9 Posts my Parents would rather never see on my blog

1. Cuts and scrapes and bruises, Oh my – Kind of like this post, except with more blood. And considering how much they liked that post (they didn't), this’ll be even better. It’ll be like Christmas and birthdays all at once.

2. I Can’t Remember What Happened Last Night after I Started Frat Hopping – I don’t typically go to parties in general (I skipped junior and senior prom), so if this ever happened . . . it would be an interesting night.

3. I Forgot to go to my Math Final – I still have two math finals to go, so let’s hope this never happens. So far, every prelim/final I've taken has been at night or in the afternoon, but this semester, I have two morning finals. My alarms will be set.

4. Three Days, One Shower – I will confess that there have been weeks that my showering schedule has been a little off, but I have not gone three days without a shower . . . yet.

5. Homework, and other unnecessary things – Because who needs homework. This is college, time to work (not very) hard and party harder.

6. 99 Bottles of beer on the wall – Let’s just say I’m not 21 yet. (Though Cornell does have one on-campus location where you can buy alcohol. I was wondering the other day whether they’d let you pay in BRBs – money to be spent on food that comes with the meal plan. Chances of that: slim to none.)

7. I lost my ID card again – Go directly to Day Hall – do not pass RPCC lost and found, do not collect $200. Or: Pay “school fees” of $40.

8. Things I can do at College that I’m not Allowed to do at Home – Mainly eat cereal as my grain for dinner. There’s only so many times I can eat hard rice or potatoes.

9. My Littlest Pet Slime Mold – Honestly, there was barely any mold in my fridge when I got back from winter break. Here I’m talking something lime green or orange big enough to swallow your finger if you get too close. No further comment.

My Life in Twitter

I don’t have a Twitter, and I’m not going to restrict myself to 140 characters, so this would more appropriately be titled “Stuff that doesn't really constitute an entire blog post,” but that didn't sound too catchy as a title, so “My Life in Twitter” it is. Welcome to Twitter, Life of an Engineer style.

Eating lunch at Appel the other day, I took some vegetarian chili. Back at my table, I wondered why there was no beef in it. #CowIsAVegetable

Mysteries of the universe: Why bad things happen to good people; The nature of God; How did I get this cut on my finger? #NoBloodNoProblem

#131 of the 161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do: Walk holding hands around Beebe Lake. Does the “hand”le of my clarinet case count? #BestFriendsForever

Yes, I am aware that I’m wearing two jackets over two shirts while also wearing shorts. #WhyAren’tThereLegJackets

I was scheduled to work from 5:00-6:30 the other evening. Apparently 8:30 is the new 6:30. #MyShiftRunnethOver

You aren't supposed to be able to bend carrots in half, right? Plus, my fridge smells like garlic. At least I ate the apple that got punctured by my math textbook . . . a week ago. #ThingsInMyMiniFridge #VampireRepellant

Went for a 2 mile run and passed 7 people. Five were walking. Two were walking in the opposite direction. #ObviouslyIDon’tWalkEnoughToGetToClass

Today I lost my ID card, fell off the bouldering wall and bruised my face, and got a tattoo. #AprilFools

How to kick start your day: P-Chem at 9:05 in the morning four times a week. #StillChemE

Feet above Head, and Other Strange Happenings in Monday B-rock

Sadly, rock climbing is over. Best PE class I have ever taken. A few weeks ago, we took climbing field trips around campus; two Mondays ago, we rappelled out of Schoellkopf Stadium, and last week, we were at Noyes at the K2 bouldering wall, though I’m pretty sure everyone just calls it Noyes.

When we walked over to Schoellkopf, we found one of our instructors waiting for us with about three different ropes tied to the pillars of the stadium. We found out that to rappel, we had to climb out of a window. Don’t try this one at home, kids. Since most of us had rappelled approximately zero times before, we had the rope that we’d be lowering ourselves down with as well as a second backup rope manned by our instructor.

