It's Finally Friday!

So today was probably the slowest day of my entire 3-week career as a NASA intern. I sat in the library for 8 hours and researched articles on the internet. Story of my life lately. On the up-side, I did get to sit in the library for those hours, instead of the lab, so I had more comfortable chairs, better table heights and much less noise. :)

Back to what happened over the last week. On Sunday, I went to church again at Campbell Church of Christ, sans the Sayre family, and it was an interesting sermon on the fire of God, and how Christians can re-light that fire as it is quenched just by living the human life. A couple of the hymns struck me regarding their theological information, especially coming off a quarter of Christian doctrine with Dr. Steele at SPU. In particular, we discussed in class how the body has often been regulated as not-redeemable, or that there is body/soul spilt, stemming somewhat from the influence of Plato and often read into Paul's writings. However, (and I am not looking at my notes here, so forgive me if I get this wrong) from what I remember, Paul was using language that did not denote the separation of the body from the soul in the Greek language, and thus there is no room for a doctrine of the 'immortality of the soul,' where the soul will go to heaven after death, but the body will stay behind. From this erroneous view often comes the idea that the body is somehow a cage for the soul, that the soul is 'good' and the body is 'bad' (again, reflecting Plato), and thus when we are redeemed, our soul's are saved, but we must fight against the sins of the body. However, and this is what we discussed in class, it seems to be Biblically supported that the whole person, body and soul, is redeemed through Christ. Christ's whole body and soul died and rose, not just his soul. There was no body in the grave. So, I guess what stuck me with the hymns was the references to the body as halting the refiners fire from glowing, and how we had to move past the sins body to re-light the fire inside. While I think that many sins do seem to stem from the body vs. the soul, I think that we sin with our whole selves and are redeemed with our whole selves. If that light 'goes out' then I think that we can't hold up what we consider our soul as untouched, but that the relighting has to involve both all the person. I don't really know where I am going with this, just that I wanted to share with you all some of what I am learning and processing right now on my walk with God. 

After church on Sunday, I took a trip out to the Computer History Museum. It was very interesting to see how the laptop I am writing on evolved. I saw some huge machines and some early computers, and want to go through it with my dad or someone who grew up during all the revolutions in technology to truly get a feel for what it must have been like to see that much technical innovation in the span of ~40 years. I saw card punch systems, walls of wires from MIT, some guys doctorate project, really BIG hard drives, old-school arcade games, and the teapot that launched the 3D graphics revolution. There was so much history there, so many machines that were saved (it kind of looked liked an organized garage) - it was nerdy and it was great! Also, there was an exhibit on computer chess, and I saw an old game, "Chessmaster" that I used to play on our old PC. Also, bit of Olivia trivia for you - I really learned to play chess on our computer with a version of Star-Wars chess. Mind you, I hadn't (and still haven't) seen the the episodes to which the game was referring, but it was still fun. It took me forever to figure out how rooks moved and did the switch-aroo thing with the Queen, or is it the king? I still don't know it, apparently.  They also had this huge machine designed by an Englishman in the 1800's that calculated polynomials. It looked so complicated to design and use that I was amazed and became very grateful that I had a TI-83 to do all that math for me. 

Here is a picture of the wall of PC's, starting with an Apple I.

Which reminds me, I also had a conversation this Monday with an astronomer who works at NASA over lunch, and she suggested that become proficient in a programing language before heading to grad school, as that would be a valuable skill. While the last time I ever attempted programing was in 7th grade on an old Compaq laptop (with an external floppy disk drive, mind you, that's how old it is) in MS-DOS. Now, while I did make fun game programs and password protected them, as well as make pictures, I didn't remember a thing on Tuesday when I decided to start learning. I chose to learn Python, because it looked relatively intuitive, yet could do some powerful stuff, but after conversing with my CS major friends, I might switch to C++, though I think that would be more challenging to learn on my own. I am kind of following a MIT course entitled, 'A gentle introduction to programing' through their open courseware project, coupled with an online book called "How to think like a computer scientist," both of which teach Python. All I have done so far is learned some basic commands, as well as read almost 4 chapters of the book, and made two little programs. The highlight so far has been creating a program that will do all the math to tell me how many grams of a reagent I need to add to a solvent to make a certain concentration. I really just didn't want to crunch the numbers any more, so I am making my computer do it! It was quite fun and it works. We'll see what else comes from this dabble in programing. 

