BEER BIKE IS GOOOOD

Beer Bike is advertised as being better than Christmas, your birthday, and all holidays combined. I wouldn't go that far, but I would say that (as I said above) Beer Bike is gooood.

Ordinary people build up to Beer Bike with Willy Week. It's a week of jacks and parties and fun, theme-related activities. However, engineers build up to Beer Bike with a week of exams (three), reading (maybe a few hundred pages), and problem sets (INFINITE).

I got to have a bit of fun during Willy Week, including:

• going to a jacks (pranks) meeting (though I didn't get to actually carry out any of the jacks, I helped plan all of them!)
• playing Contagion (game starts and everyone is human except for one person, zombies can infect humans by hitting them with a sock, goal is that all of Brown is a zombie by Beer Bike)
• balloon filling
• Knife fight light brite tight kite white flight Night Bike! The best part was the parade of Brown cars driving to Greenbriar and being COMPLETELY OBNOXIOUS. We blocked all inner loop traffic and heckled Valhalla. 
• 28 Days Later. Possibly my favorite zombie movie. Ever.

Brown had 96 of these

Then today, the big day, the stacks started playing and the shouting started at 5 am (people get really excited about this). Here on 8th we made pancakes and watched Zombieland (possibly my second favorite zombie movie--ever). Down in the Brown quad we had a team of makeup artists making us look zombiefied (though I declined to be zombied (other than my awesome zombiefied Beer Bike t-shirt)). 

Bonus points to anybody who catches the Princess Bride reference in this photo.

Then it was time for the water balloon fight. The only way to describe that event is LEGEN--wait for it--DARY. It was a two part event, and Brown most definitely dominated.

Then after that, the actual event of Beer Bike actually started, the results of which shall not be discussed here, though I would like to point out that Brown had two bits of very bad luck (flat tire and wipeout!) that resulted in our loss of the top spots in the men's and women's races. But more importantly, we got 2nd in the alumni race! Yaaaay, Brown!

Almost the entire time at the track was spent eating pizza and yelling mean things at the other colleges/dorm/GSA, and what better way is there to spend a Saturday?

In conclusion, [see title].

Journey to the Center of the... Wetlands

Because it's midterm recess, I really need to be studying for my differential equations test Monday I have massive amounts of free time, so I decided to take a bike ride to the Wetlands yesterday. There were a few factors that made this an interesting journey:

1. I don't have my regular bike with me. I was left to extricate something two-wheeled from the depths of our garage in order to get there. I'm not a bike snob, but I ended up on the purple 18-speed that I got for Christmas when I was 10. Again, not a problem, except that it's made for someone who's about 5'2" and the back brakes don't exactly... work. 
2. There was a school group at the Wetlands when I got there. So I was that sketchy person walking around alone and generally just being disruptive. At least they were high school students.

But it was nice because the area had a torrential downpour last week, so the Wetlands were, for once, wet. 

Look at how I included the rusty pole. I'm so artsy, man.

So this picture is kind of almost legit.

And... that is all, I guess.

(Ha ha, that's exactly how they told us not to conclude during the lecture over presentations in engineering class. But I guess now I haven't concluded that way because I included this witty and engaging anecdote to leave my audience feeling both informed and entertained.)

I couldn't think of a title so I decided to leave it blank, but then I decided to give it this title instead.

The weekend started out fantastically with a spontaneous trip to Galveston! After class Friday, we decided on a whim that hanging out on the beach could take precedence over studying, so off we went. (It probably would have been better if we had made this spur-of-the-moment decision an hour earlier--leaving at 4 put us right into traffic!) By the time we got there, we were all ravenous, even though it was only 5:30, so we went straight for Gaido's. I think our waiter was a little appalled by how quickly we devoured the bread--though, to be fair, it was really really good bread. We were the epitome of class while we were there--we took pictures of ourselves using the little finger-cleaning bowls and one of our party knocked over the bottle of oil as we were leaving. We then spent a bit of time on the beach in front of the seawall reading our respective novels. (I'm in the middle of Catching Fire and it makes me want to see The Hunger Games even more!!) When it started to get dark (and a bit chilly) we drove down to the Strand (and miraculously found parking) to visit La King. It was very difficult to resist all of the candy and ice cream and dessert, but they had an espresso bar, so I was able to get that instead. (Elisa and I are planning a return trip after Easter.)

