This and That

I liked yesterday for it's randomness. On my way back from my PED class, I decided to not take the bus back, and started walking. I walked past a couple of people playing badminton. Of course, I had to stop. Turned out that there was a challenge out to beat a champion called J Pal, from India. And even though it was 1:25pm, and I had to be at a meeting at 2pm, and shower and eat before that, I jumped in. They let me go first.

I lost. Badly. I blame the wind and the sun, (and you, for Tasmin Archer's sake). Even indooors, I guess I would have lost, but may have been able to put up a better fight.
Badminton's awesome though.

Later that evening, as I was about to leave the WRW for dinner, I bumped into a friend who told me about an AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics - I typed that out to see if I could account for all the A's) meeting - where they had free pizza. I did an about turn and followed him.

The speaker, Ken Griffin, was rather good, and quirky, and some of the things he talked about were directly related to my research. He discussed Aeroelasticity and the x-53 design. At one point he said, 'The blended wing body transport plane just looks like a pregnant B2'. Another time, he said, 'You think you're ready for a roll, and you have all the sensors and actuators in the right places, but out there, the wing's actually laughing at you'. Also, I ended up sitting right next to another ice-eater. Which was heartwarming.

I took my fitness test today. It wasn't bad at all, although after the aerobic fitness section, I was ready to drink up a swimming pool. I got a score at the end: on a scale from below 30 to above 41, where anything below a 30 was terrible, and anything above a 41 was excellent, I scored a 40, which I'm happy about. But then, taekwondo practice today gave me two bruised knuckles, which I'm not happy about at all. I got back at the stupid board by cracking it in two with a front snap-kick.

Looks like a long night. Flight dynamics homework, flight dynamics lab, measurements lab, and research. And rounds on 20 floors - since I'm on call right now.

Strangely enough, I feel like I'm going to miss these days in a few years.