Omfg lol

I got a 90% on my quantum exam! I didn't even answer enough questions to get a 90%! Mucho gracias senõr Dick! Thank you for your pity!!!

Ok well technically I got an 86% in the class, which works out to a 90% on the midterm... But more likely, he curved the overall grades so that I got an 86% and other people got at least a 70%... But these are details, and I prefer to pretend I got a 90% without any preparation whatsoever. :P

Pretty flowers

My mom bought me these for graduating. Aren't they pretty? Oriental lilies. Not sure what breed, I tried to google it but lots of them looked the same to me. The biggest flower is 9"wide, I measured it!

The case of the missing car

So Kat comes over the other day, and when I open the door, she remarks "Did you know your car's not here?" I look outside, and sure enough, my car's not there. My first thought, of course, is that it was either towed or stolen. Now having received no notice to park it elsewhere, I can't imagine it being towed. So I get ready to phone the police and report it, despite my confusion of why on Earth anyone would want to steal my car. A '97 Toyota Tercel with hippy-dippy bumper stickers and a stick shift.

I phone the number and the first time, the call gets dropped or something. I'm about to redial when it occurs to me. I drove to my exam the night before. And I distinctly remember busing home afterwards. So I curse at the fact that now I have to bus back to campus and retrieve my car. The funniest part is that I had to walk right past my car (like within 2 m) to get to the bus stop. Talk about preoccupation!

Now here's the kicker: I didn't even have a parking ticket! What are the odds? I mean, I've gotten parking tickets there before when I've been 4.5 minutes late getting to the meter to plug it again, and here my car was for 17 hours (8 of which were while the meter was actually running), and there's no ticket. I suppose it's a remote possibility that the ticket somehow went missing, but who steals a parking ticket? So either that lot is completely ignored (after all, they would have to walk in the grass to check those meters) or else I was having a particularly lucky day.

Stinky old towels

I don't know what it is, but this cat has a thing for dirty towels. I've seen her make out with Grant's used washcloths like they were made of crack, and somehow I knew this would make an acceptable alternative to the sheets and duvet currently in the washing machine.

OMG Scanning!

Woah! That was unexpected!

My computer was trying to install my HP Photosmart 5510 printer using some 3300 drivers, and I figured there might be Linux drivers available from HP so I checked. Sure enough, there was. I installed them and lo and behold... THE SCANNER WORKS NOW! I basically never expected to get that working, since the printer is on the wireless network and the laptop connects to it remotely.

BUT IT WORKS!

Look: 

Nvidia

I'm not sure how it actually worked, but something solved my Nvidia problem.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/howto-install-nvidia-drivers-manually-on-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lynx.html

These were the instructions, but I only got as far as (4). I was worried when it said it was removing the Ubuntu-desktop, but it ultimately worked out. I suspect it was blacklisting the things that did it, but I'm afraid to experiment lest I break it some more...

1) Download Newest Nvidia drivers from here
2) Open module blacklist as admin

gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Add these lines and save:

blacklist vga16fb
blacklist nouveau
blacklist rivafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivatv

3) Uninstall any previously installed Nvidia drivers:

sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia-*

4) Reboot your computer
5) When an error message pops up saying that Ubuntu cannot load Nvidia drivers, choose Exit to terminal (Exit to console)
6) Login and cd to the directory where you saved your file
7)Install drivers

sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-195.36.24-pkg2.run

8)Start GDM

sudo service gdm start

No free monies

Well it's official... I am not the most sought after student in Canada. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm also not the least sought after... I just didn't get an NSERC scholarship, and that's somewhat disappointing. I mean, who can't use an extra $8000? But at the end of the day, it's the choice I made to have a life instead of being overly dedicated to school, as and I don't regret that decision.

Secret to falling asleep

Grant and I went to my graduation banquet last night. It was fun! I was given my award for getting the top mark at the UofS on the CAP physics exam. That was cool!

I also learned something: two glasses of red wine and a belly full of food is a surefire recipe for falling asleep at 9:00. 9:00! I never go to sleep so early! Look, it's 4:30 a.m. and I'm not awake still, I'm awake already! Insanity!

Cutting it close

First, you'll want to look at the time on this post. Yes, it's 3:45 a.m. on a school night. And this is why I will be an excellent grad student: I just spent the entire evening un-breaking my computer.

Ok, so I bought this gorgeous new laptop... and I thought "Hey! A fast laptop! I bet it will run extra fast with Linux!" ... Only problem is, Samsung designed special software and settings for this laptop, and they only work in Windows. So I decided to remove Linux. That's when all hell broke loose.

Classic problem when removing Linux is that it leaves something called the Boot Loader. This is what allows you to choose whether you boot into Windows or Linux, which is great when you're running both. Problem is, it slows down the special things that Samsung added to make it go faster.

No big deal, I figured, I'll just run that system restore thing. Yeah, right.

Somewhere along the way, the recovery partition got messed up. Usually Linux is really good about not messing up things, but this time it failed. No matter how many times I tried to boot and use F4 to enter recovery mode, it just kept flashing this black and grey screen. Recovery Fail.

Plan B: I remembered that Windows installation disks can restore the MBR that comes with Windows. Problem 1: my new computer doesn't have a CD drive (it's new fandangled, and ultralight). Plan B-prime: Create Windows USB disk (note: neither of those links for bootsect work... Mercedes, remember you stored it on Kiwi). Well that took at least an hour... but... success! I got my computer back the way it was before. Ok, the recovery partition is still fubar. But hey, that means I just have to use Windows' system restore, and then I can reclaim the 20GB that the recovery partition is stored on, since it's useless anyway.

Right, so what does this have to do with being a grad student? Well, last week our equipment went wonky for our honours research project. And I gladly spent the afternoon troubleshooting that. I have now spent a good 5 hours fixing my computer, and was eventually successful. Not only that, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself the entire time. Yep, that's right. Mercedes is a big troubleshooting nerd. And that's what this has to do with grad school...

Thankful for being born in a first world country

First I was like "What! There's no water!" So I called the city, and they told me told me there were these on the street to get me through the night:

So at first, I was like "Oh man, what a huge inconvenience." Then I remembered how many people in the world have to walk 15 miles to get dirty, contaminated water... and those are the people who can get water at all. For example, I wonder how many people would give their first born daughter for puddles like this in front of their house:

So then I stopped feeling sorry for myself.

Then I was waiting in line with my 5 gallon camping jug to get my water, as this other woman was filling two juice pitchers. So then I felt even less sorry for myself, because I was able to carry a night's water in one trip, and that it would even be enough to cook the spaghetti I was looking forward to when I came home and found out there was no water.

So now I'm looking at it as kind of a novelty, like camping. Only this is real, treated city water, and not well water that tastes all funny and is sometimes yellow. Of course, that's assuming it's being fixed first thing in the morning, like the lady said it would be. I'm sure the novelty would wear off after a few days...

Later, I figured I needed to wash my mug, because it's new and it's really nice, and I didn't want the cream from my coffee to make it go rotten waiting for tomorrow. As I was standing there, looking for a pail to transfer water from the jug to the sink, it finally occurred to me that my placement of the jug was more suitable for camping than a house. See, when you go camping, you don't have one of those new fandangled sink things. So you put the jug of water on your picnic table, and let it dribble onto the ground. Good for camping, not so good for the kitchen. Then I realized the obvious (those who know me well know that I'm terrible at realizing the obvious).

Now my water jug is cleverly placed where it ought to have been in the first place. Grant would have done that automatically without even thinking. That's what makes us such a good team! I do the taxes and the quantum mechanics, and he makes sure I don't get lost on my way from bedroom to the coffee maker.