Winter is Coming

What's out: short shorts, sanity, and the color yellow.
What's in: hoodies galore, facial hair, and the color blue.

No-Shave November has hit its peak - at a guess, I'd guess that at least half the males on campus have taken advantage of the excuse not to shave for a month, the vast majority not giving it any greater significance. It's almost funny seeing the full range of facial hair from those who can barely grow peach fuzz to those people who went from nothing to full on Chuck Norris beard and mustache. However, at this point, a good number of them who were raring to go at the beginning of the month have chopped off their 'beards' complaining of the itch.

It's finally gotten cold, and the weather turned quick - last Saturday day was sunny and beautiful, but that night got down to below 50 degrees. As such, that Monday, the hoodies came out in force. It was almost comical to see everyone in cold weather gear varying from "light breeze" to "Oh crap a blizzard's coming!" So now, I guess it is officially winter.

On Monday there was a talent show for the three dorms on Historic Lane (but mostly Yuma). We have some seriously talented people living here. Mom would be happy to know that those Irish Dance lessons finally paid off. I danced barefoot and was extremely well received.

Otherwise, pretty boring week. Some of my classes were still a little scrambled from the Tuesday off for Veteran's Day (especially my lab), but there really hasn't been much new by way of classes.

From Facebook, a post which was surprisingly well liked: I have more library cards than the average American has credit cards. Help, I'm a biblioholic!
(The average American who has credit cards has 3.7, average among all Americans is 2.6 {from here}. I have 4 library cards, all of which I use fairly regularly).
I also found a cute little library within scootering distance, so I don't have to go brave downtown to get my book fix. (cue parents' groans).

Also from Facebook, a beautiful picture of me exhibiting for homecoming (there was another guy there helping out, too):

Song of the week - "Clocks" by Coldplay. Nothing else compares.

Thanks, have a good week!

Post Homecoming, Pre-Unviverse

In cosmically cool news, a refrigerator probe launched by the European Space Agency (the EU's answer to NASA) successfully touched down on a comet two times as far away from Earth as Mars and about 1.5 miles across at its widest point. (xkcd covered it live). This is the first time anything human made has purposefully landed on a comet. The Philae lander is taking pictures and recording sound, and taking and analyzing samples and what it has sent back (with a 27 minute delay, of course) is pretty amazing.


In relatively inconsequential local news, homecoming was a lot of fun. I didn't go to the game (I know, shame on me, no excuses, how could you, etc.), but I got to help present UA Rube on the Mall. We were in the College of Engineering tent, where all the best food (and the coolest people) were, sharing a table with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Bake sale!), who were pretty cool. We showed a video of our machine so far (from the beginning cup cascade to the pan zip line), and, when little kids seemed really interested, I showed the MTD/waterfall piece (that I painted!) from last year's machine. It was really cool to see people, especially kids, so interested in something that I spend too much time doing. Oh, and the homecoming parade was pretty cool, too. Funny thing - the only Greek float that got a cheer from the COE tent was the Theta Tau (engineering fraternity) float - the rest seemed to be met with death stares. The Society of Automotive Engineers, who showed their Baja and Formula cars in the parade, got huge cheers, as did the band. I guess we're all slightly vindictive nerds.

It was fantastic seeing my parents over the weekend. I'm glad they came, and I think they had a good time too. They got to see a lot of their old friends, see the campus again (including a personal tour of the rec center), and (of course), see their darling daughter again.

We've started playing with solenoids (large coils of wire) in lab, using magnets to induce current, inspiring all the manner of dirty jokes. In learning about electricity and magnetism, I've also learned a lot of right-handed physics gang signs along the way.
We've almost finished reading a play, La dama del alba, in Spanish. It's pretty depressing - it's a soap opera with a characterization of Death in a pilgrim woman, which leads to all kinds of shenanigans and accusations. I'm enjoying it so far.
The theater dance of the past few weeks has been "Sherry Baby" from Jersey Boys, featuring an annoyingly high falsetto singer and a tricky six-step.
Nothing that exciting is happening in my other classes, but I'm powering through. I'm going to be okay this semester.

Song of the week (because I've got xkcd on the mind and it's funny) is "Every Major's Terrible," based on "Modern Major General" from Pirates of Penzance.

(Original comic here)

Homecoming Mark 2.0

It's homecoming weekend, which means white quadropedic tents have taken over the mall, tug of war mud pits can be found in random places, and people are trying (and failing) to get the student body excited about what should be a mediocre game on a weekend where so much other stuff is happening. But hey, there's free food.

I'm not too excited about the football game, because Colorado is currently at the bottom of the PAC-12 and despite losing to UCLA, we're still one of the best teams in the country. I am excited about seeing my parents whom I have not seen since I went off to school in August. That will be interesting.

