Almost Home

I'm currently at my last day of work.  Yes I am blogging at work in the middle of the day.  And really no one cares.  They haven't cared this whole time.  How cool are my bosses?  I'm really going to miss everyone here.  I'm have a 100% off sale in my office of some stuff that I am not taking with me.  It's a pretty random collection of baking supplies, candy, gloves, nail polish, etc.  I'm also giving away a couple of books my mom and grandma sent to me.  I don't think they realized what the books were about before they sent them to me.  The one my grandma sent gave the message that church is bad, homosexuality is ok, marriage is not sacred, sex before marriage is ok, etc.  I'm pretty sure that's the exact opposite of what she's taught me.  Well, I'm pretty sure she thinks homosexuality is wrong, but she certainly tolerates it well.

Anyway,  I am almost done packing.  I have a few things that I still need to use.  The bags are almost the same weight I came in with despite all of the gifts and souvenirs I bought.  I guess the clothes I threw away, gave to charity or gave to Alex to bring to me in April really countered that well.  One back is 42lbs and the other is 46lbs.  So, I still have a bit of room for the presents Alex is sending me home with.  His present got lost in the mail, and is being resent to him.  Hopefully it gets there before Christmas, but I'd be surprised if it got there before February. lol.

I did get some pretty amazing gifts for people, if I do say so myself.  I think my mom will certainly like her present the most.  I finally found an amazing gift for Christina too.  And my grandparents will love their souvenir.  Though, their souvenir is actually from Portugal.  haha.  Oh well.  Grandma's present is from the Netherlands, so it evens out.  Grandpa is the only person I haven't gotten a present for yet.  He's so hard to shop for!  I have one really great idea, but I've been looking for over a month for it and no luck!  I'm going to the campus store to see if I could get him a university souvenir.  If not, I'll pick him up something in Amsterdam.  Maybe I'll get him some of the pickled herring that's so popular here. haha!

I just realized I haven't blogged about Rome.  It was great!  I got to see so much.  I went to the Colosseum, the ruins, the Vatican, Saint Maria's church.  The Sistine Chapel.  I even climbs the stairs that Jesus walked on my kneed (next to a nun no less).  I have approximately 500 pictures from Rome and Paris.  So, pictures will just have to wait.  Sorry.  Those of you who really depend on these pictures can just look at my camera in a couple of days anyway.

Well, I should really get back to work.  It's almost lunch time, and all I've done is sell stuff for $0. lol

Paris without pics

I will be waiting until after Rome to upload all the pics at once.  But I can tell you about Paris.

I was only there for a day and a half.  So, everything seemed really rushed.  I got into the trainstation and met with Deana.  We then found our hostel and checked in.  The hostel was ok.  The rooms were pretty small though.  After that, we met Susannah at Musee D'Orsay (spelling?) and looked at some really pretty art including Monet, which I love btw. Then, we walked to the Eiffel Tower, and I got to see it sparkle.  It was super pretty, but we didn't go to the top because it was dark and we were already running late.  Then, we had dinner at this little fondue restaurant, where they serve wine out of a baby bottle.  lol.  It was goofy.  We got oil fondue since Deana is lactose-intolerant.  I had never had it before but it was essentially a bowl of raw beef and partially cooked potatoes... kinda intense.  The wine was absolutely delicious.  I thought I didn't like red wine.  I guess I just like the expensive French red wine. lol.  After that, we went to a few bars and met up with some of Susannah's friends and her roommate Hannah.  I ended the day with a delicious nutella and banana crepe hot off the vendor.

The next day, Deana and I ate at our hostel, which had a complementary breakfast.  I had a typical french croissant.  Then we went to this beautiful church (which name I can't remember) and the opera house.  After that, Deana had to leave.  So, I got another crepe.  This time it was chicken and cheese (apparently rare in France), and I toured Notre Dame and got lots of pics and bought souvenirs.  I met Susannah here and we walked the touristy strip that includes Notre Dame, the Louvre and the Tour.  There was so much to see!  I took a lot of pictures.  I'm going to have to do a bit of research to remember all of the names though.  Basically I was sight seeing from 9:30am to 6:30pm. At the end of the day, we were planning on going to a cute pizzeria where I could get a pizza made for me in the shape of a heart. But, then we remembered that it was a Sunday and nothing was open.  So, we went to Breakfast in America or BIA. lol.  Compared to a Denny's it was subpar.  But it was great comfort food.  It's the first time since June I've had real American pancakes and eggs over-easy.  Soooo tastey.

Anyway, I leave for Rome tomorrow morning.  I get to stay with Erica and save a ton on a hostel.  And, I have the second half of Wednesday through Sunday morning to tour Rome.  Hopefully it's enough.  Well, I should get back to work.  My colleague is having some trouble using the setup I built.  I'm pretty sure it's because of her sample, but whatever.  I'm the one who has to fix it.

What I miss about Thanksgiving

1. Visiting with family
2. Playing with my nieces
3. Grandmas turkey and mash potatoes
4. Pumpkin pie (really anyone's but Grandma's is the best!)
5. Pumpkin bread
6. Pumpkin cookies that my mom makes (Can you tell there's NO pumpkin in this country?)
7. Decorating the house
8. Drinking hot cocoa
9. Puzzles with Grandpa and Mom and Christina
10. Helping in the kitchen
11. No work or school
12. That feeling of being too stuffed to move and not caring
13. Watching Tapanga go from person to person begging for food even though she just ate
14. Secretly talking about Christmas presents you've already bought
15. Planning Black Friday shopping
16. Going Black Friday shopping
17. Everyone together for a tastey tastey holiday

I don't get to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family or any family this year.  I'm going to try to find turkey, which is pretty rare in this country.  But I also have to work until five, probably later that day.  I also can't buy canned pumpkin.  I would have to buy a special type of pumpkin that is already hard to find, take out the guts, and puree it myself.  Needless to say, I am NOT doing that.  I guess Thanksgiving will be just Alex and me with a little bit of turkey (hopefully), mashed potatoes and some corn.  Maybe I'll get some real turkey when I get back for Christmas. Yum!

