Long time no blog! Sorry to those of you who read my blog regularly. It's been hard to keep up with posting. Anywho...
Last Thursday I had Electrical Safety Training. It was an all day session so you can imagine I was exhausted at the end of the day. I am also deathly afraid of electricity now. I was afraid to plug in my phone charger after the class haha! Some of the material was common sense, like "Don't put your fingers in an electrical socket" but some of it was practical knowledge about working with electricity in a lab setting. Also, realizing how many volts are in a carpet shock was scary! (I can't remember the exact number but it was pretty big) On Friday I helped set up an experiment that I will help run tomorrow. It took a long time because the software was acting up on the computer and it wasn't syncing data to the equipment. Hopefully we'll fix that tomorrow and start running some gosh darn experiments!
So it turns out I was able to register for the conference in Santa Fe this week. The only downside is that I had to pay $600 out of my pocket, but I will be reimbursed later. Luckily I just got my first paycheck deposited and I was able to afford it (for now...that's more than I pay for rent in Tally!) Hopefully I will get reimbursed ASAP so I can spend my hard earned money on better things like clothes and mani-pedi's haha (hey, I'm still a girl remember :P)
The conference is all day, 5 days a week. Tomorrow I have another training session so I will not be able to go to the conference (by the time I get out, all of the scientists are going on an excursion into various parts of NM). After training I will go to the lab and work with Yoko, the postdoc I have been working with on the probe and setting up the experiment I mentioned above. On Thursday I will go to the conference again, and then on Friday (my day off--I have every other Friday off) the conference lasts a half day so I will ask if I could skip it so I can get my car fixed finally.
On a different note about the conference, it is called the International Conference on SCES (Strongly Correlated Electron Systems). Don't ask me what that means because I have no idea. All I know is that most of the talks and posters revolve around correlated electrons and condensed matter physics stuff, things I don't understand. I didn't get that far in the classes as a physics major and I was just about to take quantum mechanics, so I am very clueless about every aspect of this conference. The only topics that makes some sense to me are things involving superconductors and materials science stuff like lattice structures and phase diagrams (thanks Hellstrom! [my materials science teacher last semester]) It made me feel better when I spoke with my mentor and he said he barely understood what was going on too. I guess the talks were too specialized for anyone not specifically in that field because a lot of other people from my lab were talking about not understanding the talks either! Personally, I'd rather be at a conference about cool engineering stuff and listen to talks about how they build this cool stuff and look at posters that show their cool designs of their cool stuff..I guess this is how I know I chose the right major, haha!
On a side note, I have a 4 day weekend coming up! (That is, if I am allowed to take my Friday off) I was unaware that the 4th of July was on Sunday which means we have Monday the 5th off! I don't know what I am going to do with all the free time, or what I'll do for the 4th but all I know is I have 2 sweet movies to see ASAP (Toy Story 3 and Eclipse..I know, I'm a huge geek :P) Hhhokay later kids.
Peace & Love,
Val
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Still Week 3
Today was a pretty busy day. I started off continuing to practice soldering so that I could work on the probe today. Later in the morning, there was a meeting for students and the director of the lab made a speech. After that, the kids from my lab and I went to lunch. After lunch we headed to a lecture on "Dynamic Properties of Materials". It was another interesting talk because it helped me put my classes into perspective. I am realizing more and more each day how important my classes are and how they truly do apply to real life. When I was a physics major, it was hard for me to put the things I learned into reality but with engineering it is very easy. After this summer I will be more focused on learning in my classes, and not just learning to pass the tests or the class but for my future career because I know now how much it matters to me. I'm pretty inspired after only 3 weeks of this internship to complete my degree and get out there and do something meaningful with it. Anyway, after the talk I went back into the lab and worked on the probe. First I had to de-solder the existing wires of the probe tip and detach it from the rest of the probe. Then I had to solder the probe tip on a different probe (I'm not too sure why we are using a different probe but it is smaller so I think it's for a different experiment setup). Soldering is really fun and I really like being able to do something with my hands. I feel like I've accomplished something and seeing a physical product of my work in my hands feels awesome! The science part of research is good and all but I prefer to do more technical work. But for this summer I have to do more science since I will have to produce results of my research in a short amount of time.
