And how many birthdays have you?
It's that time of year again. It's birthday number twenty-three for our intrepid and increasingly taciturn adventurer, and keeping with Tradition, it's time to break radio silence once again.
I have difficulty believing that it's been an entire year since I posted here, since my last birthday. However, I am not surprised that I find this surprising. I have a sneaking suspicion that a paradox is lurking somewhere.
I graduated from the University of Chicago in June. While I wanted to go to graduate school, I thought it might be a good idea to take some time off from school, having just completed sixteenth grade. After exploring a variety of employment possibilities, I decided to work in a lab for a year, during which I would apply to graduate school for a PhD in physics. I am now living in Chicago, a block from my old dorm, working in an atomic physics lab. My official story is that I shoot plasma with lasers, though this may be invoking a tad of hyperbole. Regardless, it's nifty stuff. I'm right now scrambling to both finish a paper for publication and graduate school applications. The paper's about how to make "good" plasma (well, really how to optimize metastable argon population in a radio frequency discharge, [whatever that means]). Graduate applications are stressful; far too reminiscent of college application days of yore. They'll all be done soon, for better or for worse (for better, I hope).
When I was younger (early high school and before), 2008 was this far-off mystical time, a time when I would Graduate From College and Become a Real Grown-Up. Suddenly, that year is almost over. (I also make no claims about whether the second prediction has come to fruition.)
And so I once more recede into aether of the internet, having again duly noted my birthday and my surprise at the rapidity of the passage of time. Perhaps it is good to know that some things never change.
Love,
~Kenny
I have difficulty believing that it's been an entire year since I posted here, since my last birthday. However, I am not surprised that I find this surprising. I have a sneaking suspicion that a paradox is lurking somewhere.
I graduated from the University of Chicago in June. While I wanted to go to graduate school, I thought it might be a good idea to take some time off from school, having just completed sixteenth grade. After exploring a variety of employment possibilities, I decided to work in a lab for a year, during which I would apply to graduate school for a PhD in physics. I am now living in Chicago, a block from my old dorm, working in an atomic physics lab. My official story is that I shoot plasma with lasers, though this may be invoking a tad of hyperbole. Regardless, it's nifty stuff. I'm right now scrambling to both finish a paper for publication and graduate school applications. The paper's about how to make "good" plasma (well, really how to optimize metastable argon population in a radio frequency discharge, [whatever that means]). Graduate applications are stressful; far too reminiscent of college application days of yore. They'll all be done soon, for better or for worse (for better, I hope).
When I was younger (early high school and before), 2008 was this far-off mystical time, a time when I would Graduate From College and Become a Real Grown-Up. Suddenly, that year is almost over. (I also make no claims about whether the second prediction has come to fruition.)
And so I once more recede into aether of the internet, having again duly noted my birthday and my surprise at the rapidity of the passage of time. Perhaps it is good to know that some things never change.
Love,
~Kenny