Adventures Elsewhere

{mountains}

2012-01-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

The longer I live in Washington, the more I love the mountains and the water. I don't visit either often, but I love knowing they are near.

recently, a friend posted this image she had taken when visiting Seattle and the poem along with it. I love both, so I am remembering by sharing.

Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.

-Denise Levertov

{written about mt. rainier}

the eternal optimist

2012-01-25T13:36:00.000-08:00

yesterday, as I was picking up shampoo for my roommate (you have got to try getting it on Amazon...save so many trips to the store!!) I stumbled across a nail polish called 'eternal optimist' -

also note the clear top coat - it promises 'Xtreme' durability...we'll see how it holds up at the rock wall...

not only is it is a nice light blush color, but now every time I look at my hands, I recall the name, reminding myself that I should keep an optimist's perspective on life. This is espically helpful when reviewing for my solar cell class test or doing solar cell class homework.

I also recently purchased a new fun notebook for solar cell class review notes. I feel a smidgen better when I think about the class - at least I get to write in my fantastic notebook created from an old book!

if you can't read backwards/make up the missing word, it says "the young folk's shelf of books' :)

in all honestly though, you should know that it took me a solid 40+ minutes to paint my own nails. let's just say it's been awhile.

exploring fath & science

2012-01-22T14:37:00.000-08:00

I'm finally getting around to listening to Pastor Richard Dahlstrom's sermons on the relationship between faith and science. I've only made it through the first one so far - Genesis and the Environment - and was reminded of this graphic that I ran across on the internet:

(via)

Incredible.

My thoughts on the sermons will probably show up in later posts, but you should take the time to listen to them as well, unless of course you go to Bethany and already heard them :)

you should also watch Prof. Cox's TED talk below

life, tangled

2012-01-19T23:59:00.000-08:00

the way my life feels right now:

I have good anchors, but the me in the middle is tired, stressed, confused, and conflicted.

Surprisingly enough, I have been getting enough sleep, 8+ hours a night.

But I think tomorrow is going to be a self-care/mental-health day - maybe sew for a little bit, clean my room, and maybe go see a ballet performance in the evening - even if I have to walk the two miles to get to the theatre.

umbrellas

2012-01-19T01:06:00.000-08:00

(via)

not only is this so true - umbrellas for rain and sunshine - but it made me all nostalgic about the trip I took to the Philppines almost 2.5 years ago now. Wow! so long ago!

Recently, I had the opportunity to hear from the SPU team that recently served the same community on a study abroad trip that developed out of our trip. I was excited to see that the Seattle community continues to serve the people of Cuatro in Valley Golf, Manila, as well as working with the people serving through Kids International Ministries.

booth babes

2012-01-15T17:47:00.000-08:00

ommph. I would audibly express my frustration, but my roommate is trying to learn how to nap (I know, who doesn't know how to nap?!) so I'm going to write about it. I'm also putting off finishing homework, but that's nothing new.

you all know how I struggle with appropriate dressing in a male-dominated science field, but there is absolutely no reason booth babes should exist.

'Booth babes' stir controversy at 2012 CES
(for some reason, BBC won't let me have an embed code, but you should click on the link and watch the video, it's not too long)

Booth babes are insulting to women working in the tech field and only encourage gender stereotyping and inappropriate behavior. Regardless of if a women voluntarily agreed to work as a booth babe, she should not be subject to inappropriate comments and behavior from men, as seen in the BBC clip. (I also hate the way women are dressed in most video games and sci-fi books, but that's for another post.) I also finding it insulting to attendees to just assume that they would not be interested in a product if they don't have a scantily-clad model holding it. The problem only doubles when models are hired and not expected to know anything about the product. A company engages an attendee by objectifying a woman and then can't the sell the product because the rep doesn't know what she is handling - awesome marking strategy PR department (a marketing team probably all filled with men, but I won't put it past a woman to set something up at a male-heavy expo) Someone attending something like CES is there specifically to find out about new products, so I really don't see the point of hiring booth babes to introduce new products. And to the gal in the red shirt who though what they were wearing was fine because they weren't practically naked and laying across the hood of a car - if the clothing isn't appropriate for the tech workplace, it shouldn't show up at a tech conference.

Violet Blue, over at ZDNet has a humorous and pointed discussion about what it would be like if booth babes were male. also awful was the number of men taking pictures of the women without a product in her hands (link is from another gaming conference where apparently booth babes were supposed to be absent. it's quite funny, actually). If you're a guy who would go ask about a product because of the women holding it, not because of the actual product itself, I never want to work with you. That behavior quickly translates into an uncomfortable atmosphere in the workplace and I want nothing to do with it.

I also found the model's comments on women not being interested in technology telling about what she values and how the low visibility of women in tech makes entering the filed intimidating. I don't believe girls will see science and technology as a viable career to pursue until we get more women doing high-profile awesome things in a non-exploiting manner. Which is tricky, because minds, values, and attitudes in the industry have to change now before more women will join. I'm not sure what exactly to do to help this change happen, but I think that starting by mentoring girls and showing them how they can excel in those fields and supporting women like my friend Meredith, who is blazing trails through the tech industry.

for more discussion about booth babes, there are some other articles that have popped up on the internet:
another ZDNet one
one from The Guardian - apparently women were dancing in thongs at CES....really?!!!
from The Atlantic Wire
CNET (via huffington post) posted an except of a Women in Tech Panel - and look how awesomely they all were dressed!!!

and a whole ream of photos of booth babes - can you tell what they are marketing?
oh wait - there's more
and look! some gadgets, but don't forget the booth babes.

I'm done ranting now, but if you read all the way through this, I'd be interested in hearing how you would/do respond to the idea or presence of booth babes at a conference.

Also, no relevant pictures in this post, because the only related pictures would be of scarcely clad women, and I don't want that on my blog. But I can give you a cute kitten picture!

I would totally check out a product if a marketing department used kittens to sell it.....

{young} women in science

2012-01-14T14:27:00.000-08:00

so encouraged today - learned that the winners of Google's new Science Fair were all female.

slightly discouraged at the rate of rejection from the people the girls reached out to for assistance, but I'm not sure if the rejections were based on their age (13-18), type of experiments, or because they are female, so I won't judge the rejectors too harshly.

and nope, this contest was not targeted towards women/minorities, it just happend that these intelligent, curious and persistent women found the mentorship, support, and encouragement to continue working towards doing great and innovative science.

excitement vs. math

2012-01-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

remember when I was really excited about my solar cell class??

yeah, that was after day 1. My feelings have rapidly u-turned, as illustrated by this graph I drew on my phone:

I'm currently on hour 7ish of working on the homework assignment, and have yet to answer even a single part of one of the two problems assigned. I apparently don't understand anything about lasers, flux, blackbody radiation, solar cells, etc and both my textbook and the internet are not helping. at all. Also, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person in the class who used excel to do the last homework.....I never had to learn any sort of higher-level math program (MatLab, Mathematica, etc) in college. Learning one of those programs is on my list of things to do, soon.

And thanks to the holiday on Monday, I don't even think I'll be able to meet with my prof to discuss the homework. also, I lost my husky card yesterday which made Friday not a fantastic day at all, excluding the time spent rock climbing. That was fun, but since I lost my husky card, I can't go climbing again tomorrow, as was my plan.

At least today is Saturday.

what actually happend on my 'winter' break

2012-01-11T23:51:00.000-08:00

I fall into the red slice of the pie chart

(just found this today, so appropriate)

read one book

got ~1/3 of my sweater knitted

slept

everything else is still on my to-do-eventually list.

{building} art

2012-01-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

I should be in class right now, but thanks to the admin who showed up over 30 minutes late to our meeting regarding some fellowship application paperwork, I had to skip class :( Skipping grad courses makes me nervous, especially since this prof is new and there is not book for the course....

Anyways, as I walk from the bus stop to my building (~30% of my commute is spent walking) I pass by this fantastic building called Anderson Hall. Last night I noticed that one of the upper stories was lit up, revealing what appears to be a beautiful gothic-style hall. I'm not in the college of Forestry (clearly), so I'm going to try to explore the space without too many people noticing I'm there. I don't even know what the space is currently used for, so that complicates things a bit.

anderson hall {pre-giant-bus-stop now residing near it}

As I was looking up the building online, I stumbled across the UW's Digital Collections, full of historical photos and many original architectural drawings. Look at this incredible drawing I found of the Space Needle:

And the pictures come with interesting descriptions, including this about the Space Needle:

Set on the only section of the fair grounds that was not owned by the city, the site did not have the height restrictions of other exhibits/pavillions at the fair. The lot, 37-by-37 m, was purchased by private investors for $75,000 and is still privately owned.

and this was supposed to the be a bank at the World's Fair:

What a cool building! I haven't actually determined if this structure was ever built, but I'm think that it probably was not constructed, mainly because I can't find any info on it....but there is going to be some exhibitions this coming year to celebrate the 50 yr anniversary of the World's Fair, so maybe I can find out more later! (also, I've always secretly wanted a circular house...)

even the floor plan is something I would frame!

shampoo

2012-01-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

my roommates are going to laugh as soon as they start reading this.

but today was the first day I felt like I stepped into a fuller utilization of the internet.
or got really lazy, depending on how you look at it.

How? By buying my shampoo on Amazon.

yep.

Typically, I use Amazon for books, shoes, or other kind-of specialized items (i.e. a bike light for my helmet, gloves with conductive fingers) But, thanks to fantastically free prime shipping, I can skip getting in my car, driving to a local store, spending time finding shampoo, getting distracted by all the other items in the store, and don't have to pay for the gas that it took to get to store. Now, in two days, by the time I run out of shampoo, a new bottle will be waiting on my porch. or my bed, if my roommate is nice enough to bring it inside before I get home. also, I'm pretty sure it would have taken more than two days for me to find time to drive to the store (thanks grad school).

Next step - Amazon Fresh? :)

roommate looking at me with a somewhat disapproving expression regarding my use of Amazon...

{art + friends = balance}

2012-01-08T00:07:00.000-08:00

it's been four really really long days. and it's the first four days of the quarter.

mostly, I've been dealing with my new TA assignment all week. Due to poorly written lab handouts, I've spent time going physically through the labs myself, trying to decipher what the instructor intended. Fortunately, my chemistry background has made this a bit easier, as my MSE lab is basically a chem lab. It's been really interesting seeing how much the students don't remember about chemistry. I've been giving them a bit of grace, remembering that they only have had two quarters of gen chem, two years ago, but I'm going to have them watch this video before coming into lab next....

It even has fun music!

But, today is Saturday - woke up to my alarm at 8:40am, freaked out for a moment, said "kali - it's 8:40!" thinking she was late to work, and then remembered it was saturday (sorry for waking you up...)

Today was SAM day with Sarah! She's off to Indonesia with the Peace Core soon and I'm trying to keep good balance in my life by taking time for non-school related activities, so we bussed downtown to the SAM to see the 'Art of Asia' exhibit.

I really enjoyed the art on display, as I love asian art. There was an interesting mix of cultures represented, though ironically, no Indonesian art. As I am both a font and textile geek, I loved all the tapestries and scrolls. Apparently the following is the most important important scroll in the SAM collection:

Most interesting was the description that the characters can show excitement, exuberance, and even be a small surprise as you're reading - that is definitely more emotion than can come across in this very straight and proper Arial font....even modern calligraphy doesn't convey much emotion.

The textiles were fascinating, including the summer robe above. The blue was rich in color, and the embroidery was all golden. Incredibly, the robe was in the pristine condition, including the mesh sections along the arms. I just love textiles.

In other news, I finally broke down and bought a paper weekly planner. I tried so hard to be paperless and take advantage of all my various electronics, but it was surprisingly difficult to track everything. Still on the hunt for a good planner app that interfaces with both my computer and my phone in a simple manner. In the meantime, I'm going to use this Moleskine planner with some great cover art:

I've also spent copious amount of hours installing linux on my baby tablet pc. windows XP was just too cumbersome. 2 re-installs later and many minutes on the internet, I finally got the screen resolution fixed. it's the small victories in life.

My wonderful day ended with a lovely gathering of friends around a crockpot of soup, some TJ's cornbread, and homemade pazooki :)

Thanks for filing our home with love, warmth, and laughter.

Q2

2012-01-03T23:31:00.000-08:00

Today marks the first day of my second quarter in grad school. wow.

I met all the students I'll be TA-ing for over the course of the quarter: 38 boys and 8 girls. I guess that is engineering for you. Interestingly, all the TAs are women. Hopefully I didn't scare/annoy them too much with my page-long email and extra work I just assigned....it's going to be a fun quarter.

I think, however, that the most interesting part of my quarter is going to be this intro/get-everyone-up-to-speed photovoltaics course I'm taking from the Chem E department. I realized as my prof was giving his intro lecture that I had already read and cited a paper he wrote in my quarter report and some of my fellowship applications. Pretty sure I wasn't aware that the author of that paper was at the UW. Mainly, I'm just more excited than ever to work in the renewable/alternative energy sector. Solar is a very viable technology for energy independence, good stewardship of our natural resources, etc, etc, etc. While sitting through this class, I was almost overwhelmed (that sounds more dramatic than reality) with excitement that I possibly get to spend my career researching solar energy conversion. Kind of nerdy, I know, but I'm slowly realizing that I'd be very okay with staying in the solar sector. There are just so many interesting aspects - from the materials, to the processing, the device design; even energy policy is something I've been looking into .

favorite picture from the intro lecture:

notice the color over seattle? yeah. I just laughed when this popped up.

probably going to have to move to do this solar energy career.

not biking

2011-12-29T23:00:00.000-08:00

has been harder than I expected. I keep wanting to ride my bike, but then I remember there is ice on the roads in my hometown. And that my bike is still in Seattle. I refuse to ride a stationary bike and I'm so tempted right now to get a trainer for my lovely road bike, but I think my roommates wouldn't be too happy with a bike in our living room :)

Anyways, here are some funny bike (and pedestrian) related haikus I stumbled upon while procrastinating on finishing my DOE fellowship application:

also. watch this video. it's strangely fascinating. and scary.

3-Way Street from ronconcocacola on Vimeo.

I would also like to point out that in NYC, people stand in the street while waiting to cross. You could clearly pick me out as a non-new yorker when I was in the city a few week ago because I stood on the sidewalk. In seattle, our streets are too narrow to stand in the road! alas, I found myself the day after I returned to seattle waiting in the street more than once.....

{vulnerabilty}

2011-12-29T01:15:00.000-08:00

tonight, I stumbled upon a TED talk entitled The power of vulnerability by Brene Brown from the University of Houston. this women is right up my alley - a researcher who likes to measure and quantify everything. This might not all sound coherent, but the talk resonated with me and I wanted to share it.

What really struck me was how she defined part of vulnerability as doing 'something where there is no guarantee.' This isn't a huge revelation, I just have never considered it in those terms. I can do that with with my research because I have always understood that there are no 'right' answers in chemistry; there is no guarantee of a successful reaction. After writing that, I'm not entirely sure why I still love my work and why I continually show up to lab each day, but it may be partly because the chemicals can't talk back. I can't hurt them or be hurt by them.

People, however, have always been a different story. I have come to realize that I consciously will keep part of myself from people, in a way, shielding myself. Goodness, that sounds cliché, but really, who doesn't? Many days I envy people like my lovely roommate, who I see as a more open and vulnerable person. People (including me) respond to her; she has connections/relationships with so many people and they're not just surface level relationships. She embodies the type that 'realize the vulnerability and tenderness are important, and they surrender and walk into it' that Brown discusses in her talk. Maybe it's because she's a poet. I could count my friends in high school on half of one hand, partially because I never felt like I could be even somewhat vulnerable with the people around me. But that could just be high school culture. I changed a bit in college, consciously trying to invest in others by being open with them, I can see where that has changed me and I am more aware of how I interact with people, the 'level' of vulnerable I am with them. I couldn't tell you why I'm not very open with others - I have grown up surrounded by a loving and supportive family and I know that I am loved, accepted and redeemed by Christ just as I am. I guess it just what it is; I can only keep working on how to be vulnerable with others. Again, college has been helpful, especially the honors program, healthily introducing gray in my life, into what I thought were set-in-stone beliefs. I'm learning to live in those gray spaces, becoming more comfortable with non-definite answers, but I know that when I can, I tend to create more defined borders. I like rules, I like guidelines, I am uncomfortable with just 'going with the flow' or taking initiative with people. Though, you probably wouldn't believe me if you saw the order-less state of my room, clothes tossed everywhere :) My heart knows vulnerability is important - vital - to community with people, the church, Christ; but my mind frequently stops my words and actions from moving to that place.

so tonight, I pray for the ability to be vulnerable with myself, with others, with Christ.

