May 5, 2008
what do you take me for? Some kind of easy mark?
the weather has warmed back up. the lake glistened in the sunshine during my run today. it was quite warm. i have a adorable track outfit for aiden. it is so cute. it makes people smile when they pass us.
i got a pedicure today. i still hesitate to pay someone to paint my toe nails, but it was nice to get out of the house and relax alone with a magazine. aiden is breaking in teeth, so our nights have backslid a little. so it was nice to have an hour alone.
i got my proofs back for my paper. and edited them. and returned them. all on saturday afternoon. there wasn't many edits - a missing m, and couple of additions to make it more uniform. all the edits were done in reader, so that was awesome. it was nice to see the paper in journal form - with all the figures and captions in the text. it is nice to to have to read it again, but it was sad to see the last bit of my science science career close. i know that i'll do research and write papers, but i do love science. and i love my research in hindsight. ; )
Posted by christina at 8:24 PM | Comments (1)
January 16, 2008
all is full of love
yay! i have finished my revisions/response to the reviewers and sent them off to my co-author. good times. it was actually kinda hard to get them done as aiden has been teething and is whiny mcwhiny. and some of the points were quite ridiculous. one reviewer cited 4 papers she wanted to know why we didn't reference. two of them were single author papers. it wasn't hard to figure out who the reviewer is.
though we went to another ped at the office on monday b/c it had been a week of whining. i liked her a lot. she said, yep, probably teething. (directly contrary to the other dr who said in response to my "i think he is teething" with it is too early.) anyways, so yay. teething. oh well, i like co-sleeping. it is much easier to just have him in bed then getting up and rocking and putting him down 4 times before he'd stay. so easy! and he is big enough that i don't worry about people squashing him. usually get sleeps in his crib until 2 or 3. so that works out.
also at the end of his morning nap (which is always in the crib) he flipped over!
i got a latte maker for christmas and have been enjoying it immensely. i totally recommend it. it is a pain to clean, but totally worth saving the $5 per drink. and i don't have to leave the house, which will come in handy 7 on sunday. oh winter. you have come with your cold.
Posted by christina at 5:26 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2007
I can't help but to hear an exchanging of words
it is amazing to me that so many people expect their babies to do what most adults cannot do - go to sleep easily and by themselves.
i smell like sunscreen despite having taken a shower. the sun shines brilliantly today and so i remember prerun sunscreen.
i run slowly, but my heart rate is high - in the 150s - much higher than the elliptical.
lots of random people walk on the lakefront on the weekend.
ben hates comcast so much that we are going satellite tomorrow. it will end up quite a bit cheaper. my only requirements was the discovery health channel and universal hd for my daily northern exposure. i heart northern exposure. it is so. much. better than any tv on now. it reenforces my distain for gray's anatomy. northern exposure doesn't have any stupid girls obsessed with their love lives. it has interesting storylines with interesting characters.
life is about choices, and today as i spend the afternoon, as i do most, laying in bed facilitating the afternoon nap, i am happy i've made this choice - where i have little to do besides grow the baby. of course, lt is sweeter when i am avoiding something - today - the reviewers comments for a paper. I did read them and they aren't scary. I just always want reviewers to come back with oh - this is great, no changes, but of course, this is not their job. but it takes me a week or so to accept that they aren't personal and to go about deciding how to respond. but it is hard when you just want to lay in bed and watch northern exposure.
Posted by christina at 2:19 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2007
blackbird singing in the dead of night
A new whole food opened up 5 blocks from us. It is about 2 blocks closer than the other whole food. it is quite a bit nicer. First, it was not busy today at 11. The other one is crazy at 11 on mondays. the parking is much better along with the elevator. the store is huge. We could definitely walk there. And I would have, except that i wanted to take the puppy and she can sit in the car, but cannot sit alone out front.
Papers take FOREVER to get through the review process. I submitted a paper (basically half of my thesis) in May. I logged in to change my e-mail address (as my NU one finally expired) half expecting that the paper would be out of review, but no, my memory of 6 months is right. Though, as i said as we were slow in submitting, that a later publication date is better for my CV. I'm trying to figure out my timing from here - when to go back to class in order to minimize a gap on my resume for another kid. I also think about getting a internship summer that is more applicable to my goals. I have lots of time now to look and bother people, so I have no excuse. I would like to stay in chicago, but the upside to ben being a teacher is that he is off this summer and we can go somewhere else (as long as we can take the dog and cat).
this is my current dream - we'll see. I'll be honest, I can't imagine making any sort of decisions with my hormones still settling and my sleep still interrupted.
Posted by christina at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2007
betting on train
my babies
today i went to heaven. or at least what i picture heaven to be like. it was a giant book sale at a library between here and downtown. Mounds and mounds of books for cheap. it was awesome. It was sort of busy, as it had only been open an hour or so when i got there. i got a lot of books for $17. it was awesome.
it is also awesome that i don't even thing about driving somewhere if i can take the el. that is the best thing about having worked downtown and got so use to taking the train. and the el was empty this afternoon. and speedy.
yesterday was my last day of work. i had mixed feelings. I had arbitrarily picked the end of july as my end day. i suspected the the heat of august + 8.5 month pregnant + el would not equal happiness.
but the weather has been mild. and my comfort level is still the same. yeah, i get hot, and tire easily, and my abs muscle hurt if i sit in my office chair all day. but i could definitely go another two weeks. up to when we go on vacation. and then after that i'm going to be walking my ass off trying to encourage this baby to decamp before the end of august. unfortunately ben's sister will be studying aboard for fall semester and so i really would like to have sack before she leaves. but one can't control these things and he will just really be a bump on the log during those 3 months, so she won't really miss much.
anyways, my timing of the end of work also times with Congress's august vacation, so it probably will be quiet around the office.
i'm really enjoyed my internship. I am very glad that i managed it the way i did. i've gotten a taste of NGO policy and advocacy work. I have felt the frustration of our legislative system. and the uncertainty of how it will all end. It has been a great experience and have left with some great contacts - including an invitation to their science advisory council in sept.
