ajawa_took

not quite harassment

2008-09-18T04:51:25Z

On weekly homeworks in upper-division courses, I always ask students to "ask an interesting question and try to answer it." After initial confusion, this usually works quite well, making the better students stop and think about what they are learning. The first few times, some people invariably think it's a joke and react accordingly. However, I don't usually get the following response: "I wonder if you are married? I don't think think so, but I bet you have a boyfriend because you're too pretty to be single." So this got me thinking.

My first reaction was knee-jerk feminist: why do women always have to put up with such crap, and what am I to wear if I want colleagues to see me as at least professional and pleasant, but I don't want such comments?!? Then I thought back to my visits to rateyourproffessor.com, or whatever that website is called, and remembered that, in fact, men get exactly the same kind of crap. Then I asked myself, why does this particularly bother me? And whether and why would it bother other women? And if it does uniformly bother women, does it also bother men? So now I am curious enough to try and gather evidence:
Have you ever had students make comments to you about your attractiveness?
Did/Would that bother you? Why or why not?

i thought i had traded the earthquakes for four months of snow,

2008-04-18T20:23:06Z

but no.
i briefly considered getting out of bed, and getting the hell out of my brick building deathtrap, and then went back to sleep.

ajawa_took @ 2008-01-11T14:59:00

2008-01-11T20:58:51Z

Happy birthday to me!
And to all born today!
Happy birthday, Ajawa!
Happy birthday to me!

New Year's Resolution: more posts to lj

2008-01-04T05:28:05Z

I shall soon be back home in Chicago, thewhich home is currently cold and rather messy. I should get me a sleep schedule - anybody know where to get one? Three papers I should be writing are mocking me. The left half of my laptop's screen is darker; an optimist might say that the right half is brighter; but the realist says, my eyes hurt. Maybe I should spend less time staring at laptop screen. Lack of internet at home might help.

Fwd: maximum nerdosity

2007-06-20T17:38:44Z

just passing along a lovely youtube link from fclbrokle.
amusing, and might be saying something interesting about diffferent notions of "hero".

end of california

2007-06-01T22:15:32Z

last couple weeks have been a bit crazy.
am slowly regaining sanity in parentland.
wet and warm weather is awesome, and utterly uncalifornian.

Much gratitude to:

Ahuva, who drove me all around Chicago.
ATA for the $50 upgrade to business class and 4 hours of comfortable sleep.
Crystal&Dima, for movie-showing and concrete-block-carrying.
Gakk, for swift decisive packing advice.
migolorin, who helped me say good bye to the bay area, and played me pretty music.
Lynn, for gelato and truffles.
Nameless Neighbor who provided wifi.
Nameless Oakland USPS Worker, who patiently processed 16 big heavy improperly adressed boxes.
quale, who helped me stay sane through the packing process.
Strange People who carried away everything, including the horrid kitchen chairs.
Tom, who timed his party so that i might be able to come.
UIC, for paying for shipping.
calmathgeek, who saved my departure day with driving and shipping and craigslisting and carrying furniture.

Bad Karma has accrued to:

USPS, for moronic regulations forbidding visible liquor labels on shipping boxes.
LOT airline, for moronic policy requiring paper tickets and, in certain cases, in-person pick-up thereof.
AmericanAirlines, for delayed flights and dead power outlets in terminal.
Chicago/O'Hare, for non-free wifi.
Clausen House Thrift Shop, for broken promise to pick up stuff.
LJ, for stealing my time.
Accursed USPS, may it ever rot in cardboard&tape shipping hell, for lying to me and keeping me from saying a proper good-bye to berkeley model-theorists.

Piled higher & Deeper

2007-05-19T18:37:34Z

to quote my mother, "Getting a Ph.D. isn't like getting married, nor even like buying a house: it only happens once in your life!"
which in itself is not the right measure of importance, or else every moment would be equally important, which may be true, but isn't what my mother meant.
nevertheless, it feels like a significant event, which is not the same as "a significant accomplishemt", which it hardly is. more of a "distance traveled" mile post than of a "height attained" elevation marker.

i'm leaving california for good in less than two weeks. for once, i'm looking forward to new places instead of feeling overwhelmingly sad about leaviing.

a most perplexing and unhelpful psychotherapist

2007-04-17T05:32:42Z

(>> is me; > is Eliza.)

-----------------------------------------
>> Hello.
> How do you do. Please state your problem.
>> do i want to go to bogota?
> What would it mean to you if you got to go to bogota ?
>> i'd get to play with people i like, and see mountains
> You say i'd get to play with people you like ?
>> no, i'd get to play with people i like, not you'd get to play with them! can't you recognize contractions?
> Are you saying no just to be negative?
>> no
> You are being a bit negative.
>> no
> Why not ?
--------------------------------------

battery!!!

2006-09-13T19:23:27Z

my computer can survive in the wild for a whole two hours now that it has a new battery!
(this is a big improvement on the previous, nearly dead, full-to-flat-in-15-minutes version.)

now if only warm weather holds, and lazyness doesn't get in the way, i shall sit under trees with math.

WTF?

