Erm...

I had a lot I thought about saying, but I'll just be angsty for a bit.

One would think that in a male-dominated area such as physics the chances would be high of meeting someone you click with. As the saying goes, "the odds are good but the goods are odd." At UCI, however, the odds are not even good. Everyone I'm close with is in a relationship. There are guys that I am kind of interested in, but the physics department is so fucked up that I'm not sure I want to deal with that. I briefly alluded to this earlier, but there is/was/whatever a boy (Main Boy). One of the girls (Acquaintance) said to another girl (Good Friend) that they should set me up with Main Boy. The main players in this story plus others go out one night. Acquaintance pushes me and Main Boy together to dance, but by the end of the night Acquaintance and Main Boy are possibly making out and definitely holding hands on the car ride home. I would like to meet other people, but since I live in my office and do work all the time this seems less than likely. Plus I've only dated physicists and engineers so I don't know what I would do with someone that isn't in my field. The only times I've met people that I've truly cared about/loved romantically have been over the summer in Ojai. I suppose there was also Best Guy Friend, but he wasn't a physicist and that didn't work out so much. Dr. Zook has nine cats now. I don't want to end up like her. Nor do I want to end up like Bridget Jones (I watched Bridget Jones's Diary the other day, which prompted this wallowing).

Advice?

I don't know whom I should work for. Help me decide. Since this is what I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing, I need lots of input and advice. I don't want to get bored after six months like I did with my thesis.

I think I would really like to work for Aaron Barth. He does research on black holes, which are awesome. He also has a project with Carnegie (CINGS). It's hard for me to gauge what exactly his students do, though. I've also heard that by coincidence he only works with women. I get the impression that that might also be partly by design. It's a joke throughout the department. He's not theory, though, which I always thought I wanted to do. Also, Jonelle is always in her office working, and I don't want to be like that. I should talk with her and Carol about what they're doing. I've heard he can be a bit harsh, but he's always been nice to me, so...

Up next is Manoj Kaplinghat. His website is not very informative beyond the fact that he does theoretical cosmology. Maybe I should send him an e-mail. I'm scared about theory, though, because my programming skills are not that great. I suppose I can always work on that, but I'm still afraid. I should be more confident, generally. I think I would do better on tests. But back to Manoj. I have no idea what he does. Reading his CV and publications titles it looks like gravitational lensing and dark matter, which I am interested in.

Asantha Coray. His work looks interesting, but what I would be doing looks like straight up data reduction. So...boring. Also, he's in charge of the GAANN, and if I lose that it would be embarrassing to work for him.

I also think working with James Bullock could be interesting. I know lots of people working for him, but therein lies the rub. He has a lot of students working for him. Perhaps too many for him to take on more. He does theory, as well. I think mostly numerical simulation, which is not quite up my alley.

Lastly is David Buote. He does x-ray stuff similar to what I did at Carnegie. I'm sort of tired of that stuff. Apparently his last grad student did a horrible job and I've heard he's not taking more students (possibly because of that, possibly because of money). He seems weird.

I'm too tired to continue writing. I'm so tired all the time. If you have thoughts let me know.

Weekend Update

Friday:

Prospective students come. Dinner at Professor Barwick's house. Exact same menu as when I visited. This group seemed pretty cool. After dinner, we go to the pub, where one of the propies goes from cool guy to douche in a short amount of time. Apparently UW will give him a window and a computer. Then go to UW and stare at the gray sky the entire year. We don't like you, anyway. Prospective students leave. Shitshow. Special shout-out/thank you to Joe and Carl.

Saturday:

Do a few Jackson problems. Tire of that and watch Zero Effect with Ben Stiller and Bill Pullman. Jesi comes over so we can go to Erik's party. Right before we go, I ask, "Does it smell like burning candles?" Apparently the top of my Nalgene was on top of the heating coil in the dishwasher and it melted. Now I have no Nalgene. At Erik's, the heel of my boot breaks. Two weeks ago I ripped the corner of one of my fitted sheets trying to fit it over the mattress. Personal items damaged: three. I also got weirdly hit on outside the bathroom at Erik's. This guy was like, "I know this is weird, but I just wanted to know your name." He says this as I'm washing my hands. As he goes in the bathroom he says, "I also wanted to tell you you're really pretty."

Sunday:

Sleep until noon, which is rare. Read. Fall asleep reading. Don't get a lot done.

I want a Cocker Pug.

Blah.

This is the second time that someone has tried to set me up with a guy only to end up hooking up with him herself. The first time I didn't mind, since I didn't really know the guy, but this time I'm a bit irked. I feel like I'm perpetually the second choice, even with guys I have dated.

I don't feel like doing any work today. I just want to watch TV and dick around on the internet. Boo, school!