Like all days, I suppose today started at 12:00 AM, when I finally got back to Bell Hall after two hours of trying (and failing) to animate a simulation that I really didn’t have to animate; in all fairness, there was extra time. Anyways, we raided the communal fridge and ate some of the leftovers of Saturday’s breakfast items, i.e. bagels and cream cheese and (shh…) a few muffins. After this transpired a really, really long game of modified checkers with Devan, over which there was a lot of mostly incoherent rambling interspersed with moments of occasional lucidity which I may or may not have been using as a form of psychological warfare:
<<I could play here … here, eh? What’s here? Not there? What’s there, I suppose? Everything? Or maybe nothing … you know, numerous compelling arguments have been put forward in favor of the universe’s probable nonexistence … but according to Blaise Pascal, I ought to believe in its existence anyways because it’s useful to believe … in any case, following the principles of memetics, a belief in the meaninglessness of everything is unlikely to propagate itself … but if meaninglessness can be considered itself meaningless, then a belief in meaninglessness is just as meaningless … and … where were we again? Huh, I quite forgot. In familiar experience, the human capacity for memory … >>
Needless to say, this conversation was very one-sided. Also, I lost. So then, it being past midnight, the responsible thing would have probably been to go upstairs and sleep, especially on account of the planned 7:00 AM morning run. But the curfew didn’t take effect until after 1 AM …
[45 MINUTES LATER]:
ME: If thou art subscribed to the axiom of utilitarianism, then in the trolley problem where the one person was happy and the five others were chronically depressed, would it still be moral to kill the one? I think not.
OLIVIA: I’d still save the five people because … well, it’s not in our hands to make that decision. What if the five people change and eventually live a happy life?
This conversation went on for quite some time until someone noticed that it was 12:58 AM, to which we sprinted upstairs and hid in our dorms in fear of Dr. Ice. Then, Kal, Darnell, and I (we’re roommates) should’ve really gone to sleep, but …
[30 MINUTES LATER]
ME: All philosophical problems, in my opinion, ought to be considered complete information systems because any other scenario can be effectively reduced to the same via Bayesian probability. It seems that, for instance, Olivia tends to try and take the most optimistic interpretation, but I’m personally an “expected value-ist”.
KAL: Yeah, definitely—meanwhile, maybe Pierre’s right after all, and that’s what leads to dictators like Hitler and Stalin.
Just normal high schooler late-night activities, right? Surely not anything that would get us publicly stoned as nerds … Around 2 AM, we finally decided to go sleep on the resolution that all of us would wake up in time to go run the next morning; Darnell set an early alarm for 6:30 AM.
If you’ve been closely following this story, you can probably guess what happened next. We woke up, all right … at 7:07 AM, to my alarm. Whoops! I struggled out of bed and went to take a shower, then came out to find both Darnell and Kal still in bed, so I woke them up and headed off to breakfast. When I got there, it looked a little like this:
Not surprising. But I made the incredible discovery that the cafeteria actually sold bananas! Bananas! This was a lifesaver addition to a breakfast that already consisted of just yogurt, granola, raisins, and pineapple—in other words, fructose, fructose, and MORE FRUCTOSE. Eventually, some normal people (i.e. waffle-, egg-, and biscuit- eaters) showed up, and we started talking in anticipation of the morning lecture before heading over to Herty Hall.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view), said lecture was delivered on none other than Newton’s Laws of Motion. In order to stay awake while those around me were … not necessarily … I multitasked by simultaneously solving Dr. M’s surprisingly interesting Quick Checks, helping those around me as necessary, doing FERMI QUESTIONS!!!, and solving random line integral problems. Other people had other strategies:
At around 12:00 PM, we broke for lunch, which included fried chicken, just like the previous day … and the day before that … and the day before that … and … well, I think you get the point. I guess I shouldn’t complain about the food, since it’s pretty good and we’re often the only group on campus nohow, but I have yet to tell whether the practice of frying everything is a southern tradition or just, like, GCSU being GCSU. Also, the beans yesterday were sweet! Why would you add sugar to pinto beans?! Well, apparently it’s a thing. Our lunch conversation was pretty interesting, especially Sara absolutely canceling Thinh for his supposed interest in Yufei (Sara’s totally cracked and kinda famous classmate).
