So I'm back here after having spent the night out on the quad to get one of the eleven spots in GES7B, Introduction to Wilderness Skills. It meets for two hours every Wednesday night, and takes four two-night trips every other weekend during the quarter. Yeah, big time commitment, but when will I have as much time to try out cool new things as during freshman year?

Sleeping out was kinda fun. Anal me went to the center of the quad immediately after my ME101 class, which, by the way, proved to be great. They had us building a 15-minute, spaghetti-and-masking-tape cantilevered structure the first day. We (I and the guy who was sitting next to me) had a tension "wire" draped over a vertical minitower of sorts. While our design lacked the ability to hold much weight, it did possess the important capacity for pivoting. That's because it wasn't too well-supported on the sides and kept drooping a bit to either side, which shortened its reach by a few inches. At any rate, we got exactly to the three-foot mark, which probably placed us fourth or fifth among thirty-plus groups—well enough to warrant satisfaction, especially since I had no formal idea of how to do it, but it would have been cool to have won that contest. Adding another length of spaghetti and bolstering the sides would have done it, I think. Oh well, maybe next time.

Your grade for the class is mostly based on four major group projects, and I've heard people have pulled double and triple all-nighters to finish 'em. I think, though, that ridiculously intense concentrations of time are something I revel in—q queer fetish I picked up during my Hawkeye stint, no doubt. So it should be like hell, but fun. I biked down to University Art in Palo Alto to get materials, which violently reminded me how much of an art supply shop fixation I have. It also reminded me how dangerous bikes could be, especially if you're trying to get back to campus at dusk with an 18" x 24" newsprint pad in one hand.

But I digress. Back to sleeping out: I got there a little after five, chatted with a girl who'd gotten there a while before me, messed around a bit on another girl's skateboard, chased some plastic, played a round of BS, and started a letter. I've got a feeling this whole sleeping out deal, in addition to determining class membership, is a ploy to get us all to know each other a bit better. I mean, what else can you do in the center of a palacially-large courtyard for 14 hours if not talk to the people around you? One thing about sleeping outdoors, whether on brick or sand or dirt, is that the darkness forces your day to end soon after sundown (unless you've got a campfire, which we didn't). I was out cold by 10; around 3:30, a bunch of very drunk SAE's came by and actually grabbed someone in a sleeping bag, but eventually stumbled along on their merry way and left us to go back to our sleep. I woke up for good around 6, finished the letter, packed up, and stood around with everyone else for a bit until the instructors came at 8 with—woohoo!—doughnuts. Then, I came back here for a shower and an email check, and, before I knew it, it was time to go to physics in case I don't get into the seminar.

All of this schedule fluctuation is kind of wearying because I'm expected to be up to date for all of the classes which I'm considering taking. So, in short: two of my classes are still to be determined, one of them is like hell, but fun, and the last is CS. I love CS. Wait, let me qualify that. I love the idea of it, I love how powerful it is, I love the way I feel after having finished a program, and I love the way the class is so solidly organized in a way that is familiar and comfortable. College should be all about experimentation and challenges (what a great sales pitch!), though, so I guess it's damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.