Good news everyone!

I was offered an internship for the summer! I'll be doing undergraduate research in nanotechnology at Washington University in St. Louis. I'm pretty excited to finally get to live in (well, right next to) the City of St. Louis. It'll also be fun to see everyone I haven't seen in the two years since I was last there.

As soon as I get to St. Louis, I plan to have some Ted Drewes. But the second thing I want to do is finally buy a bicycle. So if you know anyone who is trying to sell a road bike, let me know. And if anyone knows of a good (and cheap) way for me to transport the bike back to SF at the end of the summer, that would be great too.

Hi there

I've been quite busy for the last semesters and this blog has fallen by the wayside. Since I last posted here, I switched to Mechanical Engineering, though I still plan to minor in Environmental Engineering. I am still doing nanotech research in my department, though this semester I'm focusing on nanofiltration for water treatment.

Here are my classes this semester:

•ENGR206: Circuits and Instrumentation Lab
•ENGR305: Linear Systems Response
•ENGR306: Electromechanical Systems
•ENGR364: Materials and Manufacturing Processes
•ENG214: Second Year English Composition
•RAZA679: Central American Literature


There hasn't been much going on outside of school. I went snowboarding and didn't damage any of my limbs! I plan to go a couple more times before the season is up. Then we start cycling around the Bay Area.

Misguided Muni Driver

I was riding the 14 Mission today from near the beginning of the line. At one stop I heard the bus driver say, "Oh no, you can't bring that on this bus." The girl replied that she wasn't going to eat it but was just saving it for later. "It" was referring to what looked like a bread bowl of soup with no container at all. I was really glad that this bus driver was standing up for the cleanliness of her bus until what came next. The driver said, "Alright, but you better go sit in the back!" Is there a new "nasty stuff must go to the back of the bus" rule? If so, people have been following it. I feel like I need to shower after leaving the back of the 14/49.

I've returned

I returned to San Francisco two weeks ago. Since I wrote here last, I went to Matagalpa, Camoapa, San Juan del Sur, and Jinotega. Three of those cities are in the mountains and are quite beautiful. Matagalpa is my favorite city. It is like a little San Francisco. There are hills and fog. I am going to live there some day.

Since returning to San Francisco, my engineering classes have begun. My class schedule changed a lot in the first week. I can not take any general education classes this semester (I am very behind on those). I am taking fifteen engineering units. I might be doing research in my department. A professor at SFSU Engineering is studying nanowires for use in cheaper photovoltaics.

Here are my clases:

•ENGR300 Engineering Experimentation + Lab
•ENGR303 Thermodynamics
•ENGR304 Mechanics of Fluids
•ENGR309 Mechanics of Solids
•ENGR434 Principles of Environmental Engineering

This weekend is a five weekend because California State University is broke. My university is going to close for six furlough days this year to reduce costs. I am going to visit my family in Southern California for a few days.

En español:

Regresé a San Francisco hace dos semanas. Desde la cosa pasada escribí aquí, fui a Matagalpa, Camoapa, San Juan del Sur y Jinotega. Tres de esos ciudades están en las montañas. ¡Que bonita! Matagalpa es mi ciudad favorita. Es como un pequeño San Francisco. Hay colinas y niebla. Voy a vivir allá un día.

Desde regresar a San Francisco, mis clases de ingeniería empiezaba. Mi horario de clases cambiaba mucho en la primera semana. No puedo tomar una clase de educación general este semestre. Estoy tomando quince unidades de ingeniería. Tal ves voy a hacer investigación en mi departamento. Un profesor en mi universidad estudia alambres muy pequeños para usar ellos en paneles solares y baratos.

Estas son mis clases:
•ENGR300 Experimentación de Ingeniería
•ENGR303 Termodinámica
•ENGR304 Mecánicas de Fluidos
•ENGR309 Mecánicas de Sólidos
•ENGR434 Principios de Ingeniería Medioambiental

Este fin de semana tiene cinco días porque mi sistema de universidades esta palmado. Mi universidad va a cerrar para seis días este año para reducir gastos. Voy a visitar mi familia en California del Sur para unas días.

Este Fin de Semana

I am going to try to do my posts in English and Spanish from now on. If you know Spanish, be sure to correct my translations in the comments.

Today is the 30th Anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of people are gathered in Managua to hear several speakers, including President Daniel Ortega. Those not at the plaza right now are gathering in their individual barrios and celebrating (dancing, shooting off fireworks, listening to the event).

For lunch, we had lobster soup. It included a turtle egg. When I first heard that sea turtles here are either endangered or critically endangered, I wasn't going to find one to eat. But I was served it for lunch and abstaining from it won't bring the turtle back. It tasted alright. But, it's certainly not worth driving a species to extinction for.

Hoy es el treinta aniversario de la revolucion de Sandinista. Mas cien mil personas son en Managua para escuchar a Presidente Daniel Ortega y mas oradores. Las personas quien no esta alla estan en sus barrios y celebran por bailando, fusilando fuegos artificiales y escuchando a los discursos.

Comemos sopa de langosta para almuerzo. Almuerzo incluió un huevo de tortuga. Cuando oí que tortugas de mar aquí o ponen en peligro o ponen gravemente en peligro, no quiero encontrar un para comer. Pero mi familia se servió para almuerzo. Absteniendo de este huevo no va a regressar la tortuga. Fue bien, mas o menos. Pero no vale cierto empujando una especie llegar a ser extinto.

Crazy Taxi

Today included our most exciting taxi ride to date. On our way back home from meeting a friend at ATRAVES (more on that some other time), our taxi was making a U-turn on a major street and the car died on us. So the three of us got out to push our taxi to the nearest gas station (a couple blocks away). As we pushed our way down this major road, people on the street were laughing at the sight of three gringos pushing the taxi.

Little Las Vegas

One of our gringa friends went back home to Ohio on Saturday. For her last night here, a group of us got together to go to a discotheque called the Chaman. The Chaman would feel right at home in Las Vegas. It's a new expensive club that looks like a lit up Mayan pyramid. If you know me at all, you are probably laughing at the thought of me in a dance club. It's mostly full of crappy club music (yes, they listen to Flo-Rida in Nicaragua) and trashy people (both gringos and Nicas). I'm pretty sure that a root canal would have been an equally enjoyable experience.

I got a haircut yesterday. I couldn't talk to them much so they gave me a couple magazines with haircuts from decades ago. My friend and I mutually decided on the least terrible one and pointed at it. I don't think it mattered though since my hair looked nothing like the picture after it was all over with.