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Nov. 15th, 2007 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phthalombrageHad a lot of time for reflection today, as I had a lovely three-hour-long electron microscopy lab.
Like every other lab, there was a packet to print that contained a ton of arcane information we barely understood. Great. A scanning electron microscope is a huge and expensive piece of equipment. Mostly expensive (although it's not so bad once you consider how much we're paying for tuition -- for everything at this school), which means it's high tech and wonderful, or at least well-marketed. We were led from the ghetto MSE lab in the Doherty basement resplendent with black lab tabletops warped by chemical spills, peeled lacquer on the floor tiles, grungy brick walls, funky sinks... to a shiny room in Roberts with cheesy hotel carpet surrounded by curved glass-lattice dividers (there were no doors on the four entrances). Two rows of nice computers on counters curved inward like a gigantic dinosaur had chomped down on them to make workstations, sweet rolly chairs. Across the hall there was some kind of door with an unilluminated IN USE sign that some Asian dude kept poking in and out of. My computer was the only one out of order, but I decided I really liked it because it was a computer. Ctrl keyboard shortcuts were printed on the side of the keys facing me. We had just learned Linux commands for assigning access rights in C@CM, and I felt like learning more things to do with computers. But I was sitting here instead, listening to an older, very dry man describe the intricacies of the seven-or-eight-year-old SEM that is his specialty and his life. I was sitting next to Dan, who was chewing the fuck out of his pen, but he's a nice guy and a good dancer; that can slide, even if it was a bit annoying. I have a little diagram in my lab book that shows cathodoluminescence, auger electrons, secondary electrons, backscatter electrons, the incident beam, characteristic x-rays, bremsstrahlung x-rays, specimen current, primary beam... and I don't really know what all of it means, but that's okay, because I think the guy just really loves his microscope and wishes we would, too.
So we spent forever analyzing four samples. Each of us in the front two rows got to operate the software that drives the 'scope. I had to move over to Dan's computer and really sucked at focusing the image (the screen looked blurry to me to begin with, and I couldn't see the overhead clearly), but I joined in on the experience. We would stare and stare at these grey outer-space images, and the scientific man would ask us what we were gathering from them. "See those voids?" he would ask. "Those nucleated around impurities in the aluminum." Oh. Totally. Why didn't we see that before? What else do you see? Uhh... ridges? Dan said the site of the fracture reminded him of soft peaks of frosting, of light on the bottom of a pool. I was thinking paint drying. This was like watching paint dry.
The polyethylene + hollow glass spheres sample was frickin' gorgeous, though. I was itching to pick up my pencils again, even though electrons only come in one color: grey. It was like something from a fantasy novel. Some of the spheres had shattered, being hollow, crushed by the compression when the tensile forces stretched out the surrounding PE matrix. The shells, still perfectly curved, were stuck to the curling polyethylene. Some of the smaller spheres were still intact, reminding us of what once was. The polyethylene hadn't yet gotten a hold of them. We froze the image, took a snapshot, and moved on to other sites in this post-plastic deformation world. It was like detective work, without the bloody fingerprints that make people's moms' hearts race as they leaf through their dime novels. (They never cost a dime in their lifetime, but ehh.) We looked at the glass fibers + PE sample. The fibers did not fail; the surface would have been cleanly severed. It was the polyethylene, creeping up the fibers, a tight interface, that wrapped itself around them and eventually failed, curling at the ends. They were a microscopic jungle.
The ceramic sample was lunar in appearance, cratered by air pockets (the bane of my existence in art class) with oddly dense walls that Dan and I attributed to the elevated air pressure during sintering. We zoomed into the pores... but there was something else. I was getting more comfortable with the lab thing, so I spoke. "Could it have gotten scratched somehow?" So weak and self-effacing. It was like when I tried to get five-year-olds to do cartwheels in their little dance class when I was twelve: "Do you want to do a cartwheel now? Put your hand here..." It doesn't matter if they wanted to. I needed to be firm. And if I can't be firm with five-year-olds... thank God I could get Emanuella to wipe her own ass ("they call it Number Two because you need to use at least two squares of toilet paper"), and thank God Jodi was in charge when the girl cut herself with scissors. I was such a wet blanket when they wanted to use the glitter... then I was stuck sweeping it up and unsticking the gloppy pages with piles of sparkles on them. Anyway, yeah, I am not at all assertive, but Microscopy Man thought it was just brilliant: clearly manmade, since the freshly-fractured surface is pristine. Cracks travel inward from the surface in a three point bend test. The incident beam travels outward in a random, roughly teardrop-shaped field of paths.