It was definitely kind of weird climbing out a window. After that, it wasn't too bad, besides the fact that you literally had control of your life in your own hands. In the second part of class, we were shown how to ascend a rope without having available hand or footholds. The method involves two small loops of rope tied with prusik knots to the rope you’re ascending. A prusik can slide in one direction, but when weighted in the other direction, tightens and doesn't move. Basically, you use the loops as footholds and slide them up with you as you ascend.

Bouldering at Noyes was all about invoking your inner superhero. If you've ever heard the climbing principle about always keeping 3 points of contact with the wall (meaning three limbs . . . face apparently doesn't count), well, it’s wrong. First off, there’s deadpointing, in which an arm and a leg leave the wall so that you can reach holds further than what you can touch just by stretching out. Then there’s the dyno. By linear extrapolation, three limbs would leave the wall in a dyno. By exponential extrapolation, all four limbs would leave the wall. Let’s just say climbing is becoming awfully nonlinear.

So essentially, we were told to take flying leaps from one part of the wall to another. I don’t think I’m going to be becoming Superman any time soon. During the next part of class, we were taught about heel hooking. Usually, it involves bringing your heel high up on your body (sometimes over your head), but unlike a high step, your body tends to be more horizontal. You can then use your foot to pull yourself upward.

The Noyes wall is pretty small, so to make up for the lack of square footage the entire thing is overhung and all the bouldering problems center around the thought “How painful can I make this problem?” There’s this one problem along an overhanging ridge where the entire thing is made up of heel hooks (because that’s totally realistic and everything). You’d better be channeling Spiderman vibes, because you spend a lot of the route with your back facing the ground.

For the last part of class, we were supposed to come up with our own as painful as possible bouldering problem in ten minutes. I actually made contributions to this problem, which started off with a couple solid handholds, but no footholds. To get to the next part of the problem you had to smear across the wall to get to the next handhold. That got me to wondering if it’s possible to smear across the entire bouldering wall. I can already feel the pain . . . I’m going to try it next time I’m there.

One final message from Spring 2013 Monday b-rock (i.e., me):

Thanks to www.keepcalmstudio.com for the generator.  This picture may only be used for non commercial purposes; use of this picture must give credit to Keep Calm Studio.

Big Red vs. The Orange

I’m pretty sure spring semester has been colder than fall semester (right up until Cornell Days . . . come to Cornell because it’s always this warm and sunny in Ithaca).

Yeah, right.

Anyway, a combination of the 40 degree rule and less pep band appropriate events means that we haven’t had any four event weekends since hockey ended. (The 40 degree rule was invented by one of the pep band managers and states that if it’s not above 40 degrees outside, we don’t play outside, which is where spring sports tend to be. A pep band appropriate event is one which lends itself to having a band there. In other words, not soccer. “Hey guys, a throw in. Quick, we have five and a half seconds. . . . Never mind.”) In fact, it seems that our only spring sport is lacrosse.

However, due to strange scheduling, we only had two men’s games on the schedule before the rest of their season was away games. I guess we travel mostly with the men’s hockey team, but because we’re extreme sports fans we support the big red when they’re winning all the time, we managed to get enough drivers to get a band over to Syracuse.

This was the same week I had two prelims and an essay due, plus it was right after HEC weekend. I should have been doing homework, but I went to Syracuse anyway. It was worth it. I rode in the percussion car next to a snare drum, and although Google thinks you can go 60 miles an hour the whole way, you can’t. Especially when the speed limit’s 30.

It had been wet and drizzly all day, but when we arrived in Syracuse the rain was coming down pretty steadily. (The pep band doesn't usually play in the rain, but Syracuse has the Carrier Dome, which, as its name implies, is a dome . . . with a roof.) We had to walk from the parking lot to the dome, then around the dome because we were told to go in a specific entrance. The best way to describe the experience is wet. At the dome, we waited for most of the band to arrive, then we were given tickets and shown to our section of the bleachers.

Everything was going as usual; we played a few songs, stopped for some ads, played a little more, and then the hockey team and the fan bus arrived. We were expecting members of the men’s hockey team. We weren't expecting everyone to be standing right next to us on the bleachers. After almost being sat on, we finally came up with a solution: use the percussion instruments as a barrier between the band and the fans. The best way to describe what we were sitting next to was a cross between a diehard supporters group and a travelling frat party. (Once we set up the percussion barrier, it was pretty great, actually.)