It's been a bit of an off week - no tests (phew) but just a paper on Choctaw language revitalization to write (it's pretty cool - there's an app for that - the language, that is ;). I aced a Statics test (because I truss in free bodies) which was pretty cool.

A good number of my friends concluded that I am better than their collective fathers at "dad jokes" especially the ones involving corny puns (What did the monster drink his beer from? A Franken-STEIN!) I was a-maized that they thought that of me, and took it as a tall compliment. Hopefully there were no strings attached.

My Halloween day was pretty boring; but on November 1st after a long day of building for Rube, I went to a costume get together at one of the Rube girl's houses. It was really low key, but I'm glad I went. I'm sure our dance to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" is still floating around somewhere. No, I didn't get anyone to take pictures of me in costume. Sorry. It wasn't that great anyway - half of every other girl was also dressed as a black cat in various degrees of dress. I had a black shirt, cute short sleeved jacket, black pants, and of course, duct taped black cat ears. It required a minimum of effort, but I still looked good in it.

Also, speaking of Rube, we got the machine to work across the top part of the counter. This part of the machine involves cups, spatulas, blenders, and birds and is really impressive. If you're on Facebook, there's a video here.

On a side note, it's National Novel Writing Month. No, I'm not writing a novel (I don't have the time to churn out 1,667 words per day) but I am writing a short story. You can check out my progress - right now it's called "The Machine" and can be found under the tab labelled as such on the home page of this blog. Let me know what you think.

And of course - song of the week has got to be "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes - the quintessential football drone.

Thanks, everyone!

 

Halloween Time

Hey everyone, I'm posting early because I've been posting late the last couple of weeks and because I probably won't tomorrow, tomorrow being All Hallows Eve and I may or may not be busy. Right now, I'm wearing my excuse for a costume (dead Star Trek crew member[which is a red t shirt and black pants]) because the costume I put a little bit of effort in (a black cat) is reserved for day of. I will post pictures when I have them.

I'm finally done with this round of midterms, and I can now think without my brain exploding, so here's what I've been learning:

• Statics - funky applications of the equations of equilibrium (sum of forces in x, sum of forces in y, and sum of moments/torque all equal zero). Why bridges need to breathe. Reactions to moments.
• Vector Calc - There's not one funky "S" shape, not two funky "S" shapes, but THREE funky "S" shapes that must be gotten rid of, while using cylinders and spheres. Yes, triple integration. With polar coordinates.
• Physics - This is all;
  But really, we are learning about circuits, capacitors resistors, diodes and the like.
• American Indian Languages - I can tell you the difference between a phoneme and an allophone, but I still can't speak a word of Tohono O'odham.
• Theater Dance - we're learning the finale from Footloose (the one with Kevin Bacon) for the next few weeks.

And that's my academics.

In other news, I got to see the UA Dance program's showcase, and they are amazing and beautiful. I have no idea how they move their bodies like they do.

The song of the week has been stuck in my head - "Anna Sun" by Walk the Moon.

(And of course, OK GO's newest video, which is very cool from an engineering standpoint - "I Won't Let You Down" - shot using a multirotor copter and on self-balancing unicycles) 

Almost Halloweentime

Sorry I haven't written in a while. It's been crazy. It seems like I've had about a month straight of midterms, and it's not over until next Wednesday. It started with the classes that have four tests, then the true midterms, and finishes with the classes with four exams again. So, I've been pretty busy and going insane academically.

Also, this past Friday and Saturday was the Historic Lane Haunted Dungeon. This is an annual event where people from three residence halls make an extremely scary maze through the basements and the backyard in order to get canned food for charity. (It's roughly analogous to an amateur Knott's Scary Farm maze.) It takes a lot of work, but it always looks amazing. It's a huge deal. We even got featured in the Daily Wildcat. This year, the dungeon was a creepy dollhouse, with cracked porcelain, unstrung marionettes, and crazed Barbies. I was a puppet with a puppet who was one of the first things people saw when they walked down into the basement.  

Overall, we were very successful. We moved over 800 people through the dungeons over two nights and had a lot of canned goods. In my particular section, we scared some people so badly that they couldn't continue and left. We got a lot of good screams, and I even got a few "that is the freakiest things ever"s. That was a ton of fun.

Here's the people who were in Gila basement with me:

And here's the entire cast:

So that's been keeping me busy.

In other news, I helped design and perfect the first step of this year's Rube Goldberg machine. It's a water step where water flows from one cup to the the next, eventually weighing down a cup at the bottom, and it works really well.

