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