The syrup smell

An extension of last post:

So someone at juggling club today mentioned that he had noticed a weird syrup smell in the middle of the week... apparently it wasn't specific to my room or the Wien elevator, but covered much of the island of Manhattan. No one is sure what caused it. Weird. (Try googling "syrup smell new york").

Procrastination

My lab report is now due in 12 hours. It's written, except for its conclusion and some editing. So instead of just finishing and going to bed I'm engaging in a last round of procrastination. Specifically, I'm posting about how I noticed that my room smells like syrup. On my way back from SPS (Society of Physics Students) I the elevator floor was really sticky. I wasn't sure what the stickyness was so when I got back to my room I took off my shoes and left them on an old newspaper. Then, three hours later I started smelling something oddly sweet... it took me an hour before I managed to associate the stickiness in the elevator with the smell in my room. Fortunately, I suspect that my classmates are equally dumb or they wouldn't have covered the elevator floor with syrup to begin with.

Physics celebrity sighting

I rode in an elevator with Brian Greene today. It was kind of surprising as he didn't seem as impatient as he has been on the other occasions when I've seen him around. Then again, it's possible to hear people conversing in the hallways from inside the elevator and the lab TA was making fun of him kind of loudly before the door opened...

Aaaa... and the midterms continue

Yikes, so next week is going to be bad. I need to start stressing about it now. But, quickly, here's a funny story:

My boss from my summer research job made a bunch of corrections to my paper and mailed it to me so I could fix things. The idea was that after I got it he would call me and we could discuss the changes. To conserve cell phone minutes I gave him my room phone number. [At this point I should indicate that I have never used my room phone for anything other than deleting campus voicemail spam.] He tried to call, but I didn't answer and so he sent me an email explaining that he called but I wasn't in, etc. The thing is, I was in. And my phone didn't ring. So first I verified that the ringer was on and then I tried to call myself from my cell phone. And surprise - no ring.

This is how I discovered that the extension written on my phone is not my phone number. It's the phone number of someone else on my hall. It might have been useful to know that before I gave my boss the number... but then, this does explain a bunch of wrong numbers I've gotten.

Aaa! Midterms

So my schedule from now until Election Day really sucks. I have two midterms next week: mechanics on Wednesday and programming on Thursday. I have problem sets due on Monday and Thursday. The following week I have my quantum midterm on Tuesday, a problem set due Wednesday, two problem sets due Thursday, and a lab report draft due on Friday. The thing I hate about this is that when I sit down and try to think of what I can do now to minimize the sleep debt that I will have aquired by the end of all this, there's not much. In practice, when I get this stressed about work I usually become productive enough that everything is under control in the end. Still, the anticipation is hell.

On a happier note, I learned a bunch of new juggling tricks this week. :-D

Wherein the protagonist decides to cave and buy rain gear

Not to suggest that I didn't have an excellent time walking 4 blocks from the subway to the movie theater in the pouring rain... or that wringing half a gallon of water out of my jacket wasn't highly amusing... but being air conditioned while I didn't quite dry out is not so great. I'm also a little worried that, as it's supposed to rain all week, I may have to do laundry early (*gasp*) to have clean and dry clothes.

Anyway, I'd recommend the Wallace and Gromit movie. It's as good as the shorts, but longer. :-)