Right Stuff, Wrong Sex

2011-12-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Recently, I finished reading Right Stuff, Wrong Sex by Margaret Weitekamp. With the subtitle of‘America’s First Women in Space Program,’ I initially thought that the textwould center around the women who were tested as potential astronauts. However,this book proved to discuss the background and development of Dr. William Randolph "Randy" Lovelace’sWomen in Space testing program, the political backlash against the program, andthe general cultural beliefs that stopped women from being a part of theMercury and Apollo programs. *Lovelace’s facility in Albuquerque became NASA’smedical center, mainly because he was a leader in aviation medicine and workingon developing a space medicine research program.

Remember that the early space program began before thewomen’s lib movement, so any consideration of a female for an astronaut couldbe assumed to be tricky. What was surprising to learn was how under-the-tableLovelace’s program had to operate because of the hostility he faced in thepolitical sphere. I was shocked to find out that President Johnson (JohnsonSpace Center in Houston, TX is named after him) was very much against femaleastronauts. A scribbled note from him in response to an inquiry about female candidatesfrom NASA’s Administrator is one of the only bits of a paper trail recordingthe hostility of those in Washington against the women. Instead of his name, he signed 'Let's end this now!' in the space at the end of his note.

Overall, 25 female pilots were tested by Lovelace and 13passed the week-long physical examination. Only three women were able to go onto further testing, the not-so-official program was ‘officially’ cancelled only5 days before the rest of the women were scheduled to fly to Pensacola, FL forpsychological testing. This was actually a most interesting test of how potentialastronauts handled total isolation: they floated in a pool, in a darkened roomfor as long as the possibly could. Both the air and the water temperature werematched exactly to the women’s body temperature, so apparently they didn’t evenfeel the water when they splashed it!

I found myself frequently frustrated with the lack ofsupport for the women. The cultural standards and expectations for women couldbe used against them – one women was in a congressional hearing testifying forfemale astronaut candidates, was photographed with her heels off under thetable and that breech in expected etiquette was used to discredit her wholetestimony. The women found themselves with unsupportive employers, as many losttheir jobs when they left to be tested. Even the man running the physicaltesting, Lovelace, did not envision these women as astronauts in the same senseas male candidates. He expected that once space had been initially ‘colonized,’women would be needed as lab technicians, secretaries, and space ‘homemakers.’ Ugh.Even the most forward-thinking men of the time couldn’t get past thetraditional gender roles that permeated the American culture.

The tested women were all incredible pilots, most withnumerous flying records to their name and countless hours of flying time.However, one of NASA’s requirements kept women out of the pilot’s seat on anyspace-based aircraft for years to come: they had to have hours flying a jet aircraft. At that point in time,only the military flew jets and the military did not allow women to flyanything after the short-lived WASP program. So, regardless of how much theyfought to become candidates, the women could always be pushed out because therewas absolutely no way they could get the time they needed in a jet. Some womeneven considered trying to privately fund the purchase and flying of a jet, butthat didn’t go anywhere in the end.

I was just slightly overwhelmed with the walls and roadblocks that these women faced in their campaign to fly to space. Itmade me more than thankful to live in 2011, when even though I still feel thecultural constraints of being a women in science, I have supporters. NASA sodestroyed the hopes of accomplished women for becoming astronauts that they hadto hire Nichelle Nichols, Uhura from StarTrek, to recruit females and other minorities to the shuttle astronautcore. Even then, as Weitekamp points out in the epilogue, there existed atwo-track system for the astronaut core: one for PhDs and MDs, called ‘missionspecialists,’ and one for pilots. There were a number of women who flew on theshuttles before a female was actually selected to command and pilot a shuttlemission.

FLATs (First Lady Astronaut Trainees) at one of Eileen Collins' launches on the space shuttle. Collins was the first woman to pilot the shuttle.

Really, this was a most interesting book and fascinatingread. I’m returning it to the library soon, so you should pick it up and readit. While I was initially interested in because it was about early femaleastronaut candidates, it really is a book anyone interested in gender equalityor even history of aviation medicine should read. It spun out of the author’sthesis and is a well written book. Not too long either, I finished it in just 3days by the pool :)

sigh

2011-12-21T17:05:00.000-08:00

I made it through the first quarter of grad school. I'm still in good standing GPA-wise - the only reason I care about my GPA is for fellowships and getting into the dual-degree Nanotech PhD program the UW offers. Otherwise, all I care about is learning. And learn I did, this past quarter. Nothing like trying to also learn everything possible about basic EE things/photovoltaics on top of learning all sorts of new topics because I switched from Chemistry to Materials. Interestingly, I found that my chemistry background was more helpful than I anticipated (I guess that's why it's called 'the central science'! :) ), serving as an intro to topics that we delved into more deeply/mathematically into throughout my courses.

I will say, however, that even though the quarter was full of stress, I love Materials Science and Engineering and definitely believe it is the right field for me. What I still don't know is what I want to do after graduation - work in industry, for a government lab, or in academia, but I'm willing to sit on that decision for a while, discerning the Lord's will for my career.

everyone says this quarter is the worst in our department (mainly thanks to the class my advisor teaches....) - so here's hoping that next quarter goes swimmingly!

{currently, I'm de-stressing in southern CA with my family, where there is plenty of sun and no alarm clocks}

Mainly, I want to thank the fantastic girls in my house for supporting me day-to-day as I figure out this grad school thing. I know that I'm frequently absent from the house community and you girls saw a bunch of low moments in the quarter, but I so so so appreciate you all and I wanted to let you know!

{also. thank you for the frosting and cookies. you know how to fuel my sleepless and stressful nights.}

I should also thank my fellow SPU alums, Natalie Closner and Marissa Maharaj for releasing music this year - your albums were on perpetual repeat when I was scrambling to finish all my reports!

{marissa maharaj}

{natalie closner}

{you all should take a listen, if you haven't already!}

Alvin Ailey {NYC Day/part 3}

2011-12-19T11:21:00.000-08:00

Finally, at the very end of Wednesday evening I was able tosee on of the most incredible dance performances I have ever seen - a rep ofthree pieces by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. For some reason, AileyII came to Ellensburg a number of years ago and I remember being very impressedwith their dance, even through it was so different from my own preferred styleof classical ballet. I knew I did not want to see Nutcracker – performing in 5times made it surprisingly uninspiring to watch (besides, I don’t think they dostudent rush tickets), and none of the broadways shows that offered studentrush tickets really stood out to me. I’m not quite sure what brought it tomind, but I had a faint recollection that Alvin Ailey was in NYC. The best bonus– student rush tickets were only $10 during the holiday season. Ten dollars forone of the most engaging evenings of dance?!!!! This quickly became the mostimportant must-do for my free day.

And what a performance! The theatre (the New York CityCenter) was built in such a way that our seats gave a steep sightline, but theywere close enough that we could make out facial expressions and other nuanceswithout the aid of binoculars. Hannah asked the ticket guy for centered seats,which is always a plus, and I actually do prefer balcony seats, patterns andspecific spatial movements are always more impactful when viewed from up high.

{Hannah thinks the theatre is a converted Jewish (?)theatre, mainly because of the motifs present on the walls/perccenum arch –star of David, protective hands, etc. It was beautiful!}

The set of three pieces was diverse and engaging, rangingfrom telling the story of a Haitian painter to a piece set entirely to gospelspirituals. It so happens that last night’s run was probably the best set forthe week (on a Wednesday – weird) because it included the full cast of 50dancers performing Revelations.

The first piece, about the Haitian painter, HectorHyppolite, was entitled The Prodgial Prince.This piece had very distinctive costumes, with both Haitian and Africaninfluences. There was a strong storyline that was generally followable, thoughthere were some characters I did not understand - like a masked man in acostume covered in long swishy rustling grass-like stuff, reminiscent of NickCave’s Sound Suits, just not as tall. They mixed in some projections of what Iassume is the actual artist’s work at the end and the lighting in generalreally set off the piece and aided in telling the story. Sometimes I forgetabout how important the non-dance parts of the performance are to creating anengaging environment.

The second piece, called ForgottenTime, showcased softer movements and lots of remarkable partnering. Being amodern dance company, all of the dancers are built distinctly different thanthe classical dancers I usually see (basically modern = way more muscular, bothmen and women) and the ease of how they partnered was inspiring to watch. Itnever looked like anyone exerted any effort to life another person, guy or girl.The men made it look completely easy to just lift a female up sideways, swingher upside down, and then pop her up around his shoulders. Again and again andagain. The moments of stillness also stood out to me, which I only appreciatenow because I have watched my own performances and wish that I could re-performthem, incorporating brief moments of stillness. It really just anchors a pieceand allows the audience to keep up with dance, otherwise I find myselfsometimes overwhelmed with movement. I also really liked the fact that this setof pieces began and ended in silence. Just listening to footfalls on themarley, the swishing of arms, thuds from the jumps, and the coordinatedexhaling was, in a way, very peaceful. The set also ended and began with thesame patterns and movements, giving this interesting cyclical feeling, almostlike a day had passed and we watched them dance through the day, starting withsunrise and finishing with the sunset. I don’t honestly know what theinspiration was for the piece or the actual story they told through themovements (it was not detailed in the program) but I thoroughly enjoyed thepieces.

Forgotten Time from AlvinAileyAmericanDanceTheater on Vimeo.

And Revelations.Wow. I got goosebumps during every single piece. That doesn’t usually happen(it happened when I saw PNB perform Wheeldon’s After the Rain pas de duexearlier this year, but it rarely happens). I was engaged, encouraged,invigorated, and just plain excited through these pieces. They made me want tofind a dance studio the next day and get back in class. The dancer’s energy wasincredible and felt all the way up in the balcony – I just don’t know how elseto explain this breathtaking experience. The emotional spiritual music combinedwith the powerful artistry of the company dancers created a phenomenal andthoroughly engaging performance. Fortunately, Alvin Ailey has allowed much oftheir work to be taped and (maybe unfortunately for them) many of the pieceshave made their way on to the internet. While the experience is not nearly asremarkable as seeing the pieces performed in person, you should take time towatch these clips: (if you only want to watch one, watch the last clip)

gah. I still get goosebumps and all emotional when I watchthose clips…

You should also see the company perform if you EVER get achance. I looked, they are not coming to Seattle this coming year, but nexttime they do – want to join?

A Day in NYC {part two}

2011-12-18T23:30:00.000-08:00

MoMA was next on my NYC to-do. I’m pretty sure most of my familywouldn’t enjoy this museum (maybe my dad), but I really liked most of it! Ireally didn’t have a plan and with limited time, I didn’t get to see everything(somehow I managed to miss seeing Van Gogh’s Starry Nights L)but I did get to see the font exhibit that I had read about!! (I’m somehow onMoMA’s email list….) It was a part of their installation called Standard Deviations: Types and Families in Contemporary Design which encompassed more than justthe fonts, but the basic idea was iterations of similar things. For example,they had a bunch of old Macs, all derived from the original one and a Smartcar, which apparently you can replace the outside color by just ordering newplastic pieces. I really don’t think I’d fit well in smart car. The wide rangeof fonts they chose to showcase was also interesting, as was learning moreabout the history of each font. Yes, I’m a nerd - I also enjoyed watching the Helvetica documentary…you should watchit as well!

{fonts!}

I also stumbled upon their de Kooning retrospective, whichhad way to many galleries and I accidently started in the middle when it wasarranged chronologically. I was not able to take pictures, but here is anexample of his work:

{I actually really loved this piece, which surprised even myself}

Much of it was really really abstract, though oneinformational wall did say that he felt it necessary to put in at least onefaintly recognizable shape (a house outline and a solitary finger in one piece)to kind of ‘anchor’ the viewer. I found that I just enjoyed the colors that heused and didn’t try to over analyze any painting. Many of the works were verylarge and I think they would be wonderful in a house that has large blankwalls, bringing color and interest into a space without strictly defining it.

After spending only ~2.5 hours in there, I grabbed anothersubway to Cooper Union to see the installation by Celeste Pfau, Hannah’s friend. Called The Moss Phase, it was kind of a confusingexhibit for me, mainly because I didn’t even know the title at the time, let alone anybackground, but I really liked one particular installation:

It evoked this image of a family tree in a very dynamicfashion and I was fascinated by the faces hanging, softly illuminated from thedropped lightbulb.

I was also reminded of my roommates, Kali, Jenni, and Steph, when Isaw this tent:

Not only would they go in, I felt that they would create avery similar space.

I was most impressed with the repeated leaf prints woventhroughout the exhibit, the detail and fine features found in even the smallestprints was fantastic! I wanted all the little cards on the wall….

Next came the adventure of finding B & H Dairy, this Ukrainianplace Hannah said I had to try. Now,if you know me and my lack of initiative in trying new foods, you might besurprised that I actually found this place and ate exactly what Hannah told meto get. There are a large number of Ukrainian places along the same street andI almost when to the wrong one, but it looked too nice to be the place Hannahdescribed. B&H place was very much a hole-in-wall and the man who probablyowns it clearly recognized me as not knowing what I was supposed to do/order.He kindly gave me a menu, but I had neglected to write down what exactly Hannahtold me to get, but apparently the ‘something like dumplings?’ description wassufficient. I also got the hot borsht – a beet based soup, which unexpectedlycame with Challah bread. There was so. much. food. And I wasn’t even thathungry, but I knew I had to try it before I left town.

{pierogies, borscht, and challah bread}

The bright red borscht was surprisingly good, I would totallyeat it again. Not sure I could every make it, but I liked it. The challah breadwas delicious, of course, but even better when dipped in the soup. The dumplingthings, called pierogies apparently, were interesting. I got them fried (the guyasked me, ‘do you want them steamed or fried? Healthy or….good?’ I laughed andsaid definitely fried. I love fried foods….) they were these little fried cakesstuffed with a variety of things. I couldn’t bring myself to try tosaurerkraut-mushroom one, mainly because I don’t like either of those fooditems. I did try the potato, cheese, and spinach perogies, of which I like thespinach ones the best, probably because they also had onions in them J. The potato was alsogood, but was kind of a lot of drier items with the outside part being of asimilar texture. The cheese was my least favorite – I really didn’t likewhatever cheese they put in it, but Hannah likes those, so she got them when wemet up for the Ailey show J.Overall, it was a really good meal and I’m am really tempted to try to find aplace in seattle similar to it (and the indian roll place!) but am pretty sureI’ll be unsuccessful.

After quickly eating as much as I could (I finished both theborsht and the bread), I hopped another subway north and went to the Aileyshow! Ailey show is going to be the whole next post :)

A day in NYC {part 1}

2011-12-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

Apparently, my take-home final didn’t take as along as Iexpected – I budgeted two days for it and I got it basically done in one (ofcourse, during the remainder of today I’ll be going back over it, but there area limited number of ways you can answer questions about sol-gel reactions….) Wednesday, then, I was able to run around NYC a bit and see some things that Ihadn’t seen in past trips. Most likely, if you’re reading this now, you saw myvarious pictures from the day, but here is everything all together in one place (well, three posts)+ more pictures!

After a late-ish start, I hopped on a subway to Times Square- I must mention here how thankful I am for public transportation. I know manypeople don’t like it, but the fact that I could inexpensively, quickly and prettyefficiently get around a city I am visiting is just fantastic. I also reallyenjoy how frequently trains come. I have spent enough time waiting in the coldfor one of the three buses from school to my house in Seattle that Iappreciate the consistent flow of trains through the subway.

Though my first goal was to find the NY public library, Idid need breakfast and I walked the wrong way at first (that happens quitefrequently, actually, even with a smartphone…) so I ended up at Starbucks. Yayfor consistency across the country.

(the worst moment of my morning - realizing I left my nice camera at home. I only had my iPhone for pictures all day long :( )

{some random building near bryant park - I liked how it curved upwards}

{New York Public Library! I always get so lost, yet somehow manage to find the reading room}

I found the library, got lost trying to find the readingroom, but then found it eventually. I never actually go in the front door, soit usually wind up stairs and down different hallways until I end up at thebeautiful reading room. Pretty sure that even if I had a map, I couldn’t findit directly. I also usually find the front door when I leave, so that’s evenmore confusing. I also don’t know if there are any other spaces besides thereading rooms for the public to access, because that’s all I’ve ever found. Ido always enjoy the exhibits the library constructs in their hallways to thebathroom and the exit - last time was this awesome exhibit called ‘Radioactive’about Marie Currie, based off of the book Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout. This time they wereshowcasing ‘New Contemporary Art,’ which involved a surprisingly large amountof ‘Untitled’ pieces, but they were very interesting to look at.

