I was informed a couple weeks ago that my current lab/office is being turned into a lab classroom, so I had to move my things into a new office. At first I was a little angry with the department, since they knew they would be doing this for several months before they decided to tell me, and their initial intention was to move me into one of the crowded graduate student suites where I would be sharing an office with 5-6 other grad students working feverishly on their projects. However, after politely letting the faculty know I thought I deserved better since I’m teaching courses for them, they found me an office on the main floor of the building.
I’m pretty excited for the move because while my old office was not without its charms, it had a few problems most notably temperature control. In the winter, there were occasions where the temperature dipped into the 50’s inside and two space heaters and a coat were the only way to keep warm. I also now have windows that look out on the courtyard instead of the old offices that had windows that were blocked by big bushes. I also have an office phone now, which will probably not see much use but is sort of nice to have.
Now to investigate how much name placards cost…
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: School| |
3 Comments
I received some good news late last night: an article I submitted earlier this year was accepted for publication! My article will be in the Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer in a few months. One of my goals before I finished my degree was to get at least one article published and I’m pretty excited I’ve been able to do it. Hopefully it will lead to more publications down the road!
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: School| |
1 Comment
Today was my last day teaching out at Chickasha…I spent the day by bringing a group of students to campus to visit a few research labs including my own. Overall the field trip went well and the students seemed to enjoy it - it was a good way to end my 2 years teaching there.
While there were days I wished I didn’t have to make the trip out to Chickasha, I really enjoyed getting to know the students and teachers while I was there. Compared to my normal days sitting in my office working on research, experiencing even the most dull high school days was far more entertaining. And I always enjoyed teaching and interacting with the students, while they are much more rambunctious than the college students I work with, they are much more fun to teach.
The experience also really helped my teaching abilities - I feel like I can handle a lot more circumstances than I used to, and that I’m a much more polished instructor after getting so much practice. I hope the students I worked with gained even a small amount of the knowledge that I gained from them.
I will miss a lot of things about going to the high school - the excitement from the students when I had an activity for them, talking about TV and news with the teachers during lunch, joking with Jim and Robert (the teachers I worked with) and hearing the crazy stories the students had to tell about their daily lives.
This summer will be relatively quiet after the last several months of being incredibly busy. Research will be ongoing all summer but with no impending deadlines the stress level should be fairly low. I’m also looking forward to my San Francisco trip, I made my airline reservations last week!
Thursday, May 14th, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: School| |
No Comments
It’s that time of year once again, for the return of the blockbuster movies that are mostly retreads of old ideas, but darn it are they entertaining. As always, there are a few that I’m looking forward to, but a couple that look not so good, so here are my top 3:
1. Transformers 2 - yes I know I’m 27 years old. But I loved transformers as a kid, the first movie was pretty entertaining in my opinion, and it has Megan Fox in it, who is smoking hot. Need I say more?
2. Public Enemies - Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger, and Christian Bale plays the FBI agent that hunts him down. It’s Jack Sparrow versus Batman! And directing is Michael Mann who is a pretty good director. Honestly I’m somewhat surprised this is being put out during the summer since it’s not exactly a popcorn flick but I’m glad to see something that’s sort of original during the summer.
3. Land of the Lost - Will Ferrell brings the weird TV show to the big screen. I’m still not sure about this one, the trailers look weird but I’ve heard promising things about it, and Will Ferrell is due to return to his Ron Burgundy form. Also in the movie is Danny McBride who is hilarious and Anna Friel who is adorable.
I’m also looking forward to the continuing adventures of the action franchises: Wolverine, Terminator: Salvation and the new Star Trek. I’m also looking forward to the newest Pixar movie Up and the new Quentin Tarantino World War II movie Inglourious Basterds. Overall it looks to be a strong movie season this summer.
Thursday, April 30th, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: Movies| |
1 Comment
After the madness of last week, this week has been relatively unbusy. I have my regular interactions with the high school folks, but I no longer have any impending deadlines, presentations, or writing responsibilities over my head for the near future. So now, with a little time on my hands, I thought I would share a few of my favorite pictures from the trip:
Buddhist Shrine in Hat Yai
Teachers working on my lesson
PSU-Wit high school
Floating Market
Sunset at Lake Songkhla
Monkey!
Island beach
Stone archway
a pebble beach we visited
Boomer Sooner!
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: General| |
No Comments
I thought the weeks leading up to our trip were the busiest I could experience, but the ones after returning might just be more difficult than those. The papers I prepared before the trip are now ready to be presented, so the last two weekends I have been attending conferences, with a third coming up this Saturday in Arlington. While most of the difficult work was in writing the papers, I do have to spend a fair amount of time putting together the presentations. I do however enjoy presenting my research and getting to go out of town to do it.
Speaking of which, I received some good news about another paper I submitted; the paper was accepted and I will present the paper in July in San Francisco! I’ve heard many nice things about San Francisco, so I’m looking forward to checking it out this summer. I’m also submitting a paper about our experiences in Thailand, and if that paper gets accepted, I would be heading to Philadelphia. As it turns out, giving presentations about stuff can get you trips to a lot of places.
I do plan on highlighting some more of my Thai pictures, but in the meantime here is a Picasa slideshow where I posted many of my pictures. You can click on the slideshow to see the pictures bigger:
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: Uncategorized| |
2 Comments
Our trip would not been as successful as it was without the help of people in Thailand as well as here in Oklahoma. We were fortunate to have several contacts in Hat Yai that visited us last summer here in Norman and now served as our hosts during our stay. They also helped set up equipment, field trips, and anything else we needed.
