Running

I decided to take up running and went for my first long solo run this evening. I got some appropriate shoes on Tuesday, and since then I've had a few short, rather ineffectual runs by myself and a couple long ones with Dancing Physicist. The last time I ran with him I traced it out on Google Maps later and found the longest continuous segment to be about 3/4 of a mile.

Today I did the same route, and I started running at an earlier point but came up short of my target. I thought it was a similar distance, but when I traced it out Google told me I ran about a mile. That is kind of crazy to me, because I have never been able to run a mile straight before, and I really wasn't sure I could run as far by myself as with someone else motivating me. I remember in sixth and seventh grade, for PE they made us run a mile as some test and I probably had to stop and walk six or eight times. My 6th grade time was 10:30 and my 7th grade time was 11:26. I wonder if I'm beating those times now; it doesn't seem like I'm going very fast but it must be faster if I'm running continuously.

Progress is certainly forthcoming. I haven't even been sore in the mornings after the first time.

Knitting

I went to a knitting group today with my roommate and realized something: knitting utilizes much the same spatial skills as integral calculus.

At least if you think of math spatially, like Dancing Physicist and I do. Fidelity understands math linguistically and I don't get how that works at all.

Oh right there's more to Oregon than the university

I just had a realization that I've been very isolated at school this term. It isn't exactly a problem but I wasn't doing it on purpose. I've been blogging less, barely talked to my family, and haven't been in touch with my Portland friends at all. It makes me think I should come back for a weekend soon.

I also had a dream about my dad the other day, which rarely happens, so that made me think I should get together with him too.

I'm thinking of the 13th-15th (for visiting Portland) since that is right after a few big academic things get wrapped up. It'll take me away from here for Valentine's day, which is a little weird, but I also kind of like the idea. This is the first February 14th since 8th grade that I haven't been in a relationship, so why not celebrate love by going back home to my family?

I hope this next visit will be nice and calm because I won't be trying to see a million people. Just home and Lost Rocket.

(Finally she has a nickname, however unoriginal.)

A general update

It's been a while since I posted, so here is smorgasbord of "stuff"...

I moved into that room across the hall. It seems like my roommate and I are pretty compatible; we don't have a ton in common, but the things that affect sharing space are line. We keep similar hours, similar social habits, and similar levels of neatness. We do connect on a few things, like knitting, Obama, and talking about high school. She's a history major, knits constantly, and loves Sex and the City.

Which reminds me, House has probably started back up and if so, I'm behind.

Classes are less satisfying this term. My chemistry professor isn't as charismatic and my math teacher isn't as good at teaching as last term. I like my prof in solar/renewable energies, but we're going SO slow because the class, it turns out, is geared toward non-science majors. My writing GTF is charismatic, interesting, and cute - but the class he teaches is the definition of lame. Lab is a good class with a good teacher - and I enjoy it greatly - but somewhat harrowing since things don't always go the way they're supposed to, causing the schedule to get modified a lot.

Now that I live on campus and have math with Fidelity, I'm always hanging out with her or Dancing Physicist. Fidelity's boyfriend (another friend from high school and another physics major) is in town this weekend and we are trying to get all four of us together for brunch tomorrow. If we succeed, I can only imagine the hilarity that will ensue. Let's hope I don't have to stop Dancing Physicist and the boyfriend from building catapults out of the silverware...

---

"Up is a vaccuum."

Up is not a vaccuum. Up is a fluffy gray blanket. Up also was not a cardinal direction until you called it one. Maybe up is what the ancients wanted when they searched for a fifth element.

The best friends are the ones who show you something new all the time.

Tides of change

I watched the inauguration this morning.

Thinking on the historic nature of this event, I think about all the people dead now who never saw a black president, and all the children not yet born for whom it will be a given. And all the people alive at this moment who will see it in different ways because of their age.

It occurred to me that in terms of significance, my sister will probably see Obama's inauguration similarly to the way I saw 9/11. Everyone around me was making a huge deal of it, so I knew it was important, but I was really too young and ignorant to understand at the time. I can only really appreciate its importance in retrospect. I wonder if her (our) school is trying to get across to those younger kids the historical context of it. Seems like the sort of thing they might do. I bet in the high school, at least the social studies teacher made his class watch some of the ceremony.

In his speech, Obama hit every point that I hoped he would. He touched on reforms for energy policy and foreign policy; he addressed inequality of opportunity and "reject[ed] as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

Obama's catchword has been "hope." A poet who read after his address referred to "love." I was filled with a rising spirit today that compares well to both. I love this world, I hope Obama will turn us around as he keeps saying he will, and I hope for continuing feelings of love for nature, my friends, my family, and myself.

I'm building my own little circle of nerds

Another character on the scene: Fidelity. She's someone I knew in high school - she was in my class, but graduated a year early, and now is at UO with me. We're in the same math section this term and she's majoring in physics.

