Straight, 29 High

You may have noticed that I like to reference things without really referencing them, as with my Link to the Past post.  In this case, I am not hopelessly uneducated about poker.  I am well aware that there is no card with the value of 29 in any typical poker game.  Rather, as promised, I’m about to discuss the recent schedule of the pep band.

In poker, a straight is having five cards in numerical order, such as a seven, eight, nine, ten, and a jack.  In terms of the pep band, straight refers to the five straight days of events we just had, starting last Friday and ending Tuesday, the 29^th of January, hence the “29 high.”

It began last Friday with men’s hockey vs. Yale.  The game stayed close and went into overtime.  Lynah wasn’t packed (especially the rows right in front of the band) but it was pretty crowded, and the Cornell fans wanted to see the team win their first home game in more than a month.  It didn’t happen.

Saturday was even worse.  While the women’s team was away beating Yale and Brown, the men’s team remained at home to be beaten by Yale and Brown.  And while the Yale game was at least close, Cornell was shut out and lost 3-0 to Brown.

On Sunday, the band was scheduled to play at wrestling.  Apparently when this happened last year, the band got to play approximately half a cheer.  We agreed to return to wrestling only with a promise that we would get playing time, so this time the event coordinators gave us ninety seconds between matches and some time midway through the matches.  Although we understood little to nothing about the scoring, it was actually fairly entertaining, and we got to see Cornell’s 3-time national champion wrestler.  Cornell ended up losing to Oregon State in the last match when Cornell’s wrestler, who was wrestling up a weight class, got pinned by having his head sat on (at least that’s what it looked like in the stands).

Monday was rehearsal, and Tuesday there was a women’s hockey game.  Tuesday night . . . they give them the best times in the rink.  Last semester I missed most of their games because they were scheduled for Friday afternoons, at the same time I had lab.

With a 4-0 victory, the women’s hockey team continues to be undefeated in Lynah this season, which is a lot more than the men’s team can say.  Our side of the rink was practically empty, and it was freezing because there were maybe a few hundred other fans in Lynah, total.  (This was still an improvement over the time we played at women’s basketball and the student section contained the band and three fans.  I’m not kidding.  Three.)  But besides the result of the women's hockey game, it was a sad weekend for Cornell sports fans.

I'll Procrastinate Later

First essay of the semester, and yes, I was writing it the night before it was due.  Great start.  I actually do have some reasons beyond the usual “I was too busy playing solitaire,” but some of them are kind of circular.  For example, I was at pep band events all weekend (more on that to come) so I didn't have time to write my essay, but I went to pep band so that I wouldn't have to do homework.  Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been doing all my reading, as well as marking it up.  My reading is currently done, but my essay needs finishing (and I’m totally not starting this post as I’m supposed to be making my essay close enough to three pages to look done).  If only I could write essays as fast as blog posts.

So the essay assignment was to write about a memorial or monument on Cornell’s campus.   I decided to write about Olin Hall because I figured if I’m going to be pretty much living there for the next three years or so, I might as well know about it.  And if you’re thinking right now that I’m an engineer but I keep writing about English, that’s a good point.  However, writing seminar assignments tend to relate more to interesting stories about Cornell and math homework depends mostly on the ability to integrate.  Although, if anyone’s really interested, I could be convinced to provide an in-depth commentary on the process of solving separable and/or linear differential equations (the ordinary kind; we haven’t started partial differential equations yet).

Back to English.  I found out that the engineering students used to go to class on the arts quad, back when Cornell was just starting.  Olin Hall was one of the first engineering buildings to be completed, and has housed the school of chemical engineering since its construction.  The money for the building was given by Franklin W. Olin, but the building is named for his oldest son, Franklin W. Jr., who committed suicide about twenty years before Olin Hall was built.  Olin Hall was completed in 1942, and within the next decades, several more engineering buildings were finished.  Those are actually on the current engineering quad.  For whatever reason, Olin is across the street, and looks like it was dropped there as an afterthought, but it was built before most of the rest of the engineering quad. . . .

The research was pretty interesting, and I might have gotten to do a little more reading, but I had an essay to write.  I did finish it the night before it was due, really.  Anyway, soon to come: my first full week of classes, more than a weekend with the pep band, and the weather in Ithaca.  Also check back here for a picture of one of my favorite buildings on campus.

Mail Time

Let me start this off with this statement: I live in an all female dorm.  This will become important in a moment.

