Tonight was one of those nights where I furiously uploaded photos taken in the past several weeks. The big additions are three new albums: spring flowers, my sister and I on the playground, and this weekend’s trip to Cleveland. I highlight a few of my favorites from each behind the cut.
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I had an absolutely horrible day at work today–the sort that ended with me lying on the floor laughing the desperate and hopeless laugh of one who’s doing her best not to break into tears. This state was vastly improved when my sister, Stephanie, Joe, and I got some sushi at Miyake and then walked to Madeline’s for drinks and dessert. (Madeline’s Peach Mixed Berry Crisp is so, so amazing–as are pretty much all of the desserts there.) We followed it up with a trip to Steph’s place for some Smash Brothers Brawl and Mario Party 4 on her Wii. There’s nothing like socializing with friends to improve an awful day.
And, to top it all off, I got home to my midterm TA evaluations, which indicate that my students are pleased with me. They rated me between good and excellent on all counts! It’s good to know that someone thinks I’m doing my job well.
Tomorrow’s forecast: more unpleasantries followed by dressing up and dancing the night away at Grad Ball.
No, actually, I have not forgotten about Project 22. It’s just been busy the last few weeks and I’ve only just gotten together quite a few make-up photos for days that went past without appropriate photographic records. It’s shameful, I know. In any case, here they all are, starting with… Continue reading ‘Project 22 - 17 January - 8 February 2008′
It’s hard to beat a great dinner with a bunch of my classmates followed by a couple of games of bowling. I scored a 144 and a 107, the former being a personal best, I believe. All in all, an excellent Friday night.
The past week has primarily been spent doing long hours of research. There was one ten-hour-straight-non-stop experiment last week and we’re currently in the middle of a second one as I type. It’s a sucky way to spend a Monday, but it does represent some progress toward having results to present at that aforementioned conference.
The highlight of the weekend was a visit from Mark, who I then dragged all over Ithaca. Among our weekend exploits were a trip to the Johnson Museum of Art, a tour of the Ithaca Beer Company, a hike at Buttermilk Falls State Park, and a stop by Ithaca Falls. It was my first proper trip to all of the above, which meant that things got to be engaging and new for me as well as him.
We hit some standby favorites, too: ice cream at the Cornell Dairy Bar, pizza at the Nines with friends, a bit of Soul Calibur II, and plenty of movies–including last night’s still hysterical Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Despite having watched it together many times as undergrads, we still noticed new things to laugh at last night, like random three second musical interludes with no discernible rhyme or reason. And Alan Rickman is still what makes the movie worthwhile.
Otherwise, life in Ithaca is mostly work these days. Soul-sucking, energy-draining work. Can I get a weekend please?
When even my lab partner turns to me and asks if I’ve updated recently, I figure that means it’s time to raise a little flag out there in Internet-World at least to say, “Hello, yes, I am still alive.” These past couple of weeks have been pretty busy and full, as I’ve been working (almost) full days in the lab. It’s been quite the learning experience but a lot of fun at the same time. I would say that Stephanie and I have become fairly comfortable and independent when it comes to working in the lab with our hot-wire anemometry. The highlight–apart from getting to play in the wind tunnel–has probably been learning to make hot-wire probes because nothing says, “I’m awesome” like managing to solder a ~80 micron-thick wire underneath a microscope. When you accomplish that with two wires on one tiny probe and then manage to etch the wires down to about 3 microns in diameter, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that you rock.
Fortunately, the older grad student in the lab and our advisor seem happy with our progress and our work ethic thus far. I really can find no substantial reason for complaint. (I mean, I could say something about the lab being dirty, but then Stephanie and I did some cleaning earlier. Or I could be annoyed about having a weekly half-hour meeting with my advisor late on Friday afternoons when my class ends at 11, but I’m going to try to get that changed anyhow.)
