Caltech

Thanksgiving

This weekend was the first weekend that I went left Pasadena since I went to the UCLA vs Oregon football game in October.  After basketball practice Thursday morning I headed down to San Diego to spend Thanksgiving with a friend in the Navy.  Being from Alaska I had never used public transportation before and was surprised at how easy and cheap it was.  It cost me just 33 dollars to go round trip from Pasadena to San Diego. I spent a day down there before heading back up Friday afternoon. The four day weekend was a nice break from all the school work. For the first time all semester I finally feel caught up in all my classes. 

This weekend, aside from being the weekend of Thanksgiving, was the last weekend that interhouse was allowed to stay up.  So Sunday night all the frosh (or 5 of us because everyone else was to lazy to) went out to take down all the walls and floors we built for interhouse.  Through the use of sledgehammers, chairs and many other throwable objects, we were able to take a structure that took a month to build, into a heap of wood in about an hour. Despite all the nails sticking out of the boards no one was hurt at all during the demolishing of the structure. 

Interhouse

This weekend was the interhouse party that we have spent the last month making.  The theme was Wild, Wild, West and we created many props to fit it.  Unfortunately, my camera is out of order right now so I will have to explain how it looked.  The entrance to the party was shaped like a mine shaft and was darkened with a smoke machine clouding up the entrance.  Once through the mine shaft, the walls were all painted to look similar to buildings from the time.  Connecting two roofs we had a bridge with a large train crossing.  Finally, the main draw to the party, aside from the free food and dance floor, had to be the mechanical bull.  The party truly started once the bull got up and running.  People lined up all around it watching and waiting to get on (the actual wait was never long though. Most people got on in a couple minutes). Alas, our freshman class could not take credit for the mechanical bull since the house president was the one who actually made sure it was at the party. 

The party was scheduled to be from Saturday night from 9 pm to 3 am. Like most parties though it did not really start until around 10:30 or so. It was called an hour early  due to Pasadena noise disturbance laws.  It wasn't a big deal that it ended early, because most people had already left and gone to bed by this time anyway.  In my slightly biased opinion, I thought it was the best party we have had here (which means better than the last two).  Now all that is left to be done is the deconstruction of the interhouse which is supposed to take most of this week. After that I will be done with interhouse responsibilities.

Third Eye Blind

This last Saturday night, Third Eye Blind performed at Caltech. They started off with some of their older, more famous songs like "How its Going to Be", "Jumper", "Never Let You Go".  They then went into their new songs which I had never heard before.  This made me think that they were really new, until I found out that the album had been released for a couple years.  They were alright but nothing beats their earlier stuff. Then towards the end they sang the lyrics to other popular songs with their own rock beat. Their 'remix' that received the best reaction was "Ride Wit Me", originally by Nelly.  The whole crowd started chanting in.  I believe that is the part that I got on tape. During a break I decided to head out and record a little bit of it just for you guys. Here it is. The lighting is terrible and I apologize for that.  I was unsure of how to adjust the lighting on the camera to make it better. Even with that, I blame the camera. It can't be my fault right :) I tried my best.

The End of Midterms

This weekend was the official end of midterm week.  The week seemed to take forever with all those tests, problem sets, basketball practice, and interhouse building that needed to get done. Friday was the worst day of them all though.  The chemistry and CS midterm were both due that day. Plus, we had our first basketball scrimmage that day (we ended up keeping it close but we lost) so I needed to have all my work done by 4 pm. It was close but I managed to finish all my midterms by 3:50 pm.  I tend to procrastinate a little bit.  After this strenuous week, I needed a break so I decided to not do any school  work until Sunday.  This turned out to be a poor decision, because I started too late and ended up staying up until 6 in the morning to finish it all.

The week ended with the Ibiza party, which was on Saturday night.  This helped make for a fun night filled with music, dancing, and my personal favorite, free food. It started at about 9 and went until a little past midnight. Not near as many people went to that one as the Halloween party and it was a little more mellow as well.

Interhouse is only a week away now.  I'll bring out my video camera and show you the finished product later this week.

Finally I would like to add a little part on how awesome the weather is here.

Its been in the 70's and sunny consistently.  I am still wearing just a shirt sandals and shorts.

In Wasilla its been near freezing and it has snowed already.  My family is wearing their winter coats.

Freshman and Core

First I'd just like to say Hi to all you out there taking time to read this blog.  Reading this means you are probably trying to decide where to go for college.  Deciding is difficult and is one of the biggest decisions that you will ever make. So here I will try to describe a little about freshman life and the classes that you will be taking.

First here's a little bit about myself.  I'm from Wasilla, Alaska (yes Sarah Palin's hometown) and commercially fish in the summers with my dad.  I played football, basketball and soccer in high school and after my senior year was convinced I'd get a good football offer after going all-state both sides of the ball. I didn't get any offers to play football-just walk on- from an ivy league school or any other d-1 school so I decided to go to the best academic school I could. I applied around and this was one of the schools i got accepted to.  After growing up with many cold winters the idea of heading to Pasadena sounded great so I accepted here over, Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell and some of the other Ivy's without even visiting.  Most people who get accepted head to Prefrosh Weekend which is a great indicator of whether or not you will enjoy Caltech.  Everyone here that I have talked to loved it.

Now here is a little about what I've been doing the last couple weeks.  All freshman start off with the core classes which are in chemistry, physics, math, and a humanity study.  These are the mandatory classes that you must take.  What is great about this is that it helps to level the playing field for all backgrounds.  Since its pass/fail it doesn't matter the grade as long as you pass so your gpa doesn't take a hit because you went to a poor high school. Kids with better backgrounds will have an advantage early, but after the first terms of freshman year everyone is learning new stuff.  By then it wouldn't matter if you went to the top high school in the nation or an Alaskan public school. 

The upperclassmen keep telling me this but its frustrating.  I have never spent so much time on work.  My roommate (btw you get to pick your roommates after being at the school for a week so you don't have to worry about rooming with someone you don't like. Plus there are single dorms) has had no trouble so far and has had to help me on almost every assignment. 

Now a typical day for a Caltech freshman will start at around 10 or 11 am.  Here you will have your first lecture classes in chemistry, physics and math.  This will take you to about noon.  You then get a break before starting up the afternoon classes which are a little more sporadic.  All of them end at 4 though which is the designated time for all athletic activities to take place.  I am on the basketball team and for those of you that have seen Quantum Hoops (the movie about the teams struggles) we are hoping to create a happy ending since the conference losing streak is still going strong.  We haven't won a conference game since 1985. But i digress back to the schedule once maybe twice a week you will have a class late at night.  This will go until 10 pm. By then you head back and work on homework.  If your my roommate you're done by midnight maybe earlier but I am normally up until 2 or 3 finishing up.  This is not unusual as there will be many people up still working at this hour. Plenty of time on the weekend to get rest.