What I've Learned at Cornell

If you were hoping for a deep and philosophical discussion of my Cornell education thus far, keep hoping. One may eventually appear on this blog, but not today. Today I present my (almost serious) compilation of things that Cornell has taught me, both inside and outside the classroom. 

1. How to read Braille (at least the first five letters of the alphabet). I actually learned this from my iClicker. I think it’s pretty cool that they put Braille on the remote, and after a few weeks, I've learned to recognize the letters A through E in Braille.

2. Don’t eat the mixed seafood. Usually when I go to the dining hall, I’ll just get in line at the main food station and eat whatever they’re serving. I've had various unknown grains (I still don’t know what quinoa is), the mystery root vegetable (after some research I think it’s either parsnip or turnip), and the turkey gravy that looks an awful lot like leftover turkey from the night before. So when I say don’t eat the mixed seafood, that’s saying something. I tried it once, and that was enough. It consists of some weird soupy gravy with vegetables and other strange objects floating around that I presume is supposed to be seafood of some kind.

3. If you keep things long enough, sometimes they become useful again. Turns out that since I joined pep band, my lyre and flip folder (from my freshman year of high school) are being put to work again.

4. Peanut butter goes with anything. It’s not just for sandwiches. Tastes particularly good with apples and bananas (and probably other fruit, but I wouldn’t really know; the dining hall only has apples, bananas, oranges, and occasionally pears or plums) and anything chocolate. Also, Cornell makes their own peanut butter, and it’s especially amazing.

5. Lastly, always have an extra pair of socks. The only thing more miserable than dragging yourself a mile across campus to get to class in rain, snow, sleet, or any mixture of the three is dragging yourself a mile across campus in rain, snow, or sleet, and then sitting through class with wet socks.

The Bad, the Ugly, and the Good

As a Cornell student, I am currently in the middle of the first round of spring semester prelims. Most recently, I took my differential equations prelim in Call Auditorium in Kennedy Hall. It was a lousy room for a prelim, and it got me thinking about my past exam room assignments.

The Bad

Goldwin Smith Hall – Chem 2150 – This was an auditorium in the basement of Goldwin Smith Hall, the English building.  There are several features that set this room apart from all the other windowless auditoriums I've taken exams in.  For one thing, we could hear the clock tower clearly every single time it chimed.  (At least if you didn't bring a watch, you’d be reminded of the time every fifteen minutes.)  For another, throughout the entire prelim, the ventilation system was making hissing and banging sounds that were vaguely reminiscent of a wrestling match going on in the ceiling.  Or something like that.

The Ugly

Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall – Math 2930 – As soon as I saw that they were scheduling nine discussion sections in the same room for the first differential equations prelim, I was not excited.  We were assigned to Call Auditorium, which besides having more than five hundred seats for over two hundred students sitting every other seat, also has the same number of dysfunctional desks.  First off, the desks are the size of a sheet of paper, which makes it slightly ridiculously difficult to write, but I could deal with that, if the desks actually worked.  But they don’t.  If you don’t rest something heavy on one end of the desk, the very act of trying to write makes the desk fall over, causing you to have to dive for your things or sending everything crashing to the ground.  To add insult to injury, they also don’t have left-handed desks (at least not in any of the usual places).

The Good

Olin Hall – Engri 1120 – Honestly, this is the only room that I can say that I like taking prelims in.  It’s the only true classroom I've taken a test in and the site of both of my Intro to ChemE prelims and the final.  And it has actual tables. (How else were you supposed to have room for your binder of handouts, notebook, textbook, ruler, colored pencils, pencil, and exam?)  Smaller room, tables, that’s a win in my book.

Plus a couple bonus stories:

I showed up early to my first calculus prelim at Cornell, but the auditorium was already pretty full.  In fact, people were having trouble finding seats.  Everyone, including the TAs, was looking rather confused, but the TAs started passing out exams anyway.  Upon receiving their exam book, some people near the front must have asked what it was for, which is when things started to make more sense.  As it turns out, whoever was in charge of scheduling put two exams in the same room at the same time.  One was multivariable calculus.  The other was an ILR class.

