Out of the Fray…

So I have emerged from the brink of midterm season (finally, since my calculus midterm was sooo late), and it seems I have gotten out alive (I don’t have my calculus results yet, but it was the easiest one I had, so I think I did pretty well).

So, what have I been doing all this time?

1. Struggling to and finally getting into CS 136. Better yet, my schedule has been made so that I no longer have any 8:30 classes of doom and tired-ness… finally I can sleep in!

2. Studying for midterms: they really suck, and you better believe it when they say that you can’t study the same way as you did for high school, unless you studied very diligently then… (which honestly, I really didn’t, since simply reading over notes is not a very good way of studying) While I got decent grades in my midterms so far (they were either 80% + or at least notably above average), they were considerably lower than grades I was used to.

3. Buying tickets to go see Avenue Q. That’s right, I finally have tickets (rather, one ticket) to go see the show on November 24th, 2009, in the front row of the first balcony (I got really lucky). Which means I should probably finish the my part of the English project before then… since it’s due on November 30. If allowed, I will try and get pictures with the cast, or at least Christmas Eve or the Bad Idea Bears, who are my favourite characters. You can guarantee that I will be singing along and annoying viewers in my vicinity.

4. Doing tons of homework. All of y’all who are complaining about how much work you get in AP classes and how stressed you are… well, in university, EVERY class has the same workload as an AP course. Advanced courses in university (if offered) have at least double that workload (aka Math 145). At least, that’s my experience so far… so suck it up! And the best part is, it’s only going to get harder.

5. Buying food for my fridge. I have goat’s cheese, Harvati with Jalapeno cheese, bread, milk, yogurt, tomatoes, bananas, mayonnaise and black forest ham (which unfortunately, came shaved instead of in slices )… yep… love that stuff. especially all the dairy I’ve acquired… yummy cheese!!

6. Trying to avoid distraction. When I can help it, I “computer ban” myself, aka giving my friend my laptop so that I’ll actually study/do homework in my room. Of course, this doesn’t work very well with CS homework or English homework, where I have to use the computer for actually doing the assignment, or for research…

7. Trying (and failing) to get some exercise. While I did join the Kendo club, I haven’t been able to go because of midterms/homework due the next day/poor time management skills/sheer laziness. But mostly the first two reasons.

And that’s mostly it. Actually, I wrote this post about 2 weeks ago, and never bothered to post it. My bad. ^^

Alternate “Proofs”

You know the faculty newsletter is awesome when you have articles like this:

Taken from the UWaterloo MathNews, Issue 111.2:

Methods I wish were real…

Suppose P and Q are logical statements, use the following method to prove P–>Q

• Proof by Consensus: (also known as the scientific method) 4 out of 5 mathematicians say Q is true… therefore it is.
• Proof by Extortion: Suppose P is true and Q is not, then I punch you. Is Q true?
• Proof by Example: (the famed “engineer’s proof”) It worked once, therefore Q is true.
• Proof by Heresay: (alternative engineer’s proof) A mathematician told me it worked, therefore it does.
• Proof by Black Magic: Messy algebra. Messier Algebra. A random integral. Picture of a goat. Therefore Q is true
• Proof by Caroling: Three random sets. Two open balls. And a Q statement that’s clearly true

πρmaniac

As a student in Math 145 (where proofs are pretty much your life for 4 months), I started wishing these proofs were real too… which proves my complete unsuitability for pure mathematics.

Course sign-up

I have a bit of a rant about course sign-up.

So as I might have told some of you already, I switched out of CS 145 (the advanced course) into CS 135 this week, on Tuesday. CS 145 is a combination of the two required courses for first year, CS 135 and CS 136, so if you finish the course, you move on to CS 241 after.

Unfortunately, the system (called Quest) still states that I’m in CS 145, even though I made the switch two days ago. Yesterday, I had to sign up for my courses, so because I was still registered in advanced comp sci, I was not allowed to register for CS 136, which was now a required course for me.