Tomorrow I have electrical safety training all day so I will not be in the lab (nor will I have anything interesting to write about tomorrow). Next week there was a slight change of plans. I might be able to go to the conference in Santa Fe that everyone is going to. My mentor and the manager of our group at the mag lab are going to find out if I can get a student pass. The other REU girl in our group may be able to get one too. This would be cool if we both could go because it will be interesting to hear the talks (especially those of our mentors and the others of the mag lab) and we will be able to get to know each other better. I will probably find out sometime tomorrow if I can go. If not, I will be doing data analysis (mostly from home because I do not have a working computer to use at the lab and in order to bring my laptop there I have to go through insanely long procedures). Hopefully I will be able to go to the conference (but if not, it would be nice to have a few days off!)
Peace & Love,
Val
Tomorrow I have electrical safety training all day so I will not be in the lab (nor will I have anything interesting to write about tomorrow). Next week there was a slight change of plans. I might be able to go to the conference in Santa Fe that everyone is going to. My mentor and the manager of our group at the mag lab are going to find out if I can get a student pass. The other REU girl in our group may be able to get one too. This would be cool if we both could go because it will be interesting to hear the talks (especially those of our mentors and the others of the mag lab) and we will be able to get to know each other better. I will probably find out sometime tomorrow if I can go. If not, I will be doing data analysis (mostly from home because I do not have a working computer to use at the lab and in order to bring my laptop there I have to go through insanely long procedures). Hopefully I will be able to go to the conference (but if not, it would be nice to have a few days off!)
Peace & Love,
Val
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Week 3
The last part of Week 2 at the lab was pretty much the same as the first part. Week 3 started off with a 4 hour training session (not at the lab) on waste generation. It was really boring but luckily there was no test at the end. After I got back to the lab it was time to go to a lecture on medical radioisotope production. It was the most interesting lecture to date! By the time the lecture was over it was 3:30pm and there was not much left to the day. I headed back to the office and my mentor was not back from the inspections he had to do of other labs. When he got back I did some data analysis on the computer and went home.
Today was a bit less boring. Pretty soon after I got there this morning I headed down to the lab and did some more data analysis. After I finished, my mentor was in a meeting so I did some reading on superconductors. The afternoon started out boring because I had to complete some online training courses after lunch which took up about 2 and a half hours. My mentor was still pretty busy after that (he is preparing a poster and a lecture for a conference next week) so I went down to the lab with another postdoc and she taught me how to solder wires for a new probe they will be using this week. It was the first technical thing I've done here and it was pretty cool. The wires are so tiny that you need a microscope to strip the wires of the coating. One wire was so hard to strip because it was a coaxial wire with a plastic coating and the core wire had some sort of sticky coating (I think it might have been teflon). The soldering part was fun but it was scary because the soldering iron is so hot (about 500 degrees F!!) and this girl in my lab burnt herself last week with it. She said it didn't hurt and it really wasn't that bad of a burn but I was still afraid to burn myself. I was just practicing how to do it today and tomorrow I will probably do it for real on the probe. (I hope I don't mess up!) On Thursday I have Electrical Safety training all day which I've heard mixed reviews about. Hopefully it won't be too boring.
Next week, most of the people in our lab will be at a conference in Santa Fe. My mentor asked if I could come to the conference but it would have cost them $600! Unfortunately students are not allowed in the lab without a supervisor so we will have most of the week off. I have a training session on Wednesday, lectures on Monday and Wednesday afternoon, and my mentor said he will be giving me something to do on my computer at home so I will not be completely without work but it will be nice to sleep in after 3 weeks of waking up at 7am! This is the perfect opportunity to get the brakes on my car looked at so I'll have that to do as well.
