Puja Gandhi

I feel the end of the semester; my grading is done, and now I’m only one proctoring assignment and 2 separations questions away from being done. It’s been a great semester; I’ve grown so much as a person and feel like my perspectives on most things are changed. I’m more tolerant of the things people do; and I now find oddities to be even more endearing. It’s funny how I managed to survive what is the most painful course known to chemists here, but that what I’ve taken out of the course are the most amazing friends ever, a coffee addiction, and a slight appreciation for analog devices 😉

On a different note; my eye is healing rapidly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grading has taken over the last 2 days of my life. Of course, my students never fail to dissapoint; this is where the extra 15-20 minutes of my proctoring time goes…

-P

3 hours after the incident (trying to not freak out):

18 hours after the incident
(swelling migrated south from frontal lobe area to eye):

24 hours after the incident (eye is swollen shut):

36 hours after the incident (still can’t open the eye):

Doctor says it should be gone in a couple of weeks; hopefully I can post a photo of a happy, smiling me, with 2 opened eyes in a few days to come.

 

-P

I woke up this morning to see snow. EVERYWHERE. I’m not talking about the wannabe flurries you would get in Texas and call ‘snow’… I’m talking bonafide, real-deal pure as white snow! I woke up and swooned… no ice to scrape off the car… just the brush to get the snow off the back. Such bliss…. until I realized that not only do I not know how to drive in this weather, but the rest of Indiana doesn’t either. It didn’t help that the trucks didn’t come out either… Sare rd. was a glorified iced over slip and slide. I’m now at work (much later than anticipated)… but it was so worth it to see the snow 🙂

Maybe next time, I’ll just skate my way to school

-P

As the title suggests, I went to not one, not two, but three Thanksgivings!
Needless to say, I’m stuffed to the max. It’s okay though, I’m changed into pants with an elastic waist 🙂

Here are a couple of photos from Thanksgiving: The first one is the dinner at Dave’s and the second photo is of the grad student gathering…

I think I’ll keep this post simple and focus on my annual reflection of all that I have been thankful for.

1) Friends. I have the greatest friends a girl could ask for here in Bloomington. Quite frankly, this is a huge reason as to why I’ve decided to stay here and not move. My friends here have evolved into my family. It’s great!

2) My boss. Sure he’s eccentric, moody, and a bit of a maniac, but so am I. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Dave’s been great to me as a mentor thus far, it’s hard to come by people who are as encouraging as he’s been.

3) Love. I’m thankful to have my love for life. To go on a walk and fall in love with the wind, the ground beneath my feet, and feel God’s presence is a great feeling.

Of course, I’m thankful for all of the things I was thankful for last year, but this is just an addition to all of those things from before. I’m thinking I should make a list of all of this stuff… that way I can refer back to it when I feel like the world is against me.

Life is a gift, and I’m so thankful to have it.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

-P

Many of you have heard my complaints regarding all that is C117 (general chemistry lab), but after giving it some consideration, I’ve decided to put a positive spin on things… Here are some cover sheets from a C117 student; I seriously think that my life span increased by a month just by reading these sheets.

One of my better students, sent me the following at the end of one of his e-mails:

“I’m also assuming that another reason that this might not be working is because the nearest value, and the lowest value (highlighted above) are outliers themselves. So, I don’t know what to do. The chances are that you probably won’t get this in time and the world will end, but it was worth a try. Please respond promptly — the future of the universe depends on it.”
Sincerely,
Student.

It makes me happy when students care to learn, if I can help them find an appreciation for something I love doing, or at least help them understand my little corner of the universe, I have done my job.

-P

My house is essentially void of furniture.. My most recent purchase has been a couch. It was finally delivered yesterday and boy is it comfy!
Here are before/after pics.

My fear with buying a sofa was that I would then need to buy other furniture (bookshelf/coffee table/tv-stand). Currently, an old trunk is being used as my makeshift T.V. stand and some storage boxes are being used as a coffee table.

I think this weekend I’ll make a Roman shade to hang in the window to give a bit more colour to the place…. that is if I can get time from grading/writing my C500 paper/making a separations presentation/going to an art festival/tutoring/and running an experiment or 2 in lab for a bit of sewing time at home. I also need to get around to finishing the sanding of the wooden bed frame that is sitting in my kitchen so I can stain it, move it upstairs, and not have to look at it all the time…. maybe over the winter holiday. Yes, that is likely the only time I’ll get time for that.

-P

Some people I know are still unconvinced that electronics is as bad as I say it is. True, I have a habit of dramatizing life, but electronics is one of those subjects/labs that I’m in that requires no dramatization. The lab is work 80% of the course grade and the setup consists of about 5 lab desks shoved into a ‘room’, better known as a closet. Each desk has a lock, and inside the desk we see this:

An oscilloscope old enough to be an antique, a decade resistance box that requires the resistances to be checked using a digital multimetre because the displayed resistance values don’t correlate with the actual output resistances, an old frequency generator (circa 1960-something), a breadboard (that is about half dead), a Powerace (that is useless for building on due to crappy board contacts), other hi/low voltage power supplies, a counter, a DAQ box (for device coupling to LabView), bazillions of cables, and a closet full of resistors, diodes, transistors, capacitors, LEDs, etc.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that a majority of my circuits won’t work, fortunately, I can choose to not be my experimentalist self and simulate the circuits on Falstad or PSPICE to save time. Over the course of the semester, modeling has saved my butt.

Now, all i need to do is find a way to simulate life… Oh wait, they’ve done that…

too bad I despise RPGs.

-P

I’m finally caught up on grading and boy does it feel good!

I can now look at that pile of papers on my desk and smile 🙂

Cheers!

-P

Initial Halloween photo: Taken from Carsten and Nil

Easy/cheap costume to make… all you need is a box, construction paper, glue, and ~1 hour. Wearing the costume is a different story…. good luck fitting through a narrow hallway.

P