Also, I have almost finished my Christmas and souvenir shopping lists.  I have three more Christmas presents to get and souvenirs for three more people.  Woohoo!  I hope everyone likes what they get!  I think my mother will be the most excited about her present though. lol.  Now you're wondering what it is! muhaha!

This past week

The general GRE had its up and its down.  I got a 780 on the math which is almost a perfect score. yay!  But I got a 440 on the Verbal which kind of makes it look like I don't speak English.  But, I looked at averages and the average for physical sciences from 1994-1997 is 484.  And the average for engineering is 460.  So, I don't feel too bad.  I'll have to address it in my applications but that's ok.  That reminds me.  I have an official list of schools I will be applying to:

Caltech
Colorado School of Mines
University of Colorado, Boulder
North Carolina State University
University of Arizona
Steven's Institute of Technology
University of Montana, Bozeman
University of Twente

As for the physics GRE.  I will know how I did at the end of December.  So, stay tuned for that.  I feel like I answered less questions than I did on the practice exams, but I feel more confident in my answers.  Brussels was nice, but extremely rainy.  I got soaked all the way through on my way to the hostel.  The hostel was kind of weird too.  I got locked in to the building in the morning at around 7am and I had to find a cleaning lady to let me out.  Then it was raining again.  So, I was soaked all the way through for the whole test and for a total of 12 hours.  My body was not happy.

When I got back to Amsterdam I made a delicious dinner and cranked the heat up and watched the only channel in English that was available.  That was when my hard drive crashed on my computer.  Now my lap top doesn't even recognize that it has a hard drive.  I've only had this lap top for a little over a year!  Now it's not under warranty.  So, Alex is going to open it up and try to fix it.  Hopefully it can be fixed.  I've bought two lap tops from best buy and both of them have broken shortly after the warranty expires.  Maybe I will go somewhere else next time, or buy an extended warranty.  humph!

I got some cool results at work the last couple of days.  I've been looking at live cells.  We can  look at them with the old part of the set up and highlight the fat droplets in them.  Then we use my part of the set up to show the difference between the fat, the nucleus, the inner cell and outside the cell.  It was pretty cool.  We're even using my part of the set up to differentiate between different types of fats.  It may sound weird, but it's cool.

Now our laser is getting fixed for the next couple of days.  So, I am writing.  I started my honor's thesis today.  And I will probably start writing my applications soon!  And I'm going to write a proposal for the choir. 

I'd add the pictures from my trip, but no lap top means slower pics.  Maybe I'll borrow Alex's computer soon.

It's all been working up to this!

I finished the goal of my research project last week.  That's right.  The entire project.  I did everything they thought I could in 6months.  But I have a month and a half yet to do guess what?  My own research that I get to plan and decide.  I'm so excited, but I have no idea where to start.  I've got a few papers to start me off on ideas.

I have the general GRE on wednesday.  From taking a practice exam a couple of weeks ago.  I'm right on track.  Since this exam isn't as important to schools.  I should be just fine.  I'm still going to take another practice test though.

On Saturday, I have the physics GRE.  The day I've been dreading for over a year.  I'm doing ok on it.  I've been guessing way tooo much on problems though.  You get points subtracted for wrong answers.  So I need to be extra careful about that.  I do get three days of almost complete solitude at my bosses apartment just before the exam.  That will be so nice!

As for the college search.  My original goal was to have it narrowed down to those I want to apply to by the GRE.  If I know which schools to send my scores to by then, I get four free ones.  And they're $23 a pop!  So that's almost $100 saved!  I'm down to 12.  I want to be down to 5-7 to actually apply. One doesn't need GRE scores and doesn't have an application date.  So, that one is golden.  So far, my favorites are North Carolina University and University of Colorado Boulder.  But, we'll see how things pan out.

Pictures... finally

Here's a monkey from the Monkey Zoo

They're allowed to walk around with people.  This one was just off the path.

Another Monkey

This one ran by Alex and me  while we were looking at another monkey.  It scared both of us pretty bad. lol

This Gorilla is very good at catching it's food.  The handler will through it bits of fruit.

This is a picture from the group retreat.  We rented boats.  In the back is Herman.  He's basically my boss.  The lady in the back is Karen.  She's the sectrary and is expecting.  On the right is Leila.  She's my office mate and we work in the same lab.  On the left is Di.

The Other boat.  The guy driving is Erik.  He's one of my supervisors.  The guy taking the picture is Eirc (confusing?).  He's an intern with me.  The lady is Jennifer.  She's the main Professor.  The guy in the front middle is Jorick.  He's an office mate.  Behind him is Pepijn.  He teaches quantum optics.  The guy in the front is Erwin.

A picture of the guys. From left to right we have Martin (my supervisor), Simon, Dirk Jan, Joris, Dan and Jeroen.

My supervisor Martin.

Tnhere's me and Herman.  The lady in the back is Jincy.  She's about to graduate.

That's my boss.... uh... yeah.

This is the cabin we stayed in.  It was so cute.

We also went to play farmer's golf with a wooden shoe on a stick and a little soccer ball.

This is Jennifer.  We had an all girls team.

This is Di.

We also ate lunch at a pirate themed pancake ship!

Here's Alex and me at the kitchen in my flat.

I found this in Apeldoorn.  I think Christina will appreciate this. lol

Alex's friends and I went to a little bar in Apeldoorn.

