On Friday night, we took advantage of our new key priviliges to go into the guy's dorm without waiting outside for someone to let us in. Since I'd been the one to ask Dr. Aktar, he'd e-mailed me (and no one else) to tell us that it should work now, so I was expecting the guys to be surprised when we walked in unaccompanied. They weren't. (Though I later found out that Angelo and Fernando hadn't quite believed us when we said we'd let ourselves in.)
Continuing the theme, we found another mathematical movie to watch. Although nowhere near close to exhausting the list of movies that feauture or include math or mathemaicians, we are nar the end of such movies that are findable and good. (My birthday's in March, if anyone wants to find Fermat's Lasst Tango or Non Ho Tempo...)
The movie for Friday was Proof. If you were willing to ignore the cliches about mathematics, the lack of likeable characters, lots of yelling, and the frequent repetition of the word “proof,” it wasn't a bad film. Since I was only able to ignore one of those things, I didn't find it particularly enjoyable. (I think we might need to find movies about something other than math next week...)
After that, we hung around playing cards and talking for however people felt like it. Maram is really good at speed-based games, but she’s really bad at staying focused when other people are talking to her. The easy way to use this to your advantage is to get a general conversation going while you're playing her. The hard way is to tell her an intersting story while still staying focused enough to win. Maram got tired of me letting other people beat her the easy way and made me play against her so I had to try and win the hard way.
The next day, I got up and Dana invited me to go to TJ-Maxx with her and Griselda. I didn't particularly need to buy anything, but I could always use an excuse to get off campus. So I took a shower and off we went.
I looked around at purses for a bit (I really shoul dhave looked at them for longer. And bought one.) before going to see what Griselda and Dana were up to. Dana was looking at shoes, and Griselda was looking at prom dresses. Because there was a clearance rack that had a number of dresses between $10-$20. It had been over 2 years since I'd tried on prom dresses, so I might as well.
Despite the change in location, companions, and price, the conversation was still remarkably similar:
“Oh, that looks really cute on you!”
“I don't really like it.”
“Why not?”
“This entire part is transparent.”
“So?”
Most of the dresses had small stains or tears in them, which was probably part of why they were so cheap. I did find one blue one that fit and didn't have any deal-breaking defects (there was a tear at the bottom, which was too long and would probably get stained or ripped if I wore it without hemming it anyway) which I decided to get. I went out wiith the sole intention of taking a nice walk and returned back with a prom dress. I think I can safely say thats never happened before.
After lunch, I got a message from Angelo asking if I wanted to work on the project. So I headed over to the guy's hall and met up with him and Fernando. The good news is that we were able to make progress, both in determining what kind of cells go away (due to rotational symmetry, some of them vanish even before you apply functions to them) and which ones are critical. The bad news is that our windows are not Princeton's. Not only can we not use chalk John Nash-style, but it's hard to read whiteboard marker. (#mathmajorproblems.)
On Sunday, I walked back to the formal gardens and Marcum. Semi spur-of-the-moment, I decided to try going for a walk through the woods. (If I'd been planning it at all, I would not have worn a skirt or sandals wirth slight heels.) I went down because I hard water and walked along by a stream for a while, which was nice. It would have been nicer if my purse had not broken as I was walking. That shortened my walk even more. I did find a different way out, but it ended up leading me straight to the Marcum. One of these days I have to find something that brings me to Bachelor... (according to a sign, that should exist.)
After dinner, Griselda, Dana, and I went for a walk. We were trying to find a place that we hadn't been before, and failed miserably. Turrned out the last time we'd set off for the music buidling, we had acctually found it, we just hadn't recognized it. The campus might be big, but we've been pretty much everywhere on it. What a shape we're less than halfway through the program...
