This entry was originally to be called "Paranoia and Rain", but the paranoia part has been cut out, because, you guessed it, I'm paranoid.
As for the rain.
So today began our not-in-any-way-an-internship (Woo! Thank you Mr. Holbrook!) taking that analysis class at Columbia, where by "our" I mean "my, Tom's, Rajesh's, Hyun-Soo's, and Fan's". I think I saw Greg what's-his-last-name who was a senior here last year there. Anyway, what actually happened there is uninteresting; on the first day, all he did was review basic set theory, and not even axiomatically, at that.
What's much more of an interesting story was getting there.
A route was decided on, with help from Ben who went there every day during the summer. My mom would come with us this time, to make sure we got it right. We would go to the school (my mom would drive me and Tom there; Hyun-soo and Rajesh would get there by their own means, and Fan was going separately entirely), take one of the vans that goes up and down route 4 from Coach House to the GWB terminal, take the A or B train one stop to 168th street, then the 1 or the 9 down to Columbia.
Well as we're about to leave to pick up Tom, my mom notes to me that I may want to put on a light jacket, to guard against the rain, which is rather slight at that point. I don't.
Big mistake.
So we're waiting around Coach House and the rain has increased considerably, and I'm getting soaked and *finally* we actually go under the bus stop-thingy, and eventually the van comes and we take it to the GWB terminal and we take the B train to 168th... and then we find out that the downtown 1 and 9 line is flooded.
Yay.
After consulting a map, we decide to take the C train to *its* 116th street stop. By this time it is absolutely *pouring* and - remember I said I was getting soaked before? Yeah, well, I wasn't. *Now* I was getting soaked. Now, Mom doesn't know this area, so she asks someone there which way is Columbia, and she says, that way, and so we go that way. After a while the rain increases and we wonder if there is a bus that can be taken. We find a bus stop, a bus arrives, we ask, is there a bus that will take us there? Not only is the answer no, but we've been going the wrong way.
So we turn around, head *towards* Columbia this time, eventually come to this park which essentially consists of a lot of stairs for us to climb, which we do. There is a gate at the top of the stairs. Thankfully it is open; for a moment Mom thought it wasn't. And so we are only a block away from Columbia, and are only a little late. (We left ridiculously early.)
Now, as for leaving. For this, Fan was with us. When we were coming, only the downtown 1 and 9 was flooded, but now, part of the uptown was too, so again we couldn't take that. (Later we learned there was just lots of flooding in the subways generally.) We decide against taking the C again; we'll just take the bus to the GWB terminal. None of the buses coming are going that far, though. Finally one comes, the bus driver says it's going to GWB, in fact its last stop is at 145th street. So we change buses and we eventually get to the GWB, and then we take a van back to the school and we stay with Mr. Holbrook for the rest of the day.
Amazingly, after all this, the only water damage sustained by my stuff was:
The corners of some of the pages of The Handmaid's Tale
The corners of some of the cards in one of my Fluxx decks
The complete ruining of one normal deck of cards
...well, by the stuff in my backpack. My shoes and socks were horribly wet from going through a gigantic puddle earlier, and so I spent most of the time in Mr. Holbrook's room barefoot. Not that the socks dried out or the rain stopped.
Oh, they decided to do a lockdown drill today, during what would normally be clubs but was today just IGS. They said over the PA system that we were to follow "Action Plan B". Ed Early (I can't bring myself to call him "Dr. Early"), who was in the room at the time, looked this up in some sort of book and told us it consisted of staying in the room and closing the blinds, as opposed to Action Plan A, which was evacuation. He didn't say what Action Plan C was.
My mom figures that as we have now apparently mastered the bizarre backup route, we should have no trouble with the normal one.
...that ends this. Now I still have to finish my CS homework.
-Sniffnoy
--
"I wonder how long it will take for the sigmonster to attain sentience?"
-Kegs, rhod
As for the rain.
So today began our not-in-any-way-an-internship (Woo! Thank you Mr. Holbrook!) taking that analysis class at Columbia, where by "our" I mean "my, Tom's, Rajesh's, Hyun-Soo's, and Fan's". I think I saw Greg what's-his-last-name who was a senior here last year there. Anyway, what actually happened there is uninteresting; on the first day, all he did was review basic set theory, and not even axiomatically, at that.
What's much more of an interesting story was getting there.
A route was decided on, with help from Ben who went there every day during the summer. My mom would come with us this time, to make sure we got it right. We would go to the school (my mom would drive me and Tom there; Hyun-soo and Rajesh would get there by their own means, and Fan was going separately entirely), take one of the vans that goes up and down route 4 from Coach House to the GWB terminal, take the A or B train one stop to 168th street, then the 1 or the 9 down to Columbia.
Well as we're about to leave to pick up Tom, my mom notes to me that I may want to put on a light jacket, to guard against the rain, which is rather slight at that point. I don't.
Big mistake.
So we're waiting around Coach House and the rain has increased considerably, and I'm getting soaked and *finally* we actually go under the bus stop-thingy, and eventually the van comes and we take it to the GWB terminal and we take the B train to 168th... and then we find out that the downtown 1 and 9 line is flooded.
Yay.
After consulting a map, we decide to take the C train to *its* 116th street stop. By this time it is absolutely *pouring* and - remember I said I was getting soaked before? Yeah, well, I wasn't. *Now* I was getting soaked. Now, Mom doesn't know this area, so she asks someone there which way is Columbia, and she says, that way, and so we go that way. After a while the rain increases and we wonder if there is a bus that can be taken. We find a bus stop, a bus arrives, we ask, is there a bus that will take us there? Not only is the answer no, but we've been going the wrong way.
So we turn around, head *towards* Columbia this time, eventually come to this park which essentially consists of a lot of stairs for us to climb, which we do. There is a gate at the top of the stairs. Thankfully it is open; for a moment Mom thought it wasn't. And so we are only a block away from Columbia, and are only a little late. (We left ridiculously early.)
Now, as for leaving. For this, Fan was with us. When we were coming, only the downtown 1 and 9 was flooded, but now, part of the uptown was too, so again we couldn't take that. (Later we learned there was just lots of flooding in the subways generally.) We decide against taking the C again; we'll just take the bus to the GWB terminal. None of the buses coming are going that far, though. Finally one comes, the bus driver says it's going to GWB, in fact its last stop is at 145th street. So we change buses and we eventually get to the GWB, and then we take a van back to the school and we stay with Mr. Holbrook for the rest of the day.
Amazingly, after all this, the only water damage sustained by my stuff was:
The corners of some of the pages of The Handmaid's Tale
The corners of some of the cards in one of my Fluxx decks
The complete ruining of one normal deck of cards
...well, by the stuff in my backpack. My shoes and socks were horribly wet from going through a gigantic puddle earlier, and so I spent most of the time in Mr. Holbrook's room barefoot. Not that the socks dried out or the rain stopped.
Oh, they decided to do a lockdown drill today, during what would normally be clubs but was today just IGS. They said over the PA system that we were to follow "Action Plan B". Ed Early (I can't bring myself to call him "Dr. Early"), who was in the room at the time, looked this up in some sort of book and told us it consisted of staying in the room and closing the blinds, as opposed to Action Plan A, which was evacuation. He didn't say what Action Plan C was.
My mom figures that as we have now apparently mastered the bizarre backup route, we should have no trouble with the normal one.
...that ends this. Now I still have to finish my CS homework.
-Sniffnoy
--
"I wonder how long it will take for the sigmonster to attain sentience?"
-Kegs, rhod