Here's Alex in his bedroom at his parent's house.

Apeldoorn station!  This is where Alex is from.

Jennifer and her kids made Jack-o-lanterns and put them outside my window.

This one's old, but it's Erik and Eric at my 21st. 

So, there's a lot of pictures.  Hopefully that will keep people satisfied for a while.  Oh I also have an update on colleges.  I'm down to 14!  Here they are.

CalTech

Case Western University

City of New York, the Graduate Center

College of William and Mary

Colorado School of Mines

Montana State University - Bozeman

North Carolina State University

Stanford

Stevens Institute of Technology

Twente University

University of Arizona

University of British Columbia

University of Colorado Boulder

University of New Mexico

Also, I've got the General GRE on Wednesday and the Physics GRE a week from today.  Wish me luck!!!



Woo that was a week!

I got back from the group retreat on Friday night.  It was so much fun!  I have tons of pictures, but those will have to wait until later like all of the other pictures... maybe I should just steal an internet chord from work.... hmmm.....  Anyway, we went boating on the lake and had tons of fun.  Though it was freezing basically the whole time.  Then we had delicious sandwiches with butcher meat and cheese from a special cheese store.  MmmmMmmm.  After that we payed games and hung out until it was time to make dinner.  I made twice baked potatoes and Eric made stir fry.  Leila (my officemate)  made an Iranian dish that she grew up with.  I don't think many people liked it.  But she was very excited and it was worth seeing her happy.

After dinner we played a fun trivia game with a huge board that will buzz if you get the questions right.  It was a riot!  After that, Alex FINALLY got there.  He had been at a workshop that helps with presentation skills.  Then, we had a whiskey tasting. I had only had Jameson before, and I thought it was pretty good.  So, I figured I would like higher quality whiskey more.  WRONG!  It was gross.  It smelled like smoked meat which made me not want to drink it in the first place.  And it tasted smokey too.  It was gross.  I got -1 point from our technician Frans for not finishing all five shots of whiskey.  Yes five whole shots!  Apparently tasting (which normally gives about a quarter of a shot or less) to Jeoron meant get everyone drunk. lol.  oh well.  I didn't finish even one shot.  The next day we got up and had a light breakfast and went out to farmer's golf.  You get a wooden shoe on a stick and hit a mini soccer ball around a course.  The holes are buckets dug into the ground. lol.  It was great.  I also have a lot of pictures of that.  I really should get that internet cable....  After that, we went on a pirate themed ship to eat Dutch pancakes.  It was really cute.  I had one that was half apples and cream and half bananas and chocolate.  delicious!

Well, I should get down stairs to the lab.  The laser should be all warmed up.  Yes something that can burn things must have time to warm up or it's just not as good.

Well, that sucked.

The conference in Germany was definitely one I'll remember.  Not so sure in a good way.  the train there was ridiculously long due to construction.  It only takes 2-3 hours to drive, but I got a 7 hours train trip.  Also, one of my trains was late, causing me to miss a connection and get to the conference an hour and a half late.  Oh. And you can't forget the car that almost hit me!

The lectures were intellectually stimulating, but most didn't stress the main point enough to really get what they were talking about.  It was also aimed to an audience with more background knowledge than me.  So I only understood about half of what was going on.  However, there were 15-20 people out of about 60 that have less background knowledge than me.  These were the people who told me that my poster was the only thing in the WHOLE conference they understood.

So, I was the only Bachelor student there.  And apparently, that was a problem.  NOWHERE does it say that I CAN'T come or even that I SHOULDN'T come.  But I got treated like a child and an idiot by almost everyone there.  NORMALLY when someone presents a poster, other people come over and talk to them about their project and ask them to explain the poster and clarify a few points.  I had people come over and QUIZ me on what they think I should know!  Just who do they think they are all high and mighty?!  I also had someone come over, fully intent on asking questions, he asked what degree I was pursuing.  I told him, and he left!  Just left!  Apparently I wasn't WORTHY of speaking with.  And after word got around that I was a bachelor student, not only did a lot of people refuse to speak to me, some even wouldn't make eye-contact.  How ridiculous can you be?  I am a student who needs to learn!  You should be teaching me!  I can deal with not being respected as a scientist because most of the people there knew a lot more than I do.  But not to be respected as a person?!  COME ON!!! GET OVER YOURSELF!!!!!

Ok.  That's enough ranting.  I did find a few people to bond with who were quite nice, a little on the awkward or unexperienced side, but nice.  I even got to practice a little Japanese (Lord knows I need that!).

Needless to say,  I will definitely NOT go into this field in Europe.  Maybe I'll find a conference in the states and hopefully it's better there.

Well, tomorrow we leave at 8:15 am (gross!) for the group retreat.  That means a purely social retreat with my colleagues.  We're going boating and playing a traditional Dutch game which is called "Farmer's Golf." It involves a typical wooden shoe on a stick and a large ball. lol.  I can't wait.  We're also going to a pancake restaurant on a pirate themed ship.  Too cute!

My poster went great!!!!

I got an honorable mention at the conference.  That means I was in the top three and just barely missed beating ALL of the PhDs at there posters. hahaha.  The judges really liked my title and innovative lay out.  Hopefully the next poster will be received with equal enthusiasm.  That is, if my supervisor ever approves of it!!! grrrr... I want to get it printed already!

