Read Reid's Blog

September 29, 2003

It was my first Monday of classes.  My IHUM lecture was interesting – the Professor argued that great works of political theory and governance came during times of crisis – Machiavelli, Plato, Mencius, Locke, Rousseau were all examples that proved his argument.  That kept me awake and interested in that class.  Then came chemistry, where we learned to balance equations.  Pretty basic stuff, but something I haven’t seen since sophomore year of high school.  I really need to look through my chemistry book in order to make sure I know everything.  After lunch, I headed over to my calculus lecture, where I once again felt sort of confused because I’ve been so far removed from calculus for so long – it’s another class that I need to do some serious reviewing in.  With the day over, I headed back to my room, where I finished lofting my bed, and hung out until dinner.  There was a good game of ultimate that afternoon, although we lost, it was a lot of fun to play with my house and a guy who played on Stanford’s “B” team last year.  I think I’ve almost got my forehand down, and I’m actually surprised I can run around a lot without getting extremely winded like I had gotten before.  After dinner I tried to do my math homework, realizing that I hardly knew anything and had trouble finding the limit of some equations.  Once again – I need to do some serious reviewing of math.  From 8-11pm me and Harry went to the audition workshop for Stanford Taiko.  It was a lot of fun!  We learned how to play the slant-style of Taiko drumming, and we also learned the song that we would have to play for our audition tomorrow.  Harry and I signed up for the 11-11:40pm slot to audition.  It’ll be nice to play alongside a friend – I’m sure that will make me feel more comfortable.  There are about 100 kids who are trying out, and only 16 will make the first cut.  It’s nerve-racking, but I’m still under the mindset that I’m competing against myself – I’ve been doing that the whole time I’ve been learning Taiko the past two days.  And, as long as I’ve memorized the song we’re supposed to perform, it should go alright.  Well, I’m going to attempt to read some Mencius, and then head to bed.