Get ready for round two! I’m the only SSPer at CUB who did two blog days because I really like reflecting on my time here and all the relationships I’ve made.
The night before, my Monte Carlo simulation wasn’t working. Like I couldn’t believe that was happening because I really wanted it to work. But oh well! I woke up and went to breakfast. I planned to get breakfast with Leo, Elyse, Lillian, and Sophia (I like to call them the Cult because they seem to be near each other practically 24/7), but none of them showed up until 9:15! Lillian blamed Leo, which is probably deserved. Lillian’s burrito turned out to be… a flop. She was NOT very happy with it.
The rest of the morning involved me debugging my simulation with help from the Cult, each minute making me wanna become a stats major less and less. Maybe I should become a park ranger instead, right Elyse? But there was a bright point of the morning, and it came when the T-shirt order got in! Youjia was extremely happy about it, though maybe she would’ve been even more excited if it was the right size. I got the same color as her (desert pink! Don’t let anyone tell you pink isn’t a fire color), and I’m sure I’ll wear the shirt for years to come – as long as I don’t lose it traveling back to Germany.
Desert pink!
After that was lunchtime. The Cult and I joined Gustavo, who thinks I “look like a hippo” for some reason?, and Alyssa, another Canadian joining ranks with Leo to spy on our beloved country. After a while, the food at the C4C has gotten a bit bland, but still somewhat edible.
The afternoon was not particularly eventful – there was a computer class that was taking over the computer lab from 12-3:30, though I did find sleepy Taizo and other people in Kitt while William and Viktor were outside the observatory. They showed me some Joe Biden memes, as expected from such a fun duo.
Absolutely!
Then I did some more work, including coding up the trajectory of the asteroid as an ellipse and the percent error of our elements, until dinner. Stephanie and I posed in our classic “Ben JAMMIN” stance, and dinner was short because everyone was eager to start work again before the deadline. Just look at Ming dashing to SBO!
Rocking out with Stephanie!!
See ya Ming
Our team finished (shout out to Lana and Jovan for working super well with me as a team throughout the summer) and shortly after a rainy run to Kitt we went over to Dairy Queen. In fact, everyone finished! It’s a great group of people here, so I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. Good job yall!
The mountains looked so pretty that day, as Leo and William surely believe.
William Zhong, a truly bulbous boy.
Jay being a hater ?!
Before going into Dairy Queen, the Cult and I went to get sushi (which was, as one may expect from a grocery stores, exceedingly mid). Then in Dairy Queen, I got a Heath Blizzard which August copied – how dare he! I can’t believe it! OUTRAGEOUS! Anyways the staff paid for our ice cream, so Leo went out on a limb and got some Puppy Chow. Not completely sure if he was kidding or not, but for a little bit he had the impression that Puppy Chow was literally chow made of puppies, or that they were made for puppies (one is slightly worse than the other). Of course that makes no sense, since dogs can’t eat chocolate. Canadians truly are a strange people. Then again, we were all out of it after the whirlwind of finishing the final report.
Finally at the end of the day was my favorite part: TA trivia. Questions ranged from Millenium Prize problems (somehow I remembered what they were) to the chakras of Naruto. Our team got second to last, but I’m just glad we tried and were a somewhat diverse group in backgrounds. Cam (Ich liebe dich!!) carried us for the anime, while Leo knew a tonnn of physics stuff. Shoutout to Sophia for her guess that liquid oxygen was blue.
What in tarnation…
Afterwards everyone split up and got ready to bed, and I wanted to play Exploding Kittens with Emily and Goose. Then Dominick joined along with Richard and it turned into a talk about getting letters of rec from SSP (don’t worry: Richard was very discreet about what he said like the great TA he is. So so responsible!).
I’d say roughly 80% of my showers happen at the same time Dominick has a shower (1 AM!!). So I said good night to him, went back to my dorm, and slept. A very eventful day, and surely one that I’ll miss when SSP ends next Wednesday.
Hi everyone, I’m Ben and I’m an American rising senior living in Germany! I’m a military kid, so I’ve been all over the world, but primarily in Texas, Nebraska, and Germany. I enjoy hiking, kayaking, playing and listening to music, and learning math (when I understand it!).