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!

Happy Halloween!

Captain's blog, stardate 2749.8....
Ah, Halloween. An excuse to dress up in nerdy outfits, plus you get candy! What's not to like?
Also, my costume rocks. I bought the shirt, but the braid on the sleeves and the badge were sewn on by me, and it took a really long time. Totally worth it though. Check it out. (Click the pictures to make them somewhat bigger.)

Saturday evening there was this party kind of thing except not a weird party like frats apparently have. It was just open to all MIT students and there was candy and pizza and ice skating. (There is an ice rink at MIT; isn't that amazing?) There was also tea! I had Earl Grey. Also, you could get your picture taken. So I did, except it would be silly for me to post a picture of a picture, so you don't get to see it. I will just say one thing: There's dramatic lighting on my face! If you've ever watched the original Star Trek series, you'll know that Kirk very frequently has his face lit from the side or whatever to make himself look more dramatic. I think it's pretty awesome that my picture just so happened to come out the same way.

Nobody else had the same costume as me, which I was grateful for. There was a girl who had Uhura's uniform from the new movie and a guy in a TNG uniform though. They had bought their costumes though. Mine is all handmade and amazing (even if that's only because it's way too expensive to buy a costume, and besides they don't make Captain Kirk uniforms for girls.)

Did I mention there was ice skating? (That was a rhetorical question, FYI.) There was a somewhat long line to rent skates, which became much longer after I was on it, so I prided myself on my timing. While I was waiting for my skates, there was annoying music playing. There was even a Lady Gaga song! I think it was "Poker Face" because they kept saying "p-p-p-p-p-poker face". When I started to skate there was still annoying music. But just as I started to get the hang of it....this is so dramatic and awesome I am saving the reveal for the next paragraph....

...MUSIC FROM THE STAR TREK: 2009 SOUNDTRACK STARTED TO PLAY!!! I was skating like a pro (well, like a semi-competent person who hasn't skated in ages) and humming along. Then some random music that seemed vaguely familiar and non-obnoxious but wasn't from Star Trek played, and then there was another piece from the ST:2009 soundtrack! After that I stopped skating, because it was making my ankles hurt, and the music switched back to annoying. The only logical conclusion to draw is that I am so awesome I cause Star Trek music to play when I ice skate. Best superpower ever.

After that today was relatively anticlimactic, since there's no trick-or-treating at college really. (I still ended up with candy though, from the ice skating thing. Also my Aunt Beth sent me some cause she's cool like that.) I wore my costume for most of the day.

At the Asymptones, we had a little party before rehearsal where everyone brought food. I brought pineapple but nobody wanted it except me so I got to take it back and save it for breakfast or something. Most of the other people weren't wearing costumes, but one guy was wearing a kinda fancy black suit and had a toy gun. So of course when he wasn't looking I stole it.
Me: Haha, I have a phaser now.
Him: Hey! I need that!
Me: Why?
Him: I'm Bond. James Bond.
Me: But I'm Kirk. James Kirk.
There followed an epic battle of gun versus banana Laffy Taffy, which was the only weapon anyone would supply me with.
(By the way, I have a secret theory that Kirk and James Bond are secretly the same guy, because they're both named James, are impossible to kill, and date lots of people.)

To celebrate having such an awesome costume, I wrote a rap about the non-interference directive and its flaws. You seriously need to watch it. (Assuming my video embed works, that is.)

Miscellaneous Awesomeness

Captain's blog, stardate 9274.1...
Hi there folks! I'm procrastinating on my physics problem set and bringing you a few important pieces of news.

First of all: Splash registration is almost open! If you want to come to my awesome classes you'd better go register for them. (And I'd better actually start planning out what I'm going to say.) Registration closes on November 2, so you'd better hurry up! It supposedly opened today but still says it isn't open and I don't know why. Maybe by the time you check it will be working properly.

I got an 87 on my math test and a 94 on my chem test, so I'm very proud of myself. Well, not really. I'm not not proud of myself. Just tired enough that I'm relatively indifferent.

I dreamed last night that my sister Mary and I were young versions of Spock and Kirk respectively, and that we went to Tarsus IV and destroyed Tom Riddle's diary with lightsabers. It was the awesomest thing ever. (My subconscious must be really nerdy.)

In other news, I worked harder on my Halloween costume than on my homework today. For shame.

Yo, people!

Captain's blog, stardate 2849.1....
Hey there folks, sorry for taking so long to update. Last week was pretty busy for me and I was really tired the whole time. So, not the best circumstances for blog updating. This weekend, however, I got to sleep! And my Shakespeare class was required to go see a performance of Henry IV, Part I today. This meant that I couldn't teach SAT prep today and had to get a sub--which in turn meant I didn't have to come up with lesson plans yesterday and could go shopping.

Yes, I went shopping of my own free will. I bought some nice gold braid and then....I went CLOTHES shopping! I went to the Salvation Army store and bought a random article of clothing to cut up. It took me a while to find something that was the right color, but that I wouldn't be willing to wear, so that I wouldn't feel guilty about ruining it. They have lots of nice shirts there. There was this one gold sweater that was so awesome I couldn't resist buying it. It was so bright and pretty and I needed a new lucky shirt since I'm sewing stuff on my old one. I'll test it out during my chemistry exam tomorrow. I have the feeling it will be very lucky, even though it doesn't have a black collar. I could always wear a black shirt underneath and then it would look like one of the uniforms from the 2009 Star Trek movie.

Hmm, other news. We read Henry IV, Part I and Henry V in Shakespeare class. Henry V had this lovely line at the beginning of Act 3, Scene 6:
Gower: How now, Captain Fluellen? Come you from the bridge?
It took me a couple minutes and a glance at the footnotes to figure out that they were talking about an actual bridge, not the starship kind. It didn't help that throughout the play people kept talking about how they would succeed in their "glorious enterprise".

Got to go to my a capella group practice and then sew more stuff on my shirt. See you all later.

Check This Out

Captain's blog, stardate 2834.1....
So it was Parents Weekend at MIT this weekend and all the a capella groups were in a concert; each group sang two songs. My group, the Asymptones, sang "White & Nerdy" and "Title of the Song". The people backstage said we got the most applause of all the groups :)
I don't normally use smileys in formal (or is this semiformal?) writing, but I feel that this somehow merits one. Go figure.

I narrowly escaped having to wear a red shirt--at first we were going to have girls in red and guys in purple shirts, but not enough people had the right colors so they changed it to girls in warm colors and guys in cool colors. This meant I got to wear my nice yellow shirt. Several other Asymptones complimented me on how much like a Starfleet shirt it looked. I was honored.

So guess what? Some person in the audience took videos of the concert and put them on YouTube! Take a look! The camera this random person used couldn't tell my face apart from my shirt very well. But I'm standing in the front row next to my friend Bones (technically short for "lazybones") who is wearing a red sweater thing.

Splash!

Captain's blog, stardate 2864.9....
AD BREAK!
Me: I'm gonna teach at Splash, I'm gonna teach at Splash!
Random Kids: What's Splash?
Me: Glad you asked! Splash is an educational opportunity for middle- and high school students. Students who register for the program can come to MIT from November 20-21 and enjoy classes taught by MIT students. The course offerings are incredibly diverse, ranging from crash courses in computer programming to knitting to board game strategy. There's something for everyone!
Kids: Wow! It sounds great!
Me: It is!
Kids: I wanna go to Splash!
Me: Registration for students will open in late October! It costs $30 for high school students and only $20 for middle school students--a low, low price to pay for the fun and educational value of this weekend!
Kids: Oh boy! Hey, didn't you say you were gonna teach something?
Me: You bet!
Kids: Ooh, I wanna come to your class! What's it gonna be about?
Me: I'm teaching two classes, actually! The first one is "Star Trek and the 1960s," in which we'll explore strange new worlds how the original Star Trek series reflected the issues of its time, and the other is "You Canna Change the Laws of Physics: Science Mistakes In Star Trek," which is exactly what it says on the tin!
Kids: WOW! That sounds so cool, Captain Quirk! I can't wait!
Me: *stares into camera* Splash 2010. Be there.

