93. Walk to the Commons and back
120. Rent a Big Red Bike from Uris Library
Two events connected only by the general heading of physical activity and the 161 Things bookended my third semester at Cornell: finally going to the Cornell Plantations and waffles.
The Plantations are a bunch of gardens, trees, hills, trails, rocks, and other miscellaneous nature that Cornell owns. They cover more than four thousand acres (about two hundred acres are considered the Plantations Proper) and I had managed to spend an entire year at Cornell without setting foot on them. That all changed on Labor Day.
To start off the year, AAIV was encouraging all the small group leaders to plan an activity to do with their small group on Labor Day, since there weren't any classes. My small group decided to bike to the Plantations. This endeavor was made possible by Big Red Bikes (and by viewers like you. Thank you. PBS, anyone?). Big Red Bikes is a program that lets students check out bikes from several sites around campus, including Uris Library.
So, to make sure our plan could work, we borrowed a couple bikes from the library and rode around for awhile. Then it started raining. We met the rest of the group and decided that it looked clear enough to go to the Plantations anyway, so we did. It was nice. We went to what I believe is the botanical garden, saw some herbs and flowers, fended off some flies, then rode back to the dining hall for dinner.
Three months later, when everything, including the Plantations, was buried in snow, we encountered finals week. Cornell likes to drag out finals week, which I can appreciate because in theory, it gives you time between finals to study. In reality, you either end up with three finals in twenty-eight hours (not twenty-four, because then you’d be allowed to reschedule a final) or a final every other day so that you get to spend one day cramming for each final. Fall semester, I ended up with a final on the first Thursday (p-chem) and Friday (linear algebra) and a presentation (mass and energy) on the Thursday after that.
It didn't sound too bad until I realized that the written report for the presentation was due Monday and I had an essay for history of science due Wednesday, both before the p-chem final. Classes ended on Friday. I went to large group for AAIV for the first time in more than a month on Friday night. Saturday I went to an AAIV event in the morning and men’s basketball and men’s hockey in the afternoon/night for pep band. Sunday, we got to work on the project and spent eight hours on it. Eight. There was a dinner break involved. Monday, we finished up the project in another two hours. By that time, I had less than two days to write my 1500 word essay.
I ended up spending another ten hours on the essay between Monday night, all of Tuesday, and Wednesday morning. At that point, I could finally start studying for p-chem. I showed up utterly unprepared for the final on Thursday morning. After the final, I had to start studying for linear algebra. That final, on Friday morning, went better. And so after that week, the only thing I had left was a ten minute presentation on Thursday night, six days away.
That is the backstory of how the sophomore ChemEs ended up hanging around Ithaca for almost a week waiting to give our mass and energy presentations. Since all the work was already done, all we had to do was make a short PowerPoint and practice, all of which took about six hours. Six hours, six days. Eight hours, one day. I sense a slight imbalance in the Force.
And since we had nothing else to do, a couple friends and I went to get waffles on the Ithaca Commons. I know it was just waffles, but you could choose your own toppings and they turned out really good. It’s only about a mile to the Commons from Cornell, so we walked both ways. It’s entirely downhill going from Cornell to the Commons, so conversely, it’s entirely uphill going back to Cornell from the Commons. The waffles were worth it.
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