At Cornell, north campus residents (mostly freshmen) go to one of two service centers to collect their mail.  At these service centers, the mailboxes have clearly labeled signs above them to indicate which dorm they belong to.  Each dorm has a large section of mailboxes, which means that it would be fairly easy for anyone putting quartercards into the mailboxes to avoid the dozens of boxes belonging to the all female dorm, right?

I guess not, because for the second third (as of this Saturday) time, I, and the rest of my dormmates, recently received something that looks like this:

Notice it’s informing us of auditions for an all male a cappella group.  I really don’t know why they sent it to me, because I can’t sing.

Six Word Memoir

To open my second writing seminar discussion, the other seven students and I (I know, big class) were asked to write a six word memoir.  As the story goes, the “original” six word memoir was written by Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

I couldn't come up with one to sum up my whole life, but there were a couple that relate to different aspects of my life.  The one that’s starting to become my life, as I move closer to affiliating with Chemical Engineering next fall, was the one I shared.

“Chemical engineering: calculators, spreadsheets, process design.”

Another one I came up with features my clarinet, or any reed instrument, really.

“Broke my reed #ClarinetPlayerFail”

After this exercise, we then moved on to analyzing poetry.  I actually didn't find this that bad, and even almost enjoyed the class.  I know, I’m shocked too.  I think it was a combination of a couple factors.  One is that I came more prepared than usual.  Usually, I show up for English, pull out my folder, and look through my math homework until I find something that doesn't have any numbers or Greek letters on it.  This time, not only did I do all the reading, but I also marked it up.  Let’s see how long I can keep this up.   Also, the class is really small, even for a writing seminar – it’s less than half the size of my writing seminar last semester.

So I’m hoping I can enjoy my last mandatory semester of English ever, though no matter how much I end up liking this class*, I’m still becoming an engineer.

*We’ll reevaluate after this weekend, when I have to mark up eighteen full pages of writing and write a three page essay.

How I Spent my Winter Break, Part II

“How I Spent my Winter Break” resumes right here.  (See part one by clicking here or by scrolling down while this is still near the top of the front page.)

While theoretically on vacation, I also showcased my baking talent and expertise by not even setting the fire alarm off once while baking/helping to prepare:

Pecan pie – I think I unrolled premade dough, covered it in pecans, and poured the already prepared filling.  I know, you’re already marveling at my (lack of) talent.

Curry puffs – My involvement in this case was mainly entirely rolling dough and cutting out circles.

Chocolate cookies – Again, I was in charge of rolling, this time turning tablespoons of dough into approximate spheres.  However, this was complicated by the fact that for some reason, the dough wasn't dry enough and started melting/oozing everywhere.  Fun.

Coconut macaroons – Here I introduce a new talent: mixing.  I mixed the ingredients, then scooped spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet.

Gingerbread cookies – I not only mixed, but I also rolled out the dough and cut out shapes.  Why was I almost able to make these cookies all by myself?  They came from a mix.

Orange cookies – Back to rolling.

Bread – Continuing to build my skill set, in this recipe I also had to knead.  I hadn't really made bread before, so I didn't know how it would turn out.  It definitely tasted like bread, but it was a lot denser than store bought bread.  Stale yeast, maybe?

Pecan rolls – Probably the most fun recipe yet.  After making (and kneading) the dough, I was in charge of rolling it out into a large rectangle, spreading sugar, cinnamon, and pecans onto it, rolling it up, and cutting it into the individual rolls.

Corn bread – This recipe was so insanely easy that even I couldn't mess it up, although I did almost throw all the wet ingredients into the bowl without first mixing them in a separate bowl . . . completely unnecessary anyway.

Peanut butter cookies – Due to the fact that peanut butter ranks in my top three favorite foods . . . yes, it is a food all by itself, I decided to end my break by making these.  Nothing too much to say about them except that the first batch burnt.  A sad end to some perfectly good peanut butter.

Other than reading and baking, I finished a few projects, did some coloring, and occasionally (as in about three times) decided to practice my clarinet.

How I Spent My Winter Break, Part I

I am currently back at Cornell, but in order to pretend I was actually somewhat productive when I was home, the following is a compilation of things that got done while I was on winter break.  Originally, I was going to just make a list of everything I read and did, but then I thought, what’s the fun in doing that without my engrossing commentary?  Part one will feature the books I read while part two focuses on my exploits in the kitchen and elsewhere.

I caught up on reading and finished/read:

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher – I was giving my mind a break with some young adult fiction.  I’d just spent the past two weeks reading about process economics and chemical equilibrium, okay?

Up: A Mother and Daughter’s Peakbagging Adventure by Patricia Ellis Herr – The book highlights some of the things Herr learned while climbing New Hampshire’s 4000 foot peaks with her daughter.  The White Mountains aren’t too far away from where I live.  Now there’s an idea. . . .

