Smile (and stifled laughter)

I have to ride a stationary bike for the first half of practice everyday. This has its pros and cons. One of the perks? You get to see the things that happen on deck that you don't usually see while you're swimming.

I saw my coach running...only to wipe out flat on his back. His look on his face will be forever imprinted in my memory. (I've never seen anyone get up so quickly!)

You wish it would just go away!

Whenever I was in this situation in middle school and high school, I fantasized that in college, and later on in life, I would know exactly how to handle myself, or even that it would never happen to me again.

Alas, I'm in college, and, once again, I clumsily handled the situation.

What does one do when they have a runny nose that will never be subdued? I was in a class that goes for three hours. After the first three minutes, my nose was runnier than ever. I quietly excused myself and went to the bathroom to blow my nose (and stuff lots of toilet paper in my pockets). Luckily, I was in the very back row, so all of this was pretty much unnoticed, except for my constant sneezing and sniffling.

Unfortunately, my toilet paper supply was wet and decaying after 20 minutes. So I used my sleeves. That worked well, until I realized that I was smearing more snot onto my face. So I wiped my nose with my hand and wiped it on my pants. Then my pants started feeling wet. I swear, the human body can create enough snot to drench a normal person. Disgusting that may be, it's true.

So the sleeves are useless, the pants are useless...determined to remain in class, I tilt back my head to help clear it. The nose definitely cleared up! Until...something was draining into my throat. No one wants that!!! (I gagged. The student sitting next to me jumped slightly. I think he was napping.)

So after the first hour and 15 minutes, we had a little break. I explained to my professor I was ill, and she kindly understood and excused me.

Now I'm on my comfortable bed, with a whole roll of toilet paper beside me. I'm very happy for a person in my situation.

Update...

So, I haven't written a blog for a long time (almost 20 whole days!), so I decided to update y'all on all the nothings that make up the something called my life. :)

-The shoulder situation: Hurts as always, so coach has me ride a stationary bike the first half of practice, then swim, in efforts to keep the shoulder somewhat happy.

-The major situation: Still have no idea what I'd like to major in, but all counselors I've visited and talked to want me to try engineering. I have to say, engineering has always fascinated me, specifically nuclear engineering, but nuclear is graduate work. I have to major in an engineering program they offer, then apply to do nuclear. So, we'll see if that really happens.

And I realized that's all I pretty much have going on. I will say, physics is getting more and more interesting, and I'm starting to enjoy it, even though I don't know how to do problems over half the time. I'm also enjoying Calc 3 more than I probably should.

I just wish I had more time to study it more, then I'd probably actually "get" it.

By the way...

I forgot to tell y'all how my first meet went. It went really well. The fastest I've ever gone at the beginning of a season! I went a 23.50 in my 50 (my best is 23.15, my senior year of high school I went a 23.52). My 100s were at or below 52.5 (I did a lot of relays, so I swam the 100 free a total of 5 times over two days) My lowest 100 split on a relay was about 50.9!

The pictures above were the only pictures I took on the entire trip. It's on the bus ride going to Boise. Yeah, we were tired.

Running with the ball

After a serious talk in coach's office, we have decided to let me run with the ball and come what may.

I hope I run fast enough to not get pummeled.



I only post the ones I like:

Jimmy Dillies will present "Dessins d'enfants"

Abstract: One of the key groups in arithmetic is the absolute Galois
group. So far, it has been eluding the mathematical community. In 1984,
Grothendieck suggested to understand this group by looking at its action on
dessins d'efants. Dessins d'efants (literally 'children's drawings') are
graphs drawn on Riemann surfaces, such that two neighbouring vertices have
opposite colours. In this talk we will define what the absulote Galois group
is and see how it acts on those naive objects that are dessins.

There will be pizza and discussion after the talk.


(I get an e-mail every week about the discussion for math majors for the week...)