What I did over Spring Break

I apologize, I've been negligent for the past few weeks.
So....
Two weeks ago was Spring Break.
I stayed on campus, mostly. I caught up on a couple of TV shows friends told me I was supposed to watch, got through the Divergent trilogy (that ending was harsh), ran a little, explored, and slept in.

That first weekend was the Tucson Festival of Books, which was huge. White tents full of established authors, publishers looking for the next big thing, food, science, and more covered the Mall from Old Main all the way up to McKale Center. I saw Lois Lowry plugging her new book, the guy who wrote Warm Bodies doing stand up, Bill Walsh (a copy editor from the Washington Post) explaining why "literally" should literally mean "literally", a really good high school steel drum band, and Maguire School of Irish Dance (brings back mixed memories). I also finally got some good frybread. I spent most of Saturday just exploring by myself and with Clayton. I also met his mom, who is really nice, and we went out to see Non-Stop, a pretty good Liam Neeson movie. Tons of fun.

The first few nights, I hung out with the few people who were left in the dorm. We watched "Community," a show about a totally unrealistic community college which was also Chevy Chase's comedic last stand, for a while. One night, we played a serious game of hide and seek, which covered the bottom corner of campus and was intense (don't worry, we stayed in pairs and every pair had to share a picture every few minutes). The real craziness started when someone inevitably broke out the Cards Against Humanity - which, as it says on the box, is a "card game for horrible people." Hilarity ensued. This is who was playing hide and seek:


On Thursday, I went camping with a friend's church group. It started off pretty badly - the people who drove us almost forgot the food (but didn't) and, going up the windy road to the campsite, I got barfed on by a motion sick dog named Sly. He wasn't very.
Anyway, camping was really fun. There were ten of us all together (plus two dogs), and I was the only one who wasn't usually part of the group, but that wasn't a problem. I went geocaching for the first time and found an ammo box full of rubber ducks, among other things. We played a lot of Catchphrase, Buzzword and Egyptian Rat Slap in our spare time. The food was really good - one of the guys made a killer beef roast over the fire. The cold wasn't too bad, the lake we were right next to was beautiful, and the dogs made everything funny. I had a great time, met a lot of new people, and came back smelling like dog and smoke.
We got back on Sunday, and I caught up on homework, and returned to school refreshed.

On the Riots after the Wisconsin Game...

I've been promising a good rant for a while, so here goes...

Last night, Nick Johnson missed a last second shot after a tightly contested Elite Eight basketball game between the Wildcats of the University of Arizona and the Badgers of the University of Wisconsin, leaving his team with a one point deficit and a loss. That was the end of a good game where both teams played their hearts out. It could have gone either way, but Wisconsin ended up winning.

Within the hour, near the University of Arizona campus there were sirens, helicopters, pepper balls, screams, shouts, ambulances. The automated text went out to avoid University Boulevard because of a large "unlawful gathering," but sirens could be heard on 6th Street and Speedway as well. Social media exploded with videos and pictures of people going crazy, and subsequently with ambulance-chaser lawyer requests to send videos for evidence of police brutality. The noise lasted until at least two in the morning.

The age-old question of what happens when you get a bunch of frustrated drunk people together in a small space was answered - pandemonium ensues.

There is something slightly ironic about riots in the United States - when we want something changed, nonviolence is the name of the game, when we are frustrated about laws and things that actually mean something, we go out with our signs and march, pass petitions, call legislators. When there is something there is no way we can change, when there is no impact at all on everyday life - that's when we riot. A quick Wikipedia search shows that a good number of major incidents of civil unrest have come as a result of sports, and it doesn't seem to matter who won or lost.

Don't get me wrong - sports are great. They can bring a community together, they give an excuse to celebrate, they're fun to watch and to play. The problem is when devotion to sport meets energy meets lack of self-control, and the excitement that comes from watching a good games comes to the streets, and all hell breaks loose. People seem to forget that stadiums are not bubbles, and that personal responsibility applies both inside and out.

The thing that bothers me most is that, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Whoever won, won, whoever lost, lost, and whoever sold the tickets gets their money and everyone goes home and life goes on the next day. Overall, as Americans, we're pretty lucky that sports are one of the few things that incite people to riot. We've been looking at Venezuela in my Spanish class, where government corruption and lack of food cause people to take to the streets because that's the only way they can get their government to listen. Despite all the violence and crime, changes are being made, albeit slowly, to improve life for the average person. That is a valid reason to riot - there is no other way to get attention and it forces change. There are probably better ways, but they have more reason than a bunch of dumb college kids whining that their team lost.

Even scarier - there were a good number of people whose reaction to hearing about the riots was not "This is crazy, let's get out of here" but "F*** YEAH! Let's go join!" Facebook and Twitter were awash with selfies of people smiling with police in riot gear in the background. There's something not right about that.

See, we're lucky that we have the right to petition, to assemble, and to have our voices heard. There is something not right about doing going this crazy just on the account of a basketball game which was well played and refereed as fairly as humanly possible. There are much better more constructive ways to deal with frustration. Conclusion: people are crazy and stupid sometimes, but it all blows over in the morning.