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke – Picked this up for 50 cents or a dollar at the library book sale.  When I say I’ll read anything, that includes the stranger genre of science fiction.

Knowing God by J. I. Packer – I got this for my birthday a couple years ago.  It went to college with me and I figured since I hauled it all the way there, I should read it.  And since I was reading it when I left for break, I figured I should just haul it all the way home to finish.  Also, it was recommended by my parents.

How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond by John Powell – Not a bad book, but a lot of it is basic information if you have musical experience or have hung around musicians long enough for some of their knowledge to rub off on you.

The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughn – I've been working my way through the library’s collection of books about people who have climbed mountains, and I picked this up because I hadn't read anything about Mount Rainier yet.

The Greatest Among You: A Student’s Guide to Servant Leadership by Randy Sims – I got this book at Worldview Academy, a summer Christian leadership camp.  The author is one of the speakers at Worldview and tells some of the best stories I've heard while also managing to teach you about leadership at the same time.

Chosen By God by R. C. Sproul – Predestination: a topic that has long been a subject of contention, and the subject of this book.

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley – The book came before the movie, and I liked it better for a couple of reasons.  One, I didn't get all the characters mixed up, and two, it could go into more detail about the battle and history of the flagraisers because it didn't have to be finished in three hours.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien – This was a reread, in honor of The Hobbit movie coming out this past December.

(I keep track of when I finish books and since I started college I've managed to read three or four books a month. I was wondering how I read about a book a week when I realized I counted my writing seminar books. That explains it.)

The Wheels on the Bus

The other day in the car, I was thinking about absorbers and strippers - in the engineering/ChemE sense, not the red light district bar sense.  That led to a contemplation on distillation columns (can you tell that ChemE has already started taking over my life?) and for whatever reason I thought that the rhythm of “L over V” (the slope of an operating line for a distillation column when doing McCabe Thiele analysis is “flow rate of liquid over flow rate of vapor,” or “L over V”) sounded a lot like “round and round” in “The Wheels on the Bus.”  Without further ado, I present “The Slope on the Graph” with its inspiration.

The slope on the graph                                       The wheels on the bus
is L over V                                                          go round and round
L over V                                                             round and round
L over V                                                             round and round
The slope on the graph                                      The wheels on the bus
is L over V                                                         go round and round
For distillation columns                                     All through the town

And I’m not done with that song yet.  The other night I realized that I’d soon be taking the bus back to Cornell.  After some research, I found that a bus wheel has a radius of about 20 inches, for a circumference of 40π inches.  The trip back to Cornell is around 325 miles, and so, the wheels of the bus have to go round 163,866 times for me to get back to Cornell. (For the record, the wheels of a car would have to go round 218,488 times on the same trip – car tires have a radius of about 15 inches.)
Just working to bring math into your everyday lives.

A Link to the Past

No, not the video game (although Legend of Zelda is probably my favorite video game series).  We’re a little light on Cornell news right now since I’m not actually at Cornell, but I haven’t been [completely] wasting my time.

Last week, I drove to my now former high school to pick my brother up.  I had done this a few times over break, but this time I decided to pay a visit to my band conductor and clarinet teacher.  I started private lessons halfway through my freshman year and continued right up until I left for Cornell this past summer.  Granted, the summer lessons were less “let’s play sixteenth notes at 120 beats per measure until your fingers fall off” and more about playing things for fun.

I learned the clarinet solo at the beginning of “Rhapsody In Blue,” one of about two times clarinet vibrato is ever acceptable.  In case you were wondering, the other is when doing “dog howling at the moon” impressions, which are particularly lifelike when you have, say, twenty clarinets all playing vibrato at the same time.  (This actually happened at districts my junior year, to make a point about why twenty clarinets should never play vibrato at the same time.)

Anyway, while I was visiting, I realized it was kind of weird being back.  There were cars leaving to go home, but when you live on campus, you never really feel like you've left school.  This means that the dense fog of math/science/engineering confusion, in which Schrödinger wavefunctions and distillation columns feature prominently, settles more or less permanently around you for the duration of the semester.  Then there was the fact that everyone was crowded into one building.  At Cornell, there were days when I had to walk up to five miles, to get to classes in the morning, lunch, then pep band, dinner, and office hours at night.  All in different buildings.

And then I realized that it had been four and a half years since I had first set foot in that building as a student. Some of the kids walking around were four or five years younger than I was. They were still all bigger than me.