It turns out that a few of the hockey players really like the pep band (we do show up to all of their games), so for our halftime set, we had a few “guest performers” on the trumpet, drums, and cymbals. None of the hockey players actually play the trumpet, drums, or cymbals.

As for the game itself, we lost, but it wasn't a bad loss, which is where you’re wondering if maybe your team is playing the wrong sport or something. Cornell took an early lead, but Syracuse ended up coming back and both teams traded goals until the final quarter. With a minute left, Cornell was one goal down, had possession of the ball, and there was time for one more play. After an obligatory time out, they started up the field, passed the ball around the goal, took a shot, and watched the ball bounce off the crossbar. And so we lost. Except for the band, because the band always wins.

HEC weekend, Finishing Touches (Saturday)

Last day at HEC. Ignoring the two prelims I had to study for, I proceeded to spend the entirety of my Saturday in Statler working. The first event of the day was lunch. Since lunch was going to be served in a room with giant floor to ceiling windows along one side, there was a possibility that they could pull it off using all natural light. There was also a possibility that they’d want light in every dark corner. Guess which option the designer chose?

So after finding a cart (we played musical carts throughout the weekend), we dragged wires, power strips, lights, tape, and ourselves back to the event location.  I was actually put in charge of lighting an entire wall . . . I know, the responsibility is astounding.  It took me a full hour and a half.  A few hours later, it took approximately twenty minutes to undo.

When I returned to headquarters (after picking up free lunch), I thought I had most of the afternoon to catch up on homework.  Instead, a couple hours later, one of the managers comes back into the room yelling something about the event starting an hour earlier than we thought.  All hands on deck.  I was sent upstairs with a roll of gaff and told to secure all wires in sight.  So nothing new for me, really.

After frantically taping for about forty-five minutes, things calmed down slightly and I was sent back to headquarters.  I didn't feel like going back to my homework, so I got an early dinner instead.  Hey, it’s not every day you can get free food from Statler.  There were four kinds of cheesecake.  (I had the blueberry cheesecake, and it was fantastic.)

For my last shift of the weekend, I helped put more lights on bases, carted the lights around, took down lights from the afternoon event, and then worked to transform Statler’s new student lounge-area place into a nightclub.  We put more lights under tables, I did the bar lighting all by myself, and then it was fifteen minutes before the event and we were still trying to figure out how to light up the desserts.  My lack of expertise made me a prime candidate for hauling stray equipment back to headquarters transporting the unused lighting to a less obstructive location.

As per usual, the arrival of important guests meant our departure, so we returned to headquarters with all our equipment and began the task of sorting through it to make it easier to transport everything back to the office when the cocktail ended.  I coiled a few wires, took some lights off bases, then signed out, having survived the 88^th annual Hotel Ezra Cornell weekend.

It was chaotic at times, but an organized chaos. People weren't just running in circles; they were running in circles with a destination and a goal in mind. It was definitely a learning experience, but one worth having . (Kind of like the time I had to fake “Give my Regards to Davy” at the men’s lacrosse alumni dinner with the pep band because I’d never even heard the song before.)  And yeah, it was fun. Plus, free food.

HEC weekend, Lighting 101 (Friday)

On the second day of HEC, my manager gave to me, two set up shifts and a free dinner at employee dining.  The way my schedule worked out this semester, I have no afternoon classes except for rock climbing on Mondays.  I was, therefore, completely free to work an afternoon shift at HEC on Friday.  I arrived at Cornell Productions (CP) headquarters to set up the pre-dinner cocktail (as opposed to the post-dinner cocktail, which I also set up for).

