I printed using the lithographer (that crazy machine to the left)! Hooray! I am so excited about getting to work on real stuff now! Even though I am basically acting as Azeem’s personal assistant currently, I could not be more happy about it! I really like what I’m doing—it’s a cross between normal photography and something all small and science-fictiony. And when we get everything calibrated and figured out and I get to work on the membranes it will be all medical technology-ish! Gah! So exciting!
Well, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, allow me to tell you what’s been going on. We finally finished with the plumbing, and now I am training in on all of the equipment with Azeem. I’m slowly learning the incredibly complicated process of opening and closing valves and flowing various amounts of nitrogen gas in order to create a good vacuum in the system and maintain a level of voltage that supports the ion beam. It’s awesome (see above for more about my excitement). I really like it and I feel like I’m learning a lot about a very specific and sweet field. Nanofabrication and microfiltration is what all the cool kids do, let me tell you.
Speaking of cool kids, the REU kids dominated at the Cullen Oaks "Amazing Race" scavenger hunt last week. We went for the free food and the raffle to win an ipod and we got conned into actually playing the game. It was one of those ones where they give you a clue that is in riddle form and you have to figure out what it means in order to know where to go to get your next clue. One of the RA's who checked us into the building told us that we should have asked someone who knows the apartment complex better to be on our
team, but we sure showed him. We were sprinting all over the apartment complex--I'm sure we looked hilarious.
Also last week, Corlisa, my roommate, introduced me to "real" barbeque. Apparently all of my life I have been mistaking "cookouts" for BBQ. We went to a restaurant called Pappa's, and I had a barbequed baked potato stuffed with BBQ beef. Oh my gosh, it was one of the best things that I have ever tasted. I can't wait to go back! YUM!
Another thing that is cool is 2 hours of bowling for $3. That’s right, this campus has a bowling alley in its sort of student union place, and yes, it is that cheap. Almost all of the REU students went last Friday and it was sweet. I’m not half bad at bowling, and some of the others are really pretty good. There’s also cheap pingpong and a bunch of video games. The best part though, is
that they play really awesome music the whole time, and also that the bowling turns into cosmic bowling at 10. Excellent! Pretty sure we’re going back this Friday.
On Sunday, Rhys (an REU student from UH who is the “social director”) took some of us to the Houston Roller Derby. Rick, Harsh, Kristin, Rhys, Mariana and I headed down to Bayou Place to see 4 teams of girls on roller skates battle it out. I had never seen roller derby before and had little idea of what to expect. It
was really neat and it looks like an awesome and fun game. I briefly contemplated looking up the local team in DC and trying out and then I realized that about half of each team was sitting out the game with injuries so I rethought that. It was really funny because each girl has to have a unique number and name. Some of them were slightly inappropriate for this forum and others were just funny: Scarlet O’Hurtya and Chainsaw Chick for example. I’m thinking that if I played I’d have to be number 3e8, and my name would have to be Fight Speed. That would be cool. We did see one fight right in front of us, where a girl jumped on the other girl’s back and yanked her helmet back and tried to start punching her. It was pretty intense, like a hockey fight. The game is super complicated so I can’t even begin to explain, but rest assured the other girl deserved it.
Until next time!
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