The No-Longer-Hypothetical List of Exciting Things That Have Happened to me at Cornell, Spring 2014 edition

As it turns out, this spring was busier than last fall. Attending class and doing problems sets was already the equivalent of a full time job with overtime, except I had to pay to do it. On top of that, I continued working for Cornell Productions, going to pep band and AAIV, and rock climbing in my spare time. Sometimes I even got to do fun things like eating and sleeping. As always, however, it was indeed exciting. Here’s the list:

1. Slope Day: My Slope Day experience involving the slope consisted of this:

The stage seems to be missing some parts.

The slope seems to be missing some people.

This was actually the day before Slope Day. On Slope Day itself, a couple of friends and I went to Cornell’s Hoffman Challenge Course, which is a ropes course about five miles off campus. They have high wire traverses (multivine, lily pads), a 64-foot replica of the clock tower with different ways to climb to the top, a zipline and swing out of the clock tower, and a trapeze, among other elements. I ended up doing a couple of the traverses, climbing the clock tower, and ziplining out of the clock tower. It was fantastic. [Thanks to Alternative Slope Day for organizing the event!]

The multivine

2. Going solo: I was sent to the Bear’s Den for Cornell Productions alone a couple times. Which meant that I was completely in charge of setting up, sound check, making sure nothing went catastrophically wrong with the sound during the show, and packing everything up nicely at the end. Besides the time that half the outlets weren't working, doing the shows alone wasn't too bad. At least I knew beforehand what the events were, unlike the time I showed up to work with another person and we were informed right then and there that a seventeen-piece live band was coming in. Thankfully there were several shared microphones.

3. Summer research: There’s a story behind how exactly I was offered my summer position, but the general idea is that I’ll be making models that demonstrate fluid mechanics (yes, I did spend the entire semester complaining about fluids; no, I did not actually hate the class – more about that in the next post). Besides getting to spend the summer in Ithaca when the sun exists, the project sounds like it could be pretty interesting.

4. Fancy hockey: For the last regular season home game of men’s hockey, the pep band members have the option of dressing up in fancy clothes. To make things even more exciting, this year the last home game was against Harvard. Wikipedia has an entire article on the Cornell-Harvard hockey rivalry, so it must be legitimate. To start off Harvard’s night, the pep band plays the theme from Love Story when they come out onto the ice for warmups. In Love Story, much as in real life, Harvard plays Cornell in a hockey game and loses. Later, when Harvard comes out for the lineups, the Cornell fans (excluding the pep band) throw fish onto the ice. And on this particular night, Cornell managed to come back from two goals down to put the game into overtime. Then with thirty-six seconds to go, a Cornell player scored the winning goal. How’s that for the senior hockey players’ last game in Lynah?

5. Penguins: I will very soon introduce the penguins that you may have met in my Mother’s Day post. They have been travelling across campus with me and are part of a photo project. As an added bonus, I got them on sale.