Small world.

Nan told me once that there was some basketball movie which had one of our class mates as an 'extra.' Last night while watching Coach Carter I discovered not just Danny from Exeter but also Inches from CTY had parts in the movie.

It's a bit weird thinking about someone you know breaking into acting the hard way, Danny had a couple of shots in which the camera was on him for more than a second. In one scene he was the last player in line glaring at Samuel Jackson, so when the camera paused for effect at the end of a pan that swept the team, Danny's glare (which was quite funny) got a bit of camera time. The other shot in which I remember him was during the epic last game jumping and tearing at his shirt in anxiety over the course the game was taking.

People I know are meeting each other EVERYWHERE. This doesn't not help grow my social network :(

Statement of Purpose

I want to go to graduate school for operations research because:
-Optimization and Stochastic Processes. These are some big ways in which I mentally simplify life for myself. Breaking down a problem into it's own steps, modelling possibilities/choices/knowledge as probabilities, considering expected values and variances of assorted situations.
-Research. I really enjoy the the experience of learning. The stress-release/dawning feeling is one of the most powerful and wonderful parts of life. Learning something before anyone else adds a feeling adventure and progress. Adding to humanity's body of knowledge makes me happy and proud.
-Academia. Surrounding myself with the most intelligent people is a great way to force me to excel, learn new ways of thinking, and makes it viable to forge new friendships with the people who will push me and expand my world view in the future.

Two pages of this stuff.... eventually.