{I’m not entirely sure I was supposed to take pictures, butthese were a few of my favorites}

While at the library, I made my plan for the day: Check outAiley tickets at the NYCC (next post will describe that awesome experience); goto Uniqlo (a shop Guy highly recommended); complain to Urban Outfitters aboutmy inability the other night to order things online due to their websitegetting stuck in a cycle during checkout/see if they could order what I wantedand give me free shipping; visit the Central Synagogue; go to the Museum ofModern Art; travel to lower east side to see Hannah’s friend’s gallery exhibitat Cooper Union; eat at this Ukrainian place; possibly get falafels next door;and then go to the Ailey show. For some strange reason, I initially didn’t thinkthis would take up the whole day. Ha. I ran around and around and around andgot to almost everything on my list!

{I should probably mention that I saw giant ‘sale’ signs inthe H&M outside the library and stopped in….I found some awesome heeled bootsthat I then proceed to wear them for much of the day. Probably not the bestidea as my feet hurt at the end of the day, but I like them! And I could seeeven better over all the crowds – they have a small ½” platform with a ~4”heel…..}

After checking with the NYCC and Urban, I went to find theCentral Synagogue. Now, I’m not Jewish, but it is a beautiful house of worshipand I can appreciate that (+ the Jewish heritage of my Christianity). TheCentral Synagogue has a once-a-week tour at 12:45 on Wednesdays. Kind ofrandom, I know.

{from the front; from the back}

The ‘tour’ really just took place in the main sanctuary andfocused mostly on trivia about the building, so here are some fun facts Ipicked up:

- style of the building is called ‘moorishrevival’. It’s very colorful and pretty.

- There are 69 shades of color on the walls.Everything is hand painted using stencils, no wallpaper here! (also, myMSE/symmetry-seeking mind was going crazy with all the patterns in thebuilding. I love patterns.)

- The pillars are made of cast iron – weird, I know, but they could build up the patterns onthe pillars by welding on smaller pieces and then paint over them.

- The tiles are made of color clay, so that whenthey get worn down, the color won’t fade/wear off. After there was a terriblefire that destroyed much of the church (including the organ), they wereactually able to get the manufacturer to reproduce the tiles for them, 130years after they were originally created. They are so well placed that youcan’t pick out the old from the new tiles.

After the tour, it was lunch-ish time. I stopped at streetvendor that had a line both when I passed it on the way to the synagogue andwhen I came back, so I figured it had to be good food. And it was! Or maybe Ijust really like lamb gyros….

I had also seen this ‘public space’ when I wasrapidly trying to find the synagogue, and so I wandered back there and found anatrium-like space with tables and chairs, open to the public. It was great! Ialso noticed many people stared at me (all day, really) which was kind ofunsettling, but I figure it’s just a new Yorker thing to do. Or maybe I reallylooked out of place, I don’t know.

{Public Space}

More NYC soon!

"break" goals

2011-12-16T17:28:00.000-08:00

First quarter of grad school done! I turned in my last assignments today and found out that I passed my most stressful class! Since I'm not totally finished with fellowship apps at the start my Christmas break, I'm not sure how much of a 'break' the next three weeks will be. I want to get them all done early, like next week, but I am always better with hard deadlines than softer self-imposed deadlines.....

regardless, I do have a few non-school-related goals for the break, we'll see if any of them actually get done.

get at least halfway through my newest sweater project. The stress halfway through last quarter got to me and I ran to JoAnn's, buying some inexpensive wool to make this fun sweater:

I love cabling and knitting is more portable than sewing, so I can work on this sweater in the car, watching TV, at Bible study, or just while chatting with my family. Or, even, while attempting to sit by the pool in Palm Springs, as that is where my family has decided to travel for a few days this break. I'm not a huge fan of going warm places during the Christmas season (not sure I could ever live in the southern hemisphere...) but I am a fan the sun! Strange side note - knitting is about the only thing I can do while riding in a car without getting motion sick. I can't read, watch movies, or even type emails :(

other things to do:

start reading Right Stuff, Wrong Sex. (dealing with women in science/first female astronaut cannidates)
start reading The Design of Everyday Things
start reading Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (it just came in the mail! so exciting!)
watch Objectified
watch When we Left Earth
starting learning to code again. probably in python, but I'm open to suggestions!

MatLab may be more useful, but I can't get a free copy and am not currently willing to fork over $100 for it... I'm not going to work in DOS again (like I did in 8th grade), but let me tell you - if you need something password protected, want to play a game of hangman, or see 8-bit style cat drawings, let me know :) (if this kid can program in three languages by the age of 12 and speak so well in front of lots of people, I figure I can (re)learn to program)

I also want to knit some new mittens for myself that my friend Hannah designed, but I've got to either find appropriate weight yarn or convince my dear sister that she should spin me some for Christmas. But I also want her to spin me some conductive fiber yarn (I know - so cool!) so I'm debating what I should persuade her to spin first :) conductive yarn = iPhone compatible gloves!

finish a long winter coat I started 4 years ago. Yes, it still fits. I was just too lazy to get the snaps for the closure from the store....
paint a large piece (or two!) of art for the MSE grad student 'lounge'.

best part about this art - it's subtly MSE-geeky! The pattern is from the pattern used to define quasi-crystals in x-ray crystallography. The man who first discovered and published his discovery of quasi-crystals just won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry! Click the link to read his story, it was a long uphill battle convincing people that he was correct. (my advisor is/was a crystallographer, so he was very excited...)

Right now, the area inspires no creativity and is just one blah rose beige color. (the furniture is also atrocious, but I'm not going to deal with that yet. well, I may take the couch covers home to wash them, not sure when they were last washed...) I also need to bring some color/life into my personal half cubicle, but I'm kind of stuck with what to do with my space. Suggestions?

In reality, I'm pretty sure the next week is going to be filled with lingering paperwork I need to finish for research, so I'm not too hopeful about getting too many things done...but at least I'll be in a place with sun!

suits required.

2011-12-13T11:42:00.000-08:00

“Here’s the thing about being a girlie girl. I think there was a generation before us that felt like they needed to act like men to be taken seriously, like they had to use their sexuality to take control of people. I don’t judge people for that. But I don’t want to take all my clothes off and use myself as an object. It’s part of the machine and I don’t think that necessarily pushes us forward as women. I think you can still be girlie and maintain your power. The fact that you associate being girlie with being non-threatening, that is … I mean, I can’t think of more blatant example of playing into exactly the thing that we’re trying to fight against. I can’t be girlie? Why do I need to be defined aesthetically by someone else’s perceptions of what makes me seem like someone who should be taken seriously? I’m going to wear whatever I want to wear, because I’m expressing myself, and I deserve that right. And I like the way that looks. You’re not demeaning yourself by acting girlie. I think the fact that people are associating being girlie with weakness, that needs to be examined. Not me dressing girlie. I don’t think that undermines my power at all.

“I’m not doing it to pander to people. I just always knew what I liked versus what I don’t like. I never liked things with too many zippers or spikes and stuff. That weirds me out. I like things that are pretty. And I think it’s great to be pretty. I like being feminine. I think it’s good to be feminine. We don’t need to look like men or dress like men or talk like men to be powerful. We can be powerful in our own way, our own feminine way.” - Zooey Deschanel (source)

------

I like this; I like it a bunch. I don't however, necessarily agree with the implication that our generation of women doesn't still feel pressured to dress and act like men to be taken seriously. After watching the film Miss Representation, the one thing I left with was how all the non-artists featured were wearing menswear-esque suits.

Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice, Katie Couric and the other women who names I can't remember, but who worked in the law or politics fields, were all wearing suits. Women in the art and film industries were not in suits. They were still dressed well, but they were not in a tailored suit with square lapels and shoulder pads. Artists have always been able to get away with wearing non 'standard' clothing. Zooey Deschanel is an artist.

In which of the following outfits would you take me more seriously as a scientist? (ignoring the setting of the pictures)

I think, in my case, dressing girly probably undermines how seriously people consider my science and how much respect I command in my male-dominated field, regardless of how much we say we don't judge people based on their appearance and seek gender equality. Which is just too bad, because I love to wear dresses and skirts.

{city girl}

2011-12-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

Apparently I'm more of a city girl than I thought.

Wandering through the deserted Cambridge, MA on the MIT campus Saturday morning was weird. (apparently MIT students don't get moving on a Saturday until ~11 am....)

It was a city, but there was nobody outside. And the streets were so clean! There were joggers - lots and lots and lots of runners - but no one just out for a stroll with their family, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. Maybe they're all just too used to the sun and fair weather? It really threw me off all day! I guess I expect Ellensburg to be quiet because it's a small college town, and I envisioned Boston as place thriving with people. Maybe it was the area we saw, maybe it was the time of day, I'm not sure.

{we did find plenty of east-coast hipsters (not a flannel in sight!) in Flour, a delicious lunch spot!}

{not that hannah and adwoa are hipsters, but this picture was taken in Flour :) }

all I do know is that I felt incredibly more at ease with the lights, cars, and people wandering around when we got back to New York that I did the whole day in Boston.

{view from the 13th floor in Columbia's engineering building - look at all that city!}

4 fantastic years

2011-12-07T00:17:00.000-08:00

Kali, I can't believe that only four years ago, I barely knew you.

I knew that you had sweet hair, lived on my floor, were way more outgoing than me, were also a UScholar, and wanted to have 6 kids by the time you were ~30.

Oh, and you loved English.

here's first halfway decent picture of ourselves freshman year. I look so awkward....

I found out you liked to dress up as much as I did

we made lots of Traditions:

and look! still friends four years later:

(with those red stoles - yay!)

Even in the midst of my hectic week, I wanted to take a moment and say thank you for being such an amazing friend. love you so so much!

(even when you make me wear ridiculous glasses.....)

Here's to many more years!

-------

also, this was our facebook friend picture :)

diodes

2011-12-05T22:22:00.000-08:00

first, thank you to all my EE inclined friends who have been teaching me the basics of everything I probably should have learned at some point before starting a solar cell project....I'm slowly learning and absorbing all this new material.

this thursday, if someone questions my understanding of diodes when I try to explain how solar cells (p-n junctions) work, I'm just going to quote my favorite EE:

so it's like a door really

if you push it the wrong way, it won't open

and if you push it the right way, but not hard enough, it won't open

otherwise it opens and the electrons can walk right through

if you put a ton of current going the wrong way, it'll burn up

basically it's like throwing flaming bowling balls at a door going the wrong way

eventually they get through

and burn up the door in the process

then it just works as a wire

but smells bad

kind of charred

best moment during my night of panicked studying.

is this real life?

2011-12-04T00:02:00.000-08:00

I just looked at my calendar - I'm flying on 7 planes in the between now and Christmas day.

I'm going to be in Seattle for a grand total of 4 more days before December 25th.

Tonight, I'm thankful that I'm getting paid to go to graduate school and that my profs don't believe in in-class finals :)

Tomorrow, I head to Albuquerque, Monday I'm giving my 'how to apply for graduate school' presentation to the students at NMSU and speaking on a panel about my NASA internship experiences. Apparently it is going to be cold in Albuquerque....hopefully no snow though!

Tues-Thursday are going to be crazy days. don't expect to hear from me. don't worry, I didn't fall off the face of the earth, I'm just going to be hiding in different spaces cramming everything in for my advisor (final + paper + presentation).

But then Friday I'm going to NYC! and Boston! To visit these fantastic people:

Yay!

And since my sol-gel class is finishing with a take-home final, a paper, and 'presentation' (but we just send our prof our slides, we don't actually present.....) I'm going to stay in NYC until Thursday!

Everything gets turned in Friday morning and then I'm DONE for the quarter! Hopefully I'm alive enough to go ice skating with my roommates and friends that evening......

And finally, Saturday I'm getting on another plane to Palm Springs with my family + family friends for a whole week of SUN. I am so excited to see the sun. So. Excited. I think I've forgotten what it looks like.....

(solar flares are cool)

{diversity in science}

2011-12-03T00:34:00.000-08:00

This Sunday, I'm flying out to Albuquerque, NM (good thing I don't actually live there, I would never ever spell that town correctly without spell checker....) to give a 'how to apply to graduate school' presentation to underrepresented STEM students at New Mexico Sate University. I gave a similar talk to the NASA MUST program students at our symposium this past summer and was asked by my program coordinators to give a similar talk at NMSU. (If you or someone you know is applying for grad school, you can check out my handout here - any feedback is greatly appreciated :) )

Preparing for this presentation has made me notice the diversity present in my department and in my group. Compared to what I saw at my undergraduate university, the UW is seems much more diverse. SPU felt much less diverse, though apparently we're up to ~25 % minority students in the newest incoming class. My little group of 3 BS Chem students were all Caucasian and all our profs were Caucasian (and only one was female).

Now, in my MSE department, I'm surrounded by people of all backgrounds, nationalities, cultures, etc. In my windowless office, there are five of us - me, one kind of really awkward caucasian guy, two asian females and one asian male (I'm not sure where exactly they are from). In my group, where my PI is from India, there are three Chinese guys, one Iranian guy, one Indian guy, and one caucasian guy (well, two if you could the senior undergrad who just joined our group this week). Though, I must say, there is still a large number of caucasian males.

In a strange way, the diversity present in my department at the UW is divisive. I don't see much reconciliation between people of different backgrounds, even with the commonality of science. (But, maybe I shouldn't expect much reconciliation at all apart from Christ?)

though it wasn't consciously intentional, the other grad students I have begun to become better friends with are all caucasian. the large number of chinese students (I think - could be another asian nationality, I'm really bad at being able to tell them apart.) typically tend to group together, speak their native language, and not mix with the other grad students. Even in our lab group I've noticed this, even though it could be partially due to the fact that all the Chinese students are working on closely related projects.

I've tried to imagine how I would interact with other students if I was the visiting student and didn't speak the national language. I'm sure that I would probably feel most comfortable with other American students, but I should hope that I would not exclusively interact with them. I suspect that going to Sweden one of these summers will be a bit different experience than if I were to go to an Asian country - even though their national language is not english, Swedes are pretty white :)

Should we be satisfied with the current drive for 'just' increasing the number of diverse students in our schools and communities? how do we interact with each other well, learning from our differences, celebrating our respective cultures and build collaborations? I want to become a more global scientist, and right now, to me that means learning work with people of all backgrounds and cultures. So far, I'm afraid I've not been too successful, and I'm not sure how to change that.

but for now, I should go back to studying for my one in-class final next week. it's all about symmetry. I can break down the pretty Hungarian needlework below to a variety of symmetry elements....

10000 Hours

2011-12-01T01:08:00.001-08:00

Recently, I read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Since I don't have the most fantastic memory in the world, I don't actually remember it in too detail (and let's be honest, I've shoved a whole boatload of new grad school related information into my brain since I finished it....) but it was an interesting read. If you haven't read it, it revolved around analyzing the context of successful people in a variety of arenas, debunking our favorite American myth of the self-made man. I'm not sure I agree with everything he generalized, but it was fascinating to learn that Jan-March are the best months for a hockey player to born in and that June - Aug are the best for people who want to play baseball. Of course, your cultural context can also indicate how successful you can become, but it was interesting to see that idea applied in the case of Korean airline crashes. Before not-too-long-ago, your chances of crashing were drastically higher if your pilots were Korean, due to the hierarchical culture and communication issues it created.

{If you want a taste of what the book covers, you should head over to RadioLab and listen to their podcast interview with Gladwell covering some of this book (but it could also be this podcast, I can't remember exactly). It's the reason I picked it up. Plus, RadioLab is just plain awesome!}

Long story short, he also subscribes to the 10000 hour theory - that the greatest people are only great at what they do because they put in the physical work hours, inferring that anyone can be good at anything, as long as the put in the time (the benchmark being ~10,000 hours). I'm not sure that's entirely true, but lots of good/correct practice always seems to pay off in the long run.

(I also have related thoughts about the kind of less positive side of this idea, that it's really difficult to get out of the conditions you were born into, but they aren't formulated enough at this point in time to merit more words than this side note.)

