I wonder what I can do today that will make me seem busier than I really am...

EDIT: My headache finally went away last night. I don't have one today (yet), but I'm still cursing myself for once again failing to take the Advil with me on the way out of the house.

I got onto the Ames campus today and came to a very important realization: I hate the summer interns. They walk around here like they're such hot shit. They can get away with it, too; safety in numbers and all that. And oh, boy, do they have the numbers! Each summer I've been here the place has been crawling with them. I guess I wouldn't be so annoyed with them if they didn't tote that smug and sanctimonious attitude wherever they go. If they didn't exude the air of better-than-thou-ness that they do. Certain interns are alright. They seem to know their place, which is to say, that they are here to LEARN from their mentors. Far too many, I fear, feel they are here to validate that they are smarter/harder-working than those who didn't get accepted into a summer program. I can hear it in their voices when they talk. It sounds so incredibly contrived I want to vomit.

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I feel dumb for not taking the Advil with me on my way out of the house. I went to bed with a headache, and I woke up with a headache, and I should have taken the thirty extra seconds it would have taken to find the Advil and slip in it my pocket before I headed out the door, but I didn't. I was too scared I'd miss the train.

But now I'm here at work and I'm miserable. Sure, I got here on time, but my head is throbbing and my thoughts are disjointed and I cannot for the life of me focus on what I'm doing (though I can't tell if that's because I'm restless and ready to permanently clock out of here or if that's actually due to my headache).

Water. I need water.

Only a fool calls out for water when he's drowning.

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As much as I like working at NASA, I am SO ready to move on. I have been counting down the days these last few weeks and I am almost done!

In my 16 months here, I have accomplished much. I have a revitalized interest in the space sciences (little known fact: my love affair with science started with astronomy and geology when my age was down in the single digits, so long ago...) and I appreciate what is being done here and at places like this. However, being here and doing this work has shown me that doing this sort of science is not where my heart lies. I find myself missing the biomedical sciences more and more every day that I am here. I see the greatness in exploring the universe's great mysteries, but I personally want to study something that lies a little closer to home.

I'm excited about what sorts of research I can do in graduate school. I've got a few potential advisors lined up with research interests in immunology, cancer, and heart disease, so hopefully no matter which one I ultimately decide to go with (or, perhaps more aptly, no matter which one ultimately decides to go with me), I will have a great opportunity to dive headfirst into something I feel like I will thrive in.

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Visit this site. So many beautiful images!

From: Centerwide Announcement [CenterWide@arcwmail.arc.nasa.gov]
Sent: Thu 7/24/2008 8:00 PM
To: Recipient List Supressed
Cc:
Subject: NASA and Internet Archive Launch Centralized Resource for Images

NASA and Internet Archive Launch Centralized Resource for Images

NASA and Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library based in San Francisco, made available the most comprehensive compilation ever of NASA's vast collection of photographs, historic film and video Thursday. Located at http://www.nasaimages.org the Internet site combines for the first time 21 major NASA imagery collections into a single, searchable online resource. A link to the Web site will appear on the http://www.nasa.gov home page.

The Web site launch is the first step in a five-year partnership that will add millions of images and thousands of hours of video and audio content,with enhanced search and viewing capabilities, and new user features on acontinuing basis. Over time, integration of www.nasaimages.org with www.nasa.gov will become more seamless and comprehensive.

"This partnership with Internet Archive enables NASA to provide the American public with access to its vast collection of imagery from one searchable source, unlocking a new treasure trove of discoveries for students, historians, enthusiasts and researchers," said NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale. "This new resource also will enable the agency to digitize and preserve historical content now not available on the Internet for future
generations."

Through a competitive process, NASA selected Internet Archive to manage the NASA Images Web site under a non-exclusive Space Act agreement, signed in July 2007. The five-year project is at no cost to the taxpayer and the images are free to the public.

