Of course, the actual midterm-taking was not terribly exciting. I did study for them... a bit, so I felt pretty confident I could achieve at the very least a passing grade. This term I only had two midterms and a quiz (Physics 1b Analytical only gives a few quizzes and a final), all of which were due either on Monday or on Tuesday. Turns out the Physics quiz on special relativity was relatively much harder than we were all expecting. At this point, I'd say quite a few of us are banking on pass-fail in that class. Makes me wonder how it's going to be when we're on grades a little over a month from now. The Chem and Math midterms were not too bad, though I've heard they graded extremely hard on Math- guess I'll find out when pick that up on Monday.
Due to midterms, all my classes except for physics and my chem lab cancelled any homework due last week. And as I mentioned above, all of my tests were due in the beginning- so I had lots of free time during the second half of the week. You know the feeling where you have been working hard for a long time and then quite suddenly you have no work to do at all? Well, without a chem set due Friday, one could witness dazed and confused frosh wandering through the hallways searching for something to do.
For myself and a few other frosh, that something turned out to be ice-skating. In a real rink on real ice this time! (If you have not been reading my blogs, the undergraduate Social Team had organized an ice-skating event in one of the school's parking lots. Except it wasn't real ice, but some sort of plastic. Quite disappointing, let me tell you.)
So anyways, a few of us had decided we at least wanted to go, but at around 7:00 pm (the rink was open from 7:30-9:30 for cheaper) we still did not have a ride… Somehow I had been appointed with the task of driver-finder, and I had bee at track practice before dinner from 4-6:30.
I got one ride secured pretty quickly from an upperclassmen who likes to skate. But on my round around the house looking for rides, we had acquired two more people to our four-person group, which totaled seven including the driver. I was up for attempting to fit us all into one car, but the fact that the one car was a Mustang, and also that Pasadena police are very strict convinced everyone else to play it safe. We searched for another driver until around 8 when we decided we might as well take two trips to get there, and our gracious driver obliged.
It was pretty fun when we (finally) got there. We played some tag and raced once on the ice until one person fell and we realized it might not actually be the best idea to mess around in a crowded ice rink. I also skated backwards for the first time! Just not very fast… And we were all being showed up by some little girls jumping and twirling around as they practiced figure skating. I maintain that they aren't fearless… they just have a shorter distance to fall.
Speaking of falling, I had a few close calls by the end of the night, but it wasn't until the very last minute (and I'm being literal here, THE last minute) that I completely wiped out. It was kind of fun sliding across the ice though, and I didn't get too banged up.
Overall, it was a good trip, and ironic that I had more time and was more relaxed during midterms than any regular week.
-Teo
