Super Sick People?

I heard that it’s a thing for blog stuff to start at 12:00 AM. At 12:00 AM, I was in the observatory, feeling the beginnings of a sore throat and watching SSPers doing the congo. I forgot when I left, but I think I went to bed at a decent time.

I got out of bed around 11:30 AM. I had a sore throat so I broke out my covid testing kit. I tested negative. At noon, I ate breakfast with Dr. F! We sat at the best spot in the dining hall (the area that has a window where you can watch people entering the dining hall building).

Since I was a bit sick and they already took away the breakfast options, I drank/ate beef stew, two cups of tea, and a reusable plastic cup of soy milk. I forgot to take a photo of my breakfast before I consumed it, so here’s a photo of my empty tray.

As I was retrieving chamomile cup number 2, I ran into other SSPers eating breakfast or lunch (mostly breakfast).

Lillian making a panini for lunch. Elyse eating breakfast.
Andreas, David, Uluc, and Goose eating some variation of lunch and breakfast.

After that, I walked to the observatory with Rebecca and Dominic. We talked about how 60%+ of the SSP population simultaneously became sick last night.

At the observatory computer lab, I watched Dr. D talk about how people got stuff into the outer solar system (using “slingshotting”) with my roommate, Christina, and some other people. I worked on coding the elliptical orbit PSET for a couple hours before heading to lunch with Taizo and Ben around 3 PM.

Muktha and Youjia having fun PSETting

For lunch, I ate the same thing that I ate for breakfast (except I only drank one cup of tea, not two). I also sat at the same spot.

Taizo cutting his broccoli with a knife–the epitome of a sophisticated SSPer.

After lunch, I returned to the observatory and continued to code and listen to people blowing their noses (I didn’t mind it, it provided good background noise for programming). I took a break to eat an orange outside and I struggled with peeling it. At around 5 PM, I headed back to the dorms to change for dinner.

It’s partially peeled; I’m not eating the orange peel.

Tonight was the last dinner with my current group–Ms. Bana, August, Christina, Aaron, and Carlin. Ms. Bana and August were absent because August was sick–get better soon, August!!!! 

At dinner, I caught Aaron eating chewing a napkin, which reminded me of that one classmate in 7th grade who asked me for some graphing paper and proceeded to eat it. Aaron was not willing to reenact it for a photo, but he gave his permission for me to write about it in the blog. I also tried to eat the ice at the bottom of my water cup (as I usually do at the end of dinner), but all of the ice simultaneously fell on my face. 

Photo credits to Christina.

Our tablegroup wanted Vitamin C, so we retrieved a bunch of sliced and unsliced oranges. Aaron gave some extra oranges to Carlin and said, “Orange you glad I gave you oranges?” I found it extremely funny.

As we were heading back to the dorms, Marcus learned some Mandarin words. I think he learned how to say “Hong Kong” and “eat,” among other things.

Gustavo and I rearranged the couches for movie night. I sat on the couch in the lounge for about half an hour before movie night started. I stared at the wall, burdened with sickness lethargy, while people socialized and had fun around me.

At 7 PM, we started watching The Martian (I think this paragraph has a minor spoiler, so skip the paragraph if you haven’t watched it yet). Around the start of the movie, Ms. Bana explained to us how to take care of ourselves when we’re sick. Apparently, I missed an important part of the movie when I went to the restroom. I was getting minor FOMO when I was washing my hands and I heard uproarious laughter outside the room. Later on (actually, probably earlier on, I forgot the order of events), everyone got excited when the NASA people in the movie blinked between images of two different days. It reminded me of the love-at-first-sight exhilaration I felt when I blinked the images of my beloved, 1998 RO4 (our asteroid). Although, I think I felt a greater thrill at seeing 1998 RO4 than they felt at discovering the Watney guy was alive. Just saying.

After the movie ended, we went back to the observatory to work on PSETs. Usually, I PSET in a secluded corner of the computer lab with my team, the Freeze Dried Apple Worms (and some other people such as our Precious Child of Shining Light, Lana). My teammates are August and Cam, but August was sick, so it was just me and Cam. PSETting with just Cam was very boring, but don’t tell Cam I said that.

Cam singing “It’s a Wrap” by Mariah Carey. It’s a PSET standard–the Freeze Dried Apple Worms never make it through a PSET session without hearing it at least once.
The Freeze Dried Apple Worms on July 2.
An average nightly PSETting session in the observatory computer lab.

Lastly, I went back to the dorms relatively early, at a respectable pre-midnight time. I listened to Gustavo play the piano for a bit and then I went to bed.

As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about how July 2 was the funnest sick day I’ve had. A 10/10 day when you remove the sick factor. (I didn’t really think about that as I drifted off to sleep. I just thought that it sounded better than “in conclusion.”)


Hi! My name is Emily and I am from California. In my free time, I enjoy talking with people, reading fantasy stuff, and taking walks. I also like trying new foods, especially fruits!! 🙂 I don’t think I normally sound this dead in real life, but I was attempting to channel my Sick Sunday energy to make the post as accurate as possible. I’ve had the time of my life at SSP–I’ve met so many amazing people and got to learn so many epic concepts!