List of Schools

Here's my narrowed down list.  I was down to 31, but then I found a few more that I had to add on. Alabama A & M University

Boston University

California Institute of Technology

Case Western University

City University of New York, The Graduate Center

College of William and Mary

Colorado School of Mines

Colorado State University

Florida International University

Georgia Institute of Technology

Harvard University Massachusettes Institute of Technology

McMaster University

Montana State University - Bozeman

North Carolina State University

Old Dominion University Rice University

Southern Illinois University Carbondale Stanford University

Stevens Institute of Technology

Twente University

University of Alabama at Birmingham University of Arizona

University of British Columbia University of California Berkely

University of Central Florida

University of Chicago University of Colorado at Boulder

University of Connecticut

Unviersity of Maine

University of Manitoba University of Maryland - College Park

University of Michigan

Unviersity of Nevada Las Vegas

University of Nevada, Reno

Unviersity of New Mexico University of Rochester

University of St Andrews

University of Virginia

One down. One to go

I've officially sent off my first poster to the printer!!! woo!  I've started my second poster, and I am on track for studying for the GRE.  However, I am going to have to work a little harder than planned on the GRE today and Sunday bc Domi is coming over tomorrow!  It should be really fun. We're not that close, but we always have a good time together.  I've convinced him to go to a Dutch pancake restaurant.  MmmmMmmmm.

Also, I found Mac 'n Cheese!  It's "Magic-a-Roni."  It's not great, but it does the job.  It was in the Mexican food aisle. lol.  They have no idea what they're doing.  And I ate "Texas-flavor" pizza the other day.  It was pepperoni.  And it was Texas bc it was big. lol. 

Part way there.

My poster that needs to be done on Thursday is almost done.  yay!!!  I have one typo, two mistakes, and one "making it look pretty" thing to fix.  It does look quite good.  I also wrote and turned in my abstract for my second poster (which will probably have very similar graphs on it as the first).  I had a major problem yesterday while aligning my setup, but I fixed it.  I did all the calculations.  So I should be able to just put almost everything in my set up, align two mirrors using my calculations, and then put the rest of the stuff in at the calculated places.  I really, really hope this works.  This is by far the most precise way to do it.  Hopefully I didn't make a calculation error.  It would suck trying to find that.

In other news, my room smells like roses courtesy of Alex.  They're really pretty.  It's starting to get cold here which is sad, but I'm still holding out in my light jacket and flip flops.  My office mate wears two jackets and has a space heater. haha.  I think I'm going to make bacon wrapped scallops tonight.  Hopefully they turn out well and Alex likes them... maybe we should pick up a frozen pizza just in case. lol.

Just so you know.  This wasn't the real test.  It was a practice test.  Don't worry.  I still can theoretically get into college.

I Failed the Test

Yes, you heard right, I got about a 20% on the test.  Since the test is scaled that means I got about a 40% which isn't much better.  So, I've been working my tail off studying and I have a new plan that will hopefully help things moe efficiently.

The anniversary yesterday was nice.  Alex bought me roses and some pretty silver earrings that match the necklace he got me for my birthday.  I ended up getting him a polo, a recipe book and a ton of different kinds of black licorice.  You think there's only one kind bc you're in the states, but nooooooo.  There are at least six different kinds I know of and I hate black licorice.  Also, red licorice is super hard to find :(  But I did finally find a place that sells oreos and resees.  Also, the chinese stores sell baking soda and crisco. How funny!  Anyway, Alex and I planned to go to bowling, the to dinner, then do a movie.  But the practice test ran a little late, so we went to dinenr first.  Then since we both didn't sleep very well the night before and had tiring days, we were too tired to go to a movie.  So, we played a couple of games of pool and a bar near the resturaunt we went to.

For the first time since starting this blog, I am on my lap top with my camera handy.  Theoretically I could download images, but the internet is acting too much.  So, no pictures yet.  Also I brought my camera to our anniversary, but I forgot to take pictures! ugh!  We were even dressed up.  Oh well.  I'll have to take more later. :)

Planning for the future without planning for the present

Yep.  You read that right.  I am way ahead of myself right now.  I have things done for months ahead.  I have my trips in November and December planned but not the one happening in a week and a half or in two weeks.  I have just bought Alex's xmas present, but I haven't bought his 3month anniversary present for tomorrow.  Well, looks like I'm either working backwards or I'm not really planning on living life until after the GRE.  Since I don't really have a life because of the GRE, that's kind of true. huh......

I'm a busy bee.... or girl?

I've got soooo much to do.  I dropped the class I was taking because I realized that it wasn't leaving me enough time to do things that are much more important.  For instance, studying for the GRE which kinda decides which graduate school I can get into.  I have about a month and a half until the GRE in Brussels.  I'm planning to stay at least an extra afternoon to sight see a bit.  Also, I have two conferences coming up.  Not only does that mean making two posters, but I have to finish my project this week!  Oh yeah, and it's Thursday already!  Needless to say, I've got some long nights ahead of me.  But I do have progress.  I already designed the first poster and made a lot of the images and looked up most of the equations that will need to be on there.  I also got the first step done into my project.  Only 4 more to go.  The next step is super easy, and the one after that shouldn't be too hard.  The third, I've never done before and looks really hard.  Also, the last step, I'm pretty sure my supervisor will end up doing. Oh well.  At least it will get done :)

Updates

1. On Saturday I made Chicken Parmigiana with the parmesan. lol.  It was quite good.
2. I am NOT allergic to gluten! Wooo!
3. I am VERY allergic to soy.... not woo.
4. People at Lawrence need to start updating me on their lives!!!!! Ok?  Ok. thanks.

cookies fail

I made no bake/Missouri cookies last night.  And only the ones I got out of the pan last set.  I'm so confused.  The one's out of the pan last are perfect and the ones out of the pan first are a gooey mess.  It's super weird.  Alex went home and to the dentist today.  So, I sent some of the set cookies with him to his parents.  I would go visit too, but his dad is sick.   Too bad I didn't have time to make soup!

