It has been brought to my attention that I have neglected to post about *several* baking attempts. OMG!111eleven.

Since last month there have been four additional attempts at coming up with the least healthy dessert. If I remember correctly, they were (in no particular order): more apple pie, baklava, cheesecake, and blueberry pie.

It's six weeks into Semester II at UVa. I can tentatively say that I'm getting more work done than well... any time in recent history. It seems like last semester was mostly fun and games compared to my current schedule...

Speaking of schedules... A bunch of my friendly neighborhood grad students have conned me into using Google Calendar. The result is very artistic; the screenshot shows my calendar intersected with those of seven others. My own schedule (in light blue) is not quite as daunting by itself, fortunately.

I've been TAing CS415, the undergraduate version of Programming Languages. I commonly refer to it as baby PL or μPL. In addition to attending class, grading, and all the usual fun, I also get to do discussion sections on Mondays and Wednesdays. To give you an idea of what these are like, here are some notes I prepared for the childrens [sic]: Section One and Section Four. The discussion sections take up way too much time, but they're highly entertaining (e.g. when I trick my students into proving something that's impossible 8-)). Rewarding... almost.

Winter break is pretty much halfway done over here. It's been unusually quiet, especially compared to last summer's whirlwind of theme park visits, dinners, and the occasional partay / barhop. There have been two visits to my brother's second home, much hanging out with Nathan, who rocks, and much vegetating. One of those visits to HP de Flapcan was during New Year's Eve, which I spent in Haarlem with my brother.

It's that time of the year again. I arrived in The Netherlands just in time to hear my favorite weather guy, Piet Paulusma, proclaim that we would not be having snow on either Christmas day (we have two). Whenever I visit this place it's him declaring either that or its summer cousin, "it's not a heat wave until the temperature reaches X at location Y." Shorter version: people here like to keep track of the weather, even though it mostly just rains. And I like it that way... strangely enough.

The end of the semester had a few highlights. The main highlight was the semester... ending. I also went fencing with Professor Weimer Wes and Isabelle. The pictures and movie were made by Isabelle -- thanks!

The semester ended, got some grades, nothing terribly exciting.

Remember last year? I spent Thanksgiving break trying to cram a couple of thousand 'GRE words' at a hotel in DC. The whole trip was a little last minute -- I got one of the last GRE slots at Howard. I flew in from Colgate on a Monday, leaving DC again on Saturday. Also the whole 'must kick GRE ass' aspect made the whole thing a little stressful. Either way -- it was a good break, I did well on the GREs, and life was good.

This year's trip took me back to the Tringalis; my first 'actual' stop there. In the past I've always been on my way elsewhere (home, Charlottesville) when I stayed with them. In summary: I slept a lot, ate a lot, saw a lot of different busses and trains, and had a ball. It was good seeing some of my favorite major cities again -- I was in DC for a few hours on Wednesday (on my way up), and I spent Friday afternoon in NYC. Special thanks to Tringalis for helping me retain my sanity

In addition to having a lot of fun, I also did no work while I was in NJ. Cheers 8-P