I Almost Live Here
40 hours a week in the summer, 2-3 classes and labs during the school year, this science building is nearly my home.
40 hours a week in the summer, 2-3 classes and labs during the school year, this science building is nearly my home.
Every once and a while, though far too often for it to be acceptable, I walk into the fourth floor elevator in the Owens Science Building on campus and punch the Floor 4 button. Then I hit it a couple more times and impatiently wonder why the door shut and the elevator is not moving.
Then I realize that, if I want to travel downwards, perhaps I should select a floor that is below the one I am on.
Apparently some sort of spice was pulverized when the chicken was breaded a couple of nights ago, resulting in green chicken at the Binz Refectory. It was not a particularly bright green, but a rather sickly green - almost the color that people turn when they are very sick. We were assured by Mary (she is the sandwich lady, who is a very nice person — her son actually goes to school here) that the chicken was normal. This wasn’t anything remarkable, though it does merit note, especially given Food at the Binz’s remarkably long silence.
Act I.
Scene 1. Saturday. The curtain rises to reveal Alex hunkered down over an organic chemistry book, solution manual, notecards and notes. He sighs and pushes his hair back from his forehead. He needs a haircut. The modification of the Wittig recation makes sense, but he wonders if he’ll be able to keep it straight from the 20 other reaction/reagent combinations he has to keep straight.
Starbucks put in a vending machine on our campus, which serves up hot cans of their drinks (for $2.50 per serving). We’re not sure how they heat up the can … my guess is the plastic ends and wrapper are put on afterwards (the can is just like an aluminum soup can).
Doesn’t really narrow down my identity.
Yesterday, while biking at a furious pace to check-out a book and photocopy it in time for a noon deadline, I found myself skidding almost completely sideways for 20 feet at 19 miles an hour. My bike tilted from the normal 90 degrees to the ground in slow motion. 80 degrees. 70 degrees. As it did so, my brain managed to register the high pitch squealing coming from my tires, a squeal which was abruptly stopped when my pedal slammed into the ground and bounced me back to a normal, upright riding position. I laughed nervously, and continued biking.
Finally took a long exposure shot of the arches - hoping to do one of these during a snow.
I’M REALLY BUSY AND ALL OF MY CLASSES HAVE ATTACKED ME.
LET’S HOPE I SURVIVE TO POST SOMETHING MORE MEANINGFUL LATER.
LOVE,
ALEX
The Cretin bathroom has four toilets: 2 urinals and 2 stalls. In the years past, people doing urinal-type activities in the stalls was not a problem: people flushed. This year, however, has been different. I noticed an unusual change: somebody was following the “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” policy. While this can “reduce your total household water usage by 20 - 25% if moderately applied” (source: 7th Generation), I sincerely doubt that the mystery mellower came from some water-starved desert area. Regardless, today I found out who was perpetrating this moderately smelly and unpleasant act.
I brought this desk up 10 flights of stairs so I had room to study - it’s been nothing but worth it.
Three and a half hours into my cell biology lab, as I dated my lab notebook, I turned to ask my randomly assigned lab partner a question.
“It’s the 26th, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“… I see.”
My worries here, I think you will understand: not only do I have a lab partner who doesn’t even know what day it is, but said partner has absolutely no motivation to find out.
Occasionally, we get these “Public Safety Alerts” via the St. Thomas email system that outline some man making lewd comments on the corner of Cretin and Marshall or a 6’1” white guy acting suspiciously outside of the cafeteria. I, of course, made those up - but they should give you some impression of how low-key our public safety issues are. My sister lived in Minneapolis around the U of M for two years - a fatal shooting occurred right across the street from her. Now that’s real violence. Anyhow, in our little St. Paul haven public safety seems to be becoming more of a problem:
I hate the fact that the grass beside our sidewalks is not at the same level as the concrete. When one is on a bike and veers off the path to avoid rear ending pedestrians, this drop down is not a problem. However, when one tries to get back on the path from the grass and doesn’t take the extra effort to pull the front tire up, then one is found in the unfortunate situation of having their tire’s sidewall skittering along the concrete sidewalk, tipping the bike over. In this case, one might end up in an agonizingly slow tip, moving forward a bit faster than walking pace, continually stomping the ground with one foot like one who is trying to kill some imaginary bee on the ground. After a couple of these manic stomps, one has attracted the attention of everyone in the area, and realizes that being able to ride a bike in college is generally required and not optional. One can feel the hot gaze of peer rejection piercing through one’s neck, and realizes that something has to be done soon. With a final hard stomp, the tire comes up over the concrete lip, and one might laugh out loud to acknowledge full understanding of the absurdity of one’s incompetence.
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