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My river program *WAS* working, but I found a bunch of mistakes in it, and now that I’ve fixed them, it doesn’t work anymore! NOT FAIR!!! It needs to work. AAAHHH!!!

I couldn’t sleep last night and this morning the dentist called at 7:30 (!!!) to reschedule my appointment and I finally agreed to come at 9:30 tomorrow and then the lady said, “Actually, I meant 9:15 — that won’t be a problem, will it?” so I finally got mad and told them I’d just let my teeth rot and that they better never wake me up at 7:30 again. Actually, I didn’t say that, but it would’ve felt good.

We had a meeting of the oral examination committee at lunch and the only good thing about it was they served pizza instead of boxed sandwiches with the mayonaise already on them.

We won the soccer tournament tonight! Three games. Won the first one 2-0, won the second in sudden death PKs after tying 0-0, and one the last one in PKs after tying 1-1 (and I scored the one!). Whew, that was totally fun!

And THEN I came home and walked inside and smelled…fresh-baked brownies! And the dishes were done! My family is the bomb-diggity!

Back to the grind tomorrow; lab all afternoon, and my stupid river program stopped working after some “improvements” I added. Gotta fix that.

I thinned my to-do list down tremendously this weekend. My inbox is empty. There’s food in the fridge and ice cream in the freezer. My homework is done. Bring it on, Monday.

Two hours later: Actually, never mind. I don’t feel like it being Monday. I’m having a bad time. I thought I had it all together…but I don’t. I don’t have enough energy left to enjoy the things I’m good at, and I’ve disappointed the people who matter the most.

Maybe the place I’m at is the ticket to “success”, but I don’t think I can be successful here. I’d like to learn to calibrate my printer, program my computer, and maintain my bike…all rather cerebral endeavours, but I *can’t*. I just don’t have time. If I did have the time, I wouldn’t enjoy it; my brain is fried at the end of the day and the week. Or maybe I just want a scapegoat and the problem is really me. But I swear I used to love all that stuff; I did it in high school, right? And I wasn’t faking it. I thought it was really fun.

I want to go home.

Look, my friend Jason is in the University of Oregon Squirrel Fishing Club. This looks like a lot of fun! No, the squirrels do not get hurt; they just get unsalted peanuts!

Perhaps after orals I will sponsor a Caltech chapter. We *do* have some hungry-looking squirrels here at Caltech.

Long time no blog! You didn’t miss much, though!

Ben left for Mammoth on Wednesday and I worked. Yay. I had some fun, though. Wednesday night Sam and I went to Chicks to get her geared up for soccer and then we gabbed the night away at Islands :) Thursday I had class until 10, so not much fun happened that day. Yesterday I tried to read some articles but I just couldn’t concentrate, so I did chores around the house instead. Why do I feel so guilty for that? I worked all of last weekend, so I *deserve* a day to do laundry and vacuum the porch. Plus, I *did* do some work.

Chaco and Joplin had a playdate:

Today was fun. We scrimmaged the Phys Rev Netters in an unoffical 3rd place game. Then Ben and I went shopping — REI, Sears, Old Navy, BBB, the pet store, you name it. Ben actually *wanted* to buy clothes. I found out that shopping is tiring! We ordered pizza for dinner and took a nap.

Ben took me on a date to Ghirardellis, where I had a ginormous hot fudge sundae. It was really tasty.

Today I spent a lot of time in the computer lab. My numerical analysis is not working, but I’m actually kind of interested in it (though not interested enough to make it fun for 7 1/2 like I spent on it today).

I had a dilemma last night. I was putting groceries in my car at Pavillions around 10:15 last night when a lady approached me. She was crying. She asked if she could talk to me, and I said sure. She was from Huntington Beach (?) but had been visiting her boyfriend in Pasadena. She explained that she’d had a fight with him that started to get physical, so she called the police, but by the time they arrived he was gone. Unfortunately, he took her wallet, so she had no money to buy gas to get home, and she hadn’t eaten anything.

I felt really bad for her and I wanted to help. In fact, I was even rather excited about being able to help. I said we could get some fruit from the supermarket and then I could follow her to the gas station and get her enough gas to return home. She thanked me, then said she would be right back.

This is when it started to get weird; she walked off and didn’t come right back! I didn’t follow her to see exactly where she went, but I thought I saw her talking to someone in another car. I waited a little while — maybe three minutes? — and started to get a little creeped out. If I were in her shoes and someone offered me help I wouldn’t delay. Besides, if she was already talking to someone in another car, why did she approach me in addition? Also, a couple weeks ago a Caltech student was mugged in her car in this very parking lot, so I was already being extra careful.

In the end, I left. I called the police and asked them to go check on the lady; if she was being honest about her dilemma, maybe they could help. If not, maybe they could usher her off the premesis.

What should I have done?

I spent the weekend mapping metamorphic rocks in the southern Sierras. Here’s what the field area looks like, plus some deformed rocks (look at those folds!):

It’s kind of a weird environment somewhere between desert and mountains. It was nice and cool (cold and rainy, even) this weekend, but it gets hot quickly and by our last field trip in May, it may be uncomfortably hot. The area is a favorite hangout for rattlesnakes. We didn’t see any this trip, but we did see some other snakes. Eww. I do not really care for poisonous snakes. Oh, and Jason (the professor) said he’s also encountered a mountain lion up there. Fun.

Clyde and I enjoyed a short rainstorm from our tent on Saturday night: