She's dying to try something foolish, do something crazy, or just get away, something for herself for a change.

Hello friends!

It's me, Rachel, back in cyberspace after a 6 week hiatus. I thought that I would wait until next summer, because I seem to be a summer blogger, but maybe this is a once in a while sort of thing...

What have I been up to? Well...

1. I took the GRE. In true Rachel fashion, I waited until the last minute to sign up, and was forced to take it when I did not want (aka 3 days after I signed up and two before returning to Le Moyne), after not having prepared for the exam, or at least not in the way that I would have liked. I don't recommend this.

2. I came back to Le Moyne, and went through RA training. Magically, I was not terrified, not until it was Behind Closed Doors day, and even then it was a much subdued version of what I thought I would turn into. I survived the week, enjoying the whole thing immensely. Then school started.

3. I am still in denial about being in school, which is a bit of a problem considering I am already 4 weeks into the semester and I have a 30 page physics paper, a 12-15 page religion paper, lab reports and problem sets and take home tests to get through with at least a mild level of success. And then there are graduate school applications, volunteer program applications, the GRE subject test in chemistry. No big deal or anything, right? :-P

4. I spent time talking to every person I could about how I really felt about this summer, and am beginning to distill it into what I feel like I should take from the experience. And even now, after exhausting everything, I am still completely unsure where I should be going with everything.

5. I seriously considered, and am still investigating, the prospect of medical school. I've never wanted to be a doctor, because I don't believe I have the stomach, but I want to make sure, because it could be fun. One never knows, although I don't have an especial love for anatomy, and I did not enjoy dissections. But if the end goal is something that will make me happy, then I have to take the paths necessary. We'll see. I'm not at all convinced that I was made for med school, but I'm not convinced of much anymore.

6. I had a great conversation with Dr. Craig about grad school, which makes me feel a lot better about the undertaking. He said that what you have to do is look at the end result which you can see yourself happiest in, and then go from there. The happiest, for me, would be at an undergrad institution teaching, doing a little bit of research. It's no stress. Not like Harvard. Harvard was high stress. That said, getting there won't be easy, but the path is necessary.

7. I have decided that I need to take some time off and volunteer. Now, this is the point where someone from the peanut gallery will say, "What's the best way to make God laugh?" - "When you make a plan!" I'm here to say that I am taking this as it comes. I have chosen to apply to Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest, JV International, Franciscan Volunteer Ministries, and the Working Boys Center in Quito, Ecuador. And I am also going to apply to graduate school, which is almost a crapshoot at this point, and see who takes me, and where I want to go, and if they'll let me defer. And then I will hopefully also get into one of these volunteer programs (or more, if I am lucky) and spend some quality time with my bad self and this world. I need some me time. This is my me time. And I will be the first to tell you that the best laid plans are often subject to complete change, but I truly believe that this is what I am meant to do. I need to see more of this world.

8. To that end, I am preparing for an Alternative Break trip to Nairobi, Kenya, over winter break. I am thrilled beyond thrilled that I will get to go and fall in love with more children of this world. I love love love the babies. :-)

I wish that I could say things with more certainty. All I know right now is that I have no idea what I will be doing on May 23, 2011. That's exciting and terrifying.

In my religion class, we talked about hope today. I know this is compounding an already long post, and I know that my readership is not the highest ever, but I will leave you with my answer to "How do you hope?" It's a portion of a letter written to a Young Activist by Thomas Merton.

"Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.

"You are fed up with words, and I don't blame you. I am nauseated by them sometimes. I am also, to tell the truth, nauseated by ideals and with causes. This sounds like heresy, but I think you will understand what I mean. It is so easy to get engrossed with ideas and slogans and myths that in the end one is left holding the bag, empty, with no trace of meaning left in it. And then the temptation is to yell louder than ever in order to make the meaning be there again by magic. Going through this kind of reaction helps you to guard against this. Your system is complaining of too much verbalizing, and it is right.

"The big results are not in your hands or mine, but they suddenly happen, and we can share in them; but there is no point in building our lives on this personal satisfaction, which may be denied us and which after all is not that important.