Why bring this up at 1:30 in the morning? Because I needed a brain break. And because, right now, I'm hoping this time I'm putting into learning about photovoltaics, nanomaterials, and writing this report for my advisor counts towards my 10,000 hours.

Outliers is one of the few books I actually have with me in Seattle, so let me know if anyone wants to borrow it for some fun reading!

And I always think a good blog post needs a picture, so here's one of my favorite Hubble pictures :)

{art + science}

2011-11-30T17:32:00.001-08:00

Probably most of the people who read this blog know that I love when art, design, and science come together - the results are both both beautiful and technically interesting. While I was aware of national SEM image competitions, recently I came across the 'Art of Science' competition from Princeton.

Would you believe this image represents the reversals of the Earth's magnetic field?

Or that this image models population dynamics?

This image captures some of the dynamics of a surfactant (soap) at a thin-film/silicon wafer interface:

my new grad school goal: find out if the UW does anything like this and if not, make it happen. We even have an art museum on campus!

{I linked some of them above, but I've posted a bunch about art/fashion + science/tech on my other blog}

--life interruption--

2011-11-28T23:55:00.001-08:00

near midnight, I learned a few things:
(and not from my MSE textbooks)

when in a washington hospital, code grey is a call for help with a 'combative' person.

apparently there was one in room 9.

it becomes code 'silver' when there is a weapon involved. fortunately we have not heard that one called yet.

and most interestingly, codes are frequently not standardized across a state, let alone across the country. This seems to me like something somebody in the government should have addressed by now.....

they have been standardized in WA and OR - thanks, google.

don't worry, I'm not being seen at the ER, I just drove a friend here.

I'm probably the only person this hospital has seen recently working on homework while waiting for someone to be seen. I really should be working on formatting my references for my paper due next Monday, but it's kind of hard to focus...

tonight, I'm thankful that two of my dearest friends are nurses.

love you both, thanks for your loving service at Children's and in Bihar!

women in science.

2011-11-23T12:04:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned before, there are very few women in my MSE department here at the UW, which just follows the general trend in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.

After reading The Disappearing Spoon, (a really good book - I highly recommend it!) I was slightly encouraged about the current status of females in STEM - in the recent past, women did all the work and their male counterparts got all the credit. (This is not a story confined to science, I'm sure.) At least, now women can author papers and are recognized for their work!

However, from all the lecture's I've attended, from the books that I have read, and from my own experiences, I still don't see women as a whole fully supported in STEM. (disclaimer - even though I'm the only women in my research group, I don't perceive any difference in the way I am supported by my advisor.) I don't know what it is going to take to change the fundamental cultural belief that women aren't as capable in the sciences as their male counterparts, just as I don't know what needs to happen to change the perception of scientists as a whole. (I do have some stories to share about my experiences thus far as a female scientist, but I'll save those for another post, this one is already kind of long....) I may be the lone voice here, but sometimes I get frustrated that scientists are presented so one-dimensionally as people who stereotypically lack social skills and don't dress well. I've already ranted about this on my other blog, so I won't repeat it here, but if you're interested, you can read it here.

Someday, I'd like to create a documentary about women in science. I'm sure it's probably been done before, but I'd like to create an exciting, yet holistic, picture of female scientists, not just reproducing the stereotypical perceptions of women in STEM. Recently, I saw a clip for First Robotics filled with celebrities encouraging students to participate in the robotics competition and to pursue science/engineering/math as a career. There was only one female - Miley Cyrus. (I don't have anything against her, but I feel like the editor didn't cut her sections well.) Even the famous scientists they highlighted through the clip were all male. Sure, Albert Einstein was a genius and, arguably, modern science would not be where it is today without his work, but without the female scientists throughout history, we wouldn't know the structure of DNA or fundamentals of radiation.

{Rosalind Franklin - fundamental DNA structure work via x-ray crystallography}

{Marie Currie - fundamental knowledge of how radiation occurs}

(though I'm sure that if you're reading my blog, you already know about these women :) )

more recently recognized women:

{Françoise Barré-Sinoussi - fundamental HIV research; Nobel prize 2008}

{Barbara Liskov - (first female US PhD in Computer Science; object-orientated programing}

I did find this video - but let's be real, what was more exciting/inspiring: the video on women in science or the one with celebs for FIRST? And that was the best looking video I quickly found on YouTube....

So. What can I do now? How can we get more women in STEM? I'm still not sure, but I'm going to do my best to encourage and support every female I work with. I'm headed to NM in a week and a half to give a presentation to underrepresented students in STEM - hopefully my story can encourage them to continue STEM careers.

I've also picked up Right Stuff, Wrong Sex recently from the library, all about the first female astronaut candidate. I can't read it until break, but I'm looking forward to reading it. I'm also on the hunt for other books/media on women in science - so if you have any suggestions, let me know!

(on an slightly unrelated note - I changed my blog theme - what do you think?)

engineering school

2011-11-19T14:23:00.001-08:00

according to my good friend Hannah, engineers become engineers to escape writing lots of papers.

apparently, this is not true in my program this quarter. I'm sitting here, in the Suzzallo library, staring down three intense reports that have to be done before the end of the quarter.

Thanks to the SPU/liberal arts/UScholars, I don't mind writing, but I'm not enjoying this paper. I am digging through literature that is older than my grandparents and reading 'reports' that really should be books. (I mean, when has anyone published a 86 page literature paper??!)

I did come across this gem in a footnote about the marcasite form of FeS2:

"I was prepared to have quantitative analyses made, but our best professional
analysts (including Miss Mary G. Keyes and the new laboratory for rock ahalyses
in charge of Dr. Grout of the University of Minnesota) declined to make them,
pleading inadequate equipment for sulfide analyses. Where can one obtain reliable
sulfide analyses? My own experience with the routine commercial analyst is that he
cannot be relied upon for scientific work."

I'm also enjoying the fact that this paper is all about politely telling the world that the previous analysis of marcasite by Huggins is wrong and he just got lucky that his mis-labeled axes (is it bad that I had to look up the plural of 'axis'?) actually kind of worked.....

back to the paper.

(somedays I'm thankful we don't see sun everyday in Seattle. too bad today is not one of those days.)

I wish I was an Astronaut

2011-11-14T23:51:00.001-08:00

just to see this:

what an incredible view.

It's easy for me to forget the big picture when I've been in my windowless office for days, but then I find something like this video. wow. did you see the Aurora Borealis?? and the lighting storms?? Even though I live in a big city, one of millions of people, the night images of the Earth, with all the bright city spots, reminds me just how big the world actually is - almost 7 billion people! And then I remember how small our little blue planet actually is in the grand scheme of the universe.

anyways. the likelihood of actually seeing the earth from space is slim, either on the ISS or on another space-bound mission. I'd be content to see the Aurora Borealis - it's going on my list of things to do when I spend a summer researching in Sweden!

oh. apparently NASA is opening Astronaut applications today......

watch the announcement.

(I met one of the astronauts up there! so good to see him still in the program!)

(and the woman speaking about the hiring process, Dr. Janet Kavandi, graduated from the UW!)

awkward

2011-11-10T22:17:00.001-08:00

This morning, I almost had a super awkward experience with one the guy who sits in the desk next me. Instead it was only kind of awkward:

It was before 10am, and as usual, I was the only one in the office. I was really really really tired this morning. My cup of tea got me through the 7:30am bus ride, hour prep for my meeting with my advisor, and finally through said meeting, but I was fading fast post-meeting. So, I figured since I'd be the only one in the office for a bit, I curled up on my chair, which is decently wide, and closed my eyes for ~6 minutes.

unfortunately, my legs like to fall asleep quickly when curled up, and so I decided to move to nap under my desk for 10 minutes.

I only needed a 10 minute power nap.

So, here I was, crawling under my desk, which is decently spacious, and just settling into my nap when I hear the lock turning in my office door.

uh oh. apparently my office-mate decided to show up to school this morning.....
(this is guy who thus far has only ever said "Oh! I didn't know you were that tall!" to me a few weeks ago - he hasn't been in the office very frequently lately)

as quickly and gracefully as I could, I reached for my computer power cord and pretended that I had to be on my hands and knees, completely under my desk, to get it plugged in. Fortunately for me me, the plugins are inconveniently located under my desk in the far corner....but it was already plugged in.....so I pretended that I had just finished plugging it in....

second sentence he ever said to me: "Are you alright?"
"yep, yep" just plugging in my laptop"
third sentence: "there's a strip cord over here you can use if you want."
"it's okay, I've got it figured out, thanks!"
(besides - who knows when I might need that excuse again?)

I crawled out from under my desk and started working again. no nap today.

I'm 99% sure he bought my story.

-----------

tomorrow's a day 'off', but I find this quite appropriate:

you know I'm going to be in tomorrow by 8:30am.

blessed.

2011-11-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

I'm currently sitting in what is probably a multi-million dollar house in Queen Anne that has the most breathtaking view of Seattle I've ever seen. With a view similar to that of Kerry Park, the house is designed with 3 stories of windows that face out towards the water, so whenever you look outwards - there sits Seattle. I just can't get over how incredible the city looks at night.

{this is legitimately what the view looks like, only everything appears even closer and larger....}

tonight, I was supposed to edit NSF fellowship essays, but instead I've been sitting in a tastefully designed house drinking tea from an Olivia the Pig mug and enjoying being in the same room as my roommates. not gonna lie - this house is a beautiful combination of everything I've dreamed about in a house - open, spacious, lots of windows + natural lighting, decidedly minimalist, but still incorporating lots of floor-to-celling bookshelves full of english, art, design, and scientific literature.

we read love poems from a slim red volume, started a game of scrabble (but only got as far as 'daft', thanks Steph :) ), played with a soft hamster, and I finished editing some photos of my newest skirt.

all in all a good evening. so blessed to live in this city, to live with these women, to be pursuing a research degree in a field that I love, and as I was reminded last night while reading through Colossians 1, I'm so blessed to be a part of the Kingdom of Christ, forgiven and redeemed.

cômmuter

2011-10-31T20:29:00.000-07:00

midterms = no posts for a while.
midterm over = posting again :)
(if you want to know, midterm did not go as well as I would have liked. 1/10 of the points were on a topic I've never studied before, there was no homework covering it and we only spent 10 minutes and one slide on in class on it. we covered 150+ slides.)

my roommate's feelings about my mysterious disappearance into homework/study mode this past week:

you'd think they'd remember being a student! It has only been 5 months!

*warning - this blog post gets a bit nerdier than the past ones*

mainly because I've been charting my average cycling speeds to and from school each day!

see?! my average is increasing! Okay, it's barely increasing, but it's something! Also I find it interesting that the slopes seem to parallel....that probably means that if I factored out the extra speed I get coming down the massive hill right outside my house, I would get roughly equal average speeds each way. hmm.

Buying my new bike was probably the best decision I made about bike commuting - it may still be tough to wake up and get out of the house before the sun rises every morning, but then I get on my bike and remember why I signed up for this :) The hill home is still not fun, but I make it up consistently now. And as pictured in the picture below - I'm getting better at tweaking my bike. I added the back rack all by myself! (Well, I also put on the waterbottle holders and bike lights, but those are easy. Taking apart the brake and pin from the wheel - a bit more tricky for me!)

Second best decision - getting a bike locker. No one knows my bike is locked in it and it stays dry! (well, the asphalt sometimes gets wet from creeping water, but my actual bike stays dry) So, I can bike to school, and if I am too tired, too sore or it gets too late, I can grab a bus home and not worry about my bike. Best ever.

And all the time I spent researching for an excellent pannier has paid off. (I spent close to 2 weeks searching the internet) Mainly, most of the waterproof backpacks and panniers are not very attractive. I don't know who decided that waterproof = poor color choice and only square shaped bags with strangely placed straps, but Knog did not listen to them. I love love love my Knog Dry Dog pannier!!

(sorry if you don't care about my pannier, but I'm going to write a baby review here because I could only find one online and I think it deserves way more!)

Firstly - the 17" bag is HUGE. Like, super-duper large. I lose things all the time to the bottom of the bag and half the time I stick my head in the bag to find something. It's like a giant black hole. or Mary Poppin's carpet bag - but better, because it's absolutely WATERPROOF.

(it's about as big as my torso!)

The way the Dry Dog closes is one of the best techniques I found online. It may be similar to the Ortlib bag, but not really from what I can tell. Here you roll the top down and then bring the clips together in the middle, which really keeps the water out (and air in if you're not careful!) but then the over-the-top flap is shaped to get envelope the whole opening, doubling the waterproof-security. And it clips down, unlike the ortlib one I was looking at, which used velcro. I love velcro, but I have more faith in clips/snaps. I recently rode through a decent rainstorm and nothing got wet. I was soaking, but my books and computer were dry!

(twist-and-clip)

(even the front stripes are reflective!)

The pannier has a board on the backside and the Klickfix system attaches to it. It also supports your computer, which can hang out in your pannier in the built-in pocket. I still keep my computer in my sleeve when I'm not using it, just for extra protection. The built-in pocket is super padded, but conveniently keeps your laptop out of the way in your bag. And there is a mesh pocket with an elastic top halfway down the front of the computer pocket, which is a great place for keys, headphones, wallet, etc. Otherwise the little items will get lost in the bag!

(easy, yet secure, clip on and clip off)

And, this pannier easily converts to a messenger bag, courtesy of the wide, soft and comfortable strap attached. I use this as my only bag around campus, as it still keeps the rain out when I'm walking! :) It is really easy to adjust the strap length, but if you don't have it at the right height, sometimes the back rack attachements can get caught on your pants, jacket, shirt, etc....

(strap adjustment + reflective half circles on each side!)

Overall - awesome awesome bag and it's totally worth the price and shipping costs! They have a 13" option, but I'm not sure if it comes with the Klickfix system, as they call it a 'bag', not a 'pannier'.

Now all I have to do is figure out how best to dry my bike clothing out on rainy days....I hate wet socks :)

In the meantime, this is what's on my plate for the week - thesis proposal outline + filling it all in.....

{summer interruption}

2011-10-21T17:10:00.000-07:00

I planned to video blog through the summer, completing my final internship at NASA Ames in CA...

Take a look how many blog posts happened from June - Aug... Zero. Whoops. Apparently, I was too busy to blog, but that doesn't mean I didn't keep taking pictures and videos!

So, after about 2 months of sitting in pieces on my computer, here are highlights from the entire summer in one video! (Covering 10 weeks of fun means it's kind of a longer video and has lots of titles...)

Done. Summer adventures blogged :)

Thanks friends for a fantastic summer!

....seminars....

2011-10-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

One part of grad school I did not expect was the number seminars I have to attend. I'm just shy of three weeks in and I've already listened to 6 seminars and have one more to go this week. (this week is unusual, mainly because my sol-gel class has morphed into guest seminars for both classes this week, so I going to 4 seminars). and last week, I went to a seminar outside of school, as I finally made it one of Seattle's Science Cafes.

This summer, I could go to just one or roughly four different seminars a week, and they usually had cookies aft wards :) I enjoy going to seminars, and as uninteresting as the titles may sound, I've found that I usually find something intriguing in each one. That doesn't always mean that I actually understand much of what is being discussed, but I try to pay close attention...promise.

Anyways, one of our seminars was actually pretty pertinent to what I am planning on researching - solar cells! This professor from the University of Illinois (who is taking a sabbatical in Oregon??) researches something called CIGS - they are a specific type of solar material that is made of Copper, Indium, Gallium, and Selenide (I think) and are becoming more promising with increased efficiencies and lower manufacturing costs. However, I am not a super big fan of the device because it still uses both CdS for an absorber layer, which is toxic (though he did say that should a house burn these panels on the roof, the vapor was not concentrated enough to be toxic) and the cells rely on indium, an element which, to the best of my knowledge, is only available in China. And I heard that recently China's been increasing prices of certain metals, and though I'm not sure if indium is one of them, I wouldn't be surprised. I think every current solar cell uses it in some form. The only major point I disagreed with his assertion that we should only focus on efficiency of the cells and that going for a cheaper, but less efficient material was a good problem for 'academia' but not really commercially feasible. Maybe it's just because that's what my thesis focuses on, and I'm a bit biased, but I think that using a cheaper, less toxic, easier to manufacture material can be a good tradeoff with a decreased efficiency. But we'll see. Ask me again in 5 years how I feel about that :)

Today's substitute sol-gel seminar was barely related to sol-gel processing (actually, I can't really figure a connection) but really interesting. It focused on a new idea for storage of energy generated from solar cells - splitting water. Since solar cells only work during the daylight hours, what happens when you need electricity at night? You can produce more electricity during the day than you use, but if you can't store it, then you lose it. One of my favorite companies, A123 Systems in MI, has developed a more efficient battery that can possibly 'stabilize the grid', basically store excess power and meter it out when needed. But this prof was discussing how if we split water into it's respective H2 and O2 components, then later on we could recombine them and get energy out when they form H2O again. Yes, you'll lose some energy to splitting the original water, but not as much as if you lost all the excess energy by not trying to store it. They are even working on developing solar cells of sorts that can sit in a clear bucket of water and just by absorbing light can power reactions that split water. To cool! Here is a sweet video he showed us, the bubbles on the front are O2 and the ones on the back are H2. There are no wires, no membranes, no nothing besides this complicated, layered metal.