Updates

So, I've eaten gluten once everyday the past three days.  I only got sick once, but that was after drinking three cups of coffee without eating anything first.  So, I'm ignoring that one.  Alex and I made homemade pizza on Tuesday night and on Wednesday I had croissants for lunch.  Maybe I can convince him to take me out to dinner today.  We need to do some shopping.  I need dress clothes for the conferences I'm going to.  I bought two dress shirts and a dress sweater to go over.  (This only totaled to 40Euro! yay bargain shopper!)  The button down shirts actually button all the way without making me look frumpy.  It's a miracle.  But I still need some dress pants.  I really need Khakis since I bought dark blue.  Plus I don't have khakis here or at home.  So, it'll be a good investment.  It's weird.  I think I will end up coming home with a few clothes that I bought here, but I think all of my clothes are going to be too worn out to bring back.  The same goes for my shoes.  I brought six pairs of shoes here, and it looks like only one of them is going to make it through.  I even bought a cute pair of sandals here that I don't think will survive the next few months.  My jeans are ripping apart.  My clothes have either gotten stained or ruined in the wash.  The washers here go up to 90degrees C!!!  That's 194 degrees F!!! What were they thinking?!  Hence some of my lighter colored clothes are not so light anymore, and will be donated to a second hand store before I leave.  The clothes my mom sent me will definitely come home, except for the undershirts.  They are already ripping!  I don't know why.  May be I need super-reinforced undershirts. lol

Well, work is going ok.  I just learned that my supervisor has been steering me in the wrong direction for almost a month!  Super frustrating.  His supervisor got really mad at him.  Now I have no idea what my set-up is doing.  It gives me data about 30% of the time.  I have no idea why it suddenly decides it's tired and gives up.  It's really weird.

I'm going to bake some Missouri cookies tonight after shopping with Alex.  I'll send some over with him to his parents.  (He's going during work because he has a dentist appointment or I would be going too.)  His friend is coming over later that night to watch a movie at the theater.  I cannot remember what it's called for the life of me!  Oh well.  I'm sure it will be fun.

New Stages

I've officially been gluten-free for three weeks! (minus a couple of slip ups)  Now it's time to test the diet.  So, I get to eat one meal with gluten in it a day and see if I notice a change.  I'll do this for one week, and if nothing changes.  I will eat all the bread that I want!  And pizza!  And cookies, cakes......  everything!  However, not quite everything is doing so well with my digestive system.  So, I think I am going to cut out soy entirely.  I've only been lowering it, and I've noticed that I still get sick after eating too much of it.  And hopefully that will help.  If not, I guess I will just keep a food diary... I suck at diaries though.  Hopefully it won't come to that.  Hopefully I can just be soy-free forever and my digestive system will be happy.

Well, to get off the topic of food.  Apparently my advisers don't think I am working hard enough.  I've been pulling 50-60 hour weeks between lab time and homework (which is still work by my boss's standards!).  They claim that I have made no progress lately.  This is merely because I took the entire set-up apart to make it even better.  Don't they know sometimes you have to take a step back to leap forward?  I think they're missing the point.  I've also really been neglecting my studying for the GRE.  I know I have an extra month now, but I really need to do this, and right now, I just don't have the time.  Even though I see that as the MOST important, it has the latest deadline of everything here.  So, it keeps getting pushed back to later.

My cousin, Christina, just moved in to college for the first time.  She sounds really excited.  She's also getting her cartilage pierced.  I remember when I got that done... Oh boy, that made me sound old. haha.  That reminds me the laser I'm working with right now is as old as me! haha.  I couldn't stop laughing once I figured that out.  It's starting to turn yellow and only come on some of the times you push the on button.

I know I keep promising pictures.  Truth is I have only a few, and I don't have the time to post them.  So, right now you will have to deal with words.  Hopefully I will take more pictures on mine and Alex's anniversary.  That way you can all see him.  But he is visiting school in April and home in the summer. Ahem  parents I hope that's ok :)  So you all should be able to meet him in person.  I have only one rule.  You must not scare him away.  mmk?  k.

Busy Busy Busy!

I made a list of all of the things I need to do in the next week and it's huge!!  I'm a little scared, but I know that I will get plenty of help along the way, and I'm pretty sure I can accomplish everything I need to and set aside things that aren't as urgent.  So far I need to read 10 chapters in one physics book and 10 in another.  I also need to go through a thermal physics review packet, do a homework set on quantum optics, and that's only for my class!  I also have a lot of work to do to be prepared for my posters.  And I have an important meeting tomorrow with a possible collaborator.  I did however find a journal that I may try to publish an article in this year.  It's specifically for undergraduates.  I'll tell you when to start crossing your fingers. :)

Alex had a presentation yesterday.  It was in Dutch.  So, I didn't go.  But, apparently everyone really liked it and asked him a lot of questions about the demo he made and shaping laser pulses.  It seems like he had a lot of fun.  And today we can finally have a meal together with just the two of us.  That hasn't happened in a while.

I'm starting to get really homesick hearing about everyone moving back in to school.  I'm sad that I can't help Christina, my cousin, move in for her first year.  It would've been nice to help her get prepared and teach her a few tricks.  I know she'll do well, even if she has withdrawels from her hampster. lol.  I also miss my tortoise.  So I can totally relate right now.  I also really miss the support group I have at Lawrence.  Between Maitland, Mari and Grace, I've had someone to turn to every time I needed to.  Not to mention Mia, and Claire (even though she's in Chicago now), and Carol, and Brad and Jessy... ok too many people to miss.  I also really miss Kappa.  I'm wearing my KKG sweatshirt right now to feel a little closer.  I miss the weekly meetings and hearing Susannah's interesting and a lot of times funny risk management tips.  I miss the excitement of recruitment and the fun of making caramel apples.  Maybe I'll host a mini caramel apple making session when I get back just for funsies.  And a movie night with Mulan and lots of Kappas and lots of popcorn. lol.  Maybe I'll just have to plan lots of fun things for when I'm back so that I don't feel like I'm missing out on too much. :)

Gotta Get To Work!