"The next step in the process is for you to see that your own thinking about what you are doing is crucially important. You are probably striving to build yourself an identity in your work, out of your work and your witness. You are using it, so to speak, to protect yourself against nothingness, annihilation. That is not the right use of your work. All the good that you will do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used by God's love. Think of this more, and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself, and you can be more open to the power that will work through you without your knowing it.

"The great thing after all is to live, not to pour out your life in the service of a myth: and we turn the best things into myths. If you can get free from the domination of causes and just serve Christ's truth, you will be able to do more and will be less crushed by the inevitable disappointments. Because I see nothing whatever in sight but much disappointment, frustration and confusion. . . .

"The real hope, then, is not in something we think we can do but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see. If we can do His will, we will be helping in this process. But we will not necessarily know all about it beforehand..."

Peace and all good,

Rachel

You may not know it now, but you're gonna miss this...

Hey friends,

I can't believe I only have two days left in my summer program! I am very excited to get a quick break before returning to the Heights; I want to see everyone, but I also need some sleep...

I want to apologize for my lack of blogging this summer. I have been trying very hard to be *all in* with everything I do, and that leaves little time to recount it to others.

How successful was I? Well, I was in a sort of low state. The project was not moving, and I didn't know what to do to fix it, and there were a couple of things that needed to be overcome before we could get to a place where we could move forward. We're mostly back at square one now, from square negative fifteen or so. I'm hoping we'll get to a good place before I leave, but such is research: you never know for certain what will happen.

Something else I noticed: the flames subgroup met the other day, and in the meeting we talked about the things we wanted to do longer term with this project. We continued to get more fanciful, and then they were going on about things that would be really cool to do because they would mess with people's minds. That was their reasoning, and I saw ZERO practical applications for the things they mentioned other than that. Now, I realized that I am more than likely viewing things more shortsightedly than I realize, and that's all good and well, but I also know that there are problems in this world that are more immediate than messing with people's minds. What about all of the people that won't eat today, or drink clean water? What about them?

I have become extremely pessimistic about Academia this summer. There is a lot of concern for how many papers one publishes, and less about their impact on humanity. It's extremely elitist and nepotistic, and I can't say I wasn't persuaded by the promise of papers or that I did not get here because I knew someone. I know this: I am driven by a great desire to help the people of this world.

An important question I am now attempting to answer for myself is the following: what problem do I feel most compelled to try my hand at solving?

This is a question for which I have NO answer, as of yet. I read about the work of different labs, and nothing strikes me. Like a friend of mine so aptly put, I feel cursorily interested in all sorts of things, but nothing really grabs me. I think about other problems that I have been exposed to, and none of them captivate me in the way that I would hope.

That said, I have always wanted to teach. I still want to teach, and I think that Education is one of the most valuable things a person can have, because once acquired, it can never be taken away. It continues to strike me how much of a difference it can make in a person's life.

Last Friday, the Whitesides Group undergraduates all presented short spiels of our research to the man himself. After it was all over, I actually ended up in conversation with him and my program director. She mentioned something about me wanting to take a year off, and George said something to the effect of, "A lot of people are concerned with cramming everything together, but there's no reason to do that unless you're exactly sure what you want to do." And then he asked me what I wanted to do. I mentioned Ecuador, in perhaps the most dispassionate way that I could have. Dispassionate, however, is one thing that I am not.

As I end my time here, I still don't have answers to my questions, and I am beginning to think that that is sort of the way of things. It's like feeling around in the dark for something, but you don't know what it is or if it's there at all. I am excited to add this experience to my toolbox:

"It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do."

— Anne Lamott

I return to Le Moyne in just over a week. I am going to be a senior, and all of my senior friends from last year will be gone, for real. :-( I don't think I am mentally prepared for this, but I don't have a choice now, do I?

I apologize for a particularly rambly blog, but that's where I am. Confused and unsure, I open the gate to tomorrow.

Currently reading: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Still. I know. Not only did I not blog much, I did not read nearly as much as I would have liked. Oh well. I still have a week before I go back to the craziness that is my life at Le Moyne.

