The past 5 weeks, all I’ve been able to think about is putting one step ahead of the other and working as consistently as possible for as long as I can. Days are long — quite literally, I’m usually up until 1:30 a.m. — but hindsight makes memories short. I don’t know where the time has gone. I could’ve sworn that my first lecture was a week ago; that PSet 4 was due yesterday; that we were at the movies just an hour ago; and everything in between was just a long dream that dissipated the instant I woke up.

Oddly enough, this is the slowest week I have had at SSP. I thought the week of report-writing would be when I crunch in the maximum amount of work, but these have instead been the days where I’ve enjoyed field trips the most (who knew I would enjoy hours being battered by salty waves?), spent the most time playing piano, loved the people around me to the fullest.

I have a lot of people to thank and so many of you that I will always wish I spent a bit more time with (but the reality is that all the time in the world will possibly never be enough). So I’ll say this for now:

• Thank you to my wonderful roommates: Divya, Sai, and Taja (my rock, stone, and pebble — because it’s ridiculous for all of you to be my rock — respectively). Our 87.5% brown suite is the best I could have asked for. I’m glad you’ve gone along with my (mildly aggressive) attempt to indoctrinate you into my purebred Tamil life, and I’m equally glad you liked the Indian snacks and thokku (you’ve made my mother very happy). Our weekly debriefs are still among the best nights I’ve had here, and you just make me feel like my silliest, most open self.
• Thank you Lindy for being the girlboss I wish I could be. You are my biggest inspiration at this camp and every day I fall in even more awe of you (you prove that there are cases where the limit does not exist and just shoots into infinity). I could not have asked for a better teammate, and I don’t know that I’ll ever understand how a person can be so cracked and humble all at the same time. I hope you’ve found me to be at least half as good a teammate to you as you have been to me — and hopefully a good friend, too. Finishing our report gave me so much pride and joy, especially knowing that I did it with you.

• Thank you Olivia for making me feel sane despite my teacup obsession, and for keeping an eye out for fountain pens at that antique store. I may not have walked out with any, but the very thought that someone indulges me and my weird hobbies is a high I can ride for a long time.
• Thank you Andria for showing me Idea 22. I’ve never felt so loved as a pianist, and now I finally understand why the audience is always so important to a performer. I hope I’m able to do a good job of playing the piece at tomorrow’s talent show, but more importantly — I hope it brings you joy.
• Thank you Jasmine, for that awesome day at the aquarium and for being one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. You make me (and everyone else who enters your presence) feel warm and fuzzy with your kindness.
• Thank you to my silly little D&D group. You make me want to keep my eyes open on the bus and stay up late, even if I’m getting my hit points decimated most of the time. I’m holding you to this: we’re going to call and play D&D sometime after SSP is over, okay?
• Thank you to my professors. I’ve been pushed quite far out of my comfort zone while here, but somehow each new lecture feels more exciting than daunting. You’ve made me realize that I really can do anything I put my mind to.
• Thank you to my awesome TAs for grading my assignments late at night and offering truly helpful feedback. And, of course, for creating those little havens of pure fun to make our minds off those spells of stress. And thank you Dr. Ice, for watching out for us, keeping our fridge stocked, organizing every field trip, and for creating here all the little conveniences I’ve taken for granted at home.
• Thank you to everyone else too! My memory is a bit too much like a goldfish’s to remember every moment, but you can believe me when I say this: every conversation with every person here gave me joy.

I’ll miss all of you tons. I can’t wait for your final presentations on Sunday and we are all going to do amazing. I hope you all have safe trips home, and that I am able to talk my parents into letting me go to that reunion in October so we can meet again. You’ve been great. Love you loads. Promise me you’ll kick back and relax now that we’ve submitted reports, okay?

-Sanjana

The post Astro GCSU: Final Report Day first appeared on SSP International.

After the roundtable, we headed back to the hive for the spectacle of the day: the official table tennis tournament, organized by Evan. The tournament had it all, featuring intense matches, upsets, and people complaining about the rules, but it all culminated with one moment: me winning the final in a tight match over Andria, despite having been down match point in the semifinals just 10 minutes earlier. As a result, I got a new book, The Total Skywatcher’s Manual (Thanks Dr. D!)

