So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish, part 4 of 3

It’s the last day of November. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, here’s my annual post.

After four long, crazy, adventure-filled, fun, and busy years at Cornell, I graduated at the end of May. That’s four years of dining hall breakfasts, morning classes in Olin, afternoon recitations in Olin, before-dinner bouldering, evenings at Lynah, nights back in Olin, midnight snacks, and late nights with only a roommate and a P-chem book for company. I couldn’t have done it – not so well or with so much enjoyment – without a lot of people.

So thank you to the following people, listed in alphabetical order by height:

The Cornell Big Red Pep Band, and in particular the clarinet section. There’s no other group I’d rather watch sprint football, lacrosse, field hockey, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, wrestling, tennis, or hockey with.

AAIV (Asian American InterVarsity) and SCF (Summer Christian Fellowship), for Wednesday night barbeque, Thursday and Friday night large group, and prayers and lessons every day. Even if no event, whether big of small, ever started on time, which drove might have driven me slightly crazy. Also thanks to my GUPpie for advice and encouragement over meals for three years and email after that.

Bethel Grove Bible Church, my home-away-from-home church, for hymns, sermons, bagels and apple juice, and the people I met and got to know during my time there.

Cornell Outdoor Education, for four great PE classes and many hours at Lindseth and Noyes. Keep calm and climb on.

The Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, including the office and building staff who kept Olin running smoothly, the grad students who shared our space and TA’d us, and the professors who taught us everything we never wanted to know.

The ChemE class of 2016. After more hours in Olin than we could count, three-hour-long prelim marathons, beating Aspen into submission, and surviving Unit Ops lab and senior design, I just have one thing to say: We did it.

The 4D Ricktatorship. Rick, for keeping us all in line and sharing wine. Coral, for late night kitchen table homework sessions/snacks and mutual understanding over lab woes. Sasha, for being the sane one in the apartment. Daryl, for 7-11 ice cream, robots, and being our housecat. And T Dawg, for Wegmans runs, planning AAIV events, and being my roommate. (And Michonne, for completing the roommate triangle and for mutual enjoyment of The Walking Dead, beer, random rambling, Sherlock, “Hardware Store,” and unnecessarily long hikes.)

And finally, all the other friends and family who had meals, embarked on adventures, and suffered through classes with me, listened to me rant, paid my tuition, and generally put up with me.

To everyone: Thank you very much for all the fish.

Class of 2016

The previous post about brings us to graduation, minus a few things I might go back and write about later if I feel like it. First things first: I graduated. It was not without much ceremony, pomp, and circumstances beyond our control, because what would be a graduation from Cornell without getting sunburned at Convocation and being caught in the middle of a thunderstorm at Commencement? Yeah, that happened.

My family arrived on Friday evening, after getting a first-ever flat tire within an hour of leaving the house. Maybe that should have been a clue it was going to be an interesting weekend. Saturday morning, we joined thousands of other families and students at Schoellkopf Field to hear performances by the band and chorus, a bunch of random people’s speeches, and James Franco, after which everyone left. My family stayed until the bitter, salty¹ end. Yes, it was hot, but the last guy, whoever he was, deserved to be heard too.

Convocation at Schoellkopf

I spent the last of my BRB’s at Trillium for special graduation weekend lunches, then we went to Watkins Glen. The gorge trail was insanely busy, with people doing such things as pushing strollers, letting hoards of children run/stop as they pleased, and leisurely strolling down the path two by two. I generally don’t mind how people choose to walk/hike at state parks unless it’s dangerous, but you probably shouldn’t, out of general courtesy, center your stroller in the middle of the trail or block the entire path when it’s that busy.

Falls at Watkins Glen.
The people density is crazy high for a hike.

Anyway, the hike was still nice, especially at the end where the crowds thinned out a lot. We ended the day with burgers at the Glenwood Pines. Nothing fancy, but they make solid burgers. I generally refuse to eat fast food burgers, so if I’ll eat it, it has to have some minimum quality. With that resounding endorsement², I returned to my apartment for my last night(!) there.

The next morning was humid and overcast, but Cornell made the decision to go ahead with outdoor Commencement, so all six thousand or so of us lined up on the arts quad to make the trek over to the stadium. The weather held . . . for about half an hour, when the engineering school was getting seated. We sat in the pouring rain while the remaining students entered, sat through speeches while thunder rumbled in the distance, and got more soaked. Finally, after several cycles of kind of clearing but not really, the ceremony was cut short, all six thousand degrees were conferred at once, and we were dismissed to our department ceremonies. Ours was, naturally, in Olin. Where else?

We were split up by design group, because Olin doesn’t have a lecture hall large enough for all ninety-six of us plus families. The design professors were tasked with saying something nice about every student, we were presented with a fake diploma, and with that, we were done.

We hung around for snacks and pictures, but after four years, 130+ credits, and countless hours in Olin, we had our Chemical Engineering degrees. It felt . . . good. And strange, with a side of weird thrown in. But mostly good.

¹From all the sweat. It was ninety degrees with full sun.
²I really do like their burgers. And they have a fun hidden object placemat.

Some People Are Worth Freezing For

In this special Valentine’s Day edition of things to do when it’s zero degrees out, my roommate and I put on four layers of clothing, hats, gloves, and boots, and go for a walk. We were hanging around Cornell for February break and my friend got the idea to take a walk. She invited another of our friends, who declined the invitation (I have no idea why. I only lost feeling in my face as soon as I stepped out of my apartment.), so the two of us set out for the arboretum by ourselves.

Part of the reason for our trip was so that we could go sledding. The arboretum is one of the places the Cornell police department encourages people to sled, and there’s a decent sledding hill, which feels more than decent when you’re biking it, at the end of the entrance road. We joined the few others sledding at the top and prepared to send ourselves hurtling down on a piece of plastic. The snow was pretty dry and packed down so it was a fast ride. I managed to not injure myself, which is always a good thing. After a few runs we continued on our journey.

View from the Newman Overlook

We looped around to the overlook, took some pictures, then began the long trek back to West Campus. By this time, my feet finally started to warm up, which I appreciated, and I could still feel my fingers, so the coldest part of me was my face. I’d still say I was feeling better than the time I was going back to North Campus after pep band and my toes got so cold it took a good fifteen minutes to warm them up. Or the other time I was walking back to West Campus after hockey and the air temperature was below zero with windchill bringing it down near to negative forty. Hockey is worth it.

We arrived back at the top of the slope just in time to see the sunset around three pm five. After ending our journey walking romantically into the sunset, we parted ways to go thaw out. The next day, we participated in more appropriate February activities with our other friends (dinner and Sherlock - the BBC series). And six weeks later when Ithaca was mostly unfrozen, we hiked the Cayuga Trail (again).

Sunset over West Campus

Rafting and Wine Tasting (Not at the Same Time)

In between Slope Day and graduation, I had a couple finals, a presentation, and Senior Days. Some schools have commencement the day after the last final, but Cornell leaves half a week between the last scheduled final and graduation. During those days, there are events ranging from whitewater rafting and laser tag to wine tasting and fancy lunches. From the title of this post, you may have been able to surmise that I went rafting and to the wine tasting.

I usually kayak flatwater a few times during the summer when I’m home, but I had never been whitewater boating of any kind. To find appropriate river conditions, we were bussed a couple hours away from Ithaca. Having recently completed the last round of finals and presentations of our undergrad careers, many of us spent the trip over sleeping, watching the cornfields roll past the windows, or staring blankly into space.

When we arrived at the boating company, we were outfitted with oars, helmets, rubber boots, water-resistant jackets, and life vests, loaded back onto the bus, and driven to the launching point. Before touching the water, we were given the safety spiel and paddle commands. We helped to haul our raft into the river, practiced paddling in calm water, then floated off on our way down the river. There were about half a dozen rapids on our journey, a portage in the middle to get past a dam, and a portage at the end to get back to the bus.