Isn't it pretty?!

The other seminars - not so interesting. I may have found a new technique that will be helpful in determining charge carrier mobility (basically, how far can an electron or electron hole move in my material) but it also looks like a complicated set up :/

One seminar had lots of cool pictures because they were causing supramolecular structures to self-assemble in monolayers - randomly dispersed pieces of a puzzle come together in an ordered/patterned fashion by themselves. And they make really cool SEM pictures:

(the green overlays are the molecule outlines)

All I could think about during the lecture was how they would look really incredible blown up really large or shrunk to a small pattern and used in a dress....like these atomic bomb images were used:

(Christopher Kane's 2010 Resort Collection)

I just calculated that I'm required to go at least 90 seminars so that I can finish my degree. Oh boy.

thoughts, thoughts.

2011-10-15T01:15:00.000-07:00

As I was driving over the pass to my hometown today, I had a whole bunch of blog post ideas run through my mind, but in classic form, now that I sit down, I can't really remember them all. Oh well.

Today is Friday. I spent the last two solid days working on one homework assignment. Like 24+ hours on it. Maybe a few projects during undergrad took longer than that, but never in two super-concentrated days. And never just one nine-question homework. The older students warned us that this course would be heavy on the work, but I was not expecting this. I think the extended length of time required was due to the book's extremely concise way of explaining complicated concepts and lack of examples (not good for a visual learner like me). I seriously sat and worked on a jump the book took in the sole example problem for two hours - I just could not figure out where they got the values they were substituting in. My lack of a math background is coming back to get me - the geometry (a course I never actually took) on one problem caused #7 to take me 2+ hours - yikes. I don't know where my prof got his 4-6 hour time required for homework statistic, apparently not from his students....oh well, at least I get to think about crystal structures that produce fluorescent crystals:

{white light}

{UV Light}

But, since I was able to press through most of my homework (I'm still going to have to go back over it Sunday), today was a wonderful day of brain-resting. No more complicated thought than what I tea I needed to pick out at the Asian market - I scored some sweet Tie Kuan Yin and a High Mountain oolong. You've never quite know what you're getting at this market, as you can't smell any of the tea beforehand, nor can I read any of the characters besides the names which, thankfully, are in English. But, my tolerance for 'dirt tea' (how I describe the oolong I picked up last time I was there) has gone way up, so I assume I can drink any oolong I purchase there. So far, the High Mountain was much darker than I expected, at the TeaCup it's a pretty light oolong, but the batch I got was pretty dark. It still tasted good, just more like a Tie Kuan Yin...maybe I just accidentally opened the wrong box??

Side note: I'm finding that as much as I love my electronics and am trying to do everything in the 'cloud' (dropbox is fantastic!), I have yet to find a good replacement for a simple weekly planner that I physically write in. There is just something about actually writing that so far, I've been unable to duplicate electronically....but do any of my friends want to write me an app??? :D or know of a great electronic weekly planner that mimics this?

This week's been kind of slow outside of the marathon hw days; after my group meeting Saturday (more about that later), I had to still write a draft of my technical proposal for my fellowships to submit to my advisor by Monday afternoon, so that took all of Sunday and Monday - it's still surprising to me how long it takes for me write 1000 words that construct a comprehensive yet concise description of my research! And I still haven't heard back yet....I'm kind of dreading this happening:

However, he has been traveling to a conference at the Fetzer Institute, so I guess I can't expect too quick of a response, even though he did say that generally he can read more while he is traveling....I already know that I need to edit/re-structure my draft, so that's on the docket for tomorrow. (anybody feel like peer editing?) Anyways, the Fetzer Institute is a relatively newly funded non-profit that seeks to look at love and forgiveness from a variety of perspectives, including engineering. Some guy named Fetzer passed away and left oodles of money to form this institute, with the sole instructions that whatever they do has to be focused around those themes. They are not a body that accepts grant applications, they just decide to give people money to promote the work they are already involved in. My advisor promised more information once he gets back, I'm interested in hearing where they decided to give money! I'm also interested in watching how this institute develops it's work in the world, because, as far as I can tell, they are a non-religious body. Or maybe an all-religions body, as I think the Dalai Lama and another well-known-guy-whose-name-I-can't-remember are co-hosting their giant conference in a monastery in Italy next year (apparently, before this conference, the chapel they are holding the conference in has never been opened outside of a papal visit). I'm not saying that you can't do work that benefits others apart from Christ, but it looks different, and, I'd posit, maybe not as wholly beneficial as working towards both spiritual and physical wellbeing simultaneously. Thoughts, anyone?

In a year, it will be good to re-read this when I am so frustrated at an experiment (I'm sure it'll happen eventually) that working on homework for 24+ hours will be remembered with fondness.....

Learning to Swim

2011-10-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

Grad school quickly is settling into a routine, and I'm finding that I'm busier than I expected to be (not that I should be surprised, but it's been a load of work for only the first couple weeks)

Typically, I've been arriving at school by ~8:30 am every morning. Having four roommates who all have to go to work by 8 or 8:30 helps motivate me to get up. And it's nice to not rush once I'm at school, I can usually get some tea in me before class, which helps wake me up :) (I don't think it's the caffeine, just drinking something warm wakes me up) It's takes me a few minutes to get put together after biking in to school with my bike gear on, but I'm reasonably ready to go by 9 am. I only have one real class each day, but they take up basically all of each morning. (except fridays. I wasn't supposed to have class friday, but one prof decided to make up the days he was missing by holding a 1hr session every Friday morning. Fun.) Apparently, it's normal for my other prof to just keep lecturing past the time our course is supposed to end, as he needs to cancel courses later on in the quarter. He lectures anywhere from 15-30 minutes over the usual course time. While that is not the longest time in the world, for some reason, I just get restless. It could be because the course is just before lunch or the fact that all we do is sit in the dark, scrambling to write everything down our prof is writing on the overhead projector.

Yes. Overhead projector. Apparently the UW still has one of those in almost every room on campus. And people use them all the time! You have to check out and bring the digital projectors yourself to many classrooms. It's just a funny switch from SPU, where we were apparently down to two overhead projectors on campus. I had one prof from the history department who brought an overhead with him to class frequently :)

My other two classes are just seminars, where I go and listen to a lecture/talk for an hour and then there is a Q&A session afterwards. Really low key, but I'm not gonna lie - sitting and paying even a moderate amount of attention when the topic is nothing I'm really interested in (microfabrication of structures for stem cell cultures?!) is quite difficult. Today's topic: Supramolecular Self-assembly at Surfaces....yeah. May not be the most engaging....

And apparently I missed the memo about grad students not normally getting in to school at 8:30 am, as I'm finding that I'm usually one of the first people there, if not the first. I guess I'm used to it from this summer, where no one came into work before 9 am either... I'm finding that I have more of a 'work' mentality about grad school than a 'school' mentality; it probably helps that I'm am commuting by bike each day, leaving significantly before my class' start time and that I have an 'office'.

This is my desk/office. it includes all the essentials: climbing gear, a couple changes of clothing, a computer (you can't really see it up on top o the books), rain jacket, travel mug and teabags. Currently drinking 'super' Irish breakfast, English breakfast, china oolong, and what I call 'dirt tea' because if you just smell it, it kinda smells like dirt. Kind of tastes like it too, but it grows on you....drinking through 100 teabags will force you to like it. I don't actually know the name beyond 'organic oolong' because the packaging is all in some form of Chinese....

My office is also really really quiet - there are only five of us in the room and frequently I'm the only one here. I'm contemplating trying to move to another one, but it may be complicated (changing keys, making my officemates feel weird, etc. but as I don't really ever see them, I'm not too worried about that...) I may just wait til the quarter break and then see about switching, we'll see.

I've surprised myself with amount of focus and work I've been able to get done while at school - usually I couldn't do homework on campus at SPU because I got so distracted by people and other commitments. But now I get can things done and by the time 4pm rolls around, I'm exhausted and so ready to go home. Hopefully, I can keep this momentum going, it lessens the amount I have to do back at home.

----

and you should watch this:

I laughed so hard I almost cried.

Grad School Adventures

2011-10-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

a) I haven't posted here in a while.
b) Mainly, it's because I think most people who read this blog I chat with frequently in person.
c) But, one of my best friends just moved to India for a time and sometimes I forget to tell her things, so this may help keep her up to date :)
d) And to serve as a reminder of what I've been through when the evenings begin to stretch out as I spend inordinate amounts of time on grad school work.

So.

Grad school. It's only been a week and a half - only ~ 258.5 weeks to go. Wow.

Before it all began, I was so excited, nervous, and just ready to start. It was a somewhat surreal process leading up to grad school; I honestly don't know exactly when I decided to go to grad school, I just started applying. And then I just kept moving forward with the process, praying the whole time, and always feeling that I was stepping in the right direction. Some school doors were opened, some schools said 'no', but I surprisingly found my place at the University of Washington (go Huskies!)

I initially only applied to the UW for my mom and dad's sake - I don't know if they ever expressly said as much, but I knew that staying nearer to my hometown would be appreciated :) I, for one, have been itching to leave Washington for as long as I've had a choice, but I keep finding my way back to Seattle. I've fallen in love with Seattle as a city and it's hard to imagine living anywhere else now. As great as U Maryland, Rensselear Polytech, and Georgia Tech were as schools, Seattle rocks. And as a bonus - I get to live with 5 amazing ladies in an incredible home. We're still sorting everything out (aka I have work on my tidiness), but I'm so blessed to live in an encouraging community!

I was so nervous to start coursework, mainly because I had a feeling this my courses were going to significantly more challenging than undergrad and I don't yet know the rules of grad school homework - how much aid with a prof give you? how much is appropriate to ask for? And, with moving schools, I've lost my support group of students in my courses at SPU. After 4 years of almost every single class together, we'd finally become comfortable really working with each other on homework and figuring most things out on our own. I also know my strengths lean more in the conceptual side and less on the mathematics, so I was/am, frankly, terrified about the level of math I'm going to need to know to get through the next five years. One my biggest undergrad regrets is not figuring out early on that I should really really do a math minor if I wanted to have a good technical background for grad school. A Clothing and Textiles minor was enjoyable - I did learn very useful skills and feel my technical level has exponentially increased - I don't think it was the best choice. Oh well, it's in the past now. I guess I'm just going to take the advice of my high school math teacher and when I don't know a concept, I'll go check a book out of the library. or look it up online. or call my engineering friend in NY with a desperate plea for aid....

And yes, coursework is turning out to be difficult, but I'm being forced to learn better time management. I picked up the course pack for my core class about a week before classes started and started thumbing through it. Ten pages in, I found the first homework. and freaked out. Even though I've had quantum mechanics, I knew it had been too long since I attempted any sort of quantum, so I started on my homework a week before classes even began. Yep, I'm that much of a nerd. Seven library books later, my desk is overflowing, but I have been re-learning quantum. I'm still not entirely refreshed on the topics, but I got enough read and worked out that I feel fine about HW #1....kinda.

Okay, this post is getting a bit long - I'll put a break in here and write more later :)

{my office}

(http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1427)

also - trying out a new theme, not 100% sure I like the bright text on dark backgrounds - let me know if you love/hate it

the interview!

2011-04-30T12:53:00.001-07:00

Yeah! Here is our interview on CNN! It's short, but it was fun!

other arts

2011-04-28T20:53:00.000-07:00

since I mentioned in my last post about my sewing endeavors, here is the other side of me - graphic design. I am no pro, but I have fun dabbling in the art form:

New(s) and Exciting

2011-04-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

A new portfolio place on the interwebs!

I wanted to get my clothing up someplace other than BurdaStyle (as much as I love that site), even though I'm not planning to make a career out of design.

http://olivialenz.jobrary.com/

I'm still deciding if I really like this site - I love the layout, but don't like the 50 picture limitation :(

And.....I'm going to be interviewed on CNN Newsroom!!!! After NASA released the article about our microgravity team, it has been picked up by a couple of tech blogs and now CNN wants to talk with us about it! It'll be on this Friday around 1:45 pm EST, so mark your calendars!

Published.

2011-04-20T20:09:00.001-07:00

I've not yet managed to publish a research paper in a scientific journal (My projects are never successful) but so far, I've made it in ETC, Cascade, Response, on a banner in the admissions office and now I'm in the Falcon, all the major school publications. [Granted, I haven't been published in Lingua, but I've never submitted anything.]

Do I get a prize?? :)

Someday, soon I hope! I will publish in a scientific journal!!

My kind of trip to NYC

2011-03-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

Not rushed, easying going, spur of the moment decisions, and not being a tourist - this is the way I love exploring cities. New York City is not an exception :)

This is my third time to the city, but my first time by myself. It has been great fun to blend in with the locals, taking the Subway, biking around, and working in the NY public library. Yes, I do some touristy things - I get to see Mary Poppins on Broadway today! That was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision: I woke up this morning and when deciding what I wanted to do today, I realized that I had a great opportunity to see a show on Broadway, something I've never done before! I am really excited, I've heard it is a great show. I really wanted to see the Lion King, but I prefer $30 tickets to $130 tickets!

When I got to NY yesterday, I had some time to kill before meeting up with Hannah, my friend from Brooklyn, so I ran into Macy's to see about finding a suit. My grandparents want to buy my a nice suit for a graduation gift. After doing a ready-to-wear design project for class last quarter, I know that my measurements fit right in the average size 8 for women's wear, but I couldn't find a thing that fit! Granted, half the suits were way to matronly for my taste (think some Mother-of-the-bride outfits) and some of them just had design details that I didn't like. I'm looking for something that is not too outrageous (ruffles under the collar?) but also not in a cheap feeling/tacky fabric or with oodles of topstitching. And I think I want a gray suit, but finding one that works well with my complexion is challenging. I also kinda want a dress and suit combo, mainly because I've never had one and I think they look sharp. Unfortunately the one I could find fit around the hips, but not around the top (story of my life) and it was about twice as expensive as my budget would allow....but the fabric had a wonderful hand and drape!!

I liked the color and texture of the fabric and the different cut of this suit, but the top was too big :(

This was the suit with the nice hand and drape, but way too expensive!!

After Macy's, I tried to find the fantastic fast-food steak place my dad and I went to when I was in 8th grade. It is now a Chinese Express...but at least I found the location!

Because I was in the Garment District, I popped down to the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum. It was pretty small, but there was a great exhibit called "His and Hers," that explored how dress changed with or defined gender roles throughout history. I've done some research in this area (mainly with traditional Asian dress) and found the exhibit interesting. It didn't make the gender role tie-in as explicitly as I would have liked, it mainly felt like a historical costume tour. The gender roles were explored subtly, as on could draw inferences from the particular garments chosen to describe each time period. Overall, it was great to see so many historical pieces in person!

an Alexander McQueen dress, part of the exhibit

I also dropped into a small fabric shop in the area, but didn't get too much of a chance to do more than glance around before Hannah called, done with class.

Because it was a beautiful day, we decided to grab some bikes and head out to see some of the city from the road. It was great fun! We biked over the Williams and Mary bridge (I think) and winded through the city to the Financial District. We went down to water and passed by the new Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center. Afterwards, we made our way to a 'bike class' Hannah had been to before. Basically it was in the basement of someone's house - when we first were pulling up on our bikes, I asked where it was on the street, and Hannah pointed to what she called "that hole down there." We went to a door that was down a few steps from the sidewalk, covered in graffti and it opened to an unfinished basement bike shop. There were about 8 people gathered around a gentleman with a wheel on a truing machine. We learned how to check spoke tension, change a spoke, and generally keep our wheels in good condition.

Leaving the bike class

Hannah made some great chili afterwards and then I got to sleep in until 10 am today! It was great :)

Houston is a warm place.

