Ha ha, very funny

*enormous fucking sigh*

So that paper, the one due on Saturday, was apparently an upperclassman prank. It was very well executed - it was sitting on the table outside the classroom next to the outline for the lecture. It had formatting specifications and although being due on Saturday is weird, I re-checked the syllabus website and the papers actually are due on Saturdays - but the first one is not until three weeks out.

I should be mad that I spent two and a half hours on a joke this afternoon, and I certainly wish I would've spent that time on my physics problem set, but in a way it's relieving. I did get about 600 words of disorganized ideas down, and I was pretty confident I could finish the assignment okay. Now that I know that's somebody's idea of a way to scare freshmen, I'm much less apprehensive about the work that will actually be assigned.

And at some point, there's reality

Oh boy. What have I gotten myself into?

Wednesday I moved in, and although I was quite tired by the end of the day roomie convinced me to go out to the dance party, which was a great idea. My aerobic fitness gained from running and biking gave me a lot of endurance. Thursday and Friday I went to a lot of orientation sessions, some boring, most more interesting than one would expect, and laughably many describing a principle or issue as an "ongoing conversation." It sounds pretentious, but I can tell that here it's sincere, and I really believe everything intellectual ought to be, in terminology I prefer, a living discourse.

Thursday night Senor Evergreen came to hang out, and Friday night had Noise Parade. Only at Reed. Where else would you see sanctioned a mass of college students in ridiculous costumes marching about campus, banging on pots and pans and blowing whistles and playing bagpipes and trumpets, carrying torches and shooting off fireworks, with a couple community-safety peeps nonchalantly following the fire hazards with extinguishers? To join in the gratuitous noise I thought I'd yell something about how awesome Reed is, but then I realized such a formal expression would be counter to the point. Reed doesn't need a pep rally - we express our spirit by simply honoring the human urge to flip the fuck out without any pretense of purpose.

Saturday was "get acquainted with Portland" day, so I skipped off campus and went on a trip through Macleay Park with the guy I've been seeing. We spent basically the whole time philosophizing. Among the gems: every little thing is an immense conduit of information, a local manifestation of what is globally going on. Humans are amazing animals because we create our own habitat, and because we entertain ourselves with an infinitely versatile substance called language. (Think about language. Think about substances. Doesn't it fit?) Everything can be a metaphor for everything else, and when it comes to actual linguistic metaphor, it's far more precise than trying to literal all the time and it's the way we understand things in more dimensions than we can sense. Code-switching is does not necessarily imply inauthenticity, but is a consequence of the fact that people have different areas of overlap in their linguistic habits. Belonging is feeling like the catacombs in the back of my mind (where I live most of the time, in case y'all hadn't noticed) exist separately from my own individual associations, are still there when I'm not, and are visited by other people, comprising all those living discourses. Tension as a physiological state is malleable, can be manifested as anxiety, nausea, jitters, arousal, and released as laughter, tears, vomit, orgasm. Breath is a great mediator, and one of the great issues in the world is how abstract entities like nations try to engage with these very concrete physiological states of tension. Release of tension equals pleasure, according to Freud, but there's at least two kinds of pleasure, the thrilling kind and the comforting kind, which are almost incompatible and you can pit them against each other for a while, but at some point, as the necessary third pole to balance it all out, there's reality. That's where accomplishment as a motivator comes in, a motivator for doing unpleasurable but practical things. Nature is immanent and forms circles in both time and space, but us humans in our drive to feel progress make rectangles and frame our experiences in linear terms.

I've been trying really hard to be a normal freshman here, and curriculum-wise I can basically do it, but in some ways it's just not possible. I don't think it matters that I went to UO last year or even that I went to school, although it's not just that I'm older, but I've been out of high school and out of my parents' house, and it makes a difference. Regardless of my actual class standing, I'm not entirely a freshman because of that, whatever curriculum I follow - but I can't feel like a sophomore because I'm new here. Even though I did go to school, I'm essentially a freshman with a gap year behind me.

Sunday was getting loose ends tied up, paperwork and books. I'm now $325 in debt to the bookstore and still scrambling for work study. Then at night I watched a movie full of violence, sex, fire, and relevance, which was not actually that awesome in itself, but anything can be made fun by a roomful of Reedies shouting snarky comments at the screen. So it was with Troy. Besides, Brad Pitt as Achilles is hot and a badass.

This morning I had my first two classes: humanities lecture and physics lecture. Physics was fine; the professor has a subtle and attractive accent, but the content was rather boring since science starts simple: dimensions, units, graphs. Humanities was a fascinating lecture on our perspective on "the Greeks," the nature of anger especially in storytelling, and verbal vs. physical virtues in warfare. It did nothing, however, to elucidate the themes we are supposed to address in our first paper, which is due Saturday at 5pm. Jumping right in, I see.

