Today is Friday, the last full day before we get a small break from lectures and problem sets on
the weekend. I woke up at 8:20 am, feeling slightly more refreshed than usual after getting 5
additional hours of sleep on the bus during our beach trip on Thursday. Last night I slept for
almost 8 hours, which might be the last time in a long while since our telescope is fixed and
late-night observation is starting up again.
In the morning, I grabbed a protein shake at the lounge in Old West for breakfast, then
rushed to the lecture hall for our 9 am lecture. The lecture was given by Dr. H and it was about
angular momentum and perihelion vectors, which we need for determining the orbit of our
asteroid. It was very exciting to learn about the equations that we’ll later need to use in our
code, and it was one step closer to putting our knowledge and data together!
After the morning lecture, all of us headed over to Chase Dining Hall, where we had
lunch. Even though the food wasn’t amazing, it was still a much needed break before we had
our second lecture at 1:30 pm. When we finished eating, we still had a good 40 minutes before
we needed to be at the lecture hall, so my friends and I headed over to the UNC student store to
see what they had. I was surprised by how big the store is (multiple levels selling everything
from clothes to books to food) and we had fun exploring even though we didn’t end up buying
anything.
At 1:30, everyone met up again at Phillips for the astrometry lecture given by Dr. Z. This
was one of the more confusing lectures for me, where we had to incorporate matrices and other
math ideas into our code to find the centroid and the LSPR of a star. One of my favorite parts of
SSP is how readily all the participants help each other out, whether it’s explaining a part of the
lecture or collaborating on problem set problems. Even though we may all be confused, SSP still fosters
an environment of learning and collaboration. Ever since coming here, I have never even felt the
urge to procrastinate because everyone else is working so hard!
After our second lecture, we went back to Old West for an hour of free time before going
to dinner. I took a nap to regain some energy before our workshop time. Dinner was fun as
usual, and after dinner I took a shower before going to the computer lab at Phillips at 7:45 pm.
For the next 5 hours, all the participants grinded on problem sets while different groups took turns
observing their asteroid. My group was not up for observation today, so I managed to get some
work done. At the end of another very productive and fulfilling day at SSP, I was exhausted and
collapsed to my bed immediately after arriving at my dorm. Can’t wait to go to Franklin street to
buy boba and shop at Target tomorrow!
– Jia
