A full year.

What a year it has been. I have enjoyed every single second living in Dublin and am excited to be back! I just barely got back into Dublin from visiting my family in Utah for a month. Between meeting the new addition (a nephew), being a bridesmaid in my brother's wedding, and traveling from city to city all over Utah, the month was an eventful one! It was wonderful seeing my family and being around them for a longer time, but I am cannot deny that I was excited to come back to Ireland.

First and foremost, I completed my Master's degree at UCD! The course work was extremely tough and I was definitely not prepared. When my course work started, I thought it was the most challenging work that I have done yet, and it pushed me to my limits.  Don't get me wrong. This was a good thing. And I wouldn't be lying if I said I would have it any other way. But I cannot deny that my self-esteem wasn't affected. Truth is, I am grateful that I was pushed so much and that I struggled through the year. I failed courses and got the lowest scores that I have ever had in my life, but I also didn't let that stop me. I took that failure and disappointment with myself and just worked harder. I wouldn't let that stop me from doing what I set out to do. It wasn't easy and I had my doubts. But I let my strengths work to my advantage, and everything worked out in my favor.

I did the bulk of my work within Matrix Theory, collaborating solely with Dr. Helena Smigoc. I concentrated on the Nonnegative Inverse Eigenvalue Problem (NIEP) writing an expository thesis on majority of the work already completed within the problem. I concentrated on the Real NIEP, only mentioning the Symmetric and Complex cases.

The NIEP was first posed by Suliemanova in 1949 when she asked 'given a list of real numbers where one of the numbers is positive, the remaining are negative and the sum of the entire list is positive, can we obtain a nonnegative matrix where the list turns out to be the spectrum of the matrix?' Work had been done within the NIEP but it wasn't until 1956 when Perfect and Friedland properly proved Suliemanova's question using the companion matrix of a polynomial and Descartes' Rule of Signs. In my thesis, I looked at three different methods applied to the NIEP; the use of the companion matrix presented by Perfect and Friedland, Brauer’s theorem, and Fiedler’s construction for nonnegative symmetric matrices. Each one of these methods gives us a different proof of Suleimanova’s result. 

I am very happy with how my paper turned out and was even happier with my presentation. I was so worried prior to the day I had to defend because of potential questions that may be asked. I had no clue what to expect and the uncertainty made me very nervous. It turns out that I had nothing to worry about; there were no questions. Everybody seemed to understand the material. What an experience! I was so grateful when it was over but at the same time I was really sad to be done. If you would like to see the paper I will upload it here. 

I presented my work on a Wednesday then I moved out of my place in Windy Arbour to a place in the City Centre near the Guinness Brewery that Saturday/Sunday. Once I moved, I flew back to Utah the next Tuesday. Needless to say that was a very, very busy week!! Which led into a busy month of family get-togethers. 

This past year has been crazy fun! I have had the opportunity to travel to different parts of Ireland, Scotland, England, and Germany. I am excited to keep the adventure going as I am now looking into different job positions as well as a variety of PhD programs all over the world. I hope to land something soon! Wish me luck! 

Irish address.

I was at the lowest point, sitting on my little bed in Hilda’s house, laptop in hand, talking to my brother, looking up places online. I had practically given up with trying to find a place and I was toying with the idea of hiring an agent to do all the dirty work. It was late at night, almost midnight, and the exhaustion was getting the best of me. I was tired, lonely, and upset that nothing was working out and no one was getting back to me. As I went to bed, I knew what I was going to do in the morning. 

The next day, I borrowed Hilda’s phone and went into my room and saw my list of houses that I have tried to contact. Glancing through them I noticed one that I had tried to get ahold of a while back and thought, what the hell, I’ll try calling him first- you never know. I can always call the agents after. 

After two rings, a man named Gerry answered the phone. He told me there was another girl there looking at the house and wondered if I was able to come over right then. Naturally, this got my excited since it was so difficult to get a response, let alone get a viewing. I told him I could be there in 30 minutes and I left right then. 

Sitting there, drinking tea with them, I knew that this was right. He offered me the place right then and there. Telling me I could move in the next day. Knowing that I would finally have an Irish address, I was one happy girl. It is such an amazing feeling knowing that I have a place to live here and that I can call it my own (to the extent of having roommates). 

