A Sea of Stars

I didn't proofread this, so there might be errors. I'm tired. Sorry. Not really. I'm never sorry.

A week ago I left you, following my first weekend in my dormitory, on the eve of general move-in day. So let us visit my last Tuesday, the twenty-four hour period responsible for the doubling of the population of my little cubiculum.

My roommate's name is Jack Hunsicker. He hails from Minneapolis, Minnesota, though he attended a private boarding school in Massachusetts (just like everybody else here) prior to his arrival at Middlebury. I, regretfully for the sake of this column's entertainment value but thankfully for the sake of my sanity and my comfort, which to me but not necessarily to you trumps the former, have no qualms about Mr. Hunsicker. Also, he is very tall.

Now Tuesday also marked the beginning of first year orientation, which lasted until yesterday. Middlebury's orientation, of which I am now a seasoned veteran and therefore can speak knowledgeably and, equally important, frankly, consisted of a series of activites put on by the college, many of which were deemed by the administration to be mandatory and many of which were not. I hope I am speaking with impunity when I tell you that I did not attend all, or even most, of the mandatory events. You see, the sophomores, juniors, and seniors of the cross country team have proven to be a most invaluable resource, and with their aid it became possible to winnow down my schedule to the absolutely mandatory (as opposed to the merely nominally), which of course provided me with an amount of free time that in most situations I would have considered abysmally marginal, but, now that I am in college, I am forced to accept as generous.

I am currently under the impression that you have all undergone a college orientation of some sort. As such, I will not bore you with a detailed account of mine, as it undoubtedly shared many aspects with those that you have collectively attended. Instead, I will continue to bore you with this ridiculously high-strung style of writing that I have arbitrarily adopted for today's post, of which I have become much enamored, while I describe several things that transpired over the last few days that I think are blog worthy.

Saturday saw the inception of my college cross country racing career. We ran at the Dartmouth Invitational against three other teams, one of which (Dartmouth) crushed us, one of which (Boston College) defeated us by a small margin, and one of which (Brown) lost to us. Suck it, Emma. Literally or figuratively. I'd be partial to either.
On a personal level, I ran a decent race. Due to flooding issues (thank you, Irene) the course was cut short to 4.5 miles rather than the customary 8k, which is roughly five miles. My time was 24:09, or 5:22 per. You don't care. That's fine. I wouldn't either.

Our convocation took place yesterday and I promptly jumped at the opportunity to maintain the one SoCal stereotype that I regularly fulfill: the casual dresser. You see, I didn't bring a tie or nice pants to college. So I wore nice-ish shorts. And a collared shirt. With short sleeves. Needless to say, most everyone else far outclassed me, just as they should have.

While we're on the subject of dress, I should mention that the Harry Potter socks have earned me a few compliments. I should also mention that my roommate just found out about this blog, so he will likely make fun of me for bragging about my socks. Bring it, Hunsicker. I know you're reading this.

On an altogether unrelated note, classes began today. I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss PHYS 155: An Introduction to the Universe. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, right before noon, I will amble over to Bicentennial Hall and listen to the lecture, which should be very interesting. But not nearly as interesting as the lab portion of the class. More on that in a second. First, I need to acquaint you with Professor Winkler.

At this point I could very well launch into a long-winded exposition detailing everything I know about this apparently remarkable individual, outlining the various dimensions of his personality that he has already put on display, analyzing what little I know of his life story, etc. But I'll spare you that. Not because I don't feel you deserve an accurate picture of him. In fact, I'm sparing you that because I want to give you the most accurate picture of him, and to do that, I need only give you one word, a word that will instantly tell you more about him than I could if I spent this entire day typing about him, a word that will make Rachael and Nicole smile (not that that's why I'm doing this), a word that, well . . . Dumbledore. Without the beard. There. Now you know Professor Winkler.

Now for the lab. It runs from 7:30 to 9:30 every Monday night. So I just had my first session tonight. And we went eleven floors up in the biggest building on campus. In the observatory. Yeah. That's right. And since there were only about six people in the class tonight, everyone got ample telescope time. And Winkler set up the telescope to point at this star. And he asked what was unique about it. And if you looked closely you could tell. We were looking at a binary star system.

I thought that was pretty cool. And then I remembered one more thing I need to say. There's a six-story building here called Warner Hall with two staircases. The eastern staircase visits each of the six stories. The western staircases only visits the prime numbers. Which is hilarious.

My history professor ended today's lecture by rhetorically asking "What have the Romans ever done for us?" then non-rhetorically asking what that's from, and I of course raised my hand and said it was from Monty Python. My first brownie point.

Speaking of references, does anyone know what the title of this post alludes to?