Thanks for reading. Rant over. A catch up "what I did over spring break" entry will come soon.

Beauteous

It's March and the sun is shining like the middle of July. The sky is cloudless, the mountains are sharp in the distance, and the stars shine clear in the night. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Not much of excitement has happened recently. There's been the pre-Spring Break crunch of midterms and projects, so I've been studying a lot. Pretty boring.

It's been nice, though, so I've been reading outside a lot lately when I get the chance. I've rediscovered Vonnegut (who is seriously funny), finished Kite Runner (which is heart wrenching but really good), and started again on Divergent (the next movie book). It's been delicious.

Lent's started here. I went to Ash Wednesday mass on the stage by the student union, which was a cool experience. There were a ton of people there for such a small space. Ash Wednesday is one of the few times a large group of people publicly, quietly declare their faith, and it's interesting to see people's reactions. It's a sign of solidarity, if nothing else.

Another really interesting thing about Lent here is that almost everyone seems to be giving something up, even if they're not remotely Christian. Maybe it's a second chance at a New Year's Resolution, or just an excuse to make a goal, but all I know for sure is that cussing in the dorm has gone down dramatically. Me, I'm giving up soda, ice cream, and fried food, and have made an effort to run more.

This weekend is the Tucson Festival of Books, so, once again, flagged white tents have taken over the Mall. This is huge. The likes of Lois Lowry, Cornelia Funke, and Sandra Day O'Connor will be in attendance. This looks about three times the size of the festival of books we used to go to at Goldenwest College and everything and anything seems to be represented.

I'm officially going to Ohio for the Rube Goldberg Competition in April, which, if I can stand 30 hours in the car both ways, should be a ton of fun. I'm really looking forward to it.

Hoping for a good week to come. I've got to get better at posting on time :-/

Finding Adventure

I found a unicorn yesterday. It was small, hidden away where you couldn't see it from the street, behind a wall and out of the way. Because this is Arizona and no sane white-skinned animal would live there, it was copper. I really like that there are magical things like this to find around here. It makes going places more interesting.

Also, thanks to unseasonably warm February weather (snow and rain? HA! It's hot enough to complain about here), the lizards are back after their winter hibernation. There have been a couple of times when I thought I saw tree bark move, but it was really just a little lizard. They're funny little things.

We hosted a Rube Goldberg competition last Saturday for all the Engineering clubs. Society of Civil Engineers, who share our room, won with a really cool machine that showcased what they did. We also ran the big machine, which, for being "on stage" for the first time, ran really really well. Everyone was really impressed, and we were pretty proud. We also got cool shirts last week and took official pictures.

Rehearsals for the "NOT a Doctor Who Musical" have finally started. It's a completely different group of people than I normally hang out with. but they're all fun people, just the same. The show is probably going to be the last weekend in April or the first weekend in May, and it should be pretty good.

I did okay on my midterms, but I know next time, I am going to have to study more.

I went to go see the newer Thor movie with Clayton last week. It was a decent movie, lots of explosions, little plot, lots of big names. The funniest thing was that Christopher Eccleston, who played the Doctor in Doctor who, was playing the bad guy, and pretty successfully.

This weekend, my roommate and I are hosting high schoolers again. I like doing that, but it's always strange remembering that I was in their shoes less than a year ago. Apparently, there are girls coming from all over the country this time and not just from Arizona.

Also, Dungeons and Dragons is still going strong. This is a candid shot of the group (minus our monk):

That's also been a ton of fun.

All in all, it's been a good week.

P.S. I'm sorry I didn't get this posted on Thursday. I hit the save instead of the publish button. :-/

Growing Older or Growing Up

I am now officially old. Sometime in this past year or so I magically turned into an adult - a legal for most purposes adult. The problem with that is that I still feel like a kid, like I know nothing and everything is exciting and new and strange. I am no longer on that magical age border that separates the girls from the women (legally, anyway), and seeing that feels weird. The honest truth is that I still have no clue what I'm doing - I've just gotten better at faking it.
So this week has been pretty eventful.
For one thing - it's national Engineers Week (eWeek for short) which means tons of activities and stuff going on through the College of Engineering. The big flick is the eWeek Competition, which is kinda like Revenge of the Nerds Homecoming competition except it's for clubs and not frats and everything is strictly alcohol free. So that kicked off and I got a cool shirt, and I've been competing mostly for UA Rube Goldberg.
The first event I went to was the Mr. & Mrs. Engineering Pageant - the Rube president won Mr. Engineering by cross dressing and being generally hilarious. I actually competed in "Engineer that Masterpiece," where we were given a bunch of random stuff and told to recreate Edward Munch's "Scream." This is what it ended up looking like:

   The winner of eWeek gets bragging rights and a little extra funding. But really, everyone's goal is just to beat SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers), who have won for three years running. The friendly competition has been a ton of fun.
In other Rube news, we've had one run with one intervention (someone touching the machine to get it restarted) and one run where everything worked, just not in the right order. I don't have videos, but the machine looks like this:

And I probably spent too much time making a cup say "Bear Down Arizona."