After the tournament, we made friendship bracelets for each other, featuring kind messages and savage jokes (thanks Maura for all the materials!). I had a lot of trouble, dropping or breaking most of those I tried to make, but eventually was able to finish three. I wish I could give one to everyone, but unfortunately there was not enough time or supplies. I’ll keep making them whenever I have time.

After dinner, we headed to Herty to resume work on our problem sets and orbit determination code. Today, naturally, was Bastille Day, so we had to celebrate everyone’s favorite Frenchman, Pierre. We drew fun pictures expressing our affection for him and for France, and we got croissants to eat to celebrate (thanks Dr. Ice!).

We’re all looking forward to resuming lectures and work after the weekend tomorrow.

Also, I would like to set the record straight once and for all: It is ANDREW N who threatened ME with compressed air frostbite, not the other way around, despite the misinformation that seems to be spreading. Just wanted to be sure everyone knew.

-Michael C

The post Astro GCSU: Bastille Day first appeared on SSP International.

Jasmine – (As your bestie I will be writing this – Sour) Even though it was your fault we missed the flight to SSP, you are an amazing and thoughtful person. I really enjoy being friends with you and getting me addicted to nerds gummy clusters. Hopefully I or we don’t miss our flight back… (As your actual bestie Divya, not Sour) You’re genuinely one of the sweetest people I have ever met in my entire life. I’m always going to miss our late night nutella sessions (sorry everyone for eating the whole jar and maybe Sour for putting it on his face, strong on the maybe) and hopefully you get over your fear of flying a Boeing. Anyways HAPPY 17 I can’t wait to go home and make Wawa trips while you drive (please don’t kill me). YAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY. – Divya and Sour

Aditya – You always light up every room you walk in with your infectious smile and the belief that if you think you are happy, you will be.

Alan – I enjoy your pool technique, and it is funny seeing how you win every time!

Andria – You always tell the most hilarious stories and I won’t forget about the time you stood at the MAX’s door for 2 minutes holding the door for everybody.

Andrew B. – Eating ramen and Nutella waffles is much less lonely at midnight when you are also hanging out in the kitchen!

Andrew N. – I am always so jealous of your delicious Chinese ramen in the morning lectures, but you make up for it with your kindness whenever I ask for help.

Arya – We will miss you! I really loved your pink dress that you always wore to dinner.

Daniela – You are seriously the sweetest person I know, and you always offer your help to anyone who needs it.

Darnell – Never have I seen someone work so hard to understand a difficult topic, and I really admire your patience and dedication. Special shout out for creating the Darnellian.

Delal – You are so sweet to everyone during every interaction, and your laugh is so contagious.

Devan – Thank you for noticing me staring at your cookie at the aquarium and giving me some – you’re the GOAT.

Divya – Our late night Nutella and cookie dough parties in the Hive have been the highlight of SSP for me, and you always make me so comfortable to be myself! I’m so excited to hang out after SSP!

Eduardo – Thank you for wishing me happy birthday 13 separate times today. You are so hilarious, not to mention insanely smart.

Emma – You are so sweet, and the best suitemate ever. Your Oreo shelf is my comfort place, and you are always so generous.

Gwanpil – Your hair is majestic, and your smile is always so infectious, even when I’m stressed out about PSETS.

Isa – Your paper boat story at dinner today was one of the most creative things I’ve seen so far at SSP, and you never fail to make me laugh. Thank you for always being so patient with me!

Jonathan – Watching you get slightly frustrated while coding and then figuring it out right after is the highlight of PSET time for me, and thank you for always being patient when I ask questions.

Kaan – Slay queen! Playing tennis with you is so much fun, and it is definitely worth waking up at 8 on a Sunday morning for.

Kal – Watching you deadlift Darnell last night has really motivated me to hit the gym, get those gains, and become as buff as you one day.

Katie – You are one of the most hardworking people I know, and also one that I know I can come to with anything.

