Goodbye Narnia, Hello Middle-earth

I have finished the Chronicles of Narnia! Anyone who has read them knows this really isn't much of an accomplishment, but all the same I can now say I have read the whole series. And I definitely have my favorites.

First, a little background: The books were originally published in the order The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician's Nephew; and last The Last Battle. Now there are all kinds of scholars who argue the merits of reading them in their original publishing order. Lots of junk about how The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was clearly meant to be read first and that chronological order is really not that necessary. However, an old letter from Professor Lewis to his son mentioned a preference for the chronological order (he also said it didn't think it mattered what order they were read in). I personally like the chronological order because it makes it easier to follow some of the leaps in Narnian time.

At any rate, my favorite is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Followed by The Horse and His Boy. The Last Battle gets third because although I like some of the beautiful imagery in the end, I'm not big on "end of the world" stories. They scare me too much and I don't have a dog to cuddle with. Prince Caspian ties with The Silver Chair. I will admit that Prince Caspian is a much better character in Dawn Treader; he's really dense in his first book, but then again so are Eustace and Jill. Magician's Nephew comes next because again the imagery is beautiful. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe comes dead last. I just don't like that one, which I hate to admit because most people like that one the best. *sigh*

Well, anyway, now I'm going to go back to Middle-earth. Parts 2 and 3 of Lord of the Rings are beckoning.

Adventures

It was a cloudy day outside the GSRC. The researchers were researching. The reactions were reacting. The sonicators were sonicating. All was normal. Until something disturbed the quiet halls of academia. That something was a fire alarm. 

Now the great and sage professor had told his pupils on countless occasions, "We don't do fire drills. If you hear a siren, it's real. Just get out!" So it was with great haste that the young student made her way down the winding path of the stairwell, followed closely by her confused foreign comrade, who had never heard the formidable call of the fire alarm. 

With great patience the little community of scholars gathered outside their ivory tower and waited for clarification. A fire truck and a small delegation of the local police arrived, only to foster the growing curiosity of the group. Finally an agent of the Health and Safety Department was found and the scientists were enlightened. They finally learned as they filed back to their respective places of study the cause of all the commotion. 

Apparently if there's too much water flow in a particular tube in the mechanics room it automatically sets off the fire alarm. Fantastic. 

Summer Projects

Well here I am. On campus in the summer. Another adventure is underway. I have two summer projects that I'm working on.

Summer Project 1: Reading

I've always got an incredibly long reading list, but this summer I particularly want to read the Chronicles of Narnia Series and parts 2 and 3 of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I'm taking a class next fall about Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams, and I've got a bad feeling that I'll be the only person in the class who is not fluent in Elvish. I have seen both the "regular" and the extended editions of all three movies and read the Fellowship. So I'm probably about on par with a normal person's understanding of LOTR. And trust me, that's accomplishment because last fall I didn't even know who Legolas was or how to spell Gandalf. Sad but true. Right now though I'm working on Narnia because I'm borrowing the series from my sister. I had previously read the first two but that was a long time ago, so I just reread those and today I finished book 3, the Horse and His Boy. I really don't want or need all the other people in the class shunning me as the loser who hasn't even read the Narnia series or heaven forbid be the person who hasn't read Lord of the Rings. So this is definitely getting priority on the reading list.

Summer Project 2: Don't Starve

The situation: No more meal plan. Also no freezer and limited fridge space.
The conflict: I like eating.
The solution: Microwaveable easy mac.
Haha I'm just kidding. I eat more than easy mac. I went to the grocery and got myself some bread and sandwich stuffs. And poptarts (I Looooooove poptarts). Also got a fruit bowl thing with pineapple, strawberries and kiwis. Cuz you know I've got to at least try to eat healthy. I do of course have the cosco bulk box of easy mac. Yum. I had soups but I finished those last night, so no more until I get back to the grocery. The major purchase was Jimmy Dean fully cooked sausage patties. I was leary but Mere eats the bacon all the time (she doesn't even microwave which I think is gross). As it turns out they're not bad. Yesterdays breakfast was two sausages cut up on a bagel with some cheese. Delicious. So I'm not starving yet. Dinner is still a work in progress and tonight I think I may treat myself to some Which Wich.

