Core Dump

I've neglected this blog yet again. Here is an undetailed list of my recent activities through the passage of photos. Click on pictures for larger images!

I got pie'd for the physics club's annual Pie a Professor fundraiser where we auction the chance to pie a professor in the face. My lab professor did this... At least I was raising money for the club. :P

I went to IU's Little 500 bike race for the first time. It's an IU tradition that I thought I should see once before graduating!

I went observing for 5 nights in March, at Kitt Peak in my second home, Arizona! There was more snow than I had seen the whole winter in Indiana :P

I saw some beautiful sunsets up there, and we were open 4/5 nights, closed one due to high winds!

Look at those mountain layers!!!!

I brought my sister's SLR camera with me and took some nice photos of the pristine skies up there at 7000ft! The photo above is the dome of my telescope for 3 nights, the 2.1m. The other 2 nights I was at the 0.9m telescope.

The bright city lights light up the 4m dome across the mountain top. 

 

I graduated!!!! Elaine and I on graduation day, behind our home away from homes, Swain West, the physics & astronomy building. 

 My best friend Naomi graduated from Purdue! :)

I got an SLR camera for graduation! It's a Canon Rebel T2i and I love it. I use it mainly to take photos of cats, but occasionally photograph people too, I guess. That's a picture of my sister's cat, Chips (I think?)

Sister's cat Fish (I think?)

My baby, Moka Latte!

Moka being cute.

I made lemon meringue for my good friend Jesse's birthday. I was nervous I would ruin it but it turned out DELICIOUS. I got the recipe from allrecipes, can be found here.

My good friend, Nick, came to visit Indiana from Arizona, and him and his girlfriend (and my fellow astronomy major at IU!) Teresa visited me for a day. All three of us were in the REU in Flagstaff together, and now they are most disgustingly cute couple ever!

My little sister, Lizzy, graduated from high school! 

I went to Baltimore for an interview with Space Telescope Science Institute... I GOT THAT JOB! :)

In the words of my favorite band, Rush, and their song Prime Mover:

From the point of ignition
To the final drive
The point of the journey
Is not to arrive--
Anything can happen!

Silly Moka, Trix Are For HUMAN Kids

I am watching my cat right now and she is sticking her paw into the water bowl then licking her paw... No wonder she spills her water EVERY day.

The list of people foods Moka will eat:
-peanut butter
-jalapeno salsa
-white wine

Such a silly cat! Much muuuuch more to come later, when I get a spare moment to breathe in the past 5 weeks I've been at school. On the list- AAS, Seattle, classes, ice climbing, internships, and The Future of Jo Taylor.

Let The Good Times Roll

Classes officially resume again on Monday, but I am taking a stand against education and deciding to skip the first week of school to play hooky and watch TV and eat potato chips all day.

Not really, of course. I'm going to Seattle for the AAS (American Astronomical Society) annual meeting. It's a 5-day long conference during which astronomers from all over the US get together to present research, exchange ideas, and in general get to know others. I'm presenting a poster about my research I did this summer at Lowell. And it's in Seattle! Woohoo! The conference technically lasts until Thursday, but I'm going to be staying until the following Sunday, spending the last few days around Seattle and the area. See some sights, visit some friends, have a last hurrah for winter break.

Speaking of winter break. This break has been so busy! I began and finished my poster (WAY more work than it might have been due to having to re-do a large portion of my summer work...), helped my sister fix up her new house (not much because I'm lazy), put a lot of miles on my car, lost and consequently got a new debit card, took my cat to get spayed and vaccines (poor Moka....), visited with lots of friends and family, and started looking at internships for this summer! Woo!
Who needs to relax?! I'm the kind of person who thrives on busy-ness, but I will be the first to admit sometimes you just need a break. I feel this break wasn't really a "break" at all, but it was fun!

Tomorrow it's off back to Dear Old Bloomington for a pitstop before heading to Seattle on Sunday! Never a dull moment! :)

Happy Winter Holiday of Your Choice!

In a very festive blogpost, here's some Christmas topics for you. Also, I just realized blogpost is an anagram of blogspot... interesting.

A couple of weeks ago we had a Christmas Friday Dinner, complete with Ugly Sweaters (although not many partook, and Alec came in a suit just to be the best-dressed...) And we had a champagne tower that (sort of) successfully worked. Yes, we're that good.

From top, L to R: Steven, Elaine looking classy, Jenny, Eric's caramel onion, Chris with a very unhappy Nyx, and my dazzling smile.