Later that semester, for the same math class, we were scheduled to take the final in Barton Hall.  Usually, for prelims, large classes are split up, but it seems that everyone has to take the final in the same place.  One of the few rooms large enough to hold the five hundred or so students in multivariable was Barton Hall.  The reason Barton has that much space is not because it contains an extraordinarily large auditorium, but rather, an indoor track.  That’s right; it’s one of our athletic buildings.  Most of the floor space was covered with tables, but it was a surprisingly tame experience.  Even with five hundred other students, it was pretty quiet (all that space also swallows up sound) and the TAs were in charge of their own sections, so no one had to deal with more than around fifty students.  Main problem of the afternoon: finding my seat.

Meet Hezekiah

When I first showed up at Cornell, I had, among other things, a box of food, my hat collection, a rocket ship cup, and one of my most faithful companions.

I’ll admit, when we first became acquainted in middle school, I wasn't sure we’d last this long together, but we have.  He’s weathered all sorts of storms, been all sorts of places, seen some of the country with me.  We've been through a lot together.

Since I came to Cornell, he’s been hanging out under my desk most of the time.  Here he is:

His name’s Hezekiah.  I thought it was time to formally introduce him, though he is mentioned on my About Me page.

I got him in middle school, but I finally named him before coming to college, and having played him for the better part of five or six years, I have to say this is a very nice student instrument.  Not that I’m an expert or anything, but he’s survived middle school, a marching band season, and almost half a year of pep band.  That includes rain, snow, freezing temperatures, and being dropped.

I haven’t had to make any major repairs, although I did get the keys realigned . . . once . . . three years ago.  So it’s a pretty low maintenance instrument if you don’t do dumb things with it.  Like throw it into a snow bank, or practice your javelin throwing with it.  Things like that.

For people thinking, “Don’t plastic clarinets usually sound pretty lousy?”, I have this to say: my sophomore year of high school, I made the district band with this clarinet (a Buffet B12).  Last chair, but I attribute that more to my mediocre playing than to the instrument.  So while he may not be a professional instrument, he can stand up to the competition.  Like I said, we've been through a lot.  I think he’s a keeper.

Going Vertical

Thirty feet sounds a lot higher when you’re standing at the bottom of a vertical wall.  It sounds even higher when you've tried to climb that vertical wall.  Granted, I wasn't trying to climb all the way up, but still, it’s a long way to the top.  It may take more work than I’m generally inclined to want to put into gym class, but I have never been more excited for PE.

I’m not saying that I didn't enjoy swimming last semester, because I did, but I couldn't say that I actually looked forward to jumping into the freezing water.  If we had been competitive swimmers, we probably would have complained about how hot it was, but we weren't, and it was cold enough that if we weren't doing a lot of swimming or moving, I would end class starting to lose feeling in my fingers.  I’m not kidding.

The closest I've ever been to really being excited about gym was my sophomore year of high school when I did my mandatory semester of project adventure.  We did the ropes course and went hiking and cross country skiing.  If an activity involves dirt under my fingernails, mud under my shoes, and good old blood, sweat, and tears, I’m there.  Okay, maybe subtract the blood and tears part.

Anyway, I showed up at my first basic rock climbing (or b-rock, as the instructors seem to call it) class last Monday.  We signed the release waiving our right to sue Cornell for injury due to lightning, drowning, falling rocks, etc. and then walked over to the wall.  Like I said, looks a lot bigger when you’re standing at the bottom of it.  It spans the entire width of Bartels Hall, a building that contains a basketball court/arena, practice space for the soccer team, and the wrestling gym with room to spare.  According to Cornell Outdoor Education’s website, it’s the largest “indoor natural rock climbing wall in North America.”  Well, then.  Makes me glad I came to Cornell.