I'm already getting very homesick for NY and Tallahassee. I can't wait to get back to Long Island because summer is the best up there and I really really need to go to the beach! I've also been craving BBQs, bonfires, Port Jeff (mostly going to Ralph's Italian ices!), the city (because I'm in the middle of nowhere here!), my family, and my friends! Oh, and I can't wait to see my newly refurbished kitchen! Okay, enough about my homesickness..
Peace & Love,
Val
Today was a bit less boring. Pretty soon after I got there this morning I headed down to the lab and did some more data analysis. After I finished, my mentor was in a meeting so I did some reading on superconductors. The afternoon started out boring because I had to complete some online training courses after lunch which took up about 2 and a half hours. My mentor was still pretty busy after that (he is preparing a poster and a lecture for a conference next week) so I went down to the lab with another postdoc and she taught me how to solder wires for a new probe they will be using this week. It was the first technical thing I've done here and it was pretty cool. The wires are so tiny that you need a microscope to strip the wires of the coating. One wire was so hard to strip because it was a coaxial wire with a plastic coating and the core wire had some sort of sticky coating (I think it might have been teflon). The soldering part was fun but it was scary because the soldering iron is so hot (about 500 degrees F!!) and this girl in my lab burnt herself last week with it. She said it didn't hurt and it really wasn't that bad of a burn but I was still afraid to burn myself. I was just practicing how to do it today and tomorrow I will probably do it for real on the probe. (I hope I don't mess up!) On Thursday I have Electrical Safety training all day which I've heard mixed reviews about. Hopefully it won't be too boring.
Next week, most of the people in our lab will be at a conference in Santa Fe. My mentor asked if I could come to the conference but it would have cost them $600! Unfortunately students are not allowed in the lab without a supervisor so we will have most of the week off. I have a training session on Wednesday, lectures on Monday and Wednesday afternoon, and my mentor said he will be giving me something to do on my computer at home so I will not be completely without work but it will be nice to sleep in after 3 weeks of waking up at 7am! This is the perfect opportunity to get the brakes on my car looked at so I'll have that to do as well.
I'm already getting very homesick for NY and Tallahassee. I can't wait to get back to Long Island because summer is the best up there and I really really need to go to the beach! I've also been craving BBQs, bonfires, Port Jeff (mostly going to Ralph's Italian ices!), the city (because I'm in the middle of nowhere here!), my family, and my friends! Oh, and I can't wait to see my newly refurbished kitchen! Okay, enough about my homesickness..
Peace & Love,
Val
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Week 1 and counting...
It's been a while since I've added a new post, I apologize. I have been so exhausted after coming home from being at the lab all day that I haven't had the energy to blog. I barely have enough energy now but I feel like if I don't update soon my followers will get angry at me haha.
The last week has been a lot of reading, learning, sitting around, and sleeping (not at the lab of course). I usually get to the lab between 8 and 8:30am. Parking is an issue (it is almost as bad as it is at FSU) so I try to get there as soon as I can because after 8:30 the lots fill up completely. Usually I sit at my desk and read papers or a textbook or something for the first hour or so because my mentor is at his desk working on whatever he needs to for his own research. Then we head down to the lab and start working. The other day I was working on Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy (RUS) experiments. The samples I was working on were not the greatest quality so I was not able to get good results. I was given another sample to try late last week and that gave good results so I was happy that I did something right! Yesterday, I analyzed the data from the latest sample. Today, my mentor decided to change it up a bit and set up an experiment for me to do that will allow me to work with cryogenics (aka. liquid nitrogen and helium--I am technically not allowed to handle the cryogenics because I haven't had cryogenics training yet, but I am allowed to observe). The liquid nitrogen allows us to study different properties of materials at colder temperatures (lower than room temperature down to around 70 Kelvin). Next week (hopefully) we will be able to work with liquid helium which will allow us to reach temperatures of about 4K. To give an idea to those of you who are not familiar with the Kelvin scale of temp, 300K is room temp and around 273K is the freezing point of water. So the temps we're dealing with are quite chilly! My mentor poured the liquid nitrogen on the floor to demonstrate that it evaporates almost instantaneously in room temp. I have seen this done before in physics and chemistry classes but it was still awesome. I love how it freezes things on contact, and I noticed that it collected and froze dirt that was on the floor and it just rolled around, hah! Anyway, that was my day.
