Once again, saving the day

Yesterday I saved the day in several ways.

• I fixed the locks on two different doorknobs: one that wouldn't lock, and one that wouldn't unlock. Now they both do both. I accomplished this by hitting them really hard and twisting the doorknobs a lot.
• I provided a Phillips-head screwdriver to someone who needed it to fix her lamp. Impressively, she returned my multitool to me with the screwdriver put away, which means that she was able to figure out how to get past the safety feature.
• I unstuck a stuck suitcase zipper on the first try, thereby ending 10 minutes of frustrating effort by my advisee.

In other news, I continue to be mistaken for a student. This morning, when I was sitting at breakfast completely drenched from my run, two students essentially asked me what class I was taking, and were apologetic when I told them that, in fact, I was teaching geometry. So I am wearing my NMH official golf shirt for the second day in a row, to reinforce the fact that I am an intern, not a student.

Why does this happen? You may say it is because I am relatively short, but others are the same height and do not have this problem. And I haven't had bangs for four years, so it can't be that. When adults mistake me for a student -- the bookstore worker hesitated to give me the employee discount because I apparently don't look old enough to be a student -- they tell me it's a good thing, because I will be glad to look young when I am older. And perhaps it is. At least, it's very fortunate that I don't drink, because I am sure I would be heavily carded everwhere I went.

I got to sleep in until 8:00 today: delicious. I had a good workout, doing a loop that I learned about yesterday in the woods and on the roads. There were five pieces, each supposedly a little slower than 5k pace, and my HR at the end of each was 178, 181, 184, 183, and 188, respectively. So it was a good workout.

In other sporting news, Williams sports will be on CBS today:

Senior crew captain Meaghan Rathvon will be one of the featured athletes on the CBS NCAA Spring Championships Highlights Show airing this Saturday (7/1) at 3:00 p.m. EST. The CBS highlight show chronicles the NCAA championship events that were not televised live.

Rathvon overcame injury to help lead the Ephs to their second NCAA Division 3 women's rowing title in the past five years. Footage of the championship weekend and a brief feature on Rathvon will be included.

Other Eph spring teams may also appear on the show as all six Williams teams that entered a spring NCAA tourney finished in the top seven -- women's track & field (2nd), men's tennis and men's track & field (4th), women's tennis (5th) and softball (7th).

I'll be busy with registration during that time, but I'm glad Williams sports are getting publicity on actual normal television (not television that you pay for, like cable), and getting publicity on television at all. That's great.

I wonder if they will mention that Williams is once again, for the third year in a row, #1 in both academics (US News) and #1 in athletics (Sears Cup). Probably CBS sports doesn't care about academics. Too bad, really.

The first week has come and gone

In the past few days, I have done several interesting things.

1. I mountain biked on a trail in the woods, canoed on a small pond incorrectly titled "Shadow Lake," and did orienteering in the woods for an hour and a half in the pouring rain.
   
2. Conveniently, my sunburn was just beginning to peel in earnest, and the 90-minute soaking turned the peeling skin into a substance the consistency of wet paper, which I subsequently rolled off easily in the shower. This is much better than any other instance of peeling skin I have ever experienced.
   
3. I sustained a situp-related injury to my big toe. You may have thought this would not be possible, but you would be wrong.
   
4. I ran 400 meters in 83 seconds, which is much better than the first 400 I ran last summer, which, at full-out effort, was a struggling 100 seconds, and it took almost all summer to get down to around 83 seconds.
   
5. I got a red circle around a yellowish bite with two teeth marks in it on my arm. I feel about red circles just about the same as I feel about red lines: Get thyself to a doctor immediately. So that is what I did. But the circle, the yellow, the marks, and in fact all evidence of the bite disappeared within a few hours. The problem with never having any medical issues is that I end up being a hypochondriac.
   
6. I passed out from a combination of dehydration and thinking about the potential existence of a tick bite on my arm and Lyme disease in my body.
   
7. I was somewhat embarrassed, except that very few people actually noticed, because I have become quite skilled at passing out in public places over the years.
   
8. I became certified in CPR.
   
9. I became certified in driving a school van.
   
10. I learned that you have to be 21 to drive a school van.

In other news, I anticipate having five wicked awesome advisees, because I have read their files and they appear to be wicked awesome people. They are coming tomorrow, which is also, as you may have guessed, wicked awesome.

Now I have a job

After a month of unemployment, I now have a job. I remembered today that I am going to get paid for this job! I had not remembered to think about that yesterday. I think it will be fun.

The 229 students at the summer school will be over 50% international students, with many from Turkey, Greece, Korea, and other Asian and European countries. Today we heard interesting stories of cultural differences that students from very different countries have experienced at the summer school, which was interesting. For example, if an older Korean child asks a younger Korean child to do something for him, the younger child must do it, and so we have to watch out for young Korean children slaving away for older Korean children at the summer school. Interesting.

There are 35 interns, 7 of whom are alums of the school and 6 of whom are current or just-graduated Williams students (the director is a Williams graduate, and did a lot of recruiting and publicity on campus). There are a lot of athletic interns. Teams composed of interns will probably be very good. We played softball today, and I was not good at it at all, because I cannot hit a ball with a bat very often. However, I only struck out once.

The campus is in a really beautiful location, on the side of a mountain at the end of a half-mile driveway off of a wooded two-lane highway. There are trees and mountains everywhere you look, and the campus itself is brick buildings and grassy lawns. It's also quite hilly; I went running this morning and the flattest part of my run was the part on trails in the woods; running on the grounds of the campus requires going up and down a lot. I have raced on the cross country course twice, and on the track two or three times, so I have some familiarity with the area, but this will certainly increase significantly in the coming weeks.