Sunday, September 5, 2010

week two: over

i finally completed the endless get-into-calculus-course odyssey this week. as much as it seemed like it would never happen, i am registered for calculus 1 at pellissippi state community college. i hate inflexible bureaucracies that rarely allow for exceptions to rules, grrrr.

so half of my credits from this program come from the research itself. this is equivalent to a bit more than two lawrence classes. everyone in the program also participates in a weekly seminar, which usually consists of an ORNL scientist telling us about their work or a tour of some lab facility. we also can choose to take an additional course, either one taught by the program director lori or at a nearby college. i've opted for the latter and chose to take calculus 1 as review to prepare myself for calc 2 and maybe calc 3 senior year.

i actually really like the professor who teaches my calc course. i thought, because pellissippi is a community college, that the professor would suck. he's really good. he makes calculus interesting and he's funny at the appropriate moments.

i ran my first experiment this past week! i set up the tanks on tuesday. mark and i went out to a creek behind the lab and caught a bunch of snails. he also caught two larval salamanders which are now my lab pets. i ran the experiment from wednesday morning to friday morning. from some preliminary work on the results, it looks like the snails don't give a shit about the dc magnetic field that the permanent magnets put off.

mark has ordered some more permanent magnets, some of which are twice as thick as the ones we've been using, so they'll have a stronger magnetic field. i'll probably run another trial with the snails this week using those thicker magnets. next up will be trials with the fathead minnows!

i've also been struggling with the electromagnets that produce ac fields. from some internet research and advice from glenn, it looks like it will be easier to just make our own electromagnets.

i've been really enjoying living in an apartment! i feel so grown up, haha. also, my roommates are awesome and we haven't had any problems. and for people who know me fairly well, i'm terrible at being a roommate, so this is quite the pleasant surprise.

last night, nic took lin and i to an asian market in knoxville. i bought a bunch of crazy new foods to try, mostly based on lin's awesome recommendations. i got dragon fruit and seaweed and a giant ass bag of rice. lin and i have co-ownership of a new rice cooker which i haven't had the opportunity to use yet, but i will soon!

we also had a little get together last night. everyone in the program, except one guy who was busy talking to his girlfriend on the phone, got together at one of the apartments and we all hung out. super fun. my greatest fear about this program was that everyone would be insanely nerdy and antisocial. thank goodness i was wrong! everyone is really interesting and fairly talkative.

nic tried to make fried bananas tonight. it was the most disgusting thing ever. i also played one of my vinyl records on his record player, and it sounded so gorgeous. one of my goals during my time here is to get a record player of my own.

i haven't played my clarinet once since i've gotten here. sorry mr. bell.

i have been running a ton though! it's been going so well, my legs are really cooperating with me because i've finally gotten accustomed to my new form. and i'm going to be in bomb ass shape because of how hilly the terrain is. i never really realized just how flat iowa and wisconsin are.

people have been putting up pictures and videos of cross country preseason on facebook. i miss the team so so so much. they had their first meet yesterday and it seems like it went well.

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