Pumpkin Carving!

So yesterday was fun. I went to Kendra's with Joe, Praneet, Nikhil, and Andres, and we carved pumpkins! I got this huge one for $11, but I think Andres's may have been a bit bigger as he paid $12. We gutted the pumpkins, cooked their seeds, and ordered pizza, and then we watched about half of The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was a blast. I gave my pumpkin a pimp mustache, as I was trying to make it look like my research advisor, though I don't see the resemblance. I guess my pumpkin carving skills are just sub-par. That's okay though, as long as I never have to make it as a professional pumpkin carver when the job market plummets. I'll try to post some pictures later, if I can get Kendra to email them to me but she doesn't check her email on weekends.

Haha, so I tried filling out a volunteer form on the Illinois Science Olympiad website last night, but apparently, I just have really bad luck because none of the forms were working, and I could only find one email address on the entire website. So I emailed the State Tournament director about volunteering and who I should contact, so we'll see if I get a response. I figured I could be an Event Supervisor for something, seeing as how I now have an undergraduate degree, and if I can't waive that around and get some respect, what possible good does it serve? I'd want my money back that's for sure.

Last night, I finished up a rough draft of my personal statement and previous research experience essays for the NSF Fellowship. Haha, as Sapana can attest they are a bit colloquial at the moment and need some serious editing, but I like how I addressed the topics and I think there's a obvious passion for science that comes out in the text. I'm working on editing my research proposal today, and later tonight I'll start studying for my math test on Wednesday. One thing I was excited about was that I didn't realize that Daylight Savings was last night, so I celebrated by staying up late working on my essays, not going to sleep until 5 am (which should have been 6 am!). Good times... Needless to say, I slept in til noon today, but I also got a lot of work done.

Any opinions on purple dress shirts? Haha, that's what my sister, mom, and dad picked out for me to wear with my suit, so I got that in the mail a few days ago. I'm still on the fence, but I guess I'll have to give it a try...

Until later...

My weekend

So this past weekend, I went down to Hope to see the grandparents and cousins, and had a blast. On Friday, Danielle, Kelley, and I planned our own mini birthday party, since I had missed Danielle's from the week before, and none of us had really seen each other for any of our birthdays in the past...ever. Haha. So anyway, we all bought each other gifts, and they picked me up from the train station at about 10:30 pm. We stayed up til about 4:30 am watching old Christmas videos and messing around with all the things they had picked up for me on the children's aisle at Wal-mart (my presents to them were kind of boring- Northwestern t-shirts because I couldn't find time to go anywhere with a decent selection of random gifts). There was this little dancing hamster thing that sang Macho Man, some 'flarp' (kind of like Gak), some noise-making balloons that were fun to launch around the room at each other, a cheap voice changer, some slinkies, a sticky hand that we played with for about an hour picking up dollar bills and miscellaneous items until the hand broke off, and who knows what else. It was a really fun night. Unfortunately, Danielle had to work the next morning so they had to leave, and we all probably got to sleep by the ripe old hour of 5 am.

The next day I spent predominantly with Grandma and Grandpa Sollars. They were watching my cousin Kendall (technically 2nd cousin I guess) who is about 5 years old, so I played some games of Connect Four and makeshift baseball with an inflated hammer and plastic ball while there. I got to discuss a lot of current stuff I've got going on with the grandparents, and then later that night I helped Grandma James make some cinnamon rolls and tried to tend to some computer-related issues.

Sunday was church, and later that afternoon I went to go see Danielle again at Uncle Buck and Uncle Terry's house for a few hours. My visit was concluded with dinner at Arby's with Grandma and Grandpa James who stayed with me until the train came, which surprisingly was only about 10 minutes late, and I got all the way back home to Evanston by 11 that night.

