I have no idea why I am so addicted to honey roasted peanuts from Walmart. They are so tasty, and I know that they aren’t particularly healthy, but it’s hard to stop. I guess it’s better that being hooked on something more fattening like chips, fried food or desserts. It’s like I get hooked on something every year. Another thing that I love is the Strawberry-Banana nectar from Walmart and the Fuze Refresh Strawberry-Guava drink.

Okay, enough of trivial speak. I figured this was a good time as any to write something on my blog and web space that I am paying for. I just didn’t have the motivation to blog the past few months. It would come up in my head but I never got around to actually doing it. But, instead of blogging, I’ve been doing a ton of photography and uploading on flickr. I just cleaned up over 1300 images from my winter trip and uploaded them onto Flickr. Flickr’s unlimited upload limits are fantastic for my needs. The service is really worth the money I pay every year. I’ll start using Zooomr when they get the Flickr import tool integrated because I don’t have the patience to upload, and tag all the information that I already have on Flickr.

Best of India (352 images) | All the shots from India (1012 images) | Heathrow and Philadelphia International Airports (120 images)

It’s unbelievable that I’ve been at Penn State for 8 months already. I’ve been learning so many new things. All the reasons for grad school are panning out, and I’ve gained experience in more ways than one. Academically, I’ve been filling the holes in my education from a non-materials engineering background. So, an introductory glass course, surface chemistry, thermodynamics of materials, advanced glass structure, kinetics of materials and characterization of materials later, I’m starting to gain some theoretical insight and knowledge for my research. [warning: science content ahead ] The big picture is to look at interface chemistry of Rohm & Haas‘ green Aquaset polymer and John Manville’s wool glass composition which make up the EPA award-winning new environmentally friendly formaldehyde-free insulation products (original pdf file). For now, I am making flat glas samples to check the contact angles of the polymer and its components on the glass surface. And then, do a time dependent contact angle analysis and surface composition after the solutions dry out using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). I will also do Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to look at surface morphology. This should give me some idea what to expect with the same tests on glass fibers. I’ll describe the fiber making process when I actually start making my samples for real.

Beyond school, swing dancing is going rather well. I pick up a few new moves every month. I also have 4-5 regular dance partners who mesh well with my style. I would mention names but I guess I shouldn’t. All I can say is that there is a girl who is an amazing follow who has an great style of her own. And then, there are three girls who picked up swing and Lindy so quickly, it’s still mind-boggling. They move very well, and can follow my lead style. And related to that, I’ve also uploaded several swing videos on Youtube, and found plenty of videos to pick moves up from.

Amnesty International (PSU Chapter) has been a great club and cause to be a part of. I’ve learnt a lot more about human rights, and have gotten more interested in such matters as the Sudanese genocide and terror war based human rights violations. I’ve also made some friends in this club which is pretty nice. The other one that I am involved in is the Penn State Public Issues Action Committee. I am trying to get a new fundraising idea off the ground that has the potential of raising several hundreds of thousands of dollars. The up side of this range is $1,000,000 and up if we get access to all the sources we need, and over 50% of students/staff/faculty participate. We want to use this money to support non-controversial sustainable projects in Third-World countries. We want to ask people to donate 1% to 5% of every transaction they make on campus towards this fund including parking. But so far, the Parking department is not willing to play ball and not giving us a reason. I am still to hear back from LionCash.

I have to start working out soon. I feel slow, and my stamina needs rejuvenation.

And I leave you with this candid of a girl with an iBook at Heathrow International. I like this shot.

This show started with a scene where Dr. Louis Guillette is riding a boat looking for alligators in the night. He started on his research on effects of endocrine disruptors when he saw changes in reproductive system of alligators. He thinks that we could extrapolate the effects of endocrine disruptors on humans by studying wildlife. At a certain level I agree with Dr. Guillette about studying wildlife regarding effects since animal testing is an integral tool of experimentation on the effects of chemicals on our physiology. He found a visible sign of endocrine disruption in affected alligators as the penis length was shorter than those which have not be affected.

