Weekend!

Hello!  So this has quite possibly been my busiest weekend this semester.  Friday night I decided to play the role of the studious student.  I went to see my physics professor and we talked about some homework, GREs and grad school.  I went to see him a lot last semester and he remembered my name (including last, which is really impressive with a class of 150ish and tons of Amandas).  So we talked about some problems and he was like, ‘You haven’t been doing so well on your quizzes,” and I was like, “You better look again,” and he did and I’m doing just fine.  He was just thinking of a different student.  He did m that the one quiz I bombed was when I took the GREs though (I wrote him a note not to expect much because I had just taken the GREs the day previous) so then we got into other things.  It’s really nice to have professors that care  : )
So I got home and wrote a paper about Ludwig Boltzmann.  And that was Friday.  Then Saturday I had work, followed by some homework.  Then it was girls night!   I went to my friend Amanda’s house and we watched Transformers 2.  That was something else.  And soon enough it was 11:00 p.m.  and I had a trip the Smithsonian the next day so I headed home to get some sleep.

So then at 8:00 I was back at Temple to go to the Smithsonian with my Vertebrate Paleontology class and it was a BLAST!  The drive down was great.  We didn’t hit traffic, I was sleeping, it was great.   We spent the whole day there and I took plenty of pictures so get pumped!!

This is an eurypterid and they are my FAVORITE!

A cartoon eurypterid with a tie and moustache? Yes!

Petrified wood!

Look at his neural spine! Unbelievable!

It's an allosaur! He's got belly ribs. Crazy.

Swimming eurypterids!! So cute!

A giant sloth from the ice age. I can't normally handle sloths nowadays because of how cute they are. Imagine looking at this guy!

Emily, Ashley, and I! The field camp ladies!

A seal.

A giraffe! I took this for my co-worker Abby S! She was a giraffe for Halloween : )

And now for the rocks!

Banded iron!

Komatiite! This rock is actually extinct because the earth has cooled too much for it to crystallize on the surface.

This is fluorite and the craziest sample I ever saw of it.

These are all the same mineral. Again, crazy.

Turquoise, my favorite mineral.

Topaz, my birthstone.

A collage I made on my phone on the way back. I know, I'm adorable : )

Leaving the museum.

I took this picture because half the class got stuck crossing the street.

So now I’m all nostalgic!  Freshman year my RA had a trip to DC and I went with my bff Tomi K.  So here’s a little contrast!

It was raining pretty bad!

This is my favorite picture of the day! We spent all day looking for the mall which I knew was a grass mall, he thought it was a shopping mall. Best time ever!

I like Tomi's caption: First stop, Art Museum. Really boring, so we left.

The Hope Diamond. This time I didn't even look for it.

I like this one because Tomi tagged this guy as me Oh he's such a kidder!

I don't think this guy was there this time...

Oh geez.  That was a fun post.  Hope you made it through!

`

So I took the GREs…

and got a 1260!!!  I was so nervous.  I am a pleased little lady.  My goal for October was to take the GREs with a sufficient score to get into grad school and November is figuring out where I’ll spend my next 2 years.

This weekend I’m going home for my nephews birthday party.  It should be a killer time partying with Juicy Juice and pin the tail on the donkey.

Hello Hello!!  Well much has happened since you last heard from me.  Mostly academics, like study for the GREs I’m taking tomorrow(yikes!), research, tests, and getting my grad school dreams crushed, but some fun stuff has happened!

Okay really, I don’t have time for fun stuff. So here’s a general timeline of events.

October 12th-17th:  I got really sick.  In all actuality, I think it was just a really nasty reaction to this cranberry juice I had but I felt terrible.  There was also a sulfur gas leak in Beury Hall so that added on some nice little side affects. In other Beury news, there is a hawk that hangs out in this tree right outside.  I don’t know if anyone has told him, but we’re the Temple Owls.  He’s got a ways to go if he thinks he’s at Saint Joe’s.  He’s the blob in the middle of the picture.

That Friday I went to see Where the Wild Things Are (and cried most of the movie) and then went to the King of Prussia mall.  And there wasn’t even anything fabulous so it was kind of depressing. There was a really sweet Bakugan tournament though!