I'm officially signed up for two different conferences in about a month.  That means that I have a little less than one month to perfect my project at work and get it integrated into Erik's project which isn't quite done yet.  This was supposed to be done in December.  That was my old deadline.  Way to move it up two months.  Oh dear.  Now I'm nervous, especially since I just tore apart the entire set up (to try to make it better) and I still haven't been able to put it back together.  Soooo nervous.  Must get to work!

Epic Fail or Epic Sucess?

list of failures:
                  getting lost in the building I work in
                  choking on water
                  dropping a very expensive physics book
                  eating gluten

list of successes:
                    finished my homework early
                    may have got a collaboration with a university in Canada
                    Printed out some very useful study materials for the GRE
                    Read two sections in my quantum optics book


Well, it's 4 vs 4.  The glass is half full/empty.  Now, how to look at it.....

Rebuilding + Homework + Studying + Work = Busy

At work, I've started rebuilding my entire set up.  I had to change a lot of things anyway, and it would be nice to have it more condensed.  So, I moved the set up to behind the laser to save room.  I also switched the place where we put our sample to right next to the microscope.  Eventually, we will use a sample on the microscope instead of my sample holder now.  So, we are prepared for that step.

I just found out that the annual birthday party for my dad, my brother and myself happened last week.  I didn't even know about!  Of course it went back to just being for my dad and brother, like it was before I was born.  I guess we'll just have to have a mini birthday celebration in December where I can give them presents too! And maybe go to olive garden. MmmmMmmmm.


I have my second homework set due in two days.  I'm about 2/3 of the way done with it and I already have some of it written up as a final draft.  I have to make final drafts of physics homework.  When I'm figuring out the problems, I just make a mess on the page.  I can barely figure it out myself! haha.

I've been studying for the GRE, but I think I'm going to study in a slightly different way.  I've been taking the online quizzes instead of just studying what I think will be on the test.  This way takes a lot less time, and I think in the end it will tell me what I really need to study.  So far I have taken 3 out of about a million quizzes.  Okay, there's more like 50.  But that's still a lot!

I will try to get pictures up soon.  I have to remember when I'm on my laptop and not my work computer.  That's apparently harder than it sounds for me. lol.

Hungry!

I am hungry all the time on this gluten-free diet.  It's so frustrating.  I've been talking with my friend Ali, and she said that I should switch to brown rice instead of white rice.  Hopefully that helps a bit.  I'm snacking like crazy!  Also, I found this delicious garlic herb cheese spread for my sandwiches.  Never thought I would enjoy sandwiches for two meals a day!  I went to the canteen for dinner, and they didn't have much gluten free.  Normally their whole meal is gluten free, but they went for pasta and breaded chicken today :(  I probably looked really weird checking out with my kiwi, coke, and boiled eggs. lol.

I just read Nikki's blog about her friend's friend's (keeping up) miscarriage.  It was soooo sad. but bittersweet that "the first time he opens his eyes he sees Jesus." I almost cried and I don't even know these people!  I guess it kind of hit home for me a bit.  My biggest fear (for when I'm older. Don't worry.)  is that I will never be able to see my child.  I'm afraid of either having a miscarriage or dying during labor.  It's so scary!  I hate health class for freaking me out.  I've even considered adopting to avoid the whole issue.  Of course, I will have to come to an agreement with my future husband, in the future.  I really shouldn't be worrying about this now.  Alex and I have spoken of marriage, but he doesn't want to get married until after he gets his PhD, and I don't want to get married until I'm in graduate school at the earliest.  So, I've got at least two years until I should be worrying about this.  Why am I stressing now?  It's entirely irrelevant now.  ugh!

Well, Pistachio, my tortoise, seems to be doing very well with Mari and Maitland.  Maitland claims that he likes Mari better.  He may.  I know he hated my old roommate Carol.  He would hiss at her all the time.  Granted, she did hiss back and gave him the very attractive nick name Piss.  I know.  Lovely right?  I wish I had a picture of him here, and my dogs.  I brought pictures of my family, and I constantly am updating my computer background with new pictures of my nieces from Nikki's blog.  I guess I just am a little homesick.  It'll happen when you're half way across the world for almost 3months.  Wow!  It's been almost three months.  I'm almost half way into this project.  That's crazy, and kind of makes me feel like I need to get to work. lol.  Homework and studying for the GRE need to come first right now though.

I will try to start taking more pictures and post them, however, they will not be nearly as cute as the ones of my nieces.  Sorry, I'm no longer a little chubby girl with budding teeth or an adorable smiley baby.  Though I am smiley.. and maybe a little chubby. lol.  Certainly not as chubby as little Hannah though!  I have some pictures on my camera that should be posted.  They're of really cute monkeys at a monkey zoo I went to a while ago.  They actually let the monkeys come out with the people along with a few other animals.  Now, where did I put my camera?...

Progress!

Progress at work:  I improved the resolution of my camera by a little bit, and if I get more components, I can improve it by a lot more!  Exciting.

Progress in school:  I actually understand most of this homework set!  I just did the first three problems in half an hour.  And I know I got them right. Yay!!!  I have one little definition that I don't understand and I'll be able to do the next part.  After that I may need to do some reading.

Progress in life:  Well... that's general...  hmmmm....  My bike is getting fixed.  So, I will be able to get around quickly and easily soon once again.  I went to the contemporary choir rehearsal on Monday.  It was taught in Dutch and I actually understood what I was supposed to do most of the time.  It was surprising.  I'm going to the rehearsal for the classical choir tonight.  I will probably end up joining that one.  I like classical choirs a little better plus they have less people which is always nice when it comes to choir.

