one time i moved to pennsylvania

Hi yall! So here’s the promised update.

Like many others on this blog, my past month has been commandeered by the forces of “Grad School” and “Moving.” There’s been a lot of tedious crap, like buying all my own insurance and wrangling with the PA driver’s registration people to get them to admit that I legally own the car that I legally own. But I did some graduate-level calculations and it turns out that the cool stuff about starting grad school and moving out on my own outweighs the bad. And as of last week I’m set up and good to go out here, so I’m pretty stoked.

I moved out here to central PA in mid-August, so I guess I’m almost up to my 1-month anniversary. I still don’t quite feel at home. I think the tipping point for when I’ve completely reset my home location is when I can completely zone out and just walk home. I cannot do this yet--I’ve walked/driven past my house a few times. Give me a week.

The move out here was decent. 1000 miles is longer than I’ve ever driven, and I was happy that our vehicles made it (and that my dad was able to do the return journey). I was driving a 93 Buick Century that my grandma gave me. I know, haha grandma car, but it was an excellent deal for yours truly because a) I got a free car, and b) my grandma is no longer a danger to the drivers of Illinois. You’re welcome Mark and Alfredo. The car itself is in almost perfect condition, and it has only about 37k miles. Additionally, I’ve found that I could reliably pick up women over the age of 45 with this car. This feature will likely go unused.

It turns out they ream you across the Indiana and Ohio turnpikes, fyi, I think I paid about $20 in tolls for those two states. Also, I know the Appalachians aren’t really super tall mountains, but driving on them in the dark, at the end of a 10-hour driving day, and surrounded by semi drivers with an apparant death wish is a tad harrowing. We did not crash, though, and were able to find our way to this weird outpost of civilization in the middle of nowhere known as State College.

State College is a small town, certainly not as small as Northfield, but still small. The weird part is that it’s very dense, and then drops off to nothingness at the feet of the mountains. So when you’re near campus or downtown, you feel like you are in a city. Also, the population of the city (non-undergrad) is listed on Wikipedia as being about 40k. There are about 38k undergrads on this campus. So you can imagine the overwhelming nature of anything they do. 

 Also, the whole “existence of a nightlife” thing kind of threw me too. There’s no shortage of bars and establishments with cover charges and scores of attractive people crammed in. And seeing all the house parties and frat parties around here on weekends (and not on weekends) has shown me that partying around here is really big business. PSU is the top party school in the nation, you know. We even had Tila Tequila and Tucker Max visiting last week, if you believe the school’s Daily Collegian. They also ran a hard-hitting story last week about some masked guy that was walking around masturbating in a girl’s dorm. I’m 98% sure this was not one of my roommates.

Speaking of which, I live in a decent house with two other astro grads. They’re both around 27, so I’m definitely the youngin around here. They’re both pretty good guys: one’s from India and one’s from Denver, and we get along well. The house atmosphere is orders of magnitude more subdued than Stadium 110, but I can cope with that. I will miss the 110 atmosphere though.

I’ve made some new friends out here too, which is always a good thing. All my fellow first years (there are 6 of us, 5 guys and 1 girl) are great, which is fortunate because I will be spending a considerable chunk of my next few years with them. We even share an office (right now), it’s friggin adorable let me tell you. Including my fellow first years, most of my friends are astro-related, but I’ve met a few other grads/undergrads and hopefully I can continue this so that I do not become an astronomy-obsessed hermit.

Of course, I’ve been doing a healthy amount of work since I’ve been here as well. I teach a night lab with 25 students, some of whom continually and incorrectly refer to me as “Professor Terrier.” At least in emails. This lab has been a lot of work and I’m not very good at teaching yet. I think with a few more weeks I’ll be alright; right now I’m kind of at a stage where I can either be coherent or time-efficient, but not both. My classes put out a lot of work as well… I’ve been doing lots of homework/reading. It’s all very interesting though, so I’m happy. Two of my courses are the core astro courses, one is a computer modeling course, and one is a seminar in exoplanets. I’ll be a friggin exoplanet exoexpert in a few months, try not to get too jealous. I’ll hopefully be starting research at some point this year also, but I haven’t talked to the people that I want to work with yet.  

So, I could write more here but it would probably bore you to tears. And I have to save some interesting stuff for next time. If you don’t want to read everything above, here’s the TL;DR: I moved to PA, I like State College, I like PSU, I’m making some new friends, there’s an assload of people here, and I’ve already started my ride on the speeding freight train of learning that is graduate school.

One final funny thought: the Collegian ran a story last week about guys in one of the frats cleaning a bathroom. They mixed bleach and ammonia, producing not a super-duper cleaning fluid but a cloud of chlorine gas that was five times the lethal concentration. No one died, but they did get sent to the hospital. PSU represent!  One things for certain: the campus paper at PSU kicks the snot out of the Carletonian.