Classes are going okay. It's midterm season, so I've had a couple of tests this week, but they haven't seemed too terrible. My MSE professor has been out and back again. He's working with Hieronymus Bosch's paintings, and what he does is really cool. He takes photos with different wavelengths of light and compiles the images into an interactive viewer so that the actual painting can be compared with the drawing, which can be found here.  

And in more news, I have a boyfriend (I know, I can't quite believe it myself) . His name is Clayton, and he's super sweet and nerdy. He lives in my dorm and is also studying engineering. He likes Firefly and anime and long walks on the beach and whatnot. He's also very punny.

That's it from me this week. And in famous quotes, "Happiness is a state of mind. It depends on how you look at things," said by Walt Disney. And as seen on campus:

EDIT: A perfect run of the Rube Goldberg machine has been achieved. More pics and videos to come!

That Time of Year

Another week has gone by, another cycle of beautiful sunrises and sunsets and lab reports and greasy student union food. It's been a good week, and fairly productive and pretty fun.
To start off, last Saturday I became an elf ranger with a deadly longbow and a wolf named Snow in the first episode of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign I started with a bunch of guys from my dorm. The dice were on my side that day as we battled soldiers and frost giants on our way to take over the castle. It got really intense and was a ton of fun, and we're planning on undertaking the next part of our campaign tomorrow.
Benefits of going to physics class - last week a guest professor came in to talk to us about how pulleys distribute force and distance traveled - by hooking himself into climbing gear and spending ten minutes hanging from the ceiling while having us calculate his weight and the tension in the rope and such. Our actual professor was also wearing climbing gear, but said he was to scared for his life to actually go up. However, during the next class, he demonstrated how rockets work (Newton's third law) by sitting down on a rolling cart and using a fire extinguisher to propel himself across the room. It was crazy seeing how many phones went up in the air to capture that, and it was kind of annoying how the people sitting in front of me kept replaying it during the rest of lecture - with sound. I definitely won't forget either of those lessons. The demos in class are much more fun and exciting than the labs. I mean, bouncing marbles is okay, but it gets boring after a while.
I actually tried out for Comedy Corner, and had a ton of fun playing the improv games and doing skits. I made the current members laugh out loud a few times, which I am pretty proud of. I didn't make it in, but one of my friends from church did and did an awesome job at her first show. If I have time, I'll probably try out again next semester.
Next week is E-Week - a national week celebrating engineering. Clubs compete to see who has the most spirit and most engineering knowledge. Rube Goldberg is hosting, you guessed it, the Rube Goldberg regional competition, and is expected to win it by a long shot. Society of Women Engineers is hosting the "Mr. and Mrs. Engineering Pageant," in which couples selected by clubs will compete in formal wear, talent, and cross dressing competitions. Other clubs are hosting things like Jeopardy competitions, bridge building races, and grilling competitions. The traditional drilling rock is in the zone that is blocked off for the construction of Old Main, and so there is not a drilling competition at this time. I'm super excited because this seems like it will be a lot of fun and there is free food involved.

 Happy Valentines Day to everyone (or Singles Awareness Day, if you're the pessimistic type). May love and happiness fill your lives. Also, for all you guys,

More news next week or whenever I feel like it.

Meanwhile...

I know I missed a week, and I apologize. I'll make it up with a rant or something later.
So what have I been doing?
I've been to a couple of basketball games and figured out that the U of A basketball team is largely affected by the crowd (the Berkeley game was probably one of the first where most people weren't in red).
I have helped decorate the Rube Goldberg machine, which no longer looks like a bunch of plywood and metal bits thrown together. Specifically, I helped dimension grass and paint a park ranger falling down a waterfall, which looks pretty awesome.

I have messed around in AutoCAD, making stuff like this:

And also like this:

I've explored more, got lost, and found my way again.

I've volunteered at Ben's Bells, a local charity which promotes kindness by the distribution of clay bells throughout Tucson area, which was a ton of fun. We painted clay beads for use in education programs.

 

I found a cool app that's a game that also helps crunch data from cancer cells.

I had an interview for a position as a Resident Assistant next year, and I was good enough to move on to the second interview, which is this Sunday. I'm pretty excited about that.

I went to a Super Bowl Party at the Newman Center. There's a guy there who's in training to be a priest, Brother Kevin, who is a huge Seahawks fan. Watching him was almost more fun than watching the game. I'm kinda disappointed that the Goldie Blox commercial wasn't the same as the Rube Goldberg one that was floating around the web. The game was a blowout, and the commercials were okay, nothing to write home about.

I gave a presentation in Spanish about a guy who says he was lost at sea for 13 months, which went okay. 

My mind has been blown with Schrodinger's equation, which gives the probability of an electron being somewhere, and Maxwell's equations, which prove light is a wave, in MSE 110. The professor is finally back from Europe, where he does research on paintings in the van Gogh museum and elsewhere.  

I have gone off and around campus, found some soccer fields, and finally actually used my scooter (and got plenty of flak for it).

That's about it for now. Rant on something opinionated to come.   

Oh, and also, this is my roommate, Carly. She's from Hawaii and likes random scifi and fantasy stuff, too. She's an Electrical and Computer Engineering major.