Grades, and other stuff

It is apparently 80F in San Francisco right now, but San Francisco heat is better than Sili Valley heat, because there is an ocean breeze and less pollution. It's probably a great day for tourists! Flip-flopping around in flip-flops and shorts, which tourists love to do but can so rarely do in San Francisco. Tourists have begun to arrive in throngs here, as well. They wander around campus and take photos of the views. I've been pleased to point out my friends the new baby caribou to several of them, who were all as delighted as I was to see them.

I must confess I am a bit baffled as to why Fairbanks is such a popular tourist destination. I mean, I love it here, but I'm not sure why anyone would choose it as a vacation spot, because it's sort of boring for a tourist. I mean, you know how sometimes people say "that was a great vacation, but I wouldn't want to live there"? That's because vacations should be exciting, but homes should be comfortable. Fairbanks is a warm-hearted, slow-paced, sleepy city, which is why it is comfortable to live here, but why would anyone visit as a tourist? I'm not even sure what they do... I know they go to the salmon bake (but you can do that in Anchorage). Hunting and fishing are great here, but I don't think nonresidents can even get a dip-netting license, and anyway most of them don't do that. I just see them wandering around campus and riding around in buses. What on earth do they do? I have a friend who has a summer job giving talks about the aurora. But the tourists can't even see the aurora, since it doesn't get dark in Summer! The talk would be just as effective in the lower 48! I just don't get it.

In other news, I apparently got a B in Statistical Mechanics. I averaged under 30% in my homeworks and exams, so I'm not sure how I slid by that one. The class only had three people, so it's not like the prof could curve it. The prof and I have a good relationship because I was his TA, and I also think he felt sorry for me because TA-ing his class is a heavier workload than most. So I went to talk to him to make sure I hadn't gotten any pity points. He said no, no, don't be silly. You learned a lot, blahblah. So I said to myself, why look a gift horse in the mouth? I got a B in stat mech! Not too shabby.

Oh, and I got a B+ in Nonlinear Dynamics, and an A in undergrad E&M. I'm not actually sure why I care, since this is the end of the academic line for me, and I won't be applying for admission anywhere else using these grades, and I certainly hope that at this stage in my career, no one will ask what my GPA was. But it'd still be nice to maintain a good average.

And finally, here is what I will be taking in the Fall:
Arctic Engineering
Grad Level Electrodynamics
Theory of Elastic Stability (courtesy of the civil engineering department)