Day 4 (The New Job)

I got up at 6 15 again today showered and then went to breakfast again the same breakfast. Today I got to go to the NIA building and work with Joe and Jon on their video projects! Today was a really easy and laid back day but still fun all the least. First thing Jon and I did was talk about the general concept of our story. We came up with what people think NASA is and what NASA actually is. We created a story board and started our whole script write up.
Before we started working on the script Cheryl and Kathy came and picked us up from NIA and we went to lunch. We went to this really cool Italian place for lunch and they had the best food their ever!!

Once we got back to NIA Jon and I started looking for video files and we started to talk more about our storyline and such. I don’t want to give too many details because it is all in the works right now but once we finalize our story I will put it up on here. We are planning to tie everyone’s projects into this video and it will be used for future governor’s school orientations!! This project is so big but it is so cool.

We got back to the dorm and I went to my room and just chilled on the computer and worked for a bit. We went to dinner and they had cheese tortellini, it was yummy. I came back to my dorm room and just chilled for a bit and finished my blog entry for yesterday.
After that I went outside and sat in a tree and read… a very college kid thing of me to do. But after about ten minutes of being out there Seth came and picked me up and we went and played tennis. It was pretty fun I think he won for today. I went back to the tree after and read some more. By the time I got back in it was 9 and I just wanted to chill in my dorm. I was really tired so I just turned on a movie and went to bed. So goodnight everyone I hope you enjoyed my day.

Day 3 (The Weather)

So day three, wow I made it this far already without really hurting myself :P. But got up at 6 15 again today showered and then went to breakfast again the same breakfast but today they had pancakes instead of French toast. I went back to my room and I finally got internet!!

We departed for our jobs and I beat my workshop to the building. I sat around for a bit and just kind of chilled. Then everyone got here and they had big long discussions about what they were going to do tonight. The first thing we did was a talk about weather balloons and we actually got to send one off after the presentation.

Dennis and I left early and he showed me my office in the MY NASA DATA building. It’s pretty small but I get my own computerJ. We went on a tour of the data center and got to see where they store all of the information that they get from the satellites. It was very cool because they are actually still using tapes to record information because it is safer and has less of a chance of crashing. There were about 600 CPUs and they are getting 300 more in the next week!! Next we were off to lunch!

We came back after lunch and we started a project about ozone. We got little cards and a card reader and we calibrated the reader to tell us how much ozone is in the air. We let them sit outside for an hour and during that hour we came in and saw a presentation about ozone and the good the bad and the ugly. The hole in the ozone looks like an evil smiley face now a days because the ozone hole is actually becoming smaller. I photo-shopped the picture and made it my background on my computer I have to say it’s pretty sweet. After that we went back to the building we were in on Monday and just sat there. We started working on my mentorship contract and then Cheryl texted me and told me that I wasn’t going to be there tomorrow. I told Dennis and he was pretty chill about it.

Once we got back to the dorm I colored Jon’s picture that I drew for him at work and showed Seth the picture that I drew from him. I also started watching Hercules. Then we went to dinner. After dinner I went on a walk with Nick and then came back to the dorm. We saw the other side of campus. It was really prettyJ. When I got back I went and played tennis with Seth. He is the only VIMS guy here and he is really cool. We played tennis and I actually got better J I definitely beat him too. But he had the sun in his eyes so that’s probably why. : P We came back in and had some Gatorade and then went out for a walk. We chilled in a tree for awhile and talked about a lot of stuff. Then we came back in and we wanted to watch The Office but the internet died L so we decided to watch 300. The only problem was that we couldn’t watch the movie in English on Seth’s computer so we just decided to watch the whole movie in Spanish. By the end of the movie we had 9 kids watching 300 in Spanish. It was pretty sweet and totally epic. Then by the end of it all it was bedtime. I finished coloring Seth’s picture and then went to bed.

Day 2 (The Mentoring)

Today I woke up at about 6:15 and took a shower. It took a long time to get warm and my roommate Lauren, who took a shower before me, had taken a cold shower! We went to breakfast and it was your typical breakfast foods, cereal (of all kinds), bacon, eggs, French toast, biscuits and gravy, and last but not least hash browns. I saw my friend Alex G and Jeanmarie; they are with the other group staying at CNU. After Breakfast we had about 20 minutes until we had to leave so Nick Lauren and I went back to my room and had internet for about 10 minutes! J But then it sort of disappeared and didn’t come back.

We left for the NASA Center at 7:45 and went straight to the badge building. We had to wait in line for awhile and finally got our cool ID badges that let us go everywhere here. Once on site we went to an orientation room where we met our mentors. My mentor is Dennis Diones. He told me that the reason they chose me for this project was the science fair project I did my sophomore year, basically the effect of carbon dioxide on the ozone.

We had to hightail