2011-03-15T18:21:00.001-07:00

I finished my honors project. Printed, binder-clipped, and placed in Dr. Reinsma's hands for binding :)

Chemical Synthesis of Inorganic Nanomaterials for Energy Harvesting Devices
-check it out in the library next quarter!

And I finished the only paper due for this finals week, so I'm taking a mini break before starting to study spectroscopy (not as fun as it may sound)

I brought back a sunburn from Houston, TX, as I went down last week to visit Rice. But, I don't think I'll be going back to get more sun as I don't believe I'll be attending grad school there. The campus was probably the most beautiful place I'd been to - I felt like I was back at Stanford in some areas of campus. The campus was also HUGE, especially for only 3500 undergraduates and 1000 grad students. Apparently, one of their major donors owned a construction firm and just built them buildings in lieu of donating dollars. He built them a 70,000 person stadium, but I guess you can't do anything on the small scale in TX...

One of corridors that made me think of Stanford

But, I will be back down in TX this July flying on NASA's micro-g plane! I'm with a different team this year, with two people based at UPenn, two at Rose-Hulman, and I'm still at SPU. Hopefully going in to this trip, we'll be better prepared. As difficult as it was to go through the engineering issues last time, I feel way more prepared to help this team get our act together before we get to Houston! And we have a more diverse team, so I think we can our experiment pulled together with more ease. And some of us will be at Ames this summer, so we can work on the experiment together for a bit before we have to ship it to Houston.

Here's our new team website:
https://sites.google.com/site/microg2011/

We're dropping balls into different types of sand - should be fun!

To Maryland and Back

2011-03-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

I visited the University of Maryland at College Park this past week (yes, it's been like one grad school per week - fortunately I don't have a visit scheduled for finals week!) but it was a fast trip: leave early Thursday morning and get back late Friday night.

Side note: I think all this traveling has cured me a bit of my eagerness to travel - I think I'll make sure that whenever I do travel somewhere, it'll be for at least 5 days, more if it is overseas!

UMD was a good school, with a pretty flexible program, but I'm pretty sure I won't go to school there. I just didn't feel quite like I fit - not sure if I can explain it more than that. It was interesting how focused they were on telling you about the program and doing large overview-type presentations and less focused on getting students to meet with profs. If you wanted to meet with anyone, you needed to email them and arrange it yourself. I'm never quite sure who I want to meet with until after I hear more about what projects their group is actually working on, as the group websites are usually out of date. I emailed two profs last minute and was able to talk with them, and I think I could get along with them, but I just don't think I'm going to go there. In contrast, the UW was solely focused on having you meet with profs, they never did a general program or research interests overview. GT touched on both, but it was easier to do that because their visit lasted for almost two full days.

Still not sure where to go....but I've got til April 15th, right?

On another note, I visited one new coffeeshop this week and one kinda-new shop!
I'd been to Cafe Vita, located on the other side of Queen Anne, once before, but it was a rushed meeting with Dr. Reinsma and I didn't recall the atmosphere. I went there with my sis and it was pretty nice. Not the greatest tea, but it is hard to compete with the Teacup! She and I both forgot our computer power cords, so it was a short visit!

Caffe Ladro is one shop that I've always seen, but never been to. There is one on Queen Anne and in Fremont that are relatively close to school. Today, a friend and I ended up here because the Fremont Coffee Company that I usually bike to was super full this afternoon. The tea wasn't bad, all their stuff is organic and/or fair trade and overall it was a nice place to sit and work through my PChem report.

Hmm...both Ladro and Vita have men with tall hats in their logos...interesting.

Art + HP = Wordle

2011-03-02T01:47:00.001-08:00

You didn't even have to read the 22 pages and now you know all about my honors project :)

Spring Break? More like Spring Busy

2011-02-28T20:47:00.000-08:00

This is my spring 'break':

March 17th - finish finals
March 18th - speak at a SPU science research fair for prospective students
March 19th - ??
March 20th - Fly to Rensselear
March 21st - RPI visit day
March 22nd - Take train to NYC, meet up with Hannah
March 23rd - stay with Hannah in NYC
March 24th - Fly to AZ (midmorning)
March 25th - AZ
March 26th - AZ
March 27th - Fly to CA for conference
March 28th - Conference all day
March 29th - Disneyand morning/early afternoon; fly back to Seattle in the evening
March 30th - School starts and Radiolab show!!

Anyone want to fill in the ?? on the 19th? Why not fill up everyday! :)

Also - super excited for Radiolab, espically since Zoe Keating is coming!!!
In case you missed the last time I posted on Zoe - watch this:

Weights

2011-02-24T22:12:00.001-08:00

Picking a grad school is worse than picking an undergrad school. (this does not bode well for job hunting....)

what feature of grad school should weight the most in my decision?
- program
- time to PhD
- advisor choice
- group size
- program size
- research areas
- number of research groups I'm interested in
- US News ranking
- stipend
- location

toss 'em all in a hat and pick one out?

The UW was an interesting visit - not as organized as GT and I'm not entirely sure they have research that really interests me. I like how the path to your PhD is really geared towards your project, your pre-lim and general exams are all based on what you are researching. I met some great profs, but I'm not sure who I would work with.

Best part though, was meeting someone who worked in my NASA lab 7 years ago! It was great to hear some stories about the people I know now and to find out about this funky plaque that hangs on the wall in my lab. Apparently, a guy I met, a current UW grad student, made it and sent it to group after one of the summers he interned there! It is basically an inside joke, a plaque that reads something like "To the Nano Friends" and lists a bunch of nicknames: Mentor Man, Rotovap, Intern Boy, and the like. I never understood it, but apparently it was his research group! Made my evening.

And this is the beauty that I saw as left the UW today:

Don't you love the mountains? They're one of the best parts about living in the Northwest!

HP

2011-02-23T20:30:00.000-08:00

No, not Harry Potter. Honors Project.

(Basically a mini-dissertation that I don't have to defend)

I finally got around to looking at the projects in the library.

Mine will soon be residing with the other 420-ish projects. Wow. That's a lot of UScholars!

I'm also off the UW tomorrow to check out their MSE program! They have a PhD in nanotech that I'm interested in, so hopefully I'll get a good look at that program.

This is why I love Seattle

2011-02-18T12:39:00.000-08:00

I came back from sunny GA to a gorgeous day in Seattle. I couldn't resist a ride on my bike in the sunshine!

(excuse the shaky video with weird shadows - that's what you get when you shoot on your iPhone with sunglasses on...)

Enough said.

Oh, Atlanta

2011-02-16T07:03:00.000-08:00

After an incredibly short flight (only 4 hours!) I made it to Georgia and met up with a friend I made a NASA last summer. I must say, being picked up by a friendly face is exponentially better than taking a taxi! (Is there anyone I know at Rice, UMaryland, Rensselear?)

With the time change, I missed lunch and as much as I love my homemade trail mix, it doesn't quite cut it for me for a meal. So, we hit up this place called Fat Matt's. It's a barbecue place:

And it's really small. That tiny picture above captures about all of the interior. They had a fantastic live jazz-ish band that was playing when we arrived, and with the size of the place, we decided to enjoy their tunes while sitting outside. The food was quite good - it was a spicer/less sweet barbecue flavor.

Menu - look at those cheap prices! Sometimes I regret living in one of the most expensive cities in the country....

After a stop at a coffee shop (I am from Seattle!) that I think I could quite easily frequent as a student here, we drove a bit around campus and stopped by the library. Even though GT has something like 35,000 total students, they only have two libraries! (I think the UW has like 40)

My body is still getting used to the time shift, but so far, I like the bit of GT and Atlanta that I've seen, now off to learn more about the program.

Also, I think my high heels confuse the poor engineers here. Good thing I only brought my shortest pair!

one goal achieved [twice]

2011-02-14T18:47:00.001-08:00

Remember my list of goals for the quarter? I'm checking one off my list!

-Find a new coffee shop-

I've actually completed this one twice, as I've now gone to both Bustle on Queen Anne and Star Life on the Oasis in the University district.

Bustle was a very fresh feeling cafe and stocked the wonderful Harney and Sons tea! I love how they package their tea in silk sachets, which allows for the tea to fully unfurl when it is steeping and there is no paper-y taste in your drink. They also have sweet flavors like pomegranate oolong, which will always remind me of Christmas. (Christmas break my freshman year, my dad bought me like 48 bags of that tea which I subsequently drank before Winter Quarter was done and I'll forever associate with that time of year). They also have sweet mosaic tile tables and other ginormous wooden tables - excellent for studying.

Delicious Harney and Sons Tea

The other new shop I traveled to was the Star Life on the Oasis - thanks Nate for prompting me to go there! I actually biked there from SPU, it was only about 4 miles each way, but the going there had a decent hill up through the university district. As much as I love biking, I hate hills!

This is a picture from Star Life - forgive the yellow-ness of the photo, the lighting was really warm in there! But the tea was really good and the atmosphere very cosy with a few wing back chairs and converted-seattle-home feel!

The interior of the cafe. Apparently, they have the best vegan chocolate chip cookies. The bite I had was pretty good!

I wonder - are they many cities in the US that have as many coffee shops (and shops in general) in converted homes as Seattle does? I love the character that each home gives to a shop!

Off to visit graduate schools!

2011-02-13T22:28:00.000-08:00

Over the course of the next month I will be visiting four different graduate schools:

Georgia Tech
UW
Rice
U Maryland

While I'm not sure how I feel about spending that much time in a plane, I am excited to meet potential graduate school advisors and fellow students. This whole process has been one complicated and generally unguided process and I'm just glad to have been accepted to some schools. I don't have a top choice, or even a top three at this point, so don't ask, but I plan on having a sorted list by April 1st!

And then I shall determine where I will spend the next 5-6 years of my life. Wow. This PhD business is actually starting to feel real!!

On a related note, the jacket picture below is one that I had hoped to have completed by the time I left for GA. That is not going to happen - it's not even cut out yet. And, apparently, people don't usually wear suits to these interview shindigs, at least according to my friend James, who had been to three so far. I'll still start with wearing my jacket from H&M, but that gray sateen cotton garment can't even begin to compare to the beautiful green wool-cashmere blend material from England that I bought in the Philippines!

The last videos!

2011-01-27T11:00:00.000-08:00

Here are the last two videos from our Camden trip last month (that makes 14 total!)

And with that, I'm done editing videos for a while!

goals.

2011-01-20T00:31:00.001-08:00

I wanted to make a list of things I wish to do this quarter and put them somewhere where'd I remember them. If you didn't know, I only have 12 credits this quarter and have more than enough time on my hands. And sticky notes on my computer only hold so many words...

-Visit the Asian Art Museum

- Vist the museum of industry's exhibit on the 'clutch' (aka handbag, aka purse)

-Watch at least the Star Wars # 4 & 5 (apparently they're the best ones?)

-Make a few more dresses (and quit buying more fabric!!)

-Watch Tron (old and new ones)

-Use my bread machine at least once a week (Yum!)

-Find one new coffee shop (that sells decent tea)

Inspiration for the quarter:

Anybody want to join?

Fun Moments in Camden

2011-01-08T02:11:00.000-08:00

Here is one more video of our Camden trip! (It will mostly make sense to those of us on the trip - as these were all the fun moments that didn't really fit with the other videos)

Home Again

2010-12-26T12:39:00.000-08:00

Our team arrived safely back to the west coast last Wednesday evening, and now after catching up with friends and family, I have a few more videos to post. Here are two of them, at least one more is still to come!

Circle up the wagons of thankfulness

2010-12-21T12:03:00.001-08:00

Today, the second 6th grade class was not cooperating and some people were saying some ungrateful things, so Ms. Parker decided to turn it into a teachable moment, telling the class to circle up and be prepared for a class discussion. The students quickly moved their desk and after getting an explaination of the 'cube of respect' (as I named it) - they could only speak when the cube was in their hand - they began to talk about what they were thankful for. Some were a slow to come up with something, but all did find something in the end.

Here is a sample:

They are thankful for

a class discussion (aka no book and board learning :) )

funny friends

food on the table and clothes on my back

learning about the periodic table

great teachers and good education

parents and clothing

family and friends

opportunity to sing at the school's talent show

This discussion made me think - what am I thankful for?

a loving, supportive family

friends to laugh and cry with

God's grace

people willing to invest in my life

a warm house

healthy body, happy soul

under armor

an opportunity to go to grad school

kids who are searching to do the right thing, even though their days are full of drama :)

Friday!

2010-12-21T04:06:00.000-08:00

Friday was kind of a crazy day at the Camden Forward School - there was apparently an 'incident' in the morning and half the teachers were in a meeting taking care of it. The remaining teachers couldn't handle holding regular class, so for most of the morning (and all afternoon, as it turned out) the students were in the sanctuary/lunch room basically playing all day. For a short while, the overseeing teachers tried to hold classes in the big room, but there were just too many kids for two teachers. We did have about two normal class periods, but they were brief. As you'll see in the video, the kids are creative with their free time :)

Also on Friday, we had the opportunity to help out with the Boatworks after school program run by Jesus Castro, who started the program last year. This year, the 6th graders are building a canoe and the older kids are building a kayak. It's pretty sweet!

Waterfront South

2010-12-21T04:04:00.000-08:00

If you read my post a while back about waterfront south, watch this video - it covers some of what I was discussing, but also introduces Andrea, a woman working to transform the city through gardening and artwork.

New Video!

2010-12-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

A video update about last Wednesday, December 15th.

Notes and Thoughts

2010-12-18T19:27:00.001-08:00

Why do you report to work each day? What is the motivation for your job? I was ale to chat a bit more with the science teacher, Ms. Parker, Friday at lunchtime about why she teaches, espicially the kids in Camden. She hails from Philly, and commutes everyday to NJ. She was working at a small Christian school over there, but the school closed and her principal came to Urban Promise and asked her to come with her. She said she was always good with kids and really connected with them. She started an engineering degree in school, but somehow ended up teaching (I'm not sure exactly how) and started with the under elementary grades. Then, she was offered a middle school position and found out that really loves kids in that age range. She was also actively involved in after school programing in Philly, but had to leave those kids when she moved to teaching in NJ. She is now involved in the Boatworks program with Urban, working with the middle schoolers after school as well.

On a semi-related note, volunteering at CamdenForward School and not getting the opportunity to work with the after-school programing, honestly, has kind of made me feel like I'm in a Urban Promise bubble. While many of the kids come from challenging backgrounds, many of them (from what I can glean from short conversations with them) come from moderately affluent families who live outside of Camden and want their kids to go to a private school. I don't know if any of them will go to the high school, Urban Promise Academy when they reach 9th grade. In fact, one of the students I talked with, who lives outside of Camden, and she (an 8th grader) did not think that Camden could become a better place. The feeling I got in the high school was very different - those students definitely come from pretty rough backgrounds. Some of the students (a very limited number) when I asked what they were going to do after-school, mentioned going back home and helping out with the various siblings at home. One girl even had her own child, Serenity, that she was raising. The middle school kids, however, all mentioned hanging out at the Cherry Hill mall and shopping for clothing as their weekend choice activity. The campus of Urban Promise itself is very safe feeling - it is on its own little corner set apart from most other businesses. Granted, they've had their share of scares, but overall, I've definitely felt a 'safe bubble' feeling around there. Don't worry Mom - I'm still careful when I go outside :)

I'm still catching up with the videos - they always take longer than I expect to edit, so stay tuned!

Also, I'm not entirely sure why blogger likes to double-space the first paragraph of each post....

Walk it Out

2010-12-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

Time for a wordy post: (to be complemented later with a video)

Today our morning devotional was lead by Pam, the intern director. She spoke on the passage in Luke about Jesus' visit to Mary and Martha and their different reactions to his presence. She challenged us to live in the moment, 'walking out' our faith here in Urban Promise on the working ground level, not just remaining in the land of wishing and dreaming that things could change.

She also mentioned that we may not know exactly how coming to Camden will impact us until later - which is a good thing for me to continue to keep in mind as I return to Seattle next week.