This weekend or next weekend I will be going to Alex's house to visit his parents and go see a movie with his friends.  I'm excited to get away for a weekend.  This place is a little too related to stress for me right now.  but it's a good work environment motivation wise at the moment.

Well it's almost lunch time, and I forgot my gluten-free bread at Alex's place.  So, I better get going.

Gluten Free week 2!

I can eat Dairy!!!!! wooo!!!!  Turns out I'm allergic to soy.  Leave it to soy icecream to help me figure that out. haha. so I had about two servings of dairy at once and didn't get sick.  Thus, I'm not allergic to dairy as far as I can tell.  But soy is evil and my new enemy.  But, now I know why I was randomly getting sick this past week.  I think it'll be really funny if I end up being allergic to soy and corn because those are the main stream substitutes for gluten and dairy.  That'd be entertaining.  I'm so excited to eat chocolate and ice cream and cheese and milk.....  I also found a little Chinese store that sells baking soda, crisco, and popping corn.  I've been dying without them.  My boss was very impressed that I found those within three months when she's been her twenty some years and hasn't found them! lol.

Class is HARD!!  Apparently I need background for the first assignment that I don't have.  It's taking forever.  I have two problems left and I'm just stuck on the math, but I can't make them work. I'm supposed to prove that this crazy function equals zero, but I'm 98% sure it doesn't.  grrr....  frustrations.  This kind of reminds me of Comp Mech.... huh.

Gluten Free Day 4

I have made it to day four, and I want chocolate!!!!! OMG I want chocolate.  And I found out that I can have dark chocolate which is the best kind anyway.  So, I better leave soon to go buy a ton!

Anyway I'm about to schedule the day I can take the Physics GRE.  Apparently Amsterdam is all full, and I will have to go to brussels which could be fun.

Alex is sick now.  One guess who's fault that is...  oh wait.  He's sick and kinda grumpy but really cute.  Work is slow, but hopefully I will make progress tomorrow.

Gluten-Free Day 3

So, I haven't died.  yay!!! But I have had a nasty cold for the past few days and they just don't have useful medicine here.  Oh well.  I took the day off yesterday, drank a lot of tea, took a couple of hot showers, and I feel a little better.

One thing I've learned is that gluten-free bread sucks.  It's just gross, at least the kind I have is.  I'm going to try and buy a different kind today, but that means I have to go into the city.  That's slightly more difficult since Alex borrowed my bike and ran over glass.  Now I have to replace the entire back tire.  We tried to patch it up, but the slice was just too big.  Hopefully I can just take the bus and get some tasty bread.  That's all I miss... well and cheese... and icecream.  OK apparently I miss a lot.... chocolate.... The milk is the more frustrating part.  I can do without the gluten.  There's gluten free bread and cookies and cereals and snacks and flour.  I just want my tasty milk back.  grrr.  This is going to be harder than I thought.  Even harder than when I was a vegetarian for a month and a half.  Oh that reminds me, they have this delicious bacon wrapped ground pork here.  It's so good.  I made a meat rub for the first time last night for it.  It turned out a little salty, but very tasty.

Other than that not much has been going on.  I narrowed down my colleges by a few, and I've been playing a lot of Mario Party.  Maybe I need a life... nah!

Gluten-Free! Day 1

So, I learned something while being able to drink here.  Beer may taste good, but my body does NOT like it.  It gets me drunk about four times as fast as any other alcohol.  Normally it's the other way around.  After talking with Eric, he said that his girlfriend Ali has the same problem because of her celiac disease.  Apparently 1/3 of Americans have some kind of intolerance to gluten.  So, I did some research for about a week.  Turns out I have almost every single side effect of celiac disease including the sensitivity to dairy.  Now, I am gluten and dairy free for two weeks.  That's supposed to be long enough for your intestines to start to heal and you to notice a difference.  Plus, it's kind of fun coming up with new things to eat.  If this does work, it looks like I may have a few illnesses I've been diagnosed with over the years suddenly disappear.  Wouldn't that be nice?!  I kind of hope it works, but at the same time, I will miss my bread.  But I did buy gluten free bread and cookies and pasta.  There's a tone of gluten free stuff out there!  There's even flour!  So, I can still bake. It's Day 1.  I've had one meal, soy milk and chocolate corn flakes.  Yes.  You heard right. Chocolate corn flakes.  And they're tasty!  I'll try out my gluten free bread with my dairy free hazelnoot paste for lunch and some applesauce.  Mmmm.  I'm not even hungry, but that sound delicious already.  I just realized I used the Dutch spelling for hazelnut.  Ha!  I guess I'm getting used to this country and the language.  Watch out when I get back!  I already now quite a few Dutch words!

Cake, cake and moooooore cake!

The carrot cake was an epic fail.  It was almost burning on the edges when I took it out, but it still wasn't cooked in the middle.  I ended up having to buy a cake from the store.  Oh well.  The party was really fun though.  We went to dinner and then went to a couple of bars, played some darts, came back to campus and played the drinking game Alex got me.

My mom sent me a lovely birthday package that I just got yesterday in time for my RAMAN CAKE!!!  Yes.  You read that correctly.  I got RAMAN DATA on my birthday.  That means my set up is working.  And now that it has been a few days I've got it working consistently and I have the data that my supervisor didn't expect me to have for another four months.  I guess he underestimated me. Ha!  Anyway, back to the cake.  I made an applesauce cake and Eric made the frosting for me.  Apparently after failing at frosting in his presence twice, he steps in. lol.  Just before I baked it, I got the birthday package with backing soda in it and shortening which helped a lot in the process.  And, one of my flatmates told me the correct way to use the oven. (One of my other flatmates showed me the wrong way, hence, mushy cake.)  Our oven is quite old and all of the writing on one of the knobs is gone.  Apparently I broiled the last cake instead of baking it! Oops!  This one turned out great though.  Everyone really liked it.  Some people even wanted the recipe.

