anfin’s Blog

Well I have officially taken part in an ACS (American Chemical Society) National Meeting and Exposition and lived to tell the tale (which as it just so happens I am telling now).

Upon arriving in Philadelphia I took a train from the airport to Market East Station. Conveniently, Market East Station opened up directly into the Pennsylvania Convention Center which was conveniently the location of the conference and which was also conveniently located just across the street from my hotel. How convenient. Inconvenient, however, was the fact that I had no idea where I was supposed to go for dinner. I found out later that this was due to the fact that I had moved the very same day that the invitation was to have arrived at my house—but this fact did not help me figure out where I was supposed to go. Thank goodness for my roommate or I would have shown up uninvited to the Merck Award Dinner instead of the very separate Merck Scholarship Dinner.

All the other students were very nice—all the other students were also organic. I felt a bit out of place. When I applied, I was relying on the “or” in “Synthetic Organic or Medicinal Chemistry” listed under the criteria to possibly, maybe, in-a-million-years earn me a spot among the honorable mentions who got to present a poster at the conference. However, it seems that I was the only one who needed the “or”—everyone else would have been just as happy with an “and.” Now, more than ever before, I don’t know what it was on my application that made them pick me, but I am very grateful. I literally wouldn’t have any money in my bank account after next month’s rent if it weren’t for this scholarship.

The next morning (Monday) was the oral presentation. I was ridiculously nervous, but I tried to push that aside and just do the best I could. I was extremely impressed by the other four students’ research projects and results. I felt like my project stood out a bit like a sore thumb since it was so different than theirs. Nonetheless, I think I was able to present it well enough, though I did skip a few things and saw some things I could have improved. Nonetheless, I left reasonably satisfied with my performance and knowing that with that experience under my belt I would be able to do better job next time I have an oral presentation.

Unbeknownst to me, Jonathan had called my cell phone about ten minutes into my talk. Apparently, he wanted to let me know that tropical storm Fay might possibly affect my travel plans. I called the Graduate Coordinator the next morning (Tuesday) and he seemed to think that it might be wise to go ahead and reschedule my flight for Thursday in hopes that Fay would blow over by then. Delta said that under the circumstances, I could change my flight with no penalty, so I decided to fly in on Thursday instead of my original return date on Tuesday.

The new itinerary actually worked to my advantage in a way. The schedule for all of the students with Merck was very tight with meals, presentations, and the tour of Merck Westpoint. With two extra days at my disposal, I was able to experience the rest of the conference and saw several inorganic talks and posters. Another good thing about the change was that without the extra time, I wouldn’t have been able to go see a couple of Philadelphia’s historical sites. On a slightly less educational note (okay, actually this note has nothing whatsoever to do with education), I would have also missed out on the opportunity to attend the conference’s exposition and obtain these fabulous tchotchkes (including the pink Philadelphia shirt from the previous photos–which was a really good thing to have considering the fact that I ran out of clothes do to my extended stay) as well as five completely distinct periodic tables. Chemists love helicopter hats and periodic tables.

Of course, Fay did not blow over by Thursday. As a matter of fact, Thursday was probably the worst day to fly into Gainesville. I know the flight before mine was canceled, and I can’t imagine that the ones after me made it in. Honestly, I’m amazed that they didn’t cancel our flight—the ride wasn’t exactly smooth. Nevertheless, we landed safely in Gainesville on schedule and I was able to make it to about an hour and a half of orientation. Said hour and a half consisted of me registering for classes, eating at a dinner which most of my class didn’t brave the storm to attend, and reading my text message from the University which said that UF would be closed the following day. That last one meant that the hour and a half would be the only orientation I would get. So much for that.

Overall, I’d say the experience was a good one, and I’m truly blessed to have been chosen for the scholarship. It was definitely a great opportunity to be able to speak at the conference, and I’d say that that opportunity was worth missing orientation. I’m told I didn’t miss much anyway. . .

On Saturday, I took my usual trip to the computer lab and discovered that it is not open on the weekends. Rats. Clearly, a day without the Internet was unacceptable so I went to the bookstores to use the sample computers. Soon after I arrived, I got a call from Jonathan saying that he and Amy had some soon-to-be-donated household items and that they wondered if I might want some of them to be donated to me. I thought that was a good idea so Rusty and I headed down to Cocoa. I didn’t actually go shopping through their to-donate pile that day. Instead, we ended up playing their Wii for quite some time. For a while it was all three of us playing the Rayman Raving Rabbids game. By the end, it was established that Jonathan was better than us at almost everything, Amy excelled at the music and dancing games, and I could play the football game better than at least Jonathan. Afterwards, Jonathan and I played Zelda Twilight Princess well into the night/morning. I wasn’t actually playing, but I did serve as a bit of Jonathan’s memory of the game (since he hadn’t played in a year) and as a constant source of temptations such as, “Oh, you haven’t gotton the magic armor yet,” and ,”Have you gone through the dungeon where you can get unlimited fairies?”