Everything in that ad was true, except for the part about random kids wanting to go to classes about Star Trek. Still, I bet some people will go.
...will YOU be one of the lucky few?

OK, advertising is over for real this time. In all seriousness, Splash is gonna be totally awesome, and if you're in the right age group and are available on that weekend, you should definitely come, even if you don't go to either of my classes. After all, they are pretty nerdy subjects. (Earn your nerd badge by coming to Star Trek class! Aw, right, no more advertising...)

The Most Awesome Game

Captain's blog, stardate 9274.8....
My sister Mary and I often end up chatting on Skype. Unfortunately Mary tends to quickly switch from having meaningful conversations with me to copy-pasting Star Trek quotes that she gets from iGoogle, for no apparent reason. I guess she thinks it's funny. Anyway, one time she was doing this copy-paste quote thing and I came up with the brilliant idea of playing along.

Hence, Awesome Game #1: In which Mary quotes Star Trek and I am a psychiatrist.
Here's a brief sample: (NB: iGoogle gives Mary quotes from all the Star Trek series, so don't be surprised if you don't recognize some of these.)
Mary: You're in love with a computer subroutine?
Elizabeth: No. Are you in love with a computer subroutine?
Mary:  It's like being pecked to death by ducks.
Elizabeth: Well, I've never loved a subroutine myself so I wouldn't know. Is it very difficult for you? What does your family think about it?
Mary:  I think I'm in trouble.
Elizabeth: Because your family doesn't approve?
Mary: I think I'm in love.
Elizabeth: With a computer subroutine, yes, you've already said so.
Mary: On my home-world it's much simpler. You choose a mate for life. There's no distrust, no envy, no betrayal.
Elizabeth: And you feel betrayed because your family doesn't support your choice?
Mary: Didn't think I had it in me, did you?
Elizabeth: This isn't about what I think of you. Tell me more about your family.
Mary: We're Starfleet officers. Weird is part of the job.
Elizabeth: So you consider them "weird"?

Here's another:
Mary: Either I've become impervious to antimatter explosions, or we're still dreaming.
Elizabeth: Dreaming? So you've dreamed about being impervious to explosions. That means you feel youself to be very powerful, even invincible.
Mary: I was trying to blend in!
Elizabeth: I see. And you weren't accepted into the group.
Mary: I had not considered that...It is a risk I am willing to take.
Elizabeth: What risk are you talking about ?
Mary: The anomaly, my ship, my crew, I suppose you're worried about your fish too.
Elizabeth: I'm not worried about my fish. But I am worried about you. What is this anomaly?
Mary: Oh, very clever, Worf. Eat any good books lately?

As you can see, we're very good at this. But since it gets annoying for me, I limit our "therapy" to once a week. However, Mary found out that iGoogle also has Star Wars quotes, and decided to copy-paste some for me even though she doesn't like Star Wars. (I know! How can anyone not like Star Wars?!) Introducing...Awesome Game #2, In Which Mary Quotes Star Wars and I Quote Star Trek.
(I didn't get my quotes from iGoogle, they were all ones I remembered or found in my Star Trek notebook, so they're pretty much all from the original series.)

We only played this game once, which was tonight, but look how good we are at it:
Mary: I've got a bad feeling about this.
Elizabeth: Emotions are alien to me. I'm a scientist. [Spock]
...
Mary: Are you sure about this; trusting our fate to a boy we hardly know? The Queen will not approve. [Padme]
Elizabeth: I've already got a female to worry about. Her name is the Enterprise. [Kirk]
Mary: Well I don't approve. [Padme]
Elizabeth: You will cease to pry into my personal matters, Doctor, or I shall certainly break your neck. [Spock]
Mary: You Jedi are far too reckless. The Queen trusts... [Padme]
Elizabeth: Mr. Spock, the women on your planet are logical. That's the only planet in the galaxy that can make that claim. [Kirk]
Mary: For a mechanic, you seem to do an excessive amount of thinking. [C-3P0]
Elizabeth: I'm a doctor, not a mechanic!! [McCoy]

Ah man...I'm such a nerd and I love every second of it.

Updating in 5...4...3...2...1...

Captain's log, stardate 2845.6....
This is going to be a mostly news post to make up for all the completely uninformative ones I've been providing you with. Not that important information about which fictional characters' names can be spelled out using the periodic table isn't informative...it's just that some of the point of this blog is to help you guys keep up with my incredible exploits, so you've got to give me a chance to brag about those.

1) The concert choir (which I'm in, or why would I be mentioning it?) is going to be singing in a concert (*gasp*) on November 20 at 8pm! There will be other singing groups too, but the concert choir is totally the awesomest. We're gonna sing some Carmina Burana, the Bach Gloria in Excelsis Deo (assuming we manage to get it right by then because gosh it's hard. Also it doesn't help that there are two soprano lines so we make less progress in sectionals than every other voice part and then we get in trouble for not knowing the music. Yeah.). Also we're gonna sing some other songs that I don't really know, and the Hallelujah chorus, which is really fun.
Anyway the point of that was to say if you just so happen to be near MIT on the evening of November 20 you should definitely come to hear us, because we rule at everything in the world (except singing Bach. Which we will hopefully rule at by the time of the concert.)

2) The parenthetical remarks in that announcement took up around half of the text. This is a mark of bad writing! Avoid it like the plague! (The plague avoids all marks of bad writing!)

3) I survived my first round of tests at MIT and didn't fail any! Congratulations to me!

4) I'm getting pretty good at swimming, and the swim teacher said our class would go in the deep pool in a week or two. Aren't you all so proud?

5) Gym classes at MIT go by quarters, so swimming will end pretty soon and we get to take a different class. Wanna know what I registered for?
...Fencing!!
(Now I can impersonate Sulu except with a shirt! I'm so excited! That is totally not the reason I'm taking the class! My frequent use of the word "totally", like, totally makes me sound like a valley girl!)

Updating Periodically

Captain's blog, stardate 2719.5....
Did you know that all of the Enterprise's bridge crew can have their names spelled out with elements from the periodic table, but Scotty and McCoy can't? Now you know!
I shall show you, and alternate colors between different elements.
We have: CaPTaIN KIrK, SPOCK, CHeKOV, NYOTa UHURa, and HIKArU SULu. Bonus points to Uhura and Sulu for having their full names. Bonus points to Spock for having the only name spelled with just one-letter elements. Bonus points to Kirk for being Kirk. McCoy doesn't work at all, but BONeS does. Scotty doesn't even come close.

Now it's time for Star Wars!
LuKEsKYWAlKEr (Yes, I know it's cheating to push the two words together, but it was the only way. Besides, Han Solo, Leia, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Darth Vader don't work at all! I had to get someone in! And also, I'm proud of myself since this is such a long name.)
PAlPAtINe
CHeWBaCCa

It takes a while to get started with these, but once you figure it out, it's elementary! *ducks rotten fruit* Yeah, sorry, that one was really lame.

Hey look! A post that's not about Star Trek!