The Calbert Report

Now go back and reread the title as "the calbear repour" if you didn't the first time.

Thank you.

First on the agenda: Where in the world is Jackie San Diego? Aka Jackie still wants to kick some people in the housing office. Stupid lazy overly complicated bureaucracy. grr. Yes I am still in my room on the 5th floor of the honors dorm and will be there until an undetermined time on one of two semi-determined dates. Becky and Casey (the suitemate) both left today so its fairly empty and frighteningly quiet. Plus the tv's gone.

Tomorrow looks to be a combination of Hectic and Tiring, with chances of Research in the afternoon. Be sure to bring along your Problem Solving Skills folks because we could get some pretty befuddling Packing storms throughout the day.

News of the weird: It seems my brain only cares to remember random factoids about specific randomly selected people. If you're not one of those randomly selected people, I seem to be capable of holding entire conversations with you without knowing your name or even how it is you know mine. A rather severe drought of name-memory was ended today when I finally stalked around facebook until I identified the poor boy.

Word of the day: vamoose. v. to depart quickly.

And now for The Bright Side, brought to you by Purex 3-in-1 Laundry Sheets! The curtains had very strange and inexplicable stains on them, in addition to looking like Kansas during the Dust Bowl. So into the wash went and now they look nice and fresh and clean.

And to end off our night, I saw a puppy going for a walk today. Good night America!

NRJ

The one awesome thing to come from this stupid "let's take business french it'll be so useful" idea of mine: NRJ.com. For our last project for the class we had to pick a french company and do a presentation on it. You know, powerpoint, 10-ish minutes, not that hard. Not a lot of guidance either, but that's a different topic. I did mine on Lacoste (the little crocodile shirts). The two guys who went the same day as me made me look great cuz they didn't know about the powerpoint requirement. haha. yep.

So Friday's presentations were much more like mine and this one guy (who's name I cannot remember for the life of me) did his on this french radio company, NRJ. It started as an acronym but it's not anymore. Pronounce it like "energy" with a french accent and you'll be good to go. So get this: they have online webradio stations. NRJ Pop, NRJ Rock, NRJ Reggae, etc etc etc. Now prepare yourself for: NRJ French. Yes. A free webradio station that plays round the clock non stop music exclusively in french. Can you say AWESOME? I can.

Curse you, beautiful sunshiny day

How am I supposed to get anything done on a pretty day? Worse than the internet trying to trick me into procrastination, the warm sunshine is just begging for me to nap on the horseshoe. Which I one hundred percent shouldn't do; there are far too many things that really really really ought to get done for me to go laying about and daydreaming. Humph. Maybe if I wish really hard and cross all my fingers my homework will do itself and my laundry will magically be clean and folded neatly in its drawers.

Oh I know, but a girl can dream right?

Holy Cow

I decided that I was going to head off my itchy eyes right from the get-go this year and bought allergy medicine today. Now I'm a bit, uh, reluctant to spend money so I went for the cheap CVS brand allergy tablets. You got 48 tablets for the same price as the 24 tablet box of name brand whatevers. And it clearly says "For allergy relief: sneezing, runny nose, itchy watery eyes, itchy throat". Great! That pretty much covers my basic anti-allergy medicine needs right?

WRONG.

When the back of the box says "marked drowsiness may occur" they are not kidding. I have been practically asleep on my feet all day. Oops. Really glad I only took 1 instead of the recommended 2. Geez. Moral of the story: don't mess around with allergy medicine. Always put down the money for the non-drowsy kind.

Science Quotes

Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.
Evan Esar 

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'

Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.
Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895)

hehehe. 

