Hhhhokay so I haven't been keeping up with this for the past week and a half but that's because I've been so busy finishing up my last week at the lab! So here's all that happened in the past week or so:
Last week I finished up my poster, got it approved, and sent it to print! I also worked on building some transducers so that I could get some technical experience at the lab. It took a long time to build those because you have to wait hours for stuff like silver epoxy (basically a type of conducting glue) and stycast (an insulating material, kind of like an oily liquid that dries hard and plastic-y) and things like that to dry. However it was a great experience and probably one of the only parts of the summer that directly related to mechanical engineering. Anyway, this took up most of my last week and of the half-day I had on Monday.
Today, I had my check-out meeting at the lab. I had to give back my badge and other things that belonged to the lab (like my awesome safety glasses). After that, I had to go register and set up my poster at the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos, where the poster session is located. After that, I picked up my mom and we went out to lunch. I had to be back for poster judging at 1pm. I originally thought that today was the poster session open to the public but it ended up being the judging day (or “judgement day” as I like to call it, and I’ll explain in a minute) and the open session is tomorrow morning. I wasn’t planning on going tomorrow but I think I will go for an hour so that I have a better experience with presenting my poster (and so my mom can hear me present as well).
So the reason why today was “judgement day” was because it was a rough experience. The first judge I had pretty much ripped me apart as far as the amount of questions and detail he was asking about. He also knew a lot about my research and was “testing” my knowledge of it. He pretty much made a fool out of me and made me feel stupid. He asked a lot about the microstructural and atomic details of my research and of the superconductor I was working with, and that wasn’t my focus at all. I focused more on the technique because my mentor and I felt that it was more beneficial than the physics because of my major and my career goals. However, this judge assumed I knew more about the physics behind my research and proceeded to bombard me with questions and comments. I told him flat out when I didn’t know anything about what he was asking and he explained it to me, which I think was his way of teaching me, but it made me feel inferior. He also didn’t give me a chance to go through my whole poster before he started asking me questions, which also threw me off my train of thought a lot. Anyway, he was a pompous jerk and one of the reasons why I hate physicists (haha). The second judge didn’t say much but he let me go through my poster and only asked a few questions at the end. It was a bit of a confident boost, but I was pretty worn out by the end of the session. We only had to be judged twice and then we were allowed to leave.
Tomorrow, I will probably stop by for an hour to be by my poster for the open session, and hopefully it will be easier and calmer. After that, my mom and I will start our road trip back to Tallahassee!
The road trip will be as follows: We will start going south in New Mexico and stop in Roswell (maybe go to the UFO museum for kicks) and go to Carlsbad Caverns! We are going to take a tour of the caverns which I am extremely excited about because I’ve heard great things about it. Next we will drive a few more hours and stay overnight in Texas. The next day, we will pass through San Antonio and head to Houston. We will stop there and visit the Johnson Space Center (part of NASA)!! We are also going to visit IKEA to shop for some furniture for my apartment, since the closest IKEA to Tallahassee is in Orlando. Then, we will stay somewhere between Houston and Baton Rouge (probably somewhere in Louisiana though). The next day we might stop in either Baton Rouge or New Orleans if we feel up to it, and then we will be in Tallahassee late at night on the 6th. It’s going to be a long trip but I’m excited for our pitstops along the way. I will try my best to update each night of the trip, but I can’t guarantee I will have enough energy!
Peace & Love,
Valerie
You impressed the heck out of your mother when you explained your research to her. I always knew you were brilliant but I got to see it in full force today. I have to tell you it doesn't matter what that pompous physicist did..you learned so much this summer and put all you have been learning into practice. THAT is what counts. Maybe he was just trying to teach you..but you know..just because you are a physicist doesn't mean you can TEACH xoxoxo
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