This afternoon was the party/group interview for the potential co-advisors (students from other colleges who want to advise at Brown) thrown by Brown O-Week. I contributed in the best possible way: brownie cookies! We played a few fun games with the co-advising candidates (Ships & Sailors and Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament) and acted out a little O-Week skit for them. I'm getting more and more excited for O-Week every day!

One of the best things about this weekend is that we finished our first prototype for ENGI 120 (see this post). May I present... THE KOOLOOKAMBA 9000 (beta)!!!

It's not much to look at, but man, is it going to take those giraffes a long time to eat out of it!

This prototype is due Tuesday, so we were very happy to finish today and not have any all-nighters ahead of us.

On a slightly related note, I found out this weekend that Associates' Night (Associates' Night: noun A fancy dinner thrown by Brown college to honor the associates each semester (Brown Associates: noun Faculty and community members who have chosen to be affiliated with Brown College)) is 

1. MASQUERADE THEMED. As in a masquerade ball. As in the best theme ever. I wanted this for three years for high school prom and now I finally get it! And I have a mask from Venice I can wear :)
2. ON MY BIRTHDAY. So just magnify everything awesome about Associates' Night by 100. 

Pi Day

Pi Day is one of the more underappreciated holidays in the United States. Rice handles it pretty well, if I may say so. I believe there was an intercollegiate (as in Baker vs. Will Rice vs. Hanszen vs. Wiess vs. Jones vs. Brown vs. Lovett vs. Sid Rich vs. Martel vs. McMurtry vs. Duncan) pie-eating contest. There was also an abundance (OVER 9000 2000 (2012 to be exact)) of mini-pies (Tortitas? Hmm, nope, that seems to mean "pancake.").

And it  was somebody's birthday, which meant my first trip to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. General impressions:

• there are so many people in the real world (SO MANY (THEY'RE EVERYWHERE))
• fair food is expensive (strawberry lemonade + roasted corn)
• that Ferris wheel may look like it's "not too far," but it WILL take you 20 minutes to get there
• I think I've ridden this before... like, back when AstroWorld existed... and I think they were closed in cable cars or something (am I making this up, Mom?)

Because there's a lot of skiing in Houston, TX. 

• live music is so much better than iPod everything else
• they always play the most famous song at the end
• and everyone will have a mini heart attack when they start it
• and I still can't believe they were there in real life and I was in the same (admittedly very large) room and they played If I Die Young...
• you have to pay attention to whether you want to go north- or south-bound on the metro
• most people at Rice have never seen mutton bustin' before. NEVER. SEEN. MUTTON BUSTIN'. But we've rectified the situation. 

Fight Club

There are three rules of 8th Floor Girls' Fight Club:

1. Challenges must me emailed to Sam.
2. Challenges must occur in the study lobby with an audience of at least 3 floor members (and Sam).
3. Successful challenges must be won by forcing opponent on their back on the floor (or beanbag when available).

I'm ranked number 6 pre-season, but I think I can finish out at 2 or 3. 

BRING IT ON.

ENGI 120

This class is quite a bit of work. My group--called team Koolookamba--is working with the Houston Zoo to design a new giraffe hay feeder. The old one does not work. Problems:

• the poor little giraffey-waffeys can get their ossicones (horns) tangled up in the netting
• the giraffes eat the feeder (yes, eat the feeder (not from the feeder))
• the giraffes eat all of the food out of the feeder really fast which causes stress because their natural feeding time is 12 or more hours in the wild so then the giraffes start compulsively licking the fence of their enclosure and pacing and it's a form of psychosis and WE HAVE TO SAVE THE GIRAFFES

Ahem. So my team is working to fix these problems. We begin prototyping this week, and tonight was our Fabrication Workshop (= learning to use a saw and a drill. I am simply swimming in knowledge) in the OEDK. The idea was that we would build a launcher for a Hot Wheels car. Fortunately Unfortunately, the laser cutter was broken, so all we did was cut 4-inch pieces of wood and screw screws into the side of them and we got out an hour early because we couldn't finish the project without the laser cutter. Not going to lie, I was happy to get out early since I WILL NEVER USE A HOT WHEELS LAUNCHER ANYWAY. I was very disappointed that we did not get to finish the project, because I spend a lot of time playing with my Hot Wheels and if I had a launcher I would defeat everyone in the Hot Wheels Club.*

* The preceding sentence is positively dripping with sarcasm.

