A License to Yap

As usual, I woke up to my phone alarm. It was 6:50, which meant that I slept through at least 10 minutes of it this time. The plan was to go on a morning run, but the willpower wasn’t there, and instead, I woke up again at 8:00 to my secondary alarm. After watching YouTube in my bed until 8:40, the procrastination panic finally kicked in. I brushed my teeth and ran to lecture, being sure to walk the final stretch so Mrs. Martinez would believe I left dorms at a more responsible time.

The morning lecture was given by Dr. Andersen. He’s always smiling and joking while teaching and likes aligning the ketchup and mayonnaise bottles to be parallel during dinner. And unlike Dr. Rengstorf, I approve of his mathematical opinions (Geometry on top. How is an eighth order polynomial elegant?). This time, he lectured about the wave-particle nature of light and applied it to polarization, being sure to include both history and theory. As always, this was done without mindless algebra (turning the crank, as he would call it), but rather, through insightful conceptual discussion.

The next hour was dedicated to lunch. I took a slice of pizza and then enjoyed brownies until I was satisfied. Personally, I eat for the dopamine – vegetables are optional. Then, I went back to dorms and put on my left contact lens (I only had time to put on one during the morning rush). Having contact lenses on in only one eye isn’t inconvenient – it’s quite the unique experience to cross your eyes and see the blurry and clear versions of Dr. Andersen side by side.

We had been learning about the Method of Gauss for the past few days, and there were many details I hadn’t fully resolved yet. Thankfully, in the afternoon lecture, Dr. Rengstorf passed out an SSP-exclusive bible on orbit determination. After reading chapter 4, I realized I should stop trying to understand Gauss’s motivation behind his labyrinthine method and just accept that the algebra works out. Dr. Andersen would be disappointed. After writing the MoG in pseudocode with my research group, class was dismissed early.

There was also a new problem set due today. Fortunately, it was Physics, and there were only 2 questions. I did the first problem, went back to dorms to put my laundry in the washer, did the second problem, moved the laundry to the dryer, and then went to dinner.

With the rest of the day being free time, I looked at the QOD and decided to work on astrometry instead. My LSPR code is holy, and I’m determined to do everything manually – astrometry.com is for the weak. I changed my mind after a fruitless hour of repetitive labor. Then, I was told that my blog post was due tomorrow and rediscovered my intense dislike of writing. But now that I’m done, I plan to sleep early and finally be able to get up at 6:40. However, on only the second episode, Death Note suddenly got very interesting, and unfortunately, I have the feeling it’ll stay interesting for the rest of the anime.


Eric is a rising senior at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. He enjoys studying physics, makes Roblox games, and religiously plays hog 2.6.