Living in a Post-Stadium 110 World

Today is Labor Day.The unofficial and symbolic end of summer for many Americans, Labor Day also marks the beginning of the American football season. Add this holiday to the list of American holiday's that are not usually celebrated in the way they were originally intended. I'm not saying that it is necessarily a bad thing that we don't celebrate the industry and labor sector of our nation for which this national holiday was created for, especially since it was largely a political move in a time of labor unrest/strikes, the red scare, and scary economic times.

And although several schools of all levels have already started, forcing students to end their summers earlier and earlier each year, and the fact that Carleton doesn't start until Sept. 14th, I thought I would take time today to reflect on the past 3 months and to look forward to what lies ahead after summers end: the coming school year.

First, Summer 2k9:
I friggin love summer. When done correctly, a summer can be the best 11ish weeks of the year. Its sad that many grown ups do not have the vacation time that allows freedom to live as they want to, exploring desires, hobbies, possibilities, and places that they do not have time to do when controlled by their jobs. I'm so much happier and relaxed in the summer. Don't get me wrong, I love the school year and being at Carleton. But there is something to be said about having more time, and being in a less stressful environment.

Summer Camp kept me busy, although it was definitely the hardest year, because of new challenges that took the form of new roles/expectations as well as difficulty with supervisors. But I also think that if you stay anywhere in the same manner for 4+ years, you get antsy.

Then camp ended. And the past few weeks were relaxing, but also somewhat difficult. Living with either of my parents is much harder than anticipated, even for this short amount of time. But the weather has been just beautiful and Chicago and Oak Park from the hours of 5:00pm and 9:00pm is just beautiful.

Summer was great. But it is now truly gone. Oh, how I'll miss it. I'd write a eulogy, but I'll know it'll be back.

Now, Junior Year:
In a week, I'll officially start my Junior year at Carleton. As noted above, I will come to a Carleton where Stadium 110 does not exist. Because of this, I will try to live life in a manner that would make Stadium proud - abundant BBQs, Daily Show watching, debauchery in the form of stuffed onesies, all day drinking (to the fullest extent possible), looking classy, etc. [on a related note, I almost bought the StirCrazy that Toto owns... I still may the next time I go to Target]

So, what is Junior Year gonna look like?

• 12 potential freshman on the Swim Team
• A good amount of time in Northfield for Winter Training
• PUERTO RICO for our Training Trip
• BK in Hill
• Alfreddy on 2nd Burton with everyone else in the world who matters
• Me living in Dow in the same room that Paddy Foran and Ted Mullin lived
  
• My new job as one of the Head Lifeguards, meaning a lot of time at West and with Brooke/Andy
• More history courses
• Deciding whether to go through with the Teaching Licensure Program at Carleton
• Taking Piano lessons in the winter
  
• Figuring out about next summer...
• I'm a student rep to the Alumni Council - it may be a resume builder, but it actually might be cool too, we'll have to wait and see.
• Turning 21
  
• Hopefully reading more, eating healthier and flossing

It's going to be interesting year. To be honest, WHO KNOWS WHATS IN STORE? We'll just have to wait and see. Last year, I had no idea what to expect out of Stadium (in fact, I was a little nervous) and look how that turned out.

So Goodbye Summer - see you in 9 months - and Hello Junior Year - how the hell are ya?

ay caramba!

Holy crap!  I didn't realize til a few days ago that the blog lives!  Moving and starting school has consumed all my time recently so I didn't check it for a while.  I will definitely check up more often now and write about my own life quests.  I'll have a real update up here in the next few days.  For now I just wanted to check in.  Also I want to share what could very well be the movie event of our lifetimes, or anyone's lifetime:  Ong Bak 2: The Beginning.

Tony Jaa + excessive violence + elephant army = cinematic gold.

Grad School: Week One

First off, where are you Tim, Toto, and Alfredo? Updates! Pronto! Stat! Schnell! (Do the French have a word for quickly? I'm thinking probably not. If they do its probably not a catchy one or two syllable one.)

Now it's time to update you on my first week at graduate school.

I'm taking three classes and being a lab T.A. My three classes are Quantum Mechanics, Electromagnetic Theory, and Mathematical Methods of Optics and Physics. So far it seems like my first semester will be covering material that I've already seen before, but trying to really get it down this time. I'll be T.A.ing for intro mechanics and E&M labs, which should be fun, but right now means that I have to do all of their ten labs in the next week, which is not so fun.

I'm in an office with two other first years (though there are supposed to be three others but apparently they have found somewhere else to do all their work). The other two students in my office are Shane, who graduated from Knox College in Iowa last year, and Jim who graduated from Hamilton (and also swam as an undergrad) but has been teaching high school near Boston for the last few years.