 

October 18th-24th:  This was the week of GSA so many of the faculty were gone from the EES department.  That meant I didn’t have geochem one Monday and Thursday.  And because that’s my only class on Thursday, I had a free day!!  I started like this:

I thought the steam was really neat.   So I took a break and watched The Office for a bit.  Then I cracked open the GRE book and had a very long day studying.  I’m actually doing really well.  I get around 650 for the math section and then around 550 verbal so I’m not too worked up about it.  But I’m still worked up : )

Other than the trip to KOP, the most exciting thing I’ve been doing is walking the dogs.  There’s this little park down by were I walk them on Frankford and they have a bunch of scarecrows out.  This one is my favorite!!

And this one is my least favorite:

I don’t like this guy because he looks like this guy:

This guy is from Maniac Mansion, a game for Nintendo.  When I was little I used to go to my grandparents house on the rare occasion that I got sent to my room.  We shared half a double and my room had the door to the attic so I would just sneak upstairs and go over to their house and play games and this was my favorite/least favorite.  I loved playing it but it scared the crap out of my when I got caught by this guy!  I still get frantic when it happens.  The first thing you do is go to the kitchen to get a soda so you can get by this plant (you have to feed it wax fruit too) and the mom comes down and catches you and you have to run but I get so scared I can’t function.  Then I have to stop because I’m so worked up.  I’m a million times worse with scary movies  : )

 

And back on topic, this weekend I am heading home!  It’s my nephew Jake’s  birthday party so I’m really excited for that.  He’s turning the big four.  I was talking to him on the phone the other day and he said, “Where are you?  I can’t see you.”  Cutest thing ever!  I really like when the dogs paws get wet and they leave a footprint on the cement because Jake screams “A CLUE!!” and he’s so dang proud of himself.  So here’s Leonidas hanging out of the window.

Next post should be more fun.  After I take the GREs I only have a physics test left to knock out before finals so I should have some free time.

Hello hello!!  So I have two big tests coming up so I haven’t done anything too exciting.  On Saturday  I studied Yoga with my friend Emily and then we went into the city for some Cosi.  Sunday I worked from 6:45 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. and was then in a state of comatose for the rest of the day.  Monday was class 8-6 and then Tuesday I went grocery shopping!

Now normally I would never talk about grocery shopping but this time was kind of exciting.  There was the CUTEST fall display with acorn balloons.  You can see my excitement:

Really. This was too exciting for me. I need to get out more.

And here’s Morris outside Trader Joe’s.  I like Trader Joe’s because they have a lot of premade stuff which means I don’t have to be creative with my menus.  And they have free samples too!

I like that we have the same facial expression here.

But moving right along, my vertebrate paleontology class has been meeting at the Academy of Natural Science lately to look at the collections.  This past week was a lot of fun because I got to work with people that were on the same level as me.  And we totally rocked it.  Except there was this one bone that I said was a finger and the one guy said it was a tibia and then we had a long battle to which I conceded (I was outnumbered) and I was right in the end.  There goes two points I’ll never see again.

The field camp ladies in front of a mastadon.

And then because we were already in the city, Emily (girl on the right) and I decided to go to Cosi again.  I’m absolutely addicted.  Then we just meandered a bit and took in the sights of the city.  It was a lovely time.

A sight, particularly that of the Comcast building.

And then I studied physics all night long!

A promise is a promise!!

So here are some more pictures!

While setting up tents we found a frog. Really going for a kiss here, but it looks like I'm blowing on his butt. Later I slipped in mud going into the pond trying to catch another.

Future of geology!

Silly faces!

Inside a mine.

Inside the mine.

Some serious folding...and students.

Broad Street Ballers! I have no idea if that is the right spelling of the right baller...but you get it.

I like this one because I look like I'm concentrating.

Cooking...

& eating : )

The End  : )

Earth & Environmental Science Department Trip!!

This weekend EES (Earth and environmental Science) had our department trip and this year it was to New York for the New York State Geological Association Field Trip.  We left Friday and came back Sunday.  Rundown of events:

Friday:  driving to NY, ate at my professors parent’s house.  How fun is that?!

Saturday:  We looked at an area with regional folding that allowed for the deposition of magnetite mineralization.  This was really cool because the guy leading us went to Buffalo for undergrad and that’s one of the places I’m thinking of going for my grad work.  But West Virginia is high up there too  : )  We also had a big dinner at the camp fire of vegetarian chilli, cheese, and chips, grapes, cookies, and some beano.  Our professors really know how to watch out for us.  And I’m pretty sure I gained some weight.