This week I've been working a lot on my NSF Fellowship proposal. I'm supposed to have a good rough draft by tomorrow so that's going to be what I'm doing the rest of the night. In other good news, I finally got an office! I'm gonna have to start bringing in some of my stuff to lab now because I have a desk now. I also got to watch Murat (a fourth year grad student in my lab) set up some purification experiments today for monomers that I'll probably have to become familiar with for my future experiments. All in all, a good weekend and start of a good week. Now I just need to buckle down and write an amazing proposal so I can get some external funding for the next few years.

Oh, I almost forgot. Last night was another pizza extravaganza, and I had 3 friends over to make 6 pizzas and play Trivial Pursuit. In a bit of an upset, my team came back to win the game by making up a 3 pie-piece deficit in a matter of a few turns. Some highlight responses- I guessed that Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi and (for the win!) that the Dodgers were the first Major League baseball team to set up an office in Asia. It's the second time my team has come back from a slow start to swoop down and claim the Trivial Pursuit champion title. What a night...

Well, that's all for now. I'll post more later in the week once I get some more work done. Until then...

Advisor Selection

So I found out yesterday- I was able to get the advisor I wanted, so I'll be doing research for Kenneth Shull doing something polymers-related. I know that's kind of vague, but we haven't decided on a specific project yet. For the time being, I'm assigned to work on a project on perfecting the reversible assembly of a triblock copolymer in aqueous solution, so in other words I would be working on hydrogels. I'm pretty psyched about it. My goal is to have a good NSF proposal done by the end of next week, so I'll be done with my quantum exam tomorrow, and don't have any real homework due for a few weeks. I do have another test on Nov. 1 though, but it's for differential equations, and let's be honest, I could study the day before and probably do well. Haha. Luckily that class goes at a much slower pace, and most if it has been review so I'll just need to brush up on a few things before taking the exam.

Speaking of exams, the first half of my quantum test was less than pleasurable. I'm pretty sure nobody finished and we all think we failed miserably. Luckily, that means we'll all do well because he grades us all relative to each other. Haha. It was a really frustrating test because I was working pretty quickly the whole time, and still had parts that I didn't even manage to start doing, so I just scribbled some stuff down before turning it in that was basically devoid of all math. I don't think anybody actually used their calculator, which is funny because it's a quantitative exam, so theoretically all of ours answers should have involved some sort of intense calculation. Haha, but mostly that amounted to everybody writing sentences like "this is what I would have done if I didn't run out of time". Good times. I've got the second half tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to it. On the bright, I'll have group meeting for the first time with my new group at 10:30 am. Nice... I've got to get some sleep, so I'll post again after this weekend.

What's going on

So I realize I haven't posted anything juicy for over a week (though, that article about my trip to Guyana is pretty good I've got to say), but to be honest, there hasn't been too much going on. Last Tuesday I have 4 people over from my MatSci class to make Indian food, and then of course, consume it. That was a lot of fun. My friend Alpana had to show me how to make roti the correct way, since apparently I couldn't do it right when I tried a few weeks ago. I think the secret is folding in a layer of oil into the dough when you're rolling it out because I didn't do that, and I think when it heats up on the stove, it helps it poof up. On Wednesday, I realized there was this nanotechnology symposium going on that Northwestern was hosting and I had registered for, but had forgot that it was going on that day. I would have missed it, except my quantum mechanics professor was giving a talk and had to cancel class, which clued me in on my error. Anyway, I went to see a few lectures given by Angela Belcher of MIT, Mark Hersam (my quantum professor), and Joe DeSimone of UNC, who developed the polymer I used to mold fly's eyes at UNC (I was in his lab a lot). The convenience of the symposium being on campus was nice, and I hope it becomes and annual thing. Haha, Thursday night I randomly decided that I should format my hard drive on my computer because I hadn't done it in a while, so I stayed up til 4 am for no apparent reason and formatted my drive, reinstalled Windows, and then reinstalled a majority of my applications. I've got to say, my computer has been running a lot faster after I trimmed the fat. Haha. This weekend has been devoted to study for my test that's on Wednesday/Thursday (a two day exam), so I probably won't have anything exciting to post until this weekend. I'm currently planning to take the train to Champaign on Friday, though I still need to get my ticket. It's more expensive now since I waited so long, but since I don't have any other transportation expenses, I guess it's not too bad. More to come later this week. I hope you're all doing well.

