SSP (Super Sleepy People): Jack P’s June 27th Blog

To preface, I should mention that I am not a morning person, so coming to an environment like SSP was definitely an adjustment for me. As the weeks passed, I found out that I wasn’t the only one struggling with the 18 (approaching 19) hour days. All of us made the 15 minute journey to Chase Dining Hall the first morning, but now you’ll only see the lunatics of the group (looking at you, Jack S. and Eleni) up and out of the dorms before 8:45. 

The workload is reaching a new peak as we all continue on with our second (and sometimes third!) observation sessions, and finally spot the faint smudge of our asteroid. This means a shift from seemingly unrelated psets and lectures, to a focus on our unified orbital determination code. While I still have no idea what I’m doing (the handbook is right about “drinking from a firehose”), I feel like I can at least start to make out a path from our black and white images to a full report on our Asteroid. 

In our increasingly infrequent free time, one of our TA’s, Ian, has organized some fun activities to distract us from the looming deadlines. Yay! Below are some context-free pictures of said activities:

Alex intently drying glue

Grad student humor from the spooky 4th floor

TEDx SSP (featuring ladders, goats, crabs, monkey wars, and questionable ethics)


About Me

Hi! I’m Jack P. and I attend Yadkin Early College right here in North Carolina. However, I’m not around much, as I love to travel. Outside of the usual STEM interests, you’ll probably find me hanging out with friends, playing with my many cats, and being a coffee aficionado.