Captain's blog, stardate 1027.4....
No Star Trek-centric post today, I promise. I had a chem test on Monday. I did OK on it, not great but not bad either. I never do all that amazing on assignments or tests. Then again, I don't really care what my grades are except in math, so that would explain a lot.

Tests remind me of a good topic for you all to be aware of: test-taking superstitions! I'm very superstitious, but only for fun. All my superstitions are ones that I came up with myself, so you can reassure yourself that I'm not blindly following others.
How to Have Good Luck on Tests
1) Put a small braid in your hair, and (preferably) pull the rest of your hair back. I shall illustrate.

That picture is from me being Anakin Skywalker last Halloween, but it demonstrates the proper hairstyle. The braid is traditionally worn by Jedi padawans to designate their status. It's good luck because it means the Force is with you. The Force is very useful on tests. Particularly physics tests (I'd apologize for making so many jokes at the expense of physics, but it's their own fault for using every letter and a whole bunch of common words to stand for things...)






2) Wear a yellow shirt!
There is actually a sliding scale of which shirt colors are best to wear on a test day. Yellow is best, followed by green, blue, most other colors, and finally red. Red shirts should be avoided at all costs. If you have ever seen the original Star Trek series, you know why. (The people who die always have red shirts. Well, almost always, there are a couple exceptions.) Yellow (and, on occasion, green) is the color of Kirk's shirt and he is one of the luckiest individuals ever. Blue is worn by science officers and thus is probably helpful on science tests, though I haven't tried it.
3) Eat apples. This is a brand new one that I made up only yesterday. It does not have a source, it's just because I like apples. A lot. Actually, if you do want a source, watch the new Star Trek movie. Kirk is eating an apple while he takes the Kobayashi Maru exam. (He passes. Duh.) Therefore, by application of incredibly flawed logic, apples will help you pass tests!

Well, I didn't lie when I said this post wasn't about Star Trek, cause it wasn't. It was about superstitions. I never said I wasn't going to mention Star Trek, now did I?

Aaaaaaanyway, got a whole lot of homework to buckle down to. See y'all later.

I Have Been Assimilated

Captain's blog, stardate 8239.2....
Being assimilated into college life takes a while but I think I've done a pretty good job. Just ask my mom because she came to see me today and it was amazing. She said I was doing great and everybody missed me, and we walked all over Harvard Square and all over Boston and talked to each other and had a totally awesome time.

She even helped me plan my lesson for SAT Prep tomorrow. I'm going to be focusing on vocab questions so she suggested I talk about important prefixes to know and how to break words down so you don't need to memorize too many. I picked out some practice questions from the study guide and also made up some of my own which were way more exciting than the book ones. To wit:

1)      The means in which words are ----- on the SAT creates the impression that the test-writers are trying to hide -------.

(A)   Concealed .. bias      (B) Obscured .. obscenities         (C) Presented .. solutions             (D) Divulged .. profanity        (E) Explicated .. comprehension

[The correct answer is B. And the sentence is totally true. It looks like all the sentences were full of curse words and the test writers hid them with dashes.]

2)      The dispute over whether Kirk or Picard was a more ----- captain has raged for decades, ----- fans and turning them against each other.

(A)   Efficacious .. consolidating          (B) Inept .. abetting        (C) Competent .. polarizing         (D) Mercurial .. mitigating    (E) Mundane .. petrifying

[The correct answer is C. By the way this is a very important point of contention.]

3)      The SAT is quite ----- and  features pointless questions which fail to test ------.

(A)   Paradoxical .. ingenuity         (B) Intriguing .. perspicacity         (C) Inadequate .. perusal              (D) Abominable .. prescience  (E) Deficient .. aptitude

[Answer: E. This is completely and utterly true. Even I admit it and I teach test prep for the stupid thing. At least I get to use lots of vocabulary words, which is fun, so it's not a total loss.]

But I know when you all read the title of this post you were hoping for Borg references. Well, I shall not disappoint! Enjoy two of the lamest Borg jokes ever invented, by yours truly.

Q: What do you call a Borg who beats around the bush?
A: Circumlocutus of Borg.
[Circumlocution is a cool word. In related jokes, a Borg who speaks very clearly would be Elocutus of Borg.]

Joke #2 coming right up:
The Borg assimilated a high school student who ended up having to take physics. At first he did very well thanks to the knowledge of the rest of the Collective. However, when he took a test on circuits, he did very badly. The first question was "What is the voltage across a resistor in a circuit?"
The Borg's answer was:
The voltage is the product of the square of the current across the resistor, the inductance, the electric field, the force on the circuit, the potential energy, and the time elapsed.
Voltage = (Current)(Resistance) = (Current)(FUTILE) = (Current)(Force)(Potential Energy)(Time)(Current)(Inductance)(Electric Field).

Many thanks to physicists for assigning every letter in the alphabet to some physical property or another so that my horrible physics joke could exist.

Coincidences

Captain's blog, stardate 1893.2....

What do you know? Turns out I do have some entertaining news to share with you! Guess I was just too tired before to remember it.

Anyhow. Coincidence #1: On Sunday, I was eating my supper in the dining hall, as per usual. I had a salad, which is nice because I like salad if it's not just lettuce and dressing. So anyway, I was eating my salad and thinking that there was a pretty good variety of food in the dining hall. I was comparing it to the food at home and noticed that there had never been any hamburgers in the dining hall, whereas we have those every so often at home. So I was thinking "Hmm, I wish there would be some good hamburgers for supper around here..."
And then, the very next day, that's what was for supper in the dining hall.
They plan these things out more than a day in advance, so either whoever decides the menu predicted what I would want to eat on that particular day, before I even knew, or...the dining staff plants subconscious suggestions in the minds of everyone who eats there so that they'll want whatever's on the menu! How insidious!

Coincidence #2: This one doesn't involve evil dining hall staff. Also, the setup for this one is really long but totally worth it. So, I was tired today (as you might have noticed from my previous post's lack of coherence) and during math the professor was taking a long time to set up a problem that wasn't that hard (he was trying to explain the physics behind it). Hence, I got distracted and started to think about really random stuff. Namely: the similarities between Harry Potter and Star Trek, in particular the 2009 movie (because I'd been thinking about that movie earlier in the day). Seriously, think about it. Kirk=Harry, Spock=Hermione, McCoy=Ron, Nero=Voldemort. So I got to wondering what would happen if the Star Trek characters re-enacted the plot of the Harry Potter series. I was just wondering who would take on the more minor roles. In particular, I was wondering about Viktor Krum, who has to be involved with Hermione (Spock), which led me to think maybe he could be Uhura.
Now, most Harry Potter fans could tell you that Viktor Krum is famous for using a Quidditch move called the Wronski Feint. Just as I was thinking this, the professor introduces a concept called...a Wronskian!!
I kid you not.

Isn't that awesome? By the way, if you have more Star Trek 2009/Harry Potter correspondences, leave 'em in the comments.

Busy, Busy, Dreadfully Busy

Captain's blog, stardate 8172.4...
Well, I finally remembered that I'm supposed to be updating this blog. I guess that's a good start. If I had anything to say, that would be an even better start. Let's see what we've got.
Had a physics test on Monday. Had a math test on Wednesday. Had two problem sets and an English paper due today. Have a chemistry test on Monday. Have lesson plans to come up with for the SAT prep class I'm teaching. How the heck one is supposed to teach reading comprehension I have no idea. Guess I'll be figuring that out pretty quickly.

