gina.txt

In high school my friends nicknamed me Tony Stark. To them I was a bit brash, loud, and loved tinkering with technology. Each of my friends in my friend group also named themselves after an Avenger, because it was one of our favorite pieces of media. We would even mail each other letters with our Avenger nicknames written on them; it was a respite over the mundane piles of schoolwork that we had to do during the week. It was all fun and games until my parents would read who the letter was addressed to. Tony Stark was a boy's name. I'm not a boy, am I? Why can't it be a girl's name? I could spend all day recounting about my high school days and how I didn't get along with my parents, how strict they were, how annoyed I was, and how we just didn't see eye-to-eye on many issues. And for the record, the answers to the questions above are: Yes I'm aware, no I'm not, and because I don't want it to be. Tony Stark is a smart-ass, Tony Stark gets to b...

Alternate title: "How many times do you beat your head against a wall before something sticks?" The first time I took Calc 2 was my second semester in college. I wanted to prove to people that I could in fact be a computer scientist, so I decided to study under the most difficult professor. If I could take it with the hardest professor, and pass, then surely I could prove everyone wrong. Surely, I was truly good enough to be a computer scientist.  Spoiler alert: That's not what happened. I realized what was happening and dropped the class. I tried retaking it over the summer, then failed. I waited to retake it again, and finally passed. Now, I could sit here and say that "if I just took the class with an easier professor" or "if I just studied ahead of time" or even "if I just took a break from school and waited for things to get better" that things would be different. And that's true, they would be different. But at the time, I was so co...

My friend states as we stare at the white board together. We spend a lot of time in the grad student lounge, mainly due to our own individual interests. The white board is a collection of doodles, equations, and thoughts from the last few months. None of that matters to us, as we stare at the circle I just drew on the white board.  "What does the circle have to do with any of this?" is how my friend responds. He's not frustrated, just genuinely confused at how I decide to describe the fundamental concepts of Electrical Engineering... with a circle.  "Well, its a drawing. It's like art," I say, much to his dismay. I see the look on his face, and realize I now have to explain myself. My friend isn't an art guy. Not because he can't do art, or doesn't like art. My friend isn't an "art guy" not because his thought process is much more logical, mathematical, reasonable. He's someone that can talk about math theories that go over my h...

I've started to notice that as I progress through my degree, I've been feeling increasingly more creative. I'm not too sure what it is, maybe its the fact that I've been drowning in math equations, or lab practicals, or both. Maybe it's the fact that I threw myself headfirst into an intellectually challenging degree program without the best preparation. Either way, there's a certain amount of creative energy that I feel has been lacking in my coursework as I progress through this degree.  And I personally don't enjoy that.  People tell me that I put in more effort in some of my creative projects than my own schoolwork. That's only partially true. I think I'm so motivated by the program I start to think about what I can apply my knowledge to; and since I don't know enough about my field, I'm just jumping into everything. This might be done to the detriment of my studies- or to the enhancement. I guess that's more opinion than fact. Is ther...