The rapids were class III and IV, which meant that we saw some large-ish waves, eddies, and a couple decent drops. I never felt like I was going to fall out of the raft – we had our feet wedged in – and I didn’t even get too wet. It was definitely different paddling to maneuver through rocks or get into position for a drop rather than primarily as a means of propelling the boat like on flatwater. Overall, we had a really nice sunny day, and I had a lot of fun trying something new. The wine tasting a couple days later was a different kind of fun.

The tasting was held in the Statler, and featured appetizer-like food and wines from six countries, a red wine and a white wine from each country. Especially at the beginning, the room was extremely crowded and there weren’t enough places for people to get out of the way of the food/wine lines, but I think it was the first time holding the event or the first time in Statler, so I’ll cut the event organizers some slack. Plus the buffalo chicken dip was delicious. Buffalo chicken dip can totally be a meal by itself, right? I’ve picked my meal for next week, but there’s the week after that. . . .

Besides the dip, I also had a couple really good wines, a couple average wines, and a couple not so great wines. My least favorite wine of the day was a Malbec from Argentina, which was also the only red wine I tried. I keep trying red wines in the hope that I’ll find the magic red wine that doesn’t taste like tar or metal or make my tongue feel like tannins. Hasn’t happened yet. The average wines included the white wines from the United States (I actually don’t remember the varietal, but it was probably a Chardonnay. It tasted very white wine-ish.) and France. My favorite wines of the afternoon were a Pinot Grigio from Italy and an Australian Moscato. I don’t have tasting notes but I believe the Pinot Grigio was a well-balanced wine that wasn’t too sweet or acidic and had enough fruit-ness and body to not taste like grape water. The Moscato was sweet. And good.

And now I want wine. But I wouldn’t drink a bottle fast enough to finish it before the wine oxidized, so I might have to settle for hard cider. A friend recommended cinnamon hard cider. Time for a special trip to the grocery store.

dy/dx Day

For the first time since my matriculation at Cornell, I went to Slope Day as a willing participant. Part of the reason was that I figured I should go to Slope Day at least once, but the bigger part was that for the first time in four years, the main guest was not a rapper. I will listen to almost any kind of music, including country, folk, and techno Christmas music, but excluding rap and heavy metal. Anyway, the main feature was Walk the Moon, who does “Shut Up and Dance,” which is in the pep band folder, so I had to at least go for that song.

I started my day out by volunteering to help set up Slopefest, the carnival type event that takes place on Ho Plaza. The previous year, there had been games and food, but this year they decided to focus on the food to help keep people from drinking on an empty stomach. (Reasons for the switch – Budget cuts? Too many drunk beanbag tossers? A cornhole boycott?) Most of the food they were offering was sugar-laden, which I’m not sure is the best thing to eat with large quantities of alcohol, but I wasn’t in charge of the event.

After my shift carrying tables, setting up tents, and scooping five gallons of chocolate frosting, I returned to my apartment for a lunch featuring Fritos, a banana, and yogurt. Later that afternoon, I went back to the slope to see Walk the Moon. The plaza was significantly more crowded than when I had been there at 8:30 in the morning, and the best way to describe the slope was insane. I met a couple friends, then retreated to the far reaches of the slope where 1) I could hear things that weren’t extremely amped electric guitar or screaming, 2) I wouldn’t be trampled by drunk people, and 3) I couldn’t feel the bass.

View from the top of the slope

It was a nice hot sunny day for the middle of May in Ithaca so I spent over an hour on the slope listening to Walk the Moon. Funny story about the weather. The year before, the forecast predicted a major thunderstorm on Slope Day, right up until the night before the event. The Slope Day committee started to panic and make contingency plans for Slope Day to be held in Barton, which would have been terrible because Barton is a fraction of the size of the slope, and the amount of people and alcohol packed in there would have been awful. But they plan just in case. Then the day of Slope Day dawns. It’s a beautiful sunny day. Not a drop of rain falls all day.

This year, this was the weather forecast:

Weather forecast for Ithaca the week of Slope Day

It happened pretty close to what they predicted, but what makes it so amusing to me is that on Saturday (5/7), AAIV had our field day outside at Treman State Park. On Monday (5/9), the pep band had our last rehearsal of the year, which is always a series of outdoor concerts around campus. Thursday (5/12) was Slope Day. In between every one of these outdoor events, it rained. So thanks, weather machine. But no thanks for what happened at graduation. That would be coming up in just a couple short weeks.

There and Back Again on the Cayuga Trail

After our summer adventure on the Cayuga Trail, my roommate (the one also known as my partner in crime adventure) and I thought about it, and decided that a great follow up would be to hike the Cayuga Trail both ways in a single day. Seventeen miles is totally doable for a day hike. As the days and weeks of spring semester passed, we needed to pick a date if we were going to complete our epic hike before graduation. We decided on some time during spring break, watched the temperature and chance of rain, and finally selected Wednesday, March 30^th, for our feat.

We set out early, arriving at the trailhead shortly after eight. It was cool, an awkward temperature that was a little chilly for standing around but too warm for layers once we started walking. It was one-and-a-half jacket temperature. We had experienced the first half of the hike in the summer, in much warmer and more mosquito-ridden conditions, and so made our way across campus, through the botanical garden and arboretum, to the bluffs and Monkey Run, without incident. The trail was surprisingly wet, considering all the snow on campus had been melted for awhile, we hadn’t gotten much rain recently, and we were often on steep hillsides that shouldn’t have retained so much moisture.

The bluffs.  Compare to the picture from summer's post, which is much greener.

Like in the summer, we didn’t see many other people, just a couple around the plantations and a few more at the Monkey Run section of the trail. I wasn’t complaining; if Taughannock in the summer is Disney World, the Cayuga Trail is a random ichthyology museum, and maybe I happen to like fish a lot.

We hiked to the end of the trail before having our sandwiches and fruit picnic lunch on the grass. After eating, halfway done with our task, we headed back toward Cornell through Monkey Run, which actually has some cool trees. Yes, trees. It’s not one tree in particular, but all of them together – they’re all very straight and tall and don’t have branches until pretty high up. It’s more impressive in person, but here’s a picture.

The Monkey Run trees

Following the exciting trees, we returned to the creek and meandered our way back to Cornell. Weird sighting of the day: baby in a shoe. I’m not kidding.

Baby in a shoe

Finally, as afternoon turned into evening, we arrived back at the start of the trail. Not where we had started. That was another mile away. We took some celebratory pictures, then dragged ourselves back to campus. From there, I returned to my apartment, put on a cleaner shirt and washed some of the grime out from under my fingernails, met my partner in crime adventure and another friend, and we walked (yes, walked, on our moderately grumpy feet) another mile to the Commons to eat giant burgers. We did take the bus back up the hill to campus.

All told, we walked the seventeen miles of the Cayuga Trail, out and back, in about eight and a half hours. According to the time stamps on my photos, we hiked the “back” portion about an hour faster than the “out” part. Adding the miles I had to walk to and from the trailhead and to the Commons, I covered more than twenty miles by foot, my current record for a single day. So the Cayuga Trail both ways in a day is one item that can be struck off my to-be-hiked list; other hikes of interest include the rim to rim at the Grand Canyon, Katahdin, and the 4000 footers in the White Mountains. Guess it’s time to start planning. . . .

There . . . (East end of the trail)

. . . And back again (West end)

Four Hundred Seventy-Something

After four years of the Alma Mater, Davy, heckling, fouls, penalties, goals, 80s ska punk (“Take on Me”), and 80s rock (the rest of the music), I finished my time with the Cornell Big Red Pep Band with somewhere around 470 points, short of the 500 point mark, but a lot of pep band nonetheless. If my record keeping is accurate, I attended more than 250 events, almost 200 of which were rehearsals and hockey games. The remaining sixty events include field hockey, tennis, basketball, baseball, softball, wrestling, lacrosse, sprint football, volleyball, and a wedding reception.

