January 2008 Archives

I am slightly sad at the moment...

It snowed yesterday, hell, it was snowing lightly today...I want to go snowboarding...but I can't at the moment...

I am not sure why except that I am trying to be financially responsible at the moment, so instead of snowboarding, I bought my self a textbook, to be precise, Statistical Theory, which is a widely utilized book for mathematical statistical theory for graduate studies in statistics. [it is used at BYU]. I bought it because I thought it would be fun to do some homework in statistics when I am not taking classes and just working.

So that leads to the next realization, I hate working...okay, in reality I hate walking on slick ice covered sidewalks the mile to campus to go to my office to spend a few hours working a day. It is the ice that gets me...really, I dont like the ice at all...Already have slipped and fell on my ass way too many times in the last couple of days. Which is odd...I like the snow and the slopes but I do not like the ice...

Today, I accomplished nothing...absolutely nothing...I spent a few hours working on something and had nothing go right...I was trying to create a program or at least the lines of code that would pare down a massive [20 million plus] data set to a much smaller one [1 or 2 million], the problem that I had guidelines on how it was to be implemented...and SAS was not being nice to me...so after 4 frustrating hours of having everything work right individually, I couldnt get it to work together...something to look at in the morning...

That leaves my current activities, I sit at home working on a couple of side things I have been wanting to get done...to demonstrate the need of a life of some sort, I have 2 books I have been wanting to read for some time, I think I bought them a better part of 2 or 3 years ago. The both are about the same thing but with different twists. The first is Writing about Numbers and the other is Writing about Multivariate Analysis. Yeah I am enjoying the work though. I have spent the last several night working slowly thru the first one. I am learning about the appropriate manner in which one is to write about numbers. Some of it make sense from the simple stance I have a degree that deals with reporting numbers [numbers without context dont make sense], the others have been interesting to have illustrated, particularly no matter how well you think a number is able to stand, there is a little interpreting that can augment it.

Upon looking at my various papers over the last year, I can see how that one addition of interpreting my results a little more or adding a little more context could have improved the assignments. This is what I find a relaxing read now that I am not bogged down with homework assignments for then next few months.

Oh well...

~u

I had a single amazon wish list [somehow it was and remains public]. At its height of existence 24 hours ago, it hit 32 pages...today I have a handful of things that i couldnt put other places on it. Now I have 5 wish lists and 4 of them inherited the lump sum of the first one.

I am proud that after working on it off and on all day today, I can say that two of the new lists are primarily things I want, but due to their expensive nature it will take some time to acquire them all. Alas, I just seem to be adding more to the lists than I am able to take off of them as I am getting more involved in writing and reading statistical stuff.

~u

So why even bother with them?

It is a serious question in my mind. Why should I even bother with resolutions? I have evidence over the years that they are a futile attempt to do and be something that never pans out. Last year I wrote [upon discovery of the list recently] that I wanted to be nicer. Admirable goal I think, I just don't think that I could live up to that. Beyonds that, I have previous lists [I am a pack rat I have things] where I have set goals of being up by a certain time, or achieving a certain grade point average or doing a set number of things. I cant recall a time where I have made it past January possibly even February actually working on those goals.

It was like the discovery of the old lists, I hadn't even spent the time to look at what I wanted to do from last year long enough this year to honestly say that I adopted those resolutions as goals. Rather I see them as the empty list they happen to be.

So do I have some resolutions this year. I think in part the answer is yes and no. I have set some life goals recently, I have mapped what that means and where I need to be. They pretty much serve as my goals. I do know that I am wanting to continue my educations, work on a masters leading to a PhD in statistics, but in order to accomplish that means grad school, which is a goal. Other than that and some ancillaries to the grad school I have no clue which way I am going or what the end should be...

I am currently thinking I am going wherever the wind may blow...some odd notion of not caring what I do, so long as I do something....

we will see...

~u