Baseball history?

If the series this weekend is split 2-1 in favor of the sox, and Cleveland also goes 2-1, we are going to have a double tiebreaker, something that has never happened in baseball. Sox-Yanks for AL East, Loser of that vs Indians for wildcard. Of course, i hope the Sox sweep this weekend and it's not even a problem.

My dad and I are off to see the Johnson-Wakefield matchup. We saw the same matchup a couple weeks ago in New York, which ended up with Wakefield pitching a gem but Johnson still getting the win, 1-0.

Go Sox!

Young Dartmouth Alumni

I just returned from a Dartmouth Young Alumni event. I originally was not going to go, as my allergies have left me feeling very weak and icky, and I actually got sick from not eating anything and taking allergy medication...ick! I decided that these events happen once a year, so I should just suck it up and go.

Let me tell you, I may be a Dartmouth alumna, but I am certainly not a young one. Everybody at this event graduated in 2000 or after! Well, everybody except for the three other 96's and one '98 who eventually stood clustered in a corner.

It was open bar, so I made my way up for a drink. It was seriously like being in Theta Delt on a Wednesday night. People were ordering 4-5 drinks per person, and shoving against the bar. Very weird. I tried to leave the bar area so I could go to the adjacent bar and buy a drink, but the entrance was flooded with the young'uns.

So, as previously mentioned, I ended up talking with the three 96's. Who started talking about their kids. And that's why I'm back home at 8:35. =D

Weird night. I'm looking forward to this weekend when Oge, a fellow 96 and good friend, comes to Boston for a Saturday night pub crawl. woohoo! Then I'll feel like a young alum again....

Applying MIT Minds to Baseball Standings

Interesting column from Gordon Edes in today's Boston Globe about probabilities of the Sox taking the division or wild card

So you think you can Dance and Lost

I was supposed to get lots of work done last night, but my allergies are making me really foggy, so I found myself in front of the TV for my two favorites shows.

So You Think You Can Dance was excellent. The four finalists deserved to be there. The only exception I may have made was trading Jamile for Blake because I believe Blake to be way more versatile. Of course, that may be because my own style is more similar to Blake's =D. However, Jamile definitely has the better personality, so yay!. I am rooting for Ashle to win. She is a stunning dancer; she looks natural doing any type of dancing. Ooo...blanking on the non-Jamile guy, but he is my choice for second. Third would be Melody...she's a gorgeous dancer, but always reverts back to the same ol' lyrical tricks. Anyway, that's my take.

And Lost kicked butt as always. I know people TiVo this show, so won't say too much about it, except that the first half was pretty slow but the last 15 minutes kicked butt.

Okay, think I've procrastinated enough...I have a big presentation at noon. It's at the point where I really can't look at it anymore or touch any of the software, so I'm kind of floating along in my allergy haze. =)

Things that scare Ilana...

Commitment! Nah, just kidding. What scares me is learning new technologies such as DSM that when Googled point primarily to educational sites. Robbie's and Yoav's blogs were actually among the top results. Maybe it doesn't scare me so much as frustrate me. I just feel I could be spending my time more effectively by learning technologies and techniques that are more accepted by industry standards.

Go, Sox!

Katie and I headed to Fenway last night after work, but the game was rained out. We met up with Jeff and Steve and went to Jillian's for drinks instead. It was a very fun time.

Today, Katie and I once again made our way over to Fenway. The day was perfect: sunny, breezy, gorgeous. Jeff came over to sit with us in the 7th inning. It was a great game! Sox won 3-1. Everybody stayed until the very end of the game. I really didn't see any of the crowd leaving early.

After the game, we went to Jeff's apartment to pick up his very well-behaved chocolate lab Riker. We walked Riker across the bridge to Katie's car in the west lot annex. Jeff, Riker, and I then made our way over to building one, where I planned to see if I could catch up with John Haj or anyone on my project management team as they filed out of class. I unfortunately missed them all. Of course, the author of the delightful note below was one of the few folks I ran into. Nah, that wasn't at all awkward. Then I walked to the west annex lot with John Wang, who I really haven't seen much this term and was great to catch up with.

All in all, a wonderful afternoon! Now I am going to try to punch out some of the software engineering homework and business of software stuff before my next project meeting.

Boston Women: Beware of Taxis

Those of you who have ever gone out on the town with me know that I hate taking taxis by myself, and would prefer to walk as long as the walk is on crowded streets.

Here is a good reason to buddy up when taking cabs:
Scary article

Thanks to my mom for this information.

No traffic on 128!!!!

I had barely any traffic on my way into work today! That in itself is blogworthy. From gym to MITRE took 18 minutes where it normally takes at least 30. Hit a little traffic at route 3, but never came to a complete stop. I'm so happy....yay! It truly is the little things in life....

Outstanding instructors

I think Professor Leveson has potential to end up in my Outstanding Instructors category. I believe this to be a group of people who know their subjects and are effective at passing this information along. Here are my members so far and what they taught:

Junior high: Ms. Dow (Gifted and talented general classes), Mrs. Engdahl (English)
High School: Mr. Pane (English), Ms. Conley(English)
College: Prof Saccio (Shakespeare), Prof Rassias (French)
Grad: ?
Other: Lisa Kaplan (Jazz/Lyrical dance), Ahron Davidi (religious school) (No, he's not in here just because he is my dad)

Looking back, I can see why I was influenced to study English literature and creative writing in college after having such great teachers in my younger years.