Posted by christina at 4:11 PM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2007
participate
support one of my causes - go here. support clean energy. participate in your government.
(the link is to send a letter to your rep urging them to support clean energy funding. it takes 30 secs)
(Chambliss is a ranking member, so you GA people really should click and send. But everyone should. cuz when was the last time you participated? (Besides Shelby. He is way more participatory than anyone i know, and rocks.))
most of the time, i really wish that my ph.d. was as visable as being pregnant or even being married. i'm tired of people looking at me and just seeing my belly. today i want to be surrounded by science, to be surrounded by people who see my brain and not my tummy.
Posted by christina at 12:15 PM | Comments (1)
September 7, 2006
done done doneish
i passed. my defense went as expected. they only questioned me for 45 minutes. i only have a couple of corrections that i'll get done today. the best thing was that my mom (with the help of ben and ben's parents) totally surprised me at my defense. i hadn't even asked them to come, since i'll see them in a month, but she totally was sitting in the conference room with ben's parents when i walked in. crazy! it was awesome
all it all i'm pretty much still in shock (numb) that i am done. it is just an unknown feeling. I do have a crazy amount of stuff to do before i start at the next school. but yeah, it feels good.
Posted by christina at 8:37 AM | Comments (3)
August 23, 2006
sweet chocolate jesus
printed, bounded, and deliveried.
now i have two weeks to stress and prepare for my defense.
i'm already nervous.
kinkos binding is awesome.
Posted by christina at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)
July 31, 2006
maybe I am a crowded mind
Currently, I am a weird pot of feelings. I have a hand-full of experiments I would like to do in
the next two weeks, only one i have to do, and lots of time to do them. I have the future work
chapter to do. Easy breezy. I am getting really excited to defend. I am far enough away that i'm
not nervous yet, just excited. It is really strange to have spent 4 years thinking that the end
was so. far. off. that is so strange that it is 37 days away.
As I wrap stuff up, I am remembering how much I love research. I love the pace of my days. I love
the making of sample and the testing to see if you got what you wanted. Of course, life is bad
when you didn't, but when you do, when you have solved whatever obstacle you were chipping away
at, life is awesome. I love love love the flexibility of grad school. Of course, i can't remember
the last day (including weekends) lately that i haven't come in, but i love that i don't get in
until 10 (gotta get my run in), and I leave at 7. If i have something i need to do (appointmens
and such). I just do them. I don't have to ask premission of anyone. I am spoiled. paid
poorly. but there's a great parting gift!
I am proud of my work. I am also apprehensive to see how the advisor and my committee members
respond to it. For really no reason, except it is a reseacher's greatest fear for someone to stand
up and say that all your work is crap.
Posted by christina at 10:52 AM | Comments (1)
June 27, 2006
hey julie / look what they're doing to me
You might have noticed that my defense countdown has changed. My advisor cannot now make my orginal defense date. And one of my committee members can now make the original date that I wanted. Thankfully all of my members were answering their phone in their offices yesterday and are available on my orginal date, Sept. 6. This is a lot less stressful than defend on friday start U of C on Monday. (Though in defense of my other plan, it is just orientation week and on Monday all it is is the math exam.)
The other thing that came out of my earliest meeting to date with the advisor (9 am) was that all the data i had been questioning was good. Yay. I think i would be a lot more stressed by the loss of 1.5 weeks of work pre-thesis if I was still thinking that i needed to repeat all of my multi-layer data.
I am sending three chapters to my advisor friday, which leave two remaining. One of the remaining two has a fair amount written. The travelling and down time of the next week with be good for my writing. Writing and doing research do not alway go well. When i am at school, research is my priority. Most of my writting has been down on conference or at home on the the weekend. Therefore the airplane time will be great of the completion of the other chapter. of course, there is still more data that i want. and that i might add.
Posted by christina at 1:01 PM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2006
lock your devils up
Today I participated in our department’s senior symposium. It happens every May. Because the class before me has be SO SLOW in graduating, this year schedule had a lot of speakers from the "class" before me.
It went well. I got compliments on my talk. The main speaker was a women who has risen through Intel because she is capable and also because she moved her family every two years. Because of the past 10 years, she is now able to “park”. It seemed good for her career and her family. She was lucky she had a spouse who had a real flexible job (and could take two years from it to live in Ireland).
I could work for Intel. (One of the last graduates from our group does.) It is tempting because of the money, but it is long hours. It is moving. It is industry research in a field up again a physical wall. Though it would be interesting to try to overcome the materials challenges that face the next 20 years of logic and memory, it would be risky. Risk has never scared me before (on the long term at least). In a way, i giving up the opportunity to earn a lot of money doing a lot what i do now to fulfill my larger goal. I feel I can make a larger difference in policy than in logic chips.
We had dinner with one of my favorite and least favorite professors. My favorite brought his cute awesome wife and three month old baby. She is so cute. My least favorite is a chauvinist. He was perfectly pleasant at dinner, but man, I would not want to work for him.
They gave prizes for the day. I think this is pretty much insulting as all the talks were good and were on such varied topics, how could you judge between them?
