Well, today was another cracker of a day / Work on interview problems in the morn / Hoops for the second day in a row / Got socked in the eye with an elbow / But finished with some great drives /
Barely finished in time to make egg salad / For a potluck dinner party for my friend’s birthday / Whom I’d met on the challenge run / And helped with a Swedish Dance workshop /
The party was amazing / We sat civilized, tucking into terrific food / I met a man named Axel, from Sweden / Who was bicycling to Morocco and beyond / Into the heart of Africa /
He was a water engineer / Just out of school / A mad cat / He’d interned at a Palestinian engineering firm / Crossing the border into Israel every morn /
We talked about water and politics / About border crossings and adventure /
Then I talked excitedly with my pal Cameron / A machine learning master’s student / A man of excellence and true inspiration / He told me he skipped lectures and learned / Only from the problem sets / But not just their solutions / Nay, he learned more from imagining / Why one would have written each problem / And soaking in the context of his discipline /
We spoke of new kinds of convnets / And masters young and old / Of competition, which fired Cameron’s ambition / I brought up Waitzkin and the notion of a metric eternalism / I must have mentioned ten different books, from Waitzkin to Meaningness/ In the conversations that evening / The fellows looked at me surprised /
At last I headed out for Alice’s birthday in Culmann / Met Michaela coming in on the way out / Terrible timing! /
Further I missed the bus, the stop was confusing / Sprinted after it for two more stops but couldn’t make it / I replotted and arrived at Culmann not long after /
Joined the Culmanners for the end of a hearty dinner / Beer and wine / Played some foosball and conversed / As the party madly continued at Culmann / Went out clubbing with a gaggle of Eastern European gals / The music was loud and the lights were bright / I lasted about two hours, and summarily retired.