Check it. I passed.

Just some minor changes and some more submissions and I'm done!

Chest Pains

Tomorrow I present my Masters report. I am so nervous. I think I'll be fine, but just knowing that I have to do it, makes me rather uneasy. Oh, I'll be glad when its over. To add to the fun of giving the biggest presentation in my life so far in just 15 hours, my major professor may not be there! She got a call from her sister yesterday saying that her father had chest pains and went to the emergency room. He live a few states away and when I talked to her she didn't know how serious it was. I still haven't heard anything, so hopefully it all is fine.

My Report

I turned in my copies of my Masters report to my committee members. I present on Tuesday June 1oth.

A Change in the Wind Says I

I just printed off a copy of my master report for someone besides me to proofread before I give it to my major professor to chew on. I printed all but the code, no one needs to proofread that. Included the code though, it is 76 pages long. I'm glad to be done writing and simulating. Now I just have to clean things up and make a presentation. Yay!

This is good because we have a start date for our jobs now, Monday June 16th. That is one month from tomorrow. Before that day, I will present my report, turn in a final copy, and buy a house.

Indeed the accepted our second offer. I am so excited. I really the like the house we are getting and the neighborhood and hopefully the new life as a whole! We are planning on closing on June 6th. Everything has been smooth so far, so we'll see what happens. Yay.

P.S. My aunt from NJ should be here soon. yay!

Square in the Fun Target

I've had a short break from working on my masters report recently. Ever since I've been willing to admit that I won't be presenting on the 7th, I've relaxed a little and had some nights at home. I don't sit in front of my lap top and Shannon's watching the log window of SAS hoping that nothing red pops up. The simulations ran for 11 hours on my computer and 20 on Shannon's. But that step is over and now I just have to finish writting it all up.


In other news. I painted some black orcs! They go along with my lil' goblins. I started them a while ago and finally finished them this weekend. Next up, some new grave guard.

Resources Not Available

I've been in my office since about 11:00am today, and it's just about 9:00pm now. For as much SAS as I've ran, I don't have much done. Explaining why will somewhat support the name of this blog.

I'm generating normal data that is representing data from an experiment. In the experiment they start with right skewed data, take the log10 transformation of it, and then end with normal data.

So what I thought I needed to do was make normal data, exponentiate it base 10, then I'd have the skewed data. But my major professor says I need to exponentiate it base e. She said, we are assuming the skewed data is lognormal. This means that we are assuming if we exponentiate it base e it will be normal, and this is just because of what it means to be lognormal. When I don't see it.

Wikipedia says the base doesn't matter. But Shannon's theory book is locked in his office so I can't check that. I guess I just don't care anymore. I'll just do what she says and then be done with it. I am so tired of looking at this stuff and hoping that its right. I just won't hope anymore.

Well...

As you may know, I've been working on my Masters, oh about all the time. Shannon and I get to school at 7:30 and besides my hour+/- long lunch I am on campus (usually in my office) until at least 9:30. Today it'll be about 10:15. Today is also the only day I didn't spend the whole time coding and writing. Instead I graded my student's exams. I still have a report that they turned in 2 weeks ago to grade, but that'll get done some other night.

The 14 hour long days have been paying off. I've gotten a lot done. But still a lot more ahead of me. Shannon helped out the efforts today by delivering a survival package consisting of a 12-pack of Coke, a Powerade, an Arizona green tea, a loaf of bread, some soup at hand, some Hershey's kisses, a Twix bar, a Powerbar, an apple, and some Nutrigrain bars. Now, don't worry, I didn't eat it all today. Only about half of it. :)

The food helps, the support helps, the times then the code works helps, there a lot of help involved. I can't possibly let it all go to waste, now can I?

A Minute of Non-SAS

Thursday my major professor kicked me. Not literally, but motivatingly, but I don't think she directly meant to. I went up to ask about turning in an abstract on Friday so I could get my name in the program for graduation. She basically said that she didn't think we needed to worry about that because I might not finish in time for graduation.

Wow.

I was so bummed, super-bummed. I tried to find words to say that made sense, but I didn't do a very good job. I expressed to her my desire to finish before I move to Tulsa for my new job. I think that was the first time she heard of me moving. The last news she had was that Shannon and I were looking to stay in Manhattan.

I left her office feeling very sad and defeated.

In a response to this event, I have spent a lot of time working on my simulations for my report. Thursday I could only work for about 2 hours. But Friday I spent from 1:30 to 7:00 working in my office. And today I've been here since about 3:00. I've got a lot done, but still have so much more to go. I do not want to miss graduation and have to come back in the summer to defend my report. I will get done by May 16th. I mean, that is still over a month away.

So, don't expect me to be doing much from now until I'm done. Beside my house-hunting trip to Tulsa this Thursday, I'll be doing a lot of sitting in my office and looking at my computer.

Means Matrix

Today I worked on my Masters report for a while. I even enlisted the help of Shannon and his mad programming skills. It's always nice when things finally work out.

In other, less academic, news...Last Saturday we played our Alumni Game in Junction. We lost, the alumni out scored us 10 to 5 in the end, I believe. But it was a good time and we had about 30 people come out to watch us. It's nice to get to play close to home. It'll be really nice when we get to play in Manhattan. I'm really glad that the new rec center expansion will have a hockey facility. Sweet.

Saturday evening, I then drove down to Wichita to watch/listen to Jayme play her tuba at the Wichita State University Contemporary Music Festival. The music, since it was contemporary, was interesting. Jayme's piece had a CD to go along with. It was pretty cool, and as always, she played well! We didn't' get to stay for all of it because Nicki wanted to go "bye-bye".


I did however, get to hear my little niece make some music of her own. Jayme got her a children's harmonica and Nicole just is figuring out how to use it. She puts it to her mouth and breaths in and out really really fast. It occasionally makes a sound and that just encourages her to do it even more even faster. She leans into the thing so much that I'm surprised she doesn't just topple over. I just love that kid. She's adorable, black eye and all!