New West Quad photos

I'm all moved in! We had to evacuate from our old suites in South Quad because the University is having some work done on our big steam vent (among other things.) The new dorm is really nice. The furnishings are all new, and I don't think that anyone has ever used this floor before. The rooms are a bit smaller than the ones in the South Quad, but they also have a lot more light! I really like working here at my computer desk -- there's just the right balance between subdued lighting and daylight to be unobstrusive. Click the photo to see all my photos from USC, including the ones of the new dorm!

We didn't have a morning session with our REU program administrators this morning, so I got to sleep in! It is such a wonderful feeling! What makes today even better is we got a lot of work done. Steve and my faculty advisors are in a big meeting in Washington, but have keptin touch with email. It looks like we will finally get to the bulk of the coding in the next week or so... possibly even tackling more of the project than we had originally thought possible! We may even write two papers this summer instead of just one! (Wonder if they'll pay us for an extra one too. ;D)

The battery on my poor digital watch died sometime today, so I need to run out to Wally World to pick up another cheapskate timepiece.

In more interesting news, I just discovered a really great extension that works in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and more! It's called StumbleUpon, and helps you stuble upon all sorts of interesting websites you may never have found even with Google. When you sign up, you specify which areas of interest about which you would like to find websites, and simply click the Stumble! button. It's taken me to all sorts of great places today! The idea behind it is when you find a neat website, you tell Stumbler through the handy toolbar. If it's a site no one else has ever told Stumbler about, you just put it into a category and write a brief, optional comment.

I've already ordered merchandise off of a website I stumbled across. It's a great site called GardenGuides and has a nice herbs section. They have really great prices for bulk seeds! They're offering a pound of dill seeds for $10 -- that's about 160,000 seeds! You can, of course, buy them in much smaller quantities. I bought a "pinch" for 75 cents, which is apparently even larger than a normal seed packet you pick up at the garden shop. I'm looking for low-light, drought-tolerant, decorative and edible plants for college. I once had a jade plant in my room at PCC, but I couldn't give it enough light. It's now permanently enjoying our subtropical temperatures back home next to the lemon and orange trees on our front walk.

Another cool site I stumbled across is Investopedia. It has a lot of good information on investing for beginners. This is something I'm really interested in right now, seeing as I'm going to be graduating in a couple years from college and have no school debt. Check it out! They have an entire section on mutual funds!