Thursday

I barely get up at 8:00 AM because someone decided it was a good idea to have a class at 8:30 AM. It's just a gen ed (Evolution) but I try to attend class because it's a good idea for not doing poorly. Also the attendance literally halved since the beginning of the semester and I don't want the professors to feel bad.

Well, by "professors" I mean the TAs, because for some reason they're the ones teaching the class. Or, at least they've been teaching ever since the first module finished. I haven't actually seen the professor since then. I have no complaints though, the TAs are doing a fine job.

Unfortunately, Evolution was boring that day. For some reason we talked a lot about geology, which I didn't find particularly interesting.

Class finishes early at 9:45 AM and I'm left with nothing to do until 1:20 PM. Er, well, technically I have a Functional Programming class at 11:40 AM. But after the first three lectures (during each of which I almost fell asleep), I got convinced that it wasn't worth attending because I can just learn everything from the mandatory recitation anyways. Also it overlaps with my lunchtime, which I'm unwilling to move earlier because my stomach is suffering from some unknown medical condition. So that's why I don't go.

I spend the downtime trying to do my Measure Theory homework, which was due that night. I kinda feel like I'm screwed: Problem 4 seems impossible, and I haven't really thought about Problem 5 yet. I also haven't done some of the previous parts. Worst comes to worst, I can use the Homework Drop on this.

At 1:20 PM I'm in my Technological Ethics class. It's a surprisingly good class, even though the workload can get a bit heavy. The professor brought in a guest lecturer who talked about content regulation on social media.

At around 4:00 PM I'm home.

I'm kinda panicking on my Measure Theory homework. I'm really sure I have an answer for Problem 4, I just can't prove it... I give up and start trying to do damage control, sweeping some of the previous parts. Fortunately they fall apart pretty quickly. I then go look at Problem 5. The conversations I've been overhearing about this problem start to make sense... and it seems kinda silly. Can't I just do this via "brute force"? Turns out it works perfectly fine. I prove it cleanly with 3 lemmas.

And now the cursed Problem 4. It's a two-parter and I can't get either of them.

After analyzing a bunch of my previous failed attempts (which ended in horrible messes of inequalities that led nowhere), I stared a bit at the second part, and that gave me an idea for the first. I realized that even though my answer was probably correct, it would be so much better to write it in a totally different way. I work it out on paper, and it all clicks together!

I write up the proof quickly for the first part, and then I feel slightly strange because my construction just completely nukes the second part. I'm a bit paranoid that something's off, but I don't notice anything wrong. I think it works.

With 10 minutes left, I'm done. But I'm concerned that I did too much "handwaving". I very quickly type up the two lemmas I need to patch up any holes in rigor and submit with minutes to spare. That was a close call!

I relax by playing Genshin until like 5AM or something. I have more assignments due on Saturday, but I feel like I deserve a break.

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Friday

No classes today! Because it's "community engagement day" or something. I wake up around 11:40 AM or something though, because some friends wanted to meet up at noon.

For Community Engagement Day, there's a ton of different food trucks giving free lunch to people... But all the lines are huge. Our plan was to get some free food and then do one of the activities, particularly an escape room. But every single line everywhere was like a zillion kilometers long, so we scrapped that part of the plan and went to an escape room.

I've done better escape rooms, but it certainly wasn't bad. Apparently we had the fastest time that day. My main contribution was figuring out the code to one of the locks by solving one of those "Mastermind" puzzles.

After the escape room, pretty much most of the food trucks were closing down, so some of us just bought food instead.

When I got home, I alternated between playing a Celeste mod and doing one of my reading assignments for Ethics. I accidentally fall asleep. It was a long day.

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Saturday

I magically wake up at like 10 something, just in time to get a message from K telling me to join her and J to do work.

I didn't really get much done there, except start a little of my Ethics essay that was due by midnight. We managed to solve some puzzles though!

At around 6:30 I leave with S to go pick up a birthday cake for C. I really don't have time for birthday parties, especially considering that I should be trying to raise my grade in Ethics to preserve the 4.0, but sometimes we all just need some downtime. And for C's sake, some things are more important than academics.

We surprised C. It was fun. C's roommate ordered dinner too. C learned how to cut a cake, apparently for the first time. The night is filled with conversations about sadistic CMU professors and math jokes.

During the small party I manage to finish writing my essay on my phone and submit it with about half an hour to spare. I introduced C to Celeste and let her play a bit. We stayed around until 2 AM. It was a good night.

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Sunday

This time it's (J')'s birthday. We don't really talk much anymore, which is probably for the best. But J' happens to have cake, and cake is good. And, everyone is entitled to some slack on their birthday too. So I don't mind offering my apartment as the birthday party location.

I wake up earlyish (by which I mean, before 1 PM) and order lunch delivery from Choolaah. Ordering food is pretty expensive, but I have an excuse: I'm cooking dinner! At 1 PM! And apparently it's going to take 12 hours!

