Two terms have gone by! With their many ups and downs. I’m doing a lot better emotionally than at the end of last year. Caltech continues to be…Caltech, although a lot of changes are goin’ on around this place due to financial crisis, and every other kind of crisis. Hopefully everything comes out for the better. For some reason I feel optimistic today, though I tend to be more bitter than my freshman year.

I’m a CNS (Computation and Neural Systems) major now, and loving every minute of it, except the Core classes I’m going to have to take next year to make up for being behind. No offense to physics, but I’m so happy I changed. I love brains, and I love computer science programming coding (what am I allowed to call it again, CS majors? I’m no comp sci person, so I’m probably just a code monkey), and I love all the awesome thing we get to study.

Although courses and (currently) midterms still get me down and stressed, my therapist still suggests I think of the positive things I’m doing. Here they are:

* Learning Python, which is an awesome programming language. It’s probably just because I fleshed out my knowledge in Scheme and Java first, but Python seems easy and fun.

* Dissecting sheep brains in Professor Allman’s comparative neuroanatomy class. I’m working in Professor Allman’s lab this term and in the summer, using DTI tractography and the Allen Brain Atlas of the mouse brain to look at connectivity in the brain.

* CNS 120, “The Neuronal Basis of Consciousness”: My favorite class, with a nice website on which you can view Professor Koch’s lectures. Far be it from me to push merchandise, but his book is really quite good as well; an excellent balance of popular science and sciencey science.

Some of the homeworks for the class are a bit silly, though. “Draw brains freehand” was a bit of an adventure, though it was a relief to spend a few hours with my crayons:

Cheers, all, I need to diagram the primary visual pathways and then get a few hours of sleep before class.

So! Another year has begun at Caltech, and I do believe I’m a full term behind on my blogging. 

But as with problem sets (and as I found out third term), no sense being perpetually screwed by trying to catch up–it’s best to fill in the old stuff as quick as you can and try to pick up where you are now. 

With that brevity in mind, old stuff:

* I took two incompletes last term, and was not too shy of flaming out completely. I’m still waiting on those grades in Math 1c and Phys 1c, mostly because I procrastinated the make-up work rather late, but hopefully all will be well. 

* I moocheled around Caltech over the summer, doing SSELs (social science experiments that pay decently if you’re good at little auction games), hanging out with the plethora of folks doings SURFs (summer research), and finishing said incompletes. It was awesome to be at Caltech for a while without being busy–I cooked! I baked. I did laundry on a regular schedule. And I didn’t feel crazy stressed all the time. But the boredom did kick in eventually, and I went home too and had a good time with my family and my mum’s class of first graders. Finally I think I’ve been away enough that I actually appreciate going home. 

* The new year started! Rotation was a crazy busy week as the new frosh came in and we worked to get them acclimated to Caltech, through all the Houses, and finally into their proper House. It’s lucky that the first week of classes is pretty easy, all the time we spend doing stuff is insane! I didn’t think anything could be more exhausting than Rotation as a frosh, but Rotation as an upperclassman: much much busier. Ruddock House got a new class of freshmen and I love them to death! <3 They’re really awesome and they make it easy to acclimate to the fact that us s’mores aren’t the youngest children and centers of attention anymore. 

* After rotation was Hassle Week, which I, as librarian, was in charge of. Will post on that later (promises, promises…) but suffice to say it went ok–at least I didn’t mess it up too badly. 

Will post on the present in the future, right now I’ve got ACM.

So our House’s biggest and most fabulous construction party, also known as OPI, also known as the reason why I didn’t go to class the last two weeks of term, came down with a persistent bronchitis-like cough, investigated the short term effects of extreme sleep deprivation (3 hours in 3 days? right on!), and helped to build–or more like paint–the most awesome thing I’ve ever been lucky enough to help create.

I was an Art Iguana (and a Propaganda Iguana), and thus at least minimally in charge of putting together the artistic side of the party. The theme for this year’s OPI (stands for our Own Private Interhouse, as opposed to the schoolwide Interhouse we had earlier this year) was Gothic Cathedral, which seems like a weird idea for a party but was an excellent idea in terms of construction and artwork, in my opinion. Hey, grey is my favorite color, and I adore repeating geometric designs, so I was happy.