The No-Longer-Hypothetical List of Exciting Things that Have Happened to me at Cornell, Fall 2012 edition

In no particular order:

1.  Interfellowship Minute to Win It, followed by a visit to the Johnson Museum:  I may or may not have gotten back to my dorm at around one in the morning, but anyway . . . Minute to Win It was a fun opportunity to ruthlessly compete against hang out with some of the other Christian fellowships on campus.  (Besides, AAIV won.)
2. Tour of McGraw Tower (the clock tower):  As part of my ENGRG 1050, we took a guided tour of the clock tower, which included getting to see the practice chimes, the unofficial clock tower history museum, the actual chimes, the bells, and the view from the top of the tower.  On top of everything else (literally and figuratively), at the end a couple other people and I got to manually play the hour bells that sound, usually automatically, every quarter hour.  We each got one note and were supervised the entire time by a chimesmaster, because to actually get to play on the chimes, you have to audition and commit to playing a certain number of concerts a week.
3. Cornell vs. Clarkson, men’s hockey, W 3-1: Cornell closed off the first half of its hockey season with a pair of 3-1 wins over Clarkson and St. Lawrence University.  As part of the pep band, I decided to play at both games (because I have nothing better to do with my Friday and Saturday nights).  The Clarkson game was especially memorable because Clarkson brought their own band, which is always fun.  Also, we had some Cornell fans in section O, the “away section,” who brought signs to hold over the Clarkson band’s heads reading “Old guys say” and “Losing band.”  In addition, there was a fight, a Clarkson player was kicked off the ice, and 50 penalty minutes were divided up between the two teams.  And of course Cornell won.
4. Visiting the Olin Hall distillation column: You know Cornell is an exciting place when an event like this is mentioned in a list of fun college activities.  But after around four months (okay, more like a few weeks) doing McCabe Thiele analysis on distillation columns in Intro to ChemE, this was an opportunity to see a real, live distillation column, run by real, live ChemE seniors.  To get to this exotic location, we had to go down two whole flights of stairs in the same building as the classroom we were having our calculation session in.  Dangers included getting hit by the door as it closed and tripping over the stairs.  Back to the actual event . . . we did get to see the distillation column in action, which was nice after all that time spent drawing operating lines and labeling the equilibrium line. 

Honorable mention(s)

• Cornell vs. Harvard, men’s hockey: The only reason this wasn't more exciting was because we lost. Other than that, there was fish throwing and Lynah Rink was absolutely packed, which made for an intense fan experience.
• Intro to ChemE design competition: Because who doesn't like spending five hours on a Sunday night smashing F9 in Excel and yelling at your ROI to go up?  (To explain for those unfamiliar with the design competition – we were given a process with certain parameters and told to maximize the ROI for one year.  In order to easily change any of the variables, we used an Excel spreadsheet to chart the process and mathematically link the products and reactants before and after reactors, separators, etc.  F9 performs a set number of iterations; holding F9 will perform iterations until the process reaches steady state.  At that point, we could calculate our ROI.)

And thus I have convinced everyone of what a thrilling place Cornell is.

Spring Semester

Before the craziness starts up again at Cornell, here’s a preview of the coming attractions (i.e. what classes I’m taking).  I’m currently enrolled in 18 credits, but a couple of the classes aren't immediate graduation requirements that I can drop if I start failing anything.

Differential Equations for Engineers: Another math class populated by engineers.  I haven’t heard anything extremely good or bad about this class, so I’m expecting another fairly typical math class.

Intro to Computing with MATLAB: My required intro to computer science course.  Not too many complaints from fellow freshman engineers who took this first semester.  I don’t have any programming experience, but it’s not supposed to be necessary.  I guess we’ll find out about that.

American voices: The second of my two required first year writing seminars.  No further comment involving engineering and English.

Basic Engineering Probability and Statistics: One of the two classes I don’t need to take in order to fulfill my freshman engineering requirements.  For chemical engineers, this class can be taken instead of linear algebra (for engineers).  Since I had extra space in my schedule and hadn't taken statistics before, I thought I’d see if I liked this class.

Intro to Microeconomics: My other noncompulsory class, which for engineers counts as a liberal studies class.

Basic rock climbing: This may be the “class” that I’m looking forward to the most.  It meets once a week for a two hour block at Cornell’s natural indoor rock wall.  I've wanted to try rock climbing for a whole bunch of years now, so when I saw the opportunity to climb and get PE credit, I took it.  Hopefully any scheduling changes will not affect this class.

(Also, Happy New Year, only 7 days late. . . . That’s late even by  my standards.)