So it goes…
Posted by christina at 7:22 PM | Comments (0)
May 2, 2006
you say /you want
Conferences are always interesting. Since I am “getting out of the business”, it is hard to stay motiviated to go to talks. I usually go to talks the whole time as you never know when something is going to help you. At the last conference, I stumbled upon a key piece of information on my project. In the past at this conference, I found it easy to fill my conference time. All the talks were are about coatings. I like coatings. This one, it seems, has less of things that are interesting, or I am more impaitent. I doubt it is that there are less interesting things. I bet that I am more tunnel visoned then before. Unless it can directly help me with my current work, I would rather be working on my thesis. I enjoy the talks by people that I “know”. I enjoy the roses. I enjoy learning. Sitting through talks all day is lessening my apprehension about returning to class in the fall.
My room is quite nice, and the location is better than ever. I have a balcony; it is very nice to sit out there and talk to ben. Going away always reminds me of lots of things I take for granted; it especially reminds us how much of a relationship is just existing together. It is hard to exist together on the phone; the battery starts to burn your hands after awhile and the time change calls you to different tasks.
I ran a lot this morning, surprisening myself because it involved hills.
Nervous energy, I was glad to expend. I present this afternoon. I’ve never presented this work at a conference. With my other project, it was second nature to present it, I had presented it so many times. When you present the progress of the same project, you know that questions to expect. I am not sure what questions to expect.
Posted by christina at 1:43 PM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2006
one way or the other / i'm gonna find you
Today was an exciting day at work...and proves currently that i'm a little insane (ooo the alarm
just went off. excellent.).
11 am: start my daily x-ray experiment.
11:10: x-ray lab kinda smells. not too bad, i'll live.
11:15: fellow grad student comes by and asks if i smell gas. actually, it is exactly what i smell.
he tells me it is much stronger next door and even smells outside. he says they've already called the police.
11:16: think - please don't let them evacuate the building
11:17: other student in the lab asks if it is okay to use the equipment with the natural gas smell.
i say, sure, it is diffuse and the equipment is already on. we just start the x-ray. anyway, i
see the fire extinguisher, so we'll be okay.
11:25: the alarm. is goes off. stupid women's voice - "there has been a fire emergency reported in
the building. please leave..." loud beeping. i grab my lab book and papers and head out to my office
which is in another building not directly connected to the x-ray one. I'll wait it out in my office.
11:27: damn, they've also evacuated my building. in fact, they evacuated all the research buildings.
11:29: after failing to find my labmates at our rally point, i settle in on a bench in
Shakespeare’s garden, in the sun, to read paper. thank goodness i had a stack with me. the weather is also breathtakingly beautiful with every approaching siren, i give up a little more on the idea that this will be a quick break. i curse not
being in my office and therefore I do not have my jacket, my phone, my computer, my wallet, my bag, my
car keys. i begin to wonder if this will be an all day affair. if it is a natural gas leak bad
enough to evacuate all the research buildings, than this day is spent. of course, i couldn't
actually leave as i was in the middle of an x-ray run and a sample synthesis. plus...a whole
afternoon from work? a missed sample making day? was i crazy? stupid leaking gas smell.
12:30: return to area in front of building to figure out what is going on. run into two professors I know,
the first tells me that it was a giant spill of a chemical in the nanotechonology building that
contained sulfur, hence the natural gas smell. The second tells me that they are letting people
back in. I return to my office to check on my synthesis and to drink some soda. i was thirsty.
12:40; i look outside to see everyone still milling around. i don't want to leave to go to the
x-ray lab in case i get stuck outside again.
12:24: i call ben, who is trying to get a tiller into the back of his car for project sod. he is
off of school today because, well, for kinda the same reason i almost had the day off.
12:45 i check the people.
12:55: again.
1:05: finally they seem to be going back into the building. i set off for the x-ray lab to find
the alarm going off. it is stuck on. i go in. must do work. already wasted 1.5 hours. so beautiful
outside.
1:10: audible alarm goes off
now, 1:25 - alarm light still flashing.
2:17: rumor now has it that it was a big natural gas leak in one of the building and a spill in the other. who knows.
4:00: official rumor has it that it was a 1 cup chemical spill of a "Beta Thiol". Of course, Thiol means sulfur, therefore the sulfur smell, hence the natural gas smell. 1 cup was all it took to evacuate 5 buildings. crazy! the smell was so strong, i cannot believe it was only one cup. though, with sulfur, a little goes a long way. i believe humans are really sensitive to sulfur smells. it could be to keep us away from rotten eggs.
Posted by christina at 2:17 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2006
paint it black as night
man harassing cat. tyroid pill giving. insert "swallow! swallow!" into soundtrack as the cat purrs because she knows she's about to get food.
It has been really interesting to see how the debate about the researcher and the stem cells has fallen out. On one hand, I’ve been rooting for the advancement of science. On the other hand, the results were just too clean. People wanted too badly for it to be true. The situation hits home one major issue that plagues most research groups – who gets their name on a paper. I doesn’t surprise me that that research turned out to be wrong. As this article points out, lots of research turns out to be innocently wrong – machines are wrong, observations are wrong, this is just how science works. Of course, it has come out that Dr. Hwang lied his ass off. This does not surprise me either. For fame and fortune, people will do a lot of things (bomb countries, etc). What surprises me the most is the Prof. from Pennsylvania who put his name on the paper without ever seeing an experiment performed or contributing the project in any meaningful way.
The business of authors of papers is a sticky one in science. Each group has its own traditions for it. I would never have my name put on a paper in which I did not participate meaningfully in the experiments. The only paper my name is on that I did not write myself, is one for a mech eng co-worker, in which I made the samples he tested. Without me, no samples, no test, no paper. I worked with him, saw him performing the experiments, and stand behind his work, and therefore the paper – whether his conclusions are correct or incorrect.
