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....