The Past Few Weeks

I have been going to my classes every other class. Sometimes it is intentional, like today, when I skipped my linear algebra class to attend a soldering tutorial that was probably more informative and productive than any single lecture I have gone to for linalg. (I stripped wires and made pretty twists with them and soldered them together with decent speed! That has to be one of the more productive hours I have ever spent in a long time).

Other times it is accidental, like today (again), when I woke up in the morning and it was 9:45 and my java class started at 9:35, and I was groggy and on the top bunk without any proper outdoors clothes on or any breakfast in my stomach, and the earliest I can have all of that done would be by 10, and then 5-10 minutes of walking to class would leave me with 15 minutes of lecture time left. So I promptly fell back asleep.

I asked Jessica later on about what the prof talked about in class today, and she said, "Calling a private property in another class with a public method." Which is, well, what we learned on Monday. I even have rather nice notes for that day.

I think it was on Monday, too, that I left my java class and, after buying yogurt and granola for breakfast, hurried to my linalg class and read the part in the textbook where I thought we had gone over the class before. And I went into class an hour later and proceeded to hear about the same things I had just read.

As Yuma puts it, "Why are your classes so useless?"

I like to believe that it is only so because I am in this limbo mode right now where I can't actually take the exciting classes. But I do have some neat classes next semester, like intro to computer engineering and engineering economy, as well as differential equations which I've heard is actually tough (or maybe they are making it up just like they are making up how difficult linear algebra was going to be). Also I will have no more English classes next semester and, as long as my 93% fixed schedule (based on rough approximations) is not changed by the higher beings who design the electrical engineering curriculum here, I will never have an official English class again.

Or maybe they do this English thing at grad school too. Who knows. I think they should do it every year but I suppose the workload (essay-writing) does add up.

. . .

I found a couple of tunnels under my school. This would sound so much cooler if I also put in, "I sneaked past -insert integer here- security guards and ducked under the camera and picked the lock on the grate and lowered myself into the tunnels," but alas, that was not the case. These tunnels are university-sanctioned, opened for the special purpose of allowing us to get to our classes without freezing ourselves to death when it is -40 degrees Celsius outside and the snow is piled higher than your head.

On the bright side, some of these are steam tunnels, which means they'll be extra-cozy in winter. On the not so bright side, they have operating hours, unlike the buildings themselves, so any late-night cramming session during finals time will necessarily involve walking through the snow.

I am not sure if our school has drains, which I have heard is also a good place to explore in the winter, but those are definitely not sanctioned and will require a lot of time and effort and luck to discover.

Roofs, however, are open (free?) to people who find the doors open at the right time. It is apparently not a rare occurrence. I have yet to be on a roof but that should be fun too.

. . .

Boys are weird creatures. I am sure this has been stated before (I vaguely remember this particular statement or a variation of it on my blog, and possibly on Kathrya's blog too although I can't remember if either is true), and I am aware it is a gross generalization, so I will restate this. Some of the boys I have encountered lately are weird.

The other day I went to the basement of the math and science building, and these two guys were selling white coffee to fundraise for some student group (I think it was Malaysian or some other Southeast Asian group, the guys told me but I don't quite remember). I asked them what white coffee was, and one of the guys explained (different coffee brewing process + condensed milk), and then took off the "$1" sign and said that they were running low anyway, so he gave me a free sample. Then they packed up so quickly and left the table before I even left.

Today, as I was walking down the escalator, one of the guys in my class walked past me, obviously in a hurry. He then held the door open for me, even though I was not even close to the door, so I half-ran to get the door so he wouldn't wait too long.

Maybe the midterms are addling with their brains.

I would love to extend this to girls too so this doesn't resemble a gender stereotype, but unfortunately I am not meeting enough previously-not-well-known-and-probably-will-never-know-well girls to have any concrete examples.

. . .

Thanksgiving weekend was good. It involved lots of fish (alive, raw, microwaved, hot-potted, stuffed-toy-ified), a trip to the depths of Chinatown, friend-visiting, mall-bridge-hopping, movies (some good, some dreadfully slow), and a variety of other things that may or may not be appropriate to put on here. A blackboard was acquired, kitties were petted, and a bunch of pretty much useless RAMs and hard drives were lugged back up the hill.

I might write about it, but definitely not from my perspective and not with any clear-defined names.

And we can also definitely glaze over the late-night drunk on deliriousness hours of insanity.

It was apparently also Denise's birthday on Thanksgiving weekend. It was a rather sad event for her, at least on the day of her birthday, because none of us were there (Sam went to her cottage, other people were otherwise occupied with their families) and she was sick. To make matters worse she spent the weekend at the studio working on one of her many, many projects.

Sam organized a belated celebration for her by taking her to a dumpling place (and inviting all of us). They were really good dumplings (I haven't really had a vegetarian dumpling in a long while, and the ones there were delicious), and Denise and Sam ate two platefuls. I would have ordered a plate myself, but earlier that day I had gone to the-dorm-with-a-good-caf and had gotten myself onion rings and cheesecake and chicken and noodles and broccoli and iced tea, and normally I could have dealt with the main meal but the combo of onion rings and cheesecake was rather filling already, so I was stuffed by the end of the meal.

So not many dumplings for me. So sad.

. . .