So I went to the Math Undergrad Office for help, and they said that I should wait another day to see if there are any changes, and that the change should have already been made, but maybe the processing was a little slow because of course sign-ups. So I did.

So I checked Quest today. No changes. I’m still enrolled in CS 145, but now, every single section of CS 136 had been filled. I went back to the advisor that was supposed to make the switch for me (I’m not allowed to do it by myself), and I was told to fill out a waiting list form to get into CS 136, which I could have got into quite easily if the switch had been made the day before. So now I’m on a waiting list for a required course for my major with 38 other people. the other 3 sections have around 40-5 people waiting to get in as well, with a total of 174 people on the waitlist for that course alone.

So now, I have to sit in agony, hoping that I get into a course that I need to complete for first year, because the “processing” of my override form to get into CS 135 was too slow. Let’s just say I’m not going to be too pleased I can’t get into that course.

Wicked to be made into a movie

Wicked, one of Broadway’s most recent smash hits (nominated for 10 Tony awards and the winner of 6 Drama Desk awards), is about to made into a movie by Mark Platt Productions. They are still in pre-planning stages and haven’t even decided on a cast yet, so hopefully the plans go through. Personally, I’m hoping that the original cast members Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth will play Elphaba and Glinda, since they did such a wonderful job on Broadway. As for the rest of the characters, the best possible outcome would be the original cast, but that doesn’t always happen (ex. Rent; where Joanne and Mimi were played by newcomers (I liked the movie Mimi better anyhow)). As long as it doesn’t turn out to be something like Les Miserables, where they announced a few times that they were gonna make a movie, and then it didn’t happen (and now the original Broadway and London cast are like… 22 years older . Which at the very least, means no original Gavroche, young Cosette or young Eponine (not that young Eponine is that important, she doesn’t even say anything)). Stay tuned!

Oh. My. God.

So, as you may or may not know… I was going to go visit friends in Ottawa for thanksgiving, but it turns out it costs 110 dollars for a round trip… and seeing as my parents didn’t want me to go out of town, I would’ve had to pay out of my flex dollars. Which would mean I would have next to no flex dollars left after. Sorry Nikki and Andre, I miss you guys!

So. What did I do this weekend?

I went to orchestra on Thursday, where I was technically on time, but as most of you who read this blog know, “on time” in the music world is the same time as being late.The reason was because I was caught up trying to fix a CS assignment, and then wanted to eat “thanksgiving dinner” at the cafeteria, which I had … 20 minutes to do, which included lining up, getting food, paying, getting my oboe and rushing over to REV from V1.

It also did not help that I was sick last week and didn’t go to practice… and of course, I didn’t tell the conductor until five minutes before the practice started by email… so she wasn’t a happy camper. Before our scheduled break, she took the time to say:

“I would like to remind you of our attendance policy. You must come early to warm up so that we can start on time. If you can’t come, you must do so in advance, especially if you are the first oboe.”

Well, needless to say, I learned my lesson. o.o

On Saturday, I went to a Mars Rover meeting, but it was thanksgiving, so it was me, the software lead, and a guy building a rocket. I was introduced to all the components of the software stuff, and decided to start with one of the supposedly easier tasks: GUI (Graphic User Interface) development of the GPS system. Which we are using QT (an extension of C++/C or something to that effect) to build, a language I will have to learn sometime this week. o.o The guy, Pablo, said I could come to the Space Society office on Saturdays and work on it, so I’m pretty excited… gee, I hope I can learn all this stuff… at least I’ll have more time now that I’m not going to be in advanced CS anymore…

The rest of the weekend was devoted to agonizing over my chem homework (which is finished), trying to do my English research (which is sort of done now) and my algebra homework (which I desperately need help with because I fail at proofs… and is almost half done with).

Honestly, I don’t get it. But, to tell the truth, I could never do something like what Lisa’s dad does (if you don’t know, he’s a pure math prof at the U of M). I have found out that I am more of an applied person. I could care less about why things are true, and proving that they’re true. I’d rather use the rules to compute stuff than figure out why they work. Maybe I should have gone into engineering * hopes any mathies don’t read this and attack *

Of course, if any of you know me well enough… I was sorely distracted. Very, very distracted. After being frustrated by proofs, and questions that I can get the answer to, but can’t prove that they’re right… I reverted to my drug.

