Boulder Update

The cool kids are writing "settling into grad school" blog posts, so I figure I might as well join the club:

The living situation is solid. Living with 5 other people isn't that different from living with 3, and when everybody has their own rooms, it's actually a lot easier. The guys are all fairly chill and I don't see too much potential for personality clashing, which is a huge relief. I don't have an abundance in common with anybody, but that's where my diverse knowledge and interest base pays off. I've had plenty of good times chilling and getting to know the roommates, either procrastinating around the house or out at the bars. I'm actually pretty excited that we've got a "regular" bar nearby in the form of Southern Sun Pub and Brewery, which is less than a 10 minute walk.

My only complaint lies in the kitchen. We've got too much stuff too poorly organized, and most of it is of pretty crappy quality. Trying to keep all of my tools straight and in a place where I can find it is an exercise in futility. Fortunately, I have a knife magnet now which houses a handful of tools that I need regularly, and I've had enough money to slowly pick up the few things we need (still need to get a couple of reasonably sized skillets, though). More irksome, for whatever reason, nobody seems particularly interested in eating what I'm making if they're being asked to chip in. It makes it hard to make not only more elaborate meals, but also simple things like soup unless I want to be eating it for days.

Boulder itself is pretty awesome. After a lifetime in the Midwest, dry heat is a wonder to behold. Being able to walk two miles in 90 degree weather and barely start to sweat is amazing. There's plenty to do in town, though my previous sciatica issues have made me hesitant to do a whole lot of hiking or any climbing, no matter how much the housemates want me to. The house is in a great location. Besides Southern Sun, we're also withing easy walking distance of both groceries (~.5 miles) and school (~2 miles) as well as several decent restaurants. We've also got nearby bus stops for the inevitable day when I can't walk to school.

Classes are good. I started out not particularly caring about Program Analysis, but the more I think about some of the work I'm interested in -- particularly abstractions for concurrency -- the more I realize how essential verification is going to be if I want people to take my research seriously. It will probably get rough once we get into project territory, but I'll be grateful for it down the road. User Centered Design started out slow but is getting more interesting. We're currently talking a lot about designing for accessibility to those with disabilities, which isn't anything I've thought about a lot before. The professor is also very interested in programming language comprehensibility and is excited to have a student in the class who wants to do some work in that area.

Research is less good. It turns out that my advisors and the group we're working with from CSU got their wires crossed when first discussing the project. When I came in, they thought we were going to be verifying policies for on-the-fly reconfiguration of smart power grids to ensure constant energy delivery and writing a DSL to describe these topology changes. It turns out that they just want us to optimize an algorithm for doing cost-benefit analysis on running feeder lines between sections of a smart grid. This isn't remotely in the realm of Programming Languages/Verification research, and it's not even kind of a year-long problem, but the first step is to do what they want from us. As a result, I'm banging my head against crazy statistical algorithms and MATLAB. This is just making me more convicted that I need to take some time to generate excitement about the work I want to do and possibly start up on reviving some of my old senior research project code.

Finally, I'm surprised by how grateful I've been for the InterVarsity Graduate Christian Fellowship group. Usually hearing the word "Evangelical" is enough to make me suspicious, but these are the sorts of evangelicals who would come to school some place like Boulder. I haven't had to deal with a lot of judgmental, conservative "personal relationship with Jesus" BS, which is a huge relief. My understanding of Christianity definitely differs from that of most of the other people, but it's good for me to be made to read and think about the Bible once or twice a week. It's also just a good social outlet. It's easy to call people up to go down to Pearl Street or just to sit and visit after small group on Wednesdays (which, fortunately, meets at our house). Last week we had about 20 people over for a game night that lasted a good seven hours (I highly recommend both Bang!, which is like a more elaborate Mafia, and Small World, which reminds me of a streamlined History of the World in many ways). Tonight I'm heading out to a Nepalese restaurant with some folks. Should be good times.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty settled at this point and life is, as usual, mostly good. Glad to be where I am, even if I only have the slightest idea of where I'm going.