| Bordeaux |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|09:45 am] |
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Just got travel money for a free research trip to France next year. Go research! |
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| Rent! |
[Oct. 12th, 2009|12:47 pm] |
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Got to see Rent live on stage last night with the leads from the Broadway cast and 2005 movie. If it comes to a city near you, go see it! http://shnsf.com/shows/rent |
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| Say What? |
[Sep. 17th, 2009|03:10 pm] |
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Adam and Jamie from the Mythbusters are running samples in the Lab next door. Right now. |
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| Summer-Fall Post |
[Aug. 30th, 2009|12:58 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Requiem - Hector Berlioz | ] |
Greetings Friends! It's been quite a while since I've updated here (since before summer).
Mr. Waller came out for a weekend at the end of June just a few weeks before I made a 13 day trip to Minneapolis and Chicago. Dan and I managed to see quite a bit for only a few days but had a great time in San Francisco (on the warmest day of the year) and driving down to Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay. Stayed a few nights with The Welters, having the chance to visit chemistry folks during the day and hanging out with Jason, Amanda and, of course, Dan in the evenings. The folks picked me up and we drove down to Chicago. Ben (Cramer Alum) spent a few days out here at the beginning of August, right before his teaching duties started.
Athletics wise, this summer has been greatly productive. Ever since I passed my second year exam (March), I started lifting and running regularly again. A church friend ignited, for me, a love for rock climbing back in June and I've been going a few times a week to our Walls on campus and a larger gym in the area. The climbing has mostly substituted running, but I manage a 5-6 mile run on weekends (which are mostly struggles because I don't do much cardio). Since climbing has become my athletic focus, I also lift more regularly but still need to find a spotter to actually get better - something is better than nothing. Must be working since I just weighed in above 150 for the first time, ever.
Music wise this summer has been also very productive. The highlights being a few Sundays ago where I accompanied a soloist friend of mine for the "Pie Jesu" from Fauré's Requiem and then we sang Frank's "Panis Angelicus" for Soprano and Baritone. Piano wise, it's been mostly a Mozart summer. I've been working on two of his Sonata's and The 24th Piano Concerto. They're not showy pieces, but I'm trying to improve my musical phrasing and vocalization. Since coming to Stanford, I've really been working in a grounds-up approach to music to establish a more professional approach to music (as inspired by a number a folks at the Church I currently attend).
My writing reached a climax in May when I performed a new piano piece of mine written for the occasion of our Choir Director's final sunday and concert with us. I was rather nervous about playing in front of a congregation of high musical professionalism (a number of congregants are professional directors and soloists) but it was warmly welcomed and highly thought of - better than any highly acclaimed New York Times review. Most of my recent musical sketches are for ensembles and voice. I started working on the beginnings of a Mass in A major for SATB chorus with woods and horns and recently started working on ideas for a concerto for piano. These sorts of works take a lot more effort since I mostly shortcut the hard work by memorizing my piano music, but development of a composition style in piano is different for ensemble or choir. Choosing libretti also is a challenge since I don't know much about literature. I find chemistry to be a terrible subject to set to music :).
Anyways, I hope this works. I'm teaching in the fall and continuing to work towards 2013. Hope all is well.
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| Great moments in science motivation... |
[May. 15th, 2009|12:36 pm] |
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The group of students and researchers sat, anticipating the following recommendations on their research progress report. "In our recent reports, we have had far more publications than this at this point for our average renewal. We average around eleven to twelve publications per year," their professor stated. "You'll see that if we count our publications for this year... One... Two...," He counted, "... Thirteen." Pausing awkwardly, he collected his thoughts he continued, "But we should always be looking to publish more," pausing one more time. "Of course..." clearing his throat, "once the science is good." The group left with morale and satisfaction. |
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| Classic Moments in Science... |
[May. 7th, 2009|10:32 am] |
"Hey Matt," Dave greeted his fellow lab mate picking up a centrifuge bottle, examining the contents without gloves on his hands. "What is this?" he interrogated.
