Goals of the Day

Today has brought about certain events, some expected and some unexpected, that have caused me to formulate a list of goals to strive for.

So today proceeded like all other school days. It began with breakfast and a nice ride over to the DAMTP campus. On the way, I decided to take another route nto knowing that about 7 people were following me, and I did get them kind of lost. I apologize for the side track guys. My bad.

Goal 1: Memorize the bike routes around Cambridge. I'm going to be here for another 3 weeks, I'd better know where I am going. Don't lead people when you don't know where you are going.

As soon as I arrived in class today, Dr. Diller told me that he was informed by Cindy that he should check out my blog for some interesting reading, and so he did.

The man himself: Dr. Diller

This made me a little nervous at first, I wasn't sure if he liked it or not. But he reassured me that he enjoyed reading it, which really made me happy. Then something unexpected. So apparently while writing our exam for Wednesday, he was inspired by some of my posts and thus tailored some of the questions to come from my blog. I just want to take the time to apologize now if the test is ridiculously difficult come Wednesday. And if it's relatively easy, I'll take payments via British Pounds or in free meals.

In class we started the principle of heat flow in systems. The real world application we used was to demonstrate this principle was forensics. Using conservation principles and constituitive equations, we used temperature readings to reveal the time of death for a murdered individual. It was actually a lot of fun. More on this later.

After class we went to Churchill College for lunch as usual. I've noticed that I really love watching the ducks. Here they are in a duckling huddle. Straight from lunch, we headed to Studio Cambridge to meet Layla so we could head over to Ely for a tour of the Ely Chapel.

Layla striking a pose. She mentioned that the other picture I posted of her was "dodgy" so I hope this one is more "sharpish."

We caught a rail to Ely, which was only about 15 minutes away. After getting off the train we walked about another 15 minutes before reaching the Ely chapel. The town is very quaint, seemingly almost abandoned. The Chapel itself was massive compared to the rest of the buildings in the area.

Ely Chapel.On the inside of the chapel, there are many impressive stained glass windows and religious monuments.

Inside. Me and Layla

Flowers
Window black and white

Stained glass window.

I think it's the virgin Mary. Scary.

We had a guided tour of the chapel given by probably the most gentle old man I have ever seen. He spoke so quietly and his voice carried a soothing resonance. At the end of every segment he would look at everyone and smile at us. Very cute. I knew right away that he would lull me to sleep. As soon as I sat down while he was talking, it was game over. So from then on throughout the tour I dedided to stand. I literally almost passed out standing up a few times.

Goal 2: Go to bed earlier. Last night I got around 4 hours of rest, which explained why i was so tired.

I don't remember anything from the train ride back, I passed out completely.

When we got back to Studio Cambridge, Garrett and I decided to see how quickly we could get back to our homes in Cherry Hinton. It seems like Studio Cambridge is 2/3's of the way between
our homestays and the DAMTP campus. So I estimated that we could probably get home in about 10 minutes, but that would be tough. If I wanted to meet my goal of 15 minutes-ish one way between DAMTP and Cherry Hinton, then I needed to kick it up a notch. We both rose up to the challenge, and I almost died.

So as we were flying down Cherry Hinton Road, I think I pretty much was overexcited about going fast. I saw this car getting ready to turn, but I thought that they had saw me, so I didn't bother slowing down. Big mistake. I nearly got destroyed by the white sedan. This leads me to my next goal.

Goal 3: Don't die.

Hopefully this wont be me. At least he has a helmet.

Anyways so Garrett and I were really trucking. I think we made it back to our home area in just about 10 minutes. So if I extrapolate this to apply to the entire ride to the DAMTP campus and factor in fatigue and the weight of my backpack, (I have to add an additional 5 pounds because now I am bringing my book to class) then it should take me right around 17 or 18 minutes in the current state that I am in. However, project Lance is still underway and I do feel my endurance building.

Hey Lance.I think I really can cut it down to about 15 minutes. However, I still need to factor in the fear of death factor as well. Going fast is scary. But in the words of immortal Ricky Bobby, "If you're not first, you're last."

Ricky Bobby (Will Farrell)

Goal 4: Go fast.

So when I got to my homestay I kinda fell over and laid on their lawn to cool down. For dinner we had spaghetti bolognese with garlic bread. It was absolutely divine.

Thanks Simon.After dinner, Clair and Rebecca had me, Susannah, Garrett, and Natalie to come over and do some homework. This was probably my favorite challenge problem so far. We were actually able to apply the engineering principles we learned in class to solve a real world forensics problem. Basically, there was a body that was found some time in the morning. Using the temperature taken at the time of death, and shortly afterwards as well, we were able to calculate the time of death of the individual based on heat lost in the body. I felt like I was on CSI. I had a great time. Perhaps I should consider crime scene investigation as a profession.

Sundays at 8.
Eventually we were able to exonerate the girlfriend of the individual as a possible suspect in the crime.

After homework Garrett and I went to throw the frisbee around for a bit. We haven't played ultimate yet, and I am a bit disappointed. But, I have not been deterred. I am getting pretty good at throwing the frisbee too.

On the ride back I almost died yet again. I had a momentary lapse and thought I was back in the states. So I tried to turn right onto the street right into an oncoming car. Luckily he saw me and I stopped in time too. The back of my bike did raise up though. I believe the extreme bikers refer to this as a nose wheelie. It looked something like this.

Nose Wheelie.

It was pretty amazing. If the CSI thing falls through, at least I can try BMX.

Goal 5: Don't die.

Not much happened after this, I went home, took a shower, and now I am doing this blog.

Ok time for bed. You stay classy San Diego.

-James