As I mentioned in a previous post, besides ChemE, pep band was really the only other thing I did week in and week out all four years. There were some great moments, and stories to tell from the times that weren’t so great. Some that come to mind –

– The time we were at sprint football and it had been drizzling on and off but the manager finally decided to move us to a covered part of the stands. As we were moving, it started to pour, and continued to pour for the rest of the game. Good decision.

– The time we went to volleyball and the team lost the first two sets, then won the next two, so we had to stay for a full five-set match, then they lost the last set.

– The time the men’s basketball team clawed their way back from a pretty bad points deficit to tie the game in the final seconds, making us stay for overtime, then lost in overtime.

– The year the women’s hockey team kept scoring last-minute goals to advance through the playoffs.

– The men’s hockey game where two of the refs’ last names were Kitchen and Drain and it made the band’s night. Also telling Colgate (the school) that Crest (the toothpaste) is better, reminding Princeton they’re in New Jersey, and bringing up grade inflation and cheating scandals against Harvard whenever possible (actually winning against them is an additional bonus).

– Trying to figure out wrestling.

– My only overnight away trip with the band to Dartmouth and Harvard the year Boston got buried in snow and watching “Love Story” on the bus.

So I saw a lot of sports, and played a lot of music and had a lot of fun. If anyone’s interested, here’s a table with events listed per sport and year.

Pep band events charted by year and sport.  Not shown - 3 red/white hockey games,
which kick off the hockey season and involve both the men's and women's hockey teams.

Last pep band rehearsal.  Picture taken from somewhere on Facebook.

Trockenbeerenauslese

My favorite word from the wines class I took during my last semester at Cornell is trockenbeerenauslese. It’s the designation for the wine with the highest sugar content in Germany, where classifications are based on ripeness of the grapes when they’re picked. Yes, Cornell has a class all about wine, and yes, we drank in class.

It wasn’t all drinking all the time though. We learned about classification systems, labeling laws, signature varietals, characteristics of wine, and how to open a bottle of champagne, among other things. Most weeks we sampled an average of six wines by region, except for champagne/sparkling wine, which was saved for the last week of class. It was a good fitting end to the last class of my undergrad career.

Having sampled several dozen wines over the course of the semester, I learned about my taste in wine without having to commit to buying any full bottle of wine. Because I don’t like spending real money. Here non-real money mostly refers to BRB’s*, which are purchased with real money, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, I found out that I dislike the majority of red wines. Interestingly, the red wines I liked best were from Washington and Oregon. Their taste is said to be between the minerality of French reds and the fruitiness of California reds, both of which I didn’t care for. I also didn’t like the aged red wine that we tried. (Port cherry sundaes, however, are delicious.)

So it’s white wines for me. Thanks specifically to this wines class, Cornell produces a disproportionate number of Riesling drinkers. Riesling is the signature German white varietal, and is mainly known for being too sweet for “serious wine connoisseurs,” but it’s also grown in the Finger Lakes, and dry or sweet, I like it. I also enjoy Gewurztraminer (another German varietal and another great word) and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, known for its notes of gooseberry. Chardonnay is also more than drinkable, though its main taste is usually white wine. (Except it’s apparently the thing to complain about over-oaked California Chardonnays.)

And that’s the story of how I came to drink white wine and become a Riesling fan. Send wine to Actually, the grocery store closest to me has a wine and beer license so I can just go buy my own wine. Actually, I don’t drink that much; I have part of a pack of beer that’s been sitting in my closet untouched for about a month now. Actually, my beer drinking is a whole other story. Maybe some other time.

*Cornell meal plan money that can be spent at a la carte dining places around campus. People like to try and pay for anything they can in BRB’s. Examples: Collegetown restaurants, groceries, parking tickets, Amazon orders.

Things I Learned at Cornell: Ice is Hard

In some of the many classes I attended in Cornell’s lecture halls, we learned about water. We saw how the density of water decreases when it freezes on its phase diagram, then were reintroduced to that phase diagram in thermodynamics. Turns out there are over ten types of ice. We calculated hydrostatic forces and surface tension and drew McCabe-Thiele diagrams for the distillation of water and methanol. There are, however, some things that can only be learned through real life experience. And through firsthand experience, I learned all about how ice is hard. Plus cold.

Before attending Cornell, I could follow along with any of the commonly played sports but really only cared about soccer (and in particular the hapless New England Revolution). Then I arrived at Cornell, joined the pep band, and went to 94 hockey games in four years. For all the skating (and shooting, passing, name calling, body checking, and fighting) I watched, it took until the end of fall semester of my junior year to get me out onto the ice in skates. The event was a skate night with the hockey teams, and many of the pep band members went. So I went too, and did something vaguely reminiscent of skating. I had fun, and and wouldn’t you know it, every time I fell the ice provided a nice, hard, unyielding cushion to land on.

Open skate at Lynah

Another year passed, and senior year was well underway when I returned to Lynah to skate for the second time in my life. A few friends and I had talked about having fun during the year since it would be our last chance to do a lot of things at Cornell. Apparently falling half a dozen times, slide tackling the boards on skates, and a blister that took weeks to heal weren’t enough to deter me from skating, because ice skating was on my list of things to do before graduating and leaving Ithaca.

I met one of my former roommates at Lynah on a Sunday night for open skate and fell slightly less. Something else I got from that night is perhaps the only picture of said roommate and I where we both look fairly normal. I also saw several fellow ChemEs taking a break from Olin, because sometimes you have to forgo perfect reactor dimensions and separation purities for your sanity’s sake and go glide in circles for a couple hours.

A couple weeks later I got the chance to skate at Yost Arena at the University of Michigan while I was there for the engineering grad school visit weekend. The day I returned to Ithaca, I skated at Lynah for the last time as an undergrad. And I didn’t fall once. But not to worry, I fully remember my lesson: ice is hard.

Left Hander’s Day 2016

A couple Saturdays ago (August 13^th), it was Left Handers Day. I didn’t do anything special on the day itself (I had other exciting plans that I might eventually write about) but I celebrate all year long by complaining about everything right handed. Enjoy the following representative list of things that are moderately terrible for left handers.

1. Pens that smudge. Enough said.

2. Contoured right handed scissors. Contoured specially to gouge holes into your hand while you hack ineffectually at lines you can’t see.

3. People pitching to the wrong side of you in whiffle ball because obviously you must be the one standing on the wrong side of the plate.

4. The icons/buttons for the Xbox Kinect. They’re all in the top right corner which is a major pain to reach with your left hand.

5. Accidentally getting shots and blood drawn from your left arm.

6. Cheese slicers.

However, there are some things I don’t have handedness-related objections against: corkscrews, can openers, the gearshift, and peelers. I also enjoy non-dominant hand chopsticks and bowling.

And on the plus side, if you’re left handed, you can a) still draw a weapon while shaking someone’s hand*, b) use a mouse and write at the same time, and c) have an excuse to repeatedly elbow people at the dinner table.

*The internet indicates that a possible origin of the handshake was as a salutation used between two parties to show that each had come peaceably without weapons in hand.

Off Belay

[Part 3 of 3 of my Gunks trip.  Part 1 here and Part 2 here.]

After another cold night, we again awoke at six in the morning. Everything covered by my sleeping bag had been warm enough, but keeping your face comfortable consists of alternating between warmth and oxygen. I changed into a relatively clean outfit and packed my things. My tent partner and I managed to be the first to take down our tent and have it packed away.

We had another breakfast of oatmeal, made more sandwiches for lunch (peanut butter and jam for me this time), rechecked our packs, loaded the van, and drove off from our campsite for the second and last time. Our second day at the Gunks, we climbed at a different part of the cliffs, accessed this time from a very steep, very long series of stone steps. I actually like stairs, but stairs with an unwieldy blue beast strapped to me? Not as fun. With the departure of another of the class members for a wedding, we were down to four students and four instructors. I was climbing with a different instructor, and we set up at the bottom of High Corner, our route for the morning.

