thoughts, thoughts.

As I was driving over the pass to my hometown today, I had a whole bunch of blog post ideas run through my mind, but in classic form, now that I sit down, I can't really remember them all. Oh well.

Today is Friday. I spent the last two solid days working on one homework assignment. Like 24+ hours on it. Maybe a few projects during undergrad took longer than that, but never in two super-concentrated days. And never just one nine-question homework. The older students warned us that this course would be heavy on the work, but I was not expecting this. I think the extended length of time required was due to the book's extremely concise way of explaining complicated concepts and lack of examples (not good for a visual learner like me). I seriously sat and worked on a jump the book took in the sole example problem for two hours - I just could not figure out where they got the values they were substituting in. My lack of a math background is coming back to get me - the geometry (a course I never actually took) on one problem caused #7 to take me 2+ hours - yikes. I don't know where my prof got his 4-6 hour time required for homework statistic, apparently not from his students....oh well, at least I get to think about crystal structures that produce fluorescent crystals:

{white light}

{UV Light}

But, since I was able to press through most of my homework (I'm still going to have to go back over it Sunday), today was a wonderful day of brain-resting. No more complicated thought than what I tea I needed to pick out at the Asian market - I scored some sweet Tie Kuan Yin and a High Mountain oolong. You've never quite know what you're getting at this market, as you can't smell any of the tea beforehand, nor can I read any of the characters besides the names which, thankfully, are in English. But, my tolerance for 'dirt tea' (how I describe the oolong I picked up last time I was there) has gone way up, so I assume I can drink any oolong I purchase there. So far, the High Mountain was much darker than I expected, at the TeaCup it's a pretty light oolong, but the batch I got was pretty dark. It still tasted good, just more like a Tie Kuan Yin...maybe I just accidentally opened the wrong box??

Side note: I'm finding that as much as I love my electronics and am trying to do everything in the 'cloud' (dropbox is fantastic!), I have yet to find a good replacement for a simple weekly planner that I physically write in. There is just something about actually writing that so far, I've been unable to duplicate electronically....but do any of my friends want to write me an app??? :D or know of a great electronic weekly planner that mimics this?

This week's been kind of slow outside of the marathon hw days; after my group meeting Saturday (more about that later), I had to still write a draft of my technical proposal for my fellowships to submit to my advisor by Monday afternoon, so that took all of Sunday and Monday - it's still surprising to me how long it takes for me write 1000 words that construct a comprehensive yet concise description of my research! And I still haven't heard back yet....I'm kind of dreading this happening:

However, he has been traveling to a conference at the Fetzer Institute, so I guess I can't expect too quick of a response, even though he did say that generally he can read more while he is traveling....I already know that I need to edit/re-structure my draft, so that's on the docket for tomorrow. (anybody feel like peer editing?) Anyways, the Fetzer Institute is a relatively newly funded non-profit that seeks to look at love and forgiveness from a variety of perspectives, including engineering. Some guy named Fetzer passed away and left oodles of money to form this institute, with the sole instructions that whatever they do has to be focused around those themes. They are not a body that accepts grant applications, they just decide to give people money to promote the work they are already involved in. My advisor promised more information once he gets back, I'm interested in hearing where they decided to give money! I'm also interested in watching how this institute develops it's work in the world, because, as far as I can tell, they are a non-religious body. Or maybe an all-religions body, as I think the Dalai Lama and another well-known-guy-whose-name-I-can't-remember are co-hosting their giant conference in a monastery in Italy next year (apparently, before this conference, the chapel they are holding the conference in has never been opened outside of a papal visit). I'm not saying that you can't do work that benefits others apart from Christ, but it looks different, and, I'd posit, maybe not as wholly beneficial as working towards both spiritual and physical wellbeing simultaneously. Thoughts, anyone?

In a year, it will be good to re-read this when I am so frustrated at an experiment (I'm sure it'll happen eventually) that working on homework for 24+ hours will be remembered with fondness.....