2006-08-31T22:15:34Z

ridiculousness, stolen from goodrick

Kay-yak!

2006-08-25T04:06:11Z

   I almost got to emeryville marina today, landed on a seaweedy beach in emeryville, and didn't have to swim! Not swimming is a first; swimming while landing doesn't count.
   One leg out of kayak is no better than whole body out of kayak: getting other leg in tips kayak. Straddling kayak, then pulling in two legs simultaneously works better. Water in the Bay is surprisingly warm and clear.
   Pacific ocean really likes sunglasses, stole another pair from me today. Note to self: tie them on! Luckily, my perscription glasses survived.
   I can just barely paddle against a 17-knot wind, if there are no waves. With waves, my lower body has to make sure i don't end up swimming, and my upper body doesn't have enough strength. Note to self: approaching CalAdventure's dock in the afternoon when a strong breeze blows landwards, give up going west until really really close to land.


Kayaing on Tahoe is much easier and more peaceful.

ajawa_took @ 2006-08-02T21:23:00

2006-08-03T04:25:41Z

it's nice to know that evans can sway back and forth a few times without falling.

i wish all conflicts were this funny

2006-08-03T00:59:40Z

Spoon-wielding Mexican women besiege TV studio

and i hope this one stays funny for another couple weeks.

bad idea

2006-07-28T21:52:35Z

expresso and bagel for breakfast;
tea and a few donut holes for lunch;
a lot of half-ripe blackberries for dinner.

dehumanizing the enemy and further demagoguery

2006-07-26T07:57:20Z

why, in all disputes about israel, on both sides, is there so much talk of photogenically dead babies, and no talk of why terrorist organizations work and how to stop them?
of course, it's easy to scream "Those monsters are killing children! Stop the monsters by any means necessary!", and it's hard to understand a complicated situation and judge wisely. i make no claim to understanding.
but is it not obvious that shouting slogans is strictly counterproductive?
what might be excusable as an emotional response of people deeply involved in the situation, is not excusable as a program of action of faraway people who have no personal connections to lebanese, jewish, of sudanese children.
i am equally disgusted by american anti-israeli protesters and russian pro-israeli bloggers.

all i hear is:

we kill their civilians because they are all brain-washed fanatics; even those who don't murder us feed, clothe, and shelter terrorists who do.
they kill our civilians because we are all trained soldiers, or active supporters thereof.

our army is better funded, so they would lose a conventional war, so they have no choice but to resort to isolated attacks against civilians.
their army is hiding among civilians, so we have no choice but to resort to bombing civilians.

the status quo is unacceptable to us and not getting better, so we must do something about it.
the status quo is unacceptable to them and not getting better, so they must do something about it.
they are murdering our women and children.
we are murdering their women and children.

they all hate us.
we all hate them.

all we want is to get our prisoners back (who would then fight them).
all they want is to get their prisoners back (who would then fight us).

all we want is to live in peace on our lands, not fearing terrorist attacks.
all they want is to live in peace on their lands, not fearing hostile israeli military and police and settlers.

of course, to me there is an obvious "we" in this conflict: i have many close friends on one side and none on the other.
of course, my emotional reaction is to wish israel well.
but can i claim that invading lebanon is the best way to deal with the terrorist threat? can i even claim that it will diminish that threat? no, i don't know enough.
how can i assert that the rewards of this conflict will be worth the combined suffering of everyone involved, if i cannot judge what rewards there might be, if any?

and if all we're doing is cheering our friends in a no-holds-barred fight, than maybe we should stop moralizing and just say

GO ISRAEL!!!

happy things in alaska

2006-07-03T23:18:36Z

Enough grumbling! there was plenty happy in Alaska:

goldpanning in Ressurection Creek in the town of Hope (where gold was first found in Alaska)
tiny trail through flowering (humph!) blueberries, up past some waterfalls to a sunny powerlines glade
puffins! and floating stones and bits of very blue ice
Byron glacier
roadside picnic where Denali Highway crosses a nameless creek: yay mosquito nets!
math in a tavern of an old goldmining camp, by the side of the Steese Highway
manycolour stones in half-snow-covered creek
marmots eat bedrolls for breakfast!
math at the bar of an italian restaurant closed between lunch and dinner
locals/natives haggling over a bearclaw necklace

And, most importantly, we didn't kill each other : )

(All pictures courtesy of google, for the Photographer guards files jealously and only gives photoshop-finished prints, some number of months down the road, and that only if he deems them worthy.)

sane or bouncy?

