11/14/16: ETH Lunchbox and Learning to Follow

1. 11/14/16
1. Tutorials! Try hard to pay attention to the laggard material and catch all the little details.
2. Get the SPS food drive boxes in position and make signs for them.
3. StatMech, interesting proofs.
4. Lunchbox, guy from ETH (the place I want to study abroad next year) who’s coming here to help Microsoft build a quantum computer. He describes quantum computing in the clearest way I’ve heard yet and gives a lucid description of Shor’s algorithm for factoring, plus describes the physical system (a topological insulator) that is the current hot darling qubit candidate. Get to talk to Judith a bit at lunchbox.
5. Do quantum homework for a couple hours.
6. Walk to the gym only to realize I haven’t packed shorts. Go back to the house, do more work, bike to the gym. Get into a fun game of basketball.
7. Return, grab dinner with Xin and Lisa at a new place on the Ave called just “BBQ Chicken”, whose graffitied red awning is so sketch I’ve avoided it for two years. But the fried chicken XIn orders is awesome, much better than my bibimbab bowl.
8. Afterwards get bubble tea, then run over to the monday night dance. Only Alex and Kostya are there; Alex is hosting for the Monday. They entreat me to stay, which I do gladly. Try to get Lisa and Xin to stay with very limited success.
9. Alex is learning to lead and I teach her how to lead a swing-out, while simultaneously learning to follow one.
10. After a while Ky, the HCDE PhD student, comes in. He’s a beginner lead so we teach him to swing-out. I’m having a blast teaching all the subtleties of technique and diagnosing sticking points, I feel like a new math tutor fresh out of Calc 1 from WCC. Alex looks a little surprised, like she didn’t realize my pedagogical side extended from math to dancing.
11. Dance a bit more with Alex, bid farewell to Kostya and Ky (and to Diego who walks in at the end, running on 2 hours of sleep after a rough night. Man, that guy is so awesome. He’s not afraid to say he just couldn’t sleep, and gumptionful enough to still make an appearance at the dance after what must have been an exhausting day.)
12. Return to 2104, hang out with Xin and Brandon for a bit, finish quantum. Then hit the hay.
13. Note to future self and all you struggle-bus passengers out there: there were also struggles this day. They are too strange and intertwingled to mention. At this late hour, I cast a Leroy's Shroud upon them and walk my mind in another direction. Good night y'each!