Mom went to Granny's place today. She says she's going to take me to visit her sometime this week, so I can see her once before I leave for the Summer Science Program. I hope she'll recover quickly from the two angioplasties. But I've been raring to start SSP even before school ended...not much longer to wait!

Today's the first day of the Summer Science Program at Ojai. Apparently, I was one of the last people to arrive. My parents puttered around my room for a while, putting on the hypo-allergenic bedcover and so on, until they couldn't find anything else to do. My roommate, Abby, stopped by to say hi. After my parents had left, I hung out in the common room. To my amusement, the girls and boys had segregated themselves...as if I didn't go to an all-girls school already, lol. Looks like I missed the scavenger hunt.

We have assigned tables to sit at every week, and there's a dress code for dinner! At least I'll get to know more people. After dinner, we had an icebreaker on the lawn. Everyone said 2 true and 1 false fact about themselves, and we had to guess the false one. My true facts: a Trekker; ate ants at the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens (who would believe that? And I had more with me!). False fact: vegetarian (I'm semi-vegetarian...oooh, big difference). One guy said he was a rock star. Whoa. I forget what the guy next to me said, but he has brown curly hair and I'm pretty sure his name is Danny. He wears a yarmulke. The only names I remember so far are his and Abby's. I'm awful with names. Remembering all 23 plus the TAs and profs is gonna be tough!

After nightfall I wanted to find a TA, but the only one whose whereabouts were known was in the library. It was dark and I didn't really know my way, so I got someone [note: it was Huy] to accompany me. We walked in on, all things, a deep discussion between her and Danny and some others about religion. This is going to be some science program...definitely more than I bargained for. Is this what college will be like? I sure hope so...

I can't believe those HVS students go to school here every year. The scenery's truly magnificent! The landscaping here and at the Thacher School is just beautiful. Thacher even has a waterfall, damnit. I guess land comes cheap here. In the Bay Area, people fight over every square inch. The median price of a home now is $475,000. It's ludicrous!

This has got to be the first time in my life I've ever gotten so lost during lectures. Some stuff just goes right over my head. The others find it challenging too, but they've obviously all got some pretty powerful brains. I'm really impressed.

The weather's HOT here. So much for my parents buying me that sweater/jacket for late-night observing while we were staying overnight in Santa Barbara (what a lovely city). I'm not gonna need it; but in SF, I bet it'll come in handy, and hey, it's kinda cute.

One of the TAs, Henry (a Harvard senior) just finished reading Ender's Shadow. What a coincidence: I listened to it on audiotape during the drive from SF to here!

Gotta log out and practice piano or start my homework now. Maybe I'll come back to the library later. I got here late last night and some guy was like, "Quick, hide the porn!" Boys... [note: it was Tim.]

We went to town today. Ojai is so exciting (note the sarcasm). Actually, the outdoor used bookstore, Bart's Books, that Dr. Fu suggested was pretty cool. I found the sequel to Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, for cheaps! And SFPL [the SF Public Library system] didn't even have a copy. Woohoo! I also bought a print of a classical painting where hurculean learned men clad in Roman robes consult absurdly gigantic tomes. I'm going to put it in my binder when I get back to school and caption it "Open Book Exam." teehee

Today Abby and I finally did the bathroom cleanup. We took the trashcans out and tried to dump the trash out of the bags, since we thought those bags were the only ones we had. A pad was stuck at the bottom of hers and she was trying to shake it out! rotfl. Then the entire bag fell out and we discovered that there were plenty of spare bags underneath. So much for our efforts...

While dumping the trash, I got a great idea for a practical joke: I'm going to put one of those trashcans for "feminine napkins" in the boy's bathroom. It's going to be so hilarious. muhaha

Somebody [note: it was Huy, as I'm sure you all know by now] pulled a prank on me. Just now I collaborated with him to pull the prank on somebody else. He had a paper bag containing rattlesnake eggs, which three guys [note: ok, so I’m really bad with names at first...Eric, Tim, and Chris] had told me about earlier. Well, when I opened the envelope, it rattled and startled the hell out of me! I just stood there, frozen, holding it at arm's length wondering when Huy would take it away from me already. LoL. I told him to cook 'em for breakfast.

Tonight we're going observing, but it's hella cloudy [note: I have since stopped using "hella" since SoCalers seem to have a problem with it :P]. We'll probably just practice loading the plates and whatever else. No wonder I caught myself singing "Tonight" from West Side Story.

I took a wonderful hour-long evening walk yesterday. Later, we found plenty of tarantulas on the hillock where Dr. Hammer set up his C-8. Scary...ant colonies also swarming outside the dorm. I discovered that when sprayed with bug repellent, they fall over and do a funny little writhing dance before they die. It's rather disturbing.

Of all nights to stay up late, I had to choose last night to do it playing cards with the guys. I won both games although I'd never played it before...kinda like when I shot the moon by accident, having no idea what I was doing, at UT Austin. =D I'm glad I got to know the people here better, but I paid for it this morning--lecture was torture. No wonder classes suck at school nowadays; I don't get enough sleep anymore. DOH!

