Vector Gloves!!

Captain's blog, stardate 2888.3....
So yesterday it was cold out and my friend was wearing some gloves she bought at the Coop. If you don't know much about MIT, the Coop is our campus store that sells merchandise with "MIT" written all over it, textbooks, and a ridiculous number of Star Wars and Star Trek books, which I always stare enviously at for a few minutes, wishing I had the money to buy them all and the time to read them all. If you do know a lot about MIT, that's still what the Coop is.

So anyway, these gloves had little plastic-y patterns on the palms to help the wearer grip things, and said plastic-y patterns took the form of circles with Xs inside of them.

Physics time! (Yaaay!)

This is how we denote a vector pointing into the page.



This is what the pattern on the gloves looks like. It's just like having vectors pointing into your hands!! Obviously I had to go buy some. (I'm such a sterotypical teenager.)

With my new gloves, I can pretend to be an electric flux superhero, absorbing the electric field into my amazing power gloves, storing it in magic capacitors inside the gloves, and then discharging the capacitors to shoot lightning from my hands! It would be more useful if one of the gloves had the symbol for vectors pointing out of the page, so I could shoot lightning without having to build up a stored electric field first, but oh well. Every superhero needs some sort of flaw. (I plan to make a comic book about this as soon as I buy a decent pencil sharpener.) And anyway, the power to absorb electric fields might be more useful, because that way you can get rid of any Force lightning that happens your way, and eventually fire it back at the Sith attacking you.

Oh, and if you don't think Star Wars has anything to do with vectors, you are wrong. I did a Google Image search for "vector pointing out of page" and got no results that actually showed a vector pointing out of a page. I did, however, get this:

Seriously, Google?

Another Update (Finally!)

Captain's blog, stardate 2947.7....
I know I'm being horribly slow to update. Sorry about that. It's so hard to find the time to do a post, although I know being busy isn't a very good excuse not to stay in touch with people.

So let's see, what's happened? Oh yeah, Thanksgiving. That already seems like it was about a billion years ago. But it was really fun. I got to see my high school friends, and some of my teachers, at homecoming, which was super exciting. They're all doing their college applications now...poor kids. If you guys are reading this, know that you shall finish everything and then get into an awesome college and have loads of fun, just like I'm having right now. (Obviously, MIT is the best of all possible colleges, but if you go somewhere else that's fine too.) So anyway, Thanksgiving. Sorry, I'm really tired right now, but I want to at least try and write something before I get too busy again and don't have the time. Yeah.

So on Thanksgiving, my whole family was there, and I played D&D with my brothers and my sister Maggie. We had to teach my little brother Stephen how to play: I don't think he really understood the rules, but he gathered enough to throw ninja stars at monsters when it was his turn.
Sample Dialogue:
John and Elizabeth: *doing arithmetic*
Maggie: So Stevie, do you want to ask John to give your character a Justin Bieber CD for his birthday?
Stephen: Sure. Is it my turn yet?
Elizabeth: Yes.
Stephen: I throw a ninja!
(Don't worry, we don't like Justin Bieber. Or rather, we don't like the two measures' worth of one of his songs that we've somehow heard.)

Thanksgiving pretty much rocked, but of course I didn't get any work done because I was too busy having fun with my siblings. So when I got back here, I had to write a draft of my final paper for Shakespeare class and do problem sets for all my other classes. Not fun at all. And on Monday I was super tired and couldn't focus at all, so I didn't really get much done. But I worked really hard yesterday and today so now I'm pretty much finished.

Other miscellaneous bad stuff: I got a really low grade on my physics test, but the average was only two points more than my score, so statistically I was average. Anyway I'll, like, study and stuff, so there's no need for parents and/or authority figures to bug me about it. I know what I'm supposed to do, OK? Anyway, now my test average in physics is an 82, which, since our professor says he won't curve our scores, is a B-. And I was telling my friend about this, except I said B flat instead of B minus. The most reasonable conclusion to draw from this is that I need to sleep, so I think I'll go do that now.

Sorry this post wasn't very entertaining! Perhaps next time I get around to it I'll have something more interesting to say.

The Voyage Home

Captain's blog, stardate 2834.4...
So, I finished most of my work. I still need to do my SAT prep lesson at some point, but I don't need it until Sunday afternoon. And now that I've decided what I want to write about for my Shakespeare final paper, I have to write the first draft in like a week. My professor said I picked a good topic, though, so I probably shouldn't have too much trouble with it. He's pretty cool. He assigned us to watch a really violent movie of Macbeth, so I didn't watch it cause I hate bloody movies and asked him if I could skip that assignment and he said it was OK.

Now I'm waiting to get on the bus coming back to New York. I should get home by 3am or somewhere thereabouts, and then I'm going to high school homecoming tomorrow! I'll finally get to see all my dear BxSci friends (who are the main reason I'm keeping this blog in the first place).

In other news: I'M STILL ALIVE!! Go me! We only have about three weeks left in the semester, and then I'll have survived my first term at MIT...assuming I'm not annihilated by work in the intervening time, that is. I think my chances of survival are pretty high, though.

In other other news: I should really figure out how to organize my thoughts so that my blog won't be so stream-of-consciousness-y. You'd think that's a life skill I would have learned by now. It's amazing no horrible fate has befallen me yet. Being able to write a coherent blog post is like knowing how to bake cookies: If you can't do it, you won't have any cookies unless somebody bakes them for you. Heehee...browser cookies actually don't have anything to do with writing coherent blog posts. I fooled you! But they are very useful things to have, just like regular cookies. Mmm...cookies. I think I just lost my train of thought. Actually, I think my train of thought decided to make stops on a completely different line and I didn't notice and ended up in Queens or something.

