My New Obsession

Ok. I realize that this is my third post in slightly more than 24 hours, but I just have to put it out there how much I want to go skydiving again. Jumping out of a plane is more or less all I can think about right now. I've even spent the last 4 hours looking at various skydiving websites, reading blogs about skydiving, and calculating exactly how many jumps I can get out of the remainder of my summer stipend. I need to find something else to do. Maybe I'll go call some of my friends from back home whom I haven't talked to all summer.

Maybe not?

Recently, I've been wondering if a career in physics is what I really want out of life. I don't know if I have the creativity that being a researcher requires, and the idea of a 9 to 5 job is somewhat appealing.

Although I had doubts before this summer, my recent experience in the world of research has magnified them. If I were left to my own devices, I wouldn't have the slightest clue where to begin on anything. The thought of running my own lab or being the leader of a major research project is unsettling. I don't think I could do it.

Seeing how stressed out my mentor is on a daily basis is not encouraging, either. To give you a little bit of background, she is a naturalized US citizen, originally from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. She has been at this institution since she earned her Ph.D. about 15 years ago. She was first a postdoc here, and now she's a regular staff member. She's dealt with her share of gender-related discrimination, and continues to deal with it on a daily basis. In our group meetings, she and I are the only two females in the room. The other members of our group are always very critical of whatever work she's accomplished--always saying that it should have been in a different and better manner (but only vaguely alluding to exactly what they would have done differently, leaving the two of us trying to read their minds). From my perspective, my mentor seems like a very intelligent and competent individual, but not everyone seems to think so. She's aware of how differently she is treated by her supervisors, and on more than one occasion she has told me that she feels the need to constantly out-perform her co-workers just to keep from being fired. Do I want to deal with this kind of crap every day for the rest of my life? Maybe not.

I realize that there are things other than research that I could go into with a graduate degree in physics. That is why, in any case, my plans for the more immediate future remain unchanged. I'll apply to grad schools this fall. Hopefully I'll get into a halfway decent Ph.D. program. If worse comes to worse, I can always quit with a terminal master's degree. That might not be the worst thing in the world.

Fun... and Not Fun

The Fun Part

I've decided I do want to continue skydiving. I'm going to go through the AFF (accelerated free fall) courses to be licensed to jump by myself. It's going to cost upwards of $1500 to go through the whole course... which means I may have to get a part time job this fall. Darn. I so liked not having to work while I'm in school.

Yesterday I went in for 6 hours of ground training. I learned all about body position, dealing with minor canopy issues, cutting away the main canopy and going to the reserve in case of more serious malfunctions, and controlling the canopy to come in for a safe landing. I also spent 45 minutes jumping off of a table (facing both forwards and backwards) onto a mat to practice rolling in case my landing is not so graceful. Oh, is my body sore after that. Unfortunately, about the time that I finished my ground training, the winds picked up and I wasn't able to put my new skills to the test by actually going for my first AFF jump. I'm going back again next Saturday to give it another shot. I'll be jumping with my own parachute (scary!) instead of being attached to an instructor, but two instructors will be holding onto my body to keep me under control through the exit and free fall. Hopefully the weather will be decent and I won't incur any serious bodily injury.

The Not Fun Part

Work never became more interesting. I spent two and a half weeks while my mentor was gone floundering on a programming problem that turned out to be totally unnecessary. Then I spent another week writing some C++ code to perform miscellaneous data analysis. Turns out that the project code my class was eventually implemented into already had functions to do most of what I spent time figuring out... which meant that my week's worth of work got cut down to about an hour's worth by the time we finished deleting superfluous functions. It would have been nice if my supervisors had given me access to the code library so I knew what was already there and what I needed to do from scratch.

I'm losing patience when it comes to dealing with the few extremely stupid people in my summer school. One of the guys who lives down the hall from me is severely lacking in the Common Sense department. He uses words totally out of context -- "hermaphrodite" instead of "hermit" and "exalted" instead of "insulted" -- and argues about the dumbest things. ("No, sunscreen doesn't do anything to keep skin from tanning or burning... it just prevents cancer," or "Of course Iraqis can vote in our elections. We took them over, after all. That's why McCain doesn't stand a chance in this election.") I've taken to locking myself in my room so that he doesn't know I'm here, and therefore can't come in and bug me. Fortunately, my roommate is equally unable to tolerate hearing him speak. She doesn't mind that by keeping the door closed we're both being hermaphrodites.

Summertime

So I started strong with my blogging during finals week. It seems that since the stress of finals has passed and I have been enjoying summer, tough, I am turning less and less to the internet and this blog for entertainment and relaxation. Tonight I have a little bit of free time tonight and nothing better to do with it, so I thought I would post an update on how my summer is going.