"Well, that's antibiotic resistant E. coli," Matt answered. Dave proceeded to gently put down the bottle, dump his hands in 95% ethanol and furiously scrub them with antimicrobial hand wash.
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| Spring 'Blast' Post |
[Apr. 19th, 2009|09:53 pm] |
Howdy! Sarah has inspired me to fill everyone in on a few things I've been up to:
Big Deals:
- Passed my Second Year Progress Report, officially a Ph.D. Candidate.
- Passed my final class EVER (Advanced Inorganic Spectroscopy) with an A (my first and only 4.0 quarter).
- Got a paper published in JACS (!!!) Pretty big deal for me.
- Had a wonderful Easter. Our Choir did three movements of Handel's Messiah (respectfully ignoring the Hallelujah Chorus) with a 17-piece symphony orchestra. Shared dinner with a friend of mine from the choir and his family in Castro Valley - whose porch was a great place to watch the sunset over the bay.
Lesser Deals:
- Working on getting an apartment in Palo Alto. I decided that the extra that I can put in to get my own place off-campus would be a lot better than having roommates and living on campus.
- Started seriously working out (now four weeks). Last week I managed two 6+ mile runs which is better than where I was at the start of College. Spend three days a week at the Gym. Now that I'm done with classes and progress reports, I can actually spend time running and working out on a regular basis.
- Played piano in church for the first time today. I improved over "O God of Youth" as it was Youth Sunday for us today. Oddly enough, no one was familiar with the melody - nice to bring a little LHSN to Palo Alto.
Best to All! |
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| T.L.C? |
[Apr. 1st, 2009|06:42 pm] |
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When did 'The Learning Channel" become the "Too many kids in a house reality show channel?" Just an observation. |
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| My favorite Quote of 2009, yet... |
[Mar. 3rd, 2009|10:14 pm] |
This was in a panel about post-doc opportunities...
"...there is only about a dozen top-ten schools out there..."
She caught it once she said it. |
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| MLK |
[Jan. 19th, 2009|09:03 am] |
To my surprise, there are a number of people who don't know that Martin Luther King Jr. was the 1964 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. We're all familiar with his most famous speeches, but here is one that not many have read or heard at similar volume or frequency:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-acceptance.html
Have a great reflective day. |
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| HE IS BORN! |
[Dec. 26th, 2008|12:44 am] |
HE IS BORN!
And Choirs of Angels Rejoice.
HE IS BORN!
And the poor and lowly are raised up.
HE IS BORN!
And he will teach us.
HE IS BORN!
And he will heal us.
HE IS BORN!
And he will die for us.
HE IS BORN!
And he will rise for us.
HE IS BORN!
And death itself shall die.
HE IS BORN!
And all creation will be made new.
HE IS BORN!
And nothing will ever be the same again.
---
Mary's boy child Jesus Christ was born on Christmas Day.
And man will live for evermore because of Christmas Day.
Long time ago in Bethlehem so the Holy Bible said
Mary's boy child Jesus Christ was born on Christmas Day.
Hark now hear the angels sing a king was born today
And man will live for evermore because of Christmas Day.
While shepherds watch their flocks by night,
they see a bright new shining star,
they hear a choir sing a song, the music seemed to come from afar.
Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
Oh a moment still worth was a glow, all the bells rang out
there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted
"let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace".
Now Joseph and his wife, Mary, came to Bethlehem that night,
they found no place to bear her child, not a single room was in sight.
And then they found a little nook in a stable all forlorn,
and in a manger cold and dark, Mary's little boy was born.
Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
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Yea, Lord, we greet thee,
Born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be glory given!
Word of the Father,
Now in flesh appearing!
Oh, come, let us adore him,
Oh, come, let us adore him,
Oh, come, let us adore him,
Christ the Lord!