We rescued a bird that fell out of its nest at the dorm today. I actually came here [note: the library] to find a vet in the yellow pages on Yahoo!, but here I am wasting time again.

Michelle and Anya went to church during breakfast, so I volunteered to save some food for them. Unfortunately, the ants took advantage of the Golden Grahams with which I filled Michelle's thermos.

When I got up this morning, I went to the common room to start reading Speaker for the Dead. To my astonishment, several others were also there reading--of their own accord! This is soooo awesome...teenagers who actually read books for fun. Lisa was even reading Atlas Shrugged. And somebody was reading the newspaper [probably Orges]--interested in current events?! I was bowled over. You find very few people like this at my school. One guy [Tim] talked to me a bit about the Ender's Game books. These SSPers never cease to amaze me...

After lecture this morning, we piled into a schoolbus and were off to Mt. Wilson. At the dome, people argued about whether it was the telescope or us turning! The profs were encouraging us...I think they were amused. I swear it was the telescope. The astronomers looked so funny--dressed way casually. I can't imagine that they used to be super-formal back in the days, as Dr. Hammer claims.

The bus broke down during the winding descent, so people pretended to push it as a few others (including me) took photos for everyone. Finally, they got the bus working again, and Tim passed the time by confounding us with a puzzle. He snapped his fingers and said "This is the game of snaps" so many times, I doubt I'll ever forget it. Will and I were the last ones to figure it out...ok, Will figured it out. I got close, but then abandoned my train of thought because I figured it was hopeless. That's always my problem with puzzles...I give up too soon even when I'm prentending not to.

Afterwards we stopped at In-N-Out. People offered me bites of their burgers but I reminded them I was semi-vegetarian. Wonder what the big deal about this joint is? It's only fast food...

Yesterday, on the way back from town, Eric asked me if I had any nicknames. We spent the drive back discussing possible nicknames for me, such as Ice-T, Jiff, and Smuckers (since I don't like peanut butter--Jiff or otherwise). Today as I was practicing piano in the theater, he mentioned that the Smuckers commercial says, "With a name like Smuckers, it's gotta be good." He would've called me Missing (Miss Ng), but of course I wouldn't let him because I find it annoying. I think I might nickname him Ricky. Though I'd rather call Justin Cal (his last two initials are CK) and Eric, Hobbes. Hehe. Danny bought a Calvin & Hobbes book at a quaint little Ojai bookstore...I think it was called Table of Contents. A fortune-telling box there said my first lover would be a high school dropout, and my subsequent one would be a poet, wanderer, and overall wonderful human being. Like wow. Uh-huh.

Anya claims that during the reunion, one of the alumni said he hooked up with someone 3 days into the program, and there were 2 couples in all. I wonder why nobody's hooked up here? Then again, I thought it was against the regulations.

I was incredibly discouraged yesterday. I was having a hard time with the homework problems, especially the programming one. Of course, many others were also having trouble with it. Half the students were still in the library well into the early morning hours. I left at about 1 AM. My program worked for only 2 out of 3 examples, but I didn't want to fall asleep during lecture today. To prevent myself from doing so, I programmed equations A thru F2 into my calculator. Hehe, Justin...no, Cal...was wondering what I was doing. It was Abby's idea. I hope I can make use of the programs, most likely to check my precession program.

We didn't learn of our observing session the other night until several hours before we left, so we made a mad rush to prepare our notebooks.

Anyway, we're taking a field trip to JPL tomorrow, so I've gotta get some sleep. Nighty-night.

Today we visited NASA JPL. Cal, Hobbes, Discman, Anya, Michelle, and I are always the loudest (rowdiest?) on the bus, it appears. During a lecture I found out from the roll sheet that only Noel is older than me. Everyone else is younger. Cal is turning 17 on August 28. Hobbes claims that Cal thinks himself cute. I shall never stop teasing him about that, mark my words. We had a humorous discussion about women's attraction to gay men and how all women's probs start with "men" (literally) and estrogen, etc.

We'll observe tonight. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

P.S. I'm calling Chris Discman now, but we still haven't nicknamed Anya or Michelle. Hmmm...

We pulled off the little trick for Anya's bday today, though it took long enough--Cal and Discman didn't awaken until 2 PM because they were up till 6:30 AM for God-knows-what. She was delighted though. BTW, I'm getting really good at that cup game. A skill that may well come in handy one day.

I still haven't gotten to go exploring/hiking. I wonder when I'm going to convince someone to come along with me. I'd love to go myself but it's too scary. For example, this morning I went jogging to burn those extra calories I took in yesterday. I ran past the Yurt to a bunch of residences and barns, but as I was returning, I stomped up to the Yurt and discovered several people staring up blearily at me from their sleeping bags. Rather embarrassed, I fled before I could discern their faces. LoL. Anyway, I passed by some middle-aged dude in a red convertible parked at the end of the one-way road leading past the observatory. I jogged away from him as fast as I could, but as I was about to go up the steps to the dorm, I saw him driving the wrong way past me. Strange people around here! Like those dudes on motorbikes who ride around the fields in the late afternoon(reminds me of my bio teacher, Mr. Solberg, and his motorbike :).