Now onto my life outside the lab. My first real weekend here was pretty fun. On Saturday I went bowling and to see "Get Him to the Greek" (hilarious!) with the kids from my lab. The closest bowling alley and movie theater around was about 25 minutes away in a town called Espanola (not the nicest place to be however). Then on Sunday a friend and I went hiking on the Pajarito ski trails. The elevation at the top was about 10,000 feet! Of course, Los Alamos itself is at about 7,000 feet and the bottom of the mountain was already at around 9,000 feet so it's not like I hiked Everest or anything but I was so shocked that I did it! I've never been hiking before in my life and at one point I didn't think I could make it. The paths were very steep but I'm also not yet acclimated to the elevation so it was tough to breathe. The way down was slippery because of a lot of small loose rocks and I fell a few times but nothing crazy. I wasn't even that sore until today. I woke up this morning and I could barely move! It was totally worth it though!
This week I have a three day weekend!! I am on the same schedule as my mentor so we work 9 hour days Monday through Thursday, one Friday is an 8 hour day, and the next Friday is an off day! It is rough to work 9 hour days, especially since I have never worked over 24 hours a week in my life! It is definitely easier to work in a lab setting for 9 hours than it is to work in retail, an office, or a restaurant and I don't dread going into work every day haha..those other jobs just aren't for me I guess. I like having some sort of freedom at work (and once I start my own experiments it will be a very free environment--I am still shadowing my mentor as of now so there is still some structure) and I like being able to move around and not having to be stuck in one place all day. I hope that if I end up working in an industry it will be similar to this or I might just stick with doing research as a career! Who knows....
Okay, I'm officially wiped out. I'm going to go and watch some mindless tv shows (I've been watching back to back episodes of The O.C...don't judge, it's actually an awesome show and extremely addicting) and then go to bed early.
Peace & Love,
Val
The last week has been a lot of reading, learning, sitting around, and sleeping (not at the lab of course). I usually get to the lab between 8 and 8:30am. Parking is an issue (it is almost as bad as it is at FSU) so I try to get there as soon as I can because after 8:30 the lots fill up completely. Usually I sit at my desk and read papers or a textbook or something for the first hour or so because my mentor is at his desk working on whatever he needs to for his own research. Then we head down to the lab and start working. The other day I was working on Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy (RUS) experiments. The samples I was working on were not the greatest quality so I was not able to get good results. I was given another sample to try late last week and that gave good results so I was happy that I did something right! Yesterday, I analyzed the data from the latest sample. Today, my mentor decided to change it up a bit and set up an experiment for me to do that will allow me to work with cryogenics (aka. liquid nitrogen and helium--I am technically not allowed to handle the cryogenics because I haven't had cryogenics training yet, but I am allowed to observe). The liquid nitrogen allows us to study different properties of materials at colder temperatures (lower than room temperature down to around 70 Kelvin). Next week (hopefully) we will be able to work with liquid helium which will allow us to reach temperatures of about 4K. To give an idea to those of you who are not familiar with the Kelvin scale of temp, 300K is room temp and around 273K is the freezing point of water. So the temps we're dealing with are quite chilly! My mentor poured the liquid nitrogen on the floor to demonstrate that it evaporates almost instantaneously in room temp. I have seen this done before in physics and chemistry classes but it was still awesome. I love how it freezes things on contact, and I noticed that it collected and froze dirt that was on the floor and it just rolled around, hah! Anyway, that was my day.