---
Merry Christmas! May the mystery and wonder of the Christ child be in your hearts this holiday season! |
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| Winter post |
[Dec. 19th, 2008|08:04 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Carl Marie Widor - Toccata from Organ Symphony | ] |
Haven't spent much time here lately, but I've been regular in reading other's posts and I'm glad to hear mostly good things from everyone. I thought I would fill folks in here about this last quarter and a few ambitions of mine for the next year.
This past year has truly taught me what it's going to take to actually be a professional scholar at least as a young investigator. My general work philosophy is to learn something new every day. That means that I have to collect, analyze or organize actual data on a daily basis from either theory or experiment. There is something about actually making headway on a day-to-day basis as opposed to cramming two or three experiments in a day. Often getting to the point of carrying out an experiment takes ~5-6 hours of prep to prepare, degas and set up the chemistry that I'd like to do. I've found that the majority of time that most graduate students spend in actually wasting their time procrastinating or just doing wasteful experiments. Papers are actually composed of ~5-10% of the work that you did to get there. Therefore, 9-out-of-10 things you do will not actually make it to publication, but are very important stepping-stones to getting there.
This has made my summer and fall probably the hardest period of work I can remember. I've been doing pretty well at being in the lab and active by 8am and normally don't slow down until 5-6 and finally leave around 11p - 1a. Equipment always works best between 9pm - 5am, probably due to the decreased use of power and plumbing in the building. When working on our big magnetic CD set ups, usually you collect for as long as you can while taking cat naps between scans for the full three days of running since the throughput on the instrument is high in addition to its use.
My personal work is coming along fine - never as fast as it should, however. I feel that I'm ~40% into the actual elucidation of the process that I'm interested in. The family of proteins that I work on is very interesting across the fields of chem, biochem and electrochemistry for their applicability in the facile and barrierless reduction of oxygen. Our group has established most of the pertinent mechanism for the oxygen specific end of things, but as of yet, the mechanism of catalytic turn over (what the enzyme does) has yet to be done - at least reported - I actually know quite a bit about it now. Luckily I have a great experimental handle on the system and the theory work has been very rewarding thus far.
In other news, I was recruited to finish up a paper in the 2nd round of revisions and will be a co-author, albeit distant. It's another protein system that I worked on at Minnesota so it's definitely inside my comfort box. However, I'd actually never thought about the experimental aspects of the analysis included in this paper, so it's been a rewarding learning experience which will probably take up most of my free time for Christmas. This will be the first time I'll actually have to do phone meetings with the Boss Man, which will either be fine or really really hard.
Personally, not much is happening. I've been working on Back and Mozart when I'm on the piano. In November, I help accompany our choir on our continuo 150 stop organ for a movement of the Faure Requiem which is a truly moving setting for the Requiem mass made most famous by the Pie Jesu soprano solo. I've also been working on the organ fingering through some Bach and Gigout that I'll hopefully be able to perform near the summer of next year.
This past quarter I was the "Head TA" for a biologically oriented physical chemistry class (which most people hate and therefore hate me). It's actually not a teaching position, more of an organizational and enforcement role. Actually making up exams, giving them in multiple rooms and managing the grading thereof in addition to managing the 'normal' TAs for the class. I do believe now that giving an exam is FAR more stressful than actually taking the test. Orchestrating the whole process from the actual test to the proctors and making sure that everything is completely fair. And then giving extended time and make ups as well. Aside from actually teaching, administering a 200+ person class is actually really hard - which is a perspective I've never had until now. The prof for the class was actually in toasty Brazil while we were giving the final! So I actually had to be the 'one in charge' for once. Another perspective I got in teaching this class was that you would never please everyone. Being the teacher that everyone likes is actually as realistic as flying trees. Luckily, the experience has still left me very enthusiastic about teaching and improving undergraduate educational standards.
