Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Prosecuted to the Full Extend of the Law
I have a perfectly decent reason for not posting yesterday. We were playing Mao again at 10 last night, and it occurred to me that I had my physics midterm this morning at 8. Whoops. Don't worry...you all know me well enough to know that if I wasn't already prepared for it I would have remembered it sooner. I've been doing my homework and reading the book - neither of which are required, might I add - and I have a good understanding of everything we've done so far. So there. I was even allowed to have a 3x5 card with equations and whatnot on it. The test went well, except that my instructor had written it the night before and we were the first class to take it, so we were the ones to discover all the errors. Towards the end of the hour he'd write something on the board along the lines of "#12 should read 'increased by 5 m/s' rather than 'decreased by 5 m/s'." And I'd have to redo the problem. Oh well, I'm pretty sure I did well.
Not much went on yesterday for me to discuss here other than the fact that all of the band people I met last weekend invited me to go to dinner with them after rehearsal. We went to Light House (again...ugh!), and then to the arcade in the university union, where we played DDR (which, to their surprise, I wan't horrible at). I had to go to VG's at 8 to meet with my intro to music theory group so we could discuss the piece we have to compose. We agreed that we would compose it later. I got home around 8:30, where it was suggested that we play Mao. And I already told you about what happened after that.
Okay, so I was pulled over by a cop for the first time today. But let me argue my defense. You can see me in my tiny little Honda Prelude, driving down the 101 going the speed limit (more or less). Not too difficult to imagine, right? Yeah, I was on my bike when it happened. I "rolled through" a stop sign. The cops were parked just around the corner, with a big stack of tickets in hand, to give out to every kid that went through there this morning. In the 45 seconds that the officer was writing me up, 4 more kids ran the stop sign. (And yes, I actually counted.) The cop also asked to see my driver's license...what is that about? I don't know...the whole situation is kind of annoying but I can't argue with it. I am only getting a warning though, so no fine. (Hooray!) But, really, the spot they had picked was a pretty trivial one to nail people on. I was turning onto a street that's not open to traffic - it's only for pedestrians and bikes. And it's not realistic to ask bikers to come to complete stops at all stop signs. If you come to a complete stop on a bike, you fall over. Grumble grumble grumble. So yeah, that's that.
One more story: I went to the university cashier today to drop of my housing payment that's due in a few days. I saw as I walked in a box marked "deposit fee payments here" but I wasn't sure if that was where they wanted me to put the check or not, so I decided to go up to the window and ask the lady working there what I should do. Now, my experience here has been that all questions like this annoy whoever you're asking because they get asked the same questions over and over again. If you look at it logically, a lot of people asking the same question probably means that the question is a perfectly valid one. And really, when I ask a question like that I'm just trying to save whoever I'm asking from having to correct my mistake. So anyway, I went up to the window and asked if I was supposed to put my check in the box. And she told me, quite cheerfully, that I could drop it in the box or I could give it to her if I wanted a receipt. I was shocked. The woman was in such a good mood and it was such a big change from what I expected that it put me in a good mood for most of the day. It's always a good feeling when you come across people who want to help you and who don't treat you, a freshman, as a helpless fool.
So that's what I've been up to the last couple of days. Oh, I did go to an informational meeting about study abroad programs. I can either pay an affordable amount of money to go to London for an entire year to take courses in my major that will count here at Poly, or I can pay more tuition to stay in London for a semester and take GE courses that I don't need for graduation. The former keeps me abroad for too long, the latter keeps me in college an extra quarter or two. So I'm not sure...we'll see I guess.
And that's what I've been up to. I think. Well, if I come up with anything else I'll be sure to let you all know.
Josh
mood: good
music: Alfred Reed's "Armenian Dances"
location: dorm
Not much went on yesterday for me to discuss here other than the fact that all of the band people I met last weekend invited me to go to dinner with them after rehearsal. We went to Light House (again...ugh!), and then to the arcade in the university union, where we played DDR (which, to their surprise, I wan't horrible at). I had to go to VG's at 8 to meet with my intro to music theory group so we could discuss the piece we have to compose. We agreed that we would compose it later. I got home around 8:30, where it was suggested that we play Mao. And I already told you about what happened after that.
Okay, so I was pulled over by a cop for the first time today. But let me argue my defense. You can see me in my tiny little Honda Prelude, driving down the 101 going the speed limit (more or less). Not too difficult to imagine, right? Yeah, I was on my bike when it happened. I "rolled through" a stop sign. The cops were parked just around the corner, with a big stack of tickets in hand, to give out to every kid that went through there this morning. In the 45 seconds that the officer was writing me up, 4 more kids ran the stop sign. (And yes, I actually counted.) The cop also asked to see my driver's license...what is that about? I don't know...the whole situation is kind of annoying but I can't argue with it. I am only getting a warning though, so no fine. (Hooray!) But, really, the spot they had picked was a pretty trivial one to nail people on. I was turning onto a street that's not open to traffic - it's only for pedestrians and bikes. And it's not realistic to ask bikers to come to complete stops at all stop signs. If you come to a complete stop on a bike, you fall over. Grumble grumble grumble. So yeah, that's that.
One more story: I went to the university cashier today to drop of my housing payment that's due in a few days. I saw as I walked in a box marked "deposit fee payments here" but I wasn't sure if that was where they wanted me to put the check or not, so I decided to go up to the window and ask the lady working there what I should do. Now, my experience here has been that all questions like this annoy whoever you're asking because they get asked the same questions over and over again. If you look at it logically, a lot of people asking the same question probably means that the question is a perfectly valid one. And really, when I ask a question like that I'm just trying to save whoever I'm asking from having to correct my mistake. So anyway, I went up to the window and asked if I was supposed to put my check in the box. And she told me, quite cheerfully, that I could drop it in the box or I could give it to her if I wanted a receipt. I was shocked. The woman was in such a good mood and it was such a big change from what I expected that it put me in a good mood for most of the day. It's always a good feeling when you come across people who want to help you and who don't treat you, a freshman, as a helpless fool.
So that's what I've been up to the last couple of days. Oh, I did go to an informational meeting about study abroad programs. I can either pay an affordable amount of money to go to London for an entire year to take courses in my major that will count here at Poly, or I can pay more tuition to stay in London for a semester and take GE courses that I don't need for graduation. The former keeps me abroad for too long, the latter keeps me in college an extra quarter or two. So I'm not sure...we'll see I guess.
And that's what I've been up to. I think. Well, if I come up with anything else I'll be sure to let you all know.
Josh
mood: good
music: Alfred Reed's "Armenian Dances"
location: dorm