2006-06-05T21:43:49Z

after insisting for years that he is not competent to make the judgement, he suddenly pronounces me sane, and, to add injury to insult, keeps me away from the bouncy castle! humph.
i'm sure he was just trying to save me from his daughter's enthusiasm...

yay! i'm home

2006-06-03T21:12:03Z

the day is warm and sunny, full of clock-ticking and construction and airplanes. the north-facing office is pleasantly cool.
it is now two o'clock. the animals are playing dice on the map of afganistan. Tea-Gra rolls between barsat and gupis, and considers. Stuffed Cardinal Rat is leaning over the dice, riveted to the game, open-mouthed. Dreamy lies on his tummy and stares into the space that dice happen to occupy.
i should eat something before meeting with my advisor.

hungry phone

2006-05-25T01:03:32Z

if i don't feed my phone, it falls asleep, and i can't take pictures of a shiny swingy suspension bridge straight out of indiana jones movies, except only a few feet high in woody flatlands. trails shorter than 5 miles end surprizingly quickly if one is more used to 10-15 mile days. after miserable montreal weather, real summer is very nice. hopefully, more of that awaits me in boston; and hopefully i can get all the carful berkeley people to take me to trees this summer.

update: i exist

2006-05-11T22:37:16Z

despite evidence to the contrary in form of lack of lj entries. rectifying that, a bunch of short updates:

Madison was wet and wonderful two weeks ago: cold windy rain was good contrast to current berkeley weather; silence at night is disconcerting when one is used to a freeway; i hung out with an israely friend from cambridge who makes french coffee but awesome hot fresh-roasted almonds; many recursion-theory talks, a few interesting model-theory talks, and maybe people even liked my talk.

Next week i flee again, this time for a conference in montreal, and some parents in boston, and one friend driving me to durham to see another friend. Yumm! Now i just need to polish (and shorten!) the talk, and dellamify preprint, and finish grading endless homeworks.

How to brown an Ajawa: preheat day until clouds clear; bake at noon, 30 minutes on each side.

interconnectedness of things

2006-03-18T22:53:00Z

Nice blouses don't go with torn baggy jeans. changing clothes requires rethinking the whole keys-cards-cellphone arrangement. nice pants don't go with tevas. biking in high heels isn't bad, but walking with a heavy backpack on one shoulder just doesn't work. this must be how normal women feel when forced to appear in public in completely informal clothes.

much as i love Bach, St. Mathew's Passion isn't my cup of tea. the orchestra bits, and the choral bits, and the instrumental bits and the solo singing bits just fail to fit together in my mind, which isn't excited by a jumble of incomplete pieces. i'm sure this is my mind's and not Bach's fault, but i am glad the concert was (is) sold out, so i only went to a dress rehearsal, and fled after an hour.

It's rained plenty recently, and i'm happy the sun is out today and the world is moderately warm. for once the post office didn't harass me about wrongness of name; now i have much yummy tea from upton. in half an hour, i'll be home, out of crazy feminine clothes, and contemplating mmath: yay!

an observation

2006-03-09T22:36:45Z

nothing motivates me to do math better than being forced to not do it for a week. anyone know a good book to read about Fuchsian Lattices? especially non-arithmetic ones?

turning nocturnal

2006-02-24T10:44:27Z

being suddenly told to produce a detailed outline of my thesis out of thin air (and a one-page summary of same in non-technical language, and some more propaganda about why i am cool) on one week's notice is unnerving as well as hectic. i am mostly ok with the abstract fact of graduating next year; but writing down a timeline of exactly how i'm going to get expunged from this happy world of familiar people and buildings, of friend-ly costudents and caring advisor, into the great gaping outer void -- i'm decidedly notOK with that.

computer geeks: help?

2006-02-08T13:50:37Z

So there's this one website that's stealing many hours of my life, and i'd like to make it maximally difficult for me to go there. It's very easy to do this on my windows machine IF i were using IExplorer; which i of course am not. Any idea how to do this in mozilla?

UPDATE: Adblock! blocks site as well as ads! downside: not quite difficult enough, only a few mouseclicks to restore... sigh.

out of the mud and into the poison oak

2006-01-30T18:51:55Z

In order to avoid toppling off the log and into a torrent of muddy water running over a muddy bottom, I ran to the end of the log and landed on hands and knees in brambles. Now most of the burrs are out of my fingers and toes, but a few spots on my legs are more tingly-itchy than can be blamed on stinging nettles. Luckily, it seems that I'm not overly allergic to it. The other option -- to wade carrying lowenheimskolem -- really wasn't an option, as the stream turned out to me more chest-deep than knee-deep. So, if you ever intend to cross the Redwood Creek to get from the Redwood trail to the Heather Crosscut in january, do leave the Redwood trail half a mile earlier, where there's an actual bridge over the creek. Other highlights: Grey fuzzy monsters in the sky chewed on the firemoon, and carried their buckets of water gently, without upsetting them on our heads. The air was pleasantly brisk rather than miserably cold. The Coastal Fireroad is redone as a decent trail. Banana slugs and furry capertillers! Yay to winter trails and boo to returning rental car at 8am; and yay to couch and blanket in office.

In other news, my semester is looking quite lovely. I'm beginning to believe that differrential forms in the multivariable class i'm TAing won't be a complete disaster. I have people to read Shelah with, and people to read Grothendieck with, and people to talk to about my research. And my 24 little Kandinskys are finally up on the walls of my office, interspersed with a few landscapes! And I have all sorts of non-generic yummy teas: Pu-Erh, and Oolong, and Mate, and Melange du Chamonix! and uptontea's Monk's Blend is rather unexciting: i doubt i'll ever get over my russian prejudice against ceylon teas.