Entry tags:
Hunt day (and night) 1
I haven't yet solved any puzzles front-to-back by myself, but I have been solving in general. Much of Friday I spent flitting between groups and tossing in new ideas, or determining pieces of metapuzzle on the team blackboard. Some of these sparks actually caught and helped lead to solutions, which pleases me.
I also did the classic thing of looking through the worksheets made by people who had been pounding on a particular puzzle for hours, and after only a moment seeing the overarching pattern that they, after all their work at the atomic level and all the preconceptions that this gave them, could not see. I then led the effort to carry this key through the remainder of the work and find the puzzle's answer. This especially made my whole weekend feel validated.
Hmm. I think that, compared to last year's hunt, there are fewer puzzles, and these puzzles tend to be more difficult and invite teamwork. So I bet that most of my teammates (and maybe most of the hunters in general) feel the same as me about their solving pattern this year.
My health has not been the best, alas, but there's not much mystery around it. I have again underestimated how easily my body gets stressed out whenever my medulla finds itself spending a long time in an unfamiliar environment and starts to grunt its distress. Keeping myself full of water and protein keeps things centered, but I started out with empty tanks, and ouchiness resulted.
Through much of yesterday my guts felt afire, and I think this was simply my not hydrating properly the days prior, exacerbated (literally, with churning tum-acids) by the somatic stress of hanging out in a cold hard classroom all day. Ended up going home to rest out the afternoon. Some Pepto pills, a nice chicken sandwich, and a flood of cool clear water with a beer-and-chocolate chaser made me feel much better.
As I type this I have a stress-headache but that's easily solved, and indeed the Excederins I took (with another two tall glasses of water) are starting to work. I'm up awful early, though, ain't I? Already sleep-deprived from getting up so early (9 am) to attend the opening ceremonies, I left last night at 11pm (accompanied by the Andys and MM, leading people to say "Bye, Volity!" as we went out the door) and went to sleep soon after coming home. But then I woke up naturally before 5am, and here I am. Will probably return to campus by 7.
I also did the classic thing of looking through the worksheets made by people who had been pounding on a particular puzzle for hours, and after only a moment seeing the overarching pattern that they, after all their work at the atomic level and all the preconceptions that this gave them, could not see. I then led the effort to carry this key through the remainder of the work and find the puzzle's answer. This especially made my whole weekend feel validated.
Hmm. I think that, compared to last year's hunt, there are fewer puzzles, and these puzzles tend to be more difficult and invite teamwork. So I bet that most of my teammates (and maybe most of the hunters in general) feel the same as me about their solving pattern this year.
My health has not been the best, alas, but there's not much mystery around it. I have again underestimated how easily my body gets stressed out whenever my medulla finds itself spending a long time in an unfamiliar environment and starts to grunt its distress. Keeping myself full of water and protein keeps things centered, but I started out with empty tanks, and ouchiness resulted.
Through much of yesterday my guts felt afire, and I think this was simply my not hydrating properly the days prior, exacerbated (literally, with churning tum-acids) by the somatic stress of hanging out in a cold hard classroom all day. Ended up going home to rest out the afternoon. Some Pepto pills, a nice chicken sandwich, and a flood of cool clear water with a beer-and-chocolate chaser made me feel much better.
As I type this I have a stress-headache but that's easily solved, and indeed the Excederins I took (with another two tall glasses of water) are starting to work. I'm up awful early, though, ain't I? Already sleep-deprived from getting up so early (9 am) to attend the opening ceremonies, I left last night at 11pm (accompanied by the Andys and MM, leading people to say "Bye, Volity!" as we went out the door) and went to sleep soon after coming home. But then I woke up naturally before 5am, and here I am. Will probably return to campus by 7.