Read the complete article »

I guess I decided it was about time that I finished all the chores that my mentor has requested to get done. So, I got the last of my samples synthesized, all of the AFM scans of the substrates done, updated the ecopy of the log book of the procedural parameters, and the holes for the target rotations. I must say, that was a very productive 8 hours of work! It was kind of exciting making holes because I’ve hardly ever used power tools. I was hoping that my mentor would be pleased that everything he has asked for was accomplised with minimal damage . I guess that was work.

While at work, I was still obsessing about the Kyoto Protocol and the India/China exemption. I talked to a few people about it and realized that it was a flawed treaty, as there was no equanimity amongst sacrifices to be made. That made me sad, but it fit in well with the economics of the present day world. This treaty favors developing nations, as it provides concessions of carbon dioxide output. I know world economics is not simple, however if China and India never had intentions to stand by the framework, they should have never ratified the treaty. I have to read up on the conclusions of the Montreal conference.

Our big group activity was at Cotton Eyed Joe’s which is a country bar with country dancing. We initially intended to take country lessons and we found out that the lessons were on Thursdays. I guess we missed out on that. However, it was a dollar fifty beer and mixed drinks night. So, we took full advantage of that. I tried out all the expensive drinks I never had before including chocolate martini, and a few drinks with Bailey’s in it. Jenn and I got to dance quite a bit, and we did swing to country which was hilarious. I learnt to do the barn dance, and a few country line dances. The barn dance is one of the most social dances around because we go in a big circle and dance with every girl. It’s great!

And that my friends was the one of the last big social outings in ORSS. Sigh..

It’s been a long day so far. I have to cut and clean the substrates which is a major chore because it is monotonous and boring as hell. I have spent about 5 hours so far doing this, and I suspect there is another hour to this labor. Right now, after manually washing 23 substrates in acetone, I put them into an ultrasonic cleaner in a beaker containing acetone for 15 minutes. So, I have a little time to blog.

So, we got back from work last evening, and worked on our homework for 4 hours at Panera. I love the fact that I can drink unlimited amount of coffee for a buck fifty. This assignment took longer because we had to read the text to figure out how to solve these questions. I can normally just remember lectures and proceed with the homework. However, I feel that the topics/lecture is rather discontinuous, so it throws me off. It does get frustrating at times when I know that a solution is simple but I am unable to get a handle on the trick.

I’ve been chatting with Arielle from Florida. Remember the random IM? I think this is probably the first time that I’ve had a higher level of conversation so quickly with a person I hardly know. I bet I can carry off an intellectual conversation. I remember explaining the research I’ve done at Coe and ORNL thus far. We spent most of the time looking up swing stuff including videos. I found quite a few recordings from Norway? I’m not sure which country, but it’s in Northern Europe. I’ll find out and correct it if I have to. I miss swing dancing at Coe. I also look at hairy/scary moves, and think of Andi and all the fun we had picking up dance routines from swing videos.

My friends keep asking if I am keeping in touch from Andi or if I have heard from her. I get to chat with her once a week on average. I guess I want to keep in touch a little more than that. We’ll see. For people who want to know, yeah, I miss her. But that’s normal.

It’s annoying that I haven’t been able to find Sunday’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy on torrents. They always have it up by the next day. I don’t know what happened. I also have to download shows from last night.

I really wish Jenn and I could have gone swing dancing last night. That would have been a ton of fun. Especially the free pizza! We have to go up for the social dance scene at Preservation Pub one of the remaining Mondays.

It’s been a great last couple of days. Everything went well apart from the tension relating to the GRE test that I took last afternoon. For a great start to Thursday, we got our second Inorganic test back which I didn’t really want to see because I thought I wasn’t confident about my answers. I get my paranoia was misplaced because I got a really good score. And then, when I got to work, I found out that I didn’t have to cut and anneal substrates. I was positively ebullient because the whole process is tedious. So, I spent that afternoon taking the last practice test. That meant that I had the rest of the evening free to just relax. But, was I really able to relax? No! I was still tense as hell. Oh well, good intentions. The funniest part of Thursday evening was my conversation with Goms. So, I talked to her for a couple of hours all the while one of her friends was waiting for her. So, after I get talking to her, I get a message from her friend asking if he could have her back now. That was the single comment that made me roll on the floor. Apart from that, she dropped one of her gen. ed classes and registered for Hindu Gods with me. It should be fun talking that class.

