Goodbye to Ithaca

As I write this, I'm sitting with my mother in a hotel room in Buffalo watching WALL-E. We spent the day sipping mimosas at an outdoor cafe in downtown Ithaca, doing some window shopping, and visiting a vineyard that was celebrating its donkey's birthday with cheap wine tastings and wine slushies. (WINE SLUSHIES.) The donkey, named Doobie, was adorable and very soft. 

I presented my research to my REU group yesterday morning. It went very well! It's so hard to believe it's all over. I introduced my mother to my professor, whom I had not really talked to in a week or so, and not for more than a month before that. He told me he was very happy with my project, and even more happy that I had fun doing it and learned so much. He told me that when he writes my recommendation letter for graduate school, the letter he sends to every other school will say that I'm horrible and the one he gives to Cornell will say that I'm wonderful. :) heehee. 

I had sad goodbyes to say to the wonderful friends I met in the program, and my wonderful graduate student Eva who helped me so much with my research. It was really hard, it was a lot of fun, and I learned so much about how I work best and how to stay adaptable and adjust to setbacks and all of that generic cliche stuff. But really. It taught me so much about what it's like to be in graduate school, devoting all your time to your research and having to be really resourceful in how you solve the problems that come up ('cause odds are, no one else is gonna know how to solve them either).

I'm also really glad that I'm now pretty certain I want to go into condensed matter physics. Whether or not I go into theoretical/computational is still a little bit of a tossup (I'd like to try experimental, I think...), but I really like the subject matter, and I find it more interesting than particle/high-energy/astro. So knowing that is reassuring, and gets me set up to start looking for grad schools. Currently the first and only school on my list is Cornell--and I suspect it will stay very high on my list even as I start looking at other schools.

Below you will find some extra pictures from my last few weeks.

This little bugger is Mikey. He stepped on my foot and ripped off my big toenail about four weeks ago. 

"what is that thing you're shoving in my face and why is it blinding me"

Yummy grass.

I rode Mikey for the entirety of the summer. He was a real challenge to ride, but really intelligent, and fun once you got him to focus. I feel like I learned a lot from riding him. And even if he was the opposite of cuddly and he probably won't miss me at all, I actually think I'll miss him. 

On our last real day together, a group of us went up to the top of the Cornell bell tower. The view was spectacular! (This is the Arts Quad.)

Cayuga Lake! So pretty on a misty day.

These handles and pedals are how you play the chimes. The guy pictured is playing with two hands and one foot. (I played these chimes! I chimed out the 6:00 hour! Video on Facebook if you care to watch!)

I really am going to miss Ithaca. It was a wonderful town in a beautiful place.