Runnin' from the Po-po

I apologize for the Ke$ha related joke. I shouldn't have done it. I really shouldn't have.

Anyways, this post is dedicated to my bepatched pants, shown above. The word "bepatched" is lifted here from Heart of Darkness, which I still don't really like all that much, even though I am now almost, almost done with it.

Let us also note that the butt of these pants looks vaguely droopy, as, in the picture, I'm not wearing them. This should be taken as proof that I am a fabulously curvy individual, despite the fact that said pants are a size 4 long, and therefore, well, not all that curvy. However, since the buying (I use the word 'buying' loosely, as they were technically free) of said pants, I've gone up a pant size to an absolutely luscious 6 long, and a bra size as well.

I realize that the fact that I am now a B cup is probably one of those things that I shouldn't share. But I am very, very proud of my body for putting its weight in the right place, so I felt the need to express my great happiness.

I am such a teenager.

End Dedication.

Now, we come to the true post, which is "How My Pants Found Their Patches", more or less.

During many of my evenings while at RSI, I played frisbee. (I use the word "evening" loosely, as this was typically between 11pm and 1 am). Ultimate Frisbee is a truly awesome activity, one which I enjoy greatly, despite the fact that I am altogether terrible at it.

Well, that's not quite true. I can throw and catch the damn thing, more or less. I just get winded easily, and I'm terrible at changing directions, so I tend to end up running into whoever I'm supposed to be guarding, which usually results in me getting hurt, because somehow I do that.

Example: that time I was guarding Stratton, a tall skinny fellow who is both taller and skinnier than me, and he stopped moving, and I kept moving, and his forehead hit me in the chin and I had this really annoying tender spot right where I'd started stroking when I was thinking (thank you, Dawson, for giving me your weird ticks), and it was rather uncomfortable.

On this particular evening, I was running late to frisbee. I don't quite recollect why; this could have been the night that I tried to explain tampons to Zsa and Grace, or I might have just been doing something less interesting, like talking on the phone to Rube. Regardless, I was late, so I went walking along the fence looking for a Way In, which I couldn't find.

I past Hyunmi (female, pronounced 'Hummy') and Maxwell walking the other way, and they told me the gate was locked, so I went to the far corner, where the dirt looked soft, and pulled myself up and over the fence, a feat which, while slightly annoying, was not altogether difficult, and I landed comfortably in the grass on the other side.

I jogged past Livny, Jasmine, Stratton, and others, who were playing soccer, and, presumably, enjoying themselves. I joined the frisbee game (I believe I was guarding Luke, who makes an effort despite his perpetual butterfingers). I played for all of two minutes before the soccer players began moving towards us at an alarmingly fast rate. Red lights flashed behind them.

"Should we run?" someone asked.

"No," responded Jasmine. "Just leave. Quickly."

The red lights were, naturally, a police car. Apparently we're not supposed to use the field when it's been locked up.

A small group of us reached the surrounding fence. Tem climbed over first. I swore in my head, but made an effort to scramble up. When my barefoot feet proved incapable, Dawson gave me a boost. I got on top. Looked down.

This time I swore out loud. The ground was very far away.

"I don't think I can get that far."

"I'll help," said Tem.

I looked at him, incredulous. "I highly doubt you'll be able to catch me."

"We'll do it like chicken. Have you played chicken?"

"Yes, okay, sure."

He stepped closer to the fence. I tried to get down, only to discover that I was stuck. I performed a very awkward (and trying, for someone with my minimal level of upper body strength) push-up maneuver, then sat myself Tem's shoulders.

"Okay," he said. "Now, get down."

"How?"

He paused, considering. He was, after all, over six feet tall, and I was, of course, quite clumsy. Dropping me backwards would be inadvisable, and his head was in the way of a forward leap.

"Okay," he said. "I lean forward, you hop off. Good?"

He started bending before I could respond. I dismounted, rather inelegantly, before falling into a still-more-inelegant heap on the ground. He helped me up.

During the time it'd taken me to unstick myself, Dawson had already vaulted over, and the three of us joined the rest of the group in walking back towards Simmons.

My pants felt...not quite warm enough. I checked my butt. All the fabric was still there, but there was a substantial tear on my left back pocket. If I remember correctly, I asked Kris or Jasmine (probably Jasmine, since she's female, but for some reason my memory says Kris) to check it, and he/she declared it "not that bad, and if you'd just stop fiddling with it no one would notice."

