July 11, 2008
This past Tuesday night, you would have found me being chased by three police cars with flashing lights while hiding in the trunk of a car and then quickly fleeing the police on foot at gunpoint once we got pulled over. So, you might be amazed that I am writing this post from the comfort of my own bedroom and not a jail cell. You might be even more surprised that I thoroughly enjoyed the whole adventure and would gladly do it again. I suppose that I probably have some explaining to do now.
A good friend of mine, Andrew, lives in Richmond and we’ve hung out a few times this summer. His dad is a police officer and they had scheduled a training for some of the police officers. So Andrew went to help out and invited me along. The two of us acted as “criminals” for the police officers in a mock felon traffic stop. So, we were pulled over and “arrested”, but a few times we got to act up and flee the car and have some fun. The highlight was getting locked in the trunk of the car while pretending to hide from the police. It was actually quite fun. Don’t worry, I had plenty of air and it was completely safe. The great thing was that a friend called me while I was locked in the trunk and invited me to a Game Night. It was so much fun to tell her that I couldn’t come right now because I was locked in the trunk of a car while being chased by the police. She didn’t believe me at first, but her confusion was priceless. I volunteered to let her talk to my friend, but said that wouldn’t work right now because, well, I was locked in the trunk. Overall, it was a really fun way to spend the night.
Some people say you become who you hang out with.
Well, meet my friend Andrew.
Me locked in the trunk of the car
Sadly, that was the highlight of the week. Research was quite slow and confusing for me. I had the honor of being the person to give our group’s presentation this week. It actually went quite well, except for a few technological issues. So, I was able to speak fluently, on my own, about what our group has been learning in semi-technical mathematics language. So, slicing circles and osculating circles and eigenvalues and eigenvectors were once again part of my regular vocabulary. We have now completed eight weeks of research and will now spend our final two weeks preparing our research for a conference presentation. So, we are officially done with the “learning” portion, which makes me quite happy to reach that milestone.
It was just one of those weeks
Just a few of the papers with our calculations from this summer
I found this student’s math problem online and put it
in my presentation to lighten it up a little
Apparently, another person had a problem that they didn’t really want to solve
You can read that his answer is “No. there is an elephant in the way.”
Sadly, no credit was given. Not even for creativity.
Because of the police escapade, I was not able to attend the social function for us math researchers. It makes me sad because it sounded like fun. The group went to one of the professor’s houses for an ice cream social. Each person also anonymously submitted an interesting fact about themselves that the rest of the group had to guess. I was amazed at some of the things that our group had done. Someone in our group:
- has appeared as an extra in “All My Children”
- has sailed around the world
- owns every National Geographic from the past few decades
- celebrated their 18th birthday by going skydiving
- accidentally gave someone a bloody nose in a school play’s “staged” fight
- owns thirty differently colored envelopes
- spoke their first words in Spanish though born and raised in the U.S.
- is related to Bill Nye the Science Guy
So, I thought those were some of the rather interesting ones. As for my interesting fact, I am a multi-award winning quilter and flower arranger. Bet you wouldn’t have guessed that.
Additionally, I have spent a lot of this week working on stuff for InterVarsity. My role on leadership is planning community events, including things for the incoming freshmen during Orientation. Our committee wasn’t doing great on communication and was very far behind schedule, which bugs me a lot since I’m very time conscientious and organized, so I took charge. I just started planning events for the semester on my own and kept on going. It took a while, but I planned all four months worth of events for Fall Semester. Of course, changes are now being made by the rest of the group and editing is taking a while, but this has already taken a lot of my free time this week. Some of the fun events will include a scavenger hunt, a sunrise trip to Virginia Beach, a karaoke night, a medallion hunt, ice skating and Christmas caroling, a trip to Maymont Park, a trip to the Virginia State Fair, as well as a Midnight Breakfast.
Finally, the gym welcomed me back from vacation with open arms. I just wish I could have returned the favor. Vacation really didn’t do me any favors in this area. Plus, I wasn’t feeling 100% all week, so that made it even harder. However, my gastronomical indulgences on vacation proved to not be as bad as I originally thought, which was some consolation.
With everything going on this week and the resulting mental and physical fatigue, I’m relaxing this weekend. I’ve recently gotten to “Psycho” and “The Usual Suspects” on my list of “Classic Movies I Have Yet to See”. On deck for this weekend are “A Few Good Men” and “Rear Window”. That’s all from me. See you next week.
Quote of the Week: “Warning! You want a warning? O.K., I’m warning you not to do that again or I’ll give you another ticket.”
Thought to Ponder: What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
Shout Outs: Any police officers out there
YouTube Video of the Week:
