1.
UW Update 4/15/15
a.
A good day. Went to physics and reviewed stuff
from past chapters.
b.
Then to linear. Learned some new theorems and
took a quiz. One part I couldn’t calculate fast enough without a trick I wasn’t
clever enough to use, but who cares?
c.
Physics lab. Worked with an oscilloscope, which
was pretty neat.
d.
Remembered that I would have the same not very
good substitute prof again, and that Johan had mentioned skipping lecture b/c
he (and I, probably) knew the logic. I looked at the lecture slides. After
investing 15 minutes working them out, I was committed to skipping lecture, and
texted Johan. We got lunch, deciding to sit with a random person when we
couldn’t find a table and to try to start a conversation. We succeeded—we
talked to an interesting biochem major about classes and research.
e.
Talked with Johan a bit more about housing.
Turned out his group fell through and he’s looking at getting a non-UW run
studio apartment. Interesting.
f.
Walked with Johan to pick up a car (part of a
service where you pay fairly low rates to borrow cars for short drives). The
car was pretty sweet—a little smartcar that nevertheless had some trunk space.
Johan dropped me off at Lander and continued on to work.
g.
At Lander, I talked to the HFS people, who
answered some of my questions about the housing application. Apparently, we’ll
be able to select into any rooms that are available in about a week. This
imperative assignment sounds much better than the fuzzy declarative freshman
assignment (I tell HFS my preferences, and it tries to assign me a good fit).
h.
Returned to dorm and did CS hw. Then went to
soccer.
i.
We lost our game badly, again partly due to
strategy errors. I didn’t do too well as a keeper, but was much more successful
as a defender. We resolved to get a practice in. Then Francis, who I’d played
chess with once in the dorms, invited me to sub in with another team. That game
was fun, although again we lost. I played forward; I got plenty of space
through intensive running and several times got in position to score, but
messed up my ball control L.
It was pretty fun.
j.
Met with Xin and Brandon and Donovan for dinner.
k.
Went to Startup UW’s latest event, a
presentation on marketing by (marketing/SEO consultant)/software CEO mogul Rand
Fishkin of Moz. He was really interesting—I could tell he was idea driven vs.
trying to pitch himself or content to recite empty phrases. He started his
presentation with a 10min introduction to the Fermi Paradox, pointing to the exact same article
I’d really enjoyed on the subject, then used the idea of filtering to structure
his marketing discussion. He used some other analogies that I thought were
really neat. They weren’t necessary models for understanding what he was
talking about, more aesthetic wrappers (interesting but makes sense for a
marketer). They really worked! I can remember whole packages of concepts
related by a single analogy (gaining traction by publishing content works like
a flywheel, lots of effort to get started, forces are additive, remove
friction, etc.), nothing profound, but a great wrapper and connector.
l.
Returned to dorm. Did a little more CS and said
hi to Eleanor.
m.
Finally filled out housing application with
Brandon and Xin. Feels good to get that done.
Then played some tennis with them. Finally, ate some Rick’s (3 days in a row!
Actually, it was neat because the volunteers there, which I knew, gave me my
ice cream for free J).
Read The Martian. Wrote this log and signed off.
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