The Gunks are popular enough that there are often climbers waiting for routes, but of the five multi-pitch routes I climbed that weekend, I didn’t have to wait for any of them, partly because of how early we got to the cliffs both mornings. Even though it was barely May, the weather was absolutely beautiful. Sunshine, clear blue skies – it almost got too hot, though that had approximately no effect on my chalk use. My hands can sweat in forty degree Lindseth just by thinking about climbing.

I ascended High Corner, sorting out a tangled rope on the way up, and was on top of the cliffs for the fourth time. There’s something about looking down a vertical face and thinking, I climbed that. We met up with another climbing pair and took part in a four person, two rope rappel involving the European death knot. A break for lunch, and then I climbed my last pitch on Jackie. It was a fun climb; at one point I was under an overhang, and the shorter you are, the more you find yourself hanging upside down as you try to swing yourself up and over. I’m pretty short. I eventually hauled myself up to the anchor, did my last rappel, belayed my instructor down, coiled the rope, and took off my shoes to sit in the sun and watch the other groups climb their last climbs.

The van ride back to Cornell was long. We stopped to eat a pizza dinner in a bug infested field next to the highway. When we returned to COE, we had to sort through every single piece of equipment we’d taken on our trip. But even before we pulled up to the curb at Bartels, I wanted to go back to the Gunks. It was exhausting, hanging off the rock, clipping and unclipping, letting rope out and gathering it back in, but it was also a challenge to be accepted, exciting in a way that only being a hundred feet off the ground with nothing below your feet could be, and just plain fun. I don’t know if I’ll get to go back, but I sure want to. Because when you reach up for the next hold to pull yourself upward, always upward, and nail the move, it doesn’t matter how bruised your knees are or how scraped and cut your knuckles and palms are. It feels good.

Climb On

[Part 2 of 3 of my Gunks trip.  Go back here for Part 1 and here for Part 3]

My alarm went off at six in the morning. We ate oatmeal for breakfast before transforming the table into our lunch making station. On the menu for the day were sandwiches, brownies, and apples. I packed my backpack with my lunch, water, one hundred feet of rope, climbing shoes, chalk bag, helmet, and harness with belay device, locking carabiners, nut tool, cordelettes, slings, and the climbing guide book neatly clipped to its gear loops. When I wrangled everything into the day pack, it resembled a small child in size and weight, but with less whining and kicking.

After everyone had eaten, made lunch, filled water bottles, and loaded packs, we piled into the van to drive the final miles to the Gunks. There was a COE top roping class camped further down the road, and as we rolled past them, their campsite was quiet and still. “I’m not saying we’re better than them,” one of our instructors said later, “but we’re better than them.” He had a point. We’d driven all the way out here to climb, so we were going to climb every minute we could. Plus, they were top roping, which you can do at Lindseth. We were going trad climbing. Multi-pitch trad climbing, which is why we needed so much gear.

In the parking lot, each instructor collected his or her students. Due to the small size of the class, the instructors, except one, had only a single student each. After a final gear check, we shouldered our packs and walked to the cliffs. Most of the Gunks can be accessed by a convenient carriage road that runs below the cliffs. To get to the start of a climb, you just have to walk from the carriage road to the base of the cliff instead of bushwhacking three miles into the middle of nowhere. My instructor and I located our first climb of the day, I reviewed the climbing commands, then we set our packs down and got ready to climb. We put harnesses and climbing shoes on, and I laid the rope out (known as flaking) and set up my belay device.

The instructor had the nuts and cams that would secure us to the rock. She asked if she was on belay, I applied in the affirmative, and she started climbing. I watched as she disappeared up the rock face, the rope snaking up behind her. Occasionally I could hear the clink of metal or the rope hissing against the rock, friction fighting against a change in direction. Mostly I watched the rope, waiting when it stayed still and feeding it through my belay device before it threatened to pull taut. Then the call came that my instructor had reached the first anchor. I felt the rope pull against my harness, and it was my turn to climb. There are some instant differences to climbing indoors – outside, you’re allowed to use whatever you want for your hand and footholds, and there’s more dirt. If you’re trad climbing, you also have to remove gear as you climb. When you reach a cam or a nut, you have to find a stance that gives you enough free hand to remove the gear and transfer it to your harness. As you ascend, you steadily gain weight, and depending on the length of the pitch and amount of protection, you arrive at the anchor with your harness weighted down and crowded.

It took all morning for my first three pitch climb. At the top of the cliff, I sat in the grass and looked out across the expanse of trees and forest below. I had made it. We rappelled down and took a break for lunch. My turkey and cheese sandwich, grimy with dirt and warm from sitting in my pack, was the best sandwich I’ve ever had. I followed the sandwich with a brownie and lukewarm water, but saved the apple for a snack later. Despite, or perhaps because of, the dirt that must have transferred from my hands to the fruit, the apple was delicious as well.

View from the top of the Gunks

We climbed two more routes in the afternoon. My muscles ached, my knees were bruised purple, and I was incredibly tired and happy. Before returning to the campsite, we met up with the rest of the class to do a couple of top roping routes. I climbed one Gunks 5.7 and tried another, but kept falling. It was a good thing I was wearing my helmet the whole time, because I managed to fall between the wall and a boulder and bump into it hard enough to be grateful for head protection. Finally, after most of the class had tried the route and the sun was sinking below the trees, we headed back to camp for dinner.

We had pesto pasta with tomatoes and mozzarella followed by banana boats (or just bananas) around a campfire. Then we headed off to bed, smudged with sweat and dirt, sore with bruises and scrapes, but full and satisfied, for another early start the next morning.

[In case anyone’s familiar with the Gunks and interested, I climbed Beginner’s Delight, Minty, Blueberry Ledges, and Laurel and attempted Ken’s Crack.]

On Belay

[Throwback Thursday on a Tuesday? My blog, my rules. I wrote this well after I went on the trip and I’m posting it well after writing it.  This is Part 1 of 3.  Here are Parts 2 and 3.]

On a Friday night at the very beginning of May in the year 2015, I set out from Cornell Outdoor Education (COE) for my next great adventure. It really started during the spring of my freshman year, when I satisfied a longtime desire to go rock climbing by enrolling in and successfully completing COE’s Beginning Rock Climbing class. Except I didn’t stop there. I went home for the summer, returned to Cornell with chalk and climbing shoes, and kept climbing through sophomore year. That summer, I stayed in Ithaca and bouldered, then dragged my friend out to the wall to belay me as soon as she got back to Cornell. Throughout the next year, I gradually began to conquer the easier routes at Lindseth, and at spring pre-enroll, decided to try out outdoor rock climbing. I signed up for a weekend class at the Shawangunks (known as the Gunks).

We had a couple of classes before our weekend trip, to familiarize ourselves with the equipment and learn to lead belay. Then on the last weekend of the semester, we loaded up one of the red COE vans and drove out of Ithaca to the Gunks.

After a dinner stop, we arrived at our campsite. I couldn’t find my borrowed day pack with my also borrowed headlamp, so I set up the tent with the only other female student on the trip mostly in the dark. The class has space for at most, eight students, which is two to an instructor. We had started with seven enrolled. One didn’t show up to the classes before the trip, which brought us down to six. My friend, who enrolled in the class and showed up to the initial classes, got infected by my roommate and decided it would be better for her to stay in Ithaca. Five. Who would be next?

Those of us remaining pitched the tents in the woods. The tent I was sharing had the weirdest pole structure I’ve had to set up. If I remember right, there were two not straight poles and one or two more poles that were neither straight nor the same length. Eventually we got the tent set up and dumped our things inside. We had arrived at the campsite rather late, so by the time we had the tent standing, we set up our sleeping bags, put on extra layers for the night, and went to sleep. We had an early start planned for the next day, because it would be time to climb.