Cornell’s climbing wall has both natural rock holds and some sort of composite concrete holds (like the colorful ones on a lot of indoor rock walls – a lot easier to use than the natural holds).  If you stay below ten feet, you’re allowed to climb unroped, which is referred to as bouldering.  That’s how we began our adventures climbing.

It was incredibly fun, and as an added bonus, I got to use some arm muscles that I didn't even know existed.  Like those ones along your elbows.  Someone tell me what those are for in normal life.

When you sign up for basic rock climbing, you also get a climbing pass and shoe rental for the semester, so I have one thing to say to the Lindseth climbing wall: I will be back.

161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do

So that everyone’s on the same page, the 161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do is a list of activities and tasks that Cornell sends to its students to complete before they graduate.  The number of items, 161, comes from the number of steps to the top of McGraw Tower (the clock tower).  The list is occasionally updated, but from what I can tell most of the items stay the same from year to year.

At this point in time, I have no plans to seriously try and complete all 161 things on the list.  Some may be completed in a modified version, such as #1, Make the library into your bedroom and have sex in the stacks.  Not going to happen, so I may find some other activity to substitute for this one (and others).

Even though I’m not planning to do all 161 things, I’ll probably end up blogging about a good number of them, because many of them are what you could call “uniquely Cornellian,” like the clock tower.  One good thing about being the in the middle of nowhere is that we have space.  Lots of it.  Because admit it, having a clock tower in the middle of Boston would be weird, for one thing, and for another, it wouldn't really look like a tower next to the John Hancock Tower.

Since I've been at Cornell longer than I've been blogging, I’ll probably go back and give at least a brief overview of the things I've already completed.  It’ll be like a slice of life at Cornell, but with a slightly different take than my usual news from the engineering quad/band room.

Adventure is Out There

Besides my weekly bus ride to Bethel Grove Bible Church, I rarely leave the Cornell campus, and when I do, I go to Collegetown, which is about three feet from the engineering quad.  As a freshman at Cornell, I happen to have a free bus pass, which, however, I almost never use.  As a matter of principle, I generally refuse to ride the bus to class when I can walk through piles of slush and on ice-encrusted sidewalks instead.  (To be fair to Cornell, they actually do a pretty good job of keeping the sidewalks clear, but do they really expect college students to care about “no winter maintenance” signs?)

The first time I set foot on a TCAT (the local bus system) bus, I went to Applefest on the Commons with some friends.  The second and third times, I was also with groups and used the bus to get from one side of campus to the other.  Last Thursday, I set out with a mission in mind: to get to the Target at the Ithaca Mall.

My journey began by waiting for the bus, which was late as always.  It took an absurdly long time to get off campus and the surrounding area because of all the stops, but I eventually got to the Ithaca Mall.  I walked over to the Target and entered civilization again.  (Cereal costs three dollars and not everyone’s around twenty?  No way.)

My main purpose for going to Target was to pick up a box of granola bars, because those may be the one thing I will not buy on campus.  I got a box of twenty-four bars (twelve packs) for $4.50.  At RPCC one pack is about a dollar, so I paid close to a third of the price.  While I was off campus, I also took the opportunity to pick up a cutting board so I can hopefully stop slicing skin off my fingers.  It was a little more expensive than I would have liked, but it has a nonslip bottom, so hopefully that means my fruit won’t go flying across the kitchen.  (Totally never happens at home.)

I have to admit that was my first time shopping entirely by myself, and it wasn't too bad.  I only walked aimlessly around the store three or four times, I got the main item that I went shopping for in the first place, and I made it back to Cornell in one piece.  Mission: accomplished.

161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do, #13 and #14

#13. Climb the rock wall in Bartels Hall

#14. Listen to a full clock tower chimes concert and guess the songs played

Before the class of 2016 showed up in the Middle of Nowhere, New York, Cornell sent us a list of 161 things to do before we graduate (hopefully) in four years.  I've completed a few of them just by being on campus and going about my daily life, but I recently struck off a couple items that I had to go a little more out of my way to do.