Speaking of education, if I had to pick the one thing, aside from my research and music that I think more intimately about than anything else is undergraduate and graduate education. I just recently started 'reading' this book that discusses, in an academic manor (and aptly so), the degrading quality of the undergraduate education in modern colleges. The true challenges for colleges are making their students enthusiastic about learning (not grades, degrees or jobs). I always found that the professors that I had that were authentic and had addictive enthusiasms for their subjects were the appropriate figure for me to learn more from. I can name a few from Minnesota, those include Lou Pignolet and a few others I know you haven't heard of. Speaking of who, Lou is retired and living off campus in the north woods of Minnesota and successfully selling carpentry projects at alarming rates (to retirement!). What really irks me is how most students who want to study medicine (their are obvious exceptions to this) essentially never worry about actually learning - just making the grades to get into the program. I've always found that the best physicians and clinical doctors are those who never thought they would actually go in to medicine during college. Anyways, I could write for hours on this topic and probably make my professional degree friends ticked - but were both right, just call me old fashioned.
Thanksgiving was a great deal of fun! Spend some quality times with the Thoreens and my Dad's brother's family for about nine days. Sean came and visited for a weekend which gave me an opportunity to visit San Francisco and enjoy great company. I was going to be in Chicago yesterday, but that flight was canceled due to weather (joy!). I'm flying out tomorrow morning (knock-on-a-cellulose-live-form). Heather graduates from Purdue on Sunday! Greatly looking forward to seeing and celebrating that with her. Nothing really to exciting planned for the holidays, just working on this paper and research in between family and friends. I haven't actually seen my folks or Chicago for over a year now. It will be good to be 'home.' Take care and Happy New Year to all! |
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| O Freude! O Freude! Und Freudenvollere! |
[Nov. 27th, 2008|08:19 pm] |
For Thanksgiving, I give you Beethoven's Hymn to Brotherly Love (From the Finale of the 9th Symphony)
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!- Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
- und freudenvollere.
- Freude! Freude!
| - Oh friends, not these tones!
- Let us sing more cheerful songs,
- And more joyful.
- Joy! Joy!
| - Freude, schöner Götterfunken
- Tochter aus Elysium,
- Wir betreten feuertrunken,
- Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
- Deine Zauber binden wieder
- Was die Mode streng geteilt;
- Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
- Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
| - Joy, beautiful spark of God
- Daughter of Elysium,
- We enter drunk with fire,
- Heavenly one, your sanctuary!
- Your magic binds again
- What custom sternly parts.
- All men become brothers,
- Where your gentle wing rests.
| - Wem der große Wurf gelungen,
- Eines Freundes Freund zu sein;
- Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
- Mische seinen Jubel ein!
- Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele
- Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
- Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle
- Weinend sich aus diesem Bund!
| - Whoever has had the great fortune
- To be a friend's friend,
- Whoever has won a devoted wife,
- Join in our jubilation!
- Indeed, whoever can call even one soul,
- His own on this earth!
- And whoever was never able to, must creep
- Tearfully away from this band!
| - Freude trinken alle Wesen
- An den Brüsten der Natur;
- Alle Guten, alle Bösen
- Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
- Küße gab sie uns und Reben,
- Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;
- Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
- Und der Cherub steht vor Gott.
| - Joy all creatures drink
- At the breasts of nature;
- All good, all bad
- Follow her trail of roses.
- Kisses she gave us, and wine,
- A friend, proven in death;
- Pleasure was to the worm given,
- And the cherub stands before God.
| - Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
- Durch des Himmels prächt'gen Plan,
- Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,
- Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen.
| - Glad, as His suns fly
- Through the Heaven's glorious design,
- Run, brothers, your race,
- Joyful, as a hero to victory.
| - Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
- Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
- Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt
- Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen.
- Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
- Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
- Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!
- Über Sternen muß er wohnen.
| - Be embraced, millions!
- This kiss for the whole world!
