Fire and Water

I think today was the first fire on on the campus since I've been here. Maybe even the first time a fire alarm has been pulled, which is pretty good, I guess.

I went to lunch at The Ratty after I took my quiz for Math 18 on limits [this is the first one I may not have gotten 10/10 on]. I got a hamburger and some chicken and some water and YES a cake cone and then I went outside, talked to Megan for a second, and then unlocked my bike and sat on it trying to figure out where I was going to go next. I figured I'd probably like to have my bike parked at BarHol, so I decided to ride over there and see what happened from there.

Just as I turned out of The Ratty's sidewalk area, I saw some firetrucks on George St. I didn't count exactly how many, but I'm guessing between 5 and 8. Some were on George Street before the intersection of George St. and Thayer St., some were just on Thayer St., and some were beyond the intersection of George St. and Thayer St., so I couldn't tell exactly where the fire was. I rode past the intersection [going beyond Thayer St.] and kept looking around, and I saw a bunch of people standing outside of a building on George St., and I figured that must be it. I don't know the name of the building or what it's used for. Just that everyone was standing outside of it and there were lots of fire engines nearby.

It was kind of strange, though, because there were no hoses being used, there was no sound of fire, there was no one screaming, no one calling for anything, no one using any latters, no one threatening to jump, not even smoke. I couldn't figure out why there were so many firetrucks. I kept going and parked my bike in the Bike Graveyard at BarHol and walked back [I figured I would go to the Brown Bookstore for clothes]. And as I walked past, a firefighter walked to the door of the building, opened it... and then people started to walk back in. I could NOT figure out what was going on. It's still a mystery to me.

I was looking for a sweatshirt in the bookstore, but I wasn't sure I could find the right size. What am I more likely to wear as a sweatshirt, a child's medium or an adult medium? In either case, they didn't have any adult smalls, so I figured I should wait.

When I came out of the bookstore and started walking back to BarHol, most of the firetrucks were gone. I remember that one was driving towards the scene earlier when I was on my bike, and he stopped at the intersection and waved at me, telling me to go by first. I thought it was weird - he was an emergency worker, shouldn't he go first??? - so I waved him through and sat there until he went. And it kind of just made everything more of a mystery... why are there so many firetrucks for something that seems so non-emergency?

While I was crossing Brook St. to get to BarHol, though, I did see and hear an ambulance fly down Waterman St. with it's sirens and lights on. I still couldn't figure it out though, because... there was no reason they should ever be going in that direction from that place if the emergency was on George St. Absolutely no reason. I can't figure it out.

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Apparently the water here has lead in it.

Well, okay. Not all of it. The water in Providence at large is safe and no one has problems with it, but the water in some of the buildings at Brown, apparently, did not pass inspection recently. The safe level of lead is 15 parts per billion, and the lead level was 15 parts per MILLION. Which means we're 1000x over the safe limit. Three orders of magnitude too much. Now, I think it's only in building I don't go to - like the Department of Applied Math - so I don't worry about it too much. But you do have to ask yourself.... HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?! Who let that go? There is clearly only ONE WAY this could happen - someone left lead pipes in those buildings - and it just doesn't make sense to think that some of the old buildings would have those removed but some of them wouldn't.

All I know is that now whenever a math/science/engineering student doesn't understand something, they'll just blame it in the lead in the water.

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They were playing Fast Car by Tracy Chapman in the V-Dub this morning during breakfast. It made me really want to listen to it, so when I went back to my room I found a copy of it and listened to it a few times.

I also listened to Soulja Boy. Danny came in while I was watching the video and starting singing and dacning along with it. I think I might ask him to teach it to me.

Peace out!