Bummer

The real problem with spring break is that it ends. Going to class again is such a bummer. I don't really mind sitting through class so much, or even the learning thing. It's the whole homework thing that has to go. Oh and the getting up part. If I could stay in my nice warm bed and learn from there, it would be much better for sure.

In other news I'm reading Fellowship of the Ring and enjoying it.

Google Trends

This kind of stuff always peaks my interest.

Harry Potter reaps 5.2 times the number of searches as Lord of the Rings.

People search for "free movie" 17 times more often than "buy tickets".

Paris Hilton is 12.5 times more popular than Nicole Richie.

Katrina still gets 1.5 times more searches than Haiti.

3 times as many people searched for "physics help" than "biology help" and 1.36 times as many needed help with  chemistry than with physics.

Peace Corps is most often searched for in Washington DC, followed by Madison WI and Portland OR.

Sound Familiar?

You might work in lab if you're more afraid of what's on your hands before you go to the bathroom than after.

You might be a science major if your notes include the words "various math steps later".

You might be science kid if you have ever considered ditching class to go to a seminar.

You might be a chemist if your experiment would be illegal in your parents' garage.

You might be a physicist if you have ever been disappointed that your intro physics book didn't include the quantum mechanics appendix.

You might be a biologist if you have ever grown something that could wipe out an entire third world country.

You might be a science major if you think Schrodinger would be an epic name for a cat.

Or Earl and Meyer for a set of dogs.

Funny Story

     

Ages ago in Pchem (ok like two weeks ago) I turned to my dear friend Lindsey and I said, "Dearest friend Lindsey, I have procured an apartment for us for the upcoming academic year in a most favorable location, near a park". (Now you know me better than to think I would actually say it like that but just go along with it, ok?)

So she responded, "Oh really? Do tell!"

and I said, "Oh yes. We are to have 306, of Legare."










And do you know that she very specifically neglected to tell me until just today that the apartment I had procured with so little thought happens to be the very apartment which she inhabits at this very time? I cannot even begin to tell you my surprise!

Wait...what?

So my roommate considered going to the baseball game today. Then we realized that neither of us knew how to get tickets for sporting events. Because we're band kids. How sad is that?

For the forecast, I am now hoping it rains soon so I can wear my adorable plaid rain boots. Unfortunately today is far too bright and sunny to get away with wearing them.

In current events, I have a fairly busy weekend ahead of me. Volunteering as a returnee at the Study Abroad Pre-departure Q&A session today, tomorrow I'll be at a bball game in the afternoon (men's), carolina scholar weekend dorm tour at 5, immediately followed by bowling with the research group. Oh and sometime this weekend I need to do 3 lab reports. Hehehe.

Now back to the olympics...

Yay for me!

Ok excuse me while I do just a little bragging: A on my first physical chemistry exam, A on my first physical chemistry lab report. Boo-yah! K so out of my class of 46 persons, I was one of 17 to get an A. Now before you all go saying, but Jackie, I thought you said this was a weed-out class. Trust me it is. Another 16 people failed the test. It seems to have been one of things where if you got it, you really got it, but if you didn't, you REALLY didn't. I've been reserving judgement as to whether or not I like pchem until this first exam, because it's all well and good to say a class isn't that bad, but until you've taken the first test, you don't really know. So I give myself official license to like pchem.

Also in the good news category, I feel rather validated in my career choice (research chemist) in that pretty much everyday I feel like I'd rather just go to research all day. You have no idea how much more productive I could be if I didn't have to go to class and do homework. Sigh. Oh and I got to watch Kristina use the UV-vis spectrometer which was pretty cool, except it was having issues. It's kind of grumpy and only likes certain people. Apparently Kristina is not one of them.

Oh and as my final good thing of the day I had hot chocolate from Starbucks and it was yummy. Thank you and good night.

Just another typical day

TGIF. I'm so ready for the weekend. And check this: no lab reports this weekend, and no basketball games. I need the break. Today was a good day overall, except for the continuous downpour of rain. In business french we've moved on to marketing, which I find rather more useful than the types of french businesses and how to start a business in France. Trust me, I have no intention of ever trying to start my own business, let alone in France. Physics is still retarded. This woman just can't teach. I'm sure she knows her stuff, but her ability to teach is non-existent. However, today was cool because I made friends with this guy who sits next to me.