We’ve been working on this for months, at least us iguanas, but we had a real surge of volunteers the last few days, which made our 13-15 hour workdays bearable, haha. Provided I passed all my classes (certainly NOT a guarantee, but that’s for future updates), I’m confident I can survive much harder terms even on grades, as long as I don’t have to build OPI again. But hey, that’s what pass/fail is for: spending ridiculous amounts of time on foolish things. At other colleges, it’s going to big parties and video games. At Tech, it’s building big parties…and video games.

I did, in fact, go to the party–at the very beginning (9pm), to hear people’s first impressions and get food, and then again at the very end (2am) to participate in the traditionally awkward Librarian dance and sing the traditionally garbled rendition of American Pie. I had a very good time, probably the best time I’ve had at a party since that sock hop in junior high. Even beat Interhouse, though there was distinctly less swing dancing. I do have to say, though, the best part was the sheer relief of not having to build it anymore, and maybe even getting some sleep. I believe I consumed upwards of 20 cough drops, and a bottle of advil during that last week. Probably did not go into finals at 100%…but again, provided I passed my classes, it was totally worth it.

Below, it’s me in the overalls–my dad’s, from his college painting days–in front of the really tall thing that I helped design. It was fun to paint, especially since people seem to have the mistaken impression that I actually have artistic talent. And I don’t mind laboring under the delusion, haha.

All week, there are at least five or six guitars in Alley 4, all learning how to play “Blackbird” with singular determination. I can hear bright electric strains of it from new electric guitar down the hall and a warm hum through the wall when my neighbor practices and the soft mellow sounds on my worn strings in the early hours of the morning.

* * *

Swoop’s memorial is on Friday. ETA: Rather, Wednesday.

I’m glad I have a wonderful, wonderful roommate who is similar to me and gets along well with me. We can talk for hours or we can not see each other all day and we can shop together and clean together and go to dinner with our various separate groups and check up on each other. I am so lucky to be rooming with someone who is practically the same as me in temperament and habits, and who understands the way my mind works like a sister.

It’s very interesting, seeing how other roommate pairs work out. I know upperclassmen who’ve had the same roommates for years, and others who change every time there’s a room hassle. It’s cute; there’s a closeness about sharing a pretty small space with another person, at a time when you’re not exactly a kid and not quite an adult yet. Some roommates are so opposite you can hardly imagine how it works out–for instance, if roommate A stirs at the slightest sound and roommate B literally will not awaken to a trumpet blast. And other times they seem to grow more similar, adopting each others’ verbal patterns and such.

I really enjoy living in dorms, even if lots of stuff is old and communal and falling apart. It’s endlessly entertaining. And for all of its flaws, I think it was designed well.

There’s an extra layer to all of that here, because in order to live in Ruddock–that is to say, on campus–you pretty much have to have a roompick (or be a frosh, freshman automatically are on-campus). Roompicks go with elected offices and appointed offices: everything from president to social team to pepsi pimps (they restock the soda machines, of course).

I’m hoping we get a roompick next year, somehow. We already decided that we’d like to be roommates forever, please, and hopefully without moving all our stuff. ><; Such high hopes. But hey, I got lucky once, didn’t I?

Apologies for the recent lack of updates, it may span some short time into the future as well. It’s difficult to find the time and energy to record everything while you’re busy doing it, and though now I’ve three weeks of winter break it’s been sort of…painful, I guess, to think about writing this.

A member of my House, Swaroop, passed away suddenly during the last week of term–I think I’ll just say what they told us about it, though everyone’s been pressing me for details. He collapsed in his room where his roommate and a couple other boys were hanging out, and though they got him to the hospital as quickly as possible, he died of internal bleeding around two am. It wasn’t suicide, or a result of Caltech stress, or injury, or lingering illness. It was stupid and sudden and tragic and fucking pointless.

(You will forgive me, I hope, coarse language. I have tried to refrain from it previously, perhaps in a somewhat contrived manner, with the notion that parents and others may read this pitiful chronicle. I think, though, most parents would forgive me this.)

