Total Lunar Eclipse

To see earth's shadow is the closest most people would come to going in to outer space and looking at this planet we call home. It is truly a very sacred kind of moment... And to see that it casts a round shadow, is always reassuring! :) We could also see the turquoise color from our ozone layer, at partial eclipse. But the full eclipse was a beautiful orange.

Godzillas

I can still recall the awe in me when I first saw American squirrells - they're like little Godzillas, so much bigger than the ones we have back where I come from... Here's one eating what looked like a rotten banana on our windowsill at home... They do look adorable from a far, but they're fearless and sometimes even taunt you with if-you-get-any-closer-i-will-bite-you attitude...

Complete Circuit

Here's the completed circuit, that now controls 4 different valves via solenoids... all of the devices have been soldered, which took forever, because these universal circuit boards need meticulous soldering, in order to not short circuit. Notice how the last 3 branches (to the right) are way more neater than the first one on the left! :)

Technology

I was at one of my friends' apartment tonight. He had a collection of old computers that he used as a kid, some of them were really the ones he used, others he bought similar ones off eBay, because he had to sell the old ones every time he upgraded. There were all these cool devices that I hadn't ever seen - these keyborads allow you to directly program with Basic (the keys have those functions built into them), tapes, and all sorts of things... His apartment in downtown, 26th floor, allowed a pretty sight of downtown, specially at night, but his 'museum' of which he said he was the curator was way cooler...

I am an Experimentalist...

Here's the first electronics circuit that I built and soldered... ooooh... when connected, I could flip the valves of those solenoids (the black & brassy things) to switch on and off. And then a code that I got to work, connected via the National Instruments device, controlled if the solenoids were on or off... I was very proud of myself for accomplishing this 2 step process... I thought it was all going to blow up when I connected it, but it worked and I felt very very accomplished!

Exasperation

I was sitting in the front office waiting for my turn with the new secretary, missing the former secretary and accountant so very badly, thinking of the rapport of good people that we built with them which in turn allowed them to treat us super nicely. The new people... they are trying perhaps... but they're hostile and easily turn defensive, just because that is the way people are; they treat everyone as potential up-to-no-gooders. But anyways as I was sitting there, contemplating this, the other secretaries in the next room were sighing and grunting... This is our graduate secretary; like the former secretary, but to a lesser extent perhaps, she dealt with the quirky, absent minded grad students, trying to deal with our international student status, trying to explain to us, as patiently as they could. She let out several sighs... and I thought of the countless number of times she must have done this with regard to me, trying to get my paper work, health insurance, right... and my classmates. We got better with time, but 6.5 years ago, we were new, bright eyed, naive graduate students... A lot of us came from minimum bureaucracy countries... heck we were not international students in our countries... I bet she was as exasperated with us as she was this day... Suddenly I felt a lot of appreciation for what she did and then I thought of my class - so much has happened among us over the past 6.5 years, some of us hardly talk to each other any more... but I will take a piece of everyone with me... and I will miss them....