My room is an average sized room. It has a wardrobe, a nightstand, and a double bed. The bed is probably the only thing that is not good. Sleeping on that bed is worse than sleeping on the ground with rocks under you with no sleeping bag. It is all springs- no padding. I am going to talk to the landlord, Gerry, when he comes by to help the new girl move in, and hopefully, this bed will be gone soon and replaced with another one, a better one! Right now, I have every single blanket that I could find under my down comforter trying to pad it, but that is not helping. If he doesn’t get me a new bed (which I think he will) but if he doesn’t, I will get one of those memory pads that goes on top the mattress- a very thick memory pad. Hopefully, that will help… hopefully.

The house itself is a three bed, three bath in Windy Arbour. It is pretty nice and in a good location, about 20 minutes away from campus, in a family residence that is very safe. We are getting it all cleaned, moving things around and making it feel like our own. The one roommate that I am currently living with is actually American. Her name is Erin from DC and is doing a Masters in Sports Management. We both moved in at the same time and are waiting for the last girl to move in. The past couple of days have been good, getting to know her and getting situated. Yesterday, we interview a girl from Cork who is doing a Masters in Science and Business. (I don’t really understand what her degree entails, so don’t ask.)  We also interviewed a girl from Italy, studying Educational Child Psychology, but she was so demanding it was crazy. Not nice at all and she kept telling us that she would take the place but only because it was a last resort and that she wasn’t happy with it at all. By the end of the conversation, she had told us her opinion on everything. Needless to say, Erin and I both agreed that the girl from Cork was the best candidate. She was more respectful and you could tell that she actually wanted the place. We called Gerry, our landlord who couldn’t make it to the meeting, and told him what we thought and he decided to meet up with her and offer her the room. We are not sure when she is moving in, but I am sure within the next couple of days. 

I am so happy that I was able to find a place and unpack my suitcases. Not having your own place, not having your own things around you, it does something to you. I know some people can do it for long periods of time, but I need to have my own place. I need to be able to unpack and relax. I think the only time that I could do it is if I knew that I was only traveling and that I would eventually go home to my place. Needless to say, I am happy that I have an Irish Address and that I have one less stress off my shoulders. 

Now, I just have to make it through orientation on Wednesday…. eeek.

Irish Salmon... is it any better?

For dinner tonight, Hilda made salmon. Yes, salmon. Now, for those of you who know me very well. you know what happens to me when I eat salmon. So, I bet your wondering what exactly happened; did I eat it, did I gag, did I have to almost run to the bathroom to throw-up, or did I like it? 

Well, wonder away, cause I am going to tell you about something else thats on my mind, quite literally.

I have a massive headache right now, and do you know why? It's because of this Terribly Tiny TV (say that 5 times fast). I don't think I could possibly tell you how much I hate this TV, but I will sure try. 

It is horrible and I hate it because it has given me the worst headache that I have had in a long time. It is in the worst spot for the room and is at the worst height. I know what your thinking right now, you probably looked back at the picture to see where it is located and saw that it is in the corner, right? Well, lets get a better look, shall we? 

It is above the only window that opens and you have to go under the stupid TV to open the window because you can't reach the window otherwise. Therefore, BONK! You hit your head. 

I have hit my head at least four, count them 4, times today between opening the window or just getting into my bags. And, mind you, I didn't just lightly tap my head and have it hurt for just a second. No, I whacked the bottom of that idiotic TV so hard that I had to go into the bathroom and make sure I wasn't bleeding. Luckily, I wasn't but I do have some massive goose-eggs on my noggin. And, naturally, I forgot my headache medicine, so I had to borrow some from Hilda and Joe. It hasn't kicked in and I don't think it will. 

Now, that I got that off my chest (not out of my head), I will answer those suspenseful questions regarding the fishy dinner. 

Yes, I ate it. No, I didn't gag. No, I didn't throw-up. And, I didn't really taste it, so I don't know if I liked it or not. It got thrown into my mouth so fast that I didn't even taste it. I could smell Hilda cooking it, so I prepared myself. I scarfed that thing down, (they thought that I was just hungry) because I knew that if I was given a chance to actually have it hit my taste buds that I would gag. I'm gagging just thinking about it. So, I ate it first, and I ate it all. Then I ate everything else; some yummy brown bread and some cooked broccoli. So, you can sleep well tonight, because Liz Cornwall ate salmon and nothing bad happened.