August 22-September 12
So, my three weeks in a college-like setting... It was very fun though I expected more from my math problem solving class. Just did the basics, though good, not what I wanted to sharpen my skills to reach higher. All the afternoon workshops were important, but not too flashy or noticeable for me to remember, except that one the first week. There were may moments when I was glad that I wasn't too defensive of myself or of other people. On tuesday in that first week, we went to a presentation by the Q (Q standing for queer, questioning, etc.) Center, the place to go for any racism, sexism, genderism, homophobia, stuff similar to that. At first, it didn't strike us that we were in this sort of presentation. It just popped out of no where and we were pretty shocked. The first half hour or so went along smoothly, mostly due to us being in shock. Then downhill from there. More questions arose, people were getting agitated, and someone stood up... lets just say if we stayed there as long as we were suppose to (got out about half an hour early), someone would be seriously hurt.
Most of our afternoons during the second and third week were changed from going to two or three workshops (one during lunch when we had three) to one or two workshops and a lab. The second week we were split among four different labs, one for LSAMP and the other three for engineering. My lab was in the Electrical Engineering building (very nice building by the way), but what we did wasn't. We did something simple with E. coli, stretching the DNA to see the cuts in it.... not too sure if that really was what EE people do, but we did get to see a robot hand play the piano.
The first weekend was pretty cool though exhausting. We woke up at 6 on saturday morning to take a bus that was 40 minutes late (suppose to be here at 7). Then a long bus ride to the ferry where we just missed it and had to wait two more hours for the next one (had fun during this time). We make it to Friday Harbor Lab and explore around the lab. Pretty nice place to be (had more fun with my roommate, Kelly, and other friend, Ang). Then back to the ferry and miss it again so add two more hours of wait time. Had food and looked in an awesome toy shop before the ferry came. Finally got back around 10 or something like that. Sunday wasn't as intense but we had fun at Pike's Place.
Third week lab was totally different than the second week lab because we were in groups of three or four and we were spread around the campus (LSAMP still had the same as the week before). I finally got split up from Kell and Ang cause I was with in the previous lab. I was in the Mechanical Engineering building working on ME stuff. Our professor was pretty cool and he had us do something that was both relevant and fun, not that doing stuff with E. coli wasn't, but it held my attention. We tested (or tried to anyway) the tension that Bamboo can hold and the compression it can take. The objective was (or should I say the question of the Prof. was) can a bike made out of bamboo hold a person and not break. He wanted a bamboo bike and was wondering if it was worth the price. It was. We proved it. Lab done.
This weekend wasn't too bad, just watched The Proposal and Ponyo with Kell and friend, E. Saturday we walked on the Ave. and then to Northgate with the boys, Ang and D-mon. Had a bit of fun there cause I had a Cherry Coke on the way over. Sad how low my tolerance is for caffeine and sugar. Was going to go clubbing, but thought that being safe and watching a movie is better than getting potentially jumped. Was fun anyway.
For today, I stayed up until 4 am, woke up at 11 am, and stayed in the dorm room when the fire alarm on the 5th floor went off.... and we're on the 4th floor.