Sunday:  We drove around looking at a classical Barovian sequence of metamorphism.  We were pretty cranky because of rain and we were sick so we kind of skipped out a bit early.  Plus you couldn’t see any of the minerals in hand sample and the rocks were covered in poison ivy so it was a bit boring.

I only have a few pictures from my phone but when otheres put some up I’ll post more   : )

One of the caverns left from mining the magnetite. Of course the Temple kids picked up the biggest rock available and threw it in.

View from in one of the caves left from mining.

Amanda, Allison, and Mike!

So it’s Wednesday which starts the slowing of my academic week.  On Wednesdays I only have 2 classes (yoga and physics) and then Thursday I only have Geochem and then Friday is the same as Wednesday.  I’m really pumped to get some sleep  : )

But yesterday was a lot of fun in an academic sense.  I mentioned my vert paleo class was going to the Wagner Museum and we did and it was a blast!  I’m starting to really understand the stuff we’re talking about and being able to recognize and understand the bones of skeletons so that’s a nice feeling.  You’re not allowed to take pictures inside the Wagner so here’s a link to their website!

http://www.wagnerfreeinstitute.org/

It’s free, it’s fun, and they sell fake mustaches in their gift shop.  Everything is original so it’s kind of like time traveling. It’s a natural science museum so they have skeletons, animals that have been stuffed, minerals, fossils, insects, dinosaur legs, just all sorts of  fun stuff  : )

So this is definitely by far the hardest semester I’ve ever had.  Because I’m taking graduate classes, I have to read a lot of scientific journals and articles and it’s a bit tough to work through.  But at least I have class trips to look forward to!  For vert paleo we went to the Academy of Natural Sciences to look at some dinosaurs which was really neat.  We were split into groups and given a worksheet to do.  It was spectacular.

This is chasmosaurus, a darling little guy with tiny ribs (at least in comparison to his head!).

The is the corysaurus and those rods on him are ossified tendons!

And you may remember these lovely ladies from field camp!

This week we’re going to the Wagner Museum which is just a few blocks from campus.  And it’s free  : )

And on a totally separate note, this weekend was really exciting for me!  I just discovered The Office, and having gotten terribly lost in Scranton once, I’m really attached.   And Pam and Jim are adorable.  So I spent a lot of time watching that while doing homework this weekend.  I did manage to rip myself away from the Jim-Karen-Pam triangle long enough to go into the city on Saturday.  Morris and I went to Bucca di Beppo for dinner and did some shopping in the city.  I had a coupon for $25 off a $100 purchase at H&M and it is getting cold, and I am stressed out about grad school/graduating/getting a job so I decided to treat myself to some new sweaters and the guy did the buy one get one half off coupon instead and I got a hat, a scarf, four sweaters, a dress, and a hoodie (for Morris) for ~$55.  Aaaamazing.

New Semester!

Hello everyone!  So my last semester has started and is well on the way to being my favorite ever.  I’m only taking 12 credits so it’s the lightest credit wise but hardest class wise.  I’m taking Vertebrate Paleontology at the undergraduate level, High Temperature Geochemisty at the graduate level, Physics II, and Yoga.

So classes themselves are fun.  Vert Paleo so far is playing with bones which makes me quite nauseous.  Next week we go to the Academy of Natural Science for class and then we have a class trip to the Smithsonian!  Geochemistry is actually really depressing.  Like yesterday we learned how radon gas is trapped in shear zones of granitic rocks and gee golly, there just happens to be a shear zone of a granitic rock that runs right through Philly!  We also learned that radon gas kills more people than drunk drivers and most people die in the winter because they leave their windows closed and trap the gas in their house.  I’m planning on calling my landlord and seeing when our house was last tested for this.  See what I’m saying with the depressing part?

I have physics at 8:00 a.m.  Yes.  A.M.  But my professor is hysterical so it makes it well worth it.  For example, today he told us how his grandparents in Europe make their houses out of mud, sticks, and animal feces and their house is warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  Here in America, houses are made out of “cardboard” and heat escapes through the walls easily and it’s not surprising we have an energy crisis.  It’s all in the delivery.  I do it no justice.  My favorite part about his jokes is how he laughs at himself after he’s delivered the joke.  If you need to take physics, I recommend Tsankov.