For the pre-dinner cocktail, I mainly hauled around some lights and gaffed the wires, but I did also learn how to set up bar lighting.  It’s not horribly difficult . . . which is probably a good thing, because I was asked to light the bar by myself on Saturday night.  For smaller bar setups, you take two of our smallest lights and clamp them to the back corners of the table.  Point each light diagonally across the table, and that’s about it.  After that, depending on the room, you may or may not have to run ridiculous lengths of extension cords halfway across the room to power your lights.  Once you’re made sure there aren't any blatant tripping hazards, cover the orange.

After we packed up and disappeared, we took our dinner break at employee dining.  Regular dining hall food at Cornell is already pretty good, but Statler-made food takes it up another level.  They had some version of shepherd’s pie sans reconstituted mashed potatoes and questionable meat products often found in school cafeteria lunches, beef (not sure what the dish was called), coleslaw, and desserts.

It’s kind of my joke that I eat meals so I can have dessert, and not only was this meal fancier than just about anything I’d eaten in the past, oh, year or so , but it also ended with chocolate peanut butter pie.  (Keep in mind I've been eating in dining halls and at home, where meals consist of a) whatever you can find in the fridge, or b) white rice, stir fried vegetables, and a rotation of approximately 5 and a half meat dishes.  For the record, I still like eating at home and in the dining halls.)  As much as I like peanut butter, peanut butter and chocolate together in a dessert is getting to my idea of the ideal dessert.  So I was pretty happy when I returned to CP headquarters to do homework.

My second shift of the day was setting up the post-dinner cocktail.  After running back and forth between the event location and headquarters 3 or 4 times to pick up forgotten equipment, I was set to making sure half a dozen tables scattered around the room had power.  For this event, the designer wanted a dance club atmosphere with lights under the tables.  The tables all had a covering that reached the floor, so when the lights were placed underneath them, it created a softened, glowing table effect.

Naturally, the next step after getting all the wires and lights set up was gaffing everything. At this point, not only were we running out of tape, but we were a little short on wires. As in, we ended up shoving several dozen feet of a coil of wire underneath a table because we didn't have a shorter extension cord. Besides the fact that you could see the coil glowing orange when the light was on and we had to gaff the entire thing with white tape, it worked. I also managed to secure the better part of one wire before I realized that the plugs connecting the extension cord to the light would be right in the middle of the floor. I finished it up anyway . . . and had to redo it ten minutes later. We ran a final check of the room, making sure all the lights were on and there were no loose wires, and performed our usual disappearing act. Before we left, however, we did get to see the final products of our labor, and I have to say, it looked pretty cool. No pictures though, because it takes two hands to tear gaff tape.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Once you get there, you’ll never want to leave; in fact, you might just end up living there. You’ll get to know the other people there so well they’ll feel like family. It’s a place where wishes are made, dreams fulfilled, and magic happens. That’s right, I’m talking about Olin Hall. 

Olin Hall: land of the distillation column and home of the Cornell chemical engineers.

I’m not even kidding when I say that I've heard the seniors are camped out in the basement of Olin right now. They've got food, couches . . . what more does a college student need?

I spent more time last semester in Olin because of Intro to ChemE. (Note that when most people at Cornell say Olin, they’re talking about the library; when I say Olin, I mean Olin Hall by default. If I’m talking about the library, I’ll say library.) Between lecture, calculation session, and office hours, we spent an average of around seven and a half hours there a week. This semester, I only have lecture twice a week in Olin. Next semester, however, I've heard that the majority (okay, 2 out of 3) of my engineering lectures will be in Olin.

Which brings us to: Cornell course enroll, one of the top ten fun things to experience at Cornell based on exactly zero students polled. To prepare, students may want to find the closest server and sit on top of it with their computer, practice hitting the refresh button (the real professionals practice blindfolded), and/or make a flowchart detailing which classes to go for first, with alternate choices in case a class fills up.

This time around, I had very little trouble getting the classes/sections I wanted because I logged on right at seven and efficiently selected and enrolled in all my classes no one else actually wants to is required to take the classes that future ChemEs need. Also, I tend to look for early morning discussions that for whatever reason aren't that popular with college students.