Lauren – You’re the best roommate I could have asked for, and hanging out with you is always the most fun.

Lindy – Before we even got to SSP, I admired you for your 7.7 UTR, but now, I admire you even more for being someone who never fails to make me laugh and who gives the best advice.

Michael C. – You are such a kind person, and even though I can’t really keep up with you in tennis, you always make me feel capable.

Michael N. – SWAT wouldn’t be complete without you, and you are always so patient and kind. You also have the best taste in music ever!

Olivia – You are so sweet and such an amazing suitemate. Thank you for always opening the door for me when I forget my key, and for helping me with anything and everything.

Pierre – I, too, communicate through sarcasm, and I find it so hilarious every time you answer with something out of pocket.

Pranav – You are one of the sweetest people I know, and your smile even during super stressful situations always reassures me that everything will turn out in the end.

Sahil – You were one of the first people to sing happy birthday to me when the clock turned to midnight, and you gave some pretty solid advice about you-know-what.

Sai – Sai, look over there! *turns head back slowly as music plays in the background.

Sanjana – You are so sweet to every single person you encounter, and I really admire your intense dedication and patience to making sure you and everyone else understands the material.

Sara – Your violin in the Hive at night always calms me down after a long day, and our conversations are always so funny and never fail to make me crack up.

Jean – Your obsession with consciousness and philosophy will always intrigue me, and you inspire me to be more thoughtful every day. 

Sour – Even though you made us miss our flight here because of your Hi-chew addiction, I’m really glad we both made it. Metro Boomin’s waiting for us when we get back!

Taja – You are one of the funniest people I know, and your work ethic is something to look up to. I can’t wait to hang out after SSP is over.

Thinh – Our conversations are always so interesting and goofy, and I really enjoy having you around!

Viktoriia – I don’t know what we would do without you here, and you are always so funny and humble that I sometimes forget you are genuinely a genius.

Evan – Sorry for the late blog post, but what I lack in untimeliness, I hope I make up for in good writing! Thank you for putting up with our tennis in the morning, and I always look forward to being at your table.

Ian – Mew and mog king for real. +1000 aura points

Claire – I’m inspired to learn juggling now, and even though I’m not the best at it, you definitely inspire me to learn.

Maura – Thank you for being such a girl’s girl and being as much of an Olivia Rodrigio fan as we all definitely are.

Dr. Ice – You’re the GOAT (greatest of all time), and nothing else can really be said. Thanks for literally everything and making our SSP experience truly unforgettable. 

Dr. M – Your lectures are always so interesting, and even though it was intimidating having to answer our own questions at first, I’ve found that I really have been able to learn so much and retain all of the information you have taught us.

Dr. C – I hope it’s okay that we taught your son Lagrangian mechanics on the bus yesterday. I really enjoy all of your lectures, and especially enjoy talking about philosophy at the guest speaker receptions.

Dr. D – Your orbital determination lectures are some of my favorites, and your stories about cosplay and making costumes is so incredibly interesting!

Dr. Adams – Even though you were only here for a couple of days, I hope we made as much of an impression on you as you did on us. 

The post Astro GCSU: A Day Not Totally About Me first appeared on SSP International.

Sincerely,
Andria

The post Astro GCSU: A day in the life first appeared on SSP International.

But let’s start the blog on yesterday, July 4th. After a day of lectures on optics and orbital determination, I went to the computer lab to work on my data reduction. Currently, our team, named the Wacky Wiggling Worms (the best and longest team name, with me, Michael, and Taja), is working on analyzing the pictures we took in a week before. Our team has a bittersweet relationship with our asteroid — although it is like 2 times as dim compared to other teams’ asteroids and annoying to track, we’re up for the challenge! I was surprised that there were a lot of fireworks throughout the night; it seemed that the entire town of Milledgeville was celebrating the eve of my birthday! But while I was working on the asteroid data, Dr. Ice told everyone to meet in the main classroom. Out of nowhere, Ian brought in a huge cupcake cake (a cake made up of many cupcakes as a base with frosting over them), and we celebrated my birthday a day early! Everyone sang Happy Birthday MULTIPLE TIMES (it is tradition to sing the happy birthday song as many times as how old one is turning).