Today marks the beginning of my second semester of classes. I’m holding out hope that classes will be better this semester, but we shall see. I’m really going to work at establishing some better work habits when it comes to classes. I’m only taking two, which will hopefully make that a bit easier. The first one is a course on turbulence taught by one of my profs from last semester. Again, his classes lack graded homework, so I’m going to have to motivate myself to spend time doing exercises if I want to avoid some of my sillier mistakes from his class last semester. The second class I’m taking–High Reynolds Number Flows–looks like it will probably cover a lot of the material that I covered in 453 and 454 at Case. So I’m planning on fishing those notebooks out and hauling them up to campus to use as references.
Outside of work and school, life goes on as usual. Winter has finally discovered us here in central New York, so the snow is accumulating, though we still haven’t had very much of it.
I spent Friday evening bowling with some of the other first-year students. It was tremendous fun. We had three first-timers and no one who was much good at it, but everyone performed respectably. I found that taking my own ball helped my performance a lot; even though I haven’t bowled in ages, I got a 124 and a 115, which were pretty good scores for me back in my senior year of high school when my family played in a league for fun. I got teased some for bringing my own ball, but I can never find one at the alley that’s light but still has holes large enough for my fingers. Oh the challenges of having unusually large hands for a female!
I think I’ll end this for now and write something separate for my recent trip to the theater…
Since turning in my last final, life has gotten so much better that it’s almost unreal. Yesterday Stephanie and I started work in the lab. Things have been a bit haphazard in terms of what order we should do things in, but, for the most part, it’s a lot of fun. Our advisor sticks his head in the lab every couple hours or so between meetings, but we are primarily working under Sathya, who is the only other grad student in the lab. He’s finishing up his thesis at the moment and is essentially sticking around long enough to train us.
Yesterday, we started out by getting an overview of how to take data in the big Upson tunnel, which is about a meter squared in cross-section. It’s the first tunnel I’ve seen with wooden walls. The sides have portholes along them for data collection, and every surface is covered in thick foam and aluminum foil from the days when a great deal of temperature work was done in the tunnel.
Yesterday began with an attempt to construct a hotwire anemometer probe. The important thing to know about a hotwire is that it involves a wire that’s about 3 microns in diameter. This means that, in order to clean and solder and etch a new wire onto a probe, one has to use a microscope. So we were busy using sandpaper under a microscope yesterday, which, let me tell you, is a truly bizarre feeling. Unfortunately, one of the cleaning chemicals that we needed was missing, so we couldn’t finish building our own probe. Instead we calibrated a ready-made one.
After work last night, Joe and I had a “double-date” with Stephanie and Eric for Mexican and margaritas. It was lovely, and, boy, was I ready for some relaxing fun like that. Also, margaritas = yummy.
Having done the calibration yesterday, however, we could spend today actually taking measurements in the wind tunnel’s boundary layer. It’s a pretty repetitive process, of course, but the fact that we get to crawl inside the wind tunnel to change the probe position qualifies as pretty awesome. I always said that I was going to grad school so that I could play in wind tunnels. Guess I just didn’t realize how literally I would take that.
Today’s good vibes have also included lunch with our advisor and buy one, get one free on fresh baked goods at the Duffield Cafe. Since today is the last day of finals, they’re running specials to get rid of food without having to throw it away once all the undergrads are gone. This means that Sathya and I came back to the lab with a stack of goodies, most of which were desserts. Oh, yes, I love my lab already.
There are some painters that have been in and out of here a few times today, and I had to ask them not to leave the door to the lab open while we have the wind tunnel on because it disrupts our experiment. At which point the painters asked, “Yeah, uh, are we going to get sucked into there if we walk past?” as they stood next to the exhaust. No, guys. Feel that breeze coming out of the wind tunnel? You’re definitely not going to get sucked in. I assured them that it was perfectly safe to walk past, we just didn’t want the air flow in the room to be disrupted. But then they wanted to know if they would get sucked out the window by passing the exhaust. Oh. Dear. Lord. p.s. My lab partner is the prettiest most awesome wonderful and modest person evar! (says me, Nicole, yep, no one else writing in here but me. nicole. you know the one.)