On another note, I also saw this at the Computer History museum, and I laughed. I had one of these at my grandma's house growing up, but did it help me learn to spell? Nope. I am still a terrible speller, but I enjoyed the device. :)

A Few Thoughts

I know, I know, it has been a week or so since I lasted posted. But because my 15 minute nap this evening lasted 1.5 hours, I have to go to bed for real very soon. Today was long day, very long - I left the house at 6:45, got to work at 7:15am and didn't leave until 6:01pm and finally arrived home at 6:50 pm. This is not my normal day length, but today I wanted to use a machine called a Scanning Electron Microscope (or SEM for short) and it was booked by other people from 8 am to 6pm. Not thinking that I would be around past 5, I aimed for the morning. Well...I didn't actually write my name on the sheet because no one gets here earlier than 8am, and only before 10am if their young and you get lucky. Much to my surprise, however, the person was already on the machine! So here I was, at work ridiculously early, with practically nothing to do. Oh well, c'est la vive, n'est pas? 

Days are also kind of slow right now because I am in a transition part of the project, which requires new chemicals, and thus wait time. It means I am back in the literature, researching and reading things that often go over my head. But, I did recently discover that Ames has a few libraries on base, and the one in my building is great! It is a much better place to read my literature than either my lab or my semi-desk space 5 minutes away. And almost no one uses it, so it is quiet...and warm...and comfortable. And the old guy who walks by my lab all the time is pretty much the only other person in there, and he sits and responds to emails for hours. Literally. I watched him type emails from 1-4 today, and he was still there when I left. I snuck a picture of him with my Photobooth and built in computer camera, but all I got was a back shot. I also found out his name is Joseph. Soon, I might even try striking up a conversation with him...

I really was holding off posting another blog entry because I was marathoning through both my TV show seasons that I missed this last year and through the finishing steps of a sweater I am knitting. I didn't really stop to do much else this last weekend and really wanted to post pictures of the final project. But, alas, doing things the right way takes more time than I thought, I will not be finished for a while yet. (Also, the needles I need to completely finish it are currently in use with another project that I started without thinking that I might need the needles for the sweater). This particular sweater was started during Christmas break of my freshman year, in 2007. Don't think I am a slow knitter though, I just could not justify taking the time to knit this school year because of the amount of homework I had, as much as I wanted to do nothing more than sit, chat, sip some tea and knit my sweater. 

Fun new thing coming up: my family is coming down on Sunday and will be here for about a week!! We are going to go to Bakersfield, CA, for the 4th (don't worry, if you don't know where that is or are wondering why I am going to that part of Cali, I understand). Bakersfield is where my great-Aunt and Uncle live, and we have gone down there a few times during the summer breaks. Alas, we generally go during the hottest week of the year, where I distinctly remember reading '117 degrees F' on the thermometer for a few days.... I am so much more a winter weather kind of girl... But, it will be fun to see my family and relatives, as I will have a grand total of 8 days in WA before heading back to school. However, once there, Elizabeth my sister will be joining me, so that will be fun to have her at school with me. We've gone to the same schools since preschool. I think she will like SPU, it definitely was her first choice for college. 

I hate to always sign off with this, but it is past my bedtime now (it is 10:42 pm) and I have to get up so early to go to work. I'll post pictures tomorrow. Bon nuit!

3, 2, 1, LIFT OFF!!!!