Tuesday morning, I was up earlier than normal and decided that it would be worth my while to go to the morning chimes concert at 7:45.  So I packed my backpack for the day, headed out, and climbed to the top of the clock tower.  While you can’t go to Cornell without hearing the chimes, I couldn't actually say that I’d sat through an entire concert.  Well, now I can.

Every morning, the chimes start the day off by playing the Jennie McGraw rag, which is basically a collection of over 200 notes played as fast as possible.  On the day I was there, they also played “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “Shenandoah,” and “In Christ Alone,” which I recognized, and Gigue from First Cello Suite (Bach) and Air and variations for carillon (Handel), which I didn't.

The chimesmasters like to decorate for holidays, so they had a Happy Valentine’s Day banner and a whole bunch of hearts taped to the walls and chimes, plus they turned the clock face into a heart (only visible at night when it’s lighted up).  Sometimes they also play music to fit the occasion, and my personal favorite example of that was when Hurricane Sandy gifted us with lots of rain and wind and the chimes played “Under the Sea.”  Ithaca College decided to cancel evening classes; Cornell didn't.  I went to Intro to ChemE office hours.

That was #14 taken care of.  I completed #13 on Monday, when I went to my first basic rocking climbing class.  Granted, I didn't climb to the top of the climbing wall, but I did go climbing, so it counts.  For the first class, after all the paperwork was taken care of, the instructors just let us try some climbing.  We were below the bouldering line, so we weren't roped up, but you can still do a lot without going high.

Because this is probably my new favorite PE class, it warrants an entire post to itself, but I also wanted to mention it in terms of the 161 Things.

For Want of an Asterisk

Saturday morning.  Nemo has just blanketed Cornell’s campus with four inches of fresh snow.  When I step out of my dorm, the snow is fresh and untouched.  That’s because it’s nine in the morning of the first full day of our weekend.

That’s right.  Nine am and I’m about to embark on a two and a half hour coding journey with MATLAB.  I’m a morning person, so I leave my 7:15 alarm on all weekend and go to bed when people are heading out for the night.  Which is why I had no problems when a friend and my current MATLAB partner suggested meeting early on Saturday morning to take a look at the homework.

Since my parents wouldn’t pay for MATLAB I didn't buy MATLAB for my computer, we went over to the lab at RPCC.  Another plus of starting that early was that the lab was empty except for one other person, and he left after a few minutes, so we didn't have to worry about bothering anyone with our talking.

Two and a half hours . . . sounds an awful lot like our Intro to ChemE homework sessions.  Anyhow, I’d looked at the first problem beforehand, so we got that one done in . . . an hour, maybe.  The second problem I hadn't looked at, so I was doing all the coding as I figured out the problem.  I handwrote the code, typed it into MATLAB, and was trying to test it when I kept getting an error message.  Usually, MATLAB’s good about giving you the problem and which line is causing the problem, and it did this time too, but I couldn't understand what MATLAB was trying to tell me.

I turned to Google to explain the error and got something about an array.  What array?  I don’t even know what an array is or how to program one.

Sixty-seven trials later (and extensive use of the pause function – I was told this would be useful in debugging, but I’m not sure the professor would have expected its use this soon), I found the error.  I was trying to multiply a variable by a quantity and typed it as x(2*k+1).  Yep, I forgot an asterisk.  (It should have been written as x*(2*k+1).)  I typed in the asterisk and the program worked perfectly.

The Other Team in Lynah

While the market for men’s hockey tickets is alive and well, complete with season ticket deals, no such market exists for women’s hockey tickets, because women’s hockey tickets are free.  Yet as I’ve mentioned, the rink is freezing because almost nobody shows up.  (Though the men’s team was away last weekend and the guy with the flag still came to the women’s games.)

I decided not to go away with the band, and I had a ChemE lunch scheduled for when we were supposed to leave, so I was home for two women’s hockey games and a women’s basketball game.  On Friday night, Cornell beat Union . . . 8 to 1.

