Seven Blisters and A Cut

To start this post off, I would like to say that I do not have anywhere close to seven blisters at the moment, nor did I have seven blisters when I got the idea for this post. However, several days after coming up with the title for the post, I went bouldering at Noyes and got no less than four blisters, two on each hand. Yes, that happened.

All of this is an indication that I have returned to rock climbing and other outdoor activities. Adventure is out there. But so is danger. Even with that in mind, a couple weeks ago was not a great week in terms of avoiding personal injury. It started on Saturday during hiking, when I volunteered to help with food prep for lunch. Apparently I cut myself while I was slicing green peppers. It was, however, so minor that 1) there was no blood, and 2) I didn't notice I had a cut on my finger until four or so hours later. That was right after I let a match burn down a little too close to my fingers while we were working on fire building. No harm done, but wouldn't you know it, fire is hot.

A few days later, I went bouldering at Noyes before house dinner (more on that later, because house dinner deserves a post of its own). Besides being completely overhung, the holds on the wall are on the rough side. After traversing the wall a couple times, falling off half a dozen times, and getting a little work done on the Spiderman route, my hands were a little sore, but that’s normal. What wasn't normal were the four blisters that appeared a little later under calluses I already had. Not cool. They healed up really nicely, though, in just a couple days.

To end the week, I peeled some of my skin off when I was peeling a peach for my fruit of the day. Again, no blood, unlike the time I scraped the tip of my knuckle off while peeling an apple to make applesauce in my sixth grade home economics class.

Just to show that even normal, everyday life isn't safe for me, at house dinner two weeks ago, I smashed a fingernail against a plate while I was trying to slice something. How that happened, I don’t even know. But for awhile, I was cut, blistered, and bruised. College is fun!

To end on a more pleasant note for those concerned for my physical safety, here’s a picture of a waterfall at Treman State Park a few miles from Cornell:

[I’m fine, really. My knees aren't even constantly bruised from rock climbing anymore. It’s been over half a year since I last wrote about the perils of climbing, and I've moved on to different forms of injury.]

Double the Fun

As I've mentioned before, this semester I've started blogging for Cornell’s Life on the Hill blogging program, which means that I now have two blogs and two jobs. I do not, however, have twice the number of hours in a day. That’s above my pay grade. Also, I've been told that it would be a good thing for me to get a research position if I’m thinking about going to grad school. We’ll see about that one.

[On a related note, I went to a career fair without 1) any idea of which companies would be there and 2) no resume. As per usual, I am on top of things. In my defense, I only wanted to see what it was like, which was crowded, hot, and kind of noisy. I can’t wait for when I have to start looking for a job. Grad school is starting to sound like a good idea.]

Back to the subject of my blogging: I average a post every three or four days on Life of an Engineer (2-3 posts a week) and am supposed to post twice a week for Life on the Hill. So far, I haven’t been posting the same things on both sites, meaning that I now have to write about twice as much. My life hasn't gotten twice as interesting. So for my next post, I present: “Thoughts on the Paint Chip on my Windowsill,” followed by “The Number of Steps it Takes to Get to Different Locations on Campus.” I’m kidding. Though they did tell me I could post anything on my Cornell blog . . .

I still can’t quite believe I’m being paid to irately rant complain promote all my favorite things about Cornell. Then again, I also still can’t quite believe I’m in college or that Pluto isn't a planet. I mean, how will My Very Excellent Mother Just Serve Us Nine Pizzas? Now it’s My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine. Nine whats? Next thing you know, they’ll be telling us indigo isn't a color in the rainbow. At which point, they’re just trying to mess with my childhood.

If you couldn't tell, Pluto is my favorite planet. I guess after Earth, since I sort of live there most of the time. But if for whatever reason you really can’t get enough of me here, I also blog at this place. I tend to keep it to Cornell related news over there, though I don’t know who wouldn't want to read my tirades in-depth analysis of the MLS playoff system. (By the way, the Revolution are currently in seventh place in the Eastern Conference. Seventh. I am not happy about that development.)