Listening to: "Long Time Gone" by the Dixie Chicks. I love them. I feel like I haven't listened to them in forever.

Peace and all good,

Rachel

We made a dizzy mess of everything and it was enough...

Hey everyone -

It's been over three weeks since my last post. For the loyal readers, of which there are a handful, I apologize. Things have been crazy here; I will try and paint a picture for you...

Some of my Le Moyne crowd, my sharkies, came to visit for Independence Day weekend, or, the more important event, Adrienne's birthday. It was great to see some familiar faces and we all laughed a lot that weekend.

I went to the beach last weekend, saw the sand castle festival, ate REAL chinese food in Chinatown and walked the Freedom Trail.

I have been working, working, working.

I found a new church, thanks to Jay, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it.

Okay, so that's not a very good picture. But things have been crazy. Just take my word for it.

The real meat of my entry is coming. Ready?

I've been at Harvard for seven whole weeks now. Can you believe it? And maybe I am completely burnt out in ways I can't even imagine, but not once since I have been here have I really been excited about science. We have some interesting and profound results, and that's great. It just is not enough for me.

I have been going back and forth here, wondering if I am sort of shirking all of this because I am not confident in my ability to practice science, or if I just want to do something more meaningful, or in what molar ratio these two things play a role. (Cue laughing chemists.)

I have been thinking about all of the people who say I have a bright future, and wondering what they see when they picture it, and if it matches up with what I hope for myself.

I have been looking at applications for volunteer programs and graduate schools, and wondering where to go with it all.

All the while, I have this in the back of my head. It's another Rilke quote from his "Letters to a Young Poet."

"You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must", then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse...But after this descent into yourself and into your solitude, perhaps you will have to renounce becoming a poet (if, as I have said, one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn't write at all). Nevertheless, even then, this self searching that I ask of you will not have been for nothing. Your life will still find its own paths from there, and that they may be good, rich, and wide is what I wish for you, more than I can say."

What might shock you, though it is much less shocking to me is this: I feel that I could live without science.

My life will still find paths from here. Where they will go, I have no idea. I'm trying to get used to not knowing. It's rather difficult for me, who's always had a plan for forever.

It's funny, the longer I am here, the less I want to go to graduate school. Everything has been set up for me to succeed, and that's happening, more or less, but it's not enough. As Sugarland sang, "There's gotta be something more, gotta be more than this..."

Now, don't think that a) I am rushing into any rash decisions or b) I am losing my mind. These sorts of things are ones that can't be decided about while you're in them. So I will continue to ponder, in a "I am trying really hard not to stress out about this, but I still have no idea what I am going to be heading to a year from now" kind of way.

And, if you have any thoughts, please send them my way. I would love to hear them!

Currently reading: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. 42 is the answer to the universe. Put that on your chem test!

Listening to: "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls. "I woke up with a headache like my head against the board, twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before, and I'd went in seeking clarity..."

- Rachel

I can see clearly now...

Hey hey hey!


I’ve been working almost four weeks now. So much time has passed, and yet I remember clearly a time when I did not even know I was coming here with great certainty. But here I am.


When I came to Harvard, I was afraid I would fail at science, which was irrationally compounded with a fear of success that would compel me to continue doing lab work, a fear that after meeting people here I would be even more dissuaded from volunteering for a year or two. You can’t take a year off and go somewhere like Harvard, or if you do, you couldn’t possibly succeed. At least I didn’t think so.


Within my first week, I met a postdoc in my lab from UW Madison, who told me that a) he took a year off, b) grad school is all about stamina, and c) if taking a year off is something that recharges you, do it.


Last week, I discovered that one of the graduate students in my lab, who has just finished his first year at Harvard, spent the two years before he came here in a Peace Corps term. He not only is succeeding, but also said that his Peace Corps term helped him to get a grant from the NSF or NIH. They cited it when they awarded him the money, telling him that the experience helps to frame his project (which has some sort of biomedical application, but I don’t know much about it).


