Leaving on a Jet Plane

I just wanted to write a quick note to everybody before I catch my red-eye flight tomorrow night to arrive into Philadelphia, which is the nearest airport near Newark, DE at the University of Delaware.  I'll do a recap of the summer 2008:

I traveled all over the place this summer including New Mexico, Minnesota, and Hawaii.  I visited some family friends in New Mexico with mom.  Our gracious hosts took us hiking, shopping, and archaelogical-dig-raiding!  It was a fantastic time an the Jemez Mountains are absolutely beautiful.  I went to Minnesota with Donna and some buddies from HMC that graduated with me.  We stayed at one of the guys' family cottages on Cass Lake and did some fresh water fishing for bass, northern pike, and sunfish.  We caught a ton of fish and smoked some.  We ate all that were of decent size and threw back the ones that were babies.  By the way, I'm writing from Donna's computer so I'll have to add photos later.  I went to Hawaii in mid July to present my undergraduate research on polymer membranes at the International Congress on Membranes (ICOM) which was held in Waikiki.  I was able to host my professor from France (see my summer 2007 blog about France) and my adviser at HMC.  We had a blast hiking around and eating local foods.

I spent 10 weeks working with Auritec Pharmaceuticals on their drug delivery project.  I was working with a drug called acyclovir which is an anti-herpes drug.  It can be used to prevent transmission during sex and it can also be used to mitigate symptoms.  Our objective was to insert the drug in a contraceptive vaginal o-ring to provide additional benefits besides the contraception.  We were fairly successful in creating a rapid prototype that could be used in their phase I clinical trials, scheduled to begin within the next several months.  I was also successful in injection molding rings with embedded drug using liquid silicone rubber.  I learned a lot about injection molding and the drug itself.  I worked at Oak Crest Institute of Science (they are employed by Auritec) in Pasadena and they had a ton of great scientists and great projects going on from atmospheric pollution to biological tissue engineering.  I met fantastic people and made great connections so I'm very thankful for that experience.

During those 10 weeks, I was a complete bum regarding rent.  I stayed with the Phus and they refused to accept any form of payment from me for rent even though they were housing me, driving me to and from bus stops, AND feeding me!  Big thanks to them, I really appreciate all that they've done for me.  They've really become my surrogate family.  It's really funny because the on-going joke between Donna and I is that Donna's family loves me more than her and vice versa!  Anyway, good luck to Maggie, Donna's little sister, entering freshmen year at UC-Irvine!  Also, good luck to Eric, Donna's little brother, since he's no longer a small-fry freshmen in high school.  Thank you Phus :)!

It's August 25, 2008 and I should also put a side note that I've been completely obsessed with stocks since graduating.  Besides the rush of making/losing money, I also love being plugged into the rest of the world.  I can't really explain to non-HMC students how insulating the HMC community is.  It feels great to know that their is a world out there and that it does operate no matter how poorly you do on a mid-term!  So anyway, with regards to stocks, I've been as high as 20% and as low as -30%!  I'm back at 2% from that low so I'm really happy to be where I am.  Still no hardcore strategy, just playing by ear.  If you're interested, I can talk to you for hours about stocks and the economy so shoot me an email or give me a call!  I've been trying to get all of my friends to trade; I'm like a prophet spreading the gospel!

Okay, I'm completely excited to be living with a fantastic friend of mine Abby.  She's Jamaican so we'll be turning our heaters up full time during winter and huddling together to conserve whatever warmth/humidity we can!  I'm also excited to be living on the east coast so I don't have to wake up at 6 AM to watch the markets open!  I'm excited that I'll be closer to the UK and the idea of hopping the pond to visit my UK mates isn't too absurd.  Many of my good friends are also on the east coast because their either back home or found jobs/graduate schools there.  I'm SUPER excited to see DC.  I feel terrible that I've never been the nation's capital despite being alive for 21 years.  I'm in such a great position, train rides away from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, etc.!  No sales tax in DE.  Beautiful Georgian architectured buildings.  I hear there's even beaches!  But I've heard that from mainlanders so I'll take it with a grain of salt.  Donna will be visiting me in October and I'll probably fly  back to Southern California for Thanksgiving.    I'm only going to have one week off in the winter and another week break during the summer.  Besides that, I'll be doing research for the rest of the time.  It's because this is a 4-year program for a Ph.D. and most Ph.D. programs take anywhere from 5-6+ years.    By the way, I'll be working with the Integrative Graduate Experience and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program at U-Del.  They're working to store solar energy in hydrogen for the hydrogen economy.  I don't know where in that process I'll be slotted in but it's exactly the kind of technical work I want to get immersed in.  We're going to need to cure our addiction to petroleum so I figure I might as well be a part of that world-wide solution.  I'm getting paid to do research there on top of them paying for all tuitions (though I still have to pay $300 in student fees :P).  The stipend is $30k/yr which is really nice to live on since Delaware is a cheap place to live.  I plan to put the excess money in the market, whoooo hooooo!    Okay, I've got some last minute packing to do so adios for now.  I'll probably put another one of these up when I move in so I can post pictures of my apartment and give some initial impressions.