Great Deal

http://www.macworld.com/article/156508/2010/12/macupdate_holiday_bundle.html

$546 worth of apps for $50! Wow!

Placement Exams

Tomorrow begins my first "unofficial" week as a graduate student. This week we take our placement exams, get our keys, register for classes, get payroll figured out, and undergo lab assistant training.

I get to start off my placement exam trilogy with my favorite... organic chemistry. I'm very excited, yet nervous. Let's hope that I remember as much as I can from the past four years... :-)

Summer 2010

Wow... it's been over two months since I last posted... I promise you'll see some more content in the weeks to come.

So much has happened since my last post. I'll update with a synopsis version...

The Friday after graduation, Holly and I went up to visit SMU in Dallas. I was going up to get a little better feel for the program and talk to some of the professors. We figured it would also be good to look at some apartments while we were up there. The professors at SMU were all very nice. I got to know a little about the research that each one is working on and get a little better feel for what I will be looking towards very soon. I also got to have lunch with some of the current graduate students up there. They were all very warm and gave me an inside look into what I should expect during my first year. Kind of intimidating, but good to remember that I'm not going to be alone in the experience. Afterwards, Holly and I went and looked at a couple of apartments and collected brochures then left early because we were pretty tired.

At the end of May, Holly and I went to San Francisco thanks to a trip that she won from a video contest that she entered back in December. How awesome is that?! She's so talented. Here's her video (go to Page 4). We got to stay in an awesome hotel (the Intercontinental), go to Maker Faire (a nerdfest that catered to both my gadgety side and her crafty side), and sightsee like we've never done before. It was awesome! I'll write about more specifics in my travelogue soon.

During the first couple weeks of June, I helped with the UMHB Chem Camp. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I've had since I entered college. It was great to be able to teach willing young minds the wonders of chemistry. All of the kids had a great time and I was able to bond with some of the students. It really made me realize my passion for chemistry and helping to educate children at that level. It also made me realize that I could never teach children of that age as a full-time job. Definitely something to do part time once I get my PhD though...

After Chem Camp, I moved everything to my new apartment in Dallas, then turned around and went straight to California for a couple weeks to visit my family. It was good to see everyone, even if I didn't get to see my nieces and nephews as much as I had hoped. My youngest nephew, Layne, is getting huge though! I got to spend an afternoon watching him.

After California, I came back to Austin and took Holly around town for her birthday. It was a lot of fun and we got to see lots of things as well as see Toy Story 3 (which is a great movie, by the way). She was so excited to go to the Stitch Lab in South Austin - her new favorite fabric/sewing shop. We also went to the Laguna Gloria Museum of Art, which was a sham but good to make fun of. We had a nice dinner at Texas Roadhouse and decided our random theme song of the day was "Short People" by Randy Newman.

Holly and I have grown closer in the past couple months. We've been through some pretty rough times, but alas we've made it through them and have become stronger than we ever were before. We can't take all of the credit though - most of that goes to God. :-)

That's about it for now. Get ready for grad school updates soon!

Blogging Sites and Graduation

I tried using Tumblr... it was definitely more simple, but a little too simple for me. I've found that Blogger has a few things that makes it that much better for me. Plus, I don't think I'll ever have a need to necessarily write an entire post from my phone (Tumblr has a native iPhone app that is awesome). Wordpress might be cooler than Blogger, but I would have to pay to use my custom domain - no thanks! But enough about stupid blogging sites...

So I just realized I haven't written on here in a while...

Well on April 28th, I was accepted to the Ph.D. Chemistry program at Southern Methodist University. Yay! I am really excited to start in the Fall, but it will be nice to have the summer off for once. :-) I visited the campus on Friday. It's a very, very nice campus. The professors are all very nice and the current graduate students as well. I hope I will fit in just the same. Before I left I made sure to buy a hat and look at apartments around campus. :-)

I graduated from UMHB last weekend on May 8th. It was nice to have my family there (they were out for about 6 days). It's also nice to be out of UMHB - but I do already miss the people a lot :-/... well a few of them... haha!

I think I will make a point to write more on here this summer. Then after that, I will write (when I can) to document my journey as a graduate student. It should get pretty interesting then...

Texas Weather...

The 10 minute storm that was headed to Belton today.

Why All The Racket, Mother Earth?

Here's an interesting bit of information from Eric Diaz over at ScientificBlogging.com:

Why have there been so many earthquakes lately?...

Actually, there is an explanation for this. What most people don't realize is that

1) the oceanic plate being subducted at convergent plate boundaries is much denser and thicker than the oceanic plate being created at divergent plate boundaries.

2) the plates move greater distances and thus at a faster rate at convergent plate boundaries than they do at divergent plate boundaries.

3) there is resistance to plate movement at convergent plate boundaries because the oceanic plates being subducted are grinding against a continental plate. Not so at divergent plate boundaries. There, the resistance is very little.

Because of these three factors, tension has a tendency to build up at convergent plate boundaries over a period of time instead of there being a continuous and steady movement as oceanic plates are being subducted.

Because the areas in between fracture zones in the East Pacific Rise are moving more or less at the same rate--with a couple of exceptions--they tend to release the tension that has built up over decades at around roughly the same time--hence the succession of Earthquakes in a relatively short period of time in the Pacific.

Now there are other mitigating factors involved, such as the composition of the continental plate where the oceanic plate is being subducted, but overall you have the same average rate of plate movement at these convergent plate boundaries.

Another factor involved is that as these segments of the Pacific plate have moved across the Pacific ocean, layers of marine sediment, which are less dense than the plates themselves, havebuilt up on top of the plate. Consequently, because of their lower density, when the plate reaches the convergent plate boundary, the sediments instead of being subducted along with the oceanic plate, break apart and pile up as slaps or sheets in the form of thrust faults. These thrust faults themselves can be a source of Earthquakes--as was evident in the Earthquake in Chile--as they continue to be piled up and pushed towards the continent. Eventually, these marine sediments will become a part of the landmass of the continent. This is one of several ways in which continents grow.

There's nothing mysterious and especially nothing mystical happening here. This is not a sign of a coming apocalypse, but a natural geological process that has been going on for billions of years.

Snow in Belton?!

It snowed today in Belton! It was pretty amazing. Very magical. Very peaceful. School was cancelled for classes after 1pm (didn't really affect me since I don't have class after 11am and we can't do research for a couple weeks due to the roofers. Apparently volatile organic compounds are unsafe for roofers to inhale. Who knew?

Holly and I built a snowman outside next to the Luther Memorial on campus. I think I pulled a muscle rolling his 300-pound base. His name was Milton, after his resemblance to Milton from "Office Space".

Here's Milton, Holly, and me all standing outside together, merrily. :)

I'm still waiting on graduate school responses. How long do they make you wait?! :(