PS: I love going to bars. I just hate the smoke!

Yesterday afternoon was a frustrating period of work because every time I would try to grow a sample, one of the gears used during rotation kept falling off, and then finally it blew up in my mentor’s face as he was trying to fix it. I guess that caused a mini vacation because that motor wouldn’t be coming in till Friday and I wouldn’t be in Friday due to GRE. I spent most of yesterday learning and relearning the 333 high frequency words listed in Barron’s guide to the GRE. I’d say that I know all but 10% of the words. I’d say that its good enough? Anyway, I just took my second practice test of the GRE CD and scored a 650 on verbal and 770 in quantatative. That is about 90 points higher than the first test. It seems like I get a consistent score around 1300-1400 with my verbal score vacillating. I guess I just wait and see how I do on the actual test which happens to be tomorrow afternoon. And then I am allowing my brain a hiatus for the weekend before I start on the rest of the application process.

Anyway, with me relaxing the rest of the day, I have to find something to amuse or entertain myself with.

After doing a few handstands at work in my cubby, I am back to doing nothing. I just asked my mentor and he says that I can relax because he doesn’t have anything for me to accomplish for the rest of today. I guess I like my relaxing day today because yesterday was too long. The five hours of talks, and then the multiple hours of homework. Working in groups like that can make people snappy. I think we should all understand the homework before copying down answers. I also think you should be able to defend your previous answers with better things that “I found it on the internet”. It takes a lot of patience to deal with obvious laziness and stupidity. Stupidity frustrates me especially if an intelligent person is being stupid. But then what’s the measure of intelligence? Scores on tests? Speed of processing power? Thoroughness? Probably all of them, eh?

Here come the nanocars | CNET News.com

I love these fun little innovations in nano technology. They built transports on the molecular level which move like vehicles. Its tires are made of bucky balls(C₆₀) and the nanocar moves with electric field manipulation. Kudos to the scientists at Rice University!

I wish I had kept better notes of the procedure I did earlier during August/September. I am rummaging through my AFM data and I don’t remember some of the treatment details of the substrates very well. I do keep better notes now but the earlier ones are the scans I’m confunded on. I am making a powerpoint of all the scans so that my mentor can see the trends clearly and give me better instructions. I might post some of the JPEG converts of the AFM files.

i’m sad that I have to use the native blogger interface or Hello to post pictures on my blog. I would like to have batch file uploading capabilities.. It’s extremely time consuming to post 100 or more pictures individually. My picture blog has over 600 pictures now. There are a lot more to come although it seems like the pace of taking pictures since the first few weeks at Oak Ridge has diminished. I haven’t done as much recently. Hopefully that will change.

I have a lot of busy work like doing homework for the class, and studying for the GRE. I’m taking the GRE sometime around the end of October. I think Rachel might doing it sometime there too.

So far we don’t have much planned for this weekend except for a bbq in honor of one of the Dans getting run over by a bull. Next weekend should be a ton of fun because my brother is coming to visit.

Today has been a productive day so far. I came in at 8.30 and ran AFM scans of the annealed samples that had been in the furnace overnight. And then I conducted a thin film run by myself without my mentor watching me for the first time! We have to run an X ray diffraction scan to check the quality of the thin film. Taking a early quick lunch, I had enough time to put in another sample that should be ready to taken out in half an hour. This should allow me to put a substrate in and create a vacuum in the chamber for Monday. My mentor will be gone all next week and he gave an outline of what he wishes for me to accomplish. He talked about his perception of the right amount of samples and characterization tests needed to write a decent paper worth publishing and it doesn’t look like I’ll meet the quota. That makes me sad but I can’t do much about it because i lose almost 5 hours a week to stuff that I need to do for ORSS which includes the inorganic chem class and a seminar.

I did something fun today post lunch. I took my hour break at work with Jenn and we went to Baskin Robins to get some ice cream. I got a chocolate fudge single scoop cone for $1.50. It was sooo good. I might do that once a week. It reminds me of gelato from Italy. yummmmmmm..

Listening to: [R.E.M. - Try Not To Breathe]