underground

Buried in the earth,

Endless water carvings lie,

Waiting to be found.

Southern Indiana may not have world-class dining, clubs, or musical venues.  It may be that hardly anyone here has ever heard an opera, spoken to a politician, or been outside the Midwest (as I meet more and more people who haven't, I'm continually astonished), but there is something to be said about caving here.  It's world-class.  A lot of people you wouldn't expect have experienced it.  I learned today that some 300,000 people have been through Buckner's.  That's probably why it's in such terrible shape today, but oh well.

Anyway, today I went on a caving trip through a system I've never been through before.  It was a rush!  We (the IU Caving Club) went through Donaldson and Bronson caves in Spring Mill Park, which isn't far from here.  I've never been through such a wet cave before; there were a couple parts that required out-and-out swimming, which is really hard in cave gear.  Sean lent me one of his wetsuits for the trip, which I was REALLY grateful for.  He and I actually explored a little side passage that involved crawling through an 18" high passageway that was half-full of water for about 50 yards.  Frigid water.  The other end, though, was a pretty neat, big, open room.  He said that we were among about 20 people to have been in there; it had only been discovered recently.  w00t!  Exploration!

He also led me up to a little rock ledge that didn't really go anywhere, but it had a couple of neat formations at the top.  The climb up there, as well as climbs in other parts of the cave, tested my parkour skillz.  ;)  I skipped their practice to go caving today, so that was good, haha.

I learned a few things on the caving trip:

don't forget a wetsuit if you're going to get wet

wearing crappy jeans is good, but wearing jeans without knees can get you beat up

test rocks before you try to use them to hold your weight

all water has to go somewhere and come from somewhere

What else recently.. umm.. oh, for my current B490 project my partner and I are writing Number Munchers.  Super awesome, haha!  Homework hasn't kept me as busy as I figured it would, but... there's still a lot of it.  I have some Modern Algebra to finish up, actually, so I'm going to have to shove off.  Oh, but I should mention that this week was the career fair, and I got an offer to interview with Microsoft.  Whee!  And tomorrow should bring some further adventures!