After that Ian invited us to go to the observatory to take some cool pictures! I went to observe with Kaan and Michael and we got absolutely fantastic pictures of the Whirlpool Galaxy! It was too cloudy though for other objects like the Ring Nebula. And I did not attempt to give Michael frostbite with compressed air, that is disinformation; it was actually the other way around. I attached the stacked image below. Hopefully we can observe more cool things when the clouds go away! Afterwards I went to sleep around 1 AM after a few matches of Brawl Stars (I am NOT addicted to that game).

Fast forward to the morning of July 5th, I woke up around 8:20 AM, which is typical for me. I had the most satisfying and nutritious meal for breakfast — a cup of instant noodles and an energy drink.

After getting ready, I headed towards the lecture hall at around 8:50 AM to come across a beautiful birthday message on the whiteboard! After a few more rounds of Happy Birthday songs, we began a normal morning of lectures. It truly is amazing how supportive the SSP community is!!

After our lectures, it was College & Career Day! To start off, we wore our semi-formal clothes and had a scrumptious lunch at a fancy auditorium. I enjoyed the potatoes and the chicken wrap. Through Zoom, we listened to admission officers from Caltech and Harvey Mudd about student life at the colleges and the application process. It was very informative as we could ask questions to the admission officers directly. (PS to all AO’s: it would be a nice birthday gift to give me admission to your college )

I sat with Pranav, Kaan, Jean, Delal, Daniela, and Viktoriia for lunch. Jean asked the most important questions, such as would you rather live eternally, stop time, or travel back into the past. I also learned some questionable Turkish from Kaan.

Then Ms. Belote came to give a speech about college admissions.

Here’s the main highlight:
YOU WILL GET INTO A GOOD COLLEGE.

And say that over and over again for 10 times.

I thought her speech was very reassuring because everyone was a little nervous going into the college admissions process. We got this!! Let’s put that worry elsewhere. We headed back to the dorms after lunch.

Finally, we had dinner around 5 PM. Today was the fanciest dinner by far; the grilled broccolini and chicken was delicious. We wore even fancier clothes than dinner. After another Happy Birthday, we all settled down in groups of 5. An admissions officer from GCSU came down and gave a speech on student life and the admissions process at the college. Then we listened to a speech about life. Life is not linear, and a growth mindset is important in overcoming challenges and achieving success and happiness with your life. I also sat with Evan the GOAT, and I mowed down some cake.

Afterwards we headed back to the dorms. Sour delivered a stunning kazoo performance of Happy Birthday at my dorm door. We went back to the classrooms around 8:30 PM to work on our problem sets. I went back around 11 PM to where I am now.

It’s crazy that SSP is already half over. Although SSP felt a little overwhelming at the beginning (Lagrangian mechanics left me in a state of bewilderment), I’ve gotten used to this amazing and supportive community. I’ve learned so much through collaboration with my peers, and I’m so excited for what’s to come. I heard that since our dark sky viewing was canceled due to rain, we are going to WALMART for an HOUR 30 MINUTES tomorrow!! Anyways it’s 1:23 AM now so I will wrap it up here. Night!

Afternote: Nevermind, the thunderstorms are absolutely terrifying. This is probably the most intense thunderstorm I’ve ever witnessed, and both my suitemates (Pranav and Kaan) were woken up by the thunder. The lightning is striking very close by, I swear it hit our building one time. Crazy

-Andrew N

The post Astro GCSU: College Day + Birthday first appeared on SSP International.

Figure 1. ‘I tasted peanut butter for the first time in my life!’

Then I rushed to our new classroom with Jean. We learned the Newton-Raphson method and wrote a Python program to apply it.