Alternatingly beautiful and inspiring and boring and sleep-inducing (at one point, the girl behind me was snoring until one of my most recent lab partners snapped his fingers to wake her). And then I came to thinking about my life and all its silly vacillations. I applied to CMU on a whim. I met Kathy the first time the first day I ever set foot in Pittsburgh, the first day of Orientation. I was miserable because everyone was happy, there were nine football players on my floor, and all the girls were preppy. I was bored in class. I got absorbed into the dance culture here, but grew progressively less impressed. I saw a poster in Wean about a KGB meeting. I'd read about them online (and wasn't scared away), and went. Slowly I got more and more involved. I made friends on the third floor of Donner. And then I finally got the balls to go in the cluster. I didn't have to pretend I was normal anymore. Classes got harder, my relationship with dance and Donner 3E is different... Now I don't know what to do about next semester and so many voices were ordering me around. I'm sure I'll be fine, since I've always been pretty resilient (resilient? oh man, yesterday's special lecture on nanometals was more exciting than any other MSE lecture in my life), but ehh.
Also, when I think about my childhood, I'm always surprised that things like that are not supposed to be normal. It's kind of funny, but I can't help wishing some things might have happened differently. I wouldn't be the person I am now... is that a bad thing? I'm pretty resilient, I guess. I'll deal.
We visited the microscope in its little white room. It was such a small and humble machine. I pictured it as huge. The mess of wires behind it was awe-inspiring. Again, I wanted my sketchbook. It's three closest neighbors (and friends) were computers, connected OFF the Andrew network to protect them from the evil intentions of hackers. The microscope is so vulnerable! There was blue sticky stuff near the door to collect shoe-dirt, and christ scientist had on his latex gloves, but the acoustic tiles of the ceiling were stained with mysterious brownish leakage. Oh, CMU. The man told us we could return to talk more about electron microscopy if we were interested. I wasn't. I was interested in registering for classes. So I did.
I saw Run Lola Run. I passed a poster for it earlier in the week and kind of wanted to go. I vaguely remembered watching it in Melody's sweet entertainment room with the red brocade-y cloth walls. Chris wanted to go, too, so we went. Dannel and my RA were there, too. It was like a party. I was really surprised to remember parts of the plot as events in the chain triggered the release of my memories. I hadn't really thought about it in a while, and I love when old memories resurface, provided they're not the ones I've been turning over lately, like when I smelled the warm appley beverage of the kid sitting next to me in calc, like a familiar shampoo I can never ever use...
My RA thought it was my birthday today. Right before I entered the revolving door that led to lunch, she chuckled that it was good she hadn't decorated my door yet. No, it's the Nicole directly across the hall from me who is getting older today. Also Dom. Sometimes Allison is in the cluster. She cowsay'd me. She probably thinks I'm weird.
And now I study for calc because Dr. Handron's pants are too tight and cutting off the flow of common sense to his head. That makes no sense. Onward, to calculus!
Like every other lab, there was a packet to print that contained a ton of arcane information we barely understood. Great. A scanning electron microscope is a huge and expensive piece of equipment. Mostly expensive (although it's not so bad once you consider how much we're paying for tuition -- for everything at this school), which means it's high tech and wonderful, or at least well-marketed. We were led from the ghetto MSE lab in the Doherty basement resplendent with black lab tabletops warped by chemical spills, peeled lacquer on the floor tiles, grungy brick walls, funky sinks... to a shiny room in Roberts with cheesy hotel carpet surrounded by curved glass-lattice dividers (there were no doors on the four entrances). Two rows of nice computers on counters curved inward like a gigantic dinosaur had chomped down on them to make workstations, sweet rolly chairs. Across the hall there was some kind of door with an unilluminated IN USE sign that some Asian dude kept poking in and out of. My computer was the only one out of order, but I decided I really liked it because it was a computer. Ctrl keyboard shortcuts were printed on the side of the keys facing me. We had just learned Linux commands for assigning access rights in C@CM, and I felt like learning more things to do with computers. But I was sitting here instead, listening to an older, very dry man describe the intricacies of the seven-or-eight-year-old SEM that is his specialty and his life. I was sitting next to Dan, who was chewing the fuck out of his pen, but he's a nice guy and a good dancer; that can slide, even if it was a bit annoying. I have a little diagram in my lab book that shows cathodoluminescence, auger electrons, secondary electrons, backscatter electrons, the incident beam, characteristic x-rays, bremsstrahlung x-rays, specimen current, primary beam... and I don't really know what all of it means, but that's okay, because I think the guy just really loves his microscope and wishes we would, too.
So we spent forever analyzing four samples. Each of us in the front two rows got to operate the software that drives the 'scope. I had to move over to Dan's computer and really sucked at focusing the image (the screen looked blurry to me to begin with, and I couldn't see the overhead clearly), but I joined in on the experience. We would stare and stare at these grey outer-space images, and the scientific man would ask us what we were gathering from them. "See those voids?" he would ask. "Those nucleated around impurities in the aluminum." Oh. Totally. Why didn't we see that before? What else do you see? Uhh... ridges? Dan said the site of the fracture reminded him of soft peaks of frosting, of light on the bottom of a pool. I was thinking paint drying. This was like watching paint dry.