Back to the present, I really enjoy Leveson's teaching style as well as the reasonable amount and type of work she assigns. The three-hour class goes by like nothing.

Taguchi

Ohmigod....I was just putting on eye makeup, getting ready to go out, when i thought back to our chat today. I laughed so hard AGAIN I almost put out an eye.

Hand-in-hand up the hill, giggling rolling down the hill, into the hay...

(Sorry to non-chatters. Definitely a location joke.)

Good news

Actually, great news. Legislation will require that pets be evacuated as well as people. See CNN article

As for bad news, I am completely ignoring the Red Sox right now, including the fact that Foulke is out for the season.

VCR/So You think you can Dance Result

I didn't set the VCR up properly. I got an hour of blue screen.

At least the people I wanted to be voted off got voted off (Ashlee and Jamile got to stay)

So sad I didn't get to see it...I'm hooked on that show.

Profile viewing count still stuck

My profile count is still stuck at 666. What's up with that???

HOLY CRAP LOST WAS SO GOOD

WOW....okay, I wasn't on pins and needles over the summer, but I definitely wondered what happened after the season finale. Not going to give anything away here, but usually the premier of the next season SUCKS. This one absolutely did not. Wow. Who writes this stuff????

Lost!!!

Lost starts back up tonight!!!!! I am so excited. SUCH a good show. Unfortunately, it is on at the same time as "So You think you can Dance." This means I am going to have to use my VCR to record "Dance," as I will be out to dinner during the shows. Should be an interesting challenge. I heart my TiVo.

Not much else knew. I spent the day at the offsite for my department. I have so few hours in the day to spare between work and school that any time wasted driving really irks me. The drive up there took 1.5 hours in the morning, and 1 coming back. Sigh... It's fun to see everybody though.

Autumn starts oooo....five minutes ago. Good-bye, Summer. I will miss you. You will live on forever in my heart and in my tanning booth. (Yes I am committing to staying tan this year! Of course, I always say that and never do. Please no comments on how bad it is for my health.)

Okay, gotta go figure out the VCR. Should be fun.

"What's it like being one of so few girls?"

That is a question I am often asked about being one of 5 women in a 61-person class at MIT. I always answer that the guys treat me with so much respect that sometimes I don't even notice the large gender gap. However, this morning, that respect was broken when I received the following email from a classmate. It is in response to him having received my profile as a potential match on a dating site (yes, I'm out there)

Email starts here:

Jesus Christ, Ilana, you got emailed to me as a match. You’re aren’t you?

So. How about a little incest? Anyone with as much mutual hatred as we started out with is bound to give it a go, in the movies at least.

What are you doing on Yahoo anyway? It's because I told you I was on there isn't it--not that you came on there for me, but I made you think of Yahoo Personals. Did you pay for Yahoo or just do free post?

Let’s go for it. Mmm. . .cohort incest. You know I actually did have a Moment of Lust for you, didn’t think it was possible. Looking at your calves, tanned calves, sitting down, very nice. Very beautiful, tanned Ilana, hate to admit it, but there it is. One moment to just reach down and brush that calf with my palm. Didn’t do it of course.

You want me to write you on the service? Pick you up like a stranger? LOL, it’s all a game. So funny, so exciting, and in the end, so very sad. Yet we all play, one way or another, online or off.

-----
Now here's the game: I'm not going to write who this person is, but I bet my fellow classmates can guess. Try not to vomit.

Meeting luck

Some of you may remember my incident of 2003, my first meeting at MITRE in which I went to use the ladies room before and somehow broke the side zipper on my pants. It wouldn't zip back up. I ended up having to rush back to my office and staple my pants to keep them on. I kept checking my pants throughout the meeting, and never noticed that the middle button of my blouse was unbuttoned the whole time, exposing my bra. Woohoo!

Today I went to use the lady's room before a big presentation. I glanced down at one point and realized, "Hmm...I usually can't see the floor through my pants. When I pulled them back up and felt the air conditioning, I realized what was wrong. They had somehow split from front to back up the, umm, butt seam. So my pants were gaping open, and I was trapped in the ladies room. 10:47. My meeting is at 11:00am. I took my jacket off, wrapped it around my waist, bolted for my office (which I now of course share with a boy), grabbed my sewing kit, and ran back to the bathroom. Of all the domestic skills, I believe my sewing to be among the best, right up there with my cookie baking. I managed to sew up the pants, grab my laptop, and be ready for the meeting at 11:00.

The clients showed up at 11:35.

Sinking feeling in my tummy....

Yankees won. Sox are losing. Top of the eigth, down 6-7.

Check me out!

Ummm....my profile has now been viewed 666 times. Not that I'm a suspicious girl or anything, but I can't help but remember that both the Sox and the Pats lost today. Can somebody please click on my picture to the right and boost me up to 667?

System architecture analogy

For my system arch class, we need to do a grid in which there are a number of system architect experts listed across the top, then three categories along the side: product, design process, and implementation process. Each of these has a line for each of the basic questions: how, what, why, when, where, how much, who.

I am really struggling to see the relationship between the rows and columns. To me it seems as if you put baseball teams across the top (Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles, Braves, etc.) and on the side had three categories: pasta (spaghetti, ziti, fussilli...), carpet type (shag, persian, throw), and music type (rock, country, classical). If you stretch your mind, you can make these connections: the Red Sox live in Boston where there is a tunnel, so they like ziti.

The whole thing is just so incongruous, and I am getting very frustrated trying to make everything fit. Is anybody else running into this for opp set 1, question 4? Or am I missing something that would make this job incredibly easy?