On our first math quiz, there was an extra credit question asking for the capital of Canada. As it happens, I was the only one in our section to get it right. (Ottawa, if you're curious.) As I was discussing it with Fidelity she laughed about how she's terrible with geography and asked, if given a map of the U.S. and a periodic table to fill out which would be more complete at the end?

(The map of the U.S. I don't know the lanthanides and actinides!)

Fast forward to this afternoon. I was having an early dinner with Dancing Physicist and, in a lull of conversation, remembered the question. I asked him which would be more complete, in his case. We got to talking about which states would be harder to label and geography in general. After several minutes on this train of thought he quizzed me on how many provinces in Canada. I let him know he'd brought the topic right back to where it started - and as we were finishing up our analysis, I saw Fidelity walk in. How circuitous!

I got her attention and she came to sit down with us, and then it was a great big fun nerdfest. We talked about geography, astronomy, chemistry, physics, school, and then went outside and identified Venus in the sky. I don't think I've ever talked to more than one enthusiastic person about science at the same time! It was incredibly satisfying.

Dreams, relationships, and how chemistry is a good metaphor

I've been having very clear dreams lately, as in the past couple weeks. By clear I mean that they are vivid, detailed, and specific. Sometimes dreams are fuzzy to the senses and to the emotions; they slip away quickly; everything is sort of vague and there doesn't seem to be much of a point to what happens.

Dreams have historically been desire-gratification to me. I would usually dream about things I wanted, and it was usually pretty obvious - nothing I didn't already know. But now things are more psychologically complex. Having a dream with a plot context, a specific climactic event, and an emotional response can really clarify where things are. You can't rationalize in your dreams.

One particular dream got me thinking deeply. It was related to relationships (pretty common; a lot of the things I want but can't control are relationship-related). I came up with a useful conclusion about my current state - but when I put it into a sentence I realized I was treating love, sex, and friendship as discrete entities with distinguishable properties. That doesn't invalidate what I came up with - this rings true with my experience - but it made me pause. Some people would dispute the very existence of "love" in that sense. Just like - my mind jumped - people dispute whether hybrid orbitals really exist, or whether d orbitals are involved in valence bonding. So the separation works for practical purposes, but probably isn't, at the most fundamental level, really how things are. Different frameworks work for different people (spectrum, Venn diagram, or separation) and different chemicals (VSEPR, valence bonding, or molecular orbitals). The psychology of relationships is just as messy as bonding theory.

And as a extensive corollary... everything is in tension between theoretical explanations and experimental evidence.

Late night walks and roommates

Despite his lack of a cell phone, Dancing Physicist does use technology on occasion; he just has a low tolerance for it. We were instant messaging last night when he pronounced that we ought to meet on the LLC lawn and talk for real, seeing as our dorms are no more than hundred or two meters apart. We walked all around campus, talking for longer than we've ever had a chance before. Once or twice I wondered about the time, but I had no clock, so I let it go. It was beautiful to not really care how late it might be getting - to be that satisfied with the moment.

It looks like I'll be moving in with the girl across the hall who I said was cool. It's quite lucky that the one person I seem able to relate to and converse with on this floor is the one other person in a half-empty room.

Back to drafting now.

-1 internal freakout

OK... so my honors college application is due on Thursday. Luckily, the recommendations have until February 1st to be received. Tomorrow morning I'll call Reed and make sure I have everything straight as far as what they want (being both a transfer and a reapply, it's a bit confusing) and then I'll decide which professor to tap for my university recommendation, figure out who counts as my "college official", and get in touch with the appropriate high school teacher(s).

Everything will be fine.

Aaaaaaaaaaggghh!

So I got a helpful email from Fastweb (a scholarship search engine I signed up for last year) reminding me about the dreaded FAFSA. Which I could have started eleven days ago had I remembered, but I didn't, and worse, this means a sudden "shit we need all our info and all of it organized" for my parents since most of what goes into that form is their tax information.

I also am trying to find out the deadline and recommendation recommendations for transfer students for the Clark Honors College here. I really hope the deadline is NOT the same as the freshman deadline, January 15th, because that's way too soon and I can't put together my application until I can find out what the requirements are. I can write the essay in the next 3 days if need be, but recommendations will be another story. If the deadline IS the 15th, then high school recommendations better be OK. But since the website says nothing about transfer students and they haven't answered my email and when I went to their office half an hour ago the admissions director was in a meeting... we'll see how this all pans out.

The most facepalm thing about this is that I was so damn bored for much of winter break, when I could have been doing this stuff!

He's back!

So, as far as I knew Dancing Physicist was transferring to UI. When I didn't see him in chemistry this week, I took that as confirmation. But as I was eating brunch at the dining hall today, I caught a glimpse of him at the coffee bar in the kind of sharp focus I never could have attained without my new glasses. (Really - without them there's no damn way I would have recognized him at that distance.)

