Looming Decisions

Hooray for surviving the busiest week of the semester to date just fine. I managed to get all my stuff done on time (or early) without a tremendous amount of stress. The extra stress actually came in when I was feeling the pressure to register for classes for next semester. The reason that was stressful is that I didn’t know what I wanted to take, and what class(es) I signed up for was (and is) partly dependent on what I end up deciding for staying vs leaving Penn State after next semester, and when Joel & Sue are wanting me to be done with my M.S. thesis (spring’s late February deadline vs summer’s mid-June deadline). I’m really hoping they say summer’s okay, because otherwise I might not sleep for the next few months. Oh yeah, and then our landlord called and let Jon & I know that they were showing the apartment on Friday, so we had to make a decision on renewing our lease for next year so that it wouldn’t get rented out from under us. Jon wants to stay, so he signed for the whole apartment, and I signed as a “departing resident” since I’m not completely sure just yet what I want to do; I can sign a renewal at any time if I so choose. So yeah, it can get kind of stressful when you’re trying to make a few (relatively) snap decisions simultaneously about the course of probably the next 3-4 years of your life…
As it stands right now, I’m at least tentatively signed up for “Numerical Solutions to Differential Equations” (MATH 552/CSE 552). Why would I do something so awful to myself? you might ask. Well, a) Andrew’s already taking it and managed to convince me to sign up for it too, b) it’d help me learn more programming, which I’m currently not very good at (same reason he’s taking it), and c) it’d help me become more comfortable with diff eqs, which I pretty much despise but would almost certainly encounter more of if I stay for a Ph.D. It is a grad-level math/comp sci course though, and since neither of us have much comp sci under our belts at all, maybe it’s not the best fit. It’d certainly be challenging at any rate, and I’d probably learn a lot. I’m also tempted to take a second class, the undergrad forecasting practicum. I was thinking about the mesoscale forecasting class Daniel’s taking, but I really need to get a more basic understanding of that under my belt before I do something more challenging like mesoscale. That and I really do want to learn more about weather-related stuff while I’m here in “weather school.” If I do take two classes though, I definitely will be postponing taking the Ph.D. candidacy exams from May 2007 until next winter (if I elect to stay and take them at all), and had better not be trying to finish my thesis in the spring.
Trivia’s back! After a long, Sep-Oct-Nov hiatus from the G-Man, team trivia is back on Friday nights. We’d all been rather lost with what to do on Friday evenings, that’s how ingrained trivia had become as a tradition for us. 🙂 Our team name was “TGIT – Thank God It’s Trivia,” and we managed to come from behind in the final question to win 1st place, so it was a great start. The final question was a good one too: “Which of these founding fathers were not present at the 1787 Constitutional Convention? a) Thomas Jefferson, b) Benjamin Franklin, c) George Washington, or d) James Madison.” Do you know the answer? Perhaps our favorite question of the night, though, was this one (category, ‘Landmarks’): “Hunting enthusiasts can visit the Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard in which state: a) Georgia, b) Alabama, or c) Mississippi.” Don’t click on the link unless you want the answer.
Jacob’s birthday was last Thursday, so in addition to lunch at Jamaica Junction followed by birthday cake made by Steph back in Walker on Thursday, then on Saturday night a bunch of us went out to Bar Bleu to hear some jazz by Andrew Jackson, which was fun. I didn’t stay out too late though, since I had to be at church at 8:15 the next morning.
Speaking of which, my playing piano with the worship band went really well this week! I didn’t actually get the music or start practicing until Thursday night, but it all came together relatively quickly. Or at least that’s what practicing for 3 hours in one evening can do. 🙂 Several meteo grads came along to the 10:30 service, Shannon, Steph, Jacob, Andrew, Kerrie, Daniel & Katie! I was really excited that they would all come visit my church to hear me play. Thanks for coming, guys! I really do appreciate it. I expect I’ll be playing a bit more frequently (maybe every 3 weeks or so) next semester.
Friday was a really interesting day weather-wise here in Pennsylvania. The day started out really warm, in the mid-upper 60s here in State College. A squall line developed to our west (associated with the same storm system that plunged the whole country into a cold snap and dumped a half a foot to a foot of snow from Oklahoma City to Chicago), getting Dr Markowski really excited (we spent the whole class period in Grad Synoptic just studying the situation, because there was a high potential for severe weather). Unfortunately the “State College Effect” reared its ugly head again, because the storms died as they approached us, but then reformed into an even stronger squall line off to our east (note the paucity of damage reports in central PA in the earlier link to see what I mean). About the time that that squall line was in full gear to our east and southeast (which was setting off another flurry of excited schoolkid-type emails from Marko, hehe), it dropped a tornado down a bit NE of Harrisburg, causing one fatality. I managed to borrow a key from Eugene for the second time in the day to get up on the roof of Walker to take pictures of the squall line, and this panoramic actually turned out quite well.

That’s about as good a severe weather event that we could ever expect to see in central PA in December. Or just about any time of year, for that matter. This place really sucks if you love severe weather… At any rate, since the front passed we’ve had occasional flurries and we’re headed for a low in the teens tonight. What a difference a couple of days makes.
Well, maybe I should try to get some reading done before heading out to Zeno’s for a bit to listen to Cootie Brown. And it’ll be jazz two nights in a row (and 3 out of 4, counting Andrew Jackson on Saturday) if I make it to Starbucks tomorrow evening from 6-8pm to catch Ed’s band Mobius Trip. Ahhh, a string of good music on the State College scene!