By: Saraliba A
Wait a minute.
No.
This can’t be right.
Right?
Is it really July 12th?
No, because that would mean we ONLy have 2 weeks left of SSP…
WAIT WE ONLY HAVE TWO WEEKS LEFT OF THE PROGRAM!?! When did that happen? I guess time really does fly when you are having fun. Well, then I better get crack-a-lacking on this blog post. You know what is funny? Over the course of the program, I have kept the blog post in the back of my mind, taking screenshots and pictures of important events that may be fun to include. Yet I never actually thought about what I was going to write about. Soooooo, I guess I will just start at the beginning.
In a galaxy town far, far away…
In a house in the valley there lived a family. Not a tiny cabin, filled with spiders and an oozy smell, nor yet a mansion with countless things to sit down on or to eat: it was an average house, and that means comfort. (For the sad souls that do not get this, it is a reference to the first paragraph of The Hobbit.)
It was the middle of April, when I, along with other SSPers, were waiting for their results. I was 95% sure that I was not going to be accepted, I only had a 10% chance of getting in and didn’t have impressive test scores under my belt…or any test scores for that matter. Days came and passed, and no email came. It was then Saturday morning. First thing I did when I woke up was check my email, and that is when I saw it…nothing. My disappointment was immeasurable, and my day was ruined. It was the last day of the week and I was supposed to know whether I got in or not. Then my half-asleep brain somehow had a genius idea, “what if it, for some strange reason, is in my junk folder?” Upon opening the junk folder, I found an email titled “Congratulations!” (shocking, right) well I was surprised, but I couldn’t celebrate yet for this meant I had to make a choice. SSP overlapped with another program that I was in, Western Aerospace Scholars (WAS). Now I have been in WAS for two years and it has two phases. Phase one is during the school year and is a class from the University of Washington. Phase two is during the summer and is a way to have fun after all the hard work that was put in during Phase one. When I first signed up for SSP, I thought the WAS summer program was going to be in August like last year, but that turned out to be wrong. So, I had to choose whether I would be joining WAS’s alumni network, or SSPs. So, you may be wondering, “Saraliba, why would you put all of that hard into WAS just to choose SSP?” Well, SSP is geared more towards what I want to do—astrophysics, and even though I would not become an alumnus of WAS, I would still get the college credit, which is what I was really after. Also, I spoke with the director of the WAS summer camp and he said I should do SSP. So, it was quite an easy choice in the end, and I am fairly certain it was the right one.
In the weeks leading up to SSP I had a lot to learn. I had no programming experience and had to go through the workbook provided by SSP. Though that was no easy task. I had a job at a restaurant that required me to be on my feet all day and because I was mostly working by myself that meant no breaks (not that I took breaks anyway). Therefore, I was often very tired when I came home, and didn’t really have the brain capacity to be learning programming. Though that doesn’t mean I didn’t try, just that I often fell asleep while reading through the text. I did end up making most of my way through the workbook, but that wasn’t enough for what was to come.
Souper Scary Program
SSP has been amazing, I never would have thought of all the fun I would have. I was fully prepared for working and getting crammed full for knowledge not staying up till 2 in the morning singing karaoke.
A meme I made for QOD #16, found it fit quit nicely with my blog post
One of our TAs, Alan, even joined and sang a sea shanty! It was a lot of fun, and I imagine I will look back on it for years to come. In fact, when I joined the karaoke VC I had no intention of singing, I don’t even know why I joined, something just compelled me to. I had only done karaoke once before and didn’t really enjoy it that much. Though being in the VC and hearing the cacophony of out-of-tune voices and no one being able to sing simultaneously (I think the Rhythm bot must have been playing at different times for people), I figured what would be one more voice to this mess? I stayed until the end and even got to rick roll Alex Y and Pablo (sorry guys). There are many other activities that SSPers like to do in their free time, one of the most popular ones being gartic phone, but I will not delve too deeply into them.
The SSP community is very welcoming, but also very intimidating. I have never been the smartest person in the room, but even more so here. I felt like an imposter as soon as I was accepted into the program, I still feel like an imposter. I am confused during every lecture, yet I don’t know what to ask, so I constantly have to ask my teammates for help on the psets.