I'm doing okay right now, keeping it together and staying busy. However, no matter how much I try, bedtime is unfortunately rarely before midnight anymore.

Song of the week is The Overture from Tommy, by the Who, just cuz.

Stories

There are a couple of stories that I keep remembering and want to share. Neither of these are my own, but I am probably not quoting exactly. I'm not going to moralize; you can figure those out yourselves.

The first one is a story that has been pinned to the dining room bulletin board since "from the Internet" was a novelty. All I know about where it comes from is that it ends with a Christian moral and it's labeled "Adult Corner" with a funky glyph. And it goes a little like this:

Once in a land far away, there was a king. The king had a friend that, no matter what happened, always remarked, "This is good!" This annoyed the king to no end, but he kept his friend around anyways.
One day the king and his friend went out hunting. The friend loaded the king's rifle and handed it to the king, who sighted a lion. He aimed and squeezed the trigger, causing the gun to explode. When the dust cleared, the king and his friend realized that the king had lost his thumb.
"This is good!" the friend remarked.
"No, this is not good!" the king exclaimed, and threw his friend into the dungeons.
A while later, the king went out hunting again, and subsequently got captured by cannibals. As the cannibals were putting the king into the fire, they realized the king was missing a thumb. Because they did not eat people who were not whole, they let the king go free.
The king went back to his castle and immediately let his friend out of jail.
"I am sorry. It was bad of me to put you into jail," said the king to the friend.
"No, it was good. Everything worked out how it was supposed to," replied the friend.
The king was confused, and asked why.
The friend replied "If I had not been here, I would have been with you."  

I know even less about the origin of this second one, but I know I found it near the beginning of my obsession with OKGO and Rube Goldberg machines. It's shorter and still relevant. Here's my retelling:

Once a Persian sultan who felt like he was missing something from his life. He tried many things, but still couldn't find what he was looking for.
So he called a meeting of the wisest philosophers in the land and gave them a challenge - find him something that would make him happy when he was sad and sad when he was happy. Whoever achieved this seemingly impossible task would receive riches and renown beyond his wildest dreams.
And so they began.
One brought him a bracelet of silver and gold as a reminder that beauty exists, but that only made him temporarily happy.
Another brought a tiger pelt as a reminder that all things die, but that only made him sad.
And so the gifts kept coming - jewels and plates and plants and people - and none succeeded in making the king happy when he was sad and sad when he was happy. News of the contest spread far and wide.
Finally, a simple goldsmith came and presented the king with his gift - a simple golden band with the words "This too shall pass." The king broke down and wept. He had found something that would make him happy when he was sad and sad when he was happy. The goldsmith lived on, news his wealth and fame spread wide.
But he remembered, that, despite all his new riches, that nothing lasts forever and that this, too, would pass.

Welcome to Dragon Scales

And the testing continues this week and into next week. There is a never ending cycle of homework and tests and studying that I cannot escape. You cannot escape. We are all trapped in a never ending cycle. Welcome to Dragon Scales (cue creepy intro music).

In Sports news, my intramural Capture the Flag team won second place in the league. Who beat us? A team consisting of the running club with a few despicable sprinters they recruited. We were the guinea pigs of Campus Rec's Secret IM Referees for making Capture the Flag a scoreable sport, and as such, we were still asking about the rules well into the final game.I'm glad I played, though I probably will opt for indoor soccer next time.

 On to Arts - two weeks ago I had the opportunity to see the legendary U of A School of Dance in action. They were amazing. Each dancer had such minute control over his or her body. It was uncanny to watch how they moved. In other arts news, I now have "Swing, Swing,  Swing" stuck in my head from my dance class.

We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsors. Is that a hand hovering over your shoulder? It might be. Don't look. Don't think about it. Look again - it is gone. But you do not know when it will return. Will it surprise you when reading your emails? When you're watching a movie? Maybe when you come back and read this same blog again? You never know. In-n-Out Burger - Quality you can taste.

Community calendar - Friday - an irregular influx of people between the ages of 35 and 65 have invaded campus for family weekend. I expect they will disappear as quickly as they appeared, leaving little trace but the odd leftover box in the refrigerator. Saturday - building strange machines with strange people in the Civil Engineering building while avoiding paddle bits. Also, a battle royal between wildcats and Trojans.

As I try to escape the darkness, I give you - the weather! "Iris" by the GooGoo Dolls  

The night is calm and quiet. Everyone has left and the normal order is restored. Keep watch, and keep calm. Good night Dragon Scales, Good night.

(Just fyi, this week's blog entry is loosely based on the format of the popular podcast "Welcome to Night Vale," which is my treat for when I fold clothes. Today's proverb - A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush - but why not just take the bush? Your yard needs the foliage)