Pressure Gradients and Uncertainty

Lately, I've been losing sleep. Part of it is Nyquil withdrawal. I was sick for two weeks straight (since Thanksgiving week), so I was on Nyquil cough syrup for those same two weeks so the cough attacks would have a less chance of shaking me from my sleep. Unfortunately for my sleep schedule, the end of the semester also coincides with me pumping caffeine into my blood system.

The other part of it are the things that take up my thoughts. Thoughts of mostly uncertainty in data analysis and uncertainty in life. At least the semester is almost over.

Oh. The semester is almost over.

The M on Mount Zion in Golden has a countdown each semester to the number of days until graduation for the last nine days. We've now seen it seven times.

"Look at the M. Next time it will be for us."

***

A rallying cry for the Geophysics Junior's hardest class that we Seniors stumbled into

It is during the last ten minutes of a last final of the week that one probably is the most unmotivated. I was particularly unmotivated during this semester's last one, for it was an open computer final and had concepts that contradicted fundamentals from the final I just took an hour earlier.

Plus my hand hurt from writing so much. Even though I stayed up until 2AM studying on accident, I wasn't stressed out about finals. I have done it so many times by now. I was more stressed out about getting my talk finished and everything else. After Tuesday...I would be relaxed.

***

The semester is now over, and the tail end of the year quickly following after it. My sources of December stress are resolved, but uncertainty carries into 2015.

The year I graduate college. The year I start grad school...somewhere.

I was able to reset my sleeping schedule at the AGU Fall Meeting, ironically. Usually people don't get much sleep at giant earth science conferences, but the first two days had me waking up at 6:30AM to prepare for my talk, which was on Tuesday afternoon.

This AGU Fall Meeting was my second, but already was very different from my first, when I was overwhelmed by the bigness of geoscience and taking in the amazing facets of our field of study. This year, my Fall Meeting was defined by prep for my talk and networking. And sushi. I ate sushi twice. (Can I just say how much I love that NSF supports my caffeine and food habit?)

Networking is actually cool because these are my kind of nerds: from people who sing and write poems about geoscience to people who I might be working with in the future. My week was also busy catching up with multiple circles of friends that converged at AGU: Mines Geophysics peeps, 2014 REU friends, and 2013 REU friends. 

My talk went well, and though it was a lot of pressure, it was a huge honor and actually a lot of fun to give. I ended up being up a lot less nervous than I expected it being my first AGU talk. Probably because I was singing in my head the entire talk before mine.

"Ain't no mountain high enough..."

***

It's my last trip of the year. From my first trip of driving through the Arizona desert during Spring Break and receiving the email that I was accepted to the Haystack REU, to the drive to Field Camp, DEN to BOS, BOS to SEA, SEA to BOS, BOS to YYC, driving back from Calgary, DEN to SFO, SFO to DEN.

What's next?

I can't begin to think about going back to school right now and starting my final semester at Mines and all the uncertainty beyond that. I just want to stare at geology from thirty thousand miles above the ground.

The Sierra Nevadas

My First GeoRodeo: Post-Meeting Thoughts

I've had two weeks to recover and process the firehose/volcano/tsunami of information that was dispersed at the AGU Fall Meeting. At the time of my mid-Meeting post, I was in awe of how huge the Meeting is, and had not even presented my poster yet. So Thursday morning, I woke up before dawn and then scurried to a cafe with Emily, my internship friend who was also presenting that morning. Both of us had our poster tubes in hand. Being all official scientists and stuff. 

Where the poster-presenting shenanigans occur.

Presenting my first poster at AGU was a great experience. It really highlighted one of my favorite things about the Meeting: The eagerness of scientists all over the world to learn. Nearly everyone I spoke with was super friendly and had great feedback on my summer research. It was crazy both how quickly and slowly the five hours by my poster passed--that's a long time to be talking science. My throat was dry afterwards. 

Me at 7:59AMish, ready to present.

After my presentation, the Meeting for me winded down, as I attended a great talk given by my mentor later that evening, and then a session called "Geoscience Through the Lens of Art" the following morning. It was the perfect ending to a very exploratory experience for me in my first Fall Meeting.

A few conclusions:

• I'm more than ever certain I want to pursue a PhD. In what specifically? I have some time to figure that out. 
• I'm only 63% done with my CSM Geophysics degree, but AGU gave another glimpse of how good the program is, even if I harp on it sometimes about it being very exploration-focused. It was really cool to hop around learning more about different facets of geoscience, but it was cooler that I could follow what the presenters spoke of, from induced polarization as I learned in Electrical Methods and Dynamic Fields to climate change models as I learned all summer. 
• Sending us to AGU was really the cherry on top of everything from our REU at CMMAP. When I was applying a year ago to research internships, I could not have imagined they would have flown me halfway across the country in an awesome hotel--all for the love of science. Well played, NSF. Well played. It worked. And I highly recommend to my fellow science-lovers to apply to REUs. 
• Hanging out with the seniors and a couple grad students in Mines Geophysics was really cool, especially since I didn't know most of them before. It's always fun to be around like-minded people who love science for science. But it also reminded me of how awesome the class of 2015 is. I can't wait for many of us to travel to San Francisco next Fall. As far as topics go, there will be something for everyone, and as far as the city goes, we're going to have a blast. 
• I really, really, really, really love food. Sushi, sea food, sourdough and chowder, and more...You taste amazing, SF. 

 I will be back next year, San Francisco. I will be back. 

The Bigness of Geoscience: Mid-Meeting Thoughts

From charges lying on bacteria in the ground to kilometer-sized gravity anomalies on the moon, geoscience is HUGE. The AGU Fall Meeting is huge too, but maybe on a couple orders of magnitude less than huge. The amount of coffee consumed here is HUGE, but not as huge as the amount of knowledge consumed. There are so many talks on so many topics, and a million (I may be off on my estimate) more posters on more topics. The titles of said talks and posters have so many words in them. There are thousands of important earth scientists concentrated into a two-block radius. Everything is so big.

In case I haven't explained the reason of my excitement to you in person, the AGU (American Geophysical Union) Fall Meeting is an annual earth science conference held in San Francisco. I have the privilege of attending because of the research internship I had this past summer with CMMAP (Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes) at Colorado State University. They are paying me to basically be in science heaven and present my research among the thousands others. It's pretty cool.

For those who have attended a Career Fair, particularly the one at Colorado School of Mines, imagine a super-duper-sized Career Fair, but instead of talking about getting oil, everyone is interested in science. That is only the exhibit hall. And there's the poster hall which takes forever to walk across from. And the countless talks simultaneously occurring.

It's overwhelming because as a third year undergrad, I don't really know exactly where in geoscience I want to go. Being a Geophysics major seems so general here. So the Meeting is a sampler of sorts. On the other hand, I am really grateful for my Mines education that has taught me so much, and my internship that taught me other aspects of earth science. I've attended lectures on Climate Change, Modeling, Induced Polarization in Bacteria, gravity remote sensing on the moon, numerical methods, and I've been able to somewhat understand them with my background knowledge. Until my coffee runs out. But AGU understands us scientists and our need for free coffee.

It's not just the caffeine in my blood: I'm excited about earth science right now, not gonna lie. Gotta go get more free swag and/or knowledge now. Over and out.