Now onto my life outside the lab. My first real weekend here was pretty fun. On Saturday I went bowling and to see "Get Him to the Greek" (hilarious!) with the kids from my lab. The closest bowling alley and movie theater around was about 25 minutes away in a town called Espanola (not the nicest place to be however). Then on Sunday a friend and I went hiking on the Pajarito ski trails. The elevation at the top was about 10,000 feet! Of course, Los Alamos itself is at about 7,000 feet and the bottom of the mountain was already at around 9,000 feet so it's not like I hiked Everest or anything but I was so shocked that I did it! I've never been hiking before in my life and at one point I didn't think I could make it. The paths were very steep but I'm also not yet acclimated to the elevation so it was tough to breathe. The way down was slippery because of a lot of small loose rocks and I fell a few times but nothing crazy. I wasn't even that sore until today. I woke up this morning and I could barely move! It was totally worth it though!
This week I have a three day weekend!! I am on the same schedule as my mentor so we work 9 hour days Monday through Thursday, one Friday is an 8 hour day, and the next Friday is an off day! It is rough to work 9 hour days, especially since I have never worked over 24 hours a week in my life! It is definitely easier to work in a lab setting for 9 hours than it is to work in retail, an office, or a restaurant and I don't dread going into work every day haha..those other jobs just aren't for me I guess. I like having some sort of freedom at work (and once I start my own experiments it will be a very free environment--I am still shadowing my mentor as of now so there is still some structure) and I like being able to move around and not having to be stuck in one place all day. I hope that if I end up working in an industry it will be similar to this or I might just stick with doing research as a career! Who knows....
Okay, I'm officially wiped out. I'm going to go and watch some mindless tv shows (I've been watching back to back episodes of The O.C...don't judge, it's actually an awesome show and extremely addicting) and then go to bed early.
Peace & Love,
Val
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Here we go!
Yesterday was my first day at the lab! At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to get into the lab because I forgot my birth certificate in Tallahassee! Luckily I was able to contact one of my best friends at school and give her permission through the leasing office to go into my locked room and get it out and she mailed it to me (Chelsea, aka "Howie", you're the best!). Fortunately, I was able to get a temporary badge to gain access into the lab. Phew! I got into the lab at around 11am and my supervisor showed me around the few buildings we will be working in. I can't describe it in detail because of security reasons but it was it was so cool! A little after that, I ate lunch and then did a few training courses online in the offices. That pretty much took up the rest of the day and then right before I left for the day, my supervisor took me into the actual laboratory portion of the building and showed me one of the experiments they do and that I will probably be working on. I understood most of what he was talking about but I was so exhausted from the 3 hours of training courses and the fact that it was 100 degrees or so in every building. I guess I am partially still trying to adjust to the increase in elevation as well. According to my training instructor in today's training session, here in New Mexico it is very easy to get dehydrated because of the heat and the elevation combined. He also said that it usually takes about 6 weeks to get fully adjusted to the elevation. That means I will have 2 weeks of being fully adjusted and then I will have to get re-adjusted to the lower elevation in Florida and New York after my 8 weeks. Oh well!
Today I had an all day General Employee Training session at the White Rock Training Facility, so I was not in the lab at all. It started at 8am and went until a lunch break from 12-1pm and then until 3pm where we took a qualifying exam in order to get credit for the course. Overall, it was interesting but had its boring parts as well. I learned a lot about the lab itself, the security measures they take and that we have to take (that is why I am afraid to write too much about what I am doing at the lab), emergency procedures, etc. Apparently, the potassium-40 in bananas is radioactive! But don't worry, you would have to eat A LOT of bananas at once (like 1000) for this radiation to affect your body; you would die of potassium overdose before that would happen! This is probably the most interesting piece of information I gathered from the whole thing today, haha. Oh, and also we watched this hilarious "Office Safety" video. It was made in the 80's (they all wore bad clothes and huge glasses and the acting was over-dramatic) and it was about this Office Safety Investigator who came to this corporate office and explained to the manager all of the safety concerns he had for the office. There was a lot of tripping over filing cabinets, flipping over others as they fell over after tripping over filing cabinets, bumping into others and filing cabinets, etc. It was so funny, but I could also picture a less dramatic version of those things happening in a real office. This video was as funny, or almost as funny, as the Chemistry Safety video we had to watch in 10th grade chemistry. Anyway...
