peechurs

Here is a photo of John Mather with all of the physical sciences REU kids...



And I'd like you to meet Evo. This is the machine that will consume my life for the next two months. Evo is a $400k scanning electron microscope. I will use this to see very tiny things.



Above is a photo of an Allende slab that we threw into the variable pressure mode of the scope to see if it would work...




Here is a photo of a unicorn from the mystical creatures exhibit at AMNH.


and that's about it. Just some pictures I took today and some others I'd been meaning to post.

Wittle Bitty

Working in such close proximity with all of the astro physics folks at the museum really gives me an entirely new perspective on a lot of things. I am a geology student. I study the Earth. I know the Earth. I live on the Earth.... I generally don't have reason to give too much thought to what is not on the Earth.

During my time at the museum I've been hanging out in the Rose Center and seeing planetarium shows on my down time. I just feel so dumbfounded at all of this new astro stuff that I'm being pelted with here. I've never thought about how miniscule Earth is in the grande scheme of things. And people too, for that matter. It almost makes me want to major in astro physics as well... but then wanting is different than doing, and I can safely tell you that will never happen.

Today I heard the Earth referred to as "very far out in the cosmic suburbs". I've always heard how small we are, but I've never really felt it before. We're quite removed from the hustle and bustle of the rest of everything in existence.

It's just crazy. All of this physics stuff. I don't pretend to comprehend any of it. But it's very inspiring as well.

Today we had a Nobel prize winner in physics, John Mather, come and talk to the astro department and they let the Geology department kids sit in as well. And I can't say I gathered all too much from his technical aspects of his project and what he did. It had something to do with proving the big bang was real. But it was all Greek to me. What I did take back with me was given in our informal question/answer/chit chat with John Mather and about 15 of us REU students after the lecture ended. He was a very encouraging fellow who radiated wisdom. Just looking at him you could tell how knowing he was. And it wasn't that he knew so many things as much as he was happy to admit that he didn't know everything, people are usually wrong, experiments often fail, and no instrument will ever perform correctly the first time. He gave us advice and told us how scared he was during his undergrad and graduate studies. He said that he often felt overwhelmed and when he achieved his masters in physics his first thought was "I never want to do that again!" Some quotes that stick out from the lecture today waere "Wrong results are often easy to obtain." and "Confidence does not equal success."

I really enjoyed the day. I got to look at lots and lots of thin sections from various meteorites at work. I'll try to get some pictures of those to post on here from the scope, believe it or not they really can be beautiful. After work ended my friends and I got some pizza and went back to the museum to see a talk in the planetarium.

Off to go play spades with the roomies.

GoodNight,

Chelsea

A recap

Whew. What a fun past couple o' days.

Thursday and Friday were great fun at work. Fridays the astro department has wine and cheese. Seeing as how Earth and Planetary Sciences (my department) is quite chummy with the astro department I was able to attend. Nice wines and nice cheeses. Lots of fun. At work.

So yesterday was full of lots of wandering. I explored a few more blocks of Broadway and indeed have found the largest piece of pizza I have ever seen. I wish I had brought my camera. A little mom and pop pizza resteraraunt called Koronett's just a couple blocks away from me. I was served one slice on a cafeteria tray. Just to give you an idea of it's giganticness... the pizza slice touched both ends of the tray width wise. And length wise it exceeded the end of the tray, hanging off about an inch or two.

And I ate the entire slice. Can't honestly say I felt so hot after that... but I did it. =)

After the pizza experience I wondered into a tiny little hippy shop that reminded me of something you'd find on Bardstown Rd in KY... yet it was slightly more yuppified. As everything here seems to be. But none the less I enjoyed the organo-sheek boutique and maybe I'll go back soon. Can't remember the name...

Later in the night was followed by a very long trip to Little Italy (we couldn't find it to begin with...). But when my friends and I finally did find it, oh how worth it it was. Again, I've dropped the ball on the camera thing..

They close the streets in Little Italy in the summer time and basically have a gigantic party in the streets. There are Italian flags everywhere. Lots of street vendors, only slightly more classy than those fellows you find in Times Square... as the Italian ones actually have a little hut to sell out of. And I've officially had the best teramissu in my life... which is saying something as my family is sort of obsessed with trying that dessert everywhere. The tiny little dessert shop also claimed to serve the world's best cannoli... and so far in my life I've got to agree. Splitting three desserts among five people was very affordable and we got out of there full at 4 bucks a person.

After Little Italy we passed China Town but neglected to go as it was almost midnight and didn't look too busy. That's going to be saved for another night.

There's also something here called bubble tea which is a funny thing to behold. I've never heard of it in KY... but if you can find it, get it. It's somewhat of an Asian craze and my roommate Rui was astonished that I'd never heard of it. It's regular tea mixed with some sort of cream and these squishy spheres from tapioca pudding. That's the best way to put it... it took me a while to get used to it. At first it sort of felt like I was eating eyeballs through a wide straw while drinking tea... but once I was assured that they are really balls of flour and not eyeballs, it was all good.

I'll update again soon and hopefully give some pictures that time. I know, reading hurts.

Not much to comment

So I am slightly uneasy in the fact that Mike and I have yet to start our research projects while everyone else is well on their ways. I had my first official day today... and I didn't do much of anything. It's not that I had any particular large amount of down time, I just saw another speaker, got a laptop, had another tour, and then watched a power point thing. I have yet to do anything particularly interny. I would normally be fine with this... but my advisor is leaving for Japan on Saturday and I am hardly self sufficient in any of the techniques I will be learning.

