Summer of 2003: I went to SSP. I loved it. :-)

         But seriously, it was awesome. I just got back today (six hours ago) and I’m already missing it. Here’s a quick recap of a wonderful six weeks:

         I arrived at SSP the day after everyone had come because we had just gotten back from our Italy and Greece trip the night before. I had missed the intro activities and icebreakers so I didn’t know anyone and I missed the first half of math lecture the morning I arrived. When I saw the first homework assignment, I nearly freaked out because I had no idea what was going on. I sat down in my room and started doing it, and it didn’t turn out nearly as bad as I thought it was. But I realized right then, I didn’t want to do homework alone in my room, it was much too depressing.

         Things settled down pretty quickly. I got used to the daily routine of getting up for breakfast (though that didn’t last beyond the first two weeks), going to lecture, falling asleep in class, doing homework, doing the QOD after dinner, checking my email in the computer lab, observing, etc… Somewhere in there, we started playing bridge. I remember one night, I got back from observing and Kyle and April were just sitting and talking in the dining hall. I sat down and joined them. A little bit later on, Victor walked in and joined us and Kyle pulled out a pack of cards. I asked if anyone knew how to play bridge, and when Victor responded in the affirmative and Kyle and April expressed a desire to learn how to play, our bridge group began.

         Bridge became part of our daily routine and we would play every night that we could work it into our schedules. There were five of us that played: Victor, April, Peter, Kyle, and me. Generally, we managed to get together four to play every couple of nights in spite of observations and homework. We played late at night so we often didn’t go to sleep until three or four. There was one Saturday when we observed the late shift so we missed the movie, Shawshank Redemption. Victor, who went up with us that night, Melissa, and I all wanted to see the movie so Victor got it started up again after we finished developing. We finished at around 5:30 and the sun was already coming up.

         The material we covered in lecture was pretty tough and there’s a lot that I didn’t and still don’t understand. Some of the things we talked about are: spherical trigonometry, coordinate transformations, calculus (derivatives and integrals in a nutshell), statistics, calculus based mechanics, rotational mechanics, cosmology, stellar evolution, optics, geology, and of course, celestial mechanics. I will forever remember the rhos, rho hats, rho double dots, big R vectors, and rho hat double dot magnitudes. Luckily, there were always TA’s on hand to help us out. Especially Victor. Oh, and we can’t forget the awesome TA lectures with: Orders of Magnitude, Natural Disasters, Earth’s Magnetic Field, Stellar Evolution, Planetary Nebulae, Atmospheric Dynamics (aka Why Does the Wind Blow?), Black Sea Origins of Civilization, and last but not certainly not least, Game(s) Theory (aka How to Win).

         The last week of the program was when things really started getting interesting. Our OD program was due on Wednesday morning and the final report was due Friday at 9:00 AM. Luckily, the bridge group was ahead of the game on Tuesday night because we had finished our programs already. April was measuring and I was forestalling her approach to madness by playing cards with her. At first, it was Victor who was playing gin rummy and then when I came in, he played two games simultaneously, the dot game with me and gin rummy with April. He had to go do something, so I switched to cards. Madison, however, came in and kicked me out because I wasn’t on a team that was measuring and I technically was not supposed to be there. We were in the middle of a game so we started playing with a screen in between because I was outside and she was in. The draw pile was indoors so when I wanted a card, April would draw the top one and slap it up on the window, then put it face down on her side. We also had two discard piles going, one on my side of the screen and one on hers. It was great!

         I pulled my first all-nighter on Thursday. Since there were so many people who needed to use the computer lab, they had a sign up sheet for shifts. Our group signed up for three hours, from 7-9 and then from 12-1; after 1, it was pretty much a free-for-all. During our break, from 10-12, we played bridge. Then we returned to the computer lab. I had actually done about half the report the night before, but my file got corrupted somehow, and I had to start from scratch. I had thought that my code was working but it turned out I had a flaw in my ephemeris generation program. All these little problems added up, plus it was late at night and my brain was working at a slower pace, it took until six to finish the program. Also, I yielded my computer for an hour from 3-4 because there weren’t enough computers for everyone who needed one. Victor was in there running around helping everyone, literally, until 6:30. I finally left the lab at six and decided that it wasn’t really worth going to bed since it was almost time for breakfast anyway. We played hearts and watched the sunrise. I had breakfast for the first time since the second week of the program.

         The next day, after our morning activity and long questionnaire (they should publish April’s and my quote: “Bridge is great…especially early in the morning.”), we were assigned clean-up jobs. A group of us had to inventory all of SSP’s stuff, and I mean everything. Books, lamps, pens, graph paper, charts, sports equipment, games, plastic celestial spheres, rolls of tape, cellophane, plastic divider things; there was a lot of stuff in the TA office and the measuring room. It took a while and by the end, I was starting to get weird because I was so tired. Afterwards, I crashed on the couch in the TA office (we finally breached the sanctity of the TA office on the last day J). After dinner, I took another nap and got up for the party in the Yurt. I t was kind of stupid; people were running around hitting each other with balloons when we left. We played bridge in the dining hall and we decided to score for the first time. Victor and me versus April and Kyle (Peter was asleep). I still have the napkin that we kept score on... it was really fun. We played three rubbers total, with a break in the middle to get cake and ice cream from the party people. Victor kind of danced, it was really funny. And another break to go download and set up software to burn CD’s because Madison was being stupid and wanted to give Victor a hard time.

         In the end, Rosie won the QOD competition (the race was really tight between Peter and Rosie), Peter got second, and I got third. The commencement speaker was interesting… I liked the quote, “If you like solving problems, whether they are mathematical, emotional, or psychological, you’ll be much happier in life because you’re apt to find them wherever you go.” Good advice, that is. I’ll miss everyone! Keep in touch! Everyone, go to reunion next year! Good luck!