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8th SMS' Summer Camp
Applications of differential equations

Zakopane, July 1 - 7th 2011

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Necromantic practices are forbidden in many countries, social groups, condemned by authorities and punished by various institutions. It does not prevent our Society from performing mysterious rytuals, aiming to resurrect the Summer Camp Tradition. Such a ritual may take a few years to complete. We are during our second year of performing it and for tonight's spooky tales we will relate how the July period went through during the VIII Summer Camp in Zakopane entitled „Applications of differential equations".

The truth is that I may be not the best reporter of what happened in Zakopane itself, as during the first day of the camp I was still in Kraków, collecting the forbidden ingredients, like tears of virgins struck by lightning at midnight on 29th of February and so on. I've managed to arrive to the spot, being only a day late. As the darkest place is under the candlestick, we've chosen as our headquarters the same place as the year before - the Burtek resort, knowing, that the Order of Radiant Hart and its goody two shoes paladins won't search for us there. It was there I learned that my brothers and sisters already commenced with their part of the ritual. And so, the Black Stone of Evil and Filth has already been collected during a mountain mission. Szymon already incantated the Brachistochrona Problem, which in the ancient language of the Navajo Indians opened the way to the land of Forgotten Traditions. After him Piotrek continued, telling us about the Mikusiński functional, which drove to Zakopane the Dark Aura of Rains and Storms, which was to serve us as a camouflage for the rest of the week. I arrived during a break, when we helped ourselves to appropiately dark themed snacks. When I left my baggage (some of which had to be knocked down first) we continued our rituals with Anita - our youngest acolite - reminding us about the half-life, which we should take into consideration during our preparations - our Tradition could have been forgotten for such a long time that only a small part of it could remain! Paweł, another young cultist, told us about the topography of Tatry and where should we look for all the artifacts we were to find during the week. Knowing we have a hard time upon us, we spent the rest of the evening on sharpening our axes, sacrificing small rodents on our black altar and similar pleasures.

The next day our Aura of Rains and Storms worked perfectly, which, aside from the obvious advantages, possesed some disadvantages - it was hard to plan the way for the Vecna's Fang. Armed with our cloaks, dark as the darkest night, we sneaked along the trails and people of Zakopane told the tale of the ten wraiths. Our mission ended with a complete success and no casualties; however, it was so much a strain, that we put the rest of our incantations for the next day. Now we resorted to consume the universal meals from our resort - whether they were legs of little chickens or of little children, we did not know and preferred not to inquire. On the next day the most secret part of the ritual was planned by Weronika and Marek. We awaited eagerly, knowing it will help us develop our power.

The next day it turned out that our secret mission is something which all the normal people living under the bright sun call "a field game". For us, of course, it was merely a disguise. Four teams scattered along the streets of Zakopane, and fear and loathing followed them. We were studying secret manuscripts, noting something feverishly in the corners of the streets, seeking strange rocks, mysterious idols, ironwood pillars and other ingredients every necromant should have in his quarters. Ultimately most of the ingredients was found by the Dark Footmen, i.e., Piotrek with Basia, for which they got T-shi... DARK ROBES OF THE BLACK NIGHT! The rest of us received mugs (vessels for blood), pictures (magical) and caskets (mysterious interplanar storage spaces), so no one went away with empty hands. It was also the only day when the power of our Aura went down a little bit and we got back to headquarters more or less dry. Taking advantage of this fact, we immediately performed more parts of our ritual. I told the others about the dangers of necromancy, i.e., the zombie apocalypse, while Jolanta relayed us the forbidden knowledge about the stability of solutions of equations and their relations to jacobians, and even I can not think of any analogy to necromancy here.

The new day was to be the day of our quest for the Dead Knight's Heart, hidden on the Giewont mountain. We knew that the paladins' patrols are strong there and many unfriendly ears reside there. Anita and Paweł remained in our headquarters to regenerate, as our Aura didn't spare our allies in its horrible influence. We on our way to Giewont decided that the downpouring rain may prove to be insufficient camouflage and going to the summit in our full team may be too risky. Hence me and Basia came back to Krupówki to eat something truly evil (warm donuts, mmm) and, upon our return to the headquarters, learned that some of our team decided to achieve some more objectives during one trip to collect some more artifacts from summits nearby. Truly it was a day of great success. In the evening we watched an educational movie about the Storm to learn what primal forces of nature we unleashed and to know what is at stake. We all agreed for that, however, upon our arrival to Zakopane.

The Great Ancients guided us this way throughout the rest of the camp. Sometimes the Aura would not let us to leave the headquarters at all. Sometimes its power destroyed our morale completely. Once we even sat to play the kings' game, Heroes, to rebuild it with pure fun. Ending incantations were performed by Weronika and Marek and the Aura was dismissed the last day, telling us that the ritual was completely successful and the Tradition has been resurrected. It remained to choose the ritual, where the most power was present - the zombie talk has been chosen - and for the last time try to convince Marcin that he does not have to study the ancient manuscripts about differential equations all the time.

To fool our enemies we spent the next day on recreational hikes. Anita and Paweł returned home without any further delay, Szymon and Piotrek ventured to the highest and most dangerous mountains, where they fought many beasts and became stuff of legends; Marcin went abroad, to lead the preying eyes of the Order away from us, and the rest went through the valleys, to see with our own eyes all the mud and unstable footing our Aura created.

What can I say. The Necromantic Society of Mathematicians again showed that it should not be trifled with, and let this manuscript show our bravery and courage - those naive paladins may read it in the world wide accessible Internet, but they won't get us anyway. Hah!

(Not So) Innocent Wolverine
last update: 13.10.2011

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Students' Mathematical Society of the University of Silesia
(Koło Naukowe Matematyków Uniwersytetu ¦l±skiego)
40-007 Katowice, ul. Bankowa 14 (room 524)
tel. (032) 359-20-96, email: knm@knm.katowice.pl