UW Update Tuesday 5/20/15 {Cosmic Background Seminar}

1.     UW Update Tuesday 5/20/15 {Cosmic Background Seminar}

(I'm adopting Monica's convention of tagging each day with a significant happening, idea, or piece of context in the title)

a.     Apologies for the brief silence! Last night I spent nearly 5 hours coding up a system that could represent and manipulate cards from the game Set, so that I could test my conjectures about probabilities and the maximum number of cards I could put together without forming a set. Well, I spent like 3 hours coding, and the remaining time trying to piece together my shattered conjectures. So I was disinclined to spend any more time typing away before I went to bed.

b.     Anyway, today we learned about the milling machine. Today, we did fairly basic stuff (how to calibrate, how to cut a perfectly 3D-rectangular piece of aluminum).

c.      Then I went to the HUB and grabbed lunch. Read a little Anna Karenina, then found Brandon. We chatted for a while about the Pokemon regionals he had competed in over the weekend, and about the Pokemon game and community in general. Pretty neat stuff—lots of similarities to the chess community, but with more prize funding J

d.     Back at Haggett, I did some physics hw before yielding to the beautiful weather and heading out to Denny for basketball. It took way too long for me to get into a game (I read a bit, played some one-on one, people arrived and beat me at shoot-to-play, then I finally got a game).

e.     Ran to Glee Club dripping sweat J

f.      Returned to dorm, showered. Grabbed a quick slice of pizza on the way to a physics talk Garcia had recommended. It was super interesting. On the 50^th anniversary of both the UW Astronomy Department and the discovery of cosmic background radiation, the astronomy people had invited Dr. Peebles, the distinguished octogenarian emeritus “Einstein Professor of Science” at Princeton, to speak on the developments in understanding the history of the universe through cosmic background radiation that he lived through and in many cases pioneered. It was refreshing to get a birds-eye view of an entire field, because the lunchboxes and colloquia are often really specialized and focused. I was realigned with the perception of the majesty and grand narrative of physics J

g.     Walked to the 8 with Eric from lab, talking about the everywhere-expanding 4-dimensional hypersphere universe posited to explain how all parts of the universe appear to be moving away from us (I’m not super sure if this is standard or necessary, but I’m sure I’ll learn more about it).

h.     Ate dinner in the lounge reading Karenina. Did more physics hw. Eventually got a Rick’s milkshake and ate it while listening to This American Life and wandering through campus. Finished physics hw and linear hw, talked with Xin for a bit, wrote this log, and went to bed.

UW Update Sunday 5/17/15

1.     UW Update Sunday 5/17/15

a.     Interesting day, a day of culture J. Slept in again, showered, did a little hw, then grabbed a jerky stick and clif bar and set off to the Ethnic Cultural theater. Megan had mentioned the musical, Kiss Me, Kate, that she had been working on, and I realized that I’d intended to go. The last showing was today, and fortunately when I arrived there were still tickets. Ran into Tyler from Glee Club and chatted for a bit.

b.     The musical was pretty awesome. It’s a musical about a turn of the century American company performing Taming of the Shrew, which was mindbending at points.

c.      At the end of the show, the Stage Notes club celebrated the members who had been there since the club’s founding 4 years ago. The gift-giving ceremony and speeches were moving. I was thinking about getting into drama next year, and the Stage Notes club jumped out to me then as a good place to start. A student-run club, involves singing as well as acting, relatively low-key.

d.     Rushed out of the theater and ran to Alder Auditorium to see Sarang’s acappella group, Awaaz, in concert. Sat down next to Irina from CSE311 and her buddy from UW Academy. The songs were a strange but compelling blend of Western pop music with traditional Indian vocal music and a liberal sprinkling of Hindi. Intermission: chai and samosas, and I found I’d been misled—the chai and samosas were not free J I was out of money, but Irina spotted me $2 for chai. Have to figure out where to get $2 in greenbacks before CSE tomorrow J Chatted with Irina and her buddy Drew, an EE major.

