June 23, 2022: Matchsticks!

Classes

My first class was integer polynomials, taught by Po.

My second class was supposed to be ℤ/nℤ struct, whatever that means. Instead, MR gave us a True-False worksheet, which is essentially just a bunch of problems that dealt with whether or not something or other is true.

At the end of MR‘s class, he gave us a bunch of Matchstick problems! They were great fun.

Matchstick problems have been doing a round through MOP ever since they were introduced a few days ago. VH has also been coming up with very clever matchstick problems.

As we were walking from class to lunch, we saw some deer on the campus. (dem deer :P, even if that reference doesn’t begin until almost the end of camp)

Test

During Lunch, I sat with the TJ gang at the round table. We talked about dreams. I mentioned the dream I had about driving buses and police parents, wherein I decided my mom was taking too long to pick me up from gymnastics so I started driving a nearby bus home. However, as I was driving, the door suddenly popped open and my parents leaned in, dressed in police uniform and guns pointed out. Then I burst into tears and woke up. It was really random.

DX also talked about an interesting sequence of nightmares about a skeleton in the closet. He learned that he could wake himself up from a dream, the concept of object permanence, and that biting one’s tongue can stop laughter. Apparently, it was a very educational sequence of nightmares.

After lunch was TSTST 2 :(. On our way there, I saw the TJ gang gasping and shouting over something, so I hurried to ask them what was going on. RQ was discussing college.

My writing topic today during the test was writing emails to advertise DC Live.

Post Test

After the test, I sat with Turtle on the steps outside the testing room. He sat there because all the phones were laid on the ground and he needed to make sure people didn’t forget their phones. I sat there because I was bored and wanted to talk to him. AB forgot his phone on day 1. He forgot it again today.

I did not go to test review today. (Being geo, problem 1 would be out of my reach no matter what, and then problem 2 and 3 out of my reach because, you know. 2 and 3 are big numbers.) Because it’s VivL‘s birthday today, they had a bunch of great snacks at Doherty for the non-slackers (many of them Chinese because Chinese snacks are great) that I sadly missed out on.

Instead, I went to fuku tea with a whole crowd of others at 7:30 pm (Turtle, RW, EW, AB, KS, CH, VH, EL, AGe, JW). We managed to persuade Turtle to be a bad boy and ditch test review :P.

We also ran into Evan Chen and SA there.

Back to the Dorm

Once we got back to the dorm, we got our MOP T-shirts!

There was k-pop practice at 9 pm today. I was willing to ditch story time for k-pop, but when I got there, we were going over me gustas tu (I think VH and IZ joined us today, so they were learning it), and besides, I thought we were just going to decide what dances to dance at the talent show. Not knowing any k-pop dances, I decided to go to story time, instead. Everyone was so enthusiastic that they (IZ, EB, VH, EW) ended up learning Snapping today, though.

Story time!

Po’s story time was hosted in the Stever backyard. Topic: negotiation. Host: Po. Attendees: DD, JLee, RM, VinL & DiaL, LZ, MK, JD, LC, SA, DX, RQ, and of course, the most illustrious of them all: Yours Truly. 😛

It was really fun! Po talked about how one of the biggest things about good negotiating is the tone and sort of the general way you hold yourself and speak. He followed this up by suggesting a game: “If this coin lands heads, I win, tails, you lose. Sound fair?”

He said it in such a calm, welcoming manner that we didn’t notice a thing. The coin landed tails and he said, with that huge smile of his, “You lose!” The moment he said that, I realized what he’d done (I do have a brother, after all). But I think some of the others still didn’t notice what he said initially: they were like, “I see what you did,” but they seemed to think he simply messed around with the phrasing in the second statement, not from the original statement of the game itself.

Interrogation

After that, we talked a bit about LZ and her interrogation skills. Essentially, LZ does this thing where, when she meets someone new at MOP, she’ll interrogate them. By that, I mean she’ll spend around thirty minutes doing small talk with the other person doing most of the talking as she asks many questions (What was your reaction on making MOP? How does MOP compare to expectations? What’s it like living where you live? Etc.). Then, once they’re loosened up with these questions, she’ll strike with the real spicy ones. Namely, “How’s your love life?”

She’s asked many people this question. Most people at MOP have a love life of 0, though.

Anyway, so then RM was like, who around here has a love life? And literally, no one was willing to divulge, so just goes to show how effective LZ‘s interrogation skills are :PPPP.

Po was talking about how LZ has a very innocent face which makes people more willing to talk to her. I was like, “Do I look innocent?” And he was like, “Yes.” 😛

During story time, someone brought up a discussion about Three Blue One Brown, and all of a sudden, Po was pulling out his phone and writing an email to Grant Sanderson, asking if he wanted to give MOP a talk!!!!!

Po’s network of people is just so impressive. He casually drops that, “Oh, that one time I went to see Bill Gates,” and he can just email Grant Sanderson. One time, we were just wandering through Resnik holding our plates of food and then a little girl runs over, shouting a greeting to Po! Just a random girl just randomly knows Po because they met one time at a talk, and he knows her name! It’s so cool!!!