So basically, our women’s hockey team is pretty good, and no one watches them.  My point, that I’m getting to, is that for some reason, people don’t like watching women’s sports unless it’s beach volleyball and they’re wearing minimal clothing beach volleyball uniforms.  Women’s hockey can also be more fun to watch than men’s hockey because instead of slamming each other into the boards, they do this thing where they pass the puck around and score goals of a different variety from the shove-the-puck-near-the-goal-and-everybody-whack-at-it-until-it-crosses-the-goal-line kind.  Although at one of the women’s games I was at there was this massive pileup in front of the goal.  There were multiple players in the net.

The only thing about women’s hockey is that the band was recently approached and asked not to play while the teams were warming up.  We’re still trying to sort that out.  On the other hand, a former men’s hockey player stopped by the band room a couple of weeks ago and said that the team would really get excited when the band played.  Sometimes it’s nice to know someone appreciates you.

Still, to anyone at Cornell: go to women’s hockey.

A Week in Review

Last week was fairly eventful, as far as any week at Cornell goes.  Monday I had classes, then pep band rehearsal, so the week began like usual.

Tuesday, I had an informal job interview . . . and got hired.  And I did tell my parents before announcing this all over the internet.  I’ll describe the job in greater detail after all the paperwork gets sorted out and I actually get some work.  That same night, I picked up a package from home, which contained mostly food, plus some stickers.  But not just any stickers.  Penguin stickers.  (I like penguins.)

Then Wednesday I may have started my day by slicing my finger open while coring an apple.  As in, I sliced my finger open while coring an apple.  While some people may have apple corers, my entire cutlery supplies consist of one spoon, one fork, a spreader, a peeler, a paring knife, and an assortment of plastic utensils.  So I was using the paring knife to chop up and otherwise mutilate an apple and I guess one of my fingers was in the wrong place when my hand slipped.  (It wasn't bad.  At all.)

But I made this lunch, and most of the carbohydrates came from the box from home.  The crackers were only slightly crushed.

Thursday I had to fill out a work form and then a friend and I walked all the way to RPCC for dinner.  Usually I go to Appel because it’s closer to my dorm, but we must have been feeling extra adventurous that evening.

And Friday I ended the week with a hockey game, which is a pretty fantastic way to end any week.  The men’s team returned home after a week away to play Quinnipiac.  They’re currently something like second in the nation and our team has lost their last five games.  It was an interesting night.

(Also, the giant icicle reached the bottom of the gorge before melting sometime early this week.  If you haven't noticed, the state of the giant icicle is a news item of the day for me.)

The Thing from the Thurston Avenue Bridge

In the wilds of upstate New York, tens of thousands of college students go about their daily lives.  These students attend the institution known as Cornell University, and little do they know the danger that lurks right around the next corner.

It is waiting for the right moment to strike.  It grows in size with every passing moment, increasing in strength until its time arrives.  And when that time comes, every student on campus will know it, and fear for their lives.

They walk past it unknowingly, every day on their way to class.  Some may even notice it, but none know the danger that it hides.

It has come before, and those who have survived it can only say that it is dense, about 917 kilograms per meter cubed.  And cold, cold as ice.

It is a giant icicle.

Coming soon to a blog near you: The Icicle Strikes Back.

Food, which rhymes with Froude*

Some people may have been wondering what I've been eating at Cornell when I’m not in the dining hall (translation: I haven’t had a Skype conversation with my parents without them asking me what I had for dinner).  The answer is that it depends.

For example, one weekend last semester it must have been a dark and stormy night or something, because I didn't feel like leaving my dorm for dinner and I wasn't that hungry anyway.  I had some cereal and dining hall fruit, so I made myself Cheerios with peanut butter and a banana and turned it into dinner with a side of ChemE.

Dinner, with Intro to ChemE homework, my favorite scientific
calculator, colored pencils, and ruler

The next picture is a dinner I packed for myself before a hockey game a couple weekends ago.  The pep band reports an hour before game time, so while most people can have dinner around six and then go to the game, the band has to eat at five, pack dinner, or not eat.  That night I chose to pack my dinner instead of going to the dining hall at five (on the plus side, if you ever go that early it’s really easy to find a seat and you don’t have to wait in lines).  I had another dining hall banana with peanut butter, a leftover granola bar, and a rice crispy that I may have hacked up to fit in my container.  I’m pretty sure I also brought applesauce.