Dao at the floating market
One of the people to come over last summer was Dao, a chemistry teacher. She was our go-to person at the high school if we needed anything, and if we had questions she was the one we asked. I was amazed that she never got tired of our constant questions and needs before the workshop began - she was always very cheerful and sunny.
Dr. Nanny and Dr. Jim
Also visiting us last summer was Dr. Jim, a faculty member at Prince of Songkhla University in the area of environmental science. He helped me get the cooperation of the faculty in charge of the wave tank we used and answered my questions regarding it since all I had to go on was a couple pictures. He is a very busy guy, with teaching responsibilities and many graduate students and projects in addition to helping us with the academy. I actually hope to follow in his footsteps by having interactions not only on campus with classes and grad students, but also with outreach in high schools and international collaborations.
Dao, Mam and Sang
Mam is another faculty member at PSU who visited us last summer, and is also in the environmental science department. She helped us with organizing the lessons, but was in charge of organizing our trip to the islands, which she and Dao joined us for.
More pictures to come!
Thursday, April 9th, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: General| |
1 Comment
Now that things are getting back into a (mostly) regular routine, I have some time to post some more pictures and stories from our trip. First, I wanted to introduce the folks that accompanied me on the trip:
Allen, holding some big fruit
In addition to myself, there were two other fellows that made the trip. Allen is an aerospace engineer, finishing his Master’s this semester. Allen was very adventurous during the trip, trying things that the rest of us were somewhat reluctant to do. In the above picture he is holding two pieces of durian, a fruit that is so pungent that it is banned in most hotels in Thailand. The other fellow that traveled with us was Louis, a bioengineering student. Louis was a big shopper during the trip, buying lots of clothes for himself and lots of souvenirs for his daughters.
Louis, holding microphone, demonstrating his lesson
Also joining us were the supervisors of the fellowship, my bosses. Tim is a former high school science teacher and a current faculty member in the science ed. department.
Tim, Chris, and Dr. Jim
Dr. Nanny, with hat, tour guide!
Dr. Nanny and his wife Chris also joined us. Dr. Nanny is the principal investigator for our program, meaning he was the one that put together the proposal for funding and is the one that has to present our work to the National Science Foundation. Dr. Nanny has been going to Thailand for many years to teach college courses and was the main force behind getting this trip together. Once we arrived he served as the tour guide showing us around the country, especially in Bangkok. Chris sort of served as mom to all of us, making sure we had everything we needed for lessons and otherwise.
Jim, mouth agape
Also traveling with us was Jim, who is one of the teachers I regularly work with in Chickasha. He helped out with all the activities and also kept everyone’s spirits up with jokes and singing. The above picture is Jim marvelling at his gift from the teachers, a unique musical instrument. The last member of our group was Susan, who is one of the other people in charge of our program. She was there to evaluate the success of the program.
Susan, explaining water quality
Coming tomorrow, our contemporaries from Thailand that helped put together this program.
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: General| |
No Comments
We arrived home last night after again enduring the 24+ hour plane trip back to Oklahoma City. Again I was unable to do hardly any sleeping on the flights back, but in retrospect that’s probably a good thing since I slept well and am not feeling any jet lag effects today. While I really enjoyed the trip, I am glad to back home.
I plan on posting many more pictures and stories over the course of the next few days, but I wanted to put down some thoughts on the trip as a whole. When I first heard about the possibility of traveling to Thailand I was of course excited but also somewhat apprehensive about location. Granted my knowledge of Thailand was very limited, but the idea of going to a foreign country halfway around the world to try and teach science to a group of Thai teachers and students seemed like a daunting proposition. Fortunately though, all of my apprehensions and nervousness about the trip dissolved away shortly after arriving.
The country was very fascinating, but I was most impressed with the people - they were always so courteous and friendly you couldn’t help but feel welcome pretty much everywhere we went. The days at the high school I would count among my favorites during the trip because the teachers and students were so enthusiastic in addition to being so friendly, and I truly hope that this experience will not be the only time I will have to collaborate with them.
During the trip I managed to do some reading during the breaks, and one book I read had a passage that I thought fit my thoughts so well, I thought I’d paraphrase it here. The book is The Greatest Game Ever Played, a book about the 1913 U.S. Golf Open, and while it seems an unlikely place to find quotables about Thailand, it did seem to really match my thoughts at the time about how the trip went for me, and what I would say to those people who made it such a great 3 weeks:
“There exists a special bond between our countries, and it is my firm belief that [this fellowship] can only make it stronger. This is my [first] time in [Thailand], which I count as one of the great privileges of my life. I hope it is not my last, and for the great kindnesses and hospitality accorded me, I wish to thank all of you. I assure you that, for my part, they are returned with nothing but the deepest and most lasting affections”
A special thank you goes out to all those people who made this trip possible, and made it truly one of the most unique experiences of my life.
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: General| |
2 Comments
Today we are heading back to Bangkok in a couple hours, but I thought I’d post a picture of our stay in the islands:
“Tropical Paradise” seems to be a pretty accurate description: white sandy beaches, palm trees, and deep blue water were everywhere we went. The first day we did some sightseeing at a nearby island, then spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and walking around. Friday was my first experience snorkeling, and while it took me a minute to get the breathing part down (laying fast down in water and trying to breathe is a little weird) it was a lot of fun; we saw dozens of different types of tropical fish and coral. Yesterday we returned to the mainland and did a little kayaking, the first part was sunny and bright, but then the sky opened up and poured on us for the remainder, not that it got our spirits down, we still enjoyed it a lot.
I have many more pictures to share, but with internet being slow it’s hard to post a bunch; when I return I will be posting many more of our adventures!
Saturday, March 28th, 2009,
by admin,
Filed under: General| |
1 Comment
« Next Entries |