Today, the LCROSS project blasted off the earth and hurtled itself towards the moon. in percisily 111 days, this project will crash itself into the moon and move no longer. LCROSS stands for 'Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite' (apparently they could not just call it LCOSS...). The purpose of this craft is to hit a part of the moon that has never seen the sun. This permanently shadowed spot is in a crater at one of the two poles of the moon. The theory is that if a spot has never seen the sun, if there is any water (in the form of ice) on the moon, then it would be frozen in a spot that has never seen sunlight and thus has never had a chance to evaporate. According to NASA's website, "the identification of water is very important to the future of human activities on the Moon" (a.k.a for deciding whether or not we'll create a lunar habitat). Beyond just sensing for water-ice, the LCROSS will also look for hydrocarbons and hydrated materials.

Another speical aspect about this project, is that it was spearheaded by a group here at Ames, where I work, so it was quite exciting to watch it launch today. To be more specific, our website says that Ames will be "managing the mission, conducting mission operations, and has developed the payload instruments" in partnership with Northrop Grumman, who built the actual spacecraft. Another cool thing about this craft can be found in the design, because it uses existing NASA technologies as well as off-the-shelf parts. Thus, this is a low-cost, quick project. It only took 3 years from proposal to launch. For those not familiar with the NASA time line, that is fast!

You should check out the video on this page: http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/ to learn more about the project.

In other news, another boy, Joe, a senior in high school, semi-joined our lab group yesterday. He will be working on a totally different project, but will be sharing the space with Kunal and me. This is his third summer here and he knows lots of people, which is great!

And...we passed our lab safety inspection today after 3 hours of frantic cleanup. Yay!

Misadventures and Oddities

I have found the best spot to sit outside at the Sayre's house: on the back porch, there is a bench swing, and with the warm temperatures outside, it is a fantastic place to be!

This post is all about my misadventures so far, because nothing new or exciting is happening at work - my reactions continue to not work and the LCROSS launch was pushed back to Thursday.





Misadventure #1: The Freeway system.

I know I have complianed about this before (see previous post) but the freeway system is pretty hard to follow down here. The North/South on-ramps are so close together that I have often taken the right numbered freeway, but gone the wrong direction. Also, They don't have good exit signs, so I sometimes miss my exits when I try to get off the freeway! My GPS sometimes compounds the problem, as it is often just a hair off in tracking where I am, so sometimes it will say, "Take the right hand on-ramp now" when I should be taking it in another 150 ft.

Example A: First day driving to work alone: I took the exit right before my actual exit for Moffett field, and it took me 30min to get back to where I needed to be. I could not get back on the freeway because of 8ft tall brick walls lining the road, and so I went through downtown Mountain View. I was still on time to work, though!

Example B: On my way to pick people up from their hotels for the trip to the zoo, I took the I-85N when I needed to take I-85S, and thus ended up 15min late to picking everyone up and delaying the group's departure from Ames.

Example C: On Sunday, I got to church fine, but on the way back, I took the wrong Expressway on-ramp, N instead of S, and went in a big loop to find the right one. That's another thing different about this area: Expressways. They are not quite freeways because they have stoplights and cross streets, but they aren't quite roads because they have three+ lanes and go 45mph (radar enforced as every single sign says....) Apparently they also have N/S directions.

Example D: On Sunday night, I had a huge hankering for some ice cream. I had passed it up the night before in SF, but I really wanted some this night. So, I remembered that their was a Safeway nearby, programed my GPS and off I went. It really was about five blocks away, and after successfully purchasing some Cookies and Cream ice cream, I was on my merry way back. However, what I didn't know about these expressways, is that generally, unless you are at a light, you can only turn right. And I wanted to go left. Okay, I said to myself, my GPS looks like it has a plan, I'll just follow it. It had the right way to go, however I missed the street sign I was supposed to turn onto. Again, no big deal, I thought, I'll just go around and come back. But, when I got to the light, I chickened out about doing a U-turn, legal though it may be, and I just turned left. Bad decision. I had to wait half-mile to a mile before I could turn around, and even then I didn't pull a U-turn, but slowly made my way back to the house. All for a bit of delicious ice cream (and rainbow chip frosting with cinnamon gramcrackers!!!)

Misadventure #2: The Dog

First day dog sitting, and guess what happens. I must have not shut the garage door tight enough, because when I got home, Tessy was happily in the house. While this is not a major problem, as she is often in the house, it is always when someone else is home.

