wonderful weekend

This weekend has been really short. But wonderful, all the same.

First, let me explain my research position. I work in a wildlands fire research lab, and up to this point I have mainly been analyzing IR data which certainly has given me new experience with spreadsheets and so forth, but not terribly exciting. This Friday, I finally did something. The main purpose of the lab is to burn stuff to create models to hopefully be able to better model fire movement for firefighters. So, on Friday we were doing a burn, and I got to help. First, we had to do all the grunt work: massing the samples, measuring length, width and thickness of leaves, counting how many leaves each sample had, taking pictures, obtaining a moisture content figure, and so forth. And then we got to burn them! It was really fun being able to to help out with the burn, and watching all of the clumps (small branches of leaves) burn was really, really enjoyable. If you're interested, you can find a video with a brief overview of the lab here. 

For those of you who have not been involved in scientific research before, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. There are a lot of aspects of research which are really tedious and less enjoyable, and only moments, such as during the burn, when the air is literally crackling with excitement. Walter Lewin talked about in his book how his team would prepare for a year or so before a balloon launch just so that they could get everything right (looking at x-ray astronomy where data can only be obtained from high in the atmosphere). But it's worth it, because when everything clicks, it's that much more rewarding. 

Not to change the subject, but I have an exciting announcement. I bought new shoes! 

Quality shoes here: no arch support, no treads left,
and places that will be holes soon enough...

Quality shoes here (not sarcastic now...)

Ever since I got to college I have been walking a lot. Since I don't have a bike or a bus pass, I've been walking too and from campus everyday, and from class to class. And, I kinda like it too. It gives me plenty of time to think everything over (and then over think things...) and allows me to (somewhat) plan my day out in my head. Also, I'm participating in a women's step study, so I have to reach a certain number of steps everyday (1500), and I get reimbursed about $100 at the end of it. I don't know how accurate the pedometer is, but it says that I walk 7-9 miles a day, and that's just how much I walk in the normal course of things. So that means that in the five or so weeks I've worn my old shoes here, they've gone at least 175 miles with me, not accounting for weekends, etc. That's kinda crazy. I guess I don't have to be too worried about a freshman fifteen...

Also, general conference was this weekend! As you may or may not know, I'm a Mormon, and our church holds a general meeting (which you can watch via broadcast. You can also access sessions or specific talks here) every six months. They announced this meeting that they changed the minimum age for which young women and young men can serve a mission: now guys can go at 18 while girls can go at 19. I've never really seriously thought about going on a mission, but now since it would be right in between my freshman and sophomore years of college (so much more convenient than after graduating), I'm considering going. So we'll see, perhaps that's what I need to do at this point in my life.

I made all of the origami things you see below during conference... As you can see, some of them didn't work out (aka all the ones to the left). And I was going to make some kind of analogy about how you have to try things even though everything doesn't always end up the way you want it (or sometimes you're not ready to handle certain situations yet), but I think... I'll save that spiel for another day. If you want links to learn how to make anything pictured below, let me know. 

I wish I had pretty origami paper... although perhaps
that would be bad, because then I would
definitely make origami stuff ALL. THE. TIME.