There are certain groups at my university who put a million people as authors. I don’t really understand this tradition. I understand wanting to have more publications for your list, but by putting your name on a paper you are taking responsibility for what is in that paper. This is the point the penn professor didn’t understand. Once it started to come out that the Hwang data was false, he want to pull his name from the paper. I think the whole paper was retracted before Science decided if they were going to allow this or not. It brings up the point that you should not put your name on a paper unless you are willing to stand behind the failure (or success) of the conclusions.
I know that one of the major things missing from science and engineering curriculums (especially on the graduate level where you are performing research) is ethics classes. My department every year as talked about having a seminar on this topic, but it has yet to materialize. I don’t think for lack of interest, but for lack of speakers. There is a real need for ethics discussions and leaders in science and engineering, as illustrated by the Hwang debacle. I’ve put in on my life list to do something about.
Posted by christina at 11:52 AM | Comments (1)
December 8, 2005
all you need is love
mmm, warm,
The Pump and I
Stupid pump, why won’t you pump down?
Change oil.
No good.
Change filter.
No good.
Clean and reset all o-rings.
No help.
Check exhaust line.
Uck, oil redisual everywhere, beside that looks okay.
No help.
Find manual.
Check cap.
No good.
Replace chamber – intake line.
No good.
Curse at pump.
No good.
Read manual.
Decide that I really don’t want to take apart this oil pump if I can help it.
Remember, oh, there is an orphan pump in a random room with the Chung name on it.
Confirm existence.
Loose tea mug.
Get cart.
Bring pump back to lab (it is heavy, hence need for cart).
Change oil.
Oil is clean. How nice.
Change filter.
Filter is clean. How nice.
Connect to chamber.
Turn on.
It is so quiet.
And works.
Yay! I have fixed my problem while avoiding taking apart the oily pump.
Still, due to all the changing, have tracked oil all over the lab.
A day in the life of a research engineer.
Hunk o’ man is taking me out to this tonight
it is suppose to snow 3-6 inches by 5, so we'll see if we don't die first.
Posted by christina at 2:29 PM | Comments (0)
October 31, 2005
i get a little lonely / when i see only me
Nikko, Japan. (thanks justin again)
The week starts with me in Boston. I am staying in this great little bed and breakfast. (It was quite a bit less (like $150 a night) than any hotel around the conference center. And with the T, it is quite easy to get to the convention center about a mile away.) I’ve never stayed in a bread and breakfast before. It is interesting, just as it is small. There is no one on my floor, so it is quite quiet. It was especially quiet this morning as I got up ran, came back, and left again before the “host” got there. It is quite like being a guest in someone’s house. The best thing is the free internet…and the grocery store right down the street…and the beautiful neighborhood (brookline to be exact)….and the T station right outside.
I’ve never been to Boston, and am leaving Tuesday night, so I am trying to figure out the “must sees” in my short amount of free time. I think Wednesday, post presentation, I’m going to walk to the Freedom Trail. Or maybe tomorrow. I should at some point pratice my presentation. It has a bunch of new stuff, so I can’t just wing it like the past couple of times I’ve presented. I am so happy to have new data, but did not take it all myself, so I’ve been learning a lot about thermal desorption these past couple of days. Interesting, I must say. I’m happy, though, that I believe this is my last conference to talk about this project. The abstracts I submitted for the spring conference are on my other projects, which I rather talk about at this point.
Anyways, I’m taking suggestions for must sees in Boston.
Tomorrow, from the map I got this morning, I’ll have a much cooler running route (though my route was good, just a lot of lights) as it looks like I’ll be able to easily run to Cambridge (which I believe is the run that Joey was running in the opening credits of Daw-son’s Creek.) Tonight, I’m checking out Coplay, a big mall thing close to the covention center.
Boston is nice; I’m enjoying it a lot most than Baltimore and Anihem as cities. (of course Baltimore was nicer cuz I had friends there to play with.) Especially now that I have subway tokens, which was the challenge this morning. The T is a street car by my b&b. Therefore you have to give the drive 1.25 when you get one. I had 1.25, but not in quarters which is what it requires, according to the sign. I just walked it up to the subway station (it goes to subway very near where I tried to catch it) and got a token from the machine there. So it all worked out.
Posted by christina at 3:21 PM | Comments (1)
October 28, 2005
driving slow on Sunday morning / and I never want to leave
Richard Smalley died today after a lengthy battle with cancer. Internationally renowned for his work in nanotechnology, Smalley was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996 for co-discovering buckminster fullerenes, a new form of carbon.
Smalley was a professor at Rice University and a founder of Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc., a Texas-based company that produces carbon nanotubes.
More on Richard Smalley’s achievements can be found on SmallTimes.com.
I’ve been quite busy this week trying to get ready for my conference next week. I only have 3 days as today and yesterday I’ve been in the Golden Jubilee Symposia of my Mat Sci & Eng department. It has been was more interesting that I expected. That have been some really amazing speakers over a wide wide wide range of topics. One forgets how much mat sci and eng covers. We’ll just say there is nothing you touch that doesn’t involve a materials scientist. Some talks have also given be a good bunch of information for a personal statement that is on my plate to write.
Crazy day in a crazy week for the news as Libby got indicted. The cover-up is always the problem. I am undecided if the reveling of “Flame”’s name was a crime. I am glad, though, to see that the Bush Administration is being held accountable for thinking they are above the law. I can respect a difference in politics of mine and the Bush administration; what has always bothered me was the moral superiority of the Bush administration. They have routinely acted like they are accountable to no one. I am glad that someone is finally holding them accountable.
And yesterday, as I got ready, Meirs was a nominee, as I got in my car, no long a nominee.