If I keep up this style of posting I'll have to invent a new label, Whining. I hope it doesn't come to that because nobody wants to hear me complain about how college is too hard and all that nonsense.

Oh right! I can talk about what we're doing in classes. Well, in physics we're just starting capacitors. The professor had a 100mF capacitor that he charged up, and then when he released the charge it blew up a wire, which is pretty cool because hey, explosions! Mindless destruction is always enjoyable!
Our chemistry class started out learning about electrons. Then we learned about atoms. Now we're going to learn about molecules. I make it sound like I'm in third grade here instead of college but if you want me to be more official, we learned about orbitals as solutions of the Schrodinger equation, radial probability distributions, electron distribution, and periodic trends. I believe that sounds impressive enough for the time being.
In math we have learned how to solve first-order linear differential equations using integrating factors and about autonomous equations, stable/unstable equilibria, and phase lines.

Oh, by the way, just so you know, I have a life outside of classes, which consists of singing, trying to stay in touch with everyone back home, and avoiding writing my blog. Oh, and eating when I remember to do that.

Since this was a really boring post, have a funny video I found floating around on the Internet.

Shopping

Captain's blog, stardate 7384.2...
Yes, I went shopping! Well, not really. But I did buy something, so that sort of counts as shopping. I even get bonus points for it not being a book! Truly, I live up to the stereotype of the American teenager.

The day started out normal, if you call writing an English paper normal. It is normal for me, and here's why. You can tell if something is normal to a vector by seeing if the cross product is at a maximum. No school-related task makes me as cross as writing papers, so the cross product is maximized. Therefore writing papers is normal to me.

Anyway, I finished the paper and decided to take a walk down to Harvard Square. It's about a mile away, nice walk, the weather was great, so why not, I figured. Everything was pretty nice. I got some ice cream and ate it on the way back. Then I stopped in at a store called Pandemonium to read some D&D player's handbooks. Player's Handbook 3 was really cool, and I still didn't have it.

I bet you all think you know what happened next, don't you? But you're wrong. I didn't buy the book. If you were paying attention up top there, you'd remember I said I didn't buy a book. I put it back on the shelf and went upstairs to leave.

And then it caught my eye. The words "Star Trek" in bold white letters. The USS Enterprise blasting an asteroid with its phasers. Resistance was futile.

A brightly remastered image for each month. All the lettering in that familiar title font. Birthdays already marked down for the members of the original cast.
And in between June and July, a stunning two-page spread:

I needed it, and I needed it bad. Barely thinking, I handed over the money and brought it proudly back to my room.

And that is how I, Elizabeth, went shopping on a Saturday afternoon. I don't regret it a bit.

Stuff that Happened Recently

Captain's blog, stardate 8294.3...
It seems that in my excitement over getting to write about Star Trek, I forgot that the point of my blog is to talk about what's going on.

Well...I'm really busy. I have a physics test on Monday, a math test on Wednesday, an English paper due Thursday, and a chemistry test a week from Monday. Also, I still have problem sets to do for chemistry and physics. So that kind of stinks.

On the topic of math, I don't think we've had a Quote of the Day from my math professor yet.
"The logistic equation can be used to model population growth, or the spread of a disease, or chemical reactions, or some other disease, like how many people are playing FarmVille on Facebook."

On a different, completely unrelated topic, I didn't get any work done last night, because my dear friend Elena was visiting colleges and we met up in the evening. So that was lovely; I got to advertise my college and jabber on about physics. Also, I got to help improve Elena's woefully inadequate knowledge of Star Wars and Trek.
Elizabeth: Haven't you seen Star Wars?
Elena: I think I saw one of them, it had the little green guy.
Elizabeth: His name is Yoda and almost all the episodes have him. [Episode 4 is the only one which doesn't.]
Elena: Well, uh, there was this guy who talked funny and I think they went to his planet?
Elizabeth: Oh, Jar-Jar. That's Episode 1. Silly Elena.
She's so awesome, and I hope she comes to MIT because she would like it a lot there. She would have to learn at least the names of the main Star Wars characters, though, because that's just common knowledge.

(Science) Lessons from Star Trek

Captain's blog, stardate 9274.3....
As you all saw in the last post, physics is good science but provides horrible life lessons.
Now let's take a brief look at Star Trek, which can provide good life lessons...but horrible science ones.
This is just a sample, so if you want a full list, go watch the show for Pete's sake.
According to Star Trek...

• A race of creatures which must consume very large quantities of salt to live can survive indefinitely on a planet with no natural sources of salt. (This is from "The Man Trap". The creature in question normally drains living creatures of salt to survive. However, for some reason it couldn't do this on the planet where it had evolved due to lack of salt sources, apparently. The scientist who lived there had to feed it salt tablets--begging the question of how it survived before he got there.)
• Silicon-based life is just like carbon-based life, except it's virtually indestructible and looks stupid. ("The Devil in the Dark")
• Water can somehow be turned into a chain of molecules that behaves vaguely like alcohol, according to "The Naked Time". The best part? This is caused by an imploding planet. No, really.
• It is possible for the Enterprise to fall out of orbit if the engines run out of power.
• Human beings can survive temperatures of negative 170 degrees Farenheit with only small blankets and heated rocks to provide warmth, for extended periods of time. Not only that, even redshirts can do so! ("The Enemy Within")
• A person made of matter can travel to an antimatter universe with no adverse effects, unless the antimatter version of him is also there. ("The Alternative Factor". Then again, the person in question was Kirk, and he tends to change the laws of physics to suit his whims.)
• It is standard medical procedure to carry around 100 times the necessary dosage of a drug known to be dangerous in large quantities. ("The City On The Edge Of Forever", one of my favorite episodes)
• Cells can be any size whatsoever, including several thousand miles across. ("The Immunity Syndrome", "Operation: Annihilate!")
• It is standard medical procedure to use the entire light spectrum when instructed to shine lights on someone. ("Operation: Annihilate!"
• It is logical to have a vestigial set of eyelids, which are not used except in emergencies, rather than simply evolving one thick set of eyelids. ("Operation: Annihilate!")
• ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT IS RED. ("Operation: Annihilate!" once again...did I mention I hate that episode? It just makes no sense.)
• Cells can exist in the vacuum of space and survive by absorbing energy from passing ships. ("The Immunity Syndrome". I think this one could use some extra explanation: There is a 11,000-mile amoeba. Floating around in deep space. It drains the energy from a ship full of Vulcans and tries to do the same to the Enterprise. Doesn't convert the matter to energy, just drains the engines and makes everyone die of exhaustion. No one has been in this area of space before, and the amoeba doesn't move, so this is presumably all it's consumed. Ever. It is 11,000 miles across.)
• All computers can be destroyed by paradoxes. (Pretty much every episode featuring androids or computers.)
• Radiation poisoning can be cured or even prevented by adrenaline. ("The Deadly Years")
• Diseases which cause death within 24 hours somehow manage to infect small numbers of people on a regular basis. ("The Mark of Gideon". You'd think that pretty much everyone who got such a disease would die before they could spread it to someone else, especially since the virus in question was transmitted through blood rather than through the air.)
• Disembodied brains can transmit radio signals. Said radio signals sound like the voice of the person who once owned the brain. ("Spock's Brain", of course. Boy is that one silly.)
• When in doubt, the answer is always ions. If it's not ions, it's antimatter.

There are plenty more delightful science lessons one can learn from Star Trek, but now it's time for me to do some real science.
Quirk out!

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot this one! The episode is "Court-Martial". Kirk has a device that, he claims, will amplify all sounds by a power of.....
One to the fourth! Wow, that's powerful. (The best part: It makes their heartbeats louder, but does amplify their voices, breathing, etc. by a power of one to the fourth.)