I did finally go through the to-donate pile and am now the proud owner of several good pots and pans, some more sheets and towels, an ironing board, and most wonderfully a vacuum cleaner. Hoorah! In their endless generosity, Amy and Jonathan also took me with them on their shopping trip to BJs to get me some cereals and other dried goods to stock my kitchen. I’m still on a tight budget until my first paycheck, but this will definitely make things easier.

Jonathan and Amy also offered to dog-sit while I’m on my trip next week. Since bringing Rusty back next week would cost another tank of gas. I decided to go ahead and just leave him there when I headed back to Gainesville. When I did get back to Gainesville, I realized just how empty the apartment seems without him. This is going to be a very lonely week. However, I think Rusty is more comfortable in Amy and Jonathan’s more air-conditioned house. I’m going to have to turn down my thermostat when he gets back.

So I’ve officially been here for over a week, and I’m still alive. I don’t think I’ll continue these day by day posts, but we’ll see.

I’m never going to catch up with real time if I don’t combine a few days, so for this one-time offer you can get four days for one post. Yes, that’s right. You heard correctly. FOUR DAYS for ONE POST! Granted, these four days weren’t nearly as interesting as the first three, but that’s beside the point.

Tuesday consisted of me giving Rusty a bath, calling five-billion vets/kennels, and realizing that boarding dogs is at least twice as expensive in Gainesville as in Greenwood no matter who you call.

Wednesday was a day for getting to know the bus system and finding the Internet. It’s about a twenty minute bus ride to the other side of campus to the Reitz Union where the bookstore and such are. Once I found a computer lab, I spent a few hours checking my mail, realizing that Facebook is not available on UF computers, updating my blog and Flickr account, figuring out how to get to the DMVs, and paying some bills.

On Thursday, I went to the DMV for registering my car where I was only able to fill out the paperwork because I only had a debit card and they would not accept any payment other than cash and checks. I spent the rest of the day figuring out where to put things that were still in boxes in my apartment. At the same time, I was listening to my much neglected Jekyll and Hyde CD and discovering that it is an even better CD than I remembered.

Friday I got an early morning Internet fix and then set up an appointment at the only DMV in town that offers driver’s licenses. The other DMV had told me that if I didn’t set up an appointment, I would be waiting for hours. Clearly, they have not revamped their DMV system like South Carolina. I was unable to get an appointment until two weeks away because apparently this is the time of the year when large numbers of foreign students like to set up mass appointments and car pool. After setting up the appointment with that DMV, I went back to the other DMV, waited, wrote a check, had the check rejected because no one cared to tell me that the checks had to be local, went across the street, got money from the ATM, went back, waited, gave money to the uninformative lady, and left in a huff. I spent the rest of the evening organizing My Documents on my computer and continuing to setup house. The end.

I woke up Monday morning with two major goals, and I accomplished both by the end of the day.

The first goal was to start figuring out how to use the Gainesville bus system which is free for UF students. The first step in this goal was to walk to the OTHER side of campus to say hello to the Chemistry department so that I could discretely ask where to get my student ID. This was a big step (one hour and twenty minutes of steps actually), and it didn’t take me long to figure out that I would not be walking to work every day or even ever. The graduate studies coordinator directed me to the ID office which wasn’t far away. I had to go through the book store to get there and on the way through I saw some Internet connected computers. I got on, checked my mail, and looked up the bus routes relevant to my new apartment. I obtained my ID, went to the nearest bus stop, and took my very first Gainesville bus ride which dropped me off at my doorstep in a quarter of the time it took me to walk the other direction. Goal one accomplished.

Goal two was to groom Rusty because he seemed to be very hot. Due to my refusal to waste too much energy (i.e. money) by cranking up the AC, in addition to my unusual dislike for AC, I have in fact not turned the thermostat down from the 80 degrees I left it at for the past month. I wouldn’t think this would make much of a difference to the poor dog considering the fact that that is the very same temperature that I slowly but surely turned up the thermostat in Greenwood to (due to my aforementioned unusual dislike for AC). However, hearing him panting through the bathroom door well into the night made me feel extremely guilty so I had to due something to relieve him. I started out going to the Petsmart down the road and getting some grooming tools. The only one I ever needed was the demattifier (I don’t actually think this is its name) and the rake comb. In case you haven’t already noticed, A LOT of hair came out just with the brushing. No wonder the dog was so hot. After I brushed him, I trimmed his hair a bit. The pile of hair from this venture was noticeably smaller than the first, but nonetheless impressive. What’s most remarkable is that after losing all that hair, Rusty doesn’t really look any different (except for the fact that I was a little bit too gung-ho about cutting the hair on his back right leg).

Some other notes about Monday:

1. I found myself an outstanding pooper-scooper at PetSmart. It’s everything a pooper-scooper should be, and using Walmart bags was getting old.
2. My Old Navy pants of which I have four pairs and which I have worn almost every day this summer apparently contain some sort of chip which sets off half the security doors to large stores in Gainesville. I am going to have to apologize and explain my pants every time I enter fine establishments such as the UF bookstore, PetSmart, and Target. Woohoo!