So for the fall semester, I am currently enrolled in Honors Physical Chemistry I, Mass and Energy Balances, Linear Algebra for Engineers, History of Science in Europe I, and hiking. Many ChemEs will be taking the first three classes next semester, so let’s hope we all get along really well together. (A friend and I not only have P-Chem, Mass and Energy, and Linear Algebra lectures together, but also P-Chem lab and math discussion.) As an added bonus, the P-Chem and Mass and Energy lectures may both be in Olin.

And so it begins: Our welcome to Olin Hall, the Real Happiest Place on Earth. (Sorry Disneyland.)

HEC weekend, Reporting for Duty (Thursday)

Thursday afternoon when I arrived for my first shift, we weren't in our room yet (it was a classroom, so maybe there was still a class there?) so I was supposed to report to a third floor balcony.  How exactly does one ask for directions to a balcony?  No clue.  The last time I had to get somewhere in Statler Hall, I got hopelessly lost, so I showed up early.  Once I found a door that was open, however, I found myself exactly two floors below where I was supposed to report.  Balcony, found.

After changing into the official uniform . . . a Cornell Productions t-shirt and signing in, I was put to work putting lights on bases.  I got one demonstration and then was left to my own devices.  For the opening cocktail, the HEC designers were going for a Hall of Mirrors (Palace of Versailles) look and wanted us to light up some of the pillars in the room and the bar.  A group of us was in charge of wiring the lights for the pillars and gaffing (taping) them all down, which is where I first heard the phrase “I don’t want to see any orange.”  Words to live by.

As we were finishing up with the pillar lights, we were suddenly all sent to gaff anything else as fast as possible.  When we were sent back upstairs, it turned out that the manager had thought it was 5:30, when the event started.  It was 4:30.  Which did explain why no one else was panicking.  I finished up my shift by hauling any unused lights, bases, wires, tools, and other equipment down two stories.  This involved Cart Driving 101 and Intro to Elevator Loading.

It turned out that the room they assigned to us was a tiered classroom, which did have enough space for all the equipment, but when we rolled the cart in, you couldn't go out the door.  Fortunately, the room had three doors.  I signed out, went to get dinner, and returned to headquarters to do a little homework before my next shift.  Cornell Productions was in charge of setting up and taking down lights for events, but during the actual events, we weren’t allowed to make any appearances, which left gaps in my work schedule all weekend.

Somehow, the event only ended about half an hour late (later in the weekend, one of the cocktails ended at something like 2 in the morning instead of 12).  Everything that had taken us an hour and a half to set up took less than half an hour to take down.  That would be a recurring theme.

I had an eight o’clock class the next morning, so after we put everything back in the room, I headed back to my dorm.  Good start to my first HEC weekend.

HEC weekend, overview

I mentioned that I have no regrets about spending fourteen hours running up and down stairs, hauling ridiculous amounts of lights and wires around while running up and down stairs, taping dozens of meters of wires, and occasionally getting yelled at*.  In other words, working HEC weekend.  That’s because this is college, my opportunity to make dumb decisions experience new things.  Plus we got free food, and the desserts were so worth it.

For those of you who don’t know, HEC stands for Hotel Ezra Cornell, and it’s the hotel school’s event of the year where important people come to cocktails and dinners that have been designed by the school to show off what the hotel students have learned.  The presence of these important people mean that HEC is a high profile event, which means that the whole thing is high stress for anyone in charge of anything more important than making sure no orange wires are showing.  (Guess what I was doing all weekend.)

If you guessed covering a lot of orange wire, you’re right.  As HEC weekend was exactly my second time working and first time setting lights up, I spent a lot of time with the gaff tape and comparatively little time with the actual lights.  Somehow, most of my extracurricular activities seem to believe very strongly in learning on the job.  For example:

Pep band: We haven’t actually rehearsed this song this semester, but let’s play it anyway.  Sight read it and if there are any horn moves, follow an upperclassman.

Rock climbing.  First class, after signing the waiver(s): This is the wall.  The yellow line is the bouldering line.  Go climb anywhere, as long as you don’t cross the line.