Lessons from Physics

Captain's blog, stardate 6968.4....
OK, newsflash! The college that repeatedly told me would have a really intensive workload actually *gasp* wants me to do work! Inconcievable!
I barely got any work done on the weekend, due to a combination of having to do other things and wanting to have a little fun. Now I'm desperately struggling to keep my head above water...wait, that's a bad metaphor because I can't tread water.
ABRUPT SUBJECT CHANGE TO DISTRACT EVERYONE! My physics teacher said the other day: "In cases like this, you have to ask yourself 'what would a positive charge do'?" So I shall ask myself: What Would a Positive Charge Do? The answer, according to physics, is "move towards a region of lower potential".  But everyone wants to have the potential to do great things, so why move to a region of lower potential, especially if I'm feeling positive about myself at the time? According to physics, if I want to move towards higher potential, I'd have to be negative about the situation, which I have tried, and it doesn't work! Curse you, physicists! Remind me never to take advice from you again!
Of course, don't forget that positive and negative charges move towards lower potential energy, so pretty soon I won't have any energy either! (Well, I will, but it will be kinetic energy and I don't need that! I'm a student, not an athlete!)
Let's see what else we can learn from physics, shall we?
a) If a charge (me) is placed in a uniform field, it will move in the direction of the field if it in positive and in the opposite direction if it is negative. This is not true, I'd go towards a nice green field no matter what. It's better than boring old sidewalks.
b) Positive charges are repelled by other positive charges. Not true, everyone wants to be around people who are positive!

Conclusions: Physics is silly and everyone should just stick to math. (It's OK, physics, I love you anyway.)

Still Alive

Captain's blog, stardate 4197.1...
Well hello there. It's 10:30 on Friday night and I just spent two hours doing chemistry homework. Isn't that just a lovely way to spend an evening? (That was a rhetorical question. The answer is "NO, because I didn't even get any math homework done.")

Seriously, they weren't kidding when they said we would have to work here. Sitting here, with 2/3 of a chemistry P-set and all of an 18.03 P-set to (hopefully) finish by Wednesday so I can start my homework cycle all over again, I wonder why I love this place so much. I'm still fairly convinced that I love it here, though. Maybe it's just too much chemistry clogging up my brain, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be someplace else.

Eh, whatever, maybe I'm just really weird. That would explain a lot, actually.

Yay for weekends...except not, because there's always stuff for me to be doing on the weekends which is not my homework, and when I'm not doing said miscellaneous activities I have to do my homework. Amazing how that happens. Although, come to think of it, I had a bit of a weekend-ish moment today, because I didn't even start my homework until around 7:30, which was very irresponsible because it prevented me from getting enough done before I got too tired and had to resort to blogging which is marginally easier than calculating the wavelength of a tennis ball. But the point is at least I had a few hours of doing nothing while feeling guilty about not working, which is kind of the point of weekends.

Unfortunately, though, I don't write very coherently when I'm tired (lucky I finished my English homework a few hours ago!) so I'm going to have to sign out for now. There wasn't much news to report anyways.

MIT Quote of the Day...

(Captain's blog, stardate 5028.8)
"We are not mathematicians, we're physicists. We want to actually solve something in a finite amount of time." --My physics professor

In physics today we learned Gauss's Law, the first one of Maxwell's equations! Since my physics professor is so good, I actually understood it this time around. Physics is so awesome, you should all take it when you go to college. It's way better than high-school physics classes.

Anyway, enough gushing over how ~*AMAZING*~ college is; it makes me sound stupid. Also, it's very rude since no one reading this is in college, and I'll end up making people feel left out. My sincere apologies.

And another quote of the day, from a question the 18.03 class got asked today:
Alice jumps out of a plane with a parachute [we had just learned an equation for this] and 20 seconds later Bob jumps out with an identical parachute. Will they have the same speed at any time before they reach the ground?
1) Yes.
2) No.
3) Not enough information.
4) I don't know.
5) 42.
(I chose "42", by the way. The real answer is "No".)

Procrastination

Captain's blog, stardate 8327.9...
Please note the fact that the title of this post could refer either to the procrastination I'm doing by blogging instead of finishing my 18.03 (*) problem set, OR it could refer to the procrastination I've been doing by not blogging as I promised to. It's like a G-rated double entendre. I don't know the correct term. (See why I'm not an English major? Other than the excellent reason that I go to engineer school?)

(*) 18.03, for the uninitiated, means "Differential Equations". It's faster to refer to classes by their numbers rather than the class name. "Differential Equations", for the really, really uninitiated, means "math".

Oh right, I'm supposed to say what I've been doing! Let's see...I joined two extracurriculars, concert choir and a nerdy a cappella group called the Asymptones. This is, by the way, more than the number of extracurriculars I've been in during my entire high school career. Just saying. But anyway YAY SINGING. I had concert choir rehearsal last night and it was totally awesome. We are doing a concert (gasp! Who would have imagined?) sometime, I don't really know when, and we're going to sing a Gloria by Bach and some Carmina Burana, which is nice because I have the Carmina Burana CD so I can practice. The soprano line in one spot has a high C; it's so crazy and awesome at the same time. By the way, I can apparently sing a high C now, because I did at my audition for the Asymptones, which makes me crazy and awesome at the same time! (Not to mention egotistical, given the sentence I just wrote.)

Anyway, classes are going well. I have three problems left on my 18.03 p-set, so I'll probably finish it tonight. It's due on Friday...time management skills for the win! It's so amazing, we have to do work here! In high school, I never had more than an hour or so of homework, so this is really refreshing. (Somebody once compared studying at MIT to taking a drink from a firehose. Well, firehoses are refreshing. I rest my case. (See why I'm not in law school?))

Oh, and how could I forget, proctoring the SAT diagnostic for the SAT prep class I'm going to be teaching. (Yes, I have a job. Only on weekends, though.) On a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is fascinating and 10 is watching paint dry, this was OVER NINE THOUSAND. If boredom could be used to power machinery, I could have obliterated the planet with the Death Star laser after proctoring that stupid test.

See, the test is as long as an SAT, which is about four hours. "Well, heck," you may say. "That's not too bad. I've taken the SAT, and it wasn't that boring." Well yeah, if you're taking it you have test questions to answer, and that gives you something to do for at least a third of the time in each section. "But I've spent way more than four hours in precalc, and it wasn't that boring." Precalc is only 45 minutes at a time. "But I've...uh...been in a ridiculously boring meeting for four hours, and it wasn't that boring." Well yeah, because you can just zone out for a while and think about D&D. Or even sleep, as long as you look like you might be awake. Or doodle in a notebook. If you're proctoring, you can't do any of those things, because you have to write remaining time on the board every five minutes. So you can't really even think about something else, because you'd get distracted and not write the time punctually. Thus, four hours can be spent watching a cell-phone timer count down, while getting up every five minutes. Doesn't that just sound thrilling?

I feel so sorry for high school teachers. They go through that all the time, and I never stopped to think how awful it might be.

Other than that, though, I love this place!
Quirk out, for now.

More Classes!

Captain's blog, stardate 2643.3...
So. Yesterday I had classes. Maybe I should talk about that. Righto, here goes.

I got to sleep in, because my first class (math recitation) isn't till 11am. Some of you high school kids might not know what recitations are. If you do know, go to (*). Else, continue reading. (I have a tendency to think "else" instead of "otherwise". Too much time messing around with calculators, I think.) As you probably know, most introductory classes are very large. To make sure everyone can keep up, the class gets split into recitation groups. Each group has its own recitation, typically taught by a grad student/TA. During recitation, we review what went on in the lecture, get questions answered, and do practice problems.