Tomorrow I will be back in the lab. I will probably read over some papers and get familiar with the research that my group is performing. Hopefully I will get to start working on an experiment! Tomorrow afternoon there is a lecture on "Issues Surrounding Plutonium" that I will attend. I do not know much about plutonium and I think it will be a good learning experience, even if it doesn't directly relate to my research. I am really excited about it! I will hopefully write again tomorrow!
Peace & Love,
Val
Today I had an all day General Employee Training session at the White Rock Training Facility, so I was not in the lab at all. It started at 8am and went until a lunch break from 12-1pm and then until 3pm where we took a qualifying exam in order to get credit for the course. Overall, it was interesting but had its boring parts as well. I learned a lot about the lab itself, the security measures they take and that we have to take (that is why I am afraid to write too much about what I am doing at the lab), emergency procedures, etc. Apparently, the potassium-40 in bananas is radioactive! But don't worry, you would have to eat A LOT of bananas at once (like 1000) for this radiation to affect your body; you would die of potassium overdose before that would happen! This is probably the most interesting piece of information I gathered from the whole thing today, haha. Oh, and also we watched this hilarious "Office Safety" video. It was made in the 80's (they all wore bad clothes and huge glasses and the acting was over-dramatic) and it was about this Office Safety Investigator who came to this corporate office and explained to the manager all of the safety concerns he had for the office. There was a lot of tripping over filing cabinets, flipping over others as they fell over after tripping over filing cabinets, bumping into others and filing cabinets, etc. It was so funny, but I could also picture a less dramatic version of those things happening in a real office. This video was as funny, or almost as funny, as the Chemistry Safety video we had to watch in 10th grade chemistry. Anyway...
Tomorrow I will be back in the lab. I will probably read over some papers and get familiar with the research that my group is performing. Hopefully I will get to start working on an experiment! Tomorrow afternoon there is a lecture on "Issues Surrounding Plutonium" that I will attend. I do not know much about plutonium and I think it will be a good learning experience, even if it doesn't directly relate to my research. I am really excited about it! I will hopefully write again tomorrow!
Peace & Love,
Val
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Exploring in New Mexico
I haven't written since Wednesday night when we pulled into Los Alamos, so I will recap what has been going on with me the past few days:
On Thursday, my dad took the car in to get fixed because the steering wheel was making a funny noise. Turns out, something in the steering mechanism was broken so we had to leave the car in the shop until the next day. We were without direct transportation but instead of sitting in the hotel all day, we decided to take advantage of the free bus ride into the main town of Los Alamos. We went walking around and found the Bradbury Science Museum. It was really cool! There were a lot of different exhibits on the lab and its history with nuclear warfare and it was cool to learn about the Manhattan project and the bomb testing they did nearby. I really don't support nuclear weapons, but it was interesting to learn about how they were made and about the scientists and engineers who worked on the project. After we went to the museum, we walked around town, had lunch, and met up with my REU supervisor to sign some papers. He seems really nice and I am looking forward to starting at the lab on Monday!
Yesterday, I moved into the woman's house I will be living in for the next 8 weeks. It is a small house but cozy. After I moved in, my dad and I took a ride into Santa Fe. It is a small city with a cute little downtown area. It is not the "city" atmosphere that I am used to (there are no huge skyscrapers or tall buildings anywhere!) but it was such a nice place. I am probably going to spend a lot of weekends down there shopping and walking around. It is really only 35-40 minutes away so it is definitely worth the drive! Plus, the scenery along the way is gorgeous! There are a lot of great shops, restaurants, and a pretty park area. There are also some museums that I would like to visit. My dad and I went to the New Mexico Museum of Art yesterday because it was free after 5 on Fridays! There is also the New Mexico History Museum and a Native American Art museum that I want to visit soon.