When I woke up on Sunday, I was already feeling a bit better after having a good night’s sleep. I got up and got dressed for church. The only problem was that I didn’t know where I was going to find one. Lacking the Internet, I opened the phonebook that greeted me on the doorstep when I got here, and saw what I thought were the only 5 Southern Baptist churches in Gainesville (It turns out that for some odd reason Southern Baptist and Southern Baptist Convention are listed differently). Only two had numbered streets and, lacking a map, I figured they were my best bet. They were both NW and I’m in the SW quadrant, so I got in my car and headed north. I never found either one, but while I was getting lost, I came upon Westside Baptist Church. It looked like a nice place, and it seemed big enough for me to be comfortable (Small churches make me kind of nervous) so I pulled in the parking lot. I even noticed the girl who parked next to me getting out wearing jeans so I knew that this church was at least a bit contemporary. I walked down the sidewalk and passed an older gentleman, who turned out to be a staff member, and asked him if he knew where grad students should go.

It turns out that I came just in time for the 10 minute mingling time of college and grad students prior to Sunday school. I met the grad class teacher and his wife (a very sweet couple) as well as the other grad students. They were all very welcoming. They were also all medical people. The teacher was a dentist, one student was going into dentistry (just had her white coat ceremony), one student was going into audiology (is about to have her white coat ceremony in DisneyWorld), and one student is either going into anesthesiology or dermatology. No Mom and Dad, I’m still not going into any medical field—I just thought it was an interesting coincidence. We had a good class time, and it reminded me a lot of family group with Furman BCM.

After class, we all sat together in service. The church’s pastor of 27 years had just come back from a month-long vacation, and he gave a good sermon. The music was also good—a mix of traditional hymns and contemporary praise songs—more like SMSBC than Newspring, but I’m okay with both styles. Overall, I felt very at home at this church. Unfortunately, they don’t really do any drama, and that’s somewhat of a problem for me. I’ll probably still look at some other places to be sure, but maybe not until I have good access to the Internet. It’s at least nice to know that there is a church in town where I can feel somewhat at home.

Well, Rusty and I have arrived safely in Florida. For any of you who are terribly interested in the details of my moving and settling in experience, I will try to fill in all the detail of the past several days. However, I don’t feel like writing one huge post, so I’ll write one for each day and then put one up every time I get access to the Internet. Let’s start with Saturday.

I drove 8 hours from Greenwood to Gainesville, and got lost twice due to badly marked detours that pulled me away from my Mapquest directions. I can now safely say that Rusty does not enjoy 8 hour car rides or doggie seat belts. He does seem to be content now that he’s here, though.

When I arrived, I shoved most of the stuff from my car into the apartment. I then realized that I had no food except for the snacks I had brought for the trip. More importantly, I realized that Rusty had no food and that I hadn’t given him food since the afternoon before in preparation for the long trip. Knowing that I would need many other random items, I decided to head to the obvious store – Walmart. When I got there, I was very saddened to see that this was not quite as useful a Walmart as the Walmart Supercenters back home and in Greenville. The only food it has is junk food – no Lean Cuisines for me. I went ahead and got the dog food and some dog bowls, and then I remembered that there was a Target down the road. Hurrah! The Target will at least almost replace the Walmart I’ve lost. It’s still not as good as the Supercenters, but at least it’s something.

Back at the apartment, I was feeling rather lonely. Thank goodness for Rusty, but it’s still an unpleasant feeling to be somewhere where you don’t really have anyone who knows or cares about you. The lack of Internet and TV also creates a feeling of disconnectedness from the world. At any rate, by the end of the day I came to two very important conclusions. I must have Internet in my apartment, and I must find a church the next morning. It seemed however, that the latter might be challenging without the former. . .

Alright, so I need to book some tickets to get me from Gainesville, Fl to Philadelphia, PA from August 17 through 19. Price is not exactly an huge issue since I have no less than three sources willing to pay for all or part of said trip. What is important is that I have an extreme fear of getting stuck in an airport and not making it to Philadelphia which would then lead to me missing my first oral presentation at an ACS (American Chemical Society) meeting. That would be very, very sad. Thus, I would greatly appreciate some opinions on my options. Here they are:

1. $308 flying US Airways and connecting in Charlotte
2. $398 flying Delta and connecting in Atlanta
3. $692 flying United and connecting in Charlotte

Any thoughts?

It took me until the my last day of classes at Furman, but I finally hopped into a fountain. Well, actually, according to Lauren I just sort of eased into the water, but that’s beside the point.

. . . we prefer to have perfect square scores in all frames numbered with the square of an even prime.

Rusty and I will be moving to Gainesville this Fall. I hope the gators don’t eat him. I’m pretty excited. I really felt like University of Florida was a good place for me all along, but I tried REALLY hard to convince myself that I would be at least as happy at Northwestern. Yes, UF doesn’t necessarily have the prestige of Northwestern, but it’s still a really good school, and there are tons of professors there that I would love to work for. I also just felt a lot more comfortable around the people there. At any rate, after these last couple of days, I’m just glad to have the decision made. I truly am THE WORST decision-maker in the world, but after many conversations with professors, family, UF and Northwestern grad students, and members of my Bible-study group, it really feels like UF is the place I’m supposed to go. Hopefully, this decision turns out as well as my decision to come to Furman.