No no. Not prescription or illegal drugs. Come on, university hasn’t changed me that much.

Musicals are honestly my drug (next to manga, of course). Even if it’s cheesy, even if it sucks, I love it.

Of course, this doesn’t include High School Musical. That is not a musical. That is trash. No, that is worse than trash. It is worse than the youtube video of that guy who totally butchered “What do you do with a BA in English” from Avenue Q. gross. If you can’t even keep remotely in tune, you shouldn’t sing on anything remotely resembling a stage. At least if you’re audible.

Anyway. I went through dozens of clips from the Tony awards (awards for great performances on Broadway, including theatre, and yes, musicals)… I went through several clips of Rent, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”, and Wicked… looked up wikipedia articles on Cats and Les Miserables… and I downloaded Sound of Music to watch… and am in the process of downloading Mary Poppins (I discovered an admiration for Julie Andrews)…

Anyway, I must be crazy. and I still can’t figure out my algebra homework, so guess who’s begging the prof for help tomorrow? Me! My god, I don’t really want to drop out of advanced math, that would be embarrassing. And my midterm’s next week. Gotta study and do more problems… gaaaah.

Now the inspiration of my seemingly simplistic title comes from a musical that you really can’t judge by its cover… or rather the title of its opening song. Which is “Oh my God”.

I first heard of this from my sister, when her musical theatre class did it for their open house (which I didn’t see). Of course, when my sister was singing it at our house, my first thought was “What kind of retarded song is this?”. As you also know, I’m not prone to watching shows about rich girls from California… *cough* OC *cough*. Of course I had liked the movie, so when I heard that it was from a musical based on the movie (or is it the other way around? I think it’s was based on the movie)… I decided to dump my prejudices, and watch it today.

And wow. It was good. Obviously, some things were different, because what works for a movie doesn’t always work in a musical. For example, when the prof hits on Elle, he overtly goes to kiss her in the musical, rather than suggestively touching her thigh. If you used the same thing in the musical, not everyone in the audience would be able to see it, but in a movie, you can use zoom and camera angles to make it work. Also, the characters all put in their 110% (it was a broadway show after all), with brilliant vocals and a whole lot of spirit. After all, if the characters aren’t pumped about what they’re doing, one can hardly expect the audience to like it. And it was superb. The whole thing is up on Youtube in parts, I recommend you watch it if you have the time, or need a break from studying (which I definitely did after trying fruitlessly to complete my algebra homework… god I still feel pathetic).

Anyway, I have so much stuff to do tomorrow and next week (midterms omg o.o) so when I get the chance, I’ll try and blog again when all this madness is done o.o Oh my god.

What do you do… with a B.A. in English…?

So, I just found out that one of Kitchener’s theatres, Center in the Square, is putting on a production of Avenue Q. It runs from November 24th to 26th. Of course, since Avenue Q is one of my favourite musicals… guess who wants to go really really badly?

It’s after my midterms (the last of which is early November) and is more than a week away from when finals start (December 9th). So, provided I can at least finish all immediate homework at the time, it shouldn’t conflict academically. However, there do not seem to be any student prices, so the cheapest I can get a ticket for is 50 bucks, and that’s a second balcony seat, which is really crappy. the most expensive tickets are 90 dollars, which I’m obviously not willing to spend. A decent seat in the mezzanine is 60 bucks.

Of course, I doubt anyone will go with me, because I don’t know anyone here who likes Avenue Q, much less someone who’s willing to pay that amount of money just to go see it. Which would mean that I’d have to go all by myself. Which is really lonely. But it’s Avenue Q!!

So I’m in a bit of a bind here. Should I go or not? Tell me your thoughts!