It's also starting to get weird how I see Lost Rocket multiple times a day.

Tomorrow is environmental chem and philosophy of minds, brains and machines.

oh shit i have classes

Hum 110 (0900 MWF and 0900 TR so yes that's every morning)
Phys 110 (1000 MWF and 1030 TR and 1310 W)
Chem 230 (environmental chemistry, 1310 TR)
Phil 206 (minds, brains, and machines, 1440 TR)

So my mornings are filled with humanities and physics, I have lab on Wednesday afternoon, Monday and Friday are quite light and I get out by 4 every day.

Spring on the other hand is scary. I have inorganic chem which means I have another lab. Due to the two labs and the packed mornings I have to take math at 8am, and Friday I am booked solid 8am to 5pm except for my lunch hour.

Chemistry, humanities, around and around

So I thought they had changed humanities to be at a different time, but I was wrong, they just changed one of the sections. My plan to deal with this, of course, was to take other chem this year, and Hum 110.

So then I went to the chemistry department's open house and they say that putting off O-chem will result in a cascade failure off putting off chem courses because they're ALL at 9am. So I thought, well fuck, I guess I'll just have to take a 200 humanities to make it up.

BUT, apparently that 200 option is only open to those transfers who have some kind of credit equivalent to 110. I obviously don't. So I guess I have to take 110. Then what do I do about my chemistry?

I suppose I can just declare I AM A FRESHMAN DAMMIT and if other freshmen can take O chem next year so can I. That's what a petition for an extra semester is for...

But really, I'm just sick of this entire issue. Fuck it. Advisor, this is your problem now.

Moved into Reed

Duuuuuude... I live at Reed now.

My room isn't divided like I thought it was going to be, but my roommate is chill and the room is fucking twice as big as a UO room. There's space I'm taking up, and space she's taking up, and there's still a little square of space in front of the fireplace to be common and undecorated. It's great.

Went to dinner with my floor, and we went around saying names three or four times so I think I pretty much know everyone already. One guy talked to me a bit, he's into cognitive science but says he's not into science in general... hmm. One girl, I actually can't remember much of what we talked about but I got a good feeling from her, like our conversation just felt like chatting with a friend.

Lost Rocket has the dorm that looks like a friggin' condo.

I think I like Commons. We'll see how I feel about the variety after eating there for a couple of months, but it seems like they have reasonably nutritive food, and it's all there in one place, so it's like a dining hall, but without the pressure to eat a lot because you pay a la carte rather than a flat, exorbitant fee.

Weird thing is I feel way more Not At Home than I did when I moved to Eugene. I could visit at least two friends in the neighborhood on any whim, I've got Lost Rocket here on campus, and anyone else I'm used to seeing is just a phone call and a bike ride away. Maybe it's just that home is school again, but it's not even really school yet.

Convocation was surprisingly good. At UO it was really boring, but there were a lot of cool speeches here.

Hey! At 9 there's a showing of No Exit (which I read in French) and something by David Ives, who wrote some hilarious plays done by MLC a while ago. Gotta go!

Reed health forms, notes #2

Okay... so I just called the Reed health office about the physical, thinking I could get one there and save myself the trouble of trying to schedule myself somewhere else in Portland during O-week. They said it's not required to enroll, so I should come make an appointment once I know my class schedule and they'll take care of it then.

I'm going to go to Kaiser and take care of my immunization records today. They also said I should just fill out the "demographic information" form now and put down "uncertain" or something for the insurance question. The business office, once it all gets straightened out, will let the health center know what's going on. So it looks like I can take care of pretty much everything today.

Hahaha so true

http://xkcd.com/627/

So true, at least for most problems. Now if my dad could make a similar flowchart for solving Linux problems, I'd be set.

Polenta!

I invented the most awesome food ever yesterday. First, I made broccoli cheese polenta. That's a pretty good idea, but totally unremarkable and easy - just add broccoli to the polenta before it boils, and cheese when it's just about thickened. Then pour it into a pan, let it set, cut it into cute triangles... cool.

No, the best part is where I took a triangle, fried it in a pan, and put some beans in the pan next to it. Then I covered it up to let the heat permeate the polenta. So then I had warm broccoli cheese polenta with a crispy outside, with BEANS! Today I'm adding some sauteed onions to the beans. I think it'll be good.