The No-Longer-Hypothetical List of Exciting Things That Have Happened to me at Cornell, Spring 2016 Edition

1. Grad school visits – Besides partaking in fun activities and alcohol, I met professors and grad students and found out about the places that could be my new home for the next five years. Highlights at Carnegie Mellon include walking around Schenley Park and a night visit to PNC Park, while at Michigan I worked on my bowling skills and went ice skating. In my travels I also got to take eight plane rides and visit five airports.

2. Cayuga Trail – Ever since one of my roommates and I hiked the whole Cayuga Trail in a day but returned to Cornell a different way, we wanted to hike the whole Cayuga Trail, out and back, in a day. Over spring break, we finally did it. We met a little after eight in the morning and ten hours later we were at the Commons eating burgers. We did walk down to the Commons but we rode the bus back to my apartment. My final mile count for the day was somewhere around 20 miles.

3. Fancy dress day – Weekly presentations for Senior Design require business formal dress. Fancy dress day involves almost everything except business formal. The best costume award went to the group dressed like Pac-Man and ghosts, but other costumes involved everything from balloons to animal footie pajamas to full body blue paint to a lightsaber. The lightsaber was mine. I gave my group’s presentation in penguin pajama pants, socks, and an American flag bow tie using my lightsaber as a pointer. It was actually the best pointer I’ve used. The rationale behind fancy dress day is that if you can present dressed like a hippo or half naked or whatever, you can certainly present to a few industry representatives. I think that argument has some merit, but honestly, but that point in the semester, everyone in Olin Hall could just use a laugh.

4. Pep band al fresco – This was my very last pep band event. As always, for the last rehearsal of the spring semester, we took the band outside to play around campus. We played a variety of perennial band favorites, ending on the slope with the Alma Mater, one last time. Besides ChemE, pep band was really the only other thing I did week in and week out for all four years at Cornell. I’d like to go back to concert band in grad school, but I’ll miss playing the Canadian and American national anthems, Davy times ten thousand, the Alma Mater at every single game, movies on bus rides, Lynah traditions, the band room, nonsensical heckling (e.g. “Princeton’s in New Jersey”), and all the other ridiculous things that happen in a student-run band for whom the name of the game (and their actual name) is pep.

5. Graduating – Well, it happened. Finally. We had unfortunate weather on Saturday for Convocation and different unfortunate weather on Sunday for Commencement. We then returned to our home away from home, Olin Hall, for the ChemE ceremony and reception. The diplomas were mailed and received, and just like that, we were done.

Schoellkopf Stadium during Convocation

Semester in Review, Spring 2016

This was it. My last semester at Cornell. I took the capstone ChemE class, a ChemE related elective, a non-ChemE related elective, and research.

Chemical Process Design – This is the capstone design class for Cornell Chemical Engineers. Each team of four is given a design problem, in my case increasing the value of a mixed hydrocarbon stream by reacting and separating it. We were then tasked with choosing the processes, equipment, operating conditions, and controls needed to achieve our goal. We also determined the economic feasibility of the project, but I was not our group’s money person. Every week, we reported our progress on the week’s assigned topics to our manager (professor) and supervisor (TA) at either a less formal round table meeting or a formal presentation. At the end of the semester, we made a final presentation to our professor, TA, and industry professionals. A worthwhile experience, though I’m not sure I can say I really enjoyed it . . . except for fancy dress day and finishing our last presentation.

Aerosols and Colloids – I needed a class to fulfill an elective slot and chose this class because apparently I couldn’t go an entire semester without a ChemE academic intensive class. [Senior design really focuses on being able to present information and defend the rationale behind your decisions.] I was interested in the material but I might have benefited from another semester of fluids, which, not coincidentally, I’ll be getting in the fall.

Research – In the fall, I started research late in the semester so I decided not to do it for credit. This spring, I took credit and used it as an elective. I mainly worked on chemical synthesis and perfecting my NMR technique, and it was a good complement to the research I had done over the summer. During the summer, I worked on programming and read lots of fun abstract papers about computational rheology. Then in the fall and spring, I returned to the lab and got more hands on experience.

Introduction to Wines – Unlike every other (non-PE) class I took at Cornell, I did not need these credits to graduate, however, I couldn’t miss out on this Cornell classic and senior favorite. Every week, with a few exceptions, all 700-plus of the students in the class met in the Statler auditorium to learn about a different wine region and taste five to seven wines. We were educated on the climate, geography, wine laws, history, and major varietals of France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, and regions of the United States. I also learned that wine is made from grapes if I want tannins (found in red wines) I’d rather just eat grapes. In addition, we were introduced to the Finger Lakes specialty that is dry Riesling. This ranks as one of my favorite Cornell classes through all four years.

And with passing grades in each of the above classes, I finished everything I needed to graduate. Next semester I’ll be at another university in another state in a building that is not called Olin Hall.

Beer, bowling, and Boeing 747s*

In other words, another grad school visit. This week, the destination was Ann Arbor to visit the University of Michigan. I left at the more sane hour of 10 am after paying a quick visit to Olin to check in on our design presentation. Without having to wait for things like the computers to warm up and the deicer, I reached my first stop, Philadelphia, in plenty of time to catch my connecting flight to Detroit. The joke of this trip was that Detroit is one of the three places you can fly directly to from Ithaca but the flight was full by the time I booked my tickets.

The flight to Detroit landed early, of all things, but we had to wait for a few other flights and ended up standing around the baggage claim for an hour before getting stuck in Ann Arbor traffic for another hour. By the time we got to the hotel, we had just enough time to check in, get our information packets for the weekend, and head back out for dinner. We were taken to a bar for burgers and beer (both good) to meet professors and grad students. After dinner at the bar, we were taken out for drinks at another bar. Only in college. It was a good first night.

Friday was our serious business day. We had the department overview presentation before walking over to the North Campus Research Complex (NCRC) for the rest of the festivities. NCRC was bought from Pfizer by the medical college but the engineering school rents some of the space. Most of the ChemE faculty and labs have moved to NCRC. It’s a nice building.

We had a poster presentation and lunch followed by the faculty meetings, then we got a short break at the hotel before dinner. All fifty of the prospective students, plus current grad students, plus professors, were hosted at the house of one of the professors. We had a catered dinner (with open bar) and I talked to more of the grad students. After dinner options included returning to the hotel (tempting, but boring), a bar crawl (also tempting, but I would probably have passed out after approximately one bar), and bowling (which I went to).

I bowled a game that would have looked better on a golf scorecard before realizing that the line on the floor was too far back for my child-sized legs. Once I stood in front of the line to begin my approach, I immediately bowled strikes for the rest of the game slightly fewer gutterballs. We got back to the hotel after midnight but I got up early the next day for ice skating, because I couldn’t give up the opportunity to skate at Yost Ice Arena. Fun fact: according to Wikipedia, a weekend series against Cornell in 1991 holds the record for largest crowd in Yost.

Ice skating at Yost

I continued my athletic prowess by falling all over the ice. I did, however, avoid giving myself any blisters. We returned to the hotel for brunch, which was followed by a driving tour, whirlyball, and a grad student panel. Our last events for the weekend were dinner in smaller groups with a few professors and grad students, then a house party. By the time we made it to the house party, everyone was pretty tired, including the grad students. We were driven to the house party, I had an unknown quantity of the punch, then one of the students said she would be leaving to drive people back to the hotel. A few of us moved toward the foyer to leave, where we were met by another student who was thrilled to discover that two cars were needed and he could leave too.

Back at the hotel, I packed for the following morning, when I would, once again, be at the airport for an early morning flight. At 4:30 am the next day, I met with the other unfortunate students who were leaving Ann Arbor before sunrise. Unlike in Ithaca, there was already a line, though not a very long one, for security. I got through pretty quickly, then settled down at my gate to write a memo for senior design. That’s ChemE life for you.