Research is going well. Can't really know if what I'm doing is working because I can't identify it based on XRD alone. Not being able to identify is generally a good thing, because it significantly increasing your chances of having found something new. However, this also means you have to give your samples to Mark (the crystallographer who can pretty much identify anything), which means you won't really know what they are for a few weeks at the earliest. This can make it hard to move forward. So right now it's kind of a waiting game. I also have 4 more samples that I'm in the process of cleaning in the sonicator. And by monday that will go up to 6, because I just put in 2 more reactions today.

Oh and success of the day: there's a mac in the main room that nobody uses, that is never on and I wasn't even sure could turn on. But I get tired of going to the mac in the XRD room to check email or whatever (plus I feel bad using that one cuz everyone needs it). So today I tried turning it on and was able to get it up and running, and hooked up to the internet. And I found an extra mouse for it. Score one for Jackie.

King Google

Ok I might need to just invest in Google stock. I use:

• Gmail
• Blogger (owned by Google)
• Google Earth
• Google Analytics
• Google Wave
• Google Chrome
• and of course Google the search engine

Seriously if Google decided to just stop, my life would be basically over.

Nerd Jealousy

This is terribly nerdy. One of my friends changed her profile picture to a picture of her wearing her lab goggles and I was like OMG! I have to have a picture of me in goggles! So this is what I got:

 Ta-da! Think of me what you will, but I don't hate this picture. Even if my glasses are a little crooked (which is kind of their normal state really).

Rainy Yucky Day

Problems I have with today:

1.) It is disgusting outside. Rainy, windy, cold. Not acceptable.

2.) I'm spending most of it being uncharacteristically productive, but not in an enjoyable way. I'm doing a pchem lab report which is making me want to run into walls.

3.) I probably won't finish the lab report today and will have to spend tomorrow working on it as well.

4.) I had a peanut butter and jelly bagel sandwich for lunch that has decided to pick a fit with my stomach. My stomach is incredibly disappointed in my lunch choice and has decided to be incredibly uncooperative and distracting.

5.) I still haven't gotten my nap.


So I vote for a do-over. Today would be much better if I could erase my to-do list, change the weather, and add a happy soundtrack.

Interview Oopsies

K, so I went to the Career Center and picked up (and took home) a copy of "Job Choices 2010: For Science Engineering & Technology Students" (published by www.jobweb.com) from their lobby. This morning I was perusing the obligatory article on interviewing. Every career success magazine has one and they all say the same thing. Be on time; dress to impress, but be conservative; answer questions honestly but positively, etc. What made them unusual was their inclusion of a half page section entitled "What were they thinking?" They are simply too funny so I felt I had to share. Real employers told jobweb.com that real job seekers:

• came a day late for their interview
• asked the interviewer for a date
• talked on their cell phone in the middle of the interview
• wore a prom dress to the interview
• wore a sequined suit with a gold cowboy hat 
• brought their lunch and ate it during the interview
• told the interviewer that they were only there "for practice"

And this one's a jewel:

• told the interviewer: "Times being what they are, I can't be too particular, so I'm interviewing with you." 

Please don't be one of these people! 

Again, I didn't come up with these, so check out www.jobweb.com for more. 

Normalized

Another cartoon based off Pchem notes. Enjoy.

My handwriting is chicken scratch at best, so the dialogue is as follows:

Teacher: Class, this is our new student, Psi.
Sine: He looks like a nerd!
Teacher: He's not a nerd! He's been normalized. Sine, you're normalizeable; you could get normalized too if you'd just learn your calculus!
Sine: Oh yeah? Well maybe I don't wanna be an acceptable wavefunction of a system!
Etothex: Can I be an acceptable wavefunction?
Group: NO!