School so far

So, I guess now that I have more of a feel for what my classes are actually like, here’s a bit of a description on some of them:

English 119: Technical Communications in Math and Computer Science

It’s not a terribly bad class. For lectures, you pretty much go in, and the prof speaks at you about how you should get a job, act like in a job etc. Which can get terribly boring sometimes, but sometimes, on occasion, you get a hint of dry wit in what he’s saying. It’s only one lecture per week, so it’s not too tedious. You don’t even really have to take notes; there’s no midterm or final exam, just a final project. So if he says something particularly noteworthy or useful, you can jot it down, but it’s kind of a nice lecture class. All the real work and assignments are assigned and handed in at the tutorial/workshop class. So far, we peer-edited resumes (I was very embarrassed with mine because I have no work experience, just volunteering…) and summerized an article about math (I picked one on the Monte Carlo Simulation). We are now starting the group projects. Everyone in my group is in Actuarial Science except me… mostly because ENGL 119 is a requirement for ActSci. Everyone’s first year except for one girl who will graduate in May. Ironically, our topic is on Gender and Computer Science… when we could of picked the Ethics and Actuarial Science topic. o.O

Chemistry 209: Introductory Spectroscopy

Don’t let the fact that it says “Chemistry” fool you. It’s really quantum physics in disguise. Our prof is pretty good for the most part; I understand what he’s saying, however, when I’m trying to copy down anything… it’s pretty much impossible, because of his hard to understand handwriting. Also, he’s left-handed… so when he writes stuff down on the transparencies… you have to wait until he’s finished writing before you actually see anything. Homework has been relatively light; it’s mostly just problem sets that involve basic computation and plugging things into formulas. There’s supposedly supposed to be some differential equation involved as well, but we haven’t really had to actually use them yet.

Math 138: Calculus 2

It’s pretty much the same as Calculus 2 at the U of M. Way too much integration. So far, it’s pretty easy, since it’s mostly stuff I learned already, and the assignments don’t take very long to complete… of course, I still make stupid errors in my work (forgetting numbers, mis-reading questions…), but it’s been okay. The prof goes at a good pace.

Math 145: Advanced Linear Algebra

This is the course that made me cry out in frustration “I can’t do my math homework”. It’s not the class material that’s hard. It’s actually quite easy to understand what’s going on in class: he shows you some concepts, algorithms and theorems, and proves that they work. Not bad. I actually quite enjoy my class. What’s hard is the homework. Coming up with your own proof is harder than most people think it is. You have to do things so that the equations and substitutions are still equivalent, yet sometimes it’s magical math voodoo: random variables replace stuff… you can make up random variables to fit your case, but you have to know when it’s appropriate to do so.

Proving things that seem obvious become tasks filled with blood and sweat. Maybe I’m not a creative mathematician; I’m more used to understanding concepts, and actually using them in computation, not explaining why they work.  So in a class where proofs and logic are the main focus… it’s very difficult. I’m hoping that I can still complete this course without too much difficulty, but I’m considering switching out for next term, because it’ll be too much to handle if I plan to take physics as my elective courses (I’m gonna take the second part of the intro physics (I got transfer credit for the first part) and an astrophysics course, if things go the way I want them to). Unless it becomes drastically easier somehow. o.O but hopefully it will get better.

Computer Science 145: Design, Implementation and Abstraction

This the advanced CS course: it combines 135 and 136 and goes at a remarkably fast pace (depending who you are), and stops for no one. It’s been one hell of a ride so far. Like Math 145, the class is very enjoyable; both profs are great. I understand stuff a bit less when I’m in class, but once I try it out on the computer, it makes a little more sense.

We went through pretty much everything we learned in high school in the space about less than two weeks, and then we were onto recursion around last week. We’re now on binary and Braun trees, which aren’t going to be on the midterm on Monday… but it goes by fast.