In other news, pep band has started up again (field hockey won against Georgetown 3-1), I've been hiking and rock climbing a couple times each, I haven’t lost any socks to the Laundry Monster, and I am deeply and passionately in love.

A Word Problem

An engineer can prepare brownies in the following manner:
It takes three minutes to crack and beat eggs and seven more minutes to mix all the ingredients together. Brownies made in a 9x13 pan take 24 minutes to bake while brownies baked in a muffin tin take 20 minutes. However, it only takes one minute to pour brownie mix in a 9x13 pan but four minutes to spoon the mix into a muffin tin. Left alone, baking pans take 10 minutes to cool, but cooling can be sped up by four minutes by placing pans into the freezer. Brownies baked in muffin tins can be removed in a minute, while brownies in the 9x13 pan need five minutes to be cut and removed (muffin removal is done after the pans cool). One 9x13 pan makes 48 brownies.

Mixing ingredients has to be done after beating eggs, but there are two bowls for brownie mix. There is only one 9x13 pan but two twelve-cup muffin tins and two six-cup muffin tins. How long does it take two engineers to bake 144 brownies in the 9x13 pan and 42 brownie-muffins, for a total of 186 brownies?

Answer: much too long, or around two and a half hours, with help from a very kind friend. So my engineering friend sucked me into asked if I would help her put together care packages for AAIV. In the spring and fall, AAIV puts together packages with candy, school supplies, and information about AAIV for people who give us contact information. This is our way of following up on our initial invitation to join or visit AAIV, and I got a nice care package last fall, so I agreed to help.

After a two-hour trip to Wal-Mart involving 20 packages of pens, several supersized bags of candy, and five boxes of brownie mix, we got down to making 200 brownies. Anyone should be able to make brownies from a mix, right? Besides preheating the oven, there’s one instruction: mix together two eggs, ¼ cup of water, 2/3 cups of vegetable oil, and the mix. Well, it’s apparently not that simple. Solving quadratic functions is simple. Balancing chemical reactions is simple. Making brownies from a boxed mix? Not so much. Welcome to Cooking With Engineers.

Yes, we can predict the probability of an electron’s location in a hybrid sp³ orbital in a methane molecule, but no, we cannot follow directions to make brownies from a boxed mix. We are going to do well in the real world.

Eventually, we did reach our goal of just under 200 brownies after much mixing, and spilling, and scraping brownies out of not-very-well-greased-pans (I take responsibility for that one). We did not set the fire alarm off and nobody got burned or sliced a finger open. Success.

The brownie making process before we spilled mix, oil, and egg
all over the counter

One last word problem: How many flights of stairs does it take to go from the third floor to the fourth floor (of the same building)? [Hint: It’s not one.]

Answer: Three. That’s a story for another time.

Scheduling

Even before returning to a world governed by integrals and rate laws, even before my foot had touched the first stretch of sidewalk covered in chalk, Cornell called. Or rather, emailed. A lot. In the week before my arrival on campus, I received approximately 500 Cornell-related emails, plus or minus 480, confidence of around 3%.

Besides classes, I have four other groups to schedule: AAIV, Cornell Productions, Life of the Hill blogging, and pep band. Three out of the four have irregular hours . . . and days. To make things even more fun, I have to schedule things around a Saturday PE class. I can’t wait until prelims start.

But wait; don’t despair. To alleviate all your scheduling woes, get Google calendar today. Use it to record the last time you went to the dentist, remind you to take your vitamins, and keep you from skipping missing a class ever again. Act now, and for the low, low price of $0.00, you can get your very own Google calendar today.

So yes, I currently use Google calendar to keep track of what I have scheduled when. (No, I don’t use it to record dentist visits or tell me to take my vitamins.) I even color code my different schedules (and categorize my emails, and use a ruler to underline my notes in class). Because in college, you don’t have entire afternoons free. You have 2:14-3:03 in the afternoon free, before which you've had classes and a lab, and after which you have a rehearsal, dinner, a club meeting, and then maybe after that you’ll stop by office hours, because, oh yeah, homework.