(*) Good for you, you know what a recitation is. So yeah, I had math recitation, and it was pretty cool but kind of silly because what we did in class was mostly review, so we reviewed review. (If you analyzed a theater critic's writing and then went over what you'd written, you'd be reviewing a review of a review of a revue!)

Right afterwards was chemistry recitation, pretty much the same deal of reviewing review. It will get better though.
I have swim class right after chem recitation, so I rushed over to the sports center and asked where the entrance to the pool was, only to find out that phys. ed. classes don't start until next week. Yay.
Then I had Shakespeare class in the afternoon; we are reading The Tempest and have to finish it by Tuesday, so that should be fun! An excuse to do some reading! Oh gosh, I'm going to have to write English papers eventually....
I auditioned for the concert choir and got in, so that should be extremely fun.

And that's pretty much all that happened yesterday (other than me doing problem sets, which you probably don't need to hear about.)

*Sneak peek at what's happened so far today*
"Physicists are like babies; they still smash things together." --My chemistry professor

What my college tuition is paying for: Hundreds of Ping-Pong balls, to be thrown at styrofoam balls suspended in the air as an imitation of the Rutherford gold-foil experiment!

Chem professor: *does calculations* Based on the number of balls which rebounded, the radius of the styrofoam balls is 1cm. It's amazing, it comes out right every year.
Everyone: Yeah, when you do all your calculations with 1 significant figure...

Me, thinking: If we still had IDs called OSIS Numbers, like in high school, then my ID # would be a MITOSIS munber!

Classes!

Captain's blog, stardate 2384.6....
So. I should probably be doing homework right now, but I just did some physics so I'm in a relatively good mood. I'll probably buckle down and work on chemistry for a bit after I post this.
Chemistry? Yeah, chemistry! I know I said before I was taking biology, but as it turns out that didn't work with my schedule, which is great for me because I don't even like biology. I'll have to take it next term though. Woe is me. Who cares, though, as long as I get to take physics, math, AND chemistry all in the same term?
Allow me to recount for you the dramatic events of my first day of MIT classes. To further immerse you in the narrative, this will be written in the present tense. To give me a chance to have some fun, it will be written over-dramatically and in stilted prose. (Just thought I should warn you.)

7:51 AM. Thunder crashes outside the window I fortuitously closed last night, waking me before my alarm clock gets the chance. I peer out the window with still-blurred eyes, to see rain pouring down outside. (This is an auspicious beginning for the day. After all, children born during storms in stories are often marked for some greater destiny. Why not those who start college during a storm?) Combing through my mind to try and remember where I put my umbrella, I prepare myself for the day ahead. Where are my notebooks? I realize to my shock that I have none. Check the schedule again. There will be time between physics and chemistry.
I hastily toast some bread for breakfast and leave with it; the time between my awakening and my necessary departure seeming to have slipped away without my noticing. The storm has passed by the time I leave my dorm, and the sky has brightened--another auspicious sign; overcast skies usually foreshadow tragedy of some sort.
I arrive at the building of my physics class, check the room number on my "schedule" (in reality nothing more than my hastily scribbled list of classes, locations, and times) and eventually find my way to it. One slight problem presents itself before I even walk in the door: The classroom does not exist. Perhaps one of the students accidentally divided by zero? Idle jokes will get me nowhere. If there were a computer anywhere nearby, I could check the class location online. But no such machine is readily available. Finally I give in to temptation and use the Internet access on my cell phone, a technique normally forbidden as I do not have a data plan which includes the cost of said access.
The risk pays off. I find myself in an underground chamber (the classroom is in the basement) filled with round tables. Already late, I take an empty seat where I can find it.
Then the lecture begins. It starts as nothing of note, logistical announcements and basic review. Then, as an indication of things to come, Maxwell's equations appear on the projector screen. I stare, entranced. Until today, I had never realized how stunning they were, how mysterious at first and then beautiful. Every curve of every integral sign calls out to me. And I realize I've forgotten how much I love physics.

Today physics lasts for two hours. Afterwards, I purchase my notebooks, leave some in my dorm room, and set off for chemistry. Yeah, chemistry. No sweeping equations here, no gleaming integrals, but it's still refreshing in a down-to-earth sort of way. I haven't officially enrolled yet; my advisor still hasn't given me the forms to add chemistry and drop biology. I enjoy the class anyway.
A longer break this time, enough for me to eat and relax in my room for a while. Then comes the high point of the day. (If a math lecture at the end of an exciting day of classes is not the definition of the word "apotheosis", I don't know what is.) Differential Equations, finally. I look at the syllabus. Within a few weeks, we will learn topics I have never been exposed to. Some of these techniques are things I've never even heard of.
I emerge from the lecture hall, euphoric.

(N.B. Euphoric is another of those words which deserves to be used, but not too often or it will lose its meaning.)

Well, hopefully that little narrative satisfies; I have chemistry homework to do.
Yeah, chemistry.

And Some More Updates Without A Clever Title For The Post; Why Can't I Ever Come Up With A Halfway Decent Title?

Captain's blog, stardate 8979.3...
The past few days haven't been super eventful, because Fun Activities at Random Hall, (aka Residence Exploration activities--they are supposed to help you meet people at various dorms and choose the right one, except Random had all the best activities because they are awesome) have ended.
Still, there's probably enough for me to scrape together a post and let all you guys know how I'm doing.
I still haven't starved to death; it helps that my dorm's dining hall was open a couple days this week and *gasp* they serve meat! And vegetables! And fruit salad! And dishes containing more than two ingredients! In short, things way better than anything I can cook! There was corn and broccoli and IT WAS AWESOME.
Anyway, moving right along. I took my 18.02 (multivariate calculus) and 18.06 (linear algebra) placement exams a while back. I didn't study, so I had to make up the formulas for surface integrals and the Gram-Schmidt orthonormalization formula, so when you learn those be comforted by the fact that I can't remember them for more than two seconds at a time.
Somehow I passed anyway, so I'm taking differential equations, which I've been hoping to learn for a long time. When I was eleven, I had a little book with stuff to fill out (just for fun), like what my favorite color was, what I did with my friends, etc. One of the questions was "If you had one wish, what would it be?" and I put "That I would learn differential equations". No world peace, no cure for cancer, just differential equations. Goes to show that I was pretty selfish at eleven, not to mention ridiculously nerdy. I also put down that my favorite video was "Calculus lectures" and my favorite song was "Freight Train Gets Lorentz-Contracted", which I had made up the words to. Told you I was self-centered back then. (By the way, if you'd like to know how that song goes I'll give you the lyrics).
Anyway, I digress. What else happened...ooh! We registered for classes! Besides differential equations, I'm taking 8.02 (second-semester physics--somehow getting a 5 on both the Mechanics and Electricity/Magnetism AP Physics exams gets you placement out of...mechanics! You still have to take E&M! If you don't pass both, you have to take mechanics! I do not understand this at all, but I don't really mind since I forgot everything about E&M anyway.) Also I'm taking intro biology (it's a requirement to graduate, so I figured I should just get it out of the way) and, for my humanities class, Shakespeare. Freshmen here are only allowed to take four classes so we don't overwhelm our poor little brains. Oh, we're also allowed to take physical education, so I'm doing a beginner's swim class since I'm relatively incapable of swimming and you have to either take a swim class or pass the swim test to graduate.
Well, that's about all the exciting news I have to report for the moment.
Oh wait! Make sure you read my "About Me" blurb, cause I changed it a few days ago!
Quirk out!