Like the previous week, the flights home went smoothly. I got to Philadelphia with more than an hour before my connecting flight, so I thought I’d take my time getting to my next gate. About five minutes later, coming out of the end of terminal A, I noticed a set of doors to my right leading to a convenient shuttle to terminal F, where I was headed. Another sign warned me that terminal F was a fifteen minute walk. I chose to walk since I had time, plus I’d just been sitting for an hour. Well, the sign wasn’t wrong. The Philadelphia airport is shaped kind of like a giant insect. I had landed by the tail; my next plane was taking off from the tip of the antenna.

When I made it to the end of terminal F, I found out why I was taking off from there. I was surrounded by people going to places like Bangor, Buffalo, and Sheboygan – other small-ish towns more or less in the middle of nowhere. Our small fleet of turboprop planes was relegated to this end of the airport, probably so they wouldn’t accidentally get run over by a 747. I met another Cornell ChemE (it was peak grad school visiting time). We flew back to Ithaca, took the TCAT back to Cornell, and I promptly began studying for my wines prelim and finalizing process conditions for design.

*Note that all the aircraft I rode were much too small to be Boeing 747s. I did get to fly on the trusty DeHavilland Dash 8 turboprop again though.

Wined and Dined

When I last left off, I had finally arrived in Pittsburgh after my seven-hour flying ordeal jaunt through the stratosphere. It was now about noon, six and a half hours before our first scheduled event. I stayed in the hotel for awhile, then decided I didn’t have four more hours of internet surfing in me and went outside to explore.

I passed by, among other things, a large dinosaur and Carnegie Mellon itself before arriving at Schenley Park. Schenley Park is a park named after Mary Schenley. There are jogging paths, trails, creek-ish bits, bridges, lots of trees, and no cars. Some of the many bridges were constructed by the Works Progress Administration in 1939. I determined this using my extensive US History II knowledge and analysis of a rock sample (or see picture below). I wandered around for awhile enjoying the low people to trees ratio, then headed back toward Carnegie Mellon and the hotel.

Back at the hotel, I caught up on email and the latest happenings regarding senior design, then promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, it was 6:30, ten minutes after the meet and greet in the hotel lobby and time for dinner. I stumbled, drunk-like, into the hotel restaurant and proceeded to get more drunk-like on a glass of unremarkable chardonnay (the cake for dessert was good through). We met our fellow visiting students and some of the grad students and professors, then sat through a presentation on Why Pittsburgh is a Great City.

The next morning, we had more presentations about ChemE at Carnegie Mellon and each of the research areas, which lasted for over three hours. After lunch and a poster session, we were brought to the ChemE building for lab tours and faculty meetings. As the story goes, the ChemE building was built with its floors slanting so that in case the school didn’t work out, the building could be converted into a factory, with the uneven floors allowing gravity to transport materials. In any case, the school did work out, so the ChemEs occupy one giant ramp.

Panther Hollow Run in Schenley Park (I think)

Before the faculty meetings, we were shown the labs. The interesting thing about the lab space at Carnegie Mellon is that it’s divided up not by professor but by research area. Each research area has a large shared lab space and each grad student has bench space, but the major equipment is communal.

Next was one of the main events of our trip: professor meetings. Five of them, in a row. We met professors, heard about research, talked about our experiences and interests, asked questions, and generally tried to seem intelligent. It was a good experience, if a slightly exhausting one. Dinner was served at PNC Park, and while the Pirates are an inferior team to a certain other Boston team named after colored footwear, it was pretty cool to be in a Major League Ballpark. The actual food, however, bizarrely consisted entirely of different kinds of pasta. While my cooking repertoire consists almost entirely of variations on pasta, I would have expected something more from a catered event.

View of the city from Carnegie Mellon

Following the PNC Park pasta-fest, we were taken bowling, but I left before things got too crazy. The next day we had breakfast, a trolley tour, then I explored the Cathedral of Learning with some of the other prospective students before being driven to the airport. The plane rides back to Ithaca were downright uneventful compared to what I had experienced two days prior. I made it back to Ithaca by 11 that night, got picked up by my roommate, and prepared for three days of classes before I would be travelling again.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well, it was a turboprop engine plane. And we were trying to leave. Ithaca was just getting in the way, as usual. I normally have no need to fly out of Ithaca’s one-building, three-gate airport, since flying home takes more time and is more expensive than bussing or driving. In this case, however, I wasn’t going home. I was headed to Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon for my first grad school visit. It was also my first time flying by myself.

Due to the wide array of flights leaving Ithaca’s airport (all eight of them per day), I had been booked for a 6 am flight to Newark. After a one hour, twenty minute layover, I would proceed to Pittsburgh, hopefully arriving at 10:22 am. Spoiler alert: I didn’t.

The morning started fine enough. I got up at 4 in the morning after three hours or so of sleep thanks to good life choices, had breakfast, and took a cab to the airport, arriving before 5. Since I hadn’t flown alone or been to the Ithaca airport before, I wanted to get to the airport early to make sure I didn’t get lost or anything. You’d have to try pretty hard to get lost in the Ithaca airport. Once you get through security, you can see all the gates at the same time.

Security took approximately two minutes, then I sat down to wait for my flight to board. Meanwhile, the flight to Philly was cutting weight so they could fly in the marginal weather – it was early March with the temperature right around freezing, with some nice sleet/rain/snow coming down. Half of the twenty plus passengers were being left behind in Ithaca. Fortunately, for whatever reason (larger plane, leaving fifteen minutes later, not carrying rocks in the cargo bay, don’t ask me), my flight was leaving at full capacity. Unfortunately, at the time we were scheduled to take off we were still sitting inside the airport.

When we boarded, the first thing we noticed was that it was quite possibly colder inside the airplane than outside. We had apparently lost out on the coin toss for the airport’s single plane heater. While we waited for the airport’s single deicer, our friendly air steward informed us that the earlier delay was to wait for the airplane computers to warm up enough to work. Thanks, Ithaca.

Fifteen minutes before we were supposed to have arrived in Newark, we took off from Ithaca. The flight went smoothly, and forty-five minutes after taking off, we landed in Newark around 8. Great, I thought. I still had almost an hour to catch my connecting flight. Then I looked out the window and couldn’t see the airport. For the next fifteen minutes, we taxied in circles before we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere where we would be picked up by a bus to be driven to the airport terminal. For the fifteen minutes after that, I waited on the bus while the rest of the flight collected checked luggage. We finally got everyone on board the bus and were about to drive off when a very helpful passenger yelled, “Wait! Is that someone’s suitcase?” and pointed out the window at a large yellow suitcase sitting forlornly between the plane and the bus. “Yes!” another very relieved passenger yelled, running to collect the suitcase. At least she was running.

By this time, it was nearing 8:30 and I was running out of hope that a “Your flight has been delayed” message would magically appear on my phone. We drove in circles across the same concrete we had just taxied across and were about to drive through a tunnel between two buildings when we were cut off by a luggage truck. Trailing about nine thousand luggage carts behind it. After that passed, we finally reached our drop off point and I took off.

It was 8:36. My next flight was supposed to take off at 8:53, which meant that boarding technically ended at 8:38. At 8:38, I walked up to Gate 16. The sign behind the gate very helpfully informed me that the flight to Texas, or Hawaii, or somewhere that was not Pittsburgh was Now Boarding. I looked down at my boarding pass. My flight was at Gate 18. Two gates down, the boarding area was empty. But. The ticket agent was still there. At 8:39, she let me and a few others making the same connecting flight board.

And then we sat there for an hour getting deiced and taxiing in circles. After my first flight of the morning, I was just glad to be sitting there at all. We touched down in Pittsburgh at 10:40 am, and after another forty-five minute drive, we pulled up to the hotel, elapsed travelling time seven hours. Google maps tells me that without traffic, I could have made the entire drive from Ithaca in five hours and four minutes.

Just Flowers

Pippin: Merry, I’ve got it right this year, I know I do!