Spring Break

Last week was spring break! I had an incredible time! A few numbers

• number of travelers to New Mexico: 16
• number of travelers from New Mexico: 17 (we picked up an extra)
• number of hours in the car: infinity (just kidding--the trip was probably 16 or 17 hours each way, plus travel time to our various locales)
• number of drivers: 14 (and thank goodness)
• number of pages in the liability waiver: 2 (two too many, I'd say)
• days skiing: 3
• number of hospitalizations/emergency room visits: 0!!!! (SUCCESS)
• days visiting Steve and Laura: 2
• games of Mafia played by the group: another infinity here (but seriously, we spent at least 4 hours in total playing Mafia on this trip)

We skiied at Sipapu, which is a pretty small ski area in northern New Mexico (about half an hour from Taos). The small size and odd timing meant that we mostly had the mountain to ourselves for the first couple of days, so that was good! 

Saturday

We left Brown at around 5:30 Saturday morning so that we could hope to get to our hotel before midnight (and this is with an hour's advantage). The car ride mostly consisted of a lot of sleeping and a lot of singing. We had one scare with one of the cars "running out of gas," but everybody made it to the fuel station just fine. :) 

Sunday

We went to visit Steve and Laura at their house (which was BEAUTIFUL). It was more a work of art than a house, and I now have a new life goal to live in a house like that. Steve led us on a fantastic hike up La Mesita, where we hiked up to the saddle (the place where the rocks collapsed thousands (millions?) of years ago.

Full disclosure, I didn't take this picture. Stolen from facebook. :)

The backyard of Steve and Laura's house. 

To me, this looked exactly like a topographical map. 

The view from the saddle of La Mesita.

Monday

Skiing began!

Again, snatched from facebook.

Most of the group was in lessons, but a few of us went up the mountain and started working on the blue trails. I, unfortunately, had a fit of my usual grace (ahem, meaning clumsiness) and fell and hurt myself. I took the afternoon off, though, and I was ready to go on...

Tuesday

More skiing! It was snowing this day. But this was not the light, fluffy, perfect snow one would imagine. Nope, it was more like pellets. Little hard icy pellets that sting your face as you're skiing. But, on the bright side, the snow meant we had a lot of fresh powder to work with!

Wednesday

The last day of skiing. Probably six of those who had been beginners at the start of the trip had already moved on to black slopes. I was impressed--I've never done a black slope in my life, and I've skiied thrice! It was a great end to the skiing portion of the trip. We were all exhausted enough that we might not have made it to a fourth day.

Thursday

We got to visit Steve and Laura--again! Some of us took the high road to Taos, and we stopped at a few churches along the way, including the two at Chimayo. They were so old, it's hard to believe they're still standing. Later that afternoon, a group of us went into Taos to peek in all of the schmancy art shops. We inadvertently discovered 1) a bookstore with two real live cats just hanging out (not to mention plenty of excellent books 2) a cat-themed coffee shop and 3) that the parking lot of the Taos community center is the most happening hang-out in town.

Thanks, facebook.

I think that's the Rio Grande.

As seen from the road to Taos.

St. Frances of Assisi Catholic Church just outside Taos.

In front of St. Frances.

Friday

The drive back. It was snowing when we left, but our Qualified Snow Drivers handled it beautifully and we were off the mountain without a hitch. We had one adventure on this leg of the journey: the Great Burrito Quest of 2012. Let's just say that one should not always trust an iPhone when the iPhone in question claims that the town of Madisonville, Texas is home to a Chipotle. (After that little fiasco, our food-choice privileges were revoked and the other cars took over.) 

I had an excellent time on this trip, and it was wonderful to get to know some new people from Brown. Here's hoping for a repeat next year! :D

Hello!

Hello to all of my fantastic readers! (I suspect there will be at least three of you. Maybe even five if I include jokes.) I will be updating the blog soon (but I warn you, it may be mind-numbingly boring. One can only post so many entries about Physics 102). Enjoy!