June 24, 2022: Spoons and Bashing

Classes

I did my laundry today!

My first class of the day was Riddles, taught by Turtle and SA. It was a lot of fun! I started doing problem 11, but then Turtle was like, “No don’t do that one!” Then I started doing problem 20, but Turtle was like, “No don’t do that one, either!”

He’s very indecisive :PPPPPPPP

My second class was Algebraic Graph Theory with OS. It was a nice class because I think I better understand the Algebraic Combinatorics class I took at UNR last semester.

During lunch, I sat at the same table as EC. He got some of the soup. Interestingly enough, the Resnik spoon became completely, ah, deformed.

When Turtle walked into Green for their second class, they clapped all throughout the break to express their intense emotions regarding Turtle and his problem-writing. Turtle then told the Green MOPpers (because he’s a genius) that in 2018, the MOPpers clapped for 45 minutes straight (apparently, someone was late 45 minutes to their own seminar, so at the end, they had a very long round of applause). So all throughout lunch, some of the kids (more than just Green) were clapping to break that record. 

My third class was induction, taught by BW. It was also a rather fun class, by which I mean I actually helped make progress on the first question, unlike when Evan Chen taught us DDIT or MR taught us triangle configurations.

Matchstick Problem

At the end of the third class, I went to the bathroom and returned to find everyone chattering and clustered around the board. They were all looking at a matchstick problem on the board that VH had just come up with. I (and later, JW) joined them. Eventually, everyone else left until only JW, EL, BW, and I were left in the room.

A few minutes ago, EL watched as VH wrote the problem and solution down, but it took a while for him to recall what the solution was. When he finally figured it out, he let out a loud “Aaah” and then fell silent, not divulging the secret to us :(.

When our struggle became too pathetic and it became likely that we were going to miss MH‘s bashing tutorial, EL finally moved the correct matchstick and showed us the solution (which is something like the following), yet even with the solution laid out before us, we could not figure out why it was supposed to be true. It still made no sense whatsoever!

At this point, EL‘s amusement only grew.

Finally, after at least five minutes, I finally understood.

It was rather embarrassing.

Apparently, my understanding resulted in a domino effect of understanding. Soon after I understood, JW and BW also figured it out.

Then, we tore out of the classroom towards Doherty 2210, where MH was hosting his “Beginner’s Guide to Bashing.”

Bashing Seminar

I sat on the stairs down the middle, a few steps above JC, who was also sitting on the stairs. A week or so ago, JC had finished eating the large jar of cashews he got at CVS, so he bought a huge jar (at least one pound) of cashews on Amazon. Those cashews just arrived today, so I stole some of them while I sat so close at hand.

As for the actual presentation, MH started by presenting us with a “Before” he learned to bash and “After” he could bash of himself: in the “Before” photo, he was nerdy and unkempt, while the “After” photo was in a suit.

Then he jumped straight in.

K-pop Practice

After Milan’s bashing class, I returned to Stever for k-pop practice. As we were waiting for people to show up, Sasha was sitting on the chair propping the meditation room door open, waiting for people to show up for volleyball and trying to persuade us to go with him. 

Today, we learned bboom bboom and dalla dalla, I think.

Many people joined us. Most notably, there was DX, EB, EW, Evan Chen, IZ, OS, RQ, SA, VH, and me. DX showed up with a mudshake, so named because it looked like mud with cockroaches swimming at the bottom. Jk, it was actually something oreo with strawberry popping boba, but it’s always fun to tease DX one’s friends :P.

After K-pop dance, I went to dinner.

Magical Maths

I sat with SR and we talked about his seminar today, which was titled “What if Harry Potter was a Mathematician -or- magic tricks behind the scene.” After he told us the title, we somehow decided that he should use my accent to give the talk. I then pulled out my phone and start reading random Harry Potter passages, as I have all the books in Books. Sasha got three Rice Krispies today, but he ran off to set up his seminar before he could eat any of them. As such, someone shoved the plate at me and told me to eat them, because none of them wanted to eat them. However, I did not want to eat three Rice Krispies, either, so I started going around asking other people if they wanted any. In the end, I got rid of two out of the three Rice Krispies, so I took the last one back to Stever to give to Sasha.