Figure 2. ‘Our temporary but highly cool classroom’

As a not-that-much-of-a-(should-I-even-stop-this-at-this-point)-footnote, we are halfway through SSP, which does not leave me enough time to learn Chinese, officialize the new sports game Aditya founded, nor find answers to Jean’s hypothetical questions—shang xin. After the class, we had lunch and proceeded to Hive. While waiting for [SPOILERS], I played table tennis with Darnell. While he is a new player, I am so proud of his improvement—using his Ninjago terminology in a pretty degenerated way, I hope he will have the golden table tennis power someday. After [non-SPOILERS] arrived, we started our journey to see the Braves-Giants baseball game [SPOILER this was.]

Figure 3. ‘Yeyy’

There we met Mr. Gray(?) who formerly worked in the Air Force and has 2 children over the age of 30. As you may see in Figure 3, he was so kind as to play ‘The Hobbit’ on the little screens and stop at Target, adding joy to our 2-hour drive. In the realm of Third Policeman, I am no less than 60 percent bus since each of our trips requires approximately a 2-hour drive. After  · · · We arrived at Truist Park, where the game took place!

Figure 4. ‘Yes, Pranav was supporting Giants. I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars: Pranav was supporting Giants’

Before the game, we had some time to wander around Truist Park, so we visited a museum that you can see extensively in Figure 5.

Figure 5. ‘Based’

Then, we watched the game and it was so fun! Even though this was my first interaction of any kind with baseball, the ambiance was so interesting and it got more enjoyable as we understood the game better with each strikeout and ball with Jean.

Figure 6. ‘MAKE SOME NOISE’

The Braves won the game with a 3-1 final score. Finally, the road back to our dorms started. As a remarkable event, our dearest TA Evan notified us that today’s blog writer was me while we were approaching the dorms building. This begs the question: Will I be able to complete both my blog and PSet on time? To quote what Aditya said tomorrow in a Boltzmann-wise nonexistent and sleepy state: ‘Hopefully’

Thank you for reading my blog!

-Delal

The post Astro GCSU: Don’t Stop Believin’ first appeared on SSP International.

In just the first two weeks, I’ve collected quite a few trinkets while working at SSP — with every day being so eventful here, just looking at them brings back vivid memories of the fun times I’ve had so far.

I got this nice blanket on the first day of SSP, waiting for me on my bed! I do like the embroidery and it’s very fluffy and comfortable, even if it does shed. I think calling it a keepsake is a little misleading — I don’t think I can bring it home, after all — but I think it’s a nice memento regardless. It’s very helpful on colder nights.

Also from the first day, we got some candy and our name tags. I ate most of the Jolly Ranchers, and my suitemate took my Twix. I still have to eat the rest of my candy…

Very soon after, I got this relatively unassuming image of a Volkswagen Beetle with my name on the back of it. That’s how I got to meet my team, the Medieval Beetles! It was fun matching up the bug puns on each others’ slips of paper. My teammates got an image of The Beatles and Beetlejuice. Definitely something I might take home.

Here’s a paper airplane I made for our paper airplane competition as part of the Question of the Day challenges we have! This was one of my attempts, called The Bird. Supposedly it was optimized to be a long-distance flier, but it didn’t work very well in my tests, so I ultimately didn’t use it. Instead, I opted for a whirlybird, a paper helicopter that spins in the air — if I couldn’t get distance, I thought that I could at least get the airtime award. Unfortunately, my whirlybird clumsily tumbled to the ground during the actual competition, without the spinning I had hoped for. I may not have won, but I had fun making airplanes! (Unfortunately, someone threw my whirlybirds away, so I don’t have them.)

This isn’t technically my item, but it was too cute not to share! My suitemate had won the competition for most Questions of the Day answered during the first week, so she won this adorable ladybug plush. It’s very cute, and it sits on her desk while she works. It was awesome seeing her walk up to get it!

On Wednesday, we went on a field trip to the Kia factory. I love robots, so I definitely got a kick out of that! It was a much-needed break from lectures, even if the tour was shorter than the two-hour drive to West Point, Georgia. Seeing the industrial robots chug away to make cars was so much fun, and I had a great time (plus I made some good progress on Super Smash Bros’s Spirit Adventure mode on the bus ride). The Kia tour leaders gave us these nice mechanical pencils — they almost look like pens! They’re definitely very cool.

