Not So Lazy Sunday

Another Sunday goes by here at Penn, except this time it wasn't a lazy Sunday.  I went ice-skating in New Jersey with a group of people from the program and also went to dinner with our chaperone Mr. Hillyer at Bobby’s Palace here in Philadelphia.  Overall, today was a good day filled with fun and excitement. 

At the ice-skating rink in New Jersey, we had a great time out on the ice.  I hadn't skated in a few years and was a little rusty at first but quickly got the hang of everything.  It was a really funny sight to watch everyone else who didn't know how to skate fall down on the ground repeatedly.  I attempted to teach people who needed the help but it didn't seem to work.  I guess that trying to teach people about force vectors and imagining that you’re trying to draw a sine wave in the ice didn't help.  The highlight of our ice-skating adventure would probably be our failed attempt at a Harlem Shake video that ended up being a complete failure in every aspect. 

In the evening, Jun, Audrey, Hannah, and I went to dinner with Mr. Hillyer to Bobby’s Palace right down the street from the dorms.  It was the Iron Chef Bobby Flay’s restaurant which served mostly hamburgers.  For the first time in about ten years I had a hamburger.  This was a huge leap from somebody who once stated that he would rather eat a tablecloth than eat a hamburger.  Naturally I ordered one that had the least amount of vegetables.  I ended up getting the Dallas Burger which was a barbeque burger with Swiss cheese and barbeque sauce.  It wasn't terrible but I still stand by my commitment to avoiding hamburgers at all costs. 

Tomorrow we begin the third week of class and begin our interest groups.  These groups are all separate and focus on a specific area of physics.  I signed up for Radio Telescopes with Dr. Jim Aguirre which will be focusing on producing a working radio telescope using basic materials in order to study space.  The best thing about this group other than the fact that it focuses on astronomy is the fact that we can take the skills learned back home so that we can build our own radio telescopes in our backyard.  I cant wait for tomorrow.