September 26th - And so it begins

This week things actually started to come together schoolwise. Technically classes do not start until next Wednesday but I was really busy nonetheless. On Monday I attended a TEDx Change talk. If you are unfamiliar with TED talks then I will catch you up to speed. TEDx Change is a really amazing seminar series that takes place around the world. They get the best and the brightest to give free speeches that are broadcast across the world live. This was the first talk that I've ever attended in person, usually I just watch them on youtube. The talk on Monday was about "Millenium Development Goals" for developing nations. It was really very good. Bill Gates Sr. and Bill Gates wife both spoke and were really excellent.

One thing in particular that I found interesting, and obviously so did the speakers since they brought it up, was that Coke is a ubiquitous brand around the world and you can find it and get it literally anywhere. NGOs are now talking and working with Coke to better develop a marketing plan so that they can get medicine and knowledge spread in the same way. They went really far into detail but I won't bother putting it down.

On Tuesday my Teaching Assistant (TA) orientation began. Many long talks about what to expect, how to conduct yourself, and what to do in certain situations. The TA union came and talked to us. Disability services talked to us and so on. I met some of my "cohorts" they call them here, but I would just call them classmates. There are only 12 of us cohorts in Materials this year. I guess that is actually not too far off from average, it's a small department. My classmates seem nice enough. They are from all walks of life. Most of them weren't Materials in undergrad, they were physics or chemistry. Some of them are working part time and some have been out of college for quite a while. We were given a lab tour where I saw some pretty fancy stuff. They have a great machine shop here that I can get access to. I saw my XRD that I will be teaching with in a week, it's a nice one.

Met with two other professors as potential advisors. One was chemical engineering and the other was just straight chemistry. I think I will end up working with the chemistry guy just for his projects, but I won't say too much further now. I'm going to sit in on his lab group meeting tomorrow just to get a feel for the group dynamic.

Computer Science Building and Drumheller Fountain, see the rainbow?

The weather has been really nice almost the whole time this week. A bit drizzly for a while but it cleared up. Yesterday my friend Donnie from Cal Poly visited for dinner. He was in the area moving his brother in. OOOOOOOOOO I forgot, and yesterday I went to the Fremont Oktoberfest which was AMAZING! About five miles from here. They had tons of extremely delicious beers, they had biergartens, lounges, bratwurst, curly fries. Oh it was really good. Blue Moon debuted a beer that won't be available for a long time. It was called Abbey Orange and it was incredible.

I finally downloaded some of my pictures onto my hard drive because I got my fellowship today. In celebration I bought Adobe CS5. I got photoshop. illustrator, indesign and acrobat for $200 because I'm a grad student. Considering that if I paid retail it would be over $1000 I was really happy. So I have been spending today cleaning up my hard drive to make it run really well. Here are some pictures that I recently took.

Suzzallo Library Reading Room - often referred to as the "Harry Potter Room"

Leaf :)

Wetlands Surrounding campus

Sylvan (Greek) Theatre - my building is right behind those pillars. I have an office on the top floor. Well I desk in a closet with three other people is more like it.

Husky Stadium - Filled for our game against the Nebraska Huskers. We lost spectacularly, very sad.