"NASA's media is an incredibly important and valuable national asset. It is a tremendous honor for the Internet Archive to be NASA's partner in this project," says Brewster Kahle, founder of Internet Archive. "We are excited to mark this first step in a long-term collaboration to create a rich and growing public resource."

The content of the Web site covers all the diverse activities of America's space program, including imagery from the Apollo moon missions, Hubble Space Telescope views of the universe and experimental aircraft past and present. Keyword searching is available with easy-to-use resources for teachers and students.

Internet Archive is developing the NASA Images project using software donated by Luna Imaging Inc. of Los Angeles and with the generous support of the Kahle-Austin Foundation of San Francisco.

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In lieu of an actual entry, I've posted some more old journal entries (from my now-abandoned LJ) in my Reading Room. They are:

- Untitled. July 26, 2005
- I had a dream... March 19, 2006
- Are we growing up, or just going down? May 3, 2006

Please enjoy while I figure some stuff out.

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And I didn't even commit matricide! Amazing!

Details on the last week forthcoming. Maybe. Or maybe not. It all depends on my mood.

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So my boss will be out of town next week for COSPAR in Montreal (which is only, like, my FAVORITE CITY IN CANADA!) where he's presenting one of our papers on abiotic nitrogen fixation, and I will be out for vacation, which leaves the new kid alone in the lab. I'm trying to teach him how to do some stuff so he can keep himself busy next week, but I can't exactly do that when we don't have the materials (shipping is not something I can control), not to mention that we're pretty much running out of time.

I hope my boss doesn't expect me to be able to show him absolutely EVERYTHING he needs to know in a little less than two days without the proper materials... I mean, I know I'm good, but I'm not THAT good. Perhaps with a bit more telepathic training I could be. Maybe I should work on that, too.

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I remember when I was like that: when I first learned college chemistry and biology and physics and I was so excited to apply my (limited) knowledge to everything and anything, no matter how impractical or unfeasible. It was an exciting time; in my head, I dreamed up solutions to all of molecular biology's greatest problems using what I knew from my introductory classes. Reality be damned.

Even though he's older than me, his (lack of) experience in science reminds me of when I was younger and more eager to dream about the possibilities. It was precisely because of that that I felt bad as I shot down his ideas one by one.

My boss has this grand idea that he will eventually create vesicles with the ability to create ATP--the currency of power in every living cell. ATP production is the end-result of energy transduction, which involves taking energy from light or redox reactions and turning into free energy in the form of a transmembrane electrochemical potential, which can be used to both synthesize ATP and drive active transport systems. Basically, in simpler terms, energy transduction is the change of one form of energy to another, the goal of which is to make it such that a cell can function. What my boss is trying to do is show that this can happen abiotically, and if he is able to do this, then that is one step towards fully understanding the origins of life as we know it. So far, we have been able to show that we can spontaneously form vesicles that can encapsulate semiconducting particles to drive redox chemistry using the energy from light. He plans to continue the experiments towards showing that we can use a system like this to produce the free energy to make ATP and, furthermore, that we can actually make it...somehow.

The new intern got all excited about the prospect of the project and dove right in. He even drew up a schematic diagram of a system that he thought would work. He worked all night on this because he was so enthusiastic about getting his name associated with a scientific breakthrough, but...they weren't fully developed. I could read the rejection on his face as I enumerated what was wrong with both the science behind his model and the logistics of performing that experiment.

His thoughts on the subject were creative; I'll give him that. And filling the holes in his scientific knowledge will come with time as he advances in his studies. But as for me, this gave me pause for thought: maybe I need to regain some of that exuberance; maybe I need to dream a little bit bigger. I have been growing more skeptical, more realistic as time goes by...but maybe I should also return to that time when I got superexcited all for what COULD be rather staying on my current trajectory, spending all my time trying to explain why it CAN'T.

I can't shake the feeling that maybe that's what I'm missing: a balance between the two. Perhaps I need to work on being a skeptical dreamer of sorts--someone who isn't afraid to color outside the lines but keep it within the page...

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