Today, I drove my dad to the airport in Santa Fe (which is by far the smallest airport I've ever seen...yes, smaller than Tallahassee, smaller than Valdosta, GA, etc). It was sad to have him leave because I had such a great time with him this week and now I'm going to be all alone :[ but hopefully come Monday I'll meet some friends at the lab. For now, I guess I'll enjoy the independence and relaxing weekend. After I drove my dad the hour into Santa Fe to drop him off, I headed to Walmart. This is the closest Walmart to Los Alamos which makes me sad. It also makes me sad that I have to depend on Walmart to survive! Anyway, after that I headed to Borders and sat and read for a little while and then bought Brave New World. I have been meaning to read this classic for a while and I figured why not now, when I have a lot of spare time on the weekends.
Tomorrow, I think I am going to head into town and go to this store called "The Black Hole" where they collect and sell (?) old "junk" from the lab. I've heard it's pretty awesome so I am excited to check it out. Would it make me a huge nerd if I ended up buying a Geiger counter? Probably :]
Peace & Love,
Val
On Thursday, my dad took the car in to get fixed because the steering wheel was making a funny noise. Turns out, something in the steering mechanism was broken so we had to leave the car in the shop until the next day. We were without direct transportation but instead of sitting in the hotel all day, we decided to take advantage of the free bus ride into the main town of Los Alamos. We went walking around and found the Bradbury Science Museum. It was really cool! There were a lot of different exhibits on the lab and its history with nuclear warfare and it was cool to learn about the Manhattan project and the bomb testing they did nearby. I really don't support nuclear weapons, but it was interesting to learn about how they were made and about the scientists and engineers who worked on the project. After we went to the museum, we walked around town, had lunch, and met up with my REU supervisor to sign some papers. He seems really nice and I am looking forward to starting at the lab on Monday!
Yesterday, I moved into the woman's house I will be living in for the next 8 weeks. It is a small house but cozy. After I moved in, my dad and I took a ride into Santa Fe. It is a small city with a cute little downtown area. It is not the "city" atmosphere that I am used to (there are no huge skyscrapers or tall buildings anywhere!) but it was such a nice place. I am probably going to spend a lot of weekends down there shopping and walking around. It is really only 35-40 minutes away so it is definitely worth the drive! Plus, the scenery along the way is gorgeous! There are a lot of great shops, restaurants, and a pretty park area. There are also some museums that I would like to visit. My dad and I went to the New Mexico Museum of Art yesterday because it was free after 5 on Fridays! There is also the New Mexico History Museum and a Native American Art museum that I want to visit soon.
Today, I drove my dad to the airport in Santa Fe (which is by far the smallest airport I've ever seen...yes, smaller than Tallahassee, smaller than Valdosta, GA, etc). It was sad to have him leave because I had such a great time with him this week and now I'm going to be all alone :[ but hopefully come Monday I'll meet some friends at the lab. For now, I guess I'll enjoy the independence and relaxing weekend. After I drove my dad the hour into Santa Fe to drop him off, I headed to Walmart. This is the closest Walmart to Los Alamos which makes me sad. It also makes me sad that I have to depend on Walmart to survive! Anyway, after that I headed to Borders and sat and read for a little while and then bought Brave New World. I have been meaning to read this classic for a while and I figured why not now, when I have a lot of spare time on the weekends.
Tomorrow, I think I am going to head into town and go to this store called "The Black Hole" where they collect and sell (?) old "junk" from the lab. I've heard it's pretty awesome so I am excited to check it out. Would it make me a huge nerd if I ended up buying a Geiger counter? Probably :]
Peace & Love,
Val
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Finally in New Mex!