Another thing: most places teach languages like C/C++ or Java or related languages in first year courses for CS, but not Waterloo. We are using a language called Scheme, which is very different. I’m not good at describing it, so let me show you some sample code. Comments are marked with semi-colons:

;; add: list list -> list
;; adds two lists representing numbers in a pseudo-binary form
;; ex. (add ‘(o i o i) ‘(i i i)) = ‘(i o o o i)
(define (add n m)
(cond
[(and (empty? n) (empty? m)) empty]
[(empty? n) (add '(o) m)]
[(empty? m) (add n '(o))]
[(and (equal? (first m) 'o) (equal? (first n) 'o)) (cons 'o (add (rest n) (rest m)))]
[(and (equal? (first m) 'i) (equal? (first n) 'i)) (cons 'o (add-help (rest n) (rest m)))]
[else (cons 'i (add (rest n) (rest m)))]))

Now, when I say “pseudo binary”, the number is represented backwards with i’s and o’s instead of 1’s and o’s in a built-in list structure, since the prof wanted us to “get away from primitive functions and regular numbers”. So, the number 10 would be ‘(o i o i). As you can see this uses structural recursion (I didn’t put in my helper function “add-help”)… and this function, plus the helper and the multiplication function for binaries took me about 4-6 hours to come up with. This assignment (there were three other questions) as a whole was hell on a stick.

If there are any potential CS majors who are thinking of going to Waterloo and taking this course, or even if you’re going to be in the math faculty and still want to take it… I would highly recommend learning a bit of Scheme, because this course goes by really fast, and if you want to keep up, you’ll have an edge on the people who came with nothing, or even come with previous CS knowledge: the reason why they use Scheme is because it levels the playing field in a way: most experienced programmers know languages like C++, C, Java and Visual Basic, and on occasion, Pascal. Scheme, I am told, has its roots in a language called Perl Lisp. They are very different. Some people (including myself) may get frustrated with the grammar because they are too used to whatever they learned in high school.

Also, if you don’t know any recursion…. well, Scheme (at least the beginner level, which is what you’ll start out in) does not have any loops. Instead of loops, you have to use recursion. So at least understand how recursion works, it kinda gets brushed over in high school (well, I guess that depends where you go). I never really understood recursion, so I got hit hard with it, and had to struggle to understand not only the grammar of the language, but the concept of recursion.

But yeah. I better go study for that mid-term.Before I go, our prof told us once how a student compared Java and Scheme:

Java vs. Scheme

Java: 200 lines of code, 1 hour of copy and paste.

Scheme: 10 lines of code, 2 hours of staring at the screen blankly.

My adventures by the school down the street

As you may or may not know, the University of Waterloo is not the only the only university in Waterloo. Need a hint? The school’s colours are purple (no, I’m not talking about Western, that’s in London) and they’re named after a Canadian Prime Minister (I think? Nicole, help me on this one).

Anyway, it’s Wilfred Laurier, which is often dubbed by other people on the UW campus “the high school down the street”. I’m not sure why it’s called that (maybe to sound degrading I guess?), but I paid a visit to their campus. More specifically, I paid a visit to their Faculty of Music. Yep. They have a whole faculty of music. Not a school of music, like at U of M, or a tiny “department of music”, like ours, which is fully contained within the Conrad Grebel College Residence. A frickin Faculty of Music. And boy, what a nice place. It almost made me want to quit computer science and go into music. But not quite.

Anyway, I was on my way to go see the prof (?) or instructor who teaches oboe there, since he’s the guy I bought my oboe from, and in hopes of getting lessons or something. He was very nice, and made sure that my oboe was in working condition and whatnot. I also found out that there are a grand total of 12 oboe players studying at Laurier, and that it was clearly impossible to get a lesson, but I left with a list of names to call, and…

A Landwell reed knife. Obtained for not the usual 60-100 dollars that they usually cost, but the great price of …

*drum roll*

25 dollars. It was so cool,that I had to bold and italicize it.

Anyway. I left the purple school and had a lot of adventures on the bus trying to go to Long and McQuade. It’s a good thing I had a couple of maps with me and a student card that lets me use the bus for free… I nearly forgot to get off at the right stop for L&M… I saw the store, and then two minutes later, it occured to me that I should have requested the next stop. So, I madly pulled down on the wire, and hurried myself off.

