My midterm grades are posted! And I am doing so, so much better than I did last term. You know the saying, “Sleep, study, socialize. Choose two”? It’s sadly true. My happier grades this midterm period have been at the cost of decreased socializing [and swimming]. Of course, I haven’t been a complete social hermit. This weekend, especially, was pretty fun-filled:
The weekend started off with an AIChE [American Institute of Chemical Engineers] student-faculty barbeque, hosted at Tom Mannion’s place. This was a great setting for interacting with the chE professors in a casual environment outside of the classroom. I walked to Mannion’s house with my thermo professor! Anyways, it was really relaxing, especially since Mannion has a massage chair in the room that we were all hanging out in… :D
Following this, a bunch of swimmers and I walked over to an off-campus Caltech apartment to celebrate the 25th birthday of last year’s assistant swim coach! He’s a grad student here, and he is a miracle-worker when it comes to improving stroke technique. He cooked a fancy dinner, which I missed, and afterwards, we all gathered and talked. However, the conversation drastically shifted to the topic of research and academia when his grad-student friends came in. The room also became dramatically split in half, with the undergrad swimmers in one half of the room, and the grad students in the other half. On a side note, it came up in conversation that apparently my ACM 95a prof last term, the great Niles Pierce, is really close to curing cancer!
After this, I headed over to Dabney for our second-term Bubbly XIIV for some hot-tubbing. And there’s my Friday night.
Saturday was comprised of going shoe-shopping with Melody and Ying. We went to the Santa Anita mall first, since we thought it would be the easiest to find the shoes we wanted there. However, neither Melody not I could find black pumps that we liked, and Ying couldn’t find any shoes that she liked either. We checked just about every reasonably-priced store: Forever 21, H&M, Charlotte Russe, as well as various shoe-only stores, but we couldn’t find anything good! So, discouraged, we ended up going to the Paseo. Melody found her shoes at a small store there, and both Ying and I bought our shoes from DSW [mine were discounted to just 25 bucks!]. ^_^
Finally, Saturday night ended with Avery’s “Winter Wonderland” Interhouse. The construction was a lot different from typical interhouse parties. They didn’t build a dance floor, as the dancing was done in their dining hall. However, they did build a gingerbread house leading into the dining hall. Also, they had fake snow drifting down!
Here’s a picture of the gingerbread house:
Anyways, that’s it! I'll write soon.
-Jennifer
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