I think it’s safe to say most of us spend the majority of our time indoors. Most of us sleep and eat indoors, anyway. Working indoors just seals the deal for me. I like to do something outside at least once a day. Taking a stroll or going for a bike ride (definitely using the inclusive “or” here) helps keep my legs from cramping up and gives me a good appetite for the batch of zucchini bread I made with a friend last night.
On Saturday, the same zucchini-bread-making friend and I took a short bike right to Victory Park, which is northeast of campus. There was a beautiful view of the mountain.
There, we played frisbee and ate homemade sandwiches. I’m a peanut butter and jelly person. Also, I ate Pringles for the first time in at least 6 years, probably more.
From https://mysweeties.com.au/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/364x364/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/S/0/S095242-3D_1.jpg
It was really pleasant to spend time away from electronics (other than snapping a picture of the view with my phone camera for blogging purposes) and campus.
On Sunday, I woke up and learned a new skill before breakfast! I practiced making poached eggs for the first time. There are easy instructions here. Out of the 6 eggs I cracked, 5 of them turned out as fully fledged poached eggs. They tasted great on whole wheat toast with some salt and pepper. I can also vouch for the success of cinnamon sugar on eggs.
I also took Sunday to catch up on my life. I did laundry before I had run out of socks, I patched some tears in some of my favorite shorts, and I ate saltines with strawberry jam. All of these are very important to my life balance.
Caltech may be a small campus, but it has a large variety of food options. There are three main dining locations on campus — The Lee F. Browne Dining Hall, the Hameetman Center (which houses our beloved Red Door Cafe), and the Broad Café. All on-campus students also have access to open kitchens in their houses, where a dinner special is served everyday and different breakfast options are available. There were countless times this past week that I ate my meal and then remembered that I forgot to take a picture of my food – here’s a brief diary of just some of the meals I had.
As a Caltech student, I obviously have a love for STEM. But for me, that love is incomplete without the bigger picture—the role that STEM can play in helping society. That connection between science and humanity served as the initial motivation for one of my primary passions: organizing for environmental justice.
Now that the 2021 baseball season has come to close, I want to take a little trip down memory lane to the 2019 Major League Baseball (MLB) playoffs. To set the scene, after an exciting wild card game win, the Washington Nationals (my team) began a five game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers win the first and third game of the series, and the Nationals win the second and fourth game, making game five a do-or-die situation. The final game took place at Dodgers Stadium, a mere 20 minute drive from Caltech. I pounced on this opportunity, going to the game with my fellow baseball-fanatic and Caltech student, Arya.
Whenever I tell someone that Caltech has an undergraduate population of less than one thousand people, their first reaction is disbelief. “Really?” they exclaim. “You must know everyone! How can you get a real college experience with so few undergrads?”