Misadventure #3: The House Key.

As a rule, I lock all the doors leading into the house because I am staying alone, even the door from the garage into the house, which doesn't lead directly to the outside. When I went to let the dog outside right before leaving for church on Sunday, what did I do? Yep, you guessed it - locked myself out. There was no spare key around the outside that I could think of, and no one was going to be home for a while (they are in Minnesota). Fortunately, I remembered that Mrs. Sayre had mentioned that the neighbor who house sits sometimes had a spare key. I had just been introduced to them two days before, but I had no idea if they were home or not. Again, fortunately, someone was home, and I was able to get back in the house, on the road, and only be 5 minutes late for church.


I also want to recount some oddities that I have encountered so far during my short 1.5 wks in Cali: (mainly just at Ames)

My lab goggles: Yes, I look like I never left the 80's, though I was only in that decade for 6 months and 5 days. These glasses kind of remind me of some that my dad had back then... These apparently are the only goggles my lab purchases, though I have seen other labs with nicer glasses. They do beat having those great chemical splash goggles I wear at SPU, as I don't have to have them wearing permanent bruise lines into my face. I do wear my goggles almost all day, (and sometimes forget them on my head and bring them home...) as I am in the lab all day. I do now have a desk, but it is a 5+ minute walk to another building, so I might as well just stay in the lab space.

The guy in the top hat: I could not get a good picture, as he and I were walking in different directions when I tried to snap this subtly, but this guy was dressed up in nice black pants, shoes, vest, blue shirt, tie and a TOP HAT!!! Not a "normal" smallish one either - this black top had rivaled the size of the Mad-Hatter's from Alice in Wonderland! I tried later to take a better picture, but I think he saw me pause walking with my cellphone in the air, so I had to scurry off. :(

The old man in my lab building: There is this really old man, probably my grandpa's age, who walks by my lab all the time. I haven't yet caught his name or snapped a picture of him, but he is so fun to watch. I just see him constantly move down and up the hallway, usually toting a paper Trader Joe's bag behind him. He is kind of hunched over, and often wears a yellow shirt and kaki pants, but is always smiling. He also had a gauze bandage on his forehead for a few days, so I wonder what he might have done to himself. I would love to know where he works exactly and what he does, as I imagine him as this super smart scientist who just loves his job and work too much to call it quits and retire to a life of golfing. (Though, perhaps, maybe he does golf, as we have a course on our base...with the 'Tee-1 Cafe'...)

The squirrels here: We have some funny squirrels at SPU, who run everywhere and dig in our garbage, but her in Cali they have black squirrels. It is kind of weird. I don't know if I have ever seen a black squirrel before coming here. Maybe it's a product of all the smog emissions....

Business Hours at Ames: If you want to catch anyone, don't look before 11am or after 3pm. Or during 12-1, lunch hour, unless you search the cafeteria. No one is here. It is kind of strange to me, how flexible everyone is with their hours and how eveyone tends to come in late in the morning. Apparently, people also stay late, like past 6 pm, but I have yet to see it. I told someone today that I come in at 7:30 or 8 am, depending on whether I carpool or not, and he looked shocked. I, for one, prefer to have my afternoons/evenings rather than sleep in during the morning hours and stay til sundown. Besides, traffic is lighter earlier in the mornings. (See a connection?)

P.S. This is Tessy, the Sayre's dog.

A Day in San Francisco!

Saturday, I was able to spend the majority of the day in San Franscisco, getting my first taste of the city from Full House, as I went to zoo and to Haight Street with some other interns from NASA. I also got to break in my new camera, but no pics of the city as I was driving the whole time! And, while I did take about 200 pictures at the zoo, I have only selected a few to post, so that I don't bombard you or the server with 30+ pictures of river otters....Oh how I love otters.....

(The picture above only includes a small part of our group)

We first went to a small cafe called Java Beach Cafe for lunch before going inside the zoo, and that was one of the priciest little cafe/coffee stands I have every been too! Though the food was great, a cup of soup and toasted bagel should not have cost $8! Seattle was pricey for a small town girl like me, but I've learned where to find good, cheap food there, so San Francisco was another small shock.