Keys

Captain's blog, stardate 2653.5...
Time for an amusing story. By which I mean amusing to people who are not me because I do not find this story amusing in the slightest.
So this evening I eventually decided to make myself some supper, which is Elizabeth-language for "spread hummus on a slice of pita bread and eat it". This was accomplished without much ado. However, when I went back to my room after finishing my "meal", a slight problem presented itself. As you might have already guessed from the title of this post, said problem was that my keys had vanished.
Now, I have two keys on my keyring. One opens the door to my room, which locks itself automatically when closed. The other opens the lock to my cupboard in the kitchen, where my utensils, plates/bowls/cups, and dry food is stored. So without my keys I can do pretty much nothing.
Understandably this was quite distressing to me so I ran around looking in all the places where I could concievably have left my keys while in the process of getting my food. Purse? No. Refrigerator? No. Countertop? No. Garbage Can Where I Threw Away One Small Piece Of Plastic? No. At this point the only place I could think of that I hadn't checked was inside the cupboard. Which I had already locked.
I then proceeded to do the following:
1) Try to cut the lock with scissors (this obviously failed)
2) Run downstairs and borrow the spare key to my room from the front desk
3) Desperately search my room (split infinitives! Yay!) for a spare key to the cupboard lock, which I seemed to recall having.
4) Fail to find the cupboard key and despondently return my room key.
5) Remember where I put the cupboard key, rush downstairs, borrow the room key again, and take the cupboard key out of my room.
6) Open the cupboard, only to discover...my keyring is not inside!
7) Pray desperately that I will remember someplace my keys could possibly be, since they're obviously not anywhere I could possibly have left them.
8) Search everywhere again, including desperately checking inside pots I never touched to see if someone could have hidden them.
9) Discover my keys! Where were they so cleverly hidden from sight?

...In my jeans pocket, of course. Where I had put my keys on several other occasions and never forgotten to look.

And thus I prove my complete and utter lack of common sense for the 2,718,281st time. I feel like I'm on some bad sitcom or something but am still not deriving any amusement out of this.

However, in good news, I'm listening to the Star Trek: The Motion Picture theme, which is definitely one of my favorite pieces of music ever written, and definitely the best part of the movie. (The second-best part of the movie was that it showed some very pretty shots of the Enterprise accompanied with the majestic music. The third best part of the movie was that it said "Star Trek" in the title. The fourth best part was that it ended.)

And A Few Days Later...

Captain's blog, stardate 8426.4....
I have somehow survived for several days without my parents being around to provide for my every need! Of course, the fact that there's plenty of free food during orientation week helps. As does the fact that my mom went grocery shopping with me before returning to the world of People Who Aren't In College. (It's kinda weird to walk around and see only people of my approximate age. There are adults working and stuff, but if I walk around I see about 50 college kids, maybe a couple adults, and no young children at all. It's slightly disorienting.)
Well, now that I've congratulated myself on my remarkable survival skills, I suppose I may as well talk about what it is I've been surviving, which is not a huge amount.
Let's see...when was the last time I blogged about anything...aha! On Friday! What have I done since then? Heck, I don't know, I'm ridiculously tired. Classes haven't started yet, in fact, registration hasn't started yet. Just orientation activities.
Speaking of orientation activities, on Thursday, when I arrived, I didn't know activities had already started, since not everyone was required to have checked in until Friday at noon. So I missed out on my favorite activity of all time: Nerdy Singalong! Basically, this is the coolest activity ever invented in the history of mankind. (In other news, I ADORE hyperbole. Or maybe you'd noticed?) When I visited MIT for the admitted students' weekend, it was the high point of the entire weekend. Why? Because 1) singing is awesome, 2) nerdy songs are twice as awesome as any other songs. But I missed it this time around.
However! On Friday evening, I was eating a free meal at one of the dorms and talking to this guy who was sitting across from me. (Yeah, I was being sociable! Crazy, huh?) Conversation approximately as follows:
Me: Yeah...I can't believe I missed Nerdy Singalong!
Him: What does one sing at a nerdy singalong?
Me: Oh, lots of stuff. Let's see...we did "White & Nerdy" of course, "I Will Derive", "Finite Simple Group of Order Two"...
Him: Finite Simple Group of Order Two?
Me: YOU'VE NEVER HEARD IT??
Girl who lives in the dorm: YOU'VE NEVER HEARD IT?? *pulls out computer and plays the YouTube video*
Me: *starts singing*
And thus began my own personal Nerdy Singalong, since I missed the real event. But the best part is yet to come! We were all having a great time and I was singing really enthusiastically, so this guy who lived in the dorm asked me if I wanted to join his a capella group which sings nerdy songs! So I gave him my email address and he told me he'd let me know when they were holding auditions! So maybe I'll get to sing those songs more often. Wouldn't that be lovely?
Did I do anything exciting on Sunday? Not all that much. I went to Random Hall, of course, because we're allowed into all the dorms during orientation (for activities) and Random is the best of all the dorms. They have fun activities every day and I try to go to as many as I can. After orientation, we're not allowed in dorms other than our own unless we're on the guest list of a resident, but a guy I met at the impromptu singalong said he'd put me and my friend who didn't know Finite Simple Group of Order Two on his guest list.
Oh right, I did do stuff on Sunday! There was Convocation and stuff. Convocation was basically us sitting around and listening to speeches about how we could change the world and we're supposed to make the most of our time at MIT etc. etc. etc. It was slightly boring. (I'm not averse to a bit of understatement at times, to go along with all the hyperbole. Say, if using hyperbole makes you hyperbolic, what does using understatement make you? Parabolic? Elliptical? No, wait, elliptical would be if you used too many ellipses. Heck, I don't know.) Also, we had to take a math diagnostic to help with placement for a physics class I'm not taking because I already placed out of it. But the test was mandatory.
And then today I took a placement test to try and get out of multivariate calculus, which I doubt I'll be getting out of but it was worth a try. I kind of made up all the space integrals because I couldn't remember how to do them. But I did wear a Captain Kirk shirt for luck, and he's pretty lucky, so we'll see.
Oh, and there was a TARDIS on the dome today.