See what I mean about the stream-of-consciousness nonsense?

The Next Four Days

Captain's blog, stardate 2295.0...

• Chemistry test on Monday; I have no idea what's on it
• Physics test Tuesday evening
• Two Splash classes tomorrow morning/early afternoon
• Concert choir concert tomorrow evening
• Online physics assignment due Sunday evening
• Asymptones rehearsal Sunday evening
• Half of a math problem set which I really should get done before leaving Tuesday evening
• Plan out next week's SAT prep class--I promised them vocab games
• Outline/proposal for final English paper, due Tuesday
• Concert choir rehearsal Monday evening
• Other classes as usual

Sometimes I really, really hate MIT.

Miscellany

Captain's blog, stardate 9224.7...(I just realized I've been forgetting to repeat digits in my "random" numbers)
Ah man, why can't I ever make the time to update this thing? Answer: I'm lazy. Or if you want to sound smart, I'm pretty sure indolent means the same thing, but I'm too lazy to look it up! I should really go study for my math test or something, cause I have a math test tomorrow. And a chemistry test on Monday, and a physics one on Tuesday. What fun. (By the way, I know it's hard to convey sarcasm through typed words, but if you tried to print a copy of this page, the sarcasm would be so thick it would jam your printer.)

In good news, I finished the PowerPoints for my Splash classes last weekend, and my friend is coming to stay with me and take one of my classes, and bringing her Plushy Spock to chill with Plushy Kirk! Speaking of which, I need to vaccum my room before tomorrow afternoon. Bleh. Given how badly I fail at other household tasks such as cleaning and laundry, I can't imagine that will work out very well. Also, I'm semi-excited for the concert choir concert on Saturday evening (after my Splash classes).

In bad news, my Splash classes are full of mostly homeschoolers, who probably know more than me about everything I'm going to say. Hopefully I won't embarrass myself too badly. In other bad news, I bought a ticket a long time ago to see Harry Potter tomorrow evening. A bit after that, some person in charge of activities for the freshman class got like 300 tickets to see it this evening, which all my friends got but I didn't since I already had a ticket. But then I remembered that my friend is coming tomorrow afternoon so I won't be able to go off in the evening and watch a movie by myself. So I guess I'll go next week or something. Except not, because the only days I'll have any time to do anything will be when I'm home for Thanksgiving and it would be kind of mean not to hang out with my siblings since that's the reason I'm coming home. So maybe the week after next if they are still showing it down here, which seems likely enough.

Happy Birthday Mary!

Captain's blog, stardate 3902.6....
Today is my little sister's birthday! So yesterday I took an evening bus back home, got in at like midnight, and fell asleep on the sofa. Then when the dear girl woke up I got to surprise her by being there, and stuck around until I had to catch my bus back to the Massachusetts Institute of Way Too Many Problem Sets (and also Technology I guess). She is pretty darn lucky that her birthday is on a national holiday otherwise I would have had to skip out on my classes.

So yeah, I'm on a bus coming back to school now, and have been for the past 4 hours or so. Should be getting there soon. Anyway, I love you Mary, so I shall dedicate this blog post to you.
---This post is hereby dedicated to Mary for her awesomeness and because it's her birthday---
Is that all I have to do? I'm kinda new at this. Maybe I have to elaborate a little. Mary, I had more fun talking to you today than I've had in a really long time. You've been my best friend for ages. I love how you're almost always willing to talk to me and how you share almost all of my interests. You're probably the only person I know who enjoys making up and singing Star Trek-themed versions of showtunes with me. You're the best first officer I could ever have. Sappiness aside, you're pretty cool, you know?

Anyway I guess I don't really have much else to say. My mom made me some burritos and a quiche to bring back, because she's super nice and knows that I can't cook anything more complicated than Ramen noodles. I probably should dedicate a post to her sometime too. And my dad. Because I didn't make him one on his birthday. Aw, now I feel like a jerk. I love you Dad.

Oh hi...

Captain's blog, stardate 2874.9....
No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I've just been extremely busy. I have plans to hang out with one of my friends for most of the day tomorrow, so I had to get all my work done early. I think I did problem sets for about 6 hours yesterday. Anyway, I'm done now. I'm also tired so I apologize in advance for the incoherent writing.

I guess I should talk about something, huh? In physics we're doing RL, LC, and RLC circuits (that's circuits with resistors, capacitors, and inductors, for those not in the know). Basically you have to solve differential equations except since our physics class doesn't require those you just have to write the equation and then know what the solution is. The equations aren't even that hard though--the most complex one is for RLC circuits with a driving force, which we learned haw to do in 18.03. It's a second-order nonhomogenous linear differential equation. (Sounds more complicated than it is, I swear.)

In math we just did step and delta functions and now we are learning about Laplace transforms. I guess I shouldn't really bother trying to explain what those are. In chemistry we are doinng pretty basic stuff. (Oh haha, basic, cause we learned acids and bases today...I didn't even mean to do that. My subconscious has a lame sense of humor. Seriously, I wouldn't make a joke that bad on purpose.) In Shakespeare class we just finished with Hamlet and watched a Russian movie of Hamlet where the ghost looked like Darth Vader. (I drew a picture of him saying "I am your father" to Hamlet.)

Well, since my life has pretty much been composed of problem sets and miscellaneous singing since I last posted (oh haha, composed, singing, I get it. What is with my sense of humor today??) I can't really say anything else. Oh wait, I can! Both of my Splash classes are full and I still haven't planned out my lectures. I'm scared now.

See you later, folks!