Ah, this symposia makes me want to stay in research, but only in the romantic sense. I love the feel of discovery, but hate the lack of it. I know that my skills will be best used in my current plan (the funding/management side). I say that I just don’t have the heart for research, but I do, or I wouldn’t have gotten this far. I just want to do more than just research. I want to enable other people to do valuable research. I sit here and thing, ooooohhhh, the is cool. I want to do that. I forgot that these people are showing years of data. Thesis of data. It is the in between times that are tough.
Posted by christina at 4:49 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2005
i would walk five thousand miles
I’ve made it back safe and sound. I’m enjoying (I guess) the longest technical day of my life. I was up at 5:00 this morning (in Tokyo time, 3 pm, Thrusday, Chicago time) to go to the fish markets. It was crazy full of fish. You can’t see where the fish come in and go to auction, but you can wander through the external market (middle men) and see all the fish and sea food and everything in between, including pottery. We found a great little pottery stand and got a couple things. We made it back for an 8 am breakfast. We left for the train station at 9:30, caught the 10 am train to the airport. 11:15 am found us checking in. They have a weird system in which your checked bag goes through the x-ray before you check it. They put stickers across the zippers, but one could easily slip something into their bag after screening. Though they are probably looking for bombs, which would be hard to slip in unnoticed (and without breaking the stickers) in the check in line.
After a final lunch of udon, at 1:30 we boarded the 777. It is a beautiful plane. We have an on time departure at 2:34 pm. I slept a good bit in the middle of the flight, in hopes of returning easily to us time. I watched bewitched (I love the 777s with their personal screen systems). Turns out that the trip back is much quicker as one catches the jet stream. The trip was like 2-3 hours quicker. This combined with o’hare being empty made for a quick journey through immigration and customs. I was standing outside being picked up by porch boy at 12 pm Chicago time (2 am, Saturday, Tokyo time).
Here I am, enjoying life on the couch with porch boy and the izzerator. I debated a nap earlier, but I’m really not that tired yet. I am punchy and emotional as I cried at the end of Grey’s Anatomy (I love dvr). At this point I’m just going to stay up until at least 10. So really on my agenda for this evening – a shower and food that does not involve fish in anyways.
I must mention our beautiful trip to Nikko on Thursday. We enjoyed the mountains from both the train out and the bus up the mountain to the waterfall. We had lunch on the mountain, where we ordered by pointing to the plastic food in the front window (most restaurants have plastic food in the windows). Another guest at the restaurant, a Japanese man, took our picture. I get the feeling that Nikko gets a lot of westerners because of the temples and shines (which we saw later), the waterfall at the top of the mountain gets very few.
All in all, Japan was an very interesting experience. The first three days we met with people from different universities and research centers. Monday we went to Tokyo Institute of Technology. Tuesday we went to a national lab type research center. Wednesday, we went the University of Tokyo. At each place we met with different research groups and talked about their research. It was quite interesting and much like the US. The major exception is that there are way more Masters students than Ph.D students. At Northwestern it is the complete opposite. We don’t have Masters student. We have people that leave with a masters, but no one in admitted just for a masters.
All of the people we interacted with Mon-Wed spoke English very well. It was not until we were on our one that (1) we started to use a couple words and (2) started to figure out that Toyko subway fare system. It took until this morning to figure out that there are two different subway lines and when you transfer between them, you have to get a new ticket. Now I know. It makes sense that when you transfer to the elevated/surface trains you have to get a new ticket, but for the subways, it was confusing.
The food was good. There were things I loved (including the most expensive meal I’ve ever eaten, though I did not pay, our hosts did, who included the science advisor to the prime minster, who had been at northwestern for a while) and things I was not a huge fan of. All in all, I tried everything and enjoyed just being in Japan.
I am glad, though, to return to porch boy and izzy.
Posted by christina at 5:29 PM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2005
the sophomore slump is an uphill battle / and someone said that ain’t my scene
Kitty toes
Today, someone compared my graduate journey with the road trip to Vegas in the movie Swingers. At the beginning they are VEGAS BABY, then just after the half way point the are much more vegas baby. That is how I feel right now. I am too far in to turn around (a.k.a. get out with a masters) and too far from the end. Graduate school is like a long road trip.
I know that the ability to hang in there and show up every day and work work work even though you feel like you are going nowhere is what makes ph.d. grads so valuable. I know that the completion of this program is more than the data points in my thesis. It is says more about my gumption then about about anything else. At least that is what I tell myself as I come in every day and work hard, sometimes it seems for naught.
My friend does podcast. WTFBBQ. I am all about the podcast right now. They make for good running background as I listen to them instead of stress about work. Anyways, a couple months ago, this friend who is also in a phd engineering program (not here though) did a podcast on getting a thesis grad degree. I wasn’t that big of help, since I had not reached this point, which he had been for a bit.
I listened to it again yesterday and was struck my how much more I identified with what the other interviewees said (in addition to him). I remember, in May, being doubtful that I would ever reach that place, the place that you just wonder why you are here and that you just want the letters. Now I completely understand.
It was all the laying around on vacation that did it. I use to define myself as a workaholic, saying that I couldn’t go so many days without being productive. Now I find that I was SO happy doing that. I hear that with perfectionist (which I am in relation to my work), it is either all or nothing. It is hard to work in the middle, though it is my goal, to find more balance. I cannot work the next 18 months like the last, I’ll go insane.
Posted by christina at 3:25 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2005
americano got the sleepy eye
Shel got a puppy. I want a puppy.
The hotel on Kauai had a waterslide. It was 150 feet. One got going fast! We rode it a couple times a day. Okay, maybe more than a couple times. The thing was that the stairs up to the waterslide were painful, so they limited the consecutive visits to the top of the waterslide.
The slide was awesome.
