Week 1 San Jose

Day 3. Honestly it was really long. I can't remember much of it.

I got up at 7 and went down for breakfast. Then class started at 8:30. This first week we had Professor Paul Benny from Washington State University. He taught us about the history of Nuclear Chemistry, which I actually had learned about, reading the Glenn Seaborg book I borrowed from the Chemistry Department back home. Class is nice here because we get recess. Yeah. Not since 5th grade have I had recess. It's nice though because 3 and 4 hours of lecture is really tough to get through at once. So for recess we went to the courtyard and played frisbee and volleyball. Lots of fun.

Then lunch was at noon and we had an extended period that was intended for a tour but didn't need it considering we have been around the area quite a bit. So lab lecture was after the break period. We learned about radiation safety and different little things from Vic from the lab. Vic was cool enough to let us out at 4 instead of 5.

After class a large group of us went around and took some pictures.

Update
Honestly I don't remember much of the stuff that happened a few days ago. During the walk we went a lot of places. I think this was the day I got quite a few good pictures.

Day 2 of class was fun too this would be the first day in the lab. We got our radiation badges and temporary lab coats and even some new goggles to keep. The first day was spent learning about Geiger counters and working to find radioactive areas in the lab that Vic made for us to practice. We had lots of recess during lab lecture with Vic because he is AWESOME!!

After class was spent doing pretty much nothing. We had a quiz to do from Frank Kinard one of the main professors in charge. I actually just got my results 9.75/10. Oh yeah!

The next day however was much more demanding. We had a real lab to do. It was not child's play but it was cool nonetheless. The day started with class until lunch. Then after lunch was lab lecture and lab. First lab, I got paired with Steve. We did a great job on the sealed sources. It was cool to learn more about how G-M counters work and the data was fun to take. However, working with it afterward was ANNOYING!!!! So tedious. So that night was spent working until about 10 on the report then I just stopped. Bed after that.

Day 5 of San Jose was probably the worst yet. Class was usual, learned a fair amount. Then lunch, lab lecture and lab 2. But after class, dinner then lab report 1 from 6pm to 12pm. That was tiring. And really FRUSTRATING!!!! But Travis and Ali had it worse because they stayed up until 6am doing it. Don't know how they survived today.

Today was not bad so far. About to head to lab lecture and lab. So I shall finish this later.

Update again!

The lectures were pretty good. Still not sure if I really want to do nuclear chemistry though. Dr. Ralf Sudowe and Dr. Paul Carol were the lecturers for the first week. Dr. Sudowe did a presentation on the Japan meltdown. It was really informative and quite enlightening. Dr. Carol did a presentation on high energy reactions, basically smashing really big stuff together. (Well big on the atomic scale!!)

After the lectures, which, while interesting, were still able to make us sleepy, we went to dinner at Teske's, a German restaurant. It was so good. I had veal cordon bleu (a very "German" dish...). We talked with Dr. Benny, our professor for the last week and the other two lecturers and Herb. It was a whole lot of fun.

After dinner ended at 7ish we walked home. When we got back a few of us played pool until bed. Lots of fun was had. And today was even better. San Fran. But that is for another post.