Gettin' things done

I had a very productive and inspired day today. I went on a run with Fidelity, did all my dishes, packed a bunch of stuff, painted TP tubes to make a tea organizer, cleaned out a small suitcase I've been borrowing from my mom for several years, and sent some emails regarding work-study and references for my application. All of this was done by bits and pieces while listening to good music, and Lost Rocket happened to be by the house in the early afternoon too.

In broader news: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/20/new-poll-77-percent-suppo_n_264375.html

'[77% of] Americans feel it is important to have a "choice" between a government-run health care insurance option and private coverage, according to a public opinion poll released on Thursday.
[...]
Earlier in the week, after pollsters for NBC dropped the word "choice" from their question on a public option, they found that only 43 percent of the public were in favor of "creating a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private health insurance companies."
[...]
While arguments about what type of language best describe the public option persist --"choice" is considered a trigger word that everyone naturally supports -- it seems clear that the framing of the provision goes a long way toward determining its popularity.'

So does this mean 34% of Americans don't understand the issue well enough to see that the two questions are asking the same thing? Or do they perhaps look at the question slantwise, thinking that the "choice" of private coverage must be preserved but not actually favoring the creation of a public option? Yet, in whose mind is private coverage the one in question? I really don't get how the polling numbers can differ by SO MUCH. And if the government doesn't create a public option, what is the health care bill going to consist of?

WTF

Senor Evergreen cut his hair. Short. Like, ridiculously short on the sides and a little longer, so it puffs up, on top.

He showed up to pick up a frisbee he left here with his new haircut and a red plaid buttonup shirt tucked into blue jeans.

All of you who know him know how fuckin' weird this is. Six years. WTF.

Reed health forms

Note to self (and slightly to mom): there is still health paperwork due for Reed apart from the insurance issue. Specifically, I need a physician assessment (probably can be done at the health center just after moving in but I'd better find out for sure) and I need to get a copy of my immunization records from Kaiser. There's also an online form that appears to be a kind of summary of everything but includes stuff about the insurance so I haven't filled it out yet.

Second timed mile

Conditions: caffeinated, warmed up. Cleveland track (Franklin's was closed).

Lap 1: 2:32
Lap 2: 2:22
Lap 3: 2:26
Lap 4: 2:22

Total time: 9:42 (!!)

I was definitely straining my aerobic capacity, but I broke ten minutes!

Craft mania

I now have 31 paper cranes. I'm running out of space on my dressertop, and I won't likely have an excessive amount of surface to work with at Reed, so I need to think about a more compact display solution. I think I will make strings of them after all, while perhaps keeping a small collection of the newest ones loose.

The two newest ones were experiments in folding cranes as small as possible (and one-upping Dancing Physicist's efforts) and represent the lower limit of my interest in folding tiny cranes. They came from squares of paper 3/4 inch on a side, and their wingspan is 5/8 inch, so although I might be able to fold something a little smaller... there's no further aesthetic value in doing so, and they'd just get lost on the first stray breeze. My mom however suggested spraying with a fixative and making earrings out of the ones already folded and I love the idea. It also makes me consider making smaller versions of my neurotransmitter/drug molecules and making earrings out of those. Though I really don't need any more earrings. Actually, the challenge with that would be making the molecules hang nicely. Dopamine is the only one that has a shape I'm sure would work well as an earring. Maybe a dopamine and serotonin pair?

Move-in is just a week and a half away! I should start packing and cleaning. I've already been going through clothes, narrowing them down and creating a sensible organization system in my dresser. I think the battery or something in the pseudo-vacuum died, so I'll have to call GP if I can't find a plug on the thing. Looking around this place, I feel like I have so much stuff I need to get rid of some of it so it'll fit in my new room... but it all CAME from a dorm room, so really I don't need to worry, just get it all consolidated.

Roommate

I just called my roommate and talked to her for about 45 minutes.

She's from what she calls the triangle area of North Carolina - a triangle of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. We both like music and she plays the cello. (I can think of at least one person who will find that awesome.) She knows a couple of current bands in Portland and loves the music scene in Olympia. She almost wanted to go to Evergreen for Olympia, and I had a laugh at that and told her a bit about Evergreen and my friend who goes there. She wants to study language and history, and she told me an idea she had about indexing language and writing poetry by looking in the index for the kind of word you want. It sounded like something I'd do, and then my mom would tell me I was nuts. I told her about cabbage pH indicator, and she inspired me to the idea of making purple paper which could then be painted with "invisible ink" solutions of acid and base. I gave her advice about clothes to bring, and we decided that whoever moves in first will just set down her stuff and wait for the other to split up the room. Of course we are still at the stage of trying to be awesome for first impressions' sake, but I think we'll get along.

Kathryn/Kay

Just before sixth grade, I started going by Kay.