Carolina Arts and Sciences Magazine

Just a quick note:

Carolina Arts and Sciences magazine has published an article about my trip to Guyana with Naman, Rez, and Ivana and is now available online at

http://college.unc.edu/features/October06articles/article.2006-10-11.3011071158

On the page you have to click under "Related Links" where it says "Fall 2006" to actually download the magazine. It's kind of a large file, so those of you using dial-up (aka Grandma James) may have some difficulty downloading it. However, I'm planning to visit probably next weekend (Oct. 20-22) so I could just bring you a hard copy if you have trouble viewing it.

New events

So, there's been a lot of small things that have happened this week. First of all, I've decided to change my first preference for a research advisor, after some deliberation and lots of advice from others. So, at first I was definitely gung-ho about working for Mirkin's lab, given that he's one of the top 10 most-cited chemists in the world and he has incredible funding and resources. However, despite the excitement of the quality of work I could do under Mirkin, I think I would also be under a tremendous amount of stress and pressure. Now, knowing myself I think I could adapt to the situation and get by, but I think it would be unnecessarily putting myself through a stressful situation when I do not need a huge name for an advisor to do well in life. Furthermore, after graduation I see myself working with polymers and not so much biotechnology, so I wanted to find another lab that was more low key, but still good. My first choice for an advisor is now Kenneth Shull, whose specialty is in polymer adhesion, but his group does a lot of stuff with polymers besides that. He was excited about my interest in the group, and has long sought to recruit a student with a background in chemistry, as chemistry students have a strong background in chemical synthesis. I have to turn in my advisor preference by Monday, and by Wednesday I'll know for sure if I'll be joining his group. There's still uncertainty as they have to make sure that all 38 of us find labs that have funding for us, etc., but I think it should work out.

In other news, I went to see An Inconvenient Truth tonight, which for those of you who don't know, is a documentary by Al Gore on global warming. If you haven't seen it, I would strongly recommend doing so, as it presents a lot of compelling evidence for first of all the prevalence, and secondly the need to address and correct global warming. While I already had known a lot of background information on global warming, seeing scientific evidence and even qualitative images of its existence and effects is quite frankly disturbing. What's more astounding is that in the scientific community, there seems to have always been this concern about global warming, while the media/government/oil companies/etc. have portrayed it as more of a theory or myth. As a scientist myself, I am quite appalled at the lack of consideration that the general public has taken toward the issue. We spend years specializing in the study of a particular subject area, and for someone to dismiss scientific findings for an issue solely for the reason of personal gain or convenience is quite frankly unacceptable. I'm also pissed off at the fact that our mileage standards for cars in the US is somewhere around 20 mpg while in Japan it's roughly 45 mpg and we still have oil companies suing state governments like California for trying to raise those standards. Oh, and how the president can hire a guy from an oil company to serve as his advisor on environmental issues. That seems like a good idea... Anyway, I'll stop ranting, but the point is, I thought it was really well-presented and it's something that everybody should see.

On Tuesday this week, I went to the Contemporary Art Museum in Chicago. It was actually really cool, as many of their exhibits were science-based. They have an exhibit on sustainable architecture, and lots of cool exhibits on electric/hybrid cars, energy consumption worldwide, and novel polymers. I think my two personal favorite things were a room filled with photography sorted by the part of the electromagnetic spectrum used to take them (ie, infrared, visible, UV, xray, etc.) and the crank-powered laptop developed by researchers at MIT meant for use in developing countries and sells for $100. I only got to see the museum for about an hour, but I definitely plan to go back, maybe in a few months or something after they change some of the exhibits. Also, on Tuesdays its free, courtesy of Target.