Cornell Productions: Here’s a light.  Here are the bases and some extension cords.  Set up the lights.  That’s honestly pretty much what happened when I showed up for my first shift during HEC weekend.

It’s been a lot of improvising, and a lot of learning.  Besides finally sort of figuring out the layout of the Statler (it’s one of those buildings where you can only get to certain rooms using specific staircases . . . kind of like my dorm), I also learned the following: how to mount lights when you run out of washers, ways to minimize gaff use when you only have one mostly used roll left, and what happens when you have to mount a gel without a gel frame.  If you couldn't tell, HEC weekend required a lot of equipment.

Next time: down time at HEC (hint: food and homework), and after that, what I was actually paid to do, including, but not limited to, taping orange wires.

*Not of the “You’re terrible and you’re doing everything wrong” variety. More like the “We have ten minutes before the event starts; gaff everything right now” variety.

Why I Don’t Wear Nail Polish

Three reasons: Hezekiah, the Lindseth climbing wall, and the general state of my nails.  Reason three is probably caused by reasons one and two, but I’m still counting it.

Reason one: As a clarinet, Hezekiah happens to have a lot of little screws and pins that can be quite sharp.  As a clarinetist, I manipulate these screws and pins, and in the process have more than enough opportunities to scratch my fingernails.  Any nail polish on them would come out looking like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Reason two: Since I started rock climbing, besides discovering various muscles in my arms, I've been using my limbs in some unusual ways.  As it turns out, you can lift your leg to your waist while balancing on an outcropping of rock approximately half a centimeter wide.  And a pocket (a type of hold that looks like a hole in the wall) is sloped the wrong way for you to find a fingerhold?  Just shove your whole hand in there.

That technique is known as a hand jam.  To hand jam, simply slide your hand into the desired hold and make a fist.  Your hand is now wider and hopefully will hold your weight.  If it doesn't, well, that’s when you may lose some skin off your hand and quite possibly any nail polish you have on.

Which is why I just avoid the problem by never painting my nails.  They’re already decorated with scratches from my clarinet and a layer of dirt, which leads to reason three: in general, my fingernails aren't in a state to be painted, and if they were, I’m probably about five minutes away from going to play in a mud puddle or something like that.

Basically, I never paint my nails because I’d destroy them within ten minutes of the nail polish drying, but for those of you who do, don’t worry, I’m not going to go around throwing nail polish remover on peoples’ hands.   But let’s not go into what I think about fake nails.

No fingernails were intentionally harmed in the production of this post.  Legitimate Photographic evidence can be supplied at request.

[In other news, I just survived working HEC weekend. Details will follow, but suffice it to say, it sure was an experience. And now, this coming week I have two prelims, a pep band trip, and an essay to write. Was it the smartest idea to work all three days of HEC weekend? Probably not. Do I regret it? Not a bit.]

161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do, #92

#92 – Hike in one of Ithaca’s beautiful parks

Now that it’s April, that means that spring has arrived, and brought with it sunshine, and warm temperatures, and rainbows and butterflies, right? Wrong. It snowed twice in three days at the beginning of April, so I thought I would remind myself what things look like when it’s warm.

The summer before my senior year of high school, my family and I took a road trip through New York and Canada to visit colleges and see the sights. Along the way, we visited RPI, Cornell, and RIT, and got the chance to camp and hike in some of the state parks around Ithaca.

We hiked through Buttermilk Falls, Watkins Glen, and Letchworth (closer to Rochester), and even though I wouldn't have called Buttermilk a waterfall (by the middle of summer, you could get more water from your shower), they were still some nice hikes. Buttermilk Falls in particular is really near to Cornell (and the only park that fulfills #92 on the list of 161 Things since the other two aren't actually in Ithaca).

Since I don’t have a good picture of the waterfall (i.e., one with water), this is what the gorge at Buttermilk looks like further up:

If you've ever heard that New York is gorges, this is what it means. The Finger Lakes region of New York is full of gorges like this. 