I am happy to report that I was wrong, oh so very wrong, and will be applying to volunteer programs in the fall. JVC NW, FVM and the Working Boys Center.


As I continue to discern whom I am called to serve, and as I grow more confident in my own ability to do research and function as an independent and valuable member of the lab, I remember a time when I really liked to take standardized tests. (This was in high school; I no longer harbor so much of that sentiment.) When I didn’t know an answer outright, I would use all that I knew to come up with a sensible solution to the problem. I took what I knew and used it to find out something I did not know. That is, on some level, what I am doing now, with the added bonus of the possibility that it might help someone.


For this job, for this vocation, the ability to get good test scores, to “know the right answer” is not enough. I am now doing something that I only recently discovered that I was doing, that I had to do, that I hadn’t done in a while: learn a new skill. All I have been doing for as long as I can remember is learn new information from other people’s lectures. Now, I am learning the best way to find new information, to read and learn it for myself, to present it in a way that makes it seem important, to present it in a clear and concise manner. I have not encountered any sort of academic obstacle that was not easily overcome in a very long time. I am now encountering them all at once, and I have been shrinking away. I’d forgotten what it’s like not to feel at least mildly competent outright.


One of my favorite quotations (which actually is not saying much, since there are a lot of them) is from e.e. cummings: “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” While I did not start out as one good at this research thing, I am getting better, from all signs anyway, and I am beginning to believe that the academic path is part of who I really am. It takes courage to face the obstacles that life presents you, to do the things you think you cannot, and eventually do them well. I am working on the courage thing, to do things I don’t feel capable of just yet, and fail a little bit, even.


The other line I come to during my discernment is the following, from an Anna Nalick song, “Shine.” “Isn’t it time you got over how fragile you are? We’re all wait – waiting on your supernova, ‘cause that’s who you are and you’ve only begun to shine.” I hear a lot from everyone about my bright future, how I will do amazing things. If that’s true, this Harvard thing is only the beginning, and if I don’t get over my fragility, I will never produce that supernova that everyone wants and expects from me. That’s where the courage comes in.


That’s all for now.


Currently reading: Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott. I love her.


“I have climbed highest mountains. I have run through the fields…but I still haven't found what I'm looking for…"


- Rachel

It's just another ordinary miracle today...

Hey everyone!

I hope you're all enjoying wonderful summers; I know I am.

Some highlights from the past few days:

1. I found out that the work I have been doing is contributing to a paper, on which I will get to be an author. Fifth author in fact. The closer you are to being first, the more work you have done for the project, and ultimately the more important you are. The only thing more spectacular about me eventually getting to be on a paper is that I might get listed before someone, because I have contributed more to the work. I can't believe it. My first paper, and I am not the last one listed! That's if it even gets that far. Or when it gets that far...

2. We went to a greek festival, where I ate the most delicious gyro! Then, some Greek dessert, it was like the baclava pastry but with egg custardy stuff. Yum. :-)

3. I took the T yesterday to the Arboretum (a tree park) and on the way there, this little boy and I made faces at each other. He would make one, and I would copy him, and about 5 minutes in, his mother saw him stick his tongue out and told him to stop. She did not see me though, and so we continued on until I had to get off at my stop. It was so adorable! :-)

4. I went to see Toy Story in 3D. It was AWESOME! I won't spoil it for those who have not yet seen it, but GO SEE IT!

5. I was at church today when a lady two rows in front of me fainted. Almost immediately, ten people were around her, with water, fanning her, propping up her legs. It was amazing, the kindness of strangers. They did everything, and then when they found out she was by herself, a couple went with her to the hospital. I feel so grateful to have been a witness to such selflessness.

I'm off to work on the outline to that paper. And sleep. Midday naps are awesome. :-)

Currently reading: One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding. Yeah, I know. It's taking forever.

"And I said, love will come to you, hoping just because I spoke the words that they're true, as if I've offered up a crystal ball to look through. Where there's now one, there will be two..."

- Rachel

It takes a little more than you've got right now, but give it, give it time...