This sticker was from Wednesday! We had Dr. Hodari-Sadiki Hubbard-James visit to explain his work in the search for extraterrestrial life near K-dwarf stars. Astrobiology is a field I didn’t previously know much about, so it was a very informative talk to listen to! I was able to ask him questions regarding his work in astronomy afterwards, and he gave me this sticker depicting the frequencies of various dwarf stars within one hundred light years. Neat!

And, most recently, I received this little gum wrapper paper crane from my classmate behind me during a lecture break. It was so cute!

As for things that happened today, we had a student-led lecture to help us understand these problem sets. It rained for the first time since we arrived in Milledgeville – and since it’s always sunny, we got this nice rainbow!

That’s all from me — please look forward to Sour’s post tomorrow!

-Sai

The post Astro-GCSU Tau Day first appeared on SSP International.

 Hey folks. Today was…interesting, to say the least. We began with a normal morning lecture (or as normal as a lecture can get when one of your classmates comes in 90 minutes late because they overslept). 

The lecture content itself was also as interesting as always–and by interesting, I mean extremely hard. Luckily, with the 𝓹𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓻 𝓸𝓯 𝓯𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓹, everyone was able to solve and explain the concepts–even if it took a few hours (thanks Sour).

After morning lectures and a lunch that I missed, it was time for our first guest speaker!!!: Hadari-Sadiki Hubbard-James. He talked about his work in looking for habitable planets through potential K-dwarf host stars. A.k.a. looking for aliens. His presentation was super interesting! And the cool stickers he gave out definitely didn’t hurt. What was even more interesting was the Q&A and reception, where Dr. Hubbard-James patiently and thoroughly answered all of our questions, no matter how irrelevant or confusing. We learned so much from Dr. Hubbard-James! Both about space and habitable planets, and about himself (his favorite movie is Sharknado). I think we ended up overwhelming him a bit with all of our questions (sorry Doc).

Because we had a guest speaker, we ended up going back to the dorms early. So Claire (our TA) held juggling lessons in the Hive!!(the lobby, yk, bug theme, bees, hive? yeah) a bunch of people showed up, including me. Juggling was hard, and I ended up scraping my knees more than once chasing after runaway balls I accidentally threw too far. But I’m not saying Claire was a bad teacher. In fact, she’s an amazing teacher (and an even better juggler)! I learned way more about how to juggle than I expected. 

I was so caught up in juggling that I almost forgot to change for dinner. But after a hurried five minutes that involved skirts, flies, and ripped-up cardboard, we made it to dinner–where we were reminded that Tide Pods are for washing clothes, not for eating (even if they’re strawberry-flavored Sai).

After dinner, it was back to the classroom for more physics derivation! (If you can’t tell I’m crying inside right now) Luckily, we have good teachers! (Thanks again, Sour! Aditya was busy writing his own blog post, which hopefully has been published before this one) As I write this post, we are in the middle of explaining Lagrange’s equations. 

So thanks for reading, wish us luck!

-Olivia

The post Physics Might Help Find Aliens, But it Does Not Help With Juggling first appeared on SSP International.

Like all days, I suppose today started at 12:00 AM, when I finally got back to Bell Hall after two hours of trying (and failing) to animate a simulation that I really didn’t have to animate; in all fairness, there was extra time. Anyways, we raided the communal fridge and ate some of the leftovers of Saturday’s breakfast items, i.e. bagels and cream cheese and (shh…) a few muffins. After this transpired a really, really long game of modified checkers with Devan, over which there was a lot of mostly incoherent rambling interspersed with moments of occasional lucidity which I may or may not have been using as a form of psychological warfare:

<<I could play here … here, eh? What’s here? Not there? What’s there, I suppose? Everything? Or maybe nothing … you know, numerous compelling arguments have been put forward in favor of the universe’s probable nonexistence … but according to Blaise Pascal, I ought to believe in its existence anyways because it’s useful to believe … in any case, following the principles of memetics, a belief in the meaninglessness of everything is unlikely to propagate itself … but if meaninglessness can be considered itself meaningless, then a belief in meaninglessness is just as meaningless … and … where were we again? Huh, I quite forgot. In familiar experience, the human capacity for memory … >>

Needless to say, this conversation was very one-sided. Also, I lost. So then, it being past midnight, the responsible thing would have probably been to go upstairs and sleep, especially on account of the planned 7:00 AM morning run. But the curfew didn’t take effect until after 1 AM …

[45 MINUTES LATER]:

ME: If thou art subscribed to the axiom of utilitarianism, then in the trolley problem where the one person was happy and the five others were chronically depressed, would it still be moral to kill the one? I think not.