For this semester, I downgraded my meal plan, so I've been continuing to make my own breakfast, but I also have to get four meals a week outside of the dining halls.  One of the lunches I made recently (by made I mean threw into my container) consisted of an apple, a granola bar with peanut butter, Oreos, and wheat thins.  I’d like to point out that my meals all at least have a fruit, protein (peanut butter counts), and carbohydrates.  Occasionally I also get yogurt for dairy.

When I am in the dining hall, I've been taking the opportunity to experiment with my food.  The other day I had a cream cheese and peanut butter sandwich, which was surprisingly good.  I've also had frosted flakes and pudding, cereal with ice cream, and a good standby is always apple or banana with peanut butter, caramel, and chocolate.

The bottom line here is that I'm eating.  Actual food.  Really.

*The Froude number is a dimensionless group that is a ratio of an object’s inertia to gravity. It’s pronounced as if it rhymes with “food,” not “cloud.” Just another thing I learned in Intro to ChemE.

Excel did my Math Homework

We started the week in differential equations talking about Euler’s method of approximating the value of a function given the derivative and an initial condition.  Anyone who has suffered through been fortunate enough to learn about Euler’s approximations knows that it’s a pain in the neck, and inaccurate, to use Euler’s method to approximate the function once you get around 0.00001 units or so away from your starting point.  (It may be slightly more accurate than that, but math books like to have students do problems like “using a change in x of 0.01 and starting from 0, use Euler’s method to approximate f(x) at x=1.”  As you’ll see in a moment, not fun.)

So Euler’s method says that given y' = f(x,y), y_n+1 = y_n + (x_n+1-x_n) * f(x_n,y_n).  This basically assumes that the slope at the left-hand endpoint of the interval is the slope over the whole interval, and breaks up a function into linear pieces.

To do one of these problems by hand, you start with the given point and calculate the slope at that point.  Since the slope is the change in y over change in x, the slope multiplied by the change in x equals the change in y.  The change in y can then be added to the original value of y to get the new value of y.  The tediousness of the process arises because the smaller the change in x is, the more accurate the approximation.  But the smaller the change in x is, the more calculations it takes to get any significant movement along the graph, so after finding the new y, there should be sentences that say, “And repeat.  A lot.”

I was not in the mood to sit around punching seven hundred numbers into my calculator, so I figured I’d have Excel do the calculations for me.

Homework, done. #WhatILearnedInChemE

MATLAB Troubles

I know I did say I was going to write about my first week back at Cornell, but it’s actually not all that interesting, so I’m going to focus on my Intro to CS class.  It’s technically called Introduction to Computing Using MATLAB, but I will refer to it as either Intro to MATLAB or MATLAB from here on out.

I’ve never taken a programming class before, so everything has been completely new to me.  So far I really like the class, especially the actual programming.  During lectures, it’s a little weird learning about how to code without actually getting to code, but the professor is enthusiastic about the class, which is always a positive.

As of a few days ago, I coded my first entire program (we calculated the surface area of an oblate spheroid) with the extensive help of MATLAB’s error detection system.  Honestly, if anyone got a nickel for every time I forgot to end a line with a semicolon, they’d probably be rich by the time I finish this class.  Or at least have enough money to pay for next semester’s textbooks.

Then there’s all those things that aren’t necessary, but are “good form.”  When creating my Intro to ChemE spreadsheets last semester, I was in the camp of people-who-don’t-want-to-scroll-a-lot, so everything would kind of be shoved into whichever cells I could see on one screen of Excel.  Similarly, if I didn’t have that 80-character-per-line good form limit, why waste time scrolling when you can jam five short lines of code into one long line the width of your computer screen?