I am really tired now. I slept at 4 in the morning, because I wanted Yuma to read me a chapter from a story and he didn't want to, so I stayed up doing silly things. This is probably directly related to my inability to attend my java class this morning, which apparently was pretty silly too, so it all balances out.

I bought four books from the book fair yesterday, all on math and science, and I can't wait to read them. I also signed up for about a million email lists from various clubs around my school, and plotted them all on my calendar in hopes that by virtue of them being there, I will do them.

So far I have not gone to the computer-recycling club, nor the outdoors excursions club, but I have asked Jessica about the two competitions I was interested in (both require teams).

Maybe if I sleep more...

Not Now, Professor Snape

Harry, Ron, and Hermione are in a room that looks suspiciously like my living room, except with more red cushions scattered everywhere. They are discussing something, but I (if I even exist, at this point) can’t hear what they are saying. No matter. Snape to the rescue! He barges into the room and asks, “Where is your wand, Potter?”

“Here, Professor,” Harry says, while pulling out something that looks like the end (that you hold) of those wooden things people use with honey. I’m not sure what they are called. Ron and Hermione both pull out these weird wooden rods as well.

“What are these?” Snape asks. I am surprised he has not exploded and docked 100 points each from Gryffindor for their insolence.

“They’re wands, Professor,” Hermione says, as though it were the most obvious thing since the Basilisk killed people. “We bought them. There’s even a review questionnaire we can fill out on how well these wands work.”

“So do they work?”

Hermione used her wand and tapped at the paper. Nothing happened. “Well,” she says, “it sometimes works if you tilt it the right angle. But the makers respect customers’ privacy, so we gave it an F+.”

“It doesn’t work,” Snape says. “I’m giving it an F-. But how will you protect yourselves when the Death Eaters come?”

“Oh, we have a plan.”

And they call out some white-haired girl, and Snape is about to ask, “How is she going to help you?” But the Death Eaters come at this moment, and they shout, “YOU TRAITOR, SNAPE!!!”

Well. I don’t think he’s going to be asking many questions right now.

They run up to punch Snape (uh, what about wands, people?) but the white-haired girl does some really cool magic trick (finally! magic...) and repels the Death Eaters. Snape sighs in relief. And then—

I woke up. Yeah. Not too exciting anymore. I hate it when I wake up right in the middle of some really cool action. But I guess it’s out of my control. REM periods are only so long.

Anyway, I have decided upon a new approach for my Penn essay (this one is actually going well), and while I was doing research, I came across their food vendor’s map. Below, they have notes on where to find different restaurants and such, and I saw:

3. Original Le Anh Chinese Food,

and

5. The Real Le Anh Chinese Food.

Gee. I never knew Le Anh Chinese Food was so popular. Does that mean that #3 is a fake and #5 is a copycat that copied #3? But that would be a paradox, because then #5 wouldn’t be real either, so it’s not “The Real” anymore. And if it’s not “The Real” anymore, then #3 wouldn’t have to be fake, and then #5 wouldn’t have to be fake either, and—

Complicated. I am so glad #3 Fruit Salad and #4 Fruit Salad did not decide to add prefixes as well.

Shortness Is Sometimes A Virtue

It is extremely late today. I have a lot of work. I should be doing said work, but I really, really don't feel like it (and it's really long, and really tedious), so instead I will update about my life. Because it is oh-so-interesting, and if I don't, I'll forget all about it and then think that I have nothing to blog about for quite some time.

Not likely, because tomorrow is—gasp!—the states math meet! There will be so much to talk about, and I can't wait to see what the bus trip will be like. Last year, I was with Tybalt and Bryant and Melissa and Jun most of the time, and it was fun (I played connect-five and Monkey with Jun on the way there, or was that New England's?), but I have a feeling it's going to be even better this year.

So yes, I shall blog about that tomorrow or Wednesday, whenever I get around to it. Meanwhile, today.

Second last gym class today, and I can't believe it! We had a new Tae Bo video today, and it was hard (I've noticed that even Billy Blanks doesn't do all of the movements), but it was also fun. Tomorrow, if the guy our gym teacher's been trying to invite comes, we'll probably be going out to the courtyard to do this mix of martial arts and workout. If not, we'll still be outside, and what better way to celebrate our last day of "physical" gym but to go outside in the nice weather?

I still can't believe it's going to end after tomorrow. Wow. Time really flies, even if you're not having fun.

I'm also making a flowchart adventure map, and once I finish it, I'll find a way to scan it (and my notes for my EOQR for US) and I'll put it up here. It's heavily influenced by xkcd. Just to give you a hint of several of the fates that have befallen my friends as they attempted the adventure:

• Nyx ended up in the ever-looping Rainbow-Land
• Camel chose a path that did not exist (yet), then after re-routing, got eaten by a raptor
• Zephy was hailed king (or queen?) by a group of robots

Very, very exciting. So I'll have that done (probably on the bus tomorrow, along with discussing AIME questions with Argon, who took one for practice and thus knows my pain in question #9, the hexagon one) and I'll get it up as soon as possible. I promise.

And yes, Easter Island trip is still coming up (I've been saying this for quite some while now). I will have that done by the end of my finals (calc next Monday and Tuesday, then stat Wednesday and Thursday). As for today, it's late, and I'm tired, and I have to wake up early tomorrow, so I'll go to sleep now.

(Was this one shorter than usual? I started it out thinking it will be, but it's turned out rather substantial again. Darn.)