2/29/18

1. 2/29/18
1. One announcement since I haven’t been on the blog for so long: I got accepted to ETH study abroad! Woot woot
2. Woke bright and early at 7:30 and started crunching on biophysics. Context: I had found out I got accepted to Study Abroad the previous night, and told Gaya; then we both got sad that we wouldn’t see each other for 9 months or so after the Spring Quarter ends, and we stayed up late bawling our eyes out.
3. So! Biophysics. Very nifty stuff. We applied a vector calc equation from E&M, plus a Boltzmann-law atmospheric distribution from StatMech, to get a handle on how screening works in ionic solutions. EG, if I drop a big + into the liquid, all the little minuses get attracted to the + and their charge “shields” the +, so that the potential seen outside the screening layer is much smaller than the potential of just the +. With the strategy above we got the thickness of the screening layer.
4. Gaya dropped in for a few minutes then left; I finished biophys and turned my attention to my discourse paper. Then I borrowed a folder from Lisa and holepunched all my paper printouts, showered, and went to biophys, where we mostly went over derivations from the notes.
5. Met Ayush at the Red Pepper (authentic Sichuan restaurant) for lunch. It was tasty. He’s going on an internship binge, first Google then Facebook (cuz why not?) Says he’s giving the engineering life one more shot. Talked about grad school, different types of research.
6. Went to CSE for discourse group meeting. On way in checked with advisers--looks like I’m in for ETH on the solid :)
7. Discourse was a bit thin today, only 4 of us. Good though! Despite having only skimmed the last bit of the paper, I was able to make some contributions (I’m good at clarifying the meaning of the equations :))
8. Went over to Terry, said hi to Gaya and some RA friends and a very cute dog in the RLO. Meanwhile, Secret, is going viral and literally one of the RAs had just watched a Secret video.
9. Gaya and I go for a walk; her heart is heavy but the walk helps and we have some good conversation. By the end we’re singing together :D
10. Head to CSE, review notes on website building. End up working a lot on Alex’s study abroad essay.
11. Damir comes by, we look at the website builder and spec, divvy up responsibility.
12. Head back to 2104 where Xin and Lisa are frying spring rolls. Make myself an omelette, heat up some ridiculously spicy soup from Gaya and my date after the Lavin Gala, grab some spring rolls, and go to town. Very satisfying meal.
13. Head up to room, don’t get a ton of work done. Finish up working on Alex’s essay, get in a good Skype session with parents, put in some laundry, write this entry and hit the hay.