I prep the "Tortellini ala Genovese" by cutting up a bunch of onions and carrots. I put them in the pot with the beef and I let it sit there. I don't have white wine because I'm still only 20, so I used water to deglaze instead. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure why, but despite following the instructions pretty closely the sauce started to burn pretty badly. With some quick thinking I salvage about 2/3 of the sauce and transfer it to a different pot. I pick out some burned bits, add some salt and sugar, and the taste was somewhat salvaged. It was pretty much done within like 5-7 hours, probably because I halved the recipe (and probably why it burned too).

I finish a bit of my functional programming homework before the party. Other than that, I didn't do much work :p

The party is fun, a bunch of good friends showed up.

Eventually everyone leaves to A's house to play some kind of board game. I wasn't that interested though. Also I have a Combinatorics midterm on Monday. In theory I really shouldn't be able to afford doing all these fun things, but I somehow make do anyway. I study a bit of Combinatorial Game Theory and Polya's counting theorem, before falling asleep.

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Monday

I arrive about 3 minutes late for the 12:20 PM Combinatorics midterm. I destroy the midterm and go get lunch at Au Bon Pain.

At ABP I find L! She's apparently running late to one of her languages classes, but she's not in a rush because her professor is apparently chill. We talked about what she was learning about: How languages have evolved to become the way they are. For example, one of the original words for 5 was "penkwe". Due to some kind of split, one group of people started using the "pen" part and another group started using the "kwe" part, and that's why both penta- and quint- are both prefixes for 5 today. The more you know!

I go to my Measure Theory class at 2:20 PM. And... wow, what the heck are we even learning anymore? Sometimes lecture is just really hard to follow and understand. I guess today was just one of those days.

I stay after for a while and one of the other students starts teaching me about the Pizza Theorem. That's why I wrote about that a few days ago.

I go home. I take an accidental nap and wake up at dinnertime. I cooked some chicken thighs with sautéed mushrooms and cherry tomatoes, and tried to make a pan sauce. The pan sauce didn't really work, but it definitely tasted good.

I don't get any programming done. Oh well.

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Tuesday

Another early Evolution day. The lecture this time was about a bunch of invertebrates. More interesting than last time, but I still found it a bit boring.

For lunch, I text A' to see if she'll be at Tepper. She says yes! I get a pizza and we talk about things while I try to finish my functional programming homework. One of the programming tasks is worth like 35 points, which I found strange because it... didn't seem that hard? I was pretty much done with it before Ethics. I was getting confident that I could finish this by the due date, which was... er, midnight.

In Ethics we talked about risk and uncertainty. Interesting lecture, as usual.

At home, I procrastinate my programming homework, though I get a little bit done. I feel a little bit stuck trying to figure out the solution to one of the problems, because the things I tried didn't seem to meet the time complexity requirements. But then I find out that some internet friends are playing One Word. How could I pass that up? I try to alternate playing One Word with doing my programming homework.

Eventually, I decided to give up on the programming homework and take a late day on it. Because hey, sometimes we all just need some downtime. And I really didn't want to think about the programming anymore.

One Word was really fun! In one of the rounds, I managed to guess the noun Click to reveal hidden text from only the clues TOMATO, JUICE, and STALK. The clue Click to reveal hidden text had a collision. I also managed to guess the noun Click to reveal hidden text from the one clue BODYCAM. That was funny.

During all that, I heated up the Genovese sauce for a quick dinner. The wonders of meal prep!

After that was over, I play some Genshin with no intention of turning in my programming assignment on time. Which is fine, because I still has two "late days" I could use.

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Wednesday

Today's 10 AM Functional Programming recitation was a midterm review session. Did I ever mention that my Functional Programming TAs are really good? They're part of the reason as to why I can afford to ditch every lecture :p

Combinatorics had a guest lecturer today, because the professor was out of town. He talked about some Combinatorial Game Theory of Tic-Tac-Toe-like variants such as Gomoku. His accent was a bit rough, but I got used to it. A shame that the attendance rate for this class went down...

I learned that:

• There's this "Erdos-Selfridge" theorem that gives a sufficient condition for determining whether a draw can be forced in a game or not. Whoa! It can be used to prove that the "-in-a-row" game on an infinite board is a strong draw for . That is, the second player can always force a draw.
• Apparently, using some cute arguments, you can show that is a strong draw too.
• is a strong win in that the first player can always win (Exercise: Prove this! Horizontal, vertical, and 45-degree-diagonal lines are all legal). However, are actually open problems!

I get lunch at the Exchange, which is basically everyone's favorite place for lunch. They make really good sandwiches.

In Measure Theory, we prove the Lebesgue Differentiation Theorem. Apparently, the Radon-Nikodym derivative for the Lebesgue measure on and , i.e. the unique measurable function up to a.e. equivalence satisfying , is actually kinda a "derivative" in the sense that where is a set that "tends" or "shrinks" to in a "nice" way as .

I get some ice cream because I crave sugar before I head home. Now that I was less burnt out from programming, I managed to finish my Functional Programming assignment, which ended up being not that bad.

After handing that in, I finished writing this blog post, and then made myself a steak and mashed potatoes dinner. And by that I mean, I will make some steak and mashed potatoes starting in 5 minutes. Hopefully that goes well.

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Best of luck on the AMCs! If you're stressing over your score, go play games and/or have fun. Because remember, sometimes we all just need some downtime