By the way, who decided that we need both a slash and a backslash?  I found out the difference when I was trying to do a line return after a printed statement.

I’m really not complaining about the class or MATLAB, but rather, pointing out my sometimes utter disregard for style.  Apparently things not only have to work, but also look pretty.

Can’t think of a good way to finish this post, so I’ll go with this one:

end

College Living

There are several reasons I know that I’m back at Cornell:

Showering with footwear.  Apparently you can pick up some nasty foot fungus if you shower barefoot, and that’s one thing I’m not interested to discover the truth about through personal experience.

A box of cereal costs seven dollars.  Like, a regular sized box of regular cereal.  It’s not even all natural, all organic, or made of special wheat grown in the remote mountains of Nepal.  For those concerned about my spending habits, I did not pay out of pocket for this cereal.  I used money on my mandatory meal plan and I lose the money if it’s not spent by the end of the semester.

I don’t have rice for dinner every day.  Not that I have rice for dinner every day at home . . . oh, wait.  I do.  As a side note, I have had rice at the dining hall a couple times and it seems to be softer.  Usually it’s kind of hard and dry, so this is an improvement.

I have three alarms in the morning: my clock, my watch, and a giant truck.  I live in a forced double above the loading dock in a dorm that has had multiple (okay, two) fire alarm malfunctions, a heating system that fails with alarming regularity, and prehistoric eighteenth century windows with no insulation.  The loading dock part is what I’m concerned with here, because pretty much every morning, a truck has to make a delivery to the café downstairs in my dorm.  First, it backs into the loading dock, then the back door of the truck slams open, then the ramp comes crashing down onto the driveway and everything gets unloaded.  Free alarm!  Thanks, Cornell.

Your ID card is your best friend.  Without your ID, you will soon find it impossible/very difficult to eat, sleep, or meet other basic needs, because access to the dining halls and dorms is through card access.  All is not lost, however, because for the cheap price of only $40, you can own yet another piece of plastic with the Cornell seal and your face plastered onto it, but seriously, if there’s one thing you don’t want to lose, it would be your ID card.

And last, I walk past a waterfall on my way to class every day. Come to Cornell, and you too can experience the waterfall for yourself! I’ll stop the propaganda tour guide spiel . . . for now.

Three Days Later

To show just how much snow and ice melted over two days of warm temperatures, I have a few pictures comparing the dam and the waterfall.

The dam:

Sunday afternoon

Thursday afternoon

The waterfall:

Sunday afternoon

Thursday afternoon

(Yes, I know Sunday to Thursday is four days, but it looked like that on Wednesday too; I just didn't get any pictures until Thursday.)

Through Rain and Snow and Sleet and Hail

While public schools and other colleges across the country took Martin Luther King Jr. Day off, we celebrated our return to Cornell with our first day of spring semester and 22 degree weather.  That was just the beginning of a string of days (over a week) with average temperatures hovering under ten degrees and windchill bringing temperatures down to feeling like -10 at worst or 0 at best.

The waterfall froze over, as did the dam and lake.  One of the facts that Cornell likes to advertise is that students walk past a waterfall every day on their way to class, which is true for north campus residents. . . . It’s a manmade waterfall, but it’s still true.

The dam by Beebe Lake

It snowed at least every other day for over a week, leading to about four inches of accumulation on the grass and a muddy slop on all the sidewalks.  That was fun to walk through at eight in the morning.  Almost as much fun as hauling my suitcase up three flights of stairs.  Not happening again.

Since then, it’s warmed up.  The campus got to thaw out over the past couple of days, and all the snow and the waterfall melted.  Monday morning, it was snowing when I woke up, there was hail on the way to my first class, and it started raining before lunch.  So we’ve had some interesting weather, and I enjoyed our fifty degrees here on Wednesday.

Before people in colder regions get too jealous, don’t worry.  The forecast promises us a return to subfreezing temperatures and snow.  Can’t wait for everything to freeze into a giant sheet of ice.

Come to Cornell; we have a waterfall!!