And lastly, yoga!  Now you would think this would be easy, but oh no!  It is not!  I wake up every morning after yoga feeling parts of my body I didn’t know I had.  It’s so relaxing though, it’s just brilliant.  It’s a 50 minute class on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and our yogi is hysterical.  There’s this one pose called mountain and you have your arms up in a V and she tells us to pretend like we are Villanova Fans, not University of Utah.  This humor comes in nice when you’re in plank for 5 minutes.

And speaking of Villanova!  We had a football game against them last week and Amanda, Emily, Morris, and I went to support our Temple Owls.  All was going well:  we were in the lead, Hooter was running around looking like an owl, the Wildcat was running around looking like a teddy bear, someone wearing a Villanova shirt came to TU’s students section and got booed and food tossed at him and then it went downhill and we lost in the last 3o seconds.  Can we say karma?

But here’s some pictures!

The Owls at the Linc!

The Geo Ladies!!

Morris, his game face, and me. Just lovely.

And the field again.

So classes have kept me quite busy.  I’m also doing research with my hydrology professor.  We’re going out to the field this weekend and I’m really excited!  This is one of those things that I love about Temple.  Undergrads can do research and it looks just fabulous on grad school applications as well as the experience is great.  But that’s about it.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Hello! I know it’s been quite a hot minute since I’ve updated but time has been moving so fast!!  I have a post in the works that I just need to add pictures to so that will be up soon but I have some excitement for today!

My friend Mellisa from field camp is here visiting for a week and we have been nonstop in the city.  It’s really nice to have someone here who’s not from the area so I can do all the tourist things and not feel lame. 

So I picked her up Saturday at 30th street station.  Her train was actually two hours late so I had a lot of time to spend in the area so I meandered around UPenn and Drexel’s campus.  It was cute to be on a new campus but I’m definitely glad I’m a Temple girl!

Saturday night we went into the city and got something to eat at Buca di Beppo and I just have to plug this restaurant because it was FANTASTIC!  First, we go in and they gave us a tour of the kitchen and dinning area so we knew just where everything was.  What I really liked was the kitchen tour because we got to see how everything was made and it was clean so I was not worried at all about cleanliness.  And it’s family style so they bring out a big plate and everyone shares and it was delicious. 

Then we went to South Street and did some shopping and people watching.  South Street has changed so much since the last time I was there!!  It was so crowded and stores were closing at 10:00 p.m.  What’s up with that!?  So we ended the night at Penn’s Landing looking out to New Jersey, where I think there was a Bon Jovi concert because I definitely heard ‘Living on a Prayer.’

 

Mellisa and I at Penn's Landing.

I heard about this fossil pit in Swatara State Park so Melissa, Emily, and I decided to go there Sunday and boy that was an adventure!!  The trip included 8 U-turns, getting lost in Reading, having a police officer drive away as I approached his car for directions, A LOT of  iphone direction getting, and Dairy Queen.  We each left with a part of a trilobite but I’m pretty sure it was not worth the three hours driving (just to get there) and the poison ivy I got. 

Emily and I fossil hunting!

So here’s the second plug of the post and that is for student health at Temple.  So I said I have poison ivy and it’s kind of serious because it’s in my blood so they gave me three different prescriptions and in total cost $5.  So that is just fabulous for me because I got the “congrats, you’re 22, now get off the health insurance” boot and that could have crippled me financially.  So thank you student health, you’re the best.  : )

Then to work off our Buca di Beppo and Dairy Queen (which was later followed by Philly Flavors, a water ice store), we decided to hike in Wissahickon.  That was just delightful.  Matt, president of GeoClub, Emily, Melissa, and I all went out after I got off work and took a quick hike.  We only did a small portion because it was really hot and we found the rocks we were looking for but I definitely recommend it for anyone who would like a nice hike when autumn comes around because it it gorgeous there. 

Emily and Matt in the stream.

Blurry group pic on the trail, trying to throw up some "WC" for Wissahickon Creek.

Then we went back to my place all nice and tired and ate some dinner and played Rock Band.  It was delightful. 

Then yesterday Mellisa and I went into the city and did a whole bunch of tourist things.  We saw the Liberty Bell, the U.S. Mint, the Constitution Center, we went to Washington Square (which is actually a burial site), did some shopping in Center City, and got dinner with Morris at Cosi.  Cosi is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to eat and I highly recommend it.   And that’s about it!  Stay tuned for pictures and stories of what happened between field camp and now!