I’M IN UR BLOG! EDITING UR ENTRIES!
(All italics are courtesy of Stephanie. Who is crazy. In a good way.)
To answer the question some of you may have been asking: yes, I am still alive. It’s the end of the semester here at Cornell, which basically means that the end is nearby but I’ve got too much to do to appreciate it. This does not explain why I’m sitting at my desk typing a blog entry, though. The fact that I can’t convince myself to pull out my TAM homework explains that one. So here’s a brief look at my past month:
- Work, work, work, work, work.
- I’ve had a couple of encounters with my advisor-to-be, and those, on the whole, have turned out well. My feeling on this is corroborated by the fact that I got an e-mail from my advisor at Case saying that he ran into my new advisor at a conference last week and he had good things to say about me already. So, not all of my classes may be going the way I’d like, but I am still making a good impression around here.
- Earlier this month, I worked like mad to code, test, and write a report up on a computational fluid dynamics problem for one of my classes. Today I got the report back with an A+ on it. I didn’t know they still gave those in graduate school, but, boy, does it feel nice, coming, as it does, at a time where I’m seriously worrying about my performance in my other courses. It’s like getting a pat on the back and having someone tell me that, yes, you do still belong here.
- B came to NY and spent nearly a week with me last week. In our time in Ithaca, I showed her around town some but especially around Cornell. She got to experience walking around in a snowstorm as well as a chimes concert in McGraw Tower. We visited a winery up the road, and I fed her her first ever brownies and her first pizza in thirteen years. All in all, I felt pretty good about my hosting while she was up here in NY. Then I shuffled her into my car and drove 11 hours south so that she could spend Thanksgiving Day with me and my family. Her final conclusion was that Thanksgiving dinner was a lot like Christmas dinner but with better desserts. Unfortunately, we had to sacrifice showing her Black Friday sales for sleep before I drove her to the airport. I really enjoyed having her here.
- The unfortunate thing about living in a small town 630 miles from one’s family is that the 22 hours of driving necessary for the round trip cut into the amount of time one gets to spend with one’s family. I was really sorry to have to leave when I did on Saturday, and I’m quite looking forward to having a chance to see my parents and sister for longer once exams are over.
- Aside from work and travel and visitors, the other big reason I’ve not been as visible online in the last month is that I now have a boyfriend with whom I spend a fair amount of my free time. The best way to sum up that state of affairs is with a goofy-looking grin.
So what have I been up to since my trip to Cleveland? That’s a good question. I don’t have much of an answer, I’m afraid. And, sorry, but I still haven’t taken a picture of my office to put up yet. Patience.
I did have the pleasure of getting a visit from Greg this weekend. In fact, being a better blogger than I, his version of the weekend went up Sunday. Here I am, reporting it on Tuesday. But I have pictures, so ha ha!
My Friday started out on a not-so-lovely note, what with receiving a take-home exam in a class I’m not doing great in. It started getting substantially better, however, when I started said exam that afternoon and got about half of it completed without significant trouble. Since the exam is due this Friday, and I’d nearly finished the other homework assignment due this week, that meant I wouldn’t feel stressed about spending my weekend with friends.
I was in the middle of cooking a paltry, last-minute-running-out-of-food-items meal of pasta with chicken, mushrooms, pesto when Greg knocked on my door. I’d had Aladdin on for entertainment while cooking, but that quickly took a back seat to the hours of talking and catching up. And, because British humor makes everything better, we topped the evening off with a couple of episodes of “A Bit of Fry and Laurie”. (Dear God, Stephen Fry has the most amazing grasp of the English language–but that may be a topic for another day.) Then off to bed.
