may 4, 2001. dear diary, today we did a training challenge with straws and pins and bricks. the goal was to build 2 bridge supports that would hold up a brick using the least amount of straws and pins. there were 8 groups and there were some engineers in some of them. there were no engineers in my group. we spend a long time in the beginning just staring at the materials, wondering what to do next. i really hated it, because i'm a bossy girl and can't stand it when i don't know how to solve a problem. but then we got building. oh how we builded!! we created the structure with the most material of any group. but guess what? we came in third! our structure was the first one tested that didn't collapse! there were two other structures that stood up, so we lost by a mile. but still. for 10 minutes we were the undisputed champion. and i! never! win! anything! this was so sweet. love, amoret p.s. i've been reading a lot of iota today. can you tell??