on more projects. I don't want to waste time now, either... I'm terrified that this motivation will wear off. So it is cryptography and a bit of Haskell for now, to keep me going. 

I miss OSSM rather, but I hope the missing will wear off after a while and I will just be able to fondly remember it. I really want to get involved in some of the alum things, I think... although I don't know how much I'll be able to do from Massachusetts.

 Edit: I just realized that I did bring my Abstract Algebra book after all. Nevermind about the having not much to study part. I still need the Artin Algebra book to do psets, but at least I can read a bit until Wednesday. I think I'm going to finish Modern Cryptanalysis or at least do a good bit in it still, though. What is summer for if not to do random things you are interested in?