We made it back to the dorm, settled around in the lounge that usually contains the ginormous set of jenga blocks.

I sat on one of the couches, ripped pants and all. Livny extracted a deck or two of cards from his backpack. There was some debate about games--the Chinese kids (mostly Andy and Jared) wanted to play President, or Mao, or some other complicated game that they said would be too annoying to teach the rest of it. Livny, however, had the cards, so he won the battle.

He declared that we would be playing "Durak." He then spent about twenty minutes explaining it, then, whenever any of us had difficulty, which was virtually every time we played, he's say "no, really, it isn't that complicated," and his henchman, Stratton, would say "so simple we all get it, yeah?" or something along those lines.

We played for a while. The game, as it turns out, translates loosely to "Idiot." Jasmine may have been the idiot, but I don't really remember.

I was, though, one of the first to be declared "Not Idiot," which is something I'm rather proud of.

First Week is Done

And I am extremely thankful. I will, thankfully, not have to be awake before eight any time in the next five weeks.

I just made my mini-presentation, which I did on how sticky Nutella is, and I am now sitting in the computer lab next to Kris, who appears to be actually doing RSI related things.

The night before last was Meet Your Mentor Night. I got all dressed up so as to make a good impression only to discover that, in fact, my mentor had neglected to make an appearance. I sought out my tutor, Kaylee, who informed me that my mentor is Dr. Bohdan (I apologize if there is a legit person named Dr. Bohdan somewhere out there, because I blatantly made that name up) and that he hadn't been resonding to emails. She advised me to just show up at some point the next day.

So, that's what I did. Yesterday morning, I woke up at 8:30, ate breakfast, checked my email, and went in search of the proper building, which turned out to be converniently located less that one block away from the computer cluster. I found the proper room, and there was a woman sitting at a reception desk. I went up and introduced myself, and she informed me that she was actually someone else's assistant, but that Bohdan's assistant would be there in ten minutes.

I sat down and occupied myself with some engineering magazines (there was a riveting article about designing nanodevices to actively deliver drugs), and about a half an hour later, the assistant finally showed up. I introduced myself, mentioned RSI and the CEE, and she looked vaguely confused and then told me that Bohdan was at his summer home until Tuesday, but that she could make me an appointment then, so I made said appointment before leaving.

I then called up Kaylee, who said she'd come over and sort things out (because Kaylee has a PhD and is thus capable of magically sorting things out). She walked in, all business despite ridiculously tall cork platforms she was wearing, and attempted to find one of Bohdan's students.

The assistant's first assumption was that Kaylee was another high school student who believed that she, too, was supposed to be working with Bohdan, which I found somewhat funny. However, we did get ahold of Chad and Nelson, two of the grad students. They had no idea I was coming, so they called the other grad students, who also had no clue (including the one who, like me, specializes in the many flaws of the electricity transportation system), but declared that this was "typical Bohdan" and that they were sure it would all get sorted out on Tuesday. Then Kaylee left, and Chad and Nelson decided to give me a tour of the lab. Well, Nelson gave me a tour of the lab. Chad got somewhat bored and left after a couple of minutes.

The lab was completely and utterly awesome. There was a random car in the middle that had been opened up, so you could see the engine and all of its component parts. There were also various smaller engines in different locations around the room that Ethan and others were working on. There were types of lights designed to turn on in new ways (I'm fairly certain I'm not supposed to reveal what people are working on via the internet), and a giant lightbulb used to test solar panels, and screw drivers and tools everywhere. Nelson showed me what sautering (I'm sure I butchered that spelling) is, and demonstrated. He works with ultracapacitors, which are pretty much extremely awesome. I think my favorite bit of everything I saw was just the volume of stuff everywhere. Unlike the sterile image of a biology or a chemistry lab, in which everything looks so white and clean and new that one should not touch it (or, at least, that's what they look like on TV), this looked like my garage, but about 6x as dangerous.

I realize that I will most likely end up doing an experiment that is more theory than construction. However, the whole 'building' thing is completely awesome, and Nelson said he'd teach me to do some hands-on stuff if I wanted, and I think that I definitely want, because how can you really engineer anything without getting your hands dirty?

I realize that I haven't really done any engineering yet, and I've barely even touched any power tools, but I think it would be a good idea to learn. I'll have to have Dad teach me when I get home, although I'm a wee bit worried that I'm too clumsy to handle that sort of activity.

But if I can just sit in a room of component parts for all of eternity, I'm not at all certain that I'll care.