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!