I won’t say all days are like that (they’re not), but when everyone has days like this once in awhile, if you’re in charge of scheduling, you might as well pick dates by throwing darts at a calendar. That should work about as well as the “please fill out this survey with all the dates/times you’re definitely free, probably free, likely free, might be free, could possibly skip something else to be free, buried under a pile of textbooks, and Gone Fishing.”

To deal with my personal schedule, I start with anything mandatory (classes). Then I add anything that I've committed to (work for Cornell Productions, certain AAIV or pep band events). Then I put on things that have a definite time and day but I’m not positive I’ll be attending. Anything without a date or time that isn't compulsory doesn't go on until I have more details. Unless it’s something that I really want to attend, in which case I will specifically keep my calendar free around possible times for the event. It’s my own personal version of first come, first served. And that is how I avoid “accidentally” skipping make sure I’m where I need to be at all times once in awhile.

The preceding has been a glimpse of my college life and how I remember to go to class. Hey, people strangely found the contents of my refrigerator interesting, so why not this?

What Gaff Tape Doesn’t Stick To

Before classes started, I worked a couple shifts for Cornell Productions, helping to set up sound equipment for orientation events. This, as usual, involved gaffing (taping) down wires in any areas that people would be walking through. During HEC weekend, I gaffed wires to wood, carpet, metal, and tile. We taped across floors, under tables, along moldings, and up doorframes into the ceiling. Throughout all this time, we had no trouble getting the wires to stay, because that’s what gaff tape does: it adheres to pretty much anything.

But not everything. On a Monday morning, I worked the load in shift for an outdoor event. We loaded up the truck, drove to the location, and had to haul all the equipment from the parking lot to the event location, which involved stairs. When moving heavy objects, stairs are an unwelcome sight. Very unwelcome. We managed it, however, and got to work. After all the wires had been laid out, I got the job of gaffing them down. Since we were outside, I ended up taping the wires down over concrete or stone. Guess what? Gaff tape sticks just fine to rock-like materials. Not as well as to carpet or tile, but it did passably well.

The next day, I worked an even earlier shift. Once again, we loaded up the truck, and drove to the location, this time Barton Hall. Barton, besides being the site of most large courses’ finals and the former home of the Big Red Bands, is popular for concerts and receptions because of its size. It also has an indoor track. The significance of this will become apparent.

We moved everything off the truck and into Barton, where we eventually got our instructions for setting up the speakers. We ran wiring across the floor to the outlets along the edge of the room. Then, as we were taping the wires down, I made my discovery: gaff tape does not stick to whatever it is indoor tracks are made of.

Correction: it sticks about as well as cheap dollar store sticky notes stick to anything. Further correction: it sticks if you very forcibly press it down and maybe walk up and down it for awhile, but even then it needs a much higher ratio of tape on floor to tape on wire than most surfaces.

After my shift, which ended before people were waking up, I took the rest of the day off. It will probably be my last day off until fall break.

MLS Relations

Among my other talents, I can name the first thirty-six elements of the periodic table in order, am able to play all twelve major scales on the clarinet, and know all nineteen Major League Soccer (MLS) teams. In case you weren't wondering, skip the rest of this paragraph. In case you were, they are the Vancouver Whitecaps, Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, San Jose Earthquakes, Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas USA, Real Salt Lake, Colorado Rapids, FC Dallas, Houston Dynamo, Sporting Kansas City, Chicago Fire, Columbus Crew, Philadelphia Union, DC United, New York Red Bulls, Toronto FC, Montreal Impact, and New England Revolution. And no, I did not need to go look that up.

With less than ten games and a third of the season to go, the playoffs are starting to become a much discussed topic in MLS circles. Not only is the playoff race closer than it has been for years, but it also changes fans’ relationships with other teams.

[For non-MLS fans – note that I will refer to teams either by their location or by the team name: hence the New England Revolution can be called either New England or the Revolution. This is less applicable to teams whose name essentially is their location, like Toronto FC. This is not applicable for Chivas USA, who are just confusing. Someone tell me what a chivas is. For more MLS/soccer information, read the note at the bottom of the post.]