- Brothers, above the starry canopy
- Must a loving Father dwell.
- Do you bow down, millions?
- Do you sense the Creator, world?
- Seek Him beyond the starry canopy!
- Beyond the stars must He dwell.
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| B Field = wow. |
[Nov. 8th, 2008|05:15 pm] |
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For the next three days I get a 7 Tesla magnet to do my bidding! Muhahaha... hey, are my credit cards dead? |
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| October 31st 1517: 'Here I Stand!' |
[Oct. 31st, 2008|09:02 am] |
| [ | music |
| | "Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott" | ] |
Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Ein gute Wehr und Waffen;
Er hilft uns frei aus aller Not,
Die uns jetzt hat betroffen.
Der alt’ böse Feind,
Mit Ernst er’s jetzt meint,
Gross’ Macht und viel List
Sein’ grausam’ Ruestung ist,
Auf Erd’ ist nicht seingleichen. Mit unsrer Macht is nichts getan,
Wir sind gar bald verloren;
Es steit’t für uns der rechte Mann,
Den Gott hat selbst erkoren.
Fragst du, wer der ist?
Er heisst Jesu Christ,
Der Herr Zebaoth,
Und ist kein andrer Gott,
Das Feld muss er behalten. Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär’
Und wollt’ uns gar verschlingen,
So fürchten wir uns nicht so sehr,
Es soll uns doch gelingen.
Der Fürst dieser Welt,
Wie sau’r er sich stellt,
Tut er uns doch nicht,
Das macht, er ist gericht’t,
Ein Wörtlein kann ihn fällen. Das Wort sie sollen lassen stahn
Und kein’n Dank dazu haben;
Er ist bei uns wohl auf dem Plan
Mit seinem Geist und Gaben.
Nehmen sie den Leib,
Gut, Ehr’, Kind und Weib:
Lass fahren dahin,
Sie haben’s kein’n Gewinn,
Das Reich muss uns doch bleiben.
--- I've had the chance to perform two settings of this libretto, including that of Telemann, and it remains more poignant than ever! Blessed reformation day to all!
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| From the mouth of Marshak |
[Sep. 8th, 2008|08:31 am] |
I enjoyed the Hadron Story on CNN this morning esp. the bullets:
---
Multibillion-dollar experiment to probe nature's mysteriesStory Highlights- Large Hadron Collider will have first attempt at circulating a beam September 10
- It's the largest particle accelerator in the world and costs about $9 billion
- Lawsuits allege it could generate black holes that could eat the Earth
- Scientists say these allegations have no merit
----
"God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs, God creates man, Man creates Hadron Collider, Man synthetically generates black hole, Man destroys man. God is confused, yet, not surprised."
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| Life Milestone |
[Aug. 4th, 2008|10:47 pm] |
I experienced a life milestone yesterday: being stuck in an elevator. Luckily I was carrying a stack of months of journals up to my apartment, so I had enough to do while sitting in an elevator waiting for the fire department.
Also, the day before I leave for Minneapolis, the spring in my glasses frames (the one that holds the ear shaft to the frame) decided to break - as in I was sitting at my desk when I felt a snap and then my glasses fell off my face way. Hopefully I'll get them repaired before tomorrow's flight, but I'm having a hard time being optimistic.
Looking forward to the weekend! Hopefully I'll be able to see. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 10th, 2008|03:40 pm] |
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I was just put in charge of spending $45K in less than a week. I'm thinking group hot tub! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 5th, 2008|06:57 pm] |
Finally, I find a little stretch of time to put a few positive notes on here.
First, since classes have been over, research has been my top priority and everything is moving a long well. The next big grad school obstacle is the 2nd year progress report, which determines your status beyond just graduate student and into predoc candidacy. I'd like to have a nice story and a few decent, well thought out results before the end of the summer as to best be prepared for having to take my last class in the winter quarter. My adviser, Ed, is pleased with progress so that has to be something.