Yesterday, we were able to meet a number of people from other organizations that are also working to rebuild Camden. We were taken down to the historic Waterfront South area - we had been there on the initial tour, but did not get out of the car. We first met with a woman named Helene, who runs the Heart of Camden Housing organization. This organization seeks to revitalize this area of Camden by rebuilding the row homes and placing families in them that will raise the level of community in the neighborhood. Over the course of one year, with the close of the some of the industry plants at the end of the second world war, especially the New York Shipbuilding company, the employment opportunities went from 30,000 to 1,700 jobs. People left south Camden in droves, eventually leaving behind 4,000 abandoned homes. One of the largest post-war industries is scrap collection. All the scrap you can imagine is piled high and then shipped to China for processing and disposal. Because one can get money for scrap, all of the abandoned homes have been scavenged and stripped of everything but the outside walls. Appliances, windows, flooring, pipes, and doors have been ripped out and sold to the scrap collections. Many of the roofs have collapsed and frequently, one can see the sky through the open second story windows. The majority of doors and windows of the abandoned homes are boarded up, to keep out squatters and new scrap scavengers.

The Heart of Camden Housing project buys these abandoned homes and then renovates them. They rarely tear down the whole structure, partially because they don't own all the titles to an entire block of row houses. Apparently, they also want to keep the historic aspects of the community intact and seek to keep the exterior of their housing units true to their historic past. The inside is quite modern, but the outside still fits with the feel of Camden.

They operate out of an old theatre - the "Star" theatre that showed silent films, and are renovating the main screening area to be a gym for a nearby elementary school. After the roof collapsed, they basically gutted the whole building and are building from the inside out. While the inside of the gym will look new, the outside will look like the old theatre. The organization has discovered over the years that they can't fix Waterfront South without being involved in politics. Apparently, four out of the last five mayors have gone to jail for corruption; the only one that didn't was 80 years old and really just a puppet during the state take-over of Camden. Well, now the state has pulled out, but the non-profits are still there and still working hard to change Camden.

We also watched this movie called "Poet of Poverty" about Michael Doyle, a priest at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in this area of Camden. He has been there for a long while, when he was placed in this area after trying to destroy Camden draft records with a group during the Vietnam war. (He was not in favor of the war…) He is, however, a great writer and consistently wrote letters and poems about his experiences and the people of Camden. Sadly, at the end of this video, he comes to the conclusion that not much has changed over the past 25 years. He is still saying the same things about the issues in Camden that he was when he first showed up to serve.

You can watch this clip from the film "Poet of Poverty" to get a feel for what this neighborhood looked like just a few years ago (2007-8 ish)

It was really good to talk with the organizations before seeing this film, as there has been change and improvement in the neighborhood that the movie does not capture. About 200 homes have been renovated and filled with lively people and there are another 44 to be completed in the next few years. They have built a live theatre, a parking lot, an extensive garden with a greenhouse, and a 24 bedroom retreat center in the Center for Transformation run by the Sacred Heart Church. Beautiful art now covers many of the ugly pieces of wood that board up the abandoned homes, bringing warmth and vitality to the community. There is now a park with a tree-line blocking the view and smell from the sewage plant and licorice plant next-door, all playground equipment colorfully painted and fun to use. There is hope, Camden will succeed.

Raking More Leaves

2010-12-17T04:04:00.000-08:00

School Day #2 was much the same as the first day of school this week, so this video is a smidge shorter. In the beginning of the clip, Chris is talking about our morning devotionals, which happen every day with different members of the Urban Promise staff.

First Day of School!

2010-12-15T20:44:00.000-08:00

(Yes, I'm a bit behind with the videos....they just take so long to edit!)

Two new videos today - I had to split them up or else you'd be watching one video for over 10 minutes!

This details the first Sunday and Monday of our trip, including church, school, errands, and talking with Bruce Main, the founder of Urban Promise.

The first Day of school:

Our talk with Bruce Main:

Catching Up

2010-12-15T04:03:00.000-08:00

Here is a video about our afternoon in Philly last Saturday! Shout out to the two great interns who showed us around - we would have been lost without you!

And one more today...

2010-12-14T10:43:00.000-08:00

Here is the second video I made about our trip!

Smoking

2010-12-14T09:46:00.001-08:00

The 8th graders today were talking about smoking and it's ill health effects. Everyone raised their hand when they were asked if they knew someone who smoked. Many stated that it bothered them, both how it made them cough and how the smell hung around. It didn't sound like any of them smoked themselves and most of them were very vocal in their dislike of cigarettes.

One student shared a story about how their Aunt, who is only 28, has smoked since she was 12 and won't let the kids be on the same level of the house as her when she is smoking. It is an interesting double standard that a majority of the students have to deal with their entire lives.

My favorite random story from kids in class during this smoking discussion: "I went to a church once where the pastor was smoking while he was preaching and then for communion we had bread and beer."

They also got to see the fantastic Blood Mobile video today, courtesy of Dr. McFarland's Biochem class I took last quarter. They were talking about how smoking causes CO to bind to your hemoglobin and not allow O2 to get to your body and I just had to share some of my newfound biochem information about blood. Hemoglobin is pretty hard to visualize as an 8th grader, so I showed them that video and a 3D model of hemoglobin in PyMol (a biochem program), so hopefully they remember it more clearly and correctly!

This post is short, mainly because I am working on another video and because I've been feeling sick and my head is not super clear :(

Groceries

2010-12-14T08:25:00.000-08:00

Grocery shopping has been an interesting experience here in Camden, NJ

We've been to PathMart, Walmart, and Save A Lot. Walmart was pretty usual, but it wasn't a super Walmart, so the grocery part was kind of slim. We grabbed toiletries there, but we went to PathMart for food. What an interesting grocery store - the layout made no sense to me. Also, they didn't sell frozen chicken, we could only find chicken breasts in the refrigerated section. Hamburger was also interesting, apparently you can find high fat content (>20%) pretty easily! I guess I am just so spoiled by my fam - I just have to go to our freezer and get a package out :)

Save A Lot = no traditional brands, except maybe a few boxes of cereal. There were some fresh fruits and veggies, but otherwise it was all dry packaged food. I'm not sure if there was a real freezer section - I didn't look to closely. I just wanted some cold medicine and had to just get what they had, which was not much. I will say, however, that the prices were cheap there!

Interesting Camden tidbit - there are no grocery stores within the Camden city limits. There is one right outside, on the South side (I think) and there are some in neighboring cities, but getting fresh fruit and veggies can be a challenge. There is a plethora of corner market connivence stores, so many families only eat prepared foods that are full of preservatives and not super healthy. Apparently this is a pretty big issue in Camden, and the high school is trying to combat it by providing their own kind of lunch and breakfast food store. We met the principal last night and he explained that many students were coming to school with non-nutrious lunches, if they brought a lunch at all. If students don't eat, they can't perform well in school, so the school is trying to foster a good learning environment through what food they offer. Apparently, the best seller is your traditional PB & J, which is definitely better than the other food they were eating.

Speaking of food - can you believe that lunch time for the middle school doesn't begin until 12:47pm?? Those poor kids (and teachers and us!) have to go without food from 8 am to then! And after lunch and recess, they only have like 1.5 hours of school left! I would not last here very long....I already sneak food during class....

Also - here is a fun video that I found for the 7th graders, who are currently studying the water cycle:

Don't you feel culturally and academically educated? apparently the 'track' and 'beats' for this song were actually from a different rap band, Cross-over (or something like that - they wore all their clothing backwards) and their song "Jump."

I havent' been able to take photos or film of the kids yet, but that is a goal of mine for Friday. Today I got to know the 7th graders a bit more by asking them what they wanted to do when they grow up and where they wanted to go to college - so interesting!

A Tour of Camden

2010-12-12T08:54:00.001-08:00

On of my goals in the past month or so has been to utilize the HD video capabilities of my camera. Accordingly, this update is in film form. I'm beginning to realize that digital media may be a good way for me to share my experiences, as I know I'm not the greatest writer and my blog posts tend to be a bit dry....

Here is the first video:

First Impressions

2010-12-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

Cold.

Jim sounds like my old boss at Korry, Tim.

Left turn = Right turn = 'Jughandle'

Diner dinner menus can be overwhelming.

Cop cars everywhere.

PathMark doesn't sell individually frozen chicken breasts.

Colorful row houses. All boarded up.

Christmas lights on the porch = evidence someone lives here.

Parts of Camden feel like parts of Yakima. I wonder what Yakima's statistics are?

New Jersey has 566 municipalities and 604 school districts (WA has half as many)

There's a lot of water to cross, but none of its as beautiful as the water in Washington.

Into the Sunrise

2010-12-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

In the morning, when I rise,

In the morning, when I rise,
In the morning, when I rise,
Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
but give me Jesus.

I am reminded of one of my favorite praise songs as we begin our journey to Camden, flying out at 6:15am this morning. For all my professed ease of sleeping on planes, this morning I was captivated by the sunrise and decided to stay awake for a while. I don't often get up early enough (actually, I don't know if I ever have!) to see the sunrise, but I was so enjoying the view that I didn't let myself close my eyes. It helped that I am sipping on a Joy tea and watching the clouds roll by under the wing. (Yes, I am typing this on the plane - who knows when I'll have enough internet to post it!)

My mom asked me last night why I was going on this trip. Honestly, I am not sure, except that I felt a unexplainable desire to go, serve, and learn. I don't know what to expect, but I'm excited to find out why I was supposed to travel to Camden. I don't expect to radically change the lives of the students and teachers that I meet, but hope that I can learn from them. I also go to serve the servants, to give them an extra set of hands and feet as they serve the students of Camden.

Don't we look lovely at 4:15am??

Also, though I think anyone reading this blog probably is friends with both Chris and I, if you haven't read through his blog, you really should. He is going on the trip with me and is an incredible writer - way more creative than my cut and dried descriptions of events and happenings. Check it out here: http://antithesisreigns.wordpress.com/

Where You're At

2010-12-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

Recently, our team found out that we will be staying in the "Retreat" house that Urban Promise owns, for the duration of our stay. This house is georgous and was built by the Extreme Makeover Home Edition folks for a family from Camden.

Here's the house tour:

(Courtesy of Hulu)

The Marrero family consists of a dad, who worked for Urban Promise running a father's ministry, and five sons, the oldest of which was in high school during the time of the build. They were living in a cockroach-infested apartment with limited electricity and water; which, unfortunately, doesn't sound like a uncommon occurrence in this area of the US. Compare the house above with the views of Camden below:

(Images of Camden)

This house, apparently sticks out like a sore thumb in Camden - a house that belongs in the affluent suburbs in the middle of the urban poor. The saddest part of this story, however, is that the family was forced to sell the house within three years because they couldn't afford the utilites. The family lived on a fixed income and could not afford to keep with the house, even with the homeowers insurance apparently covered and frozen property taxes. They eventually sold the house back to Urban Promise (who had donated the land it sat on, next to their campus) and moved, possibly all the way to Flordia - but I can't find that article anymore...

Regardless, this story asks us - why don't we meet people where they are at? Did the Marrero's need a new house? Yes. Did they need a huge mansion? No. This house was supposed to help pull them out of their current state of poverty, but instead they found themselves even less able to put food on the table. Why do we American's hold on to the notion that bigger is always better? Or try to fit our ideas of happiness, success, and satisfaction on others? Do not take this as condoning poverty, but rather consider how meeting needs has to be done in a way that satisfies their immediate concerns and leave room for growth. Had the Marrero's house been more modest in size, maybe they would have been able to stay in Camden and flourish. On the flip side, maybe selling the house and moving out of Camden is what needed to happen to give them a boost up.

How do I serve people where they are at, yet encourage them to grow, be that academically, spiritually, financially, or emotionally? As we read recently in A Framework for Understanding Poverty, poverty is not caused just by lack of money and can't always be solved by throwing money at a situation. Beyond the financial, there are also factors such as emotions, mental state, spiritual life, physical needs, support systems, and role models that can cause poverty to persist in a situation. How do we meet those needs?

After reading this latest article, I realized even more how entirely unfamilar I am with poverty. I have never lacked one of the resources that contributes to pervading poverty, even as a 'poor' college student. I have a home, a family, friends, a job, a good mind, a Savior Jesus, caring professors, and opportunities for graduate education. I find it amazing that I can just continue to research, learn and gain new knowledge without the overhanging burden of wondering how I will put food on the table.

Jesus met people where they were at - from the woman at the well, to Nicodemus in the dark, to the Zacchaeus in his tree - ministering to each person a way germane to their needs. How can I do anything less but the same?

In preparation for Camden, NJ

2010-12-02T01:48:00.000-08:00

What was your high school experience like? Did you go to a big school, little school, affluent school, poor school, private school or public school? I thought I went to a school with limited resources - we quickly outgrew our building, our books were old, and we didn't have a real lab space for experiments. But, after reading a chapter from Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol, I was forced to re-evaluate both the level of my education and that of my community.

I come from a 80% white community (according to the latest Wikipedia data) in Ellensburg, but I attended a private school in Yakima. Yakima is 42% Hispanic (at least from the best data I could find, number is from 2009), however my school was almost 100% white. So, I can't speak exactly to the level of public education in my community, but after reading Savage Inequalities, I can safely say that we can and do support our students more in Ellensburg than they are able to in Camden, NJ.

This Christmas break, I'll be traveling to Camden to work with a group called Urban Promise. Camden is one of the poorest areas of the country - 80,000 people live in 9 sq miles. The community is close to 98% non-white and a large portion of their community lives below the poverty line. 50% of Camden is under the age of 25 and something close to 85% of births are to unwed (presumably young) mothers. With this much stacked against them, who would expect a stellar school system? Even so, reading about their education system was devastating. Though the community taxes themselves a higher percentage of their income than the neighboring suburban areas do, they still can't provide the same resources for their students.

I haven't had to deal with much racial reconciliation in my everyday life, even at SPU, we're 80% white. While there is nothing wrong with investing in a quality high school education, there is something wrong with allowing some school systems to fail their students, just from lack of resources. I don't think the cycle of poverty can't be broken without raising the level of eduction of a community, but raising the level of education takes funding - so how can it be done in a poor community? Honestly, I don't know, and Savage Inequalities doesn't offer a solution. I think, however, any solution a book like this may offer would turn into a 'cookie cutter' solution that would probably only fit 1% of the real-world situations. There are multiple factors that need to be addressed to change a system and each situation differs from the next. I am interested in learning how Urban Promise is working towards breaking the cycle of poverty by providing a higher level of education for students, for it sounds like they have a very holistic mission that seeks to better all aspects of their students' lives. I am also interested in learning if the presence of Urban Promise has affected the education in the public school system in Camden.

There will be more thoughts on this book coming soon, possibly along with other articles and group discussions that happen. In the meantime - click on the link below and watch the clip entitled "I am not a statistic" to learn some about what Urban Promise is doing in Camden, NJ.

http://www.urbanpromiseusa.org/media

And in other news...

2010-07-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I apologize to the few people who may watch my blog (aka Kali and Charis) about not being very good about posting. I basically don't get internet at my apartment area and when I am out at coffee shops, I am generally studying for the GRE (yuck)...which by the way, is the weirdest test. It tests basic algebra and geometry and graph interpretation, but then it test ridiculously challenging vocabulary that nobody uses in everyday life! I don't get the rationale behind the test, how it is supposed to tell if we are ready for graduate school, but I have to take it, so I will study about how to beat the test b/c there is no way I can memorize 5000 new words by September!

Besides just studying and sewing (I finished my dress and made another skirt and now am working on a pair of pants!), I have been biking...a lot. Te week before last, I biked a total of about 50 miles (!) and then hiked about 5 miles, uphill the following Saturday.

We hiked back in Big Basin, but we took the 'Buzzard's Roost' trail. It was a 2.5 mile loop trail and included at 1100ft elevation change....needless to say, it was uphill the whole way. But the view from the top was beautiful - I felt like I was back in the great northwest because all the hills were covered in dense green foliage.

Part of the trail.

The group who went hiking.

The view from the top

[Also, just an fyi, I can't seem to keep a straight timeline on all the events I want to share, so I make no claim to chronological order]

Not sure if I mentioned a new friend Hannah and I made while in the kitchen one evening, but we met a guy from Georgia Tech, named Mike, who likes to bike. He loves to bike. And somehow convinced us to go on a bike ride after work. We bike for a total of 20 miles, moving constantly. While I'd biked that much before, Hannah and I always stopped along the way, which made it not quite as challenging.

Then, later that week, we biked again to Stanford, this time to try out the first cupcake store. (this was not their first location, but they claim to be the brand that started the cupcake store trend) It is called Sprinkles and I had heard rave reviews from coworkers about their treats. I wanted to see if I could compare it to Cupcake Royale in Seattle, and I must admit, they seem pretty similar, but then, a cupcake's a cupcake, right? Sprinkles did not have anything like my favorite kind at Cupcake Royale, Dance Party (it tastes like those delicious white cookies with oodles of pink frosting and sprinkles that you buy at the grocery store) but the Dark Chocolate one that I tried was pretty good. I love sprinkles on just about anything, so this one was great!