I'm finding that I really don't like my job. What I thought was going to be a summer spent in physics research has turned in to a summer spent in front of a computer writing code. Maybe those two things are one and the same, but I didn't think they would be. Aren't there computer science students out there to do all this stuff? I want to actually do something fun... like, you know... physics. I realize that even experimentalists spend a large percentage of their time at the computer analyzing data, but I feel like the fact that they get to play in a lab at all would make up for the countless hours spent not playing in the lab. Sadly there will be no lab time for me. Just more computer programming.

The good news is that even though I don't particularly enjoy the work, I absolutely love the place I'm living. Even if I hated the job, I would be willing to suffer through it just to be here. There are an endless number of outdoorsy things to do, and there are other people who actually enjoy doing them. None of my friends back home have any interest in hiking, camping, or anything of the sort. I think they have a fear of dirt, and probably of bugs and animals too. Here, on the other hand, I have found several people who share my interest in being outside. It's refreshing.

On a more exciting note, I went skydiving for the first time last weekend, and it was more amazing than I ever imagined it would be. That's one less item on my list of things to try before I die. I actually enjoyed it so much that I think I might take it up more seriously. I think it would be really exciting to go through all the training so that I could actually do it by myself. So yeah, that might be a new hobby for me... albeit a very expensive one.

I really hope that work becomes more interesting some time soon. If not, though, I'm sure I'll continue to enjoy every bit of time I have off from work exploring the area and trying new things. It's going to be a good summer.

Making Due

I hate when I go to a restaurant, pick out the one thing on the menu that looks good, only to find when I try to order it that they're out. This afternoon I had my heart set on a delicious sounding pasta dish, but as it turns out, the restaurant not only didn't have any available today, but they have actually stopped making that dish. That sort of experience makes me want to go elsewhere for my meal, not because I'm really upset that I couldn't order what I wanted, but because I had already established that nothing else on the menu was appetizing.

On a similar note, I was given the opportunity to pick which research topic I wanted to work on at my REU this summer. Unfortunately, the topic that I chose and was then assigned to is no longer available. The powers that be decided it wasn't worth the money, so they canceled it. I now get to choose from the left-over projects that no other students chose. Grr...

Procrastination

Since Friday afternoon I've accomplished nothing. Wait, no... I did sleep in until noon each day, and I took several mid-afternoon naps as well. That has to count for something, right?

No? Ok, fine. Then I really have accomplished absolutely nothing.

All I have to do this week is pack up all of my crap and move it to storage for the summer. Actually, the packing has to be done by 10:00am tomorrow morning to be precise, since that is when the moving company will be showing up at my door to haul everything away. There's just one problem: I haven't started packing yet. This isn't a huge problem since I'm sharing a house and therefore only have a couple rooms' worth of junk to pack, but it's still a problem because.... well, I have two rooms worth of junk to pack in the next 12 hours and I'd also like to get some sleep tonight. Oh, and it's also a problem because I still have to make my way over to Wal-Mart to get some boxes to pack in... and I need some packaging tape, and newspaper to wrap fragile items in. Maybe I should go do that? Nah... 12 hours is lots of time. I'll definitely procrastinate a little while longer by writing this blog.

I think I'm making up for all the procrastinating I didn't do during this past semester. I had so many classes (more than 20 credits in 12 weeks) that I couldn't afford to put things off until the last minute. I was actually on top of things for once in my life. I kept up on reading for class, worked on my homework several days before it was due, studied for tests sooner than an hour before going in to take them, etc. It was a new experience for me. Normally I'm the queen of procrastination. It is a skill that I mastered at a young age. My parents always told me that some day it would come back to bite me in the butt, but lo and behold, I'm a year away from graduating from college, and still my procrastinatory (Is that even a word? Spell check doesn't seem to like it, but oh well.) tendencies have not hurt me. I'm convinced that everyone who told me that procrastination would lead to my downfall never figured out how to procrastinate effectively.

I was about to write a lengthy "case in point" description of my brother's lack of skill in the procrastination department, but I've suddenly been hit with a lightning bolt of motivation to get something done. I'm off to buy my packing supplies so I can get started. Thank god for stores that are open 24-hours.

I've got the jitters

I just finished taking one of my upper division physics finals, and I'm still on edge from it. The format of the test was totally different from anything I've had before, and studying for it really stressed me out. The test ended up going better than I would have ever imagined, and now I'm taking a moment to breathe and calm down.

...Ok, the moment's over. I have to go study for another physics final, followed by writing that 15-page paper I've been putting off. It's going to be a long couple of nights.