In other science news, I edited my first peer-reviewed article - mostly because of an accident, but it was a neat experience. I've also officially moved into the top maintainer of our EPR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_paramagnetic_resonance) spectrometer in addition to picking up the role of, how Ed describes as, "The Group's Ground and Excited State Spin Hamiltonian Guy," which may sound neat at first, but its actually not as cool. I helped Ed write a review on a particular experiment using high field (~10-12 tesla) and high freq (~400 - 500 GHz) microwave radiation to look at excited states in metal dimers.
In less incomprehensible news, I've been finally back in the swing of things with the piano and other musical activities. First, the last quarter I've greatly emphasized technique and mechanics and for the most part I feel that I've improved my playing more doing so then ever before. I've also been working on developing my left hand - so I might be able to play pieces of equal hand melody and rhythm (e.g., Bach, Couperin etc). The Hanon book has been the corner stone of these exercises. Additionally, I've moved into the chopin etudes that emphasize left hand equivalence and gymnastic cross overs. The most famous of these is the Revolutionary Etude where I've moved well on for the past week. The Rachmaninoff bass arppeggios are far easier to finger and pull off with evenness of tone. There are 6-7 pieces I'm attempting to completely master by the summer, including a few that have been on my summer list now for a few years. Perhaps this new strategy will help in learning them.
I'm attempting to expand my compositions to piano and single voice accompaniment. I live in a new building (vide infra) with a very nice violinist friend who is willing to attempt a few of my settings for piano-violin. I've had a number of working themes in D-major for a while now and I think they'll fit nicely for a soprano-alto voice.
Our choir season ended with an all Henry Purcell program featuring a small 11 piece orchestra and SATB chorus. We sang his most famous Te Deum and Judilate Deo - which he did at easter. They're spectacular settings for orchestra and chorus and greatly rhythmic in only the way that Baroque music can be. Much of my music listening and reading this summer has been on large vocal works - as my appreciation and awe for the human voice expands. I'm currently working my way through the history and score of J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which is a 2 orchestra, 2 chorus, SATB solo quartet and solo parts for key roles (e.g., evangelist, Jesus etc). My next progression is to the Mozart Requiem and Bach's St. John Passion. I've spent a little time with Rachmaninoff's Vespers, but I've only uncovered the Russian version from the library here. Also, I decided to go into a 4-concert opera package in SF this upcoming season featuring La Traviata and La Bohème. They have this wonderful 50% discount for students and teachers that a number of grad students have been wanting to do for a while. It should be great as I've also never truly experienced opera.
As I said above, I recently moved into one of the graduate high rises for the summer. The set up is very odd. It's a one bedroom double occupancy where one gets the bedroom and the other gets the living room, where I got the latter. Luckily there are room dividers, but it's still a little odd. Luckily the rent is dirt cheap. The one really great benefit is that I'm on the 7th floor and have the balcony all to myself. The first few days, the moon rose at 8:30pm right over the San Jose mountain range which was one of those instances where I hate myself that I didn't have my camera at home. Its been very nice watching the night colors from my desk where I can see all of the mountains SW of Stanford. For the forth last night, I watched 5 different firework displays from Mountain View all the way to San Jose - again with the lack of camera. Northern Cal is the promised land in some senses as long as Big Sur survives.
I hope that's a satisfactory update. Does anyone have August 9th fever yet??? I'm greatly excited!!! Take care all. |
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| Santa Cruz Mountains |
[May. 23rd, 2008|09:34 am] |
The news reported on the fires down near San Jose and with the strong northern winds we had yesterday the fire is only 20% contained (as reported by the Chronicle). Today the campus is lightly covered in smoke and its obviously from Santa Cruz because of the smell and the fact that we cannot see the mountains. I've been told that last year it was far worse and considering our lack of spring rain it may become more of an issue.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/22/BALR10R13D.DTL
Welcome to California. |
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