quick -- after the workweek and before the weekend -- update
My friend Joanne, a transgender activist from Boston, came to Kzoo to give her "Transgender 101" presentation, and to my great surprise, the event was a huge success. Naturally, ten minutes before it started, I was standing onstage freaking out because only ten people were in the audience, but that number quickly swelled to 150+. I almost cried from relief. Her talk was super informative and, for a lot of people, a really positive learning experience about an unfairly neglected minority. Although I don't know very much about the transgender community -- which includes cross-dressers, drag kings/queens, genderqueer, intersex, and transsexual individuals -- I now know enough to start a conversation. Better yet, a dialogue.
Afterwards, a bunch of friends and I went bowling, and on a whim, Joanne decided to join us. With just the right amount of alcohol in me, I bowled a 199 (my best game yet!); upon sobering up, I bowled a 125. Ah well. Joanne bowled somewhere around a 150 average, as did my other two friends who were in the same lane. Throughout the course of the evening, we actually became a team. It was such a strange, wonderful thing.
I got an email back from a professor I know at Columbia in which I was told that my Physics GRE score was probably too low to get accepted. Oh, that's awesome, thanks. Does it matter that the test took place on the last day of finals week, which also happened to be the day before I was to leave for New York? Or that it emphasized my weakness (thermodynamics) while ignoring my strengths (E&M, HEP)? Does it matter that I've done two summers of cutting-edge physics research? Or that I've earned a 4.0? Or that I've been a teacher's assistant for several classes in two countries? Apparently not. In a panic, I last-minute applied to a "back-up" school -- Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland. If I don't get into a graduate physics program because of a stupid, misrepresentative test, I may just move to Spain, do something useful with my life, and never come back to America.
Rufus Wainwright's concert in Ann Arbor was absolutely fantastic. He was jet-lagged and loopy, so every time he flubbed a line or note he'd laugh, toss out a clever quip, and keep on going. Somehow, he's gotten even gayer, as if that were actually possible. I celebrity crushed on him, again, again.
School is going well! I love my classes, and they seem to love me. Work on the electromagnetic rail gun is slow but interesting, so with any luck I'll be able to shoot small, metallic projectiles at ridiculously high velocities by the end of quarter. I'm learning more practical knowledge in Psychology 101 than I have in any class in the past three years. Is there a reason that the vocabulary words keep coming up in conversation?! As for Spanish Romanticism, well, I spend more time with the dictionary than I do with the texts. God, those people used the most flowery, overdramatic language ever. At least I passed my Spanish Comps. Big sigh of relief -- ahhhhhh.