Swoop and I weren’t close friends (he’s a sophomore; I had planned to get to know him better), but you have to understand what our House is, what it means to us. It is family, or it has been to me and many others, and the lot of us were reeling with the horror of it all for several days. It’s hard to express how sorrowful that communal grief is, so I’ll just summarize: it was infinitely painful to watch these people who I love and care about deeply go through such a thing, it was difficult to go through, and I’m glad we had each other.

I’ll miss Swoop; and I’ll miss that I never got the chance to know him better. I feel unworthy to list his qualities, as if I could ever capture the person he was, but he was witty, and smart, and did hilarious impressions. I don’t know what to say. There’s nothing to say. My heart goes out to his parents, his brother, his friends, his roommate. It’s unfair. It’s just unfair.

Here’s a picture:

Via email, today, I discovered that I’ve passed my first class at Caltech!

Now, with Math 1a under my belt, I can go forth and…take Math 1b.

Good luck to everyone on their finals.

It’s the first day of my first Finals Week here at ‘Tech–I didn’t hear The Ride of the Valkyries this morning, though, either because no one played it in Ruddock, the tradition is not as strictly adhered to as I had thought, or simply because that was smack dab in the middle of the two-and-a-half hours of sleep I got last night. Sometimes, not even Wagner can wake you.

As it stands now, one physics final down, one each of math, chem, and CS to go.

Finals week is kind of fun, in that there are no classes and you get to sleep as much (or as little) as your studying schedule allows. Food is, instead of our usual waited dinners, available at various times in the day, and generally life is as relaxed as it can be with 30 and 40 and 50% of grades hanging in the balance. Pass/fail is a lifesaver. Otherwise I’d have to be furiously studying taylor polynomials right now.

* * *

I picked my schedule for next term, and I’m content: it’s not too busy, but there are a lot of units. A good balance, especially since second term we build OPI, an enormous construction/party. My classes are:

Math 1B, Practical track – Dunno if this was a good choice. Heard that it’s more work.
Physics 1B, Analytical track
Chem 1B
Chem 3A (Lab) – A required lab course. 5 hours on Friday is gonna be killer, but my neighbor’s gonna be my lab partner.
Yoga – Seems like everyone in my alley is taking yoga this term. I do so like following the crowd.
Guitar – Ditto for guitar.
Concert Band – Actually getting credit this term, woo!
European Civilizations: Modern Europe – This was just about the only freshman humanities course (you’re required to take two, I had one this term) that didn’t conflict with something else in my schedule. *shrug* We’ll see. I just want to get it done with so that I can take regular humanities courses and other good stuff.

A rather typical schedule, perhaps, but at least I don’t yet have to start in on the physics prereqs in earnest–that’ll be third term.

…I think I better go have a look at Taylor polynomials. See you later.

“There was a great deal on fifty-pound bags of salt, and I was like. We have to do something with this.”

“That isn’t a prank, that’s a gift!”

“Now you can get a cat!”

“So they…snuck into your room…and redecorated it?”

“What does it say? ‘Lock your door?’”
“Roughly, ‘Welcome home.’”

Well, relatively. Especially if you, like me, can’t get off your up-until-3-am sleep schedule even for Thanksgiving, and are eager for something to procrastinate homework with.

* An outdoor chem lecture with alkali metals. I’m there, barely visible, among the crowds of frosh. The guy in the lab coat and shorts is my TA: Alkali metals + water!

* The firing of the Fleming Cannon that ended Rotation this year. I’m, again, just visible, in the purple backpack in the foreground at about seconds :37 through :39. Oh, simpler times: Run!

* This is just a few seconds of Interhovse–worth it for the waterfall: Blacker Interhovse

* I’m particularly fond of this song, as sung by one of our a capella groups, Out of Context: “Won’t you grant me an extension please?”

* My physics professor is quite well-known for these lectures: The Mechanical Universe

* And the best for last, of course, the Alley Four video. Perhaps just mildly off-color, but I showed it to my mother, so don’t worry: These are my neighbors