Today I almost felt like a real grad student. I was running my experiments and consulting with postdocs and doing science. It was great. Of all of the days thus far, this was the day I felt like I most belonged.

My experiment is working; my gold nanoelectrodes conduct electricity!! :-)

I learn a little more every day (fun fact: most meat that is sold in stores is electrically stimulated to make it more tender; that is, electrical current is run through it), and I am becoming a better researcher for it.

The more time I spend in the lab, the more I feel like I can contribute to the greater body of knowledge, the more I feel like I can do science. I picked this title not only because I saw it in a friend's facebook status, but because it is exactly how I feel about grad school right now. I am not completely ready yet, but if I give it time, I will be.

Currently reading: One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding. I'm ashamed to keep admitting this. I will finish it soon enough. It's really good, I just don't have a lot of free time!

"We never know how high we are,

'til we are called to rise,

and then, if we are true to plan,

our statures touch the skies.

The heroism we recite

would be a daily thing,

did not ourselves the cuibits warp

for fear to be a king."

Emily Dickinson

- Rachel

I think it's time to give this game a ride.

Hey everyone!

Some of you may be wondering why I have been a) posting so infrequently, b) never online, or c) MIA. Well, I am alive and well, still without entirely reliable internet, but that should be soon. I hope. Apparently it was way worse last year. I would have hated to have been those people.

So, what might I be doing without facebook to eat up my life?? All sorts of things! Since my last post, I have:

1. gone to Trader Joe's. Best grocery store ever. I now understand why everyone loves it so much. We need one in Syracuse.

2. eaten my first fried oreo, and then my second. It was super tasty! I can't wait to get some at my first trip to the fair this fall. (Yes, I am going to be a senior at Le Moyne and I have never been to the fair.)

3. learned a really awesome Russian card game, Durak. I was going out first for a while when I really didn't understand the game. Then I figured out why I was doing so well, and sort of maintained it. Beginner's Luck I suppose...

4. went to church at St. Paul's, right near my dorm and met a couple summer programmers at Harvard that are not in REU, but are from Harvard. We talked about the possibilities of playing life size chess in our sadly unfurnished common room.

5. and most importantly, I did real science! We got our experiment to work, which means that I made gold wires that conduct electricity! :-) It was amazing.

I've been up to quite a bit; what about you all? Leave me a post about whatever you're up to, or an email. I can't wait to hear all about it!

Currently reading: One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding. It's taking a long time because my free time allotment is rather low. Since I am doing all of these other fun things.

"Learn to pretend there's more than love that matters..."

- Rachel

All that glitters is gold.

I know that some famous guy or gal said that all that glitters is not gold. Smash Mouth disagrees, and I am going to have to take their side on that one. Here's why: I used an electron beam to put gold on a polymer needle today! Super awesome stuff. Well, Max the grad student actually did it, and I helped a little and mostly watched. Which will have to do for now. Soon enough I'll be doing it myself.

I love the view from my dorm room. Although it is not the Charles River, like I'd hoped, it's some Harvard building that you can see behind trees, and at night it is lit up and absolutely beautiful.

I am finally finding my way around this place. It's fun to be able to walk with lots of stuff around you, without the craziness of NYC.

Locals in my program (mostly just Allison, the other REU working with my postdoc), have told me how awesome JP Licks, an ice cream place, is. I finally went today; chocolate brownie brownie batter ice cream is soooooo good. :-) Like whoah.

However, the highlight of my day, by far, was getting to see my dearest Catherine Farrell! <3>

Currently reading: One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding.

"I thank the lord for the people I have found..."

- Rachel

It's raining on Sunday, storming like crazy...

Hey everyone!

It's already the end of my fourth day at Harvard, and it has been an absolutely wonderful four days. My welcome to Harvard was the torrential downpour on Sunday, but since then it's been relatively nice out. Not that I would know, since my days are spent in the lab...

My program has about 60 students, which is great and difficult at the same time. I am excited to get to know all of them, because they all seem like great people, but it is also overwhelming at the same time, with so many of them.