The polyethylene + hollow glass spheres sample was frickin' gorgeous, though. I was itching to pick up my pencils again, even though electrons only come in one color: grey. It was like something from a fantasy novel. Some of the spheres had shattered, being hollow, crushed by the compression when the tensile forces stretched out the surrounding PE matrix. The shells, still perfectly curved, were stuck to the curling polyethylene. Some of the smaller spheres were still intact, reminding us of what once was. The polyethylene hadn't yet gotten a hold of them. We froze the image, took a snapshot, and moved on to other sites in this post-plastic deformation world. It was like detective work, without the bloody fingerprints that make people's moms' hearts race as they leaf through their dime novels. (They never cost a dime in their lifetime, but ehh.) We looked at the glass fibers + PE sample. The fibers did not fail; the surface would have been cleanly severed. It was the polyethylene, creeping up the fibers, a tight interface, that wrapped itself around them and eventually failed, curling at the ends. They were a microscopic jungle.
The ceramic sample was lunar in appearance, cratered by air pockets (the bane of my existence in art class) with oddly dense walls that Dan and I attributed to the elevated air pressure during sintering. We zoomed into the pores... but there was something else. I was getting more comfortable with the lab thing, so I spoke. "Could it have gotten scratched somehow?" So weak and self-effacing. It was like when I tried to get five-year-olds to do cartwheels in their little dance class when I was twelve: "Do you want to do a cartwheel now? Put your hand here..." It doesn't matter if they wanted to. I needed to be firm. And if I can't be firm with five-year-olds... thank God I could get Emanuella to wipe her own ass ("they call it Number Two because you need to use at least two squares of toilet paper"), and thank God Jodi was in charge when the girl cut herself with scissors. I was such a wet blanket when they wanted to use the glitter... then I was stuck sweeping it up and unsticking the gloppy pages with piles of sparkles on them. Anyway, yeah, I am not at all assertive, but Microscopy Man thought it was just brilliant: clearly manmade, since the freshly-fractured surface is pristine. Cracks travel inward from the surface in a three point bend test. The incident beam travels outward in a random, roughly teardrop-shaped field of paths.
Alternatingly beautiful and inspiring and boring and sleep-inducing (at one point, the girl behind me was snoring until one of my most recent lab partners snapped his fingers to wake her). And then I came to thinking about my life and all its silly vacillations. I applied to CMU on a whim. I met Kathy the first time the first day I ever set foot in Pittsburgh, the first day of Orientation. I was miserable because everyone was happy, there were nine football players on my floor, and all the girls were preppy. I was bored in class. I got absorbed into the dance culture here, but grew progressively less impressed. I saw a poster in Wean about a KGB meeting. I'd read about them online (and wasn't scared away), and went. Slowly I got more and more involved. I made friends on the third floor of Donner. And then I finally got the balls to go in the cluster. I didn't have to pretend I was normal anymore. Classes got harder, my relationship with dance and Donner 3E is different... Now I don't know what to do about next semester and so many voices were ordering me around. I'm sure I'll be fine, since I've always been pretty resilient (resilient? oh man, yesterday's special lecture on nanometals was more exciting than any other MSE lecture in my life), but ehh.
Also, when I think about my childhood, I'm always surprised that things like that are not supposed to be normal. It's kind of funny, but I can't help wishing some things might have happened differently. I wouldn't be the person I am now... is that a bad thing? I'm pretty resilient, I guess. I'll deal.
We visited the microscope in its little white room. It was such a small and humble machine. I pictured it as huge. The mess of wires behind it was awe-inspiring. Again, I wanted my sketchbook. It's three closest neighbors (and friends) were computers, connected OFF the Andrew network to protect them from the evil intentions of hackers. The microscope is so vulnerable! There was blue sticky stuff near the door to collect shoe-dirt, and christ scientist had on his latex gloves, but the acoustic tiles of the ceiling were stained with mysterious brownish leakage. Oh, CMU. The man told us we could return to talk more about electron microscopy if we were interested. I wasn't. I was interested in registering for classes. So I did.
I saw Run Lola Run. I passed a poster for it earlier in the week and kind of wanted to go. I vaguely remembered watching it in Melody's sweet entertainment room with the red brocade-y cloth walls. Chris wanted to go, too, so we went. Dannel and my RA were there, too. It was like a party. I was really surprised to remember parts of the plot as events in the chain triggered the release of my memories. I hadn't really thought about it in a while, and I love when old memories resurface, provided they're not the ones I've been turning over lately, like when I smelled the warm appley beverage of the kid sitting next to me in calc, like a familiar shampoo I can never ever use...
My RA thought it was my birthday today. Right before I entered the revolving door that led to lunch, she chuckled that it was good she hadn't decorated my door yet. No, it's the Nicole directly across the hall from me who is getting older today. Also Dom. Sometimes Allison is in the cluster. She cowsay'd me. She probably thinks I'm weird.
And now I study for calc because Dr. Handron's pants are too tight and cutting off the flow of common sense to his head. That makes no sense. Onward, to calculus!
