Fair, end of the first week

Hi all,
So I've almost reached the end of my first week as a grad student (since classes began on Thurday for whatever random reason). I can already see it's going to be a hard semester.
But first some of the fun stuff. Last Saturday Andy and I checked out the Great NY State Fair. It was much smaller than Iowa's but had more emphasis on teaching stuff than Iowa's. Also the food at ours is better. Anyho!
Monday night was my first orchestra rehearsal in about three years. It was a bit frustrating to be so rusty, especially since I made section principal. I just need some time to get back in the swing of it.
Another thing I need to get back into the swing of is homework. Arg. Right now I'm planning on taking four classes. We'll see how long that lasts.
Otherwise I have no news.

Ok. Jetzt auf Deutsch.
Ich habe fast das Ende von meiner ersten Woche als eine Doktorantin erreicht. Es ist mir schon klar, dass dieses Semester sehr lang sein wird.
Aber zuerst schreibe ich über meine Freizeit. Letzten Samstag sind Andy und ich zu der Great NY State Fair gegangen. Der NY Fair ist viel kleiner als Iowas aber war mehr pädagogisch. Das Essen bei Iowas ist auch besser.
Montag Abend war meine erste Orchesterprobe seit drei Jahre. Ich habe mich geärgert, dass ich so "out of practice" bin. Ich brauche nur einbisschen Zeit.
Was ich auch seit lange nicht gemacht habe ist Hausaufgabe. Arg. Jetzt habe ich vor, vier Kurse zu belegen. Schauen wir mal, wie lange das geht.
Sonst habe ich keine andere Nachrichten.

First day of class

So I guess I haven't really posted for awhile.
Things are going well. I'm mostly settled into my apartment. Still some small things to do, but the big stuff is out of the way.
Now I just need to get settled into academic life. The program here is really flexible and allows you a lot of freedom to decide what you want to do. I am going the physics-heavy route and planning on doing E&M, Quantum, Stellar Structures, and Signal Processing. Most people are telling me four classes is one too many, but we'll see how it goes for a while.
Otherwise I auditioned for the orchestra last night and solidly made it in. It was a small ego boost, I'll admit.
Otherwise my parents visited at the beginning of the week. It was nice to show them around Ithaca a bit.
Some how I have nothing more to say.

Here are some photos of Ithaca just for fun.



This is one of my favorite views from campus.



This is one of the gorges that boarder campus.

Now to do Kris's thing:


Six Weird Things

The Rules: Once you are tagged, you must post six things about yourself that are either unusual, weird, habitual, or just plain fun to hear about (and true). Once you post these things about yourself, you must also tag someone else, who then, in the spirit of not wussing out, must read words like these and follow the same rules as you did.


1) When I'm thinking of a decision I will sometimes wiggle my lips back and forth.

2) When I listen to music I will sometimes conduct the beats with my big toe.

3) I hate turning off a song in the middle. I have to wait for it to end.

4) When I drive over a bridge I will sometimes raise up my toes.

5) I always spell "Hello" "Hallo" with an "A" like German and have been since I started learning German in high school.

6) I'm really bad at coming up with things like this...which is just my lazy way of coming up with a sixth thing because I'd rather go eat ice cream.


I tag James.

First day in Ithaca

Greetings from Ithaca!
I've been in my new home for almost one day now, and things are going well. Let me start at the beginning.
Thursday evening I finally ate the Hessen Haus in Des Moines. It's a German restaurant in Des Moines. It was tasty, but sadly not authentic. (Aber es gab Bitburger!!) But they did have Bitburger. I was very excited.
Friday morning I loaded up my car and hit the road. Other than the chaos near Chicago, it was a rather pleasant drive. I spent the first night out somewhere in western Ohio. Yesterday's drive was pretty boring until I reached eastern Pennsylvania. As I was going up a huge hill, I happened to look off to the left to see the sky drop off into a big dark blue pit, and I thought to myself "Boy that's erie...wait. That is Erie!". So I got a couple glimpses of Lake Erie. Then I finally reached New York and became instantly excited. Upstate NY is beautiful. It was a great, although long, drive. Little traffic and amazing scenery. It reminded me alot of Germany (Die Eifel) actually, which of course made me more excited. Around 8 pm I rolled into Ithaca (which is gorgous of course) and managed to find my apartment. I'm really happy with it. It's on the east edge of town next to some fields and a shopping center. The apartment itself is also nice. Hung out with my roommates a bit. They seem cool enough.
Today I met Andy for a tour of the Ithaca farmer's market. Very hippie. Otherwise I've just been doing some unpacking, which I probably should get back to.

Rückkehr in Iowa City/Return to Iowa City

Hi all!
So Monday and Tuesday I made a trek out to Iowa City to visit those I know who are still there. Of course, being the geek that I am, I made a bee line to the physics building. I think I single-handedly decreased productivity on the seventh floor on Monday afternoon.
Mostly things had stayed the same. The most exciting thing was seeing the correlator I built last summer for the SRT actually connected to the telescope and collecting some data. It's not yet running perfectly, but it was neat so see something I'd built actually in use. Too bad that I wasn't there to work on getting it integrated, but I was off in Europe working on things way more fun and exciting.
The city had changed a bit over the last year. The huge apartment complex next to the Sheridan is finished. New buildings had materialized or are in the process of materializing on Gilbert St. I saw some of the tornado damage from this spring.
One very nice change was that the Old Capitol has reopened. I took a quick tour of the building. It's looking good and really interesting. I recommend it for anyone who hasn't been in there since the renovations.
The highlight of course was seeing friends again. Catching up on department gossip, eating a good piece of corn-fed Iowa cow, trying out IC-brewed beer (can't compete with German Bier). I'm sad to be leaving you all so quickly again.
Just for fun here's a photo I took from the Grinell rest stop.

A bit of this and that

Hi everyone!
It looks like another week has gone by with no one asking me first. Silly time.
Wednesday my sister Katie, her boyfriend, and I made the yearly trek to the Omaha Zoo. Good times like always. It was also a good chance to get some miles on the new car.
Friday Marcy and I went on a very pleasant bike ride. Yesterday we grilled with some of the Urbandale peoples. Got to throw a frisbee around a lot and make a bunch of guys look bad. Always fun.
Yesterday I also got a new cell phone. It's a flippy phone with camera, color screen, and bluetooth. I've now finally joined the rest of the world as far as cell phone technology goes. Not that I'll probably use half of it but whatever. Since I decided to go with Cingular I also have a SIM card just like in Europe. :-) (Yes, I am such a geek.)
Tomorrow I head out to Iowa City for two days to visit people. I'm really excited about that. Then it looks like I'll be heading out to New York on Friday. Kind of hard to believe actually.
I guess that's all I have at the moment.