Family, This One's For You

Captain's blog, stardate 7284.3...
It's quiet here in my dorm. Very quiet. And I like it, for right now, but I'm going to miss you. And I know (or at least my inflated ego makes me think) that you'll miss me too.
So I'm going to say why I'll miss you.
Stephen: You are always adorable, even when you're yelling at me. I love your invention book and all the creative things you come up with. I love your smiles and all the funny things you say (even if you get mad on occasion when I laugh at them). I love how you're always coming up with new ideas. And I love to hug you on the occasions when you let me.
Maggie: You always look up to me and try to get in on whatever I do. I shouldn't get so annoyed about that. You're always so sweet, so cheerful, and so generous. I love the times when we're being silly together and come up with a really funny song or a great idea for a project to do. I love working on comic books with you, even if you never do get yours done and I can't draw to save my life. I love the little presents you make for people at just the right times. I love how you are always around for me when I need you. And I love your enthusiasm and the way you're so kind to everyone.
Mary: Oh, Mary. How I wish you didn't have ballet preventing you from coming to Boston with me. You're one of the best friends I have. I have so many memories of playing Harry Potter and Star Trek with you, and even occasionally Star Wars, even though you hate it. I have the picture of the Enterprise you drew for me on my dorm room wall, and the certificate promoting me to Admiral in my desk drawer. I love how we can have so much fun together whatever we do. I love the fact that if I listed our inside jokes, the list would fill pages upon pages. I love your bright, cheery smile and your laugh. I love how you come up with things ten times funnier than anything I've ever though of, on a regular basis. I love how we're rivals in Trekkieness and could keep chatting till the cows come home. I have been, and always will be, your friend. Live long and prosper. (Spock, Wrath of Khan...but of course you already knew that.)
John: It's been so much fun playing D&D with you, these past few weeks. I love how you tell me everything at your school which could be interpreted in a remotely geeky way, and how we laugh about it together. I love how you let me act like a two-year-old and don't care. I love how we used to have lightsaber fights, and how ridiculous we made the Star Wars characters when we played. I love you, even when you frustrate me, and even when I think you're disgusting. And nothing can make me stop.
Dad: You and your UFOs. Half the time I think we have nothing in common, and the other half I think we have everything in common. I love how you valiantly tried to learn math so that you could talk to me about that. I love how you listen to me blather on and on about eigenvalues, even when you don't understand a word of it. I love how you used to tell me a story every night, and how now you read to the little kids before bedtime. I love the conversations we had on the way back from choir, before I slipped into taciturn adolescence. I love how you've read everything I've ever heard of and then some. And, naturally, I love that you introduced us to Star Trek! That's always important.
Mom: I saved you for last. You are always there for me, always. Whenever I'm upset or confused, you're the one I turn to. You've helped me so much over the years, with everything from writing to socializing to doing the laundry. I love the nights out we used to take, whether down the street to Starbucks or off to watch a show we bought High 5 tickets to. I love how you've always found me the resources I needed, and how you've solved problems I never even imagined could be surmounted. I love your patience and practicality when I'm frustrated and in a panic. I can never thank you enough for all the things you have done for me. I remember when I was in fifth grade and practicing essays for some standardized test. You gave me the topic to write about someone I found inspirational, and I wrote about you. If I had that assignment now, I'd write the same thing again.

I love you all, with all my heart. And I am certainly going to miss you.
All right. Enough with my sentimental prose. I'll see you all again.

These Wonderful Past Few Days

Captain's blog, stardate 2856.4....
I was going to finish that last post on the bus, but I didn't have time.
Now I have time. (I AM AT COLLEGE NOW PEOPLE) So prepare yourselves. This won't be too detailed, hopefully.
After I got back from Six Flags, I...

• played D&D with John and (supposedly) Maggie, but I ended up being her character for most of the game.
• saved copies of our character sheets on my laptop so we could play D&D when I come back for Christmas break.
• Had a readthrough of our Star Trek musical (which I finally finished) with all the kids. It features 6 episodes from the original series (two from each season) and all the movies (with the exception of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, in which nothing happens for two hours while awesome music plays. They later used the theme from that movie for the Next Generation credits.)
• Set off with mom, Maggie, and Stephen for Boston, bidding fond farewells to the remaining members of the family.
• With Maggie, made up a song about "The Bridge Crew Who Don't Do Anything", which features characters from TNG. (Sorry TNG. *pats Picard on his shiny bald head and is told to get off the bridge*)
• Decorated some stickers on the bus. I wanted to put a picture of them, but I forgot to take one and don't feel like doing it now. Suffice it to say they leaned towards the nerdy side.
• Saw a truck which said "Rand-Whitney" on it. Why is this something you should care about? Because Yeoman Rand, a character in several early episodes of Star Trek, was played by a woman named Grace Lee Whitney. After a quick Internet search, I can report that the company Rand-Whitney was founded before Star Trek came out, so this is merely an amazing coincidence.
• Stayed with my mom's friend for the night. Maggie and I shared a room and tried our best to gossip about boyfriends.
• (Today) Went to the Boston Children's Museum, where I acted like a little kid for a couple of hours. It was extremely fun.
• Was given a smooth rock by Maggie and named it William Gladstone.
• Checked into my dorm at MIT, where I am at the moment. I have a room all to myself! My Star Wars poster is hanging proudly on the wall as I write.

Now you're up to date. This post may have been lacking in Sparkling, Witty Prose (TM) but it serves its purpose. Coming up next, one for my family.

Six Flags

Captain's blog, stardate...uh...3251.8. (Completely random numbers now.)
I'm on the bus to Boston and noticed that I have been quite remiss in my blogging duties. I plead with you to have mercy on me.
At any rate, are you ready to hear about Six Flags? No? Too bad.
I went to Six Flags on Tuesday with my dear homeschool friends Rachel and Erin. It was supposed to rain, so the park was nearly empty and we got to go on almost all the rides we wanted to. I say "almost" because it did rain resulting in all the rides being closed for quite some time. By the way, if you ride a roller coaster in the rain, it's kind of fun sometimes, but if you're going fast enough the rain really hurts your face, as we learned the hard way. But it was a great day. We rode Kingda Ka twice (Erin, being more patient, got to go three times), and it was quite exhilarating. (I was going to say that "exhilarating" is a word which should be used more often, but that would make it less meaningful when it was really needed. Kind of like inflation, but with words instead of money.)
While it rained, the three of us played those games where you shoot the target to win a prize. Only three people were needed to play, and there were three of us, so we got a prize every time. Erin got a stuffed whale (she's obsessed with whales) but I got something much better.

A PLUSHY KIRK!!!!!!
HE'S SO SOFT!
HE'S SO PLUSHY!
HE'S SO ADORABLE IN EVERY WAY!

And they even put the right braid on his sleeves! I checked!

Something to Blog About

Captain's blog, stardate 1618.0...
I need to keep in the habit of blogging so that I'll be able to do it for when I'm at college.
However, not much is happening! How to resolve this dilemma?
My options:
1) Blog about something none of you really care about, thereby practicing my blogging skills but alienating all of you guys.
2) Don't blog about anything, thereby getting in the habit of not blogging and alienating all of you guys. It would, however, give me a chance to do math homework or work on my Star Trek musical.
3) Post a link to something cool, which is done on other people's blogs occasionally, thereby not practicing my blogging skills, but still making it seem like I wrote something. But I don't have a link to something cool. Perhaps one of you will think this is a cool link. (My mom is gonna be confused.)
I doubt that got me out of my blogging duties, so let's see if I have any other options.
4) Blog about what is happening in my life right now, which is nothing super-exciting until I leave for college on the 26th. However, trying to make something funny which is actually quite mundane could be a good exercise in writing.
5) Find some way to crash everyone's computer until I come up with a good topic for a post, so that they won't notice I didn't post in the meantime. (I'm grasping at straws here.)
6) Post a bunch of links to addictive websites (TvTropes, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) so that you will be sufficiently distracted to not think about whether or not I've posted. This has the advantage of not being illegal like #5.
7) Find something cool to do, then do it, then blog about it. (I'm going to Six Flags on Tuesday!)
8) Discover the secrets of the Long-Distance Jedi Mind Trick and convince all of you that I have, in fact, posted something interesting and informative. (I just rolled a Bluff check on an online die-rolling simulator and got a 20...so that might have actually worked...)
9) Come up with a convincing sob story to explain my lack of posts, thereby getting out of posting for a while without alienating you. Alternatively, pretend that I will be without Internet access for a while due to circumstances beyond my control.
10) Come up with a long list of options, explained in a hopefully humorous tone, and pass it off as a blog post!

Ooh, let's see if I can come up with a Limerick Summation!

There's nothing cool for me to say
Because nothing cool happened today
Instead I'll explain
Which choices remain
And end up with a post anyway!