Here I am back to watching my partial pressure of oxygen signal. It is hard to remember that 4 days ago I was lying in the sun with a book. Well, it is not that hard to remember when I glance at my arms. Steve just came to say high, commented on my tan, and then really commented on it when he compared it to his own arm. It is really amazing, the golden color I am. I’m sure it has already started to fade, but a little color will stick around until winter.
I am amused that my advisor just came in and asked me how things are going, after welcoming me back. Ha ha, like I have anything to report. It has been a super slow day as I have nothing to test. Usually I spend a good chunk of the day testing the previous day’s samples before making new samples. Today I have been more getting things in order and making new samples. It took me a while to get the oxygen up and I had the wrong controller plugged in. I had to unplug it for the contractors.
The lab is quite shiny. They resealed the floors, and they almost blinded me when I got in.
In addition to being slow, it is hard to get back into the work things. Though, I’ve now scheduled the heck out of the next 5 days (included Saturday, which I’m already planning on working). So work really isn’t that bad. I’m just not use to slow. Slow is good as I did a bunch of little things that have been on my to do list for a while.
Posted by christina at 4:28 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2005
if you like pina colas
I have changed my running route. I have been meaning to start running on the lake (there is a really nice running trail and park along the shore) now that it is hot and sticky. Most of the year, the wind off the lake makes it too cold, so i run inland from my apartment. Saturday, I finally changed. It is so beautiful, plus has a lot more runners (to motivate me) and way less streets to cross (decreasing the chance of getting hit by a car).
I've seen some random things so far in the park. Saturday it was a dog drinking from a water fountain. This morning it was a tv crew filming and guy (unrealated to the tv crew) walking around barefooted in while linen pants and a white overcoat and white bere (sp?). Quite a strange sight.
My computer is somewhere over the ocean. It should arrive Friday.
Currently, the hardest thing for me is remembering or learning or accepting that grad school is a learning experience, that i don't have to do everything perfectly the first time. That I work on the edge of something and so things don't always fit in a box.
did you know that one could get married in a library? After hours, of course.
Posted by christina at 9:59 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2005
crazy little thing called love
Organize regional conference complete with invited speakers from around the world. Check.
Well. The meeting has come, is almost gone, and can be said went well. It is always interesting to hear about people’s research. The highlight is that one of my invited speakers turned out to do a lot in tribiology of mems, a field that my low friction films apply well. I alternately love exposing my research to people in my field and alternately am afraid of some question I can’t answer. It never has really happened, as I’m not afraid to say I don’t know.
I got here at 6:30 am this morning, and won’t leave until close to my usual 6:30 time. Gotta love those 12 hour days. I am debating a run as I did not get to yesterday or this morning, but the humidity might just make me wait until tomorrow morning. I have to be here early tomorrow, but not until 8:30, which makes it hard to fit in a run, but I think I’ll just get up early when it is nice and cool.
Go to crazy Cubs-Red Soxs game, the first one since the 1918 word series. Check.
Yep, to the envy of random people, I got to go to Saturday’s Cubs-Red Sox game.
We’ll call Friday and Saturday the days of pretending I lived in the south again. It has been so hot and humid up here and we spent a good chunk of our time out in it, as air conditioners are everywhere here like they are in the south.
Friday evening was hunk o’ man’s little sister’s graduation. She graduated from a tiny school – her class had 38 people. The speaker was very amusing and not what you would expect. They didn’t wear caps and gowns, which perplexed me. I found out that hunk o’ man didn’t either. He went to the local public school, so it must just be a north shore thing. Random
After the ceremony there was a reception complete with miniature pastries. I’ve decided that my heaven will contain miniature pastries.
A thunderstorm blew in just as we arrived at the local country club for the dinner/dance. A lot of the tables were under this large tent. There was some mighty strong wind and I really thought the tent was going to blow down. The staff did too as they ushered us all inside. The wind soon calmed down and we had a delightful dinner with the sound of rain on the tent. The sound of rain is one of my favorites. If/when I get married, I would love to order rain and listen to it on a tent.
And there was dancing. The thunderstorm did nothing for the humidity, but that did not stop the dancing. There was this great cover band with a stupid name. And there was lots of dancing. Everyone in the family danced. There was a conga line. There was some swing dancing, where I discovered ben’s version of swing to be quite different from mine. We had a great time dancing the night somewhat away as 11 was our limit and we left all the high school grads dressed in white dresses and suits to their celebrating.
Saturday was the game. It was crazy. I never see opposing team fans at Wrigley. Saturday there were Red Sox fans everywhere. They were crazy and obnoxious. It was a great game – close and warm and winning. In the evening we joined all the Harpers for dinner in honor of Emma’s graduation. It was this great wine bar that had “wine flights”. It was three “half” glasses of wine on a theme. Ben and both his parents got the wines from the south of France theme. I got a merlot, shiraz, and pinot noir theme, whatever that theme might be. I got it, mainly, for the pinot noir as like most people who’ve seen sideways are intrigued by the pinot noir. It was really good. The food was quite great. And I had a great time. I got to spend lots of time with Ben’s young brother, which I really haven’t had the opportunity to do. So that was a great perk to the weekend.
The cat is TOO CUTE. She is laying in front of the open door sleeping in the evening breeze.
Posted by christina at 8:02 PM | Comments (0)
June 8, 2005
is this real
Today is one of those days. One of my instruments' maker sent their application person to campus today for a presentation. I met with him this morning and he just further my opinion that the company is not one its toes. He tried to convince me that static friction is measured with no motion. I tried to tell him otherwise and finally I stopped with, well, that is not my understand of static friction. And he just looked at me like I was stupid. This exchange pretty much sums up everyone this morning.