Know that I am also a glutton, however, so I also got a plateful of fruits to snack on while at the seminar :P. After already having eaten half a plate of fruits.

I think I ate a few too many fruits today.

The seminar was surprisingly sparse, as I would have expected a bunch of people to want to listen to Sasha. Only SLu, EB, RW, EW, AA, HJ, HZ, and I attended.

SR‘s seminar was about explaining what really happens when something in math seems like magic (He brought his sister’s Harry Potter wand as a prop for this!). First, he started by talking about the commutative property of multiplication and why that works (as one would explain it to a five-year-old). We pointed out the whole “rotate the axb box” thing. Then, he talked about why two minuses make a plus. Besides taking two fingers (one on each hand) (minuses) and making them into a plus, how would you explain it to a five-year-old?

None of us knew.

Literally. 

Nada.

The answer he ended up revealing was going back in time with debt results in more money.

Lastly, we talked about what makes a bell curve, well, a bell curve. Why do the frequencies of the averages result in a bell curve? It was a lot of fun.

During singing troupe, HZ hung an “IMAGINE DOING SINGING TROUPE” sign on the window, and HJ looked at it from outside. Also, Po sang with us today!

Story time

Po’s story time, held in the Stever backyard, was about staying motivated and upbeat. He talked about how, as we are now, we are winners. We are at MOP and that means that we are winners. However, people cannot always win. We’re going to face disappointment someday in the future. This means that we can’t build our motivation and our joy upon winning, upon our achievements. That just doesn’t work. He pointed out that Elon Musk was broke for a while, and if he put his joy and motivation upon winning and achievements, Tesla would not now exist.

Instead, motivation and joy should build upon your relationships. The people who care about you and love you matter far more than mere achievements.

Meeting More Pre-college RAs

Some people started practicing more k-pop dancing. I danced with them a bit, but then I wandered off. As I was wondering, I found some strangers playing foosball by the stairs, so I went to introduce myself to them. They’re also pre-college RAs, here for training. They were quite nice. After playing some foosball with them, they mentioned that they’re going to paint the fence today and invited me to go with them! What I mean by “paint the fence” is CMU has this fence (a picture of which was in the June 23 post) that, according to tradition, people can paint in honor of occasions and special events. A few years ago, the graders painted the fence for MOP, so all throughout MOP this year, we’ve been begging them to paint it for us.

When I heard that the pre-college RAs were going to paint the fence, I was quite sad as, if the pre-college RAs were doing it, that means MOP is almost certainly not. After all, we only have a bit of time left and if we painted the fence, that’s basically ruining their work before their kids can even see it!

So I went over to the TV lounge and tried to ask MR about this, but everyone in there was so loud that I couldn’t even hear myself. I tried to shout my words, but JC was like, “Sophie, quiet down.” MR still did not hear me and, evidently, no one actually heard what I said: when I later mentioned the pre-college RAs painting the fence, no one knew what I was talking about.

LR, after discovering what I was shouting about, took me up to the second floor so I could tell the graders. But my entreaties to paint the fence went unheard :(.

And I didn’t even get to watch them paint the fence, either, because I’d already checked in and I’m pretty sure it’s against a billion rules to go out into the dead of night with a bunch of people that only I know.

Later, after the RAs left, LR came over while I was busy wandering aimlessly and told me about a puzzle he did with ES (I think?) a while ago in a puzzle hunt. He was very effusive about how nice the problem was and what a great bonding experience it was.

Then, when I was sitting on the couches, he came over and gave me an “elegant complex bash problem,” which seems like something of a contradiction :P.