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