And this is only one thing. He contradicted advice I've gotten from people are their company (and made work) left and right. I could not wait for lunch to come and i could return to productive research instead of wasting my morning with him, which is what happened. Of course, he had planned on spending tomorrow morning also, so i had to tell my advisor and other advisor who was hosting him what the story was. I hate doing that. I would rather brush it off. But i absolutely don't have the time nor the patience to sit with him tomorrow nor do i want him messing with the machine as i have it working, at least when it feels like it. currently i suspect that it needs new foils and that is why i've had a bad week with it. But i had to tell the advisors to explain why i was brushing the dude off if it got back to them. My advisor, beside asking what he was suppose to do about it in his true fashion, said that i should ignore the idea that dude might think I'm stupid. It was a cool and funny thing to say because do not care one but what this guy thinks of me. I only care what my advisors think of me, which is why i said something.
You know, i'm not that surprised. I've had nothing but trouble with this company. We just did an upgrade on the machine a month or so ago. When i brought the computer online, they'd upgraded, I got a crazy, fatal error. It took them two weeks to reproduce it and found a setting deep in some software I don't even run wrong. They also had no label on the cable, causing lots of plug-in problems (i didn't figure out that the cable was plugged in backward until they gave me the pin number connections and I took an ohm meter to the cable). In addition, they miswired the cooling fan. I needed to take the soder iron down there and soder the ground to the chassie, but who the junk has time? I just set up another fan in the mean time.
This is grad school. Currently. i am not a fan.
Posted by christina at 5:11 PM | Comments (1)
June 2, 2005
i don't know nothing except change will come
Congratulations to Leta for defending (and passing) today!
She is my first close friend here to graduate. Though she is two years ahead of me, her graduating makes me realize that i'm not too far away. Okay, that is a lie but it make me think more about it than usual. Grad school is a bunch of small deadlines (qualifier, conferences, etc.) racing you to the big one, which is less of a deadline and more of a goal. She took almost 5 years, which is pretty normal. I hope to finish on the shorter side, just because I think I can. But as I've mentioned before, graduation brings up its own set of decisions, so I'm pretty happy to keep plugging along.
Today's topic: Statistics and Design of Experiments.
ha ha. not really for you, but for me. I need to learn all about the statistical analysis, I've decided, for my corrosion project (ooo, yes, something I didn't mention in my last post because it has nothing to do with my thesis and everything to do with you do random work for your advisor cuz, you know, he is paying you, and you can publish it. You also become Christina of all trades.)
Anyways, I was thinking about how differently I think about finding information than previous people. When i want to know about something, even how to spell something, I immediately google it like the internet is the bible or something. The assumption that any thing on the internet in accurate is a stupid one. (I also have a grain of salt attitude toward things published in any form, including scientific journals.) It dawned on me, after i had spent some time looking for information on fractal distribution, that i should just go to the science and engineering library, located 100 yards from my office. Okay, actually i went to their website and looked up the call numbers to the books that sounded yummy and then walked over there and got them. I would also like to take a moment to mention that the self-check out station at the libraries here rock my face off (in the immoral words of honea).
Oh the library, filled with yummy books and things....and moveable shelves in the basement for all the bound journals.
oh, did i mention that thomas lousie and I saw Layercake this past friday at the movies? It was quite good. I recommend it. It isn't as brutal violence filled as they claim. It is definitely no worse than some of the Saparnos I've seen.
Posted by christina at 1:37 PM | Comments (3)
June 1, 2005
i've made charts and graphs that should finally make it clear
I’m forever trying to explain to people what I do. So I will today, if only to be able to put a link on the side to this post. I wish I could just say carbon nanotubes or fuelcells. (Okay, not really for many many reasons.) The project that I have spent most of my time here on is a carbon based low friction coating. The interesting thing about that is that you (more than likely) use a carbon based coating every week. Most razor blades are coated with this carbon based compound (carbon and a very small amount of (if any) hydogen specifically in this case). It is just more for corrosion protection – as most coatings/thin films are. The thin film on the razor blade prevents the steel from oxidizing, forming iron oxide (rust), which dulls the blade. A sharp blade reduces the contact area between it in your skin, reducing the friction that causes “razor burn”.
Everything, just about, has a coating on it for some purpose – to protect, to make more appealing, etc. One of the films I make is to reduce the friction between two surfaces, i.e. to reduce the energy required to move one surface over the other. A wheel of a train on a track is a good example, the pistons in your car, another. MEMs devices have lot of trouble friction (stiction to be exact). This energy to over come friction is wasted energy. Your car wastes 62% of its energy overcoming friction. [This site is has an excellent explaination.] Interesting quote - "Only about 15% of the energy in the fuel you put in your gas tank gets used to move your car down the road or run useful accessories like air conditioning or power steering." To be able to reduce the friction between parts, and therefore the energy waste associated with that, would have a huge effect on the economy, and in this day, global politics. We’ve (ok, I’ve, base on my advisor idea) synthesized a film that has ultra-low friction properties in ambient air, something that has never been done before. Carbon + hydrogen films alone have shown ulta-low friction in dry nitrogen, but humidity was always a problem. We’ve synthesized a doped version that has no humidity problems, and therefore can be used in every day life. It’s pretty exciting. Many days I have doubted our results, but more than a year later and many reproducible friction test, I am starting to trust my data. I’m looking forward to following this project further.
The other thing I do is wear resistant coatings. Oxide based instead of carbon based. This is more in the scientific stage – can we synthesize an oxide multilayer, which displays an interesting hardness enhancement phenomena that has been observed in nitrides m.l.? It’s going to be tough, but I have some good preliminary results. Thank goodness my advisor is a great advisor and had some money for upgrading my system, or I would never have a chance. These films would be used as protective coating for use at high temperature where current coating fail. They would replace cutting fluids that are harmful to the environment and humans.