Merry: Got what right?
Pippin: It’s Mother’s Day!
Merry: It was Mother’s Day. Last week.
Pippin: . . . Last week?
Aragorn: That’s right.
Merry: Looks like you’ve got it wrong again after all, Pip.
Pippin: But . . . I had so much planned. There was a party, and a speech, and fireworks.
Merry: That’s all right. We were told just flowers this year.
Aragorn: Don’t worry, Pippin. There’s always next year.
Pippin: Well, I suppose so. Where are the flowers?
Merry: Right here, Pip.

Happy (one week after) Mother's Day

Inside Out

Upon returning from a hockey game one Friday night last fall, I was planning to take care of a couple things on my computer, then go to sleep early. Key word: planning. Just as I was about to shut down my computer and go brush my teeth, my roommates returned and decided to watch a movie. Unfortunately or fortunately for me, they decided to watch Inside Out. I had watched every single Pixar movie*, and would have eventually seen Inside Out, but from the trailers, I couldn’t tell how they were going to make a story out of the idea of feelings. However, everyone who had seen the movie over the summer thought it was great. So instead of working to pay off my sleep debt, I stayed up to watch Inside Out.

I also thought it was great, probably my favorite Pixar movie since Up. Certainly better than Cars 2**. I’m one of the few people who’s not a five year old boy who legitimately likes Cars, and even I thought Cars 2 was bad. But Inside Out was good. The movie follows Riley as her family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco, which would be great for people like my brother who need to see tall buildings and people, but Riley legitimately likes living in the middle of nowhere. Riley’s actions are controlled by the five emotions living in her head – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. But soon into the movie, things go wrong for Joy and Sadness – and Riley.

The plot wasn’t horribly complicated (family moves = sad Riley), but the characters were great. The human characters behave like a normal family and do normal things, which was a nice break from the ten billion apocalypse/dystopia/sexy vampire movies in theaters. The emotions did well portraying their respective emotions; there are a few particularly good scenes with Sadness. There’s also a pretty ridiculous/hysterical scene near the end of the movie.

There are only a couple negative things I have to say about the movie. The transition between inside and outside Riley’s head sometimes feels disorienting***, and the islands of personality were a bit plot device-y. Or contrived. Their purpose is to show important aspects of Riley’s life (family, hockey, friends), but the names just felt awkward. Still, it’s two relatively minor complaints that don’t take much away from an otherwise solid film.

*Up to The Good Dinosaur. Probably won’t see that one until the library gets it.
**Why on Earth is Cars 3 in production? I’m thinking if Cars 2 was Mater’s Spy Adventure, maybe Cars 3 should be Cars 3: Mater’s Spy Adventure – In Space.
***I watched Inside Out again over spring break and didn’t have this problem. What was more noticeable this time was that the memories are shown in third person but you’re supposed to be inside Riley’s head, so she should probably be remembering in first person.

The Injury Report [Summer Edition]

Don’t worry, this is a short one.

Over the summer, I biked dozens of miles, went bouldering ten or so times, and hiked at three state parks, among other acts of physical prowess. My most grievous injury was walking backwards into my roommate’s desk while folding laundry. My second most painful injury was banging my shin against our poorly-placed dishwasher while putting dishes away. Obviously I should stick to safe things like bushwhacking, leaping over streams, and rock climbing.

As an aside, I’m mildly shocked that my roommate and I didn’t end up with poison ivy sometime over the summer, considering the amount of hiking we did and the number of poison ivy minefields we accidentally walked straight through.

Apples, Chowder, and Chili

What do these three foods have in common? They can all be found on the Ithaca Commons at various times of the year – there's Applefest in the fall, the Chowder Cook-off before winter break, and the Chili Cook-off in February. And yes, I went to all three this year, because senior year.

I went to Applefest with my roommate and an honorary apartment member. We got there a couple hours after it opened for the day so it was already crazy crowded. The line for apple cider donuts was slightly insane, so we skipped it. Besides, I’ve had fresh apple cider donuts made at a cider mill, and while I wouldn’t turn down a donut if offered, I wasn’t about to stand in line for an hour for one. Besides, there was so much other food.

Applefest on the Commons (and adjoining roads)

I got some peanut butter fudge and an apple bread but also got to taste some apple dumpling and apple crisp that my friends bought. And now I want more apple baked goods.

A couple months later, I returned to the Commons for the Ithaca Ice Festival and Chowder Cook-off. This was mere days before my grad school applications were due but I thought I would be okay timewise since I had already written my personal statement and started filling out the other sections with my name, current address, home address, cell phone number, home phone number, recent lucky numbers from fortune cookies, and other things like that. I was partly wrong*, but I’m more glad to have gone to the Ice Festival than I would have been to finish my applications a couple hours earlier.

I went with a former roommate to see the ice sculptures and eat chowder. Of course, on the one winter day it needed to be cold, it was in the forties and sunny. It made all the ice sculptures look very shiny though. At least before they melted. We ended up trying clam chowder, vegetarian chowder, seafood chowder, jambalaya, corn chowder, and haddock and bacon chowder. The only chowder that I was unsatisfied with was the “New England” clam chowder. I’m from New England; don’t mess with my clam chowder. Though it could have been worse. It could have been Manhattan clam chowder.

Sea horse ice sculpture on the Commons

After winter break, I made my most recent trip to the Commons for the Chili Cook-off, this time accompanied by my current roommate, a former roommate, and a former suitemate, among others. Again, we tried a variety of the foods being offered. There was sweet chili, spicy chili, tomato-y chili, chili with lots of vegetables, and meat chili. And then there were chili calzones and chocolate chili. And hard cider.

I guess that brings it full circle – back to apples. I’m definitely glad I went to all the food events on the Commons this past school year. That’s one piece of advice I would give people – check out local events whenever you can. Sometimes you don’t have to go far or spend much money to have a whole lot of fun. And eat some good food.

*I finished all my applications on time, and didn’t feel seriously rushed for any of them, but I ended up submitting my last application at 9 pm on the day it was due.

Coming Home Weekend

Time to catch up fall semester. After an epic summer in Ithaca, I started classes and was immediately sucked into the spinning vortex of terror ChemE. I did make a point to go to the homecoming football game, like I have for the past couple of years.

It did not rain, and it was not negative ten degrees without wind chill, so people actually showed up. I stayed until halftime to see the marching band show, then had to leave to go grocery shopping. Such is my exciting life. The marching band played a show featuring music by The Who and at one point spelled out “WHO” on the field, but it took me a good minute to figure out what they were spelling because the percussion behind them made the H look like an A.

People!  At a football game!

When I left Cornell was tied with Bucknell 7-7 in a display of offensive excellence and output*. The game, however, ended 19-14 in favor of Bucknell due to a late touchdown. The football team’s season ended 1-9, with the sole win coming in a 3-0 home game against Columbia. Yes, 3-0.

Later that weekend, my parents visited and after church and lunch (Saigon Kitchen, would recommend), we went hiking at Treman (again). Then we went to Wegmans for dinner and I went back to the hotel to work on practice GRE tests. Again, I know I have an extremely exciting life.

Gorge Trail at Treman

The next day, Monday, was GRE day. If I had actually planned well, instead of putting it off all summer, I would either have taken the GRE at the beginning of the summer when I was home or at the end of the summer when my roommate with a car kind of occasionally had time to drive me. I had been looking into bus options but in the end, since I likely wasn’t going home for fall break, my parents came to visit instead – and to drive me to Binghamton to take the GRE.

After signing in, which included copying a lengthy (okay, not really) passage in cursive, I was put through another elaborate procedure in which I was photographed, searched, given pencils and scratch paper, and finally walked to a computer in a room with surveillance cameras above every terminal. Four and a half hours later, I walked away from my computer in the room with surveillance cameras above every terminal, returned my pencils, collected my belongings that had been exiled to locked storage in the waiting room, and went outside to taste freedom fresh air.

