|
Phys(ics)Geek
|
|
"If I could save the world..."
I was reading through my old diaries... actually, the one from last summer and my fall website logs... And I can honestly say that I'm much more stable now than I used to be... For instance, when I first quit working for Staples, I was frustrated with myself constantly for having quit my job, and giving up so easily. But now, I'm cool with the decision. I KNOW that it was the right thing to do. Yes, money is a lot tighter than it used to be, and I'm very slowly paying off my credit cards, but you know what, I'm happy when it comes to my job. In fact, I really think that I have the best job in the world... I get PAID it go into a lab and make stuff work. I set up the experiments, and when they don't work, I rewrite them so that they do work. I build custom designed (by me, no less) contraptions to make things work in the lab. And not merely that, but I can tell you how every piece of equipment in that lab is supposed to work, and how to make it work, and also, how to gather critical information from it. That's pretty spiffy, I'd say. But that's not all I do, chachi... I also get PAID to instill my knowledge of physics into the people who I tutor twice a week. I explain to them the things they need and not just that, but I explain it to them individually so that they definitely know what gauss's law is at the end of the day, or what the electric flux is... that's awesome. And... that's NOT ALL!!! I also get to write programs to do super-complex theoretical physics problems... but not just any programs... these are programs that are tailored to run on a $400,000 piece of machinery known as an Itanium-2 Supercluster... That's right... I'm 20 years old, a programmer, former hacker, a physics whiz... and this school lets me code for a $400,000 computer... all because I'm good at what I do. I am damn good at what I do. And that makes me happy. I was good at selling people printers at Staples too... but that was nothing compared to my talents in the physics realm. Yeah... I'm a lot better off now... A LOT... I spent last summer working two jobs... one of which I HATED... I spend next summer working on leaving my mark on the Otterbein physics departmet... I'm writing the lab manual for the introductory physics labs for next year. And, I'm working in the field of high-energy theoretical physics on a research project with Dr. Robertson... I'm getting PAID (and well, I might add) to work on one of the most fundamental problems facing experimentalists working at the two largest particle accelerators in the world, Fermilab and CERN. I'm going in May to help present our work. I'm SO going to be a kickass high-energy theorist... Hell... I'm getting there... Optimism... doesn't suck as bad as I thought it would. Feeling:
|