Then we finally made it into the zoo (where they offer no student discount or really any discounts of any type) and started exploring. While we had a relatively large group, about 20 people or so, we quickly, and kind of accidently broke off into smaller groups that viewed the zoo in opposite directions, so we kept running into people at only certain points. On of the coolest animals to see up close was the giraffe, as I don't think I have every seen one of those so close before. This zoo had two females, one male, and two babies. And we got to see a giraffe feeding, which meant they were less than 10 feet away from us! (Don't worry, the fence was high and they couldn't reach us, though one little girl got to pet one, and I really wanted to.) 

I also got to see kangaroos for the first time, but they didn't do any jumping, as much a we tried to mentally encourage them to do so. They did however seem to move kind of awkwardly with their long back legs and could fold themselves up pretty well when laying down. I was once nicknamed 'Princess Pretzel' for the ways I could fold my legs when sitting down and immediately though these guys deserved the nickname even more! 

There was also this cute little baby monkey that reminded me of Curious George, that had been born just a few days earlier. The mother held her baby the whole time and moved up and down and all around their cage while still holding on. Granted, monkeys are not my favorite of animals, but this one was pretty great. The babies are orange when they are grown, but eventually become black when they are full grown. 

There also were these tiny monkeys that had long white mustaches and even the baby monkeys had little mustaches too! There was two of them who were riding around on the back of a larger monkey, and just looked as us, very cutely. However, the plexiglass and sun's glare was such that I was unable to get a good shot. :(

Also, mom and dad, I saw some prairie dogs and something that started with a 'M', which I couldn't tell apart, but who looked like the little guys who sun themselves outside of the Thrall road exit to our house in Ellensburg. They were so fun to watch, scurrying about and then suddenly stopping and standing straight upright facing the sun. Also I watched a baby go into one of their tunnels and it was very interesting to see how they used their legs and arms to get down the hole. I took lots of pictures of them, but I'll only post one here.

There was also an animal that looked like the king character from 'Madagascar', but as I have not seen the whole movie, and forgot to look at the sign saying what the animal was, I am not sure what to call it. But, it was almost posing for us, and it was at the very top of a steep peak, just sitting there, turning his head this way and that way. He was fun to watch. 

We also got to see lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), some of which were very close. I was surprised to see the polar bears here, but they were huge! And the brown bears just looked like overgrown dogs with ginourmous paws. Their enclosure, and where they apparently liked to hang out was in a spot where you could easily see them up close, and they were up against the plexiglass divider! 

There was one tiger that was sleeping when I passed by it, a siberian tiger, and the other tiger was not out and about, but I noticed it was from Indonesia, even though they only had a map of the area and no name. (All thanks to Charis teaching me some Asian geography!) The zoo also has two prides of lions, but I didn't read the sign closely enough to figure out where the other pride was housed. We did see two African lions, but they were asleep (like every other animal at the heat of the afternoon). I tried to get some shots of them, but they were kind of blurry because of the plexiglass viewing wall. 

There was also a peacock hanging out around the rhinos, between the fence for the rhinos and the fence for the humans, so it was really close to me. I don't think it was actually supposed to be there, as we found the area for peacocks a bit down the road. Regardless, I was able to see it's beautiful feathers close up, and take some awesome shots. They are such elegant birds, though their call sounds like small children! (trust me, I know, we have neighbors in Ellensburg with peacocks...) I didn't end up taking any pictures of the rhinos because the peacock was so amazing to see up so close.

The zoo also had these fun posters around the park where you could stand and a part of the animal that was significant to it would be photographed and cut out, so that you could stand against it and make it look like you had those appendages. Ears for the kangaroo, wings outstretched for the eagle, and feathers for the peacock, etc. The only one I took a picture with was the peacock, mainly because I love their feathers and it looked fun! (However, I don't think my eyes are open here...typical)

One other animal that I had never even known existed was the black swan. It was gorgeous and graceful, and had really interesting wing feathers. The were curled and did not lay flat. There were also a few straight white feathers hiding underneath that we only saw when the swan was facing away from us and lifting her wings a bit. They also had red beak and are some of the few animals who mate for life. Overall, they were beautiful creatures. 