Tonight, I went to a Jamaican restaurant with some MatSci friends and we all shared some Caribbean cuisine (curry chicken, jerk tilapia, jerk shrimp, and plantains). The food was good, and afterward, a few of us came back to my apartment and played Trivial Pursuit before going to see An Inconvenient Truth. We played in teams, and my team was getting our butt kicked after the first few rounds, but thanks to some lucky guessing we snuck in and won even though we were like 4 rounds behind in getting all the pie pieces. It was a lot of fun. We're planning to play again maybe within a few weeks or something.

Anyway, that's pretty much what I've been up to all week, plus a crapload of quantum mechanics homework which I worked to finish by Wednesday to have the weekend free. I also started my TB meds, which I'll be taking for the next 9 months. I hope everybody is doing well. Until next time....

My week

So without paying attention, it's almost been a week since my last post. Well, not much has really happened until this weekend, so I wouldn't have had much to post anyway. Here's what I was up to:

Tuesday- Classes until 3:20. MatSci seminar 4-5. Homework 5-2 am. SLEEP!

Wednesday- Sleep in. Classes until 2. Relax the rest of the day from the intellectual beating the night before.

Thursday- Finish up homework/help others with theirs until class. Class til 3:30. Finish up homework for another class. Materials Science student barbecue. It started raining right at the beginning so I got really wet and cold. However, there was free food and good company. I stayed out there for like an hour.

Friday- TB appointment. I met with a doctor to talk about the chest xray. Everything was fine, as expected, so I have the option of getting the treatment for TB or refusing it and potentially developing TB in the future if in fact I didn't have a false positive test. The meds are free from the university, so I think I'm just gonna take the treatment. I would feel really dumb if I developed TB later in life. There's also the option of getting this other test done for $45 to be more certain, but the doctor didn't think it would be worth it, as she only recommends it for international students who've had BCG vaccines against TB. The only stipulation for the medication is that you can't drink alcohol while on it or take Tylenol, since the antibiotic is metabolized by an acetylation reaction in the liver, and alcohol and Tylenol are also liver-metabolized. Since I haven't had Tylenol in probably 5 years and I never drink, I think that won't be a problem. The treatment is for 270 days though... but I'm not going anywhere, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Also on Friday, Rez came up to visit from NC. I met him in the afternoon and we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner after we walked around campus for a few hours so I could show him the scene. He crashed at my place for the night.

Saturday- Rez and I headed into Chicago to meet a few of his friends for lunch and some brief sightseeing. We had some awesome deep-dish, Chicago-style pizza at Gino's Pizza and went up to the John Hancock Building Observatory. However, it started raining while we were going up so it wasn't the greatest view. Still kind of cool though. Then we went to the Cubs game, where 3 of my MatSci friends were meeting us. When we got there, it was the second inning and the Cubs were losing to the Rockies 8-0. Miraculously, the Cubs came back to tie by the bottom of the 9th and it went into extra innings. An inning later it started raining at the stadium and they had to cover the field for a while. The rain let up, so they started uncovering it again, but the immediately had to put the tarp back because the rain came back. After about 30-40 minutes, it had stopped raining enough to resume the game. It went until the bottom of the 14th inning (they had a 14th inning stretch, haha), and Cubs ultimately lost 11-9. Too bad. In total it was about a 5 hour 40 minute minute game. I went out to Taco Bell with my MatSci friends after the game while Rez was with his other buddies he met up with in the city.

Today- just a laid-back day. I've been working on getting ahead in even more of my homework, and random other stuff. I got a brief call from Naman in India for about 40 seconds. He had $1 of minutes left on his cell phone and generous enough to give me a call. Basically, all I found out is that he was at the airport getting ready to fly back to NC.

So there's my update. I tried to stay succinct. The Cubs game was awesome, so I'm definitely planning to go back to a few next year when the season starts up again and the weather warm up. Tickets were only $15 on the street, so it wasn't so bad. Anyway, I hope everybody's doing well. More to come later this week....