ROTC

There is some bizarre spectacle going on in the nook between the Commons (think "student union" without the implication of student ownership or control) and the Quad area... there are a bunch of soldiers dressed up in green camouflage fatigues being screamed at by more soldier-types wearing brown uniforms, all the while being supervised by yet more military-types wearing white uniforms. Altogether it is quite ugly. A certain exercise at Stanford comes immediately to mind, and I'll keep the rest to myself. Mainly I wonder how they can hollar and scream so much without going completely hoarse. The batteries on my camera are dead, otherwise I'd try to get you a video... There's a slightly more "civilized" picture that occassionally loads on the www.rochester.edu home-page, although it still involves machine guns.

hilarity ensues

On Monday morning I went in to the Department of Physics and Astronomy to begin my life as a graduate student. All I had to do was go in and get an orientation packet with all the usual forms. Barbara helped me fill out the registration form to add three courses, and as she welcomed me to the Department and showed me through all the paperwork and showed me the office and all that, I couldn't help but visualize myself in those parallel lives in which I went to North Carolina or Carnegie Melon or even Berkeley, knowing all the faces and the names of the people I'd be seeing, that they'd all be saying more or less the same things. Imagining Berkeley is hard, but the separation anxiety is ameliorated by the wonderful treatment we receive here.

The small school is sort of quaint. Registration for courses is entirely by paper. But I'm told that you can check via some webpage whether a course is full. In lieu of waiting lists, the procedure is to click "reload" until a seat opens up, then run down to the Registrar, paper form in hand...

I registered for three courses:

• Math methods for physics

• Quantum Mechanics

• E&M

Some other courses look tempting too:

• gravitation

• plasma physics

• functional analysis

Barbara led me to a room on the second floor and then another on the fourth floor so that I could choose a desk. The second floor room has full size cubbies that you can burrow into and study in quiet isolation. The fourth floor room has a huge window facing out in the direction of the House, and the desks are arranged around the perimeter and as an island in the middle. Of course I took the fourth floor desk. I may have been predisposed to it because on the door there is a picture of some cute girls wearing University of Rochester sweatshirts and therefore there's a small chance that they might inhabit that room (hnar hnar), but of course I would have taken it anyway. And there was a Swede inside! Gustaf, I think. So "Bausch & Lomb 478" is my office.

Yesterday I had my "entrance interview," which was a meeting with two professors who would "evaluate my physics background." It was an event towards which I felt some dread, especially since they would supposedly ask us to do some physics problems. Somehow I have forgotten any physics I ever did know.

The interview was informal but almost as comical as I'd anticipated, with such moments as:

"What do you mean, you didn't take Statistical Mechanics??"

I know they're thinking "UNDO!! UNDO!!" but, Ha! I'm already admitted!

Then the truly classic moment:

"Well, these grades aren't so great... but with this amazing GRE score, you clearly know what you're doing."

This is not something I'm expecting to hear.

"Amazing GRE score?"

A brief inspection resolves the matter;

"Ah, that's my computer science GRE score."

"UNDO!! UNDO!!" The professors eye each other meaningfully. "Maybe we can get rid of him with the prelim," they communicate telepathically.

Hil-ARIOUS! Somehow I like the idea that I was admitted under some kind of mixup of this nature.

Ultimately they demoted me to the advanced undergraduate E&M course. Right after I left the interview, I ran into a professor who I'd met at the visit weekend (an event I do not recall but in the haziest dream-remnant sort of way, having been feverishly hallucinatory with some horrible ailment), and who has a bizarrely high opinion of me and has been rather aggressively recruiting me into his research group (although it turns out he's running off to Washington DC next week to work for the DOE).

He skoffed at the advice to take the undergrad E&M course: "That course is for sissies! They don't know what they're talking about. In fact, why do you need to take E&M at all?"

adventures in food and car acquisition

Yesterday I was wandering down the street in search of place to eat, as I was starving. I was on an expedition to explore the neighborhood, hopeful of finding nearby fooderies.

Walking down the street, I wondered, "hmm, Maybe I'll find a car for sale!" I happen to be, at least theoretically, in the market for an automobile.

Not twenty seconds later, I came across a car for sale.

While stooped down, reading an inventory of this particular car's numerous purported virtues, a woman comes up and asked, "Want to test drive?"

"Why not?" I answer. And so I climbed into the driver's seat of this rather ratty-looking Toyota something-or-other.

As the lady is explaining the care and feeding that went into keep this car so well maintained, I am thinking, "I would hate to see a poorly maintained car!"

We start driving down the street. I'm thrilled at this clever ruse by which I've attained the use of a vehicle for this food-scouting expedition.

"What year is this car?" I ask, ever mindful to keep up the charade that I am actually still interested in buying it. "Ninety-one," the woman says, the "CHECK ENGINE" light popping on as she answers. I'm wondering how someone could possibly trash a car like this in that amount of time.

"It was an Enterprise rent-a-car," the woman explains, without prompting.

We get onto a gently winding country boulevard. I'm turning to make it around one of these gentle bends, only the CAR DOESN'T TURN. Oncoming traffic! Belatedly the car responds. I suppress my panick. There's a huge amount of slack in the steering and I'm moderately terrorized.

"I think it might need an alignment," the woman explains.

I almost master the horrifying (lack of) steering.

"You're a good driver," compliments the woman.

She directs me back to our starting point.

"I'll think about it," I explain as I gleefully extricate myself from the fearful machine.

airports

What's the deal with the "SSSS" mark on a boarding pass? I thought it meant you'd get the super-search treatment, but I got nothing (just the usual metal detector + xray).

(a google search for "SSSS" brings you to sexscience.org, with keywords "Society Scientific Study Sexuality, SSSS, Sexual Science, kinsey award, sex research, sex therapy, sexology, international, organization, foundation, sexuality" and a whole lot of other results not related to airports.)

sort-of "friends only"

So -- the public entries in this journal will probably be rather boring for a little while. All the real dirt is accessible only if you have a livejournal account. Fortunately it's trivial to create a livejournal account and then you can write me a comment or an email or add me as a friend or something and I'll add you back..