A Physics Term That Left No Time for Sunrises
Last term boiled down to three classes: Ordinary Differential Equations, Japanese 205, and a double course in Classical and Computational Mechanics that physics majors shorten to "Classy" and "Compy." The last pair dominated everything. Weekly problem sets averaged 18 hours, with one stretching past 25. Most nights ran from 9:00 P.M. to 3:00 A.M. in Olin, the physics building, wrestling with Mathematica and Lagrangian mechanics. A friend observed that the windmill looked beautiful at sunrise through the Olin hallway windows. I never had time to check.
One Project, Two Weeks, Sixty Hours Each
The term closed with a heavy final project: building and modeling a tinkertoy siege engine using Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. My partner and I wrote hundreds of lines of code and dozens of pages of equations to describe the energy transfer between a falling pendulum and a wheeled base. The problem followed me everywhere—mealtimes, waiting in line, other lectures. Drag models and projectile efficiency replaced most other thoughts. Combined, we each logged roughly 60 hours over the final two weeks.
Then came the take-home exam.
A single problem with parts A through O, it demanded a 30-hour effort. We wrote our own Runge-Kutta solver, derived the relevant Lagrangians and Hamiltonians, and non-dimensionalized the system three separate ways. Sleep shrank to nothing; coursework ran contiguously, with a single one-hour break each weekend. When it ended—paper finished, model predictions accurate, presentation delivered—the result felt secondary. The work itself was done. The ODE take-home and the Japanese final that followed were comparatively gentle, and the term worked out well enough in hindsight, whatever my feelings about the professor at the time.
Broomball, Rank Tests, and a Hard Choice
Away from physics, I played broomball on two teams: Harmony on Ice, fielded by the Aikido club, and Gays on Ice. Harmony started disjointed but improved steadily at passing, positioning, and ball control across the season, with Joel-sensei proving an exceptionally strong player. The team reached the playoffs and won its first three games 11:0 before falling in the fourth. A fine season—though it shredded my pant knees, and I will need tougher patches this summer.
After five terms of Japanese, I have decided against 206. It collides with my partial differential equations course and would have made the schedule unmanageable. It is a hard language to leave; I enjoy it deeply. In Aikido, I tested for pre-fourth kyu mid-term and fourth kyu at the end of the term. The buki technique timing slipped—there were fourteen of them—but it went acceptably. I can almost manage jump-breakfall number two now. This spring brings pre-third kyu preparation and demonstration work for Ann Arbor.
