I work full time at Boise State University and I am a student there as well. In other words, I spend a lot of time on campus. Which I love, don’t get me wrong. One of the things I like most about that is there is always something going on. Yesterday, on my lunch hour, I went to a lecture by Dr. Olga Goulko entitled Colloidal Crystals, Quasicrystals, Fluid-Fluid Transitions, and the Entropic Bond. I found myself in a strange new world called the, “Engineering Building”. Even the people seated in the auditorium had a distinct energy that I had never been in before. Physically, there were hardly any similarities in the group. All ages, maybe a fifth of them were women, and every kind of dress and walk of life you could imagine. I didn’t hardly understand a word that was said, but during the question and answer period after the presentation it was evident that the audience knew exactly what she had said. Was I the only one that was completely lost?
I am never, ever going to be an engineer, but I still enjoyed the lecture. For one thing, I love words. The sound of them, the look of them, the never ending pleasure of how they can be combined and rearranged to change the meaning and the sound of a sentence. And what a treat! I was exposed to all kinds of wacky words such as, “Fermi polaron”, “Transport through quantum dots”, and my personal favorite, “Ultra cold atoms” (not to be confused with you average, run of the mill, lukewarm atoms).
I almost laughed out loud when she clicked to one of her many grafts and said, “Now, don’t be scared by this diagram”. How was this diagram any less scary than all of the others? No one else was laughing so I assumed that it was a truly frightening sight. But that’s how I felt about all of the slides. I’d say I was almost queasy listening to it all. How is it that there is so much out there in the world that I don’t know? I don’t even have a langue to be able to comprehend the information. It felt, well, scary. Should I know about the Bison Model’s Linear Spin-bath Coupling? I felt overwhelmed, but then I remembered something while walking back to work. We don’t all have to be Chief Engineer, Geordi La Forge. Are his skills necessary? Absolutely, the Enterprise isn’t getting very far without them. But that’s not all that’s needed to explore the furthest reaches of uncharted space. What about empathic counselor Deanna Troi? Where would they have been without her and her talents? I shudder to think. And that gave me great hope because I have always felt like I’m the Deanna Troi of my world. A leader alongside other leaders of various abilities and strengths which enhances the whole because of our synergistic magic.
Next week’s topic in the Engineering Building, “Strongly Correlated Quantum Impurity Problems” by Dr. Kathleen Araujo. Am I going? Oh hell yes! And I’ll say hi to Geordi while I’m there.
I am never, ever going to be an engineer, but I still enjoyed the lecture. For one thing, I love words. The sound of them, the look of them, the never ending pleasure of how they can be combined and rearranged to change the meaning and the sound of a sentence. And what a treat! I was exposed to all kinds of wacky words such as, “Fermi polaron”, “Transport through quantum dots”, and my personal favorite, “Ultra cold atoms” (not to be confused with you average, run of the mill, lukewarm atoms).
I almost laughed out loud when she clicked to one of her many grafts and said, “Now, don’t be scared by this diagram”. How was this diagram any less scary than all of the others? No one else was laughing so I assumed that it was a truly frightening sight. But that’s how I felt about all of the slides. I’d say I was almost queasy listening to it all. How is it that there is so much out there in the world that I don’t know? I don’t even have a langue to be able to comprehend the information. It felt, well, scary. Should I know about the Bison Model’s Linear Spin-bath Coupling? I felt overwhelmed, but then I remembered something while walking back to work. We don’t all have to be Chief Engineer, Geordi La Forge. Are his skills necessary? Absolutely, the Enterprise isn’t getting very far without them. But that’s not all that’s needed to explore the furthest reaches of uncharted space. What about empathic counselor Deanna Troi? Where would they have been without her and her talents? I shudder to think. And that gave me great hope because I have always felt like I’m the Deanna Troi of my world. A leader alongside other leaders of various abilities and strengths which enhances the whole because of our synergistic magic.
Next week’s topic in the Engineering Building, “Strongly Correlated Quantum Impurity Problems” by Dr. Kathleen Araujo. Am I going? Oh hell yes! And I’ll say hi to Geordi while I’m there.