But oh well, I trust that things will work themselves out. They always seem to do so.

Hope everyone's summers are going well. It's a whole lot of fun here in New York. The offer is always open for someone to come visit! It's pretty easy for me to get a day off at work.

I guess it's time to do some more city exploration.

Hope you have a good day, Reader.


Chelsea

A public service message

So today was my first day at the museum. This is pretty well going to be the most amazing job I've ever had (Yea, take that stupid pottery studio that fired me!).

I spent all day going through orientations and meeting wonderful new people. They are all really nice. Seven of us went to dinner tonight and made really good friends.

It's odd that I got here expecting to live with all girls but in reality I live with all boys. There is Mike who is a fellow intern at the museum and working in conjunction with me so that is very nice. There is Rui who is a very funny talkative fellow who works at the JP Morgan in Midtown. Then there is Ryan who is from Harvard and he works at.... a bank. I forget which one. He is in the double room upstairs with Shane who is also working at a bank... again the name escapes me. They are all very very nice people and three of them at least are familiar with the area so that is very helpful to me. We get along great and just finished a game of Spades. So right now it is one shower for four boys and one girl... soon to be two girls but the second has yet to move in. But it's hardly a conflict because we all have very different schedules.

There are lots of girl interns in the suites scattered around the courtyard but there's too many to list. They seem very nice and we should get along well. It's all just good things I've got to say.

I have really flexible hours but I will probably go in around 9 or 9:30 and leave anywhere between 4 and 6... just depending on what I accomplish for the day.

So we went through a very arduous process of sitting in a lobby for a few hours waiting to get ID badges made... but in the end it was all worth it. With one swoosh of my little ID badge I am granted magical clearence to places that look like just black walls. I didn't even know there was a door in front of me until we walked through it.

And in case anyone has ever been to the Natural History Museum before... you will notice on your map that there are some large blank areas. Those are the places I will be working in. I've got clearance to the coolest places and they are giving each of us our own Mac laptops (Sorry, I'm not mac savvy and do not know the correct term for this object).

So we went to some more meetings and Mike, Julie (she is not on our project, but tagged along do to lack of supervisor), and myself were given a little tour of the meteorite room and the rooms where the electron microprobe and SEM are located.

After which point my friends and I left the planetary area and realized we were alone in the museum... not quite comprehending the situation we looked around and finally realized that the museum was closed. It was closed and we were still inside and that was ok. Do you know why? Because I am allowed access to the museum after hours. I know. It's awesome. =)

I also get to go the other public museums in the city for FREE as a perk of being a museum employee.


Ok... I'm done bragging ... but just to recap incase you missed any of it:

*Mac laptop
*Free reign
*Me + Closed museum = Fine to be inside
*Free entrance to other museums

Actually this is going to be a continuation of the bragging for me... but it is the research I will be doing for the summer. I will work on the Allende meteorite as I've previously mentioned. Everyone in the know about this thing knows that there are Calcium Aluminum inclusions (CAIs) scattered through the meteorite. Basically these are particles which are older than Earth itself and are suspected to have orignated from some other nebula (okay, I'm not an astronomer and it's my first day... so this nebula business may be a smidgen off). They were later encompassed into the Allende but nobody ever bothered to figure out in what concentration they exist in this meteorite. It sounds like an easy question to answer... but in reality it is not so easy. There are plenty of large (about 2 or 3 mm in diameter) CAIs, but then you've also got to take into account the seemingly infinite number of itty bitty teeny tiny weeny teeny little CAI guys hangin out in the conglomeration as well. So that's where the fancy SEM and microprobe come in. I'll be mapping these suckers and hopefully coming to some sort of conclusion about all of this. Dr Ebel (my advisor) even said he expects we'll get an abstract out of it and that is really good for me to get my name on. Hopefully I will be able to present this research at geologic or astronomy conferences in the next year. That is really good for me to get into as well, as you may have guessed.

So pretty much things are going fantabulous and I am having a blast. Except for the poles in the subway... I dont know what it is about those metal poles you have to hold, but as my friend pointed out, every one of them have the same greasy-grimy-millions-of-people-have-touched-this before me feel. And to a germophobe like myself that is slightly unnerving. But I've got the always handy nerdy bottle of hand sanitizer so that takes care of that. And one time a rather large fellow sat on me. That wasn't fun either. But I narrowly escaped suffocation as he had bad aim and only got my right leg.

=)

Chelsea

I have arrived.

There are few things in this life that scare me more than animatronic chocolate syrup in Hershey, PA.


That being said.... allow me to take you on a tour of my new place now that I've made myself at home a bit more.

here is a picture of the beautiful library at Columbia U. Just about a 2 minute walk from my room.



Here is a veiw from the library steps of the central part of campus. Or... what might be the central part... I'm really not sure. I haven't roamed around campus too much, too busy exploring the city.




This is another beautiful building on campus. Saw it in the last shot.... but I like it. I can't remember what exactly this building is for though.



A veiw of what may or may not be campus housing.... but either way it borders campus and is really neato.


Here is the little cobble stone stroll I take to catch the subway.

A thought

Moving in today!!

Lots of pictures to follow. Don't you worry.

Chelsea