My cupcake.

While we were there, the shopping center was hosting a summer jazz evening, so we stayed to listen to some great music and watch all the little kids running around.

One of the cute kids. I almost got one of her laughing, looking at me, but I just missed it!

And to finish this post off, here is a thought that could be one of my GRE essay questions and one that I have thought about when I walk down the halls of NASA:

"It is more important to allocate money for immediate, existing social problems than to spend it on long-term research that might help future generations."

What do you think?

Dancing and Cello Music

2010-07-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I found out that Ames has a ballroom dancing club (actually, Ames a large number of clubs, including a cat rescue club...) Every Tuesday night the get together and learn some form of dance, a new one every month. They also have Casino Rueda lessons every week. The beginner lessons are free, so Hannah and I decided to try one out. And it was a lot of fun! I haven't had too many ballroom classes, so this was definitely a challenge for me. The style of dance is sort of a cross between salsa and country four-square dancing, I think - is that where they change partners? Anyways, the basics moves are salsa moves, but it is done in a circle and you swich partners during the dance. There is also a caller, who calls out the next move. Unfortunately for me, they're all in Spanish....eh, at least I'm not quizzed on their meaning and have to learn to spell them....

I have learned some of the moves as a lead and some as a follow, and let me tell you, it is much eaiser being a follow! Here is a video to give you a taste for what it looks like:

The other new art-related thing I have been introduced to is an artist named Zoe Keating. She plays really sweet cello music by live layering of loops she creates via a foot pedle and computer. You should listen to the link below before watch the music video - you will never believe one woman makes the track until you watch her create it!

Sun Will Set

Keeping busy...

2010-07-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

So, I have still not caught up to the current date, so I'll keep writing, but in small bits and pieces.

One of my goals this summer was to sew a dress every week. Well, then I changed it to every other week. And now, if I get three items done this summer, I'll be a happy camper. I challenged my sister to a dress contest, so I'm not going to post pictures now, but I will say that mine is a lovely red dress with hand-rolled roses on the shoulder...

One of the most fun Saturday mornings I've had in a while was just last weekend when Hannah and I decided to volunteer our time at the model rocket launch being hosted at Ames. We showed up early in the morning and right away began helping set up the launch pads. There are twenty four launch pads, set up in groups of six. Each group had a box that had six wires going out and one wire going in. The one wire going in was connected to a master control box set apart from all the launch pads, where all the actual launching took place. Each of the six clips going out had two alligator clips on them, which were connected to the ignitors on each rocket.

Look at all the people! (This was early in the day...many more people came) They are all lining up at the tables there to get their rockets checked for safety.

There were hundreds of people that came out for this launch. Hannah and I were 'pad mothers', which meant that we helped each parent and/or child that came out to a pad set up their rocket. We had to slide it on the rail, attach the clips to the ignighters, and then have them check the continuity (indicated by a red light on the big box) which meant their rocket should be good to go. After each group launched, we swooped in to collect the spent ignighters so that they would not fly all over the airstrip and then help the next group set up. However, there were so many rockets and they went so fast with the launches that we moved from pad to pad constantly, helping one group set up while the last one we had helped was being launched. It was none stop all day, but great fun!

Personal favorite - I think the kid called it his 'droid-mobile'

This is what a pad looks like. With a rocket on it.

There were two groups there that built two different kind of rockets that held fresh eggs in the nose cone. They wanted to see if they would break upon descent. What do you think happened?

Six of the egg rockets taking off at once!

Surprisingly, many of the eggs did not break, however I did see on that had broken and was sloshing all around inside the nose cone. Over all we launched 209 rockets!

One day this last weekend Hannah and I also decided to ride into Mountain View and check out the goodwill and to just get outside on our bikes. Round trip, it was a little under 10 miles, but we got to come back from the goodwill via the Stevens Creek trail. It took us quite a while to find an entrance to the trail...we turned around about three times before we actually got on it. It is a wonderful trail, with paved pathways through a forest-y area and no cars in sight! It took us all the way from El Camino to Moffett Blvd. without once having to go on a regular road. It apparently is a very long trail that goes other places, but we haven't explored it very far.

A part of the trail.

Peaches and Strawberries

2010-07-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Probably my new favorite part of living in California is the access to fresh fruit. I love eating my pluot or nectarine at lunch and then snacking on fresh peaches and strawberries after dinner. The farmers market is such a great place to get fruit every week. I stock up every Sunday with my favorite vendors. I'm sure I probably pay a smidgen too much per pound, but the fruit is super delicious!

This is where I buy my peaches. I like the snow and yellow peaches.

I don't buy peppers, but the colors were so vibrant, I couldn't pass up the picture.

Much time has past since I last blogged, mainly because I have been trying to stay busy. I have been working decently long hours, but have also been biking and hiking and reading and sewing. Two weekends ago, my roommate, a few of my co-workers, and a couple of other interns went hiking in the Santa Cruz area on a Saturday, in a place called Big Basin. It was a lovely forest of large redwood trees. No, these were not the famous giant redwoods, but they were pretty darn big! And it smelled so lovely there, like I was back at Rimrock at my family's cabin. We took one short, flat, easy trail that took us to see the 'Mother' and 'Father' of the forest and then took another pretty easy trail to a small waterfall. Overall we hiked about 5 miles. I will say though that the drive to the area and back was pretty terrible. We didn't realize that part of route 239 is virtually a one lane windy road down the side of the mountain with many blind corners and steep drop offs. Everyone in the car breathed a great sigh of relief when we made it safely to Big Basin. I, fortunately was not driving, but we did take a better road out of the mountains.

Yay! We found the waterfall!

The trail to the waterfall.

The 'Mother' of the forest tree

Friday, the day before our hike, Hannah and I took a trip out to Standford. On our bikes. We stopped along the way there, but I must admit, 10 miles is not all that far away. We meandered through the campus, which is quite lovely, and took a bunch of pictures. I'm posting a few here, but I will have an album up on Facebook sometime soon. Overall, we rode about 20 miles that day, and surprisingly I wasn't very sore! We did take the time to walk through the Palo Alto main drag and today we are headed back to the area to try out a cupcake place called Sprinkles. We'll see if it is as good as Cupcake Royale in Seattle...

At the entrance to Stanford off El Camino Real

(and yes, Kali, this is evidence that I wore my yoga pants in public)

Two of the statue men at Stanford...I can't remember what they represent.

Moving forward to Sunday, Hannah and I went to military church and then to the farmer's market. I had wanted to go to the chapel on base last year, but it was always so out of the way from where I was at in San Jose that I never went. Well, we went this summer and I must admit it was slightly awkward. I think we walked in on a Sunday School class that was in the main chapel right before service, but there was only four people in pews, so I am not sure. They also had the church all set up for VBS the coming week, so it looked like we should be in Egypt. Also, the stained glass windows of the church had a general military symbol at the top of each one, a Biblical symbol in the middle and a symbol for a branch of the military at the bottom. They also didn't have any sort of a worship team, the pastor just played a video with the words and vocals for the congregation to sing along with. We also kind of stood out because we were the only new faces in a crowd of about 30 people and were referred as the 'new ladies in the back' more than once during the service. He preached on a passage in Luke, discussing truth. I don't remember all the details now, but it will be interesting to hear Pastor Mark from back in Seattle preach on the same passage in the coming weeks.

More to come soon!

Jumping in

2010-06-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

I still remember, this time last year, during my first summer at NASA Ames, when I had a lot of free time during the day. This summer, it's like I never left. Most of the people are the same, the building is the same, and I still don't have a desk, but I have been able to jump right and hit the ground running with my projects for the next 10 weeks. Yes, I said projects - my mentor offically assigned me one project (which will be my honors project), but also has asked me to help on another project on the side. Plus, Hannah, Tanya and I are still finishing up our microgravity project (paper due thursday!) and are going to hopefully utilize some of the machines at Ames to help with the workup and analysis of the nanowires. Overall, the week just flew by, with all the meetings, paperwork and trainings I had to attend.

I'm living at the NASA Exchange Lodge (NEL) this year, which is through the first of two gates on base and only about 6 blocks away from my building. Thus, my new investment is a bike. I bought a sweet red Schwinn Sporterra, a hybrid bike. This bike is a cross between a road bike and a mountain bike. The tires are wider than a road's, but narrower than a mountain bike's. Also, the tread much more significant than a road bike's, but again, less intense than a mountain bike's. It is a pretty light bike and I have a men's version, which has the straight across top bar. The handle bars are like what one would find on a mountain bike, straight across, not curved like those on a road bike. Overall, it's a pretty sweet ride.

(Picture of my bike)

I've been trying to get good use out of it while down here, and yesterday Hannah and I rode into Mountain view to run a few errands. I wanted to get a library card and she wanted to go explore the greatness that is the Daiso! We had a lot of fun winding through isles full of things packaged with Japanese writing! I found tin foil, a pair of wooden chopsticks, and a mini wok! It was a good thing I brought my backpack on this trip. We also stopped by a mexican grocery and I packed 5lbs of rice home. Overall, through all of our stops, we ended up biking around 9.5 miles! And I hadn't really biked extensively....ever.

The NEL is pretty unexciting. It's like living back in Emerson, but with only one kitchen for everybody. And all the doors open into outdoor halways, like an apartment complex. It can get really boring around here really fast. I am trying to find out new places to go or things to do in a reasonable distance, but today I just slept til 10am, read until 2pm and then biked into Mountain View to get my library card and sit down to do some last bits of school work. I need to get some papers turned in early this coming week and was not motivated to do so in my room. I also swung by Le Boulanger, a bakery, on my way back to Moffett field, which looked like a nice bakery. I wasn't entirely impressed with the baked goods selection, I much prefer Macrina's in Seattle. The muffins didn't appear all that fresh or delicious, so I just ate a bagel. I'll just have to try another bakery another day!

AsCans and Tours!

2010-05-03T17:21:00.000-07:00

Thursday, the 29th of April was a day packed full of tours of JSC and the NBL, where we got to see many things that the usual public does not get to see!

The day began with a tour of the facility where all the ISS mockups are stored. There were full scale models of each one, as well as a model of the Orion capsule. The Orion is currently has an unknown future, but the engineers are continuing to perfect the structure.

Here is an image of some of the modules:

In this building there were also about 2.5 full-scale shuttle mockups: two stand-alone noses with the personal cabins, one with the cockpit and the cargo bay, and one of just the cargo bay. The one with just the cargo bay also had a model of the robotic arm that takes every item out of the shuttle, so that they could practice the manuevers to get everything out.

This is the largest model, with the cockpit and cargo bay. The tail has been cut off and the wings removed, as they are not necessary and would not fit in the building:

Also, we got to sit in one of the crew member chairs: (the orange part is a parachute that is strapped to the crew member)

We were supposed to the training area for thermal tile repairs, which is basically a couple of tables and a projector that projected on to the side of the shuttle mock up, but there were astronauts in training, so we had to skip it and were not allowed to take pictures of them.

Then we got to see a Soyez shuttle close up, at least the crew parts of it, and it is really small!

Three people get to sit in those buckets for 2+ days, curled up in the fetal posistion, while the rocket catches up with the ISS. The shuttle carries up to 7 people, a bit more comfortably.... The capsule you see in the picture is actually one that went to space on Exploration 1. Very cool to see!

After finishing in the mock-up training facility, we were shuttled over to a conference room where we learned about the space suits. Did you know that they have about three different models to work with?

Here is an image of all the layers that go into a suit, the yellow one is a rubber bladder layer that allows the suit to be pressurized:

Suit testing occurs all the time, they even use some 'hollywood' suits that are not functional, but are used to test the suit-vehicle interfaces when designing the Lunar Electric Vehicle (which is being renamed since Obama says we are not going back to the moon...) Also, they even test new suit designs on the microgravity plane!

Next, Hannah and I traveled over to the NBL, where we had done our chamber training, to get a tour. We missed our tour last Friday because we needed to prep for the surprise ground test on Monday. Javier, one of the flight docs, gave us a great tour. We learned all about the history of the facility, were there are similar pools in the world and even got to see the Orien capsule that they were building for the pool.

The pool itself is 40ft deep, which is why it is so blue. It is extremely clean water because all 6.5 million gallons are filtered every 20 hours. For each astronaut in the pool there are at least 4 divers and one has a camera on the astronaut's face at all times. While we were there, there were two astronauts just getting out of the pool and since Javier knew them, he asked them to take a picture with us!

They are wearing basically their underwear, which is their main cooling system while in the space suit. The long underwear has rubber tubes woven through it and water runs through the tubes to cool them down. The one on the right in the picture is Steve Swanson, and he has been to space a few times. Here is his bio. The one on the left is a newly selected Astronaut Cannidate, or AsCan, and is just beginning his training.

After the NBL tour, we traveled back over to JSC proper and went to see Mission Control! We sat in the viewing area and learned about what each person does while watching them run a shuttle landing simulation.

Then we walked over to the Apollo Mission Control Center, where we got to go inside the room and actually sit at the consoles! It was very neat to touch and experiance a part of the history of the space program.

Here I am at a console:

And the room:

That room concluded our tours for the day, which was fine because I was exhausted, and we traveled back to the home we were staying at. Friday consisted of just giving a video presentation of our project, so I don't have much more to say about our experiance. But, you should check back soon for a video of our trip and project, as well as a link to a photo album of all our photos!

Up, Up and Away! And down and up, and down and up...

2010-04-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

Today was the day I went up in the plane, and yes, I did get sick - let's just get this out of the way in the beginning.

Early in the morning we got up and got ready go, eating a light toast breakfast and got on our way to Ellington field. Not to blame my sickness on something other than the flight, but already that morning I was not feeling well from dinner the night before. We had made vegetarian chili with soy in it, and it was a bit too spicy for me. I ate it, but regretted it the next morning when I got up. I was, however, feeling much better by the time we went to the pre-flight briefing. We got information about how the flight would go - take-off, 10 minutes to set up, 32 parabolas, then some time to break down and then back to our seats for landing. Easy, right?

We took our meds - a NASA developed combo of Scopolamine and Dextramine - and then got lined up to go on the plane!

Here is a picture of Hannah and I ready to go:

When we got on the plane, take-off and set-up went as planned, expect we forgot to turn on our power strip until the second parabola! I noticed that the microwave had no light, so I asked Hannah to look at the power.

Each time we went into microgravity, it was really strange. Because I was strapped down at the waist, I didn't float all over the cabin, so I didn't get the full weightless experiance. I had to still be able to function and "do science" during those times, so I was switching out watchglasses during the microgravity and not be flying around in the cabin. Hannah flew around a bit and hopefully we got some great pictures!

About parabola #12, I couldn't take it anymore. The transition from the hypergravity (2G), where you feel twice your normal weight, to zerogravity was very rough. I went from flat on the ground to sitting straight up in less than a second. While this would not be a problem on the ground, it really gave me a headache. My head was in a lot of pain. Also, it kind of feels like your whole insides are coming up and trying to get out of you. Regardless, I couldn't continue after a while, so the leveled off and got me back to a seat where I could strap in and not float up as much. The transitions were still rough and I was just watching that parabola count up to #32, when I knew that we would level off and land.

Hannah stepped up when I got sick and threw on the thermal gloves and took over the whole experiment. She had a few crew members step in to give some help when she needed to be held down during microgravity. She was able to get 4 runs in and bring our total to 6 runs, though one of our first two hit a part of the flight where we leveled off and only saw 1G, so it won't be super helpful.

On the bright side, there were very minimal fumes and no sparking!

I, in the back, went from being very hot to very chilled. Basically whenever we hit microgravity, I let my knees float up as much as they wanted to, and virtually curled into the fetal position in the air and tried not to move at all in any direction. The transition were still tough, but less so because I didn't have to move my head as far. The doctor and all the flight crew were very helpful and soothing through the whole ordeal.

Still, we all smiled when we got off the plane, so any footage you might see will hopefully have me smiling!

After our experiment was off-loaded, we were able to pull everything apart and get it ready to be shipped off. We ran to FedEx (where customer service was not great) and then found a small souvenir shop to try to find Reduced Gravity patches. We found the store, but not the patches, so we will look around tomorrow when we tour JSC.

All in all, a fun day that I will never forget!! Watch this blog for pictures from our tours tomorrow and then watch for our outreach video of the whole process.