My sister’s cat trying to “help” me with a pset
The start of the third week I was feeling heavily discouraged and like a failure. I wasn’t able to turn the centroiding or LSPR code in complete, I didn’t even have the first step completed on either of them. I felt like a disappointment to myself, and even more so to my team. I was holding them back and they were waiting for me to catch up. I was constantly asking them for help and keeping them away from whatever they were working on. I knew I would have to put in overtime that week if I wanted to catch up.
A picture from one of my OD code outputs…basically sums up my experience with coding
However, it turned out to be a lot easier than I anticipated. The workload was a lot less than last week, and the assignments were much easier. I was able to turn in all coding assignments from this week and last week completed, without pulling overtime. It was a huge boost to my morale and made me feel confident in myself once again. My team, Calvin and Haedam, were a big help and I don’t know what I would do without them. Team M.A.T.Z.A.H (Massive Asteroid That’Z About to Hit [earth]) truly is the best.
Me and my team laughing about how there are two Haedams in the Work/Play Block
I feel like I don’t belong sometimes, but I still enjoy every second of SSP. Though I have never run into someone who wasn’t being challenged by this program and say “You think Pset stand for ‘Pain, Suffering, and Everlasting Torture?’ Well I call them Pete for Pfffft, Easiest Things Ever!!!” I believe everyone has struggled in their own way and on some level. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and are just trying their best. We aren’t expected to understand everything right away, or always ace the assignments. We are just expected to put our best foot forward and keep walking forward, even after obstacle upon obstacle is thrown in our way, and that is one of the reasons this program is so great. Another is the people (and I mean ALL the people, TAs, teachers, and the participants). They are just so awesome and are always so helpful. I feel like I have grown close to the participants in my campus and would even consider them my friends. Being in a collaborative program is really quite amazing. Everyone is working towards one common goal and are happy to help, even if you weren’t able to understand their explanation the first time. I am truly grateful for everyone.
Rose, Thorn, Bud
I wanted to add some other things but couldn’t think of how to add them in…that is until I realized the things matched perfectly with rose, thorn, bud.
The rose is being able to relax on the weekend (for the most part, I will talk about that next though). The weekend is weird and out of place after working until one in the morning on assignments, and I constantly feel like I need to be somewhere, working on something. Yet it is a much-needed break. This weekend I had the free time to take my dog for a walk down to the river and catch some beautiful pictures. I even saw a deer, but I wasn’t able to get a picture of it sadly.
Me and Chewy (the dog) at the river
The thorn is practicing for the talent show. I decided I wanted to play a piece on the piano and was going to record it so my anxiety would not mess things up. The problem is I have not touched the piano in weeks, and the song is challenging to play. I anticipated this and knew it was going to take a while to get a worthy take, I just severely underestimated how long it would take. Do you want to guess how long it was? One hour? Maybe 2 hours? NOPE! It was a whopping FIVE HOURS! I think my family is probably tired of hearing that song, lol, but do you want to hear the best part? I didn’t even get a good take! The best take I have has quite a few noticeable mistakes (I am not good with just “playing through” my mistakes, I don’t really play the piano for people, just for myself). I ended up just stopping because dinner was done, and my wrist hurt (having your left hand spread an octave for five hours really does a number on you). But oh well, it is what it is, and I really enjoy playing the song, so the five hours were not that bad, just…annoying.
The bud is all of the things I am going to learn in the upcoming weeks. This is such a cool research project and I love learning about 2004 LJ1 (only the best little space potato in the sky). I love learning about all the software and seeing this little dot zip across the screen. My team has also been fortunate to have three successful observations, and we are working through the process of finding the right ascension, declination, and magnitude of them currently. I am ready for what else SSP has to throw at me, and am totally ecstatic.
2004 LJ1
About Me
Hello! I am Saraliba, a rising senior at Jefferson High School in Boulder, Montana. I enjoy playing the piano, reading, playing video games, playing D&D, cooking, and stargazing. My family has 3 cats, a dog, a bearded dragon, leopard gecko and chickens! A picture of Gimli, which is my cat, is pictured below (cats really like laying on my work for some reason)