Sorry, mom, didn't take the time to see the penguins, they housed far to close to the otters for me to go over to look at them. I probably could have spent the whole three hours we were there watching the two river otters that the zoo housed. I love otters! They were in a fun mood as well, zipping in and out of the water, swimming around each other, turning barrel rolls, and generally showing off. They would oftentimes come up directly to people standing around the perimeter of their cage, as if seeing if they were interesting and then deciding that maybe we weren't so great (maybe because we didn't have any food for them?) Once an otter came up to right where I was standing, paused to look at me with his cute little head poking out of the water and then zoomed off to swim more. They would swim for maybe thirty seconds to a minute, then get out the water, go huddle down in a small area, and then thirty seconds later were back in  the water again! It was funny to watch the constant in and out of the otters. And, neither otter would go in the water or out of the water themselves, they always did it in a pair. I love otters!

I had a great time at the zoo, and it just reminded me over and over again of the creative of our Creator and how varied the animal species are. Also, I was so thankful that we now have the opportunity to see these animals up close, albeit not in an entirely natural habitat, but otherwise I would probably never see polar bears, lions, tigers, giraffes, and monkeys! 

After the zoo we went to Haight and Filmore streets in San Francisco. Since my GPS doesn't do street address, I tried to use google maps on my phone, but my navigator had some trouble deciphering the directions. I have never been so completely lost before in my life. I had no idea what direction we needed to go, I just started down streets and hoped we would eventually find our way to Haight. Along the way we did get to see some of the outskirts of the city, including all those row houses. Why anyone would want to live in one is beyond me! Maybe it does beat an apartment, but to have your neighbors house right next door, with no grass, or backyard, or front yard, right on super busy streets, and to have to have a padlocked gate in front of your locked front door? No thank you! They look kind of cute and fun, and I somewhat like the style, but I hope I never have to live there. And the traffic is worse than Seattle! No one uses their blinkers, ever, and the street signs are near impossible to find! As well as freeway exits! They don't have mile markers (we decided they had to many miles to mark, so they didn't have the funds) and the exits warning signs are often posted on the opposite side of where you need to get off, so if you are unfamiliar with the area, or don't have a GPS that says "Exit to the right in 1.1 miles) you might miss it. Then again, I haven't yet come across any left-handed exits like we have in Seattle. And, parking in SF is just as terrible in Seattle, but again, there are not so many signs, so I was always nervous that I was parking in a spot that I shouldn't be in. But God is good, (and I prayed hard on the way!) and I found a good spot that I didn't have to parallel park in and it was easy to get in and out of. I am, now, quite adept at parking on hills, as long as I don't have to parallel park into the spot...

Regardless of the traffic, I did try a sausage, onion and red pepper sandwich, which surprisingly, tasted just like the ones Gwinn often serves...it was good. And then half of the group went for dinner at an Indian food place, and half continued looking until they decided to eat at a crépé place. Can you guess what half I was in? Indian food all the way! From the menu outside, it looked pretty reasonable, but what they didn't tell us was that rice was not included with the meals! Who doesn't eat rice with their tiki masala?! And yes, I did get tiki masala, but it was not as creamy or large or as good as the stuff in Seattle. Their naan, however, was excellent, and I think I probably could have just had naan and been happy. I also tried something NEW - samosa - which is a potato/pea/other stuff fried in something and is triangular shaped. It came with chick peas and a sauce, but I was not a huge fan. It was also kind of spicy. Also, the gal who took my order, when I also for the lowest spice possible, said "medium-spicy okay?" I was like, "NO!!!" (only mentally, though) and tried really hard to communicate that I didn't want ANY spicy. She almost looked offended that I wanted a low spice level, and I kind of felt that this place might have just pots of the sauces simmering and thus only have one spice level. There was no mention of spice levels in the menu. My meal was not intolerable, but also not terrible. It was a bit spicy, however. :( 

After dinner, I was so tired, and tired of spending money that I even forwent the ice cream shop that our group stopped at. I was just not in the mood for spending $4 on a scoop of organic ice cream, when I knew that I could get a whole half-gallon of Blue Bunny at the local Safeway for $3 when I got back to San Jose. I tend to prefer quantity over quality when it comes to ice cream; this is one area where I am not too picky (well, regarding flavors I am - mint, chocolate, vanilla, and raspberry sorbet are just fine!) 