For a completely hypothetical example: Say a fan’s favorite team, the Colorado Rapids, trade a favorite player to the Whitecaps. This fan starts to follow the Whitecaps to cheer for his favorite player. And then the final leg of the playoff race begins. The Whitecaps hold the fifth and final playoff spot in the conference that the two teams play in, ahead of the Rapids by a mere two points.

That weekend, the Rapids play FC Dallas while the Whitecaps play the Earthquakes. The Rapids fan naturally wants Colorado to win, not only for the three points, but also to keep FC Dallas, who also happen to be in the playoff hunt, from moving any closer toward a playoff spot. However, the Rapids fan temporarily stops cheering for the Whitecaps. Instead, he fervently hopes that the Earthquakes, who are at the bottom of the conference in this imagined situation, upset the Whitecaps. Since the Earthquakes have no chance of making the playoffs, any points they get are points taken from other potential playoff rivals.

The next weekend, the Rapids play the Timbers while the Whitecaps play the Crew, who are from the opposite conference. This has the potential to be even better for the Rapids: if the Crew win, the points they get don’t add to the point total of any team in Colorado’s conference, leaving the Rapids to move up more easily in the standings while also not having any teams below them catch up.

If two teams close in the standings to Colorado play, the Rapids fan hopes they tie. This minimizes the number of points going to same-conference teams. And all of this is indeed playing out live on the MLS website by team fans across the country. All in good fun, right? The Revolution, my favorite team, are still in the playoff hunt at this point, though it’s going to be a close one. If they end up short of points, I’d settle for them finishing over 0.500. This hasn't happened since 2009, before I started following the team, so this would at least be a less depressing end to the season that usual.

Note: MLS teams are divided into two conferences, Eastern and Western. They play a complicated schedule that I won’t get into, but it comes down to all the teams playing each other at least once. When a team wins a game, they get three points. Tying a game gets each team a point, and losing is worth no points. At the end of the season, the five teams in each conference with the most points make the playoffs. At that point, they start the equally complicated system of deciding which teams play each other in the playoffs, all culminating in the MLS cup.

161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do, roundup

There are some thing on the list of 161 Things that don’t warrant entire posts to themselves, but I wanted to mention them anyway, so here they are.

#10. Test out Olin Library’s musically calibrated steps by throwing stones across them.
I’m not sure I can call them musical in the same sense that a piccolo clarinet or trumpet is musical, but the steps do make nice hollow noises when you kick rocks onto them.

#23. Attend the Apple Festival on the Commons.
Apple Fest is sometime during the fall, and if you can be bothered to make your way down to the Commons, there are performances and vendors selling handmade crafts, jewelry, and yes, apple cider, apple donuts, apple fishcakes . . . okay, not really. I went down with some of the people in my hall, and it was a nice break from the usual drudgery fun and games at Cornell.

#28. Meet Happy Dave from Oakenshields.
Eat at Oakenshields a few times, and more likely than not, you’ll have Dave at the front swiping you in.

#84. Go bowling at Helen Newman Lanes.
Completed this one with some of the pep band/marching band clarinets during a night when bowling was free. Besides having a bowling alley on campus, we also have the climbing wall/bouldering wall, a cinema, canoeing, and trees the Plantations. What else is there to do on Friday nights? (Confession: I hadn't actually bowled before that night. I freely admit I was terrible.)

#109. Do your Freshman Reading Project sometime before you graduate.
Due to a history of having to write essays about terrible books, I actually got this over with during the summer before freshman year without too much whining.

#130. Complain about your freshman writing seminar to no one in particular.
Done, and overdone. Let’s just say that if there was an item titled “Complain about your freshman writing seminar to everyone in particular,” I would have done that one too.

#138. Watch people play Dance Dance Revolution in Appel.
Appel and RPCC (and Noyes, on West campus) like to host nightly programs where they have games, crafts, and/or food for students to enjoy. I usually don’t stop by unless I’m waiting for someone or if they have rebus puzzles, but I have seen people playing DDR at Appel, and some of them are pretty good.