first day of school

Westcoasters probably hadn't started their first class of the day, and we were already done with instruction for our first day of class as graduate students. Three classes today: Math Methods, Electromagnetism, and Gravitation.

We all arrived embarassingly early, something like ten minutes before class started. It was shameful. The 35 students neatly segregated themselves into "Physics," "Optics," and one lonesome student in "Electrical Engineering". I infiltrated the columns of "Optics."

Math methods is supposed to be a whirlwind tour of the basic math we'll need as physics grad students, mainly linear algebra, differential equations, and complex analysis. For most of us it will be almost entirely review, but probably a welcome one. The first lecture was pretty ridiculously basic stuff, but he promised this would be the one and only lecture on basic linear algebra.

Electromagnetism also started with the usual first-day-of-class formalities and then paraded through the basics of coulomb's law, but then suddenly dove into a flurry of vector calculus, which was welcome. Twenty students in this class.

And Gravitation didn't meet.

For lunch, Aimee, Kris, and I went scavenging around the campus. We couldn't bring ourselves to pay $7.50 for a 1/4 lb burger in the "Commons," and didn't find any edible plants or shrubs (only some fruit trees barren of fruit). The attendent at the dining commons seemed baffled by the question of "How does this work?" in the context of graduate students attempting to buy food without a meal plan, but then we didn't want to anyway, since it was also $7.50. We found some basic fare at some "cafe" (scare quotes deserved) and hopefully we'll establish some extravagent food preparation collective a la CAMP CERN.

In other news, this is the one-year anniversary of Expedition 2.0, aka my overland trip from Switzerland to Sweden "the long way". (This has got to be Expedition 3, "Rochester," as of a week ago.) I think maybe over the next few days I'll post pictures from my trip through Austria, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Sweden.

hellooo UR

posted in ur:

It sure is quiet here in ur-land (Is everyone somewhere else?). Hmm. Maybe I'll introduce myself: I just landed here at Rochester as a first-year graduate student in physics. The stretch of Elmwood between Mt. Hope and campus is getting mighty boring so I'm looking for adventures and fellow adventurers before the Physics dept chains us first-years to our desks. Looking forward to making some friends and exploring the area, especially now while the weather's still nice and the there's still some free time. (-:

I did undergrad at berkeley, travelled a lot, and enjoyed it quite a lot. There I lived in a co-op, which is kind of like a frat but coed and different in several other respects; I have some ambitions of starting one here. Over the summer I worked at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Something neat I learned over the summer was to make neon signs, and something fun was a roadtrip to ensenada.

further adventures in vehicle aquisition

Ryan and I went to test drive a 1996 VW Golf this evening. This particular car has been bugging me, because I wondered how this car could remain on the market for as long as it has without being sold, with the asking price just $1400.

I gave Ryan the directions.

"Left or Right on Ford," he asked.

"Left."

"Ahh.. the Bad Part Of Town."

"Rochester has a 'Bad Part of Town'?"

The seller had wanted to know exactly when we would arrive, so that he could meet us, and when we drove up he came up to us immediately. "Tobin? Tobin?"

He lead us to a parking lot behind a boarded-up house.

The car was in excellent shape, without any rust. Except for a few details. Obviously a small collision to the driver's door.

And some small, circular holes that had been filled in on the hood and the right rear quarter-panel. Bullet holes.

Weirdly the shifter-knob was missing (otherwise the interior was flawless), so it was difficult to put it into reverse. Instead the seller directed me to drive across some grass, down the sidewalk, over the curb, and onto the street.

"By the way, those are just dummy plates. So keep it around here..." On my illegal test-drive, I was to avoid cops.

The metal VIN sticker was missing, but the NYS Inspection certificate (a year out of date and potentially bogus in any case) gave a VIN of 3VWFA81H3TM056328.