Of course, you know me, I love music stores. And I also happen to lose track of my original purpose sometimes. I went their looking for a tuner/metronome. I ended up looking at some other stuff instead. They had a dismal selection of oboe repertoire, but some interesting pieces as well. Then I decided that I wanted to try out tenor mouth pieces. Of course, I didn’t have my sax with me or my own reeds, so I wasted time trying to fumble with an instrument and reeds that I wasn’t used to.

Then, realizing the time, I left after buying a tuner, and tried to bus my way back. I got on the wrong bus, and realized that it was going to the mall instead of the university… so I got off as soon as I could, found an iExpress bus to take me to the university… and got off a stop too early, at the psychology building, not realizing that I could have stopped in front of the student life center, which was closer to the math and computer science building, which I was heading towards for the Unix 101 tutorial.

To end this, I would just like to point out that the last name of the guy that was running the tutorial was Dalek. No jokes. To those who are fortunate enough to have seen Doctor Who, you’ll know what I mean ^^

First day of school!

So. Today was my first day of classes. Gotta love class. well, at least most of my classes.

I started the day off with MATH 145, the algebra course I had to take, but the advanced version. It was fun, even though I half asleep and desperately trying to write fast enough. We were given our first assignment, none of which I could do except for the first question, which I finished earlier this evening. The rest of it had funny symbols that I only had a basic understanding of, which is all the set (is an element of, subset of, number system stuff) symbols and was not something I did for the last two years, which was calculus, not algebra.  But it was great, because I could understand what they were talking about, which I wasn’t expecting. Needless to say, I dropped regular algebra, so hopefully I pass this course!

Next, I had to trek up two floors to get to my MATH 138 course, and I went to the undergrad office, and you’ll never guess who I saw. SJR kids will most likely know who this is, it was Elliot Lipnowski. Or if some of you don’t know what his name is, he was the MC and the guy who sang Ghostbusters in the Rock show 3-4 years ago. Of course, I don’t know him well, and he doesn’t know me at all, but it was so cool to see someone else from Winnipeg that I actually *sort of* knew, either than the one girl that came from my school.  So obviously, I didn’t say hi to him, but, I continued to class. Here was stuff that was more familiar. In fact, it was more than just more familiar. It was the exact same stuff I learned in Calculus 2 at U of M. The course outline was almost identical. Of course, I didn’t point this out to the lecturer, but hey, now I have no excuse for getting bad marks on that course.

The next class was the regular Algebra, MATH 135. Now, I had already dropped the course, and was going to see what it was like, but there were no desks left in the classroom. So I left, got free pancakes by the Student life building, and left to find my next class.

This next class was CHEM 209. You know how molecules emit light at certain frequencies, and you use those crappy triangle shaped things to look at the emissions and you totally can’t tell what’s there because you can’t squint very well and you get terrible marks on the assignment related to it… curse you, Mr. C…. (I did not like my chem teacher in grade 10, can’t you tell? ) Well this course is about that. Spectroscopy, that is. It sounded very interesting during the introduction, so I hope it stays interesting. There will be math in it, the prof said, so hopefully I’ll manage. And I have expensive bound pieces of paper which are supposed to help me, so I think it’ll be okay?

Last but not least: ENGL 119: Technical Communications. My goodness. I had 10 minutes to get from the Biology 1 building to this class, which was in St. Jerome’s University College, which was hard without a map and with all the construction happening. Not including the time I had to spend looking for the Chem store so that I could get the course notes (aka the expensive bound pieces of paper he said was required for the course). I wasn’t about to run for it, so I ended up 5 minutes late, just as he was talking about how you will be penalized for being late, because the class was supposed to be simulating a workplace environment, even though it still will be a boring English class. The prof was pretty boring, not gonna lie. Makes me wish I took it in high school with Mr. Holbrow, or I would have even taken the literature courses over it. But no. It’s supposed to be useful.