Saturday morning, we managed to rouse ourselves and get to campus in time for the noon chimes concert in McGraw Tower. It’s not really fair to say that the chimes are one of things Cornell is famous for, but it is fair to claim that they’re something that anyone who went to Cornell definitely remembers. In addition to chiming the hour, there are daily concerts on the tower’s twenty-one bells, making them some of the most frequently played chimes in the world. Since it was Family Weekend for the Class of 2010, lines to climb the 161 stairs to the top of the tower were fairly long, but we made it in. We dashed around the top of the tower, snapping photos of the surrounding views, the bells ringing overhead as a student below us played “Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera. That was followed by a song I didn’t recognize. We then headed down a flight to the room where the student chimesmaster was playing (and the volume was a little less ear-ringing) just in time to catch Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” and “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid. It was really quite impressive to watch the chimesmaster playing because it involved standing on one foot while ringing a bell with each hand and one foot. Quite the dance. The concert concluded with “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters,” the Cornell alma mater, and then we got to fight people down the stairs.
We then wandered about campus a bit, taking in the sights and the history as narrated by me and some of the legends and such I’ve read. The autumn leaves made a wonderful backdrop for the statues of Ezra Cornell (above) and Andrew Dickson White, the university’s first president. Even on a day that was relatively gray, some of the colors were still spectacular. We swung north to get a view of Falls Creek Gorge, which was much changed from when I saw it with Mark a few weeks ago. The rain made a huge difference. (As an aside, when I took a look at Six Mile Creek on Friday, it looked more like Six Miles Of Rushing Muddy Flood Waters River.) Instead of taking Greg out toward the Plantations and the eastern reaches of campus, we circled back through the science, labor, and hotel buildings–with special attention toward the Space Sciences building, which is home to the Mars Exploration Rover project. Our final stop, prior to the obligatory Engineering Quad tour, was at Uris, where we took a peak at part of the brain collection there. In particular, I had to point out the brain of Edward Rulloff, a nineteenth-century genius and murderer who plagued this area and who now has a Collegetown restaurant named for him. Since I pass Rulloff’s every day and salivate over their list of specials, we decided to try lunch there, a decision I do not regret in the least. Excellent sweet potato fries.
We picked up a bottle of chianti on the way back to the apartment, and, after a brief pit stop, continued our extensive walk by heading down to the Commons to visit a couple of used book stores. I really need to start carrying some paper and a pencil with me into these places so that I can write down books and authors I want to check for at the library. It’s ridiculous how many books of interest I find. I also got a kick out of discovering a copy of a German geometry textbook from 1929 that was written in Altschrift so that I could barely make out the letters.
Still haven’t made it to the new independent music store in town. Still need to.
When we got home, we jumped straight into lasagna making and Joe, Joanna, Greg, and I had a lovely dinner of that together. Since we lost track of the time, we had a brisk walk back up the hill in order to make it to campus in time to see A Scanner Darkly, which is based on a Philip K. Dick story (like Minority Report was). The rotoscoping they did on the live-action in the film made things a bit bizarre and tough to follow, but we decided that was probably the purpose, what with drugs and addiction being the primary topics of the story. As always, there was a twist, which I’m pleased to say I guessed before the big revelation at the end. Ah ha, my father would be so proud.
Back to the apartment in time for some SNL, which was not, I’m sure, as fantastically and unspeakably wonderful as I expect this weekend’s episode to be. I’m every so slightly looking forward to Hugh Laurie hosting.
Sunday was back to gray and rainy, which meant that Greg slept past nine, but I, thinking he might wake up like on Saturday, got up earlier. One of these days I’m going to write an ode to the sleep I’ve missed. Or something like that. I did eventually wake Greg up by starting to make blueberry muffins, but I think he forgave me. Joe joined us for breakfast, and, although Greg had to head off in the early afternoon, Joe ended up staying the entire day. I’m nice and distracting like that.
Jon got home and joined us for dinner, dessert (apple crisp!), and The Incredibles. All in all, a lovely weekend.
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