Posted by christina at 2:33 PM | Comments (0)
May 31, 2005
swinging around revolving doors / maybe I don't know where they'll take me
This morning started as a blah day at work. Mornings are not my most productive time, so I like to have testing stuff lined up from the day before – x-ray spectra to take, friction tests to start, deposition to begin, step height to measure, so I don’t have to think as much. 11 is really when I feel engaged enough to do that sort of stuff.
This morning, because a short Friday blew my vacuum and therefore my film synthesis, I was left with out half of the usual things. And the current hypothesis I am investigating with mr. Friction tester requires it to run a least 2 hours. I found myself starting at the corrosion book I need to read (for another project) with little motivation. So I decided to write my weekly update which is never weekly (as I don’t send it if we have a group mtg that week or if I don’t really have anything to say). It is a good exercise as it makes me feel like, oh, I do get things done, even though some days seem like a total waste of time when everything seems to go wrong. Another good thing – one of my hypotheses was just proven in my chamber. A small hypothesis that weak magnets where causing the plasma to not be sustained at low pressures.
One pride of last week is my beautiful picture of the clean nanoindentor tip.
http://andsafetybelts.net/cblog/images/tip.jpeg
Here’s a story. Weekend before this past one when I was cosmo sitting, Gallup called. I was quite excited and assured them that I was not a visitor (heck, tom was the only other person there, he was more a visitor than me) so I could take their survey on the Chicago media market. I was quite happy to give my listening points to the local NPR station. Unfortunately, I was not a good resource on the local newspaper market cuz all I really read in the New York Times. Though it was a choice in the survey, so the New York Times got my reading points. The guy was super nice and super grateful that I was so nice and taking his survey. At the end he said, we’re going to send you 10 dollars in cash for completing the survy. Of course, I was amused he said in cash and assumed it was a check. Low and behold when I got the envelope at work today there was a ten-dollar bill in it. How crazy is that! Also there is another glorious survey, which I am totally going to do. I like the opportunity to support the things that I love – the times, npr.
Posted by christina at 2:54 PM | Comments (0)
swinging around revolving doors / maybe I don't know where they'll take me
This morning started as a blah day at work. Mornings are not my most productive time, so I like to have testing stuff lined up from the day before – x-ray spectra to take, friction tests to start, deposition to begin, step height to measure, so I don’t have to think as much. 11 is really when I feel engaged enough to do that sort of stuff.
This morning, because a short Friday blew my vacuum and therefore my film synthesis, I was left with out half of the usual things. And the current hypothesis I am investigating with mr. Friction tester requires it to run a least 2 hours. I found myself starting at the corrosion book I need to read (for another project) with little motivation. So I decided to write my weekly update which is never weekly (as I don’t send it if we have a group mtg that week or if I don’t really have anything to say). It is a good exercise as it makes me feel like, oh, I do get things done, even though some days seem like a total waste of time when everything seems to go wrong. Another good thing – one of my hypotheses was just proven in my chamber. A small hypothesis that weak magnets where causing the plasma to not be sustained at low pressures.
One pride of last week is my beautiful picture of the clean nanoindentor tip.
http://andsafetybelts.net/cblog/images/tip.jpeg
Here’s a story. Weekend before this past one when I was cosmo sitting, Gallup called. I was quite excited and assured them that I was not a visitor (heck, tom was the only other person there, he was more a visitor than me) so I could take their survey on the Chicago media market. I was quite happy to give my listening points to the local NPR station. Unfortunately, I was not a good resource on the local newspaper market cuz all I really read in the New York Times. Though it was a choice in the survey, so the New York Times got my reading points. The guy was super nice and super grateful that I was so nice and taking his survey. At the end he said, we’re going to send you 10 dollars in cash for completing the survy. Of course, I was amused he said in cash and assumed it was a check. Low and behold when I got the envelope at work today there was a ten-dollar bill in it. How crazy is that! Also there is another glorious survey, which I am totally going to do. I like the opportunity to support the things that I love – the times, npr.
Posted by christina at 2:54 PM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2005
i need you to me here with me
Well, we are officially nerds. Not that this was an unknown fact about me, but I have brought Ben over to the dark side. Ha ha ha. He is all into our new space. As I spent the majority of saturday getting gallary installed and moveable type, he spent it working on our opening pages at andsafetybelts.net . If you haven’t figure it out, and safetybelts is from a cake song – stickshifts and safetybelts – one of my favorite songs of all time.
It has always been relaxing to me to mess around with this kind of stuff. I’ve had a perfectly blissful memorial day weekend with my laptop with ben across from me with his laptop. I was going to go into work this afternoon, but Friday I forgot that that was the plan and therefore didn’t set up my chamber to cool down so I cam make a sample this afternoon. And I don’t want to do the hour round trip for nothing. I worked all last weekend and the Saturday before, therefore I am justifying in to myself that I can enjoy this beautiful memorial day with my lap top. The izzy househould shall be grilling out, have no fear. We’re all-american like that. Izzy has taken to laying out on the balcony. I am a little nervous about this new habit, even though I know that there is no way ever she could fall off.
Today is one of those day I can’t wait until I have a “real” job where I can leave my work at the office and take holidays off without feeling guilty about what I am not doing. Every day that I don’t work (weekends, holidays, vacation), there is always a part of my mind that thinks about what I should be getting down at work. I think this is more of a function of graduate school, with a small sprinkle of my personality. Graduate school is a competition in a way, of who is getting more research done, of who’s research is more “sexy”, crap like that. I dream about jobs that I can leave work at work. Though I wonder how much of it is my personality and how I have to be careful of not getting into job where I get consumed until my kids are old. I do get consumed by things, as evidence of this website.
Posted by christina at 2:03 PM | Comments (0)