Fall Break is over and already I am counting down the days until Winter Break

Fall break was way too short, although that may have been due to the fact that the first half was spent battling severe allergies and someone with the flu (*cough*MK*cough*). That actually probably isn't too far off from how I sound in real life anyway. I have been stuck with a very persistent cough for the last couple of weeks that I also blame on allergies. On the plus side, I did get lots of sleep (doesn't feel like it this week) and made actual physical progress on my research. While purchasing the supplies necessary to build my flow loop, the guy at Lowes who help my undergraduate assistant and me mistook us for "Mama bear and Papa bear buying supplies for a science project." I didn't know I looked old enough for someone to think I had kids old enough to be building science fair projects. I very politely told him that the young man beside me was my research assistant and that we were building a flow loop to do a PIV study of flow through the aortic valve. Also on a research related note, I have been working on writing my NSF proposal and hopefully when it is finished I can post a version of it here so everyone can see all the cool work I will be doing over the next few years. Also, maybe by the time certain friends make it out of med school there might even be a new medical tool in use by cardiac surgeons that I will have had a hand in creating, but more on that in another post.

On Friday I went to the Lighthouse Place in Michigan City with MK. It is an outdoor outlet center with stores from the likes of Burberry, Yankee Candle, Le Gourmet Chef, Correlle, Harry & David, etc. I was hoping I might find a good deal on a bag from Burberry, but I just found grossly overpriced items such as a pair of ear muffs at the wonderfully reduced price of $99. It was a grey day, but we went to the beach anyway. It was neat to walk along a deserted beach and listen to the waves even if it was bit on the chilly side.

On Monday, Nova went in for her rabies vaccination. Cookie had come along for the ride and seemed to be having fun trying to get into everything in the vet's office. She even pulled up the menu to add observing vet students to Nova's appointment and locked it on that screen so that the nurse had to restart the computer. Nova was not having fun. She walked around for a bit, but then came over and stared hiding in the sweater I was wearing until I forced her to come out. During her temperature reading, she showed her discontent by peeing on the nurse. She didn't actually make noise or jump like Cookie does when the actual injection was done. She needs to go back for her distemper shot in a few weeks.

Homesick for Tulsa

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that I choose Notre Dame, but there are many things that are taking time getting used to.  I was walking from my office, located at the very north tip of campus, to my class on the opposite side and I started to feel rather lonely.  I am so used to a small campus where not only is the walk across very short, but I also could see many familiar faces along the way.  I miss walking into a building and at least recognizing most of the people.  I miss having people to chat, eat, and study with.  Lately I have been so busy that I don't have time to get to know people, and I am sure most other people are experiencing the same thing.  It is also painfully obvious how few girls there are in engineering.  According to the TU website, 29% of the graduate students are female in the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences.  On the ND website 38% of all graduate students for the entire university are female.  There were probably about 30 new students added to the AME department this year and I think only 3-4 are girls, which means that for my year it is about 10% female.  At Tulsa even though girls were still the minority, there were plenty around to talk to when I just wanted to have girl talk.  

The academic culture is very different.  At TU, I enjoyed knowing all my professors and feeling that they truly cared about my success even though I was a mere undergrad.  Here, it is very apparent that the professors are more here for their research and graduate students.  Even though they are here for the grad students, some of them still manage to be less accessible to me that any of my professors at TU.

On the plus side, next week is fall break and I will finally be able to make some progress on my research.  I will be going hardware shopping with my undergraduate research assistant, Andrew.  I really hope one of the store employees asks me what project I am working on so I can watch their face when I say that I am building an artificial heart using their plumbing department.  I plan to have fun because this part of the research is full of problem solving and requires some creative uses of different components.

It has been a busy while....

I have been feeling very guilty because I started this blog and then promptly seemed to forget about it. I did not forget about it, but graduate school has been remarkably busy to the point where if I had tried writing anything it would have been a bunch of gibberish. So now for a brief catch up.

Classes have been going well. There was a spell where my Continuum Mechanics professor was giving us a homework assignment every class period. Fluids has been reasonable. The homework has become much less of a burden since Nick and I started working together. Math Methods is just wrong. I had my first test and it covered multi-variable calculus, ordinary differential equations, linear differential equations, and series/perturbation solution methods. Meanwhile my research is progressing slowly. I now know what I need to do, but the hard part will be actually constructing my flow loop. I have an undergraduate Andrew who will be my research assistant. I won't go too much into my work and save that for another blog after I have some cool pictures.

I have not been attending the football games, but I have been exploring the surrounding Indiana countryside. One weekend was spent going to a rock and mineral show as well as Shipshewana, a very commercialized Amish community. Buggy rides only $7! Another weekend was spent attending the Marshmallow Festival in Ligonier. It was a nice festival with a classic car show including a display from a local towing company.

I also have been to the Indiana National Dunes where I attended the Harvest festival and climbed Mt. Baldy. The 128 ft climb was excruciating. The hardest part is that at that angle every step results in some of the sand sliding back down so you end up having to take two to three steps very rapidly just to cover the distance one step on normal ground would cover.

The weather lately has been bouncing all over the place, but lately it has become very dreary and rather chilly. I am finally starting to take getting ready for winter seriously.