I am on the Ballroom Dance team here at Caltech, and a few weekends ago, we went to a competition at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). The comp was to take place on Saturday, and instead of leaving around 5:00 am Saturday morning in order to arrive on time, a group of us left on Friday night so we could get a decent sleep before the competition. The four of us took a truck down and I got stuck sitting in that awkward space between the truck bed and the front seats. It was oh so wonderfully comfortable sitting in a seat made for someone half my size.
It turns out that the work load here is pretty tough, and I must apologize for not necessarily posting exactly at the time events happen. I do have a lot to talk about though, and since I have a 13-hr flight back to the States (from Korea during spring break- there’ll be a post about that later perhaps), I figure I can write a few on the plane ride.
Whew, these past two weeks have been intense, without any time to write another blog. I suppose it’s necessary to write about why I haven’t been writing then! Mainly, it’s because Venerable’s interhouse party is this weekend and I have been helping as much as possible for the past two weeks (though not as much as one of the other freshmen, who has put in over 30 hours easily).The official theme now is Island Paradise, and together with the volcano, plane, hut, and all of the theme-provoking painted wallboards, we might get close to looking like an island. Construction has been working hard, and most things are up now, with two days to go. Here’s some pictures of the rough underbelly we’ve built for the party: First a picture from about a week ago:
I have never looked forward to relaxing on the weekend as much as I have here at Caltech. At the very least, without anything due the next day, Saturday is the day to just do nothing. This weekend since I had not been hiking, or even off-campus, for a long time, I decided to attend the Caltech Y trip with a few friends to see the monarch butterflies migrating in Santa Barbara and the wind caves in Gaviota. It was great to be able to relax and not care about any work (or midterms) I had coming up. Here’s a few pictures from the outing:
There seems to be a lack of academic subjects in my writing so for this blog I will indulge in complaining about the heavy work load I have at Caltech. In reality Caltech does not have to be extremely intense (you do still have to do quite a bit), but it is what you make of it. I’ll share my take on the load as I’m sure many of you may be wondering how things work at Caltech. To do this, I’ll begin by taking a look at my past week, but who knows where it’ll go from there.
I am sure every house has their own way of celebrating the birth of its members, but in Venerable we have this tradition where on the night before a person’s birthday we bake some cake or brownies for them, and then with as many people as are around we present it to them at 12 am. And last semester, my friend Sophie’s birthday was coming up so two of her friends (Corwin and Sue) and I decided to make a very interesting cake. The idea was to create a flower out of cupcakes, as seen below, which is **not **the one we made.
So somehow it worked out that I got back to Caltech on the same day that I started classes. I had arrived at the airport around 11:30 p.m. on January 3, but my shuttle didn’t drop me off until 1:30 am. It wasn’t too bad though, my first class started at 10 am so I was able to get a decent night’s sleep. And at least I wasn’t driving from Colorado- my friend Matt arrived around 4 in the morning after driving the whole day.
Two hours ago I left the airport, and it felt like I was leaving for the first time again. With the trimester system, I won’t be home in Maryland for another six months. And my mom acted accordingly. Can it get more embarrassing than to have your mom call out to you and ask, “Are you sure you brought all your underwear honey?” That didn’t actually happen, but I did get the well-known hugs and kisses, which is really rather acceptable if you think about it.