UW Update Wednesday 4/1/15 (Day 3)

a.     UW Update Wednesday 4/1/15 (Day 3)

                                                 i.     Physics in the morning. Ate a Powerbar on the way there as I chatted with Sophia. Very neat stuff about wave self-interference (diffraction) in class after passing through one or two narrow slits or apertures.

                                               ii.     Linear: some middlingly interesting terminology and a neat proof. Still stuck in systems of linear equations.

                                              iii.     Did linear hw for an hour (Webassign: not that bad, actually fairly motivating vs. paper homework. Used Mathematica to check my work and shortcut annoying computations.)

                                              iv.     Met with Brandon in the HUB for lunch. Chatted about physics and classes. He’s trying to set up lunch meetings like I was last quarter before I got really busy.

                                               v.     Went to CSE 311. Showed up early and chatted with Maddie and Johan. Johan, the impeccable social engineer, invited me to sit near the front with him and Irene, a junior who had just switched over to computer science from math. Talked with Irene for a bit, then class started. More propositional logic, transitioning to logic gates.

                                              vi.     After class ended, Johan asked where I was going before the CS New Student Welcome in an hour. I had no idea—probably just to study for a bit. So Johan invited me to his house (not a frat, just four guys living in a house on Greek row that they had fought for in a competitive rental application process) to hang for a bit. He gave me a quick tour of the house, then we talked while he made his lunch. Turns out he has many of the same feelings I do wrt difficulty of obtaining a good social group on campus; he lived in the Honors dorms last year but didn’t think they did very much to encourage community (my impression). So, during his sophomore year, he’s amping up his socialization (much like I’m trying to do). Very neat. Our ideas about what college social life should be like and the difficulties with achieving it match like constructively interfering waveforms.

                                            vii.     We headed to the CSE building for the new student welcome. Arrived there just in time after sprinting after Johan’s bike and sat next to Irene.

                                           viii.     Heard from the ACM chair before heading off on a tour of the building. With my sophomore mentor, checked out the awesome balcony, the basement labs and ACM lounge (cheap snack food linked to the dining account. A way to launder dining plan money? + board games)

                                              ix.     Finished up eating burritos and talking with other mentors.

                                               x.     Met up with Johan on the way out, and somehow we decided to take a run. He showed me that the waterfront trail I’d taken with my family led to the Arboretum, which at this time is awesome. Everything is in bloom and the air smells like oxygen and flowers.

                                              xi.     Finally arrived back on campus at 7, split with Johan, and did physics hw. Then grabbed some pizza and ate it in the lounge. Talked a bit with Erika and Noah, Sam and Eleanor.

                                            xii.     Did more physics hw, read a bit more of the homelessness article, shot some hoops at Denny, replied to an email from the Honors folks, who wanted to put my Honors 231 Crash Course videos up on the Honors website (Neat, right? Hannah recommended it to them.) Wrote this log and hit the hay.