Recently I started thinking about going back to Kathryn. I thought about how much trouble some people went to, like my parents, to make "Kay" a habit, and how it might be really annoying if I "change my mind" about it. Then again, maybe they'd like it.

I also thought about how everyone who's met me since (most of the people I know who aren't family) only knows me as Kay.

I kept it in the back of my mind for a bit and then in Eugene I spontaneously introduced myself to some housemates of a friend as Kathryn. That's also how I've introduced myself to my new roommate.

My final conclusion is it just makes sense to go by both names. Lots of people use their formal name often and also have a nickname. So anyone who might like to start calling me Kathryn again, it's on the table. But no pressure to go to any trouble re-learning (newly learning, for some) the habit.

(If this elicits laughter, you're really laughing at my 11-year-old self... so I don't really care. I've got eight years of improved sanity on her.)

XKCD has got it going on this week

http://xkcd.com/620/

And I've worked out a possible schedule for next year, and realized I can use biology for group X. Yay!

Chemistry/humanities

After tracing all the prerequisites and drawing out the tree of classes I need for my major, I've realized there might be another way to solve my chemistry/humanities problem. I might be able to study analytical and inorganic chemistry this year, which don't conflict with either Hum 110 or Phys 100, and thus make progress in chemistry while leaving organic for next year. I think that's not typically the order it's done, but we'll see what my advisor thinks.

Food decentralization

Great article by Michael Pollan (whose famous books I still need to read):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-pollan/a-food-revolution-in-the_b_190089.html

Hair and clothes

Today I decided I didn't want to wear my sweatpants again and should go get the new pair of jeans I planned to buy this summer. When I went to Fred Meyer there was a buy-one-get-one-free sale so I bought both of my remaining pairs of pants. I've now got new jeans and a pair of brown Dockers. I'm apparently between a size 8 and 10, because the Dockers are size 8 and the jeans are 10P, whatever that means. There were plenty of size 10 jeans that didn't fit at all though. Jeans are weird that way. Anyway, I also discovered that my hair is long enough to put in okay-looking pigtails now. I'm now wearing the new jeans, my consent-is-sexy shirt, and pigtails and it's great to wear stuff that's all three: comfortable, good-looking, and casual.

License plates

You know you're a geek when you see a license plate with the letters DNE and immediately translate as "does not exist." As in "the limit of f(x) as x approaches 0 does not exist."

It's even more amusing when two seconds later you see another plate with the letters DNA.

And for good measure, it all reminds you of how many years ago you decided to pretend the UAE on dad's license plate stands for "Uncle Albert Einstein."

:P

Are there any good reasons NOT to legalize cannabis anymore?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/04/the-benefits-to-legalizin_n_246356.html

As Glenn Beck says in the video, this is ridiculous. Why should such an innocuous drug, and such an incredibly useful and environmentally friendly fiber, be spawning violence, wasting government money, and actually harming the environment? It's completely stupid, and it was never smart in the first place. (1937: "uh, something called marijuana... I think it's a narcotic or something... yes the AMA is behind us [except they weren't]")

Legalize the stuff already.

Reed housing

Just got an email about housing from Reed. I have a roommate and she has a name. I think I'll try to get in touch with her soon and get to know each other before moving in together.

First timed mile

Lap 1 - 2:55
Lap 2 - 2:39
Lap 3 - 2:26
Lap 4 - 2:32

Mile time - 10:32

Today's XKCD is clever yet horrible

Nooooo!

http://xkcd.com/618/

Well that was awesome

I spent less than ten hours out today! I missed a couple of the prettier roads south of Canby because I just missed a turn and met the big road a little early. Otherwise the trip was pretty uneventful.

The entire trip from Portland to Eugene is uphill going south and downhill going north overall, though I think Central Point Rd. is uphill both ways. But I think it gets flatter as you go south.

Threw together some statistics:

Day 1
Hours out: 11
Hours riding: 9.5
Miles: 76
Elevation change: +104 ft
MPH avg: 8

Day 2
Hours out: 13.25
Hours riding: 11.25
Miles: 90
Elevation change: +376 ft
MPH avg: 8

Day 3
Hours out: 10.25
Hours riding: 9
Miles: 77
Elevation change: -376 ft
MPH avg: 8.6

Day 4
Hours out: 9.5
Hours riding: 8.5
Miles: 67
Elevation change: -104 ft
MPH avg: 7.9

Total
Hours riding: 38.25
Miles: 310
MPH avg: 8.1

When I do this again, I'd like to do it in cooler weather and stay in Eugene for longer. I'd like to find an alternative to Central Point Rd., too, but I don't see much on the map.