Hola! We FINALLY got to Los Alamos today! It was a long 9.5 hour trip today and mostly boring because there was nothing in the rest of Oklahoma, Texas, and the beginning of New Mexico for MILES! Oklahoma was mostly rolling hills and grassy planes and Texas was flat and filled with farms and dead grass but thankfully New Mexico had a much nicer scenery with mountains in the distance and plateaus and such. We were very happy to pull into Los Alamos tonight! We are exhausted and I will not have much energy to write more tonight but I promise I will write tomorrow when I am settled into the house and after we have done some exploring around town!
Peace & Love,
Val
Peace & Love,
Val
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Day 2 of Road Trip
Today was the second day of the epic road trip to New Mexico! My dad and I left Tallahassee yesterday morning. We decided to take an extra day to lessen the amount of driving per day and to be able to do some sightseeing.
Yesterday, we drove 6 hours to New Orleans and walked around. It was pretty cool, mostly because I have never been there and I have heard so much about it. If I were 21 it would have been more fun because I'm sure my dad and I would have stopped in a few bars (maybe). We just walked around and went in some souvenir shops down Bourbon Street. All of the buildings in the French Quarter were so beautiful. I was half expecting the area to be run down because of Katrina but they did a good job renovating the buildings and cleaning up (at least in that area of the city). We ended up in a small town called Opelousas in Louisiana for the night.
Today, we drove the rest of the way through Louisiana and into Texas. We were going to stop in Dallas for a few hours and go to Dealey Plaza (the place where JFK was shot). There is a museum called the "Sixth Floor Museum" that we wanted to check out but by the time we got near Dallas we hit rush hour! We were stuck in construction traffic for a while before we hit Dallas so by the time we got there it was the peak of rush hour traffic. The congestion in Dallas is almost as bad as the NYC area! I was the one driving, and this made me nervous but I have driven through NYC before so it wasn't too different than what I've been through. We decided to just push through the traffic and not try to go into the city so that we would make it out of the Dallas area before it got too dark out. The GPS then took us on a route into Oklahoma and we are now in Paul's Valley, OK. We were going to take a route through the middle of Texas but we decided to add another state to our list. Also, the state road that we were originally going to take would probably have been extremely boring and at least now we get to see a bit of Oklahoma City!
Tomorrow we will head out early so that we can get to Los Alamos at a decent time and explore the town a bit. Stay tuned, kids!
Peace & Love,
Val
Yesterday, we drove 6 hours to New Orleans and walked around. It was pretty cool, mostly because I have never been there and I have heard so much about it. If I were 21 it would have been more fun because I'm sure my dad and I would have stopped in a few bars (maybe). We just walked around and went in some souvenir shops down Bourbon Street. All of the buildings in the French Quarter were so beautiful. I was half expecting the area to be run down because of Katrina but they did a good job renovating the buildings and cleaning up (at least in that area of the city). We ended up in a small town called Opelousas in Louisiana for the night.
Today, we drove the rest of the way through Louisiana and into Texas. We were going to stop in Dallas for a few hours and go to Dealey Plaza (the place where JFK was shot). There is a museum called the "Sixth Floor Museum" that we wanted to check out but by the time we got near Dallas we hit rush hour! We were stuck in construction traffic for a while before we hit Dallas so by the time we got there it was the peak of rush hour traffic. The congestion in Dallas is almost as bad as the NYC area! I was the one driving, and this made me nervous but I have driven through NYC before so it wasn't too different than what I've been through. We decided to just push through the traffic and not try to go into the city so that we would make it out of the Dallas area before it got too dark out. The GPS then took us on a route into Oklahoma and we are now in Paul's Valley, OK. We were going to take a route through the middle of Texas but we decided to add another state to our list. Also, the state road that we were originally going to take would probably have been extremely boring and at least now we get to see a bit of Oklahoma City!
Tomorrow we will head out early so that we can get to Los Alamos at a decent time and explore the town a bit. Stay tuned, kids!
Peace & Love,
Val
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