Maybe you're wondering what that caramel-covered onion is all about? Well, you should be. A while ago, Jenny suggested we make caramel apples, but make one a caramel onion and give it to Eric. The idea was of course very well received. After putting it off until well after proper caramel apple eating season, she did the deed. To ensure that Eric took a whopping bite out of the onion, we made it a caramel apple eating contest (we affectionately, and jokingly, call Eric 'Fat Eric' even though he is very much not fat... he just eats an ungodly amount of food). As we started the contest and everyone took bites of their respective apples and onion, we realized the caramel had not quite cooked correctly and was incredibly brittle. Instead of getting the hoped for large first bite, Eric got a few very disgusting small bites. At which point expletives left his mouth and the rest of us erupted into laughter.

We are such good friends :)

I'll leave you with a photo of my once-beautiful tree that was massacred by my cat. Notice that there are NO more ornaments on it...

Some Christmas cards I hastily made, but they still turned out okay.

 HAPPY CHRISTMAS! :)

I Need A Caffeine IV

My apartment is a war zone littered with the remnants of my Christmas tree, brutally slaughtered by the vicious mercenary Moka.

On an unrelated note, I will be happy when finals week is finally over. Sleep- what is this you speak of? I have a potentially brutal final in less than 8 hours. Sometime between studying and waking up I hope I sleep. Did that make sense?

Late Thanks Giving

Friday was our Christmas Friday Dinner (more on that later). During dinner we all said what we are thankful for, since we really never had a Thanksgiving celebration (unless you count Canadian T-giving...)

As this year comes to a close, I can name many things I am thankful for. All I could come up with on Friday was snow and kitties... I am thankful for:

Friends! For new-found friends, for old friends, for renewed friendships.

My BFF Naomi and her goofy dad :)

Physics Club end of the year dinner at Yogi's

Elaine and I starring in a Christmas Slaughter

Rollercoaster shenanigans

My REU 'family' for the summer :)

Family- especially ridiculously adorable babies!

Couldn't find any good photos...

Kitties! Especially that one!

Moka is fascinated by the snow!

Snow! Who knew crystallized water could be so beautiful? (Notice kitties and snow are still on the list...)

B-Line trail this morning

Amongst many other things, but I won't get too sentimental just yet. :)

My Cat Is Cuter Than Yours

I'd rather sit here and listen to Christmas music and hold my warm kitty than study for exams any day.
Moka is such a procrastination enabler.

Jack Johnson & Physics

I am sitting listening to Jack Johnson and reading my book 'The Flying Circus of Physics'. It's a really interesting little book about the physics behind day-to-day phenomenon (such as mirages, tides, and why wintergreen lifesavers spark when bitten). I had a long and very stimulating conversation tonight with a good friend about physics, astronomy, the point behind both, why astronomy is a worthwhile science, life in general and green flashes, amongst other (non)related things. Astronomy is an endlessly fascinating subject (to me, of course).

Last weekend I took a practice physics GRE, which is a notoriously challenging and frustrating exam. I scored absolutely dreadfully, but to be honest, I'm not that upset. I had never seen quite a lot of the material, simply because I haven't taken the classes yet, or reached the material in current classes. And the majority of the material was based on previous classes I haven't thought about in... well, too long I guess. All in all, I'm not happy with my score, but I'm not unhappy either. Also, it was just a practice exam! The physics GRE is unlike any other exam a physics student has ever taken or will ever take again. This seems Just Plain Dumb to me, but just yesterday one of the astro profs explained her reasoning why the GRE is actually indicative of grad student success. It made a lot of sense at the time, especially for physics grad studnets, but much less for astronomy, and unfortunately there is no astronomy GRE... But yes, I scored pretty low- a 500 out of 999, which isn't toooo bad for this test, but the GRE is very odd in the sense that it is (essentially) scored on a comparison scale of how others did on that particular exam. On this certain one I took (from '91...), others scored fairly high, so I was only in the 13th percentile, which means I scored higher than only 13% of the test-takers for this particular test... Yeahhhhh. Not the best %, but my raw score wasn't horrendous. I've had to have this process of scoring explained to me a few times before I fully grasped it, so don't really worry about the details... Long story short- the physics GRE sucks.

This weekend is going to be crazy, but I will have a lot to say at the end. Until then, enjoy some photos from my recent(ish) life. 

Jenny and I at the Rent show!

Moka bein' cute

One of the most legit meals I've ever made: Pan-fried tofu and veggies with thai noodles (after I ate some of it...)

Big News

I got a cat!

I got a tattoo!