Apparently he's taking engineering classes at LCC. Hence, he doesn't need to leave UO, but he also can't fit chemistry into his schedule.

I'm happy he's around after all; I was starting to really miss him.

Garlic

So, I didn't really think "too much garlic" was actually possible to achieve. Yeah, the phrase exists - and is overused - but I figured that's because most people are wimps, or just nutters who don't like the spice.

But as I sat in morning class today - having taken a shower, brushed my teeth, slept about eight hours, and eaten breakfast - I could still f---ing taste garlic! Okay, maybe I put a little bit too much garlic in my dinner.

Second term classes

Notes on my classes, now that I've had them all:

Chemistry - I have a new professor, but I don't think I like her as much as my previous one. We'll see though. Whatever happens, it's still honors chemistry.

Lab - For lab I now have the prof I had for lecture last term. The advanced version promises to be fun; our first project is to make various cobalt compounds that form an array of colors.

Physics - The bookstore is sold out of the text, but I like the prof, the first class lived up to my expectations based on the course title, and we get to use a nifty gizmo called a clicker. The clicker is basically a piece of plastic with buttons on it which wirelessly transmits which button you press to the teacher. That way, he can poll us in real time during class. I didn't get mine until after class today, but he did a few questions and it looked really fun.

Calculus - The first day, I hated the room. It was pink-orange and cavernous with no windows. We also had a sub, who said the real teacher was going to make him give us worksheets all week. I thought screw that and switched sections. So day two I went to a different calc class, but didn't like the teacher's teaching style. I'm thinking of switching sections again, but don't want to just blindly bounce around, so I asked my old teacher (who doesn't have a section of 252) to recommend someone with a similar style. Unfortunately, none of the people he suggested have open sections right now except one that conflicts with my chemistry and physics lectures. If nothing opens up, I'll probably stay where I am because I'm in class with a friend from high school.

Writing - I didn't want to be in 123 at 5pm. I wanted to be in 122 in the middle of the day (I'd have taken early morning, but it's already filled with science). Once I showed up for class, though, I really liked the GTF. As evident from math, that's a rather hit or miss affair. After asking around a bit, it seems like 123 is not much different than 122, and possibly a more diverse class. It's still not my favorite time of day, but since it's only 2 nights a week and I get off at 2 all the other days, I think I will stay where I am.

Dorms

I am now living in a dorm room.

It wasn't as simple as just moving in. When I got here yesterday I was assigned a room in Stafford Hall (not that that means anything to you readers, but I will be talking about other halls in a minute) on the fourth floor. Almost immediately a hint of trouble appeared wherein my roommate thought she was going to have a specific other roommate - but in the chaos we dismissed it and figured the other person didn't fill out the right paperwork or something. Later, that person showed up and was pissed because her paperwork was fine; the mistake was on the housing office. She was temporarily placed in a room in Morton for the night, and in the morning we talked to the director, who told us to switch rooms.

I didn't want to move all my stuff again, but the new room is arguably better. It looks out over a courtyard rather than the sports field, the wireless network is more reliable, and it's about as close as possible to the academic buildings - right across the lawn, in fact, from Willamette Hall where three of my five classes meet. I also don't have a roommate here, although the convenience is somewhat diminished by the stark blankness of the other half of the room.

The meal plan is an odd balancing act between getting good value for your points and getting food that's actually good for you. Inconveniently, such food tends to be available only in large, expensive portions. My choices might be: good healthy food for 5 points that is almost too much to eat; junk food in 2 or 3 point units; and healthy snacks in 3 point units that are far less than 3/5 of the 5 point meal. There are some good places though. I like the Asian grill where you fill a bowl with noodles or rice and vegetables and choose tofu or meat and sauces to add. The dining hall is priced in such a manner that it's really only appropriate for lunch and occasional dinner, but it has a great salad bar. The ultimate deal? Decent oatmeal for 1 point. I had that for breakfast today, and I was hungry sooner than I'd have liked, but hey - one point.

The bottom line with the meal plan is I have to get used to eating big meals less often because I just can't eat four times a day like I usually do.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year folks. This year, I'll be happy every time I write the date because I like the number 9. I think it's the most aesthetically pleasing number.

I get to pick up my new glasses today, which makes me happy. It also makes me happy to know that I'm going back to Eugene in two days, because high school is starting to encroach uncomfortably on my life. Nonetheless, I seem determined to go encroach on every last corner of IT before I leave. High school may still be able to make me squirm, but I'll blow to smithereens its expectations of how I'm gonna respond. Avoidance is for losers - people who will accept a loss in order to get rid of responsibility.

I don't know whose responsibility most of this really is, but I'd rather be responsible than powerless if I've got a choice.

I need to clean up my room, pack my extra blankets, do one last load of laundry and extract what I need from my filing cabinet before I go back to school.