OLIVIA: I’d still save the five people because … well, it’s not in our hands to make that decision. What if the five people change and eventually live a happy life?

This conversation went on for quite some time until someone noticed that it was 12:58 AM, to which we sprinted upstairs and hid in our dorms in fear of Dr. Ice. Then, Kal, Darnell, and I (we’re roommates) should’ve really gone to sleep, but …

[30 MINUTES LATER]

ME: All philosophical problems, in my opinion, ought to be considered complete information systems because any other scenario can be effectively reduced to the same via Bayesian probability. It seems that, for instance, Olivia tends to try and take the most optimistic interpretation, but I’m personally an “expected value-ist”.

KAL: Yeah, definitely—meanwhile, maybe Pierre’s right after all, and that’s what leads to dictators like Hitler and Stalin.

Just normal high schooler late-night activities, right? Surely not anything that would get us publicly stoned as nerds … Around 2 AM, we finally decided to go sleep on the resolution that all of us would wake up in time to go run the next morning; Darnell set an early alarm for 6:30 AM.

If you’ve been closely following this story, you can probably guess what happened next. We woke up, all right … at 7:07 AM, to my alarm. Whoops! I struggled out of bed and went to take a shower, then came out to find both Darnell and Kal still in bed, so I woke them up and headed off to breakfast. When I got there, it looked a little like this:

Not surprising. But I made the incredible discovery that the cafeteria actually sold bananas! Bananas! This was a lifesaver addition to a breakfast that already consisted of just yogurt, granola, raisins, and pineapple—in other words, fructose, fructose, and MORE FRUCTOSE. Eventually, some normal people (i.e. waffle-, egg-, and biscuit- eaters) showed up, and we started talking in anticipation of the morning lecture before heading over to Herty Hall.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view), said lecture was delivered on none other than Newton’s Laws of Motion. In order to stay awake while those around me were … not necessarily … I multitasked by simultaneously solving Dr. M’s surprisingly interesting Quick Checks, helping those around me as necessary, doing FERMI QUESTIONS!!!, and solving random line integral problems. Other people had other strategies:

At around 12:00 PM, we broke for lunch, which included fried chicken, just like the previous day … and the day before that … and the day before that … and … well, I think you get the point. I guess I shouldn’t complain about the food, since it’s pretty good and we’re often the only group on campus nohow, but I have yet to tell whether the practice of frying everything is a southern tradition or just, like, GCSU being GCSU. Also, the beans yesterday were sweet! Why would you add sugar to pinto beans?! Well, apparently it’s a thing. Our lunch conversation was pretty interesting, especially Sara absolutely canceling Thinh for his supposed interest in Yufei (Sara’s totally cracked and kinda famous classmate).

At 1:00 PM, we returned to Herty Hall for the afternoon session. And if you thought drowsiness during the morning lecture was bad, afternoons were usually an entirely different beast—whether on account of food coma or Dr. D’s voice, I don’t know.

But not today, for today was the one and only non-academic class of SSP. Instead of the usual programming (read: headache), Dr. D introduced us to the concept of cultural capital, the diverse set of experiences, perspectives, and social conventions carried by different individuals. Then, we separated into small groups to create so-called “identity wheels”, an assignment which quickly devolved into criticizing the education system.