At 1:00 PM, we returned to Herty Hall for the afternoon session. And if you thought drowsiness during the morning lecture was bad, afternoons were usually an entirely different beast—whether on account of food coma or Dr. D’s voice, I don’t know.
But not today, for today was the one and only non-academic class of SSP. Instead of the usual programming (read: headache), Dr. D introduced us to the concept of cultural capital, the diverse set of experiences, perspectives, and social conventions carried by different individuals. Then, we separated into small groups to create so-called “identity wheels”, an assignment which quickly devolved into criticizing the education system.
Our final scheduled activity was, surprisingly, arts and crafts—we diagrammed, drew on, and cut sheets of paper to construct a three-dimensional model of a sample asteroid orbit in order to understand orbital elements. And again, I was reminded why I was never successful in origami. Rather, my process was more reminiscent of the newspaper folding scene from Young Sheldon:
If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean. If not … well, you should try watching it. In any case, it lasted all the way until 4:00, when class ended. Like true overachievers, most of us stayed back to work on the problem set—for myself, I finished the last part of the simulation (still without animation) until 5:16. Then, I suddenly remembered: we were supposed to change into semi formal clothes and meet at Bell Hall for dinner at 5:20. My sprint there must’ve been legendary … only to be told that the actual meeting time was 5:30. Well, at least I got some exercise!
As it so happened, we had new table assignments that day—I was sitting with Claire (TA), Alan, Andrew N, Olivia, Sai, and Lauren. If you’ve read the other blogs, you might’ve predicted that the last three and myself make … how do I put this … a rather volatile combination. It began immediately, as I greeted everyone with my trademark “good morning!” (with an occasional “¡buenos días!” thrown in). Sai replied in German (“guten tag”), then proceeded to introduce to us the word “krankenwagen” which, along with “krankenhaus” was, for some inexplicable reason, absolutely hilarious. Whenever one of us recovered enough to regain the facility of speech, they would say something like “but then we’d need the krankenwagen” and we’d all burst out into laughter again. Eventually, Olivia asked me why I had gotten so much food (two full plates, one main course and one salad), and I perspicaciously pointed out that by eating more today, I had the license to eat less tomorrow if necessary. According to Olivia, such reasoning belongs to an ancient and venerated field of rationality: girl math. Upon inquiring, I found out far more—for instance, “girl economics”, describing Lauren’s practice of buying things with cash instead of credit because there’s no record, making her feel less guilty. And, of course, the related field of “girl debt”, the principle that when in debt, one should spend more because it is not one’s own money that one is spending. Surely, nothing could ever go wrong with that plan. At some point, Lauren started laughing so much that she declared that if anything more was said, she’d choke on her food. To which I replied: “Well, then we’d need the krankenwagen!” and everyone cracked up again.
I speed-ran the PSET by 7:30 or so, then spent the next three or so hours continuously helping everyone with their code.
What followed was absolute chaos and, for me, one of the most delightful hours of my life. XKCD basically reduced me to a bubbly three year–old.
Rather to my consternation, this perfectly describes me:
P.S. The squirrels are watching us. Oh sure, they look innocent and carefree, but you know they’re good at hiding things. Some individuals are under the delusion that Squirrels International (SI) is a government conspiracy, but let me tell you right now … the government is a squirrel conspiracy. You cannot run. You cannot fly. There is no escape. They are everywhere!
P.P.S. If I disappear a few days after writing this, you should know—it was the squirrels. My last words shall be “Nice knowin’ y’all. Now, AVENGE ME!”
-Aditya
