my parents kept sending me text messages to my cell phone and I replied but i don’t think it reached them. I don’t know why I can’t text message outside the US with verizon. And they called me just after I left to pee. What luck! I text messaged two of my cousins so that they could tell my parents to try calling again. I don’t know if yahoo messenger sent the messages through or not. I hope it did. Well, I guess I just have to wait and see. I think I will call verizon customer support and talk to them about the international text messaging.

I got to work early today and made a glass and ran tests by myself. I was very relaxed in the morning, I don’t think I have been so relaxed in the morning before. I didn’t get anymore sleep than usual, I went to bed around 1 and woke up at 7.30 pretty easily. Greg came in at 10.30..woke up after a 16 hour nap! thats quite a nap alright. We had the Wednesday lunch today which was indian cuisine. There was a lot of food and people here really like indian food because it has a lot of tasty veg options. I stuffed myself yet again. As I am writing now, I am not hungry the least bit.
         The talk along with the lunch was about Diamonds which was very interesting. Apparently a company called Apollo has a method that makes immaculate artificial diamonds upto 3.5 cts. This is amazing because it is indistingiushable from naturally occuring diamonds. It’s also flawless. De Beer’s is so threatened by this that one of their top executives threatened someone high up in Apollo with a bullet hole in the head. Smells like a revolution in the gem industry specially the $7 billion diamond industry. Looks like De Beers might lose big money and their shares might plummet.
         I spent most of the afternoon updating the report for the Society of Physics Students since I am the current Physics Club secretary. And then I spent the rest of the afternoon looking at grad schools which have nanotechnology research because thats been my intended field of speciality for a while. Lets see how that goes. I was looking at Vanderbilt, Duke, Brown, Purdue and Cornell so far. These are really tough colleges to get into. I have to do really well at school and the necessary examinations prior to applying. I think I am going to find literature on nanotech to read. I got back and Jessi called me telling me that she was going to Walmart and I could go and work out on my own. I ran on the inside track because it seemed like it could rain. I did 26 minutes straight and then double sets of all weights. I am tired now! I am blogging early because there is nothing on TV. I might watch one of the movies I have to kill time.
         I am taking a break from the Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. I am kinda dissapointed in myself because I finished only 66 pages in the past week. I usually gobble books in a couple of days. This book is not pleasurable reading, it’s something you would do for a literature class. As the title mentions, all the text in form of verses which makes it hard to read and there is a lot of allegory and hidden meaning to every single sentence. It’s just too intense for me now. I might start that up at Japan or on the flight there. But I started The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. It’s hyped to be on the lines of the books by Dan Brown. It’s good so far. I started that today during work and got through about 25 pages. I might just keep that for work because if I start reading now, I’ll finish the book tonight.

I got to work at exactly 9 again instead of the planned 8. I seem to be snoozing from the time I hear the alarm to 8.40 precisely which is really strange. Doc was late by a few minutes so everything was cool. He was happy with the steady progress during the time he was away. I tried out the R=5 sodium borate which is almost 80% metal in the glass. But the higher speed roller quenching didn’t do much good because I got more crystal than glass. So I am now done with the sodium family and we have moved on to lithium. We made our first glass today and got good results. During the time Greg was doing the glass, I was engaged in my visa application process. I got a letter from the consulate saying that I didn’t have a financial statement. I faxed my W-2 but that wasn’t legible. So I scanned and sent the email. They checked it and told me that I didn’t earn enough money for them to be confident about my financial status in Japan. So Doc framed a letter with all the money specifics and I faxed that again. This time they told me that it was good enough so I went ahead and mailed it. MTV’s Boiling Point cracks me up..
            I got back and just chilled and watched TV. I was waiting for Jessi to call so that we could go running and do weights. We ran for a mile, reduced to a walk and stretched and then ran another mile back. We ran for about 15 minutes which was shorter than I normally go. But I also did a sprint and weights after that. I got back, showered and ate a sandwich and finished my V8 smoothies. I talked to Britta for over an hour and a half. It was good to talk to her again, she tells me that her parents are driving her insane and she has been there only for 9 days! And then I told Matt to come over after his shower and we talked as well. And now, I am chatting with recently married cousin. She really misses her hubby who is at London for work.. I know what she is going through, been there.. I haven’t talked to Andi for about a week. I miss her.