I found out that the motto here at U of R is Meliora which is Latin for "Always Better" or some other similar phrase with the word better in it. This is slightly less verbose than Carleton's motto (Declaratio Sermonum Tuorum Illuminat--"The Revelation of Your Words Illuminates"), but it's still a good one. The colors seem to be pretty much exactly the same as Carleton's, but the mascot is a yellowjacket (bee).

Where I will be living for the next three years

Hey all,

I just wanted to put a picture up of the building I will be spending the following 3 years in. It was built three years ago and is state of the art. What you don't see are the 4 sound stages it has in the back. I'll put up a video tour as soon as I have a free second.

About Me

So this was our first assignment at film school. We had to make a short introductory video about ourselves with the catch that we couldn't be included in the video.

Remember the Bacon Explosion?

How bout this one?





Follow up: Taken from the Huffington Post Article by Katherine Goldstein:
UPDATE 8/24:


The Vancouver Sun has done an independent calorie analysis for the "Double Down" and has concluded the "sandwich" likely has 1228 calories.

But if our figures hold true, and KFC won't confirm they don't, the Double Down is more caloriffic than the Wendy's Triple with Everything and Cheese (1700 mg sodium, 960 calories, 26 gms of fat), the Burger King Stacker Quad (1770 sodium, 1020 calories, 69 gms of fat), and compares closely to the fat, salt and calorie totals of three McDonalds Big Macs put together (3060 sodium, 1620 calories, 87 gms fat).

UPDATE 8/25:

Rick Maynard with KFC public relations contacted us to say KFC estimates the numbers from The Vancouver Sun are inaccurate. According to their estimates, although they have not done an official workup the Double Down contains the following nutritional information:

Calories: 590
Calories from fat: 280
Total fat: 31g
Saturated fat: 10g
Trans fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 190mg

Would a steak through the heart kill a vampire?

Yes, I know. Another post? I was just wondering what the difference is between being burned at the steak and being burned at the stake. Let's think about it:

If you were burned at the stake, we know exactly what that means. It's probably a horrible way to die. You are tied to the stake, so there is no escape.

If you were burned at the steak, well, what would that be like? Does it mean you get burned at the place where the steak is? Was the plate too hot? Or did you accidentally touch the grill? If you were burned, are you too burned that you can't eat the steak? If you get burned at the steak, does that mean that you need to rush to the ER to treat the burn? If it does, then the steak would surely get burned as well. Who wants a burnt steak anyway? Might as well get the chicken in my opinion.

Grad school update

I start classes on Monday. But I registered today! Apparently for my first term I only have to take 2 classes. That was a complete shocker. There are 4 courses that are required of every student, and you take them all your first year. They are called the core courses. One of the classes is basically a solid state physics class, and they use the same textbook I used in my winter term Carleton solid state class. I bet I'll leave this one with a much deeper understanding though...

Anyway, I thought 2 classes was way less than I could handle. I also wasn't going to be a teacher's assistant (I was going to be grading), so I figured I could handle a 3rd course. 3 other first year grad students had the same idea, so after some orientation stuff we went to talk to a faculty member who was also the graduate program director. We decided to talk to him because we couldn't get a good answer from the current grad students. They all claimed that the 2 courses in the first semester were very hard, but some made it seem like you could take 3 courses. We asked the prof and the first thing he says is "why would you want to take 3 courses?!?!" I guess these 2 courses will take up a lot of my time. I also have to have a 3.5 gpa in the core courses...so I better do well!

During my 1st semester, I also have to find an advisor that I get along with who also does research I'm interested in. I suppose I'll be doing a lot of interviewing with them in the coming months.

One year from today I have to take my qualifying exam, which is what allows me to proceed toward my dissertation. At Maryland, it's not actually an exam that tests your encyclopedic knowledge. Rather, you choose an area that is outside what you will do your thesis on (or at least outside of the realm of your research group) and then a faculty committee gives you a question. From that point, you have 2 weeks of absolutely grueling work to come up with a research proposal and show how you would approach the question. After 2 weeks you have to turn in a 10 page paper and give a 30 minute presentation followed by a very scary questioning by the faculty. Most of the grad students claim that is the hardest part of the whole process...so I'll be glad to get that over with next year.

That's all I got for now. There are 9 other first year material science grad students. Almost all of us are physics majors, only 2 of them are girls, and only 1 is an international student. We'll see how the year goes!

...and Italy

By the way, here's a picture from the Santorini sunset:

All the water you see used to be a volcano!