Our final scheduled activity was, surprisingly, arts and crafts—we diagrammed, drew on, and cut sheets of paper to construct a three-dimensional model of a sample asteroid orbit in order to understand orbital elements. And again, I was reminded why I was never successful in origami. Rather, my process was more reminiscent of the newspaper folding scene from Young Sheldon:

If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean. If not … well, you should try watching it. In any case, it lasted all the way until 4:00, when class ended. Like true overachievers, most of us stayed back to work on the problem set—for myself, I finished the last part of the simulation (still without animation) until 5:16. Then, I suddenly remembered: we were supposed to change into semi formal clothes and meet at Bell Hall for dinner at 5:20. My sprint there must’ve been legendary … only to be told that the actual meeting time was 5:30. Well, at least I got some exercise!

As it so happened, we had new table assignments that day—I was sitting with Claire (TA), Alan, Andrew N, Olivia, Sai, and Lauren. If you’ve read the other blogs, you might’ve predicted that the last three and myself make … how do I put this … a rather volatile combination. It began immediately, as I greeted everyone with my trademark “good morning!” (with an occasional “¡buenos días!” thrown in). Sai replied in German (“guten tag”), then proceeded to introduce to us the word “krankenwagen” which, along with “krankenhaus” was, for some inexplicable reason, absolutely hilarious. Whenever one of us recovered enough to regain the facility of speech, they would say something like “but then we’d need the krankenwagen” and we’d all burst out into laughter again. Eventually, Olivia asked me why I had gotten so much food (two full plates, one main course and one salad), and I perspicaciously pointed out that by eating more today, I had the license to eat less tomorrow if necessary. According to Olivia, such reasoning belongs to an ancient and venerated field of rationality: girl math. Upon inquiring, I found out far more—for instance, “girl economics”, describing Lauren’s practice of buying things with cash instead of credit because there’s no record, making her feel less guilty. And, of course, the related field of “girl debt”, the principle that when in debt, one should spend more because it is not one’s own money that one is spending. Surely, nothing could ever go wrong with that plan. At some point, Lauren started laughing so much that she declared that if anything more was said, she’d choke on her food. To which I replied: “Well, then we’d need the krankenwagen!” and everyone cracked up again.

I speed-ran the PSET by 7:30 or so, then spent the next three or so hours continuously helping everyone with their code.

What followed was absolute chaos and, for me, one of the most delightful hours of my life. XKCD basically reduced me to a bubbly three year–old.

Rather to my consternation, this perfectly describes me:

P.S. The squirrels are watching us. Oh sure, they look innocent and carefree, but you know they’re good at hiding things. Some individuals are under the delusion that Squirrels International (SI) is a government conspiracy, but let me tell you right now … the government is a squirrel conspiracy. You cannot run. You cannot fly. There is no escape. They are everywhere!

P.P.S. If I disappear a few days after writing this, you should know—it was the squirrels. My last words shall be “Nice knowin’ y’all. Now, AVENGE ME!”

-Aditya

The post JUNE 25, 2024: A DAY OF VERY LOW PROBABILITY first appeared on SSP International.

After a record-breaking bed-to-bus time from him, movie watching, gaming competitions, and quiz bowl tournaments ensued as we traveled to tour Kia’s factory. When we arrived, we toured the plant and saw the incredible robots and complex assembly process that goes into building every car there. One thing that stuck out to me was the adaptability of the assembly line, functional for many gas car models and even an EV car as well. It could mold to the changes that come with time. 

On our way back, bus-wide karaoke broke out. Childhood classics and new hits blasted for an hour as people sang, talked, and enjoyed snacks. We ended the bus ride singing country roads and sweet Caroline. When we got back, the fun continued as we went to the rec room for a dominos pizza night (which featured pineapple pizza despite vocal opposition to it). Afterwards was study time, as we worked on wrapping up our third PSET. 

This far into SSP, what I’ve learned is that it’s more than an educational experience, though I’ve certainly learned a ton. It’s also more than just a research experience, though we’ve already begun observation sessions on our asteroids and will have determined their orbits in just a few short weeks. SSP is so special because of how it creates friendships through encouraging us to work together on PSETs, go together on field trips, and spend evening hours together in the rec room. So far, the best part was indeed the friends we made along the way. 

-Devan

The post Astro GCSU Field Trip first appeared on SSP International.