Watkins Glen is another state park that features trails right along the gorge. Also a nice hike, and the trail passes over and under various waterfalls. Lastly, further north, Letchworth is known as the Grand Canyon of the East (apparently?) and features three waterfalls. Although the middle falls had the most water and visitors when we were there, this picture of the lower falls is still one of my favorites from the trip (most of the rest of my pictures were of lampposts . . . don’t ask).

O spring, where art thou?

(Update: After snowing twice in the first three days of April, the last two days here have been absolutely fantastic shorts weather . . . as in, over forty degrees.)

O the Humanity(s)

As we've been going through our Civil War monuments unit in my writing seminar, I've started thinking about how we’re secretly being taught history and literature at the same time. For one thing, this is multitasking I can handle. For another, in some high schools, instead of taking English and history separately, students take a combined class called humanities. The high school that I attended started giving freshmen an option to do this during my sophomore or junior year.

Thinking back, I’m wondering if I would have liked that better than doing English and history on their own. Somehow things make so much more sense in context. Like knowing who Robert Gould Shaw was makes poetry about him understandable, plus I now know about the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth (some of which may come from the movie Glory).

To go with all this I decided to read Uncle Tom’s Cabin while home for spring break. (Side note: Who needs Caribbean cruises and Florida beaches when you can enjoy fresh New England snow instead? Not me, apparently.) I liked the book, and it provided another perspective on slavery, abolition, and some of the racial interactions going on in the mid 1800s. Lots of interesting characters, although most of them were pretty clearly defined to be good or bad.

Still not as bad as Hawthorne’s characterizations in The Scarlet Letter. First off, some background – Hester Prynne has committed adultery, has a daughter named Pearl, and is forced to live as an outcast in a hut on the outskirts of town. Throughout the book, Hester is supposed to be viewed negatively for having committed adultery while Pearl is the innocent result of her actions.

A slightly paraphrased scene:

Pearl is playing in the sun in the forest. “Mama, come play with me,” she says.

Hester walks toward Pearl. As soon as her foot touches the sun-covered ground, a dark rain cloud sprouts up over her head and thunder sounds. Hester looks up and sees lightning forming above her head. “Uh, I’m kind of hot in the sun, Pearl. Maybe we can go play under that thorn bush?”

Yeah, symbolism much?

One final note about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and it’s a comment/complaint about the introduction, mostly pertaining to non-author written introductions:

Dear famous authors who are asked to write introductions to books,

It would be nice if you didn't tell me that the main character dies on page 117. You may think I've read the book, but in the case that I haven’t, I may have been hoping to find that out for myself. I thought I’d read the introduction for some background information so I’d understand the book better, but apparently I didn't notice any of your nonexistent spoiler tags. Next time I might as well read the last page of the book first.

Sincerely, your sadly uninformed reader who in fact did not know that the main character dies on page 117

In my Mini Fridge: The Insider Edition

Before we get started today, I have to say that I think mini fridge should be one word. It’s not, at least according to spell check. But then again, spell check doesn't think carabiner, spectrophotometric, and icosahedron are spelled correctly either. (For the record, they are, and strangely enough, icosahedrons is fine.)

That said, this Monday I was in charge of bringing snack for my rock climbing class.  I picked up grapes from Appel (the small round purple ones . . . my favorite kind of grapes), carrots from RPCC, and strawberries from Target.  Then I had to fit all this into my mini fridge.

Normally I only use my fridge for milk, pudding, and applesauce, so it’s pretty empty.  By shoving the applesauce and pudding into the back of the fridge, I could then jam all the fruits and vegetables into my fridge with minimal fridge Tetris.

I could have posted the picture of the mold I found in my fridge
after winter break,but I think I deleted that one.

Currently, I have five different kinds of fresh fruit in my room (apple, orange, pear, strawberries, and grapes).  This is actually exciting because I’m a college student with no car or fixed income and I like fruit.

As an added bonus, here’s a picture of my corner of my dorm room:

Highlights include my lunchbox, AAIV quartercard (they were actually the only Christian fellowship on campus to quartercard me), stuffed dog (yes, she came to college with me), picture of my brother in a Viking hat, and the periodic table. And don’t worry. My desk isn't always this neat.