Journal Entry

Monday, October 30, 2000

HALLOWEEN is just around the corner! I'll probably be essay-writing while the rest of the world goes around and collects candy (or parties hardy in the case of college students). Man.. I remember the good old days when school basically shut down for Halloween craft-making and costume parties that lasted all day. Whatever happened to that?

So what's gone on since last time? Well, the chem lab was quite interesting. I commend those who came up with the process of processing nylon into anything useful. The stuff we synthesized wasn't exactly anything that I'd be proud of. But, still it was quite cool to see two liquids turn into solids as they converged. Basically, they create a film where they meet (they have different densities--like different oils--so they don't mix). Once the film is created, it stops the reaction. But when you pull up the film, the liquids meet once again, react, and the product adds on to the film, creating a virtually indefinite "rope" of nylon material that can continue to be pulled out until either liquid runs out. The product really wasn't worth keeping. Besides, to keep it, I would have had to rinse it in several chemicals to neutralize the free radicals that initiate the polymer reactions... otherwise it would simply eat through whatever I put it in. On a side note, the "eating" process would probably continue until the polymer disappeared, since the ends of the chains contain the free radicals. As they react, the chain would become one monomer shorter and react again. Andrew could probably prove me right or wrong on that one.

The math prelim went quite well... I knew almost all of the concepts tested. They gave us the answer key right after the test so we could tell immediately what we got wrong, etc. (That's not always a good thing with some of these students; generally, the ones who *shouldn't* see the answers right after tests are the ones who can't help but to stay and pick one up--resulting in screaming, crying, and all other types of emotional outbursts) I made one error where I took the sum of two numbers to the power of something, as opposed to taking each individually to that power and summing them afterwards. It's just a matter of how many points they'll deduct for that. I'll probably find out my score Wednesday or Thursday of this week.

What would my web site be without a mention of EMS. I got my t-shirts today. Dark blue "Cornell EMS" shirts. Pretty cool. Just can't wear them in bars or frats, unless of course I'm on duty responding to a call. I also ran a shift last Friday. The trend continues--uneventful as usual.

Parents weekend is this weekend! So the Zahrowski family will be in Ithaca Thursday night to be a part of the "masses." The only reason they have "parents weekend" is to condense all of the hassles of extra visitors on campus into one weekend of doom. What happens during parents weekend? 1) Food instantaneously becomes unavailable to actual students as a result of too many people eating at the dining facilities. 2) Drivers become even crazier, as one discovers who gave driving lessons to our students. 3) Foot traffic doubles. 4) Students become noticeably irritated because their parents actually want to stay more than 2 hours. 5) Dorm rooms see the remote possibility of becoming slightly cleaner to impress "mom."

Now, if you're thinking ahead of the game, something to the effect of "Dude, you're a freshman and you haven't even seen the likes of a Parent Weekend yet" might be running through your head. Fortunately, us first-year folk have 4 resources of recent historical information. Seniors, juniors, sophomores and faculty. And if thoughts of Parent Weekend provoke such a reaction, then it's got to be bad.

And yes, parents, I'll be happy to see you. Just not as happy to see every other student's parents and the catastrophe that shortly follows their arrival. Actually, being on EMS shift could be rewarding then, but I promised my parents I wouldn't run a shift while they were here (or do anything else that could eat our precious family time together!).

Aaron's looking forward to: new hole-less socks, deodorant that I'm used to, a refill of Dial soap, a good off-campus dinner (did somebody say, get me outta here?!?!), and perhaps a trip to Wal-Mart. Parents are actually staying in the Statler Hotel, so I may get a glimpse of a high-class room!

Aaron