11/30/15

1. Gotta get something down here, but I'm busy as Tartarus (as my Greek-mythology loving sister would say :))
2. Highlight: great SPS meeting. Interest in a theory exploration spinoff club, plus Jannel was nice enough to lend me the mathematical physics textbook :)
3. Other things: lotsa work, classes, incredibly vexing problem to grade, had to send a long email to the 311 staff asking for clarifications :)
Smile,
Spencer

11/21/15

1. Highlight: Attend the men's basketball game against Penn. It's super fun. We destroy Penn, who was previously undefeated; the freshman recruit Marquis Crisp goes frickin' Leroy with 3 dunks and about 10 midrange shots. What a boss.
2. Other things that happened today: go out to Indian buffet and have a lot of soft rice with sauce. It's amazing. Finish math hw and start grading, which shouldn't be too hard to complete. Also played badminton with Xin, which was cool.
Note: lots of random positive social interactions today. Talk with Charlotte and Xinyu from the floor. Run into Jasdeep on the way back from Ode and toss the frisbee.
3. Good evening gentlepeople! Time to hit the hay.

11/20/15

1. Wake up, go to Math bleary-eyed. Get some interesting sympathy from my classmates for the rather large gap in my grin. But honestly, I continue to handle feelings of regret very well. I think it helped to have Xin be the extreme pessimist and apologist--makes me realize in embodied form the futility of worrying about split enamel. I make an appointment to get the teeth built up again with composite on Monday. Eat some oatmeal. 
2. Skip classes and practice for the concert for two hours. Go to TA meeting, then SPS Get the Physicists Outside with my bin of balls. Initially nobody shows up, but then Bearded Jacob, Frank, Devin, and finally a new guy Erin come. It's really fun. Frisbee and football at first, and at the end we play team bounce maximization with my volleyball :)
3. Head back to Haggett, dress in my Glee duds. Rehearse. Go out to dinner, eat miso soup :) Return to Kane, 10 last minutes of rehearsal, then the concert. Women's Choir, then us, then the U Singers, who rock this year. We sounded pretty good too, although I (and I think a bunch of others) screwed up Ramkali :)
4. Met up with family. Mary and Izzy were almost unrecognizable with their cosmopolitan haircuts and stylish black dress--I thought they were members of the Women's Choir. Go out to EJ burger and I manage to very carefully eat half a burger and some fries, plus a milkshake. Great to see everyone. 
5. Return to Haggett and crash.

11/19/15: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

11/19/15

1. Most of the day is normal. I do math with Issa and Peter, have classes, work on CS homework, hang out with my SPS buddies, have Glee Club, go to the dance audition for Urinetown after Glee Club, which is really hard because I can't learn quickly, but kinda fun. I finish up CS homework.
2. Then I go out with Xin and boffer. We have a great time. Until...
3. Xin stands up on a rock, I try to jump up on the rock to attack him. I trip--still not sure how--and fall. Normally my hands would have protected me. But somehow my hands reach out to either side of the rock (this is the only way I think this could have happened) and the rock punches me in the face. Right in the upper teeth, precisely. 
4. It doesn't hurt. Not really. It tingles like mad, and I can tell I'm bleeding. I reach up and feel, and I calmly realize that, crap, this is not good. One tooth is quite loose, and several others are chipped. 
5. Xin and I start walking towards Hall Health, hoping it's still open, when we run into a bunch of floormates. I try to talk as little as possible to avoid dislodging the loose tooth, but the situation is communicated successfully :) My floormates take me back to Haggett, where they, very kindly, call a campus police officer to take me over to the UW Medical Center ER.
6. The officer shows up after about 10 minutes, even though he's not supposed to give rides for non-life-threatening medical things. He takes Xin (who, unfortunately and completely incorrectly, feels culpable for the whole debacle) and I down to the ER. 
7. We wait for nearly two hours, but it doesn't feel completely dehumanizing :) I make friends with a couple of the personnel. Eventually the emergency dentist, who is fortunately in residence, sits me down. He cleans everything up, pumps my upper lip full of anaesthetic, jams the loose tooth back in place, and binds everything together with a splint. Meanwhile, Xin is taking pictures for some presentation on dental trauma the dentist is going to give :)
8. We get a prescription mouthwash and some overkill painkiller which I'm not going to need, and walk back to Haggett at around 5am. I give up on finishing math homework and crash hard. 

11/18/15

1. Highlight: Slept through my alarm, woke up with only a fraction of the time I'd anticipated having to finish 312 hw. Leroy through the homework, pencil blazing, expressing solutions minimalistically. Finish with literally 5 minutes until class (late turnins strictly not accepted) grab my solutions, minus my backpack and all my other gear, and sprint down to Sieg. Lungs burning with cold winter air, I deposit my homework and sit down coughing.
2. Other things that happened today: SPS Lab Tour! It was a blast. We toured a few new labs as well as one I remembered from last quarter. Figured out some professors I should email to ask if I can hang around their labs and go to group meetings, for next quarter. If I'm not TAing, I should get into some research! Also Lavin quarterly meeting (only one person in my Lavin family showed up for family vs. family games :( ), and astronomy lecture I'd rsvp'd for well in advance. Definitely geared to a layperson audience, but interesting nonetheless.
3. Be merry, good shmids!

11/17/15

1. Highlight: Go to StageNotes audition! Turns out Andrew from the floor, a well-connected freshman, is already a StageNotes officer. A bit of a scary experience (panel of 5 judges) and I'm not incredibly prepared because of my Leroy existence. I sing Santa Fe from Newsies--my voice comes out decent, but I get flustered in the middle of the song, and I end up making some weird jumps and ending up singing a few parts way lower than I intend to :)
2. The rest of the day: a lot of prep for the audition, practicing the song, scrapping to get a place in the music room, stepping into building stairwells for a few moments, etc. It's pretty fun. Polygamy class degenerates into non-scientific discussion again :), and I don't get a chance to bring up a potential application of game theory. Go out for dinner with Xin at Shawarma King (tasty), run into Issa and his roommate Ethan. 
3. Good night gentlepeople!

11/16/15

1. Highlight(s): 
1. Pwn math midterm. At least, feel much more confident than I did after the last one. One of the sample problems (all of which I did), ended up on the test, which gave me time to think. Very computational midterm, more similar to a normal, handwavey, practical calculus course.
2. Give crazy weird "artifact" presentation with my boffers as props. Not sufficiently prepared for numerous good reasons, but it's fun anyway.
3. Go out to dinner with Brandon. Long conversation about martial arts and the "choreography" failure mode that Brandon experienced while he was in karate; we plan to sign up for one of the intro martial arts classes at the IMA next quarter. 
4. Get to play basketball for an hour! Play pretty well--make an absurd number of shots from inside the 3-point line. However, one of my awesome $20 Champion tennies blows out in the middle of the first game. The fabric completely separates from the sole over a large stretch of the inside side. This makes play difficult, but still fun. 
5. Get Rick's and walk over to deserted Sieg classroom with Xin. Eat ice cream, read math, catch up on CS lectures, and listen to various versions of Santa Fe from the Newsies prologue, which, after talking to Zach, I intend to audition with. Found sheet music for $5 (whatever :) and plan to hole up in a Music practice room for some hours tomorrow with it. 
6. All in all, a fine day! Good cheer to all!