I might sound slightly cynical. But honestly, I actually like Math and Chemistry. I don’t know if I like Computer Science yet, seeing as it’s tomorrow, but I really hope I do, considering it’s my major and all I haven’t had any problems in the past, so I’m excited for tomorrow! I get to sleep in more because class is three hours later than my first class today… oh joy.

Frosh week: Thursday

Anyway. Continuing on with the theme of frosh week, I guess I could tell you about Thursday of frosh week.

This was a very full day of stuff. We had a full tour of campus and a “Battle in the Woods”, where we played a whole bunch of low organized games against the other teams. Our team did very well in the battle; we were first in points after it was all said and done. We even got jumbo freezies that day! Not to mention free stuff from RIM (Research in Motion, you know, the blackberry guys? )! And no, it wasn’t anything cool, it was a napkin notepad and a cheap plastic waterbottle that smelled very suspicious…

Another thing we did as part of the faculty orientation was going to see a play about… well, situations you could find yourself in if you suddenly became idiotic during university: getting into drugs and alcohol, gambling problems, becoming anorexic, racism, homophobia, relationships and how they can go wrong, becoming depressed and stalker-ish, sex… yep. The play was called “Single and Sexy”. And boy, did this cast have some problems. Now if you think that it might be a very depressing and boring thing to watch, it was actually quite funny in places… and then just awkward and not so funny in others. But I will admit that it was definitely better than listening to someone lecture us about it.

Last, at night, there was Monte Carlo. The line for this was out of this world. I went with a friend because there was free food, and it took us nearly an hour just to get in. It was cold, I had heels on, and my feet hurt like hell. So when we finally got in, there were various events such as fake gambling, including poker, blackjack and roulette wheels… a really crowded dance that was sweltering hot because of the sheer number of people in there (needless to say, I went in for about 1 minute and then immediately went right back out, for fear of dying of heat, and of being in a crazy mosh pit with heels I could barely stand in), there was this weird circle dancing thing, and there was the outdoor entertainment, where the Engineering Jazz band played (they were pretty good, for people who aren’t music majors and for being COMPLETELY student run, including the conductor) and this guy on the cello (poor guy, his hands were freezing) who was decent. We mostly stayed outside until it was too cold to bear it, and then headed inside for free food, and then left. Not quite sure if it was worth the hour of waiting, but it was okay.

One note about orientation I forgot to mention: There are a whole bunch of upper year students who run the events for the week.

There’s then the ROC (Residence Orientation Committee) who do all the residence activities like Monte Carlo, the Mixer and Variety Night. This includes all the dons and peer leaders.

There’s the FOC (Faculty Orientation Committee) who plan the faculty orientation (like Math, Applied Health Studies (AHS), Science, Engineering, Arts and Software Engineering (they got their own category because they’re part of Math and Engineering)). They did the Disney themed stuff for the Math Faculty.

Beyond that, there is staff specific to each faculty. In the Math faculty, we had the Black Ties, who ran all the games and events, the Pink Ties, who were our team leaders, the Tie Guard, who guards the 40 foot pink tie (no joke) that hangs on the Math and Computer Science Building, and  the Seven Dwarves, who took photographs, and did other things (we didn’t really see them much though). In Arts, all I know is that they have the Boar Tribe, who guards a statue of a boar in front of one of the Arts building. There’s probably stuff like that for Science and AHS too, but I have no clue what they are.

Anyway. You’ll notice that I didn’t mention Engineering yet. They have the scariest people ever, and they’re called EDCOM. I have no idea what it stands for, or what they do, but basically, they dress mostly in black, wear hard hats like the rest of Engineering, have spiked and/or black/dark hair, wear thick chains around their waist and chest as well as sunglasses sometimes, and they are very, very intimidating. They’re apparently not even nice to their own faculty, as part of their job description. They are the rule enforcers. They were guarding the doors at the Mixer and Monte Carlo and man… shivers up my spine. Anyway. that’s it for today. I shall now retire to my room and get ready for classes tomorrow.