I got my results a couple weeks later, and I’m happy with them, especially considering the amount of studying I did. I got one GRE practice book and went through the chapters and practice problems over the summer/a couple weeks before the test. The week before the test, I worked through two or three full length tests, though not all at once. That turned out to be enough for me, even with the GRE being my first real multiple choice/standardized test since high school.

With the GRE over, I could turn to the next part of the grad school application process – the applications themselves. Or I could wait until the week before the applications were due to really get working on them. You know, good life choices.

*To be fair, I guess the Cornell defense had a good game, according to the game report.

#SummerInIthaca2015

It was the hottest of times, it was the most humid of times. It was the season of sunshine, it was the season of thunderstorms, it was the epoch of mosquito bites, it was the epoch of muddy hiking boots, we had work every weekday, we had no problem sets on weekends – in short, it was summer. Summer in Ithaca to be precise, and all of us in the apartment were doing research or working, not taking classes, so our nights and weekends were free for all the shenanigans and misadventures we could devise. And devise them we did.

I’ve written about most of the things we did, but I also wanted to compile a chronological list as well as record some of our other accomplishments.

6/13 – Sat. – Buttermilk Falls State Park
6/20 – Sat. – Taughannock Falls State Park [same link as above]
6/24 – Wed. – Princess Ida (Schwartz Center)
6/26 – Fri. – Rockwood Ferry concert (arts quad)
6/27 – Sat. – Museum of the Earth
6/28 – Sun. – Lick Brook Falls
6/30 – Tues. – violin/piano concert (Schwartz)
7/1 – Wed. – 4th 1st of July fireworks (slope)
7/3 – Fri. – Cascadilla Gorge Trail
7/9 – Fri. – alumni hockey game (Lynah Rink)
7/10 – Sat. – Racker Center rivals (hockey) (Lynah) [same link as above]
7/16 – Thurs. – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Plantations)
7/18 – Sat. – Cayuga Trail/chimes concert
7/21 – Tues. – Klez Project (Schwartz) [same link as 6/30]
7/24 – Fri. – Mutron Warriors concert (arts quad) [same link as 6/30]
7/25 – Sat. – Treman State Park
8/1 – Six Mile Creek/The Small Kings concert (Taughannock)
8/15 – Lab of Ornithology
8/19 – blueberry picking (Grisamore Farms)
8/24 – Buttermilk Falls State Park

Additionally, I read the following:
The Naked Mountaineer (Steve Sieberson)
Two for the Summit (Geoffrey Norman)
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (John Boyne)
Reservation Blues (Sherman Alexie)
Dune Messiah (Frank Herbert)
Migraine (Oliver Sacks)
The Astronaut Wives Club (Lily Koppel)
Carrying the Fire (Michael Collins)
If I Fall, If I Die (Michael Christie)
Speak (Laurie Halse Anderson)
Train Dreams (Denis Johnson)
A Walk Across America (Peter Jenkins)
The Wayward Bus, Burning Bright, Sweet Thursday, The Winter of our Discontent, and Travels With Charley (John Steinbeck)

Watched the following:
28 episodes of The Walking Dead (Seasons 3 and 4 minus a few episodes)
9 episodes of The Astronaut Wives Club (Season 1, minus the first episode)
Season 3 of Sherlock (still can’t decide if my favorite scene is Sherlock getting shoved to the ground/head-butted/punched in the face all in the same night or the pub crawl)
Mean Girls

Tried a couple new recipes for peanut butter chocolate oatmeal muffins and white chocolate brownies

Went rock climbing half a dozen times

And collectively, in the apartment, grew mold on the following:
potatoes, peaches, tomato sauce, onions, oatmeal muffins, raspberries, bread, broccoli, and clementines

Stuff I Did This Summer

Or: The Effect of Spherical Confinement on a Monodisperse Colloidal Suspension using Brownian Dynamics Simulation

Or: Everything I Never Wanted to Learn About Diffusion

After it was all said and done, I was left with some graphs, several gigabytes of free software on my computer, and approximately ten million data points. I’m actually not even exaggerating. The program I worked with kept track of the positions of hundreds to thousands of particles for several hundred time steps, and that’s a lot of data.

How I ended up doing research is yet another of my “Well, it’s kind of a funny story” stories. I met with one of my professors to talk about working on the project I had worked on the past summer. She said, sure, I could work on it, but how about research? It would involve coding in Fortran. I hadn’t programmed anything since my freshman year Intro to MATLAB class and told the professor so. No problem, she said, you’ll be fine.

Okay, then. After talking to the grad student I’d be working with, I decided to do research over the summer, because why not? And that’s how I ended up reading research papers about exciting topics such as long-time self-diffusion and modeling hydrodynamic interactions while coding in Fortran to confine imaginary spherical particles in a larger imaginary spherical cavity. When I told my dad I was working in Fortran, he asked if people were still coding things in Fortran. Apparently so.

My job over the summer was to modify existing Brownian dynamics code to simulate particles enclosed in a sphere. By tracking their positions and collisions, you can do magic math to determine properties of the fluid. I also got to edit Python code (another language I had never seen before in my life), and do post-processing on my millions of data points.

All of this mostly took place in Olin, making it two consecutive years of not being out of Olin for longer than two weeks, discounting winter break. I was jammed into a corner of the group office with two grad students, but I had my own desk and I could see out of a window, which instantly elevated the space over the senior/undergrad lounges. Actually, lounge is a bit of a misnomer, because there’s very little lounging done in the lounge. A lot of last-minute-deadline-meeting, procrastinating, complaining, some sleeping and eating, but not much on the relaxation front. Which makes it the natural place for many of the seniors to congregate during their final year. #FunInTheSunDingyGreyBasement #ChemELife

Anyway, in the end, when summer was over, I learned some stuff about colloids and computational microrheology. I had fun, because I’m a nerd like that.

The No-Longer-Hypothetical List of Exciting Things That Have Happened to me at Cornell, Fall 2015 edition

I spent most of the semester running between the band room, the rock wall, the lab, and the basement of Olin. Even amidst the craziness, I managed to have some exciting times.

1. Wedding – I attended my first wedding. Well, kind of. I stood outside Sage Chapel with the pep band until the wedding ceremony was over and after that we played a couple of sets. Besides the Alma Mater, they also requested “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5 and the theme from the Muppets. Not exactly wedding fare, but then again, I’ve never been to a wedding before.

2. Happy hour – Before Thanksgiving break, most of my lab group plus another friend and I decided that after the ChemE semester we’d been having, we needed to go to happy hour. For four dollars each, we got a half price pitcher of beer and an order of fries. We ate, we drank, and we talked about ChemE, because what else do we have to talk about? Okay, we also talked about other things. Like grad school.

3. Climbing – For my PE class, I took performance rock climbing (p-rock). Somehow, over the course of the semester, I found myself able to actually climb routes at Liindseth. And not just routes, but routes that weren’t the absolute easiest routes that I could find. Routes that other competent looking climbers worked on and sometimes struggled with. In other words, I was not the worst climber at Lindseth anymore. I also got to put up my own bouldering route.

4. Continuous distillation – After learning about distillation columns for three years, we finally got to run one, in our very own unit operations laboratory. It was a bit of a race to see whether we’d reach the distillation column lab first or if the construction crew would have the column reconstructed, but in the end the column was put back together in time (if just barely) for us to do the lab. ChemE lab may not be about mixing chemicals or building circuits, but after you do data analysis and find that it matches up – usually not perfectly, but sometimes really well – with what you expect, that’s still pretty cool.

5. ChemE holiday party – And we ended the semester (almost; there were still a few finals after, but for all intents and purposes, we ended the semester) with the annual ChemE holiday party. We did not have the party in Olin, but in Statler, and there was lots of good food, skits and gifts, and alcohol before, during, and for some people, after dinner. It was a lot of fun, and directly after I had to finish up my grad school applications and study for my last final.