e.     Awaaz also celebrated their graduating seniors, which was cool. We also got to hear a recording they had made in a professional studio.

f.      Irina and Drew hopped on a bus, and I returned to campus. Grabbed some pizza at the Pag and headed up to the lounge. Got into a game of Set with Brianna and August—one of the toughest games of Set around. Ate my pizza and apple and peanut butter and read Anna Karenina.

g.     Eleanor had organized a showing of the Two Towers. I stayed for the beginning, then retreated to my room, did some linear hw, then back out to the lounge. Left after the Helm’s Deep battle, took the basketball out to Denny. Wrote this log, went to bed.

UW Update Saturday 5/16/15

1.     UW Update Saturday 5/16/15

a.     Fairly laid-back day.

b.     Slept in. Grabbed brunch at 8. Did a few hours of linear hw, sent emails, etc.

c.      Played several hours of badminton with some chemistry grad students and others. I did pretty well, which made me happy.

d.     Showered, went to the Ave and picked up some tasty Thai food, which I ate in the lounge.

e.     Played a little poker with Jamie, Nicholas, Alex, and Jamie’s HS friend Nick, who is staying over in our room.

f.      Grabbed Rick’s and read physics. Figured out how formula for number of total molecular states in a solid modeled by a bunch of quantum harmonic oscillators came from binomial theorem. Man, that thing is everywhere! Getting close to definition of entropy.

g.     Started figuring out physics classes for next couple of years. Got into a long, engaging discussion with Nick about mincome, among other things. Finished messing around with physics courses, wrote this log, and hit the hay.

UW Update Friday 5/15/15

1.     UW Update Friday 5/15/15

a.     How to characterize this day? Lots of Undergraduate Research Symposium. Pretty Leroy. Anyway, here’s the play-by-play:

b.     Physics. Calculations for gas processes. We’ll get to quantum model for solids soon (Leroy smiley) == L)

c.      Linear. More interesting stuff you can do with determinants.

d.     Went to Mary Gates for URS. Checked out the poster-presenters; ran into Jack from the Cows class, who was presenting a thesis on 60s/70s poetry and writing, namely, that it represented backlash against the solidification of identity (legibility?) resulting from, among other things, the need to sell yourself in the changing/weakening economy. The poetry (John Ashbery) portrayed identity as fragmented and diffuse. Also ran into Hannah, and Adree from Cows.

e.     Went to Jannel’s (from SPS) research presentation. It was interesting—how to image an object through a diffusive medium where you can’t trace light rays back to their source. Then a couple other presentations on optimizing some parameter in an application of chemistry, which was interesting, but seemed really specific (we tried this chemical, because it was shorter than that one! Then we measured the Seebeck index, tried… yeah. It was hard to tie together.)

f.      CSE 311.

g.     Lunch with Johan and his cousin Leah on the Ave.

h.     Went to Eleanor’s presentation on opera. She did really well—what an amazing talent for presentation she has! Not that she didn’t know the material like the back of her eyeball. Brianna also showed up.

i.       Checked out more posters in Mary Gates.

j.       Went to Odegaard and checked out some of the featured art (missed out on the presenters). Ran into Irena, and we looked around together for a bit. Then Irena split for Mary Gates, and I went back to Haggett. I was super tired, so I took a nap.

k.     Woke up, took a shower. Some event organizers had overflow bubble tea and were selling it for $1, so I got one myself, then dragged Eleanor, Sam, Emily down to get some.

l.       Grabbed pizza at the Pag, returned to the lounge. Eleanor asked me to take a look at her CSE assignment, which turned into nearly 2.5 hours of collaborative debugging until we worked out all the kinks. I think it was helpful for her, because she’s got a super busy week, what with the Symposium, and her Tolkien class final project due next week (too early!).

m.   Went to Denny, played some 1-on-1 with David and some 21 with David and Yuli. Kicked butt J.

n.     Returned, showered, wrote emails, transcribed Facebook events onto calendar, wrote this log, and hit the hay.