Exploring CMU

This was originally going to be a post about my "normal" routine here at CMU, but yesterday some of my dormmates and I went exploring campus on a quest for the suicide staircase (actually called Architect's Leap, although it's in the mathematics building). Seeing as random pictures around campus are far more interesting than pictures of my daily life, I decided to post the pictures from around campus. And then of my daily life.

But first we must start at the beginning of the story...Manasi and I were playing chess in the GSH lounge on Friday afternoon (Manasi's first game! It was exciting). Sruthi and Jewel came in and watched for awhile before saying that someone needed to win soon so that we could go to dinner.
Apparently someone had a craving for German food, so we took the 54C downtown to a place called Penn Brewery. It just so happened that they were celebrating Oktoberfest there. Luckily we managed to get into the restaurant to eat some of the extraordinarily delicious food.
Here's a picture of our group that was taken with Manasi's camera. From the left is Sruthi, Manasi (who knows some German), Daniel (who is fluent in German), Jewel, Leonel and myself.
After we got back we decided to go exploring but Jewel got distracted by the pool tables in Scotland Yard, the game room in the UC basement.

Manasi and I got bored of watching them play pool, so we went to the CFA building and I got to hear Manasi play the drum set. She's taking a 3 unit course in drum set this semester. It's awesome. She's awesome.

Then we met up with Sara and Jewel again and went off in search of the mysterious staircase. We ended up in Margaret Morrison. No staircase.
We were dejected until I discovered the joys of spinning benches. These would be happy, spinning people.
Then we went to the drama building but only succeeded in being awed by the Crew projects. The leaves in the window are a part of one of my dormmates' projects.

The drama building also has indoor spinning benches. (You're allowed to act like a 3rd grader when there's no one but your roomies around).
Then we finally found Architect's Leap in another building (Won't say which one here, it's a secret. Visit me and I'll take you there, if that's any incentive):




Mission accomplished, we decided to continue walking around campus.
Hammerschlag Hall is a beautiful building. I have lab in here.
Wean, on the other hand, is not so breathtaking. What is with CMU and random, somewhat ugly sculptures?



Wean does have giant white boards, though. That makes even my roomie happy.Wean also hosts the largest lecture hall on campus. I don't know how many seats it has because it has benches.
One of the bulletein boards in Wean. If you ever need to find something to do on the weekend, chances are you can find it here.
Hammerschlag was our next stop. Besides being breathtaking, it is also great because it hosts the only $.50 soda machine on campus.
Entering Roberts Engineering Hall:


Jewel: "This looks like a nursery!" At the bottom of the stairs in Roberts was an electron microscope. You know you're with a bunch of freshmen students when they get excited at the sight of an electron microscope so close to them.
We had to get a picture.
The lounges in Roberts are really nice.
So are the posters mounted on the walls.
If the stuff left at the bottom of staircases was up for grabs, I would have a new computer as well as an electron microscope in my room right now.

Speaking of rooms, here's mine. I rearranged the furniture recently so my hair wouldn't get caught on the hooks on the underside of my bed, but now I hit my head on the frame instead.



Now that you've seen the inside of my residence, here is the outside:

Literally.

This is the study lounge:Here are what some of my classrooms look like. I'm in this lecture hall every day for either ECE or Calculus, in this case for Calculus. The guy in the white shirt is Professor Handron, by far my most entertaining professor.
This is the view from the seat where I hang out between ECE lecture in the aforementioned hall and my Calculus recitation in Hamburg Hall. Soon this will be the Gates Computer Science Center.
Behind the seat. It's the Newell-Simon atrium. Around the corner is the robot receptionist.
I do study.
Hammerschlag Hall again. It's the only building on campus that looks great no matter what the weather. The morning of my Calculus exam the sky behind the tower was red, purple and orange. The same night there was lightning behind it.
My lab station in Hammerschlag.
The view from my lab space. On the right is the Cathedral of Learning and towards the front is the power plant.

The robot that my lab partner and I are building. It doesn't look like much, but we're working on it.
And, as always, studying hard. Have a good weekend everyone!

Balance

Time has been flying past so quickly that I find it hard to believe that I've been in college for nearly a month already. It seems like yesterday that I first got here, and yet as I settle into a groove I feel like I've been in college for ages. Tuesday was the first time that anyone mistook me for a sophomore or junior. Apparently I have a certain level of confidence and look like I know what I'm doing.

That's not to say that life here is easy or that I do know everything. On the contrary, I feel like I'm one of the few people who knows nothing. In Intro to ECE my partner and I are the last group to finish our lab every week. It takes hours to do a mere half of the calculus assignments, and most of the time the answers are wrong on the first try. The only confidence I have is in my ability to catch on to concepts quickly if I spend enough time figuring them out. My partner and I spend extra time in the lab in order to catch up to the rest of our classmates who played with resistors and voltage sources as children. I often figure out calculus problems in two or three different ways to check answers and get extra practice.

The resident assistant on the floor said once that work here runs in two-week cycles: for two weeks you have a lot of free time, then for the next two weeks you have lots of homework, psets, and papers due. There has definitely been an increase in the amount of work this past week. Exams are coming up next week (most of my classes have three exams plus a final), so there will be a lot of studying this weekend. I have a calculus exam at 7:30 in the morning next Wednesday. On the same day the first draft of our first major paper in Interp and Arg is due. The next day there is an ECE exam.

Basically, this coming week will be spent in the study lounge, library, and a circle in the GSH Lounge solving circuits using nodal analysis and superposition.

What about this past week, you ask? There must be more to do at CMU than just studying, studying, and more studying, even right before exam week. My answer is yes, there is. I have been doing a variety of activities, including but not limited to juggling, ballroom dancing, running the volunteer table at the Technical Opportunities Conference, eating Malaysian food and carrot cake, marching through Hydroseed, and stopping in to say hi to Sruthi every time her door is open just because she likes the way I say her name with my American accent (and because I like saying hi). GSH has had activities as we normally do every week. We're trying to plan an alternative spring break to Nicaragua, and we had an information session (ie, more like a discussion or forum) about it this week.

As you can see, I am trying to make the most out of my education with a combination of school work and other activities. I have been keeping busy and am trying to budget my time as well as I can. This part of my college career is about finding a balance.

Distractions at 12 A.M.

Today was a great day. Not only was it free hug day, but I got my first package from home (I was hoping it was my calculus textbook, but I like packages from home too). Inside the package was a set of juggling balls, which I have found make the best distraction from whatever Interpretation and Argument paper you're supposed to be interpreting or arguing. I taught myself how to do the simplest form of juggling awhile ago, but I 'm not good at it. Fortunately Kate, one of my floormates, is a great juggler, a fact which has only just now surfaced. She taught me a few new moves today, as well as how to juggle with socks (while she took over my juggling balls). We even put together a two-headed juggler trick!

Even if my night wasn't exceptionally productive, at least, as Kate rationalizes, it was spent developing a skill. Juggling is much more productive than pulling a Figgins and absentmindedly popping wheelies in the wheelchair downstairs.

Sruthi took a picture of my kilt on Saturday. Kilts are awesome. The only downside is that the kilt is made of 100% wool, which starts to smell when it rains. Otherwise, I think band here is great. I love the Kiltie Band, with all its odd traditions and cheers. It is very different than the hard-core, competitive marching band I'm accustomed to, but on the other hand I find the laid-back attitude more enjoyable than I find the crooked lines annoying.

My Kilt and I

I don't have to go to class until 12:30 tomorrow! I think that prospect makes today more enjoyable, too.