The Beginning of the End

Monday was the marker of the last week of VSA, a sad occasion. Nevertheless, it was still a good day. I woke up early to go on a run for the first time in about a week and a half, which was nice. I felt a little out of shape though, being sick doesn't help increase your fitness. 

After my early morning run and breakfast, we went to class. There, we worked on some problems from the textbook like pack that we have up until lunch. As always, they were pretty challenging, but fun. After lunch was my favorite though, because we were able to create our RSA public keys. This allowed us to send and receive coded messages amongst ourselves. Of course, it was only a matter of time until people started breaking each other's codes so they could intercept messages and read them as well. I enjoyed it.

Vanderbilt looks nice no matter what time of the day.

After class and dinner, we had another SOFT night. I went with a group to the CVS and Panera Bread. I didn't get anything at CVS, just walked around, but I did get a bagel with cream cheese at Panera Bread. Panera kind of reminded me of Noah's Bagels, but they do a lot more than just bagels, and their stock of bagels is a little more limited. My bagel was still good though, and so I was able to enjoy good food and good company during the SOFT night.

When we got back from the SOFT night, we had a proctor group meeting. When everyone had finished the customary highs/lows from the day, we wrote our instructors and TA's thank you notes. I liked being able to thank Jason and Wei for giving up their time to be here, and just being a great teacher and TA. I wasn't one of the people who encrypted their notes to them with the RSA algorithm, but I know a couple of my classmates who did. I thought it was funny that they did that, but I decided to stick with plain English, as it's easier to read. 

The rest of the night was just free time until bed, so it wasn't too interesting.

The next morning, today, I decided to not get up early to go on a run, and slept in a little bit. Unfortunately, sleeping in at VSA means waking up at a little past 7 AM. I was able to get up, do some core exercises, and take a shower before breakfast, and by that time I was awake enough for class.

Connor made a massive swan!

Today in class, we talked mostly about groups, which are sets of numbers that satisfy certain criteria. Our entire class has been about patterns and solving tricky equations, and so today was no different. It was fun, as usual. 

After class, we had some free time now that the Arete classes are finished. It was nice to be able to relax for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and tonight I was able to relax even more. We had another proctor group night, but instead of going out to eat my proctor group stayed in and watched a crazy movie called Coherence. It was about Super String Theory, but it was also like a horror movie. I recommend it, but it's a really weird movie. I was also pretty interested in Will's (a guy from my proctor group) min-lecture on what Super String Theory is and how it works. I think I know what I'm going to look up tomorrow during free time. 

That basically wrapped up the night after our proctor group meeting. We just had some free time and went to bed. These next few days should be interesting - I can't wait to see how we wrap up class, but I'm also sad to have to wrap up class.