Classes haven't killed me yet!

It's eighth week, and time for overdrive. Two take-home finals (one expected to take two weeks!), an ODE lab, an 80 hour final project for Computational Mechanics analyzing the dynamics of our tinkertoy siege engines, and all the regular Japanese and ODE coursework on top of that. Of course, this can only mean one thing: it's time to take harder classes.

So I'm registering (hopefully) for Partials, Electricity and Magnetism, and some mysterious third course. I'm thinking about Epistemology or Philosophy of Physics, although those courses fill pretty darn fast. Philosophy of Physics looks particularly awesome, talking about issues with non-locality, causality, and the far-out world of quantum. Only a few spaces left, so I've got my fingers crossed.

Broomball has drawn to a close: the aiki-fumitsubusu team "Harmony on Ice" made it to the playoffs and won our first two games 11-0, only to suffer defeat 0-4 in an intense match later that week. We really played well this year, coming together as a team over the course of our twelve games. I'm disappointed that we couldn't play more: Broomball has got to be the best winter sport ever.

Max and Sophie convinced me to follow them on Book Across The Bay, a 10 km ski race across a frozen lake at night. So I learned how to cross-country ski in a week, rode the bus up to Wisconsin, and found myself standing at the starting line of a vast frozen plain, lit up by an wandering path of candles in hollowed-out blocks of ice, stretching into the distance. Way stations handed out cookies and hot chocolate, and as Max and I passed the fifth kilometer, the first of the skiers crossed the finish line, made evident by a brilliant fireworks display. I'm really glad I got to go, and look forward to heading back next year.