All in all, it was fun day - getting to see animals at a zoo, as I have not been to a zoo for a long time, and then getting to some of San Francisco, as well as get to know a few more of the interns. There are lots of summer interns at Ames (200+) all with a different group. I have come to the conclusion that everyone must be in some sort of program, no matter how obscure. I met many people outside of my MUST program, which is great, and now know about 20 more friendly faces at the base. I am also looking forward to maybe going back to SF sometime soon, but hopefully on a bus or train and not by driving! 

Two Days later...

Okay, so I have already failed. No report yesterday, but that was only because I was studying for my UFDN 3100 Final that I took tonight. NOW summer can finally begin. 

But first, back to Monday. After all the orientations had finished, we were supposed to meet with our mentors for lunch, or just plain meet them, but no one showed up for me. When I mentioned who my mentor was, I got "Oh yes, he never shows up to these things" in reponse. Not a good start. However, after going to lunch with some other currently-mentorless girls, I was able to connect with my mentor. 

I discovered that he is a busy man, as he is the Chief Scientist for Space Exploration Technologies at NASA Ames, and has many things to do. But, he did sit down and explain to me what my project was, and that I'd be working with another student who just graduated ChemE from USC. And then I was done by 2 pm. 

Tuesday was more of the same, as I had 'Chemical Lab Safety Boot Camp for NASA Ames Interns" which lasted and 3.5 hours and ended with a quiz. And no new information. But, since I got all trained, today some real lab stuff started!

While I don't know how much I can say about my project (intellectual property rights/trade secrets and all that jazz, especially since we are trying to pitch the idea to the army) I am growing ZnO [Zinc Oxide] nanowire. I had never seen the process or known how to grow nanowires before yesterday, and today I was told to start making stuff. There was a nice PhD student who helped Kunal (my lab partner) and I figure out how to work the nanowire growing apparatus, and in the course of 2 hours discovered that the lab we were given (yes, a whole lab that only we are using!) was (a) a MESS, (b) everything that could be disconnected was, (c) that we couldn't find some reagents or were out of others, (d) that our vacuum pump was spitting oil (it is not supposed to) and (e) that the tank sitting in the spot labeled 'Argon' was actually an almost-empty tank of pure nitrogen with a knob that wouldn't turn. Thus, a great part of my day today was cleaning and organizing the lab and finding things, so tomorrow we can start in earnest. We did find the right reagents, stopped the oil leak and cleaned a bit - all in all a sucessful day, and I was there til 5!

Also, I don't know what pictures I am allowed to take inside the Ames park, so I haven't yet taken my camera to work. I might attempt to subtly take some pics from my phone as I am driving around base... Thus, the picture of the pins, of which one is for the launch of LCROSS which is happening in few days! Ames has worked hard and long on this project and on Tuesday, they are going to launch piece of machinery that will eventually hit the moon in a crater that has never seen sunlight, on one of the poles, and then see if they can detect any water-ice from the debris that they create. Sounds cool, yeah?

And that's about it folks, time for bed so that I am not dragging until 10 tomorrow...

Hello!

Bonjour! Je m'appelle Olivia! [Good day! My name is Olivia!]

Okay, enough of me practicing my paltry french skills, and a small explanation of this blog:

I created this blog (like many of my friends) to share my summer adventures with my family and friends who aren't either at NASA or in the Philippines with me. I also recently had a birthday and got a fantastic new camera that I hope to put to good use. 

So, tonight, instead of going to bed like I should, I created this blog, where tomorrow, I will share about my first day at NASA Ames in California. 

Goodnight!