My lab is also one of the, if not the biggest labs in the department, and therefore I have even more people to meet and interact with. It's been a blast, though; everyone is so helpful when I've had questions. The most valuable thing for me so far has just been the ability to talk to other people about their work and experience; it helps me frame my own experiences.

One of the things I keep thinking about as I adjust to this new place is how much I miss the familiarity of SU, all of the people I was able to get to know, and just knowing the lay of the land. It's funny to me that one day I will feel this way about this place, too. Right now, though, I am still getting used to the area - I can finally walk to work without a map, and I am getting a feel for the area between Mather (my dorm) and the lab. And then there's the matter of getting to my lab from the front door, which I have more or less mastered. And then, to complicate things further, the building is not laid out easily like the chemistry part of CST at SU, so if I want to go anywhere else, I could be screwed. Oh well.

So, in summary, all is well here. Let me know how you are; comment to the blog or hit up my email. :-)

Currently reading: One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding.

"In between the moon and you, angels get a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right..."

Rachel

Ain't no angel gonna greet me. It's just you and I, my friend.

Hey everybody!

I spent last week in Philadelphia, at a soup kitchen in Kensington. The Saint Francis Inn. It serves the poor, homeless, addicted and others in the Kensington area. It's non traditional in the sense that it serves its guests restaurant style. It was my second time there and I loved it, although food service, I continue to discover, is not my charism. That's fine. I still had a ball interacting with many of the people I had the pleasure of meeting or seeing again. Some remembered me from my last visit in May of 2009, and others did not, even though I remembered them. That was hard, to have been shaped by individuals who do not remember ever having met you.

Some of the highlights:

Teaching Michael, who is about 3, to fist pound. He remembered and would do it in subsequent days.

Talking with Barry, one of the few guests who remembered having met me last May, about how much he is grateful for the Inn, but also how much more needs to be done.

Hanging out at the Inn's thrift store with Heaven, a little girl of 3.

Winning a water chugging contest. :-)

Going on pick-ups with Brother Fred, and getting to discuss the big issues.


I could write a lot, and if you'd like to know more, please let me know, but for now I will leave it at that.

Except for this: God answers prayers.
This is how I know: Last May, I met Rick at the Inn (pictured above). He had once been a guest of the Inn, but got clean and was a cook at the Inn for a long time. Because of his past, he had developed issues with his liver, and needed a liver transplant. He was on the list last May when I met him. I have been praying for his health and for a new liver since then. When I returned to the Inn last week, I found out that he had received a new liver on May 10 of this month, and is recovering well thus far. If he had not received it then, he would likely have been dead within a week. Although I was not able to see him because of this, I am glad to know he is doing as well as can be expected, and I am a firm believer that God answers prayers.

Now, I am getting ready to go to Harvard. I can hardly believe it, even now, even though I have known for three months that I will be there this summer. It's still not real to me, no more real than anything else in the future.

As for the current moment, I am catching up with old friends and reading good books. Eventually, I'll need to read scientific journal articles as well, but I am putting that off as long as it is practical to do so. Novels are so much more fun!

Currently reading: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. Both are fabulous.

"I'll show you a place high on a desert plain where the streets have no name."

- Rachel

I guess if you don't jump, you'll never know if you can fly...

Hey everyone!

It's me, Ray Cay, back in action with some fabulous news: I am doing research this summer at...



Harvard!!!!



I'll be working in a physical chemistry lab, and my project, so far as I understand it, is to build a box which will transport fire from the lab it is created in to the lab with the GCMS (gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer). That's all I really know right now...I need to read some more before I try talking science again.

I don't have much else to say right now; I just came home after one of the most intense semesters of my life. Not for long, however; I am going back to Le Moyne on Saturday for Baccalaureate mass and then staying until we leave bright and early Monday morning for St. Francis Inn.

More to come, but for now, this:

Currently reading: Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel, who wrote Life of Pi. So far, it is excellent.

"Came in the door. I said it before: I think I'm over you, but I'm really not sure. When I met you I said my name is Rich, you look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch." <3 St. Francis Inn

- Rachel