Yesterday we watched Deep Impact and a speaker discussed some of the scientific boo-boos in the film. Reminds me of Krauss' The Physics of Star Trek (an awesome book!). Someone [note: it was Tim] told me that Starship Troopers was actually a book written by Robert Heinlein! We all came to a consensus that the movie sucked (I considered it an affront to my intelligence), but he says the movie was very different from the book, which actually had a theme (besides the revival of Nazi-style propaganda, I presume). Then we watched 3 episodes of some Brit comedy about an owner and his dog [note: Wallace & Gromit]. I left after the 2nd one (it was past 11 PM) and saw Amy holding hands with her BF! I was like "omigod!" and whirled around to catch someone's eye and wink. Nobody there, though.

I got a pic of Chris next to Anya's door, of Anya at her door, and Danny got a pic of me stuffing my face with birthday cake (I thought the camera was his at first and offered to pay him to destroy the negatives--ooh, I got moded!)

This evening, on the way to Yurt, Cal invited me to play volleyball, but I declined. Instead, I practiced my self-defense moves to the Millennium CD Discman lent me (hehe) to keep them 2nd nature. Why today of all days? Discman mentioned that he wouldn't mess with me when I punched him whenever I got real mad because he knew I'd taken self-defense. LoL, he's always joking around. Anyway, someone just asked me for help with programming, so later "dude" (the word of choice in SoCal)...

Last night Abby came into the room, startling me so I nearly fell out of bed!

We're going up tonight with another group, so I'd better bring a book to read. I guided last time and we got an almost usable plate. Unfortunately, it was too dark to measure because of the moonlight. I had a hell of a time finding a visible guide star. Aditi thought it was hopeless, but I was determined to try. In the meantime, we played Psychiatrist with Michelle. No ice cream bars to be found.

We still haven't gotten our prize for getting into the measuring room first.

Today Amy gave a hilarious lecture on moons of the solar system and Madison gave a fascinating one on stellar evolution. I sat in front of Cal and he kept on putting pens in my hair and saying it was cool that my hair ate writing utensils...I hope those count as vegetarian fare.

I'd decided to add yet another responsibility to my insane life, as usual. Well, I was the one that suggested the dance...though the TAs haven't organized a karaoke session yet. ;) So Matt and I were in charge of recording the mix tapes for Amy's party. I heard that Amy liked disco or something, but nobody seemed to have any on hand.

Michelle was kind enough to lend us her stereo. After observing last night, I met Matt in the Yurt and we tried to plug the stereo in so we could record two tapes at once. Of course, the outlet didn't work, so I decided to move to the Eos common room. Eric, Orges, and Tim accompanied me.

We recorded CDs and played Mille Bornes until about 4 AM in the morning. Orges won (darnit!), but the game wasn't as fun without Bert and his trash talk (and cheating ;). We hadn't quite finished, but we decided to crash in the room. I crept back to Phoenix and used my flashlight to grab my stuff, since Abby was already asleep. Then I hurried back and got the sofa that Orges had claimed. I didn't want to be right next to the window--it might get cold! ;) He didn't mind.

Suddenly I remembered the plan Cal and I had to see who would dance with who during the slow dances. So I borrowed some R&B from Eric and went to the Yurt with Tim to finish up the tapes. We did calculus homework for a while, then got to talking. We must talked for a long time, because suddenly we realized it was way after 6! Noooooo...chores for being late for dinner! So we rushed to the dining hall, I fabricating all manner of improbable excuses along the way, and discovered to our incredible, unbelievable luck that the staff had gone to town for dinner. WHEW.

Today Maarten Schmidt gave a lecture on gamma rays. Just now Ryan found an article about him in Britannica! He's a Nobel laureate. His lecture was interesting, but I was putting most of my effort into not falling asleep on Tim's shoulder. I've gotta maintain my spotless record. Then again, if I failed, it wouldn't be such a dishonor. Still, I can't let Cal win the bet! I've never fallen asleep during any class and never will.

I was up till 4:30 AM last night finishing a program and starting another one (the DO).

Today, we strolled along State St. in Santa Barbara. Tim and I hung out in Border's for a while, where I found a book about SF. So we flipped through and I told him about the places in the photos. I was incredibly happy to just be strolling leisurely without parents to tell me what to do or where to go or when to get back. We met Justin, Chris, Anya, and some others along the way. I wanted to go to the museum, but we didn't have enough time.

Afterward we returned to the beach and didn't see the other SSPers. We wandered about in confusion for a while when I noticed the SSP icebox and some people sunbathing around it. Isn't that them? I asked Tim. No, he replied. They're not SSPers...

Doh, they were! Moded!

So we made ourselves at home and crunched on carrots and celery until it was time to go back.

[note: after this last entry, I couldn't find any time to write in my diary--the dreaded OD week was upon us!]