10/23/16: A "Lazy" Day (ha!)

1. 10/23/16
1. Walk with Winnie, talk about research and her misgivings about the anti-intuitive nature of 33x. Lovely walk through Ravenna. At the end, have to scramble up a steep, long hillside to make it back in time. Convince Winnie, and we have a great time scraping and hauling ourselves up the hill.
2. Meet up with Brandon and walk over to Mercer. The engineering bros’ apartment is pretty sweet, filled with whiteboards and artsy movie posters, and with a stunning view of the river. And apparently they do weekly movie nights!
3. Trevor’s cranking away on homework; Brandon and I get to the real work. Make some tasty omelettes. On the last one, realize I’ve been making a rookie mistake (not enough butter) and the quality improves substantially!
4. Eat omelets and get into conversation about different coordinate systems with Max, whose mathematical curiosity is in no way hampered by his debilitating cold. He’s suspicious that Cartesian coordinates seem to be privileged over other ways of describing space, which are defined in terms of the transformation from the Cartesian representation to the other representation. I argue, after a little thought, the privilege is all in our heads; from the math perspective, we may as well start with spherical coordinates, and define cartesian in terms of them. I’m happy with my argument and resulting perspective :)
5. French toast is a disaster. I soak the bread for way too long (off my game!). End up with a burnt eggy mess. But the second batch is better.
6. Get a quick tour of the rest of their Mercer digs. Cool, but not envious, I love 2104.
7. Then it’s back to North campus with Trevor and Brandon. Trevor’s going to meet his friend’s girlfriend, who’s going to give him advice on how to court this girl in AA that he likes. The dude is terrified, just for the advising meeting :) Interesting backstory: Trevor was at first worried that the laid-back gal was going to kill his lab grade; only later in their acquaintance did he arrive at the perspective that she knew what she was doing and that he liked her. :D :D weird life
8. Go to gym, which I have no business doing after the relaxing brunch. Xin and I play a little badminton, though Xin is devoid of motivation and I crush him thoroughly.
9. Run back to 2104, listening to epic music. Feel pretty epic. Take a shower and get dressed in nice clothes. Finish the SPS newsletter. Then go meet Judith for dinner at the Korean Tofu house.
10. I get there a few minutes early and she’s already there, headphones on, facing away from me. Miraculously, after standing there for a few moments waiting in the doorway, a combination of my blunder-checking and person-recognition abilities kick in and I see her.
11. Dinner is good, learn more about Judith’s music background, family, etc, eat delicious pork :) Think I do decent in all the social signaling categories as well. Judith’s got crazy music skillz and knowledge which makes for interesting conversation. However, her nervous energy (hopefully from her hectic day and not from the situation) is way off the charts; she’s drumming her feet under the table and periodically checking her phone (later she shows me an email relevant to our conversation, that she noticed during the meal).
12. Walk to the concert in Meany. Judith explains exactly where one must sit to get the best blend. We sit down; I run out a few minutes later to give Andrew Li a ticket, catch up with him a bit.
13. It feels like I’m in Your Lie in April. Steinway on the brightly lit stage in a huge auditorium.
14. First piece: crazy weird postmodern violin and viola piece. Then a Beethoven sonata, the end of which is really cool, but the middle is boring (agreed with Judit & Andrew). After that was intermission, talked with Andrew about CS interviews; then a piece by one of the performers, which showcased the performers’ incredible ability to synchronize on strange tempos; and finally, a piece by Janacek, similar to Grieg whose music Judith had recommended me some year ago. Neat stuff!
15. After Judith says hi to all the people she knows in Chamber Club, plus several of the performers, we walk back to the corner of North Campus we both inhabit, part ways at 2104.
16. Get sucked into a “study” session with Selorm and Sammy. Get some decent studying done for my QM exam Tuesday, but also watch Selorm’s favorite Boney M. music videos.
17. Grab Xin and Molly for ice cream break; get into a more serious conversation with Molly about voting and then about grad school. She really wants security, so my vague plans to gather a deep foundation and then own the world through multidisciplinary hustle sound strange.
18. Get into a massage circle with Selorm and Molly.
19. Keep working on Quantum, then write this log.