As for colleges, I'm down to 52.  I'm going to start looking at the research interests of the professors now.  This way I can eliminate things a lot faster.  If it doesn't sound really interesting, it's off the list.  I did find someone that specialized in optical hole burning.  I bet everyone reading this thought the same thing I did at first, burning holes with a huge laser.  Though fun, that's not quite what he is doing. He's most likely making different laser modes (A laser mode is based on the number of bright spots and the pattern they are in.  A typical laser is in TEM00 mode with just on circle in the middle.) that aren't normally possible in a laser of that material.

Studying is going ok.  I'm working on Electricity and Magnetism now.  It's worth a lot of the test and I've forgotten a lot of it.  I think I'm going to have to test myself in all areas and hope for the best and review like crazy.  Hopefully I can move on to optics soon, but I don't think I'll spend much time on that since I just took an optics course at Lawrence and I've been working with optics this whole time. 

Well, here's my first shot at pictures.  I don't have many here because I'm on my work computer instead of my laptop, but here's a few.

This is my Raman data.  My data is in the blue, and the accepted data is in red.  Mine isn't as good, but it's clearly the same thing.

 This is our Mexican themed party with a couple of flat mates from Mexico.  I have no idea why I look pregnant in this picture.  I promise I'm not.  My shirt must just be doing weird things.

This last one is of me and Eric and Ali at the faculty bbq.

Well, I hope that satisfies the need for pictures for now.  It'll be a while before there's more.  I keep forgetting to bring my camera places.

IT'S MY BIRTHDAYYYYYY!!!!!

Sooooo excited.  Alex already gave me presents this morning, approximately half an hour after I woke up.  He gave me an interesting looking drinking game that involves Jenga, and a beautiful silver necklace.  He's so sweet.

It's almost time for cake at work.  I made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  It's a dutch tradition that you make a cake for everyone else on your birthday, a little backwards compared to American style.  But I love baking, and it was fun because I've never made a carrot cake before or cream cheese frosting.  Hopefully everyone likes it!

Narrowing Down the College Search

I am officially down to 55 colleges to choose from.  Most are in the US, a few in Canada, one in Scotland and one in the Netherlands. (Take a wild guess which one.)  The most surprising is that UW didn't make the cut.  Their optics program is virtually non-existent.   That was one of my top two choices until about five minutes ago.  And Washington State, the one college I've made fun of all my life as a huge Huskies fan, made the cut!  How weird things turn out.  Well I'm past the first two stages of cutting based on location and whether or not they have optics.  The next step will be a lot longer :(

At least work is going well.  I may not get my Raman data before my birthday, but it will be close!  As for studying, I'm supposed to be doing that right now..... um. yeah.  I should do that...

Frustration & success

Apparently people don't realize that when electronic keys break, there should be a back up.  I left my medicine in my office thinking that I would be able to get back in there.  However, the key system was down.  So, I went to security and since only one guy was on duty I had to wait until the Sunday morning to get any help.  On Sunday morning, someone did try to help me.  No luck.  So, I was stuck without medicine.  I couldn't work.  I couldn't study.  Basically I didn't know what to do with my life.

Thankfully today the key system was fixed when I got into work.  I am so close to getting data.  Before I'm going to look at molecular vibrations, I'm going to look at fluorescence.  Basically I'm looking at a colored piece of plastic to callibrate my set-up.  Now I just need a little help from my supervisor and I will be ready to go!

Ah yes, the plan for my birthday is coming together.  It will be dinner somewhere in town followed by fun at the Irish Pub.  Because why wouldn't you go to a bar in a foreign country that celebrates a different foreign culture that still isn't your own? 

My first post on my first blog. EEK!

I have a few friends who blog, and it seems to work really well for them.  So, I decided to give it a try.

This Friday is my 21st birthday!  I feel like it would be a little more exciting if I were back in the states rather than in Europe (where I am currently drinking a very tasty German beer).  I'm still not sure what I am going to do.  I could go bowling or go to a bar.  I think I might end up going to the Irish Pub in town to have dinner and drink a bit.  But, of course, I have to get my free birthday drink at the campus bar. lol

Work is going quite well.  I've been given a difficult talk of building a Raman spectrometer from scratch.  Basically it's a fancy microscope that looks at vibrations of molecules.  It can identify exactly what's under the microscope just by looking at the different vibrations.  Cool right?!  I'm almost done.  I've been having quite a bit of trouble with the camera.  However, now that I'm using the correct computer program (oops!), things are going a lot smoother.  Hopefully I'll be able to achieve my goal of having Raman data before my birthday.  *fingers crossed*


When I'm not working a lot of my time has been spent studying for the GRE Physics exam.  I've been studying about 3 hours a day for it.  I've only gotten through classical mechanics though.  So, I still have a ways to go.  I should start Electricity and Magnetism tonight.  My worst subject.  *groan*

Lately, I've also been looking at potential graduate schools.  I realized how far behind I am at the college search.  It takes so much work!!  So far I have two that I am for sure applying to and a list of about 200 maybes.  I really need to work on narrowing that list down!  I know I want to go into optics, and that's a start.  I also know the countries I want to be in (US, UK, Netherlands). Canada wouldn't be terrible either.  I just hope I never get one of those accents.

I made a delicious potato soup tonight for dinner.  I can't wait until tomorrow when Alex gets back and can try it!