So we left for Florence after two weeks in Greece. When we arrived, we found our hotel pretty easily. The main train station is right next to a big ole cathedral called the Santa Maria Novella. It is right on a square that is right next to our hotel. So our hotel was right next to the main train station for all of Tuscany, how convenient! On our 2nd day in Florence we decided to see the Uffizi Gallery, which is probably the main museum in Florence. We had to wait in line for 3 hours! And I bet we were only in the gallery for no more than 2 hours. It was still tight though. I've never seen a building so ornately decorated, but I'm not going to say anything because you have to see it yourself and wait in the long line. Get there before 9am, which is when we got there. The most famous painting in the gallery is this one, the Birth of Venus. It's good and all, but I don't understand why its so famous. I felt that way about a lot of the paintings actually. Perhaps it was an impressive piece considering the time period. I have no idea. If you have an idea, comment away! Florence was a very artistic city and most of the attractions had to do with architecture and art. The best part of Florence was this one restaurant that we went to twice. For a total of 12 euros, you could get a 1/4 liter of house wine, a pasta dish, a meat dish, and a side of vegetable. It was recommended to us by the hotel owner. It was so good. The first time I went I got a pasta dish with the best pesto I've ever had for my first course and roast rabbit for my 2nd course. Thumper was delicious!

While we were in Florence, we also took 2 day trips. We went to Pisa...

and then we went to another town called Luca which has a "ring" of park around the old city. I wish we had a bike so we could bike around the whole city. Every town we went to in Italy had a main cathedral that was uniquely different from any other we had seen. Florence, of course, had several cathedrals though. Anyway, most of them cost money to enter and Liz frequently had to wear a little throwover made of some cheap material.

Later, we went to Sienna, which is way more medieval feeling than anywhere we had been. The streets were very narrow with massive doors. It felt very old. There's a famous horserace there called Il Palio where apparently there are no rules. Jockeys get kidnapped sometimes and a horse can win regardless of whether there is a rider or not. It is held here, which is a great place to people watch. It was empty while we were there though, which made things less stressful.

Finally we went to Rome. Rome is the coolest city I have ever been in. It's probably good that we concluded our trip with Rome because Liz and I were feeling quite homesick at this point and were getting a little sick of pizza and pasta (though the pizza out there is pretty good). The Colloseum was amazing. It was way cooler than I thought it would be. It is a must-see for sure. When we were leaving we got some pictures posing with some gladiator impersonators. They're pretty good, but Liz has them all. When/If she posts pictures, check them out.

There are plenty of things to do in Rome. We went to the Vatican museum (but we got there early so we didn't have to wait, we didn't want a repeat of the Uffizi), St. Peter's Basilica, the Spanish Steps, the Fountain of Triton, and many others. St. Peter's is HUGE. You could fit probably 5 big big cathedrals in there. Now I'm not a religious person, so I like to think that maybe religion will slowly die out...or something. I say this because I have a lot of friends who went to church every once in a while with their parents when they were kids, but now they don't give a crap and would probably consider themselves atheist. Anyway, after seeing St. Peter's I was unfortunately convinced that religion's dying out would not be happening anytime soon. There is so much money in the Catholic church. Seeing St. Peter's made me think about how selfish the church is. They are always preaching about helping your neighbor and giving to the poor, but they manage to spend all this money on an over-the-top building. What a bunch of hypocrits.

Anyway, if you go to Italy, definitely go to Rome. One thing I didn't mention so far is the weather. Greece and Italy are sooooo hot in the summer. When we were in Rome, we had AC, so we would stay in our hotel room from around 2pm until 7pm. It was just too hot! I will admit though, it was always sunny and beautiful. We didn't see any rain for the entire month!

Another thing I forgot to mention is how beautiful the Italian countryside is. There are massive fields of sunflowers that are so beautiful. The landscape looked just like it does in the movie Gladiator.

I also didn't mention the random rally/riot we saw in Athens! My parents went to Greece within the last 2 years. When they were walking, my dad started to smell tear gas, so they got out of the street quick. Apparently there had been some protesting. While I was there we didn't smell tear gas, but if we stayed out we might have. Liz and I were walking around at night and all of a sudden we see lots and lots of cops. But these cops were wearing helmets and had shields! We were slightly nervous, because they were dressed more like soldiers than like your friendly law enforcement officer. Anyway, as we got around the corner to Syntagma square and there was a large group of people holding up signs and banners and megaphones. I asked a bystander what it was all about and he said immigrant rights. Athens is definitely a city in transition.

Anyway, that's my trip to Europe. As you might have noticed, there weren't any crazy drunk stories. I don't really think I missed all that much. And I'm pretty sure that if we did drink more often, we would have been much more broke right now. Greece seemed like way more of a party country than Italy. In fact, I didn't get much of a party impression at all where we went in Italy. I think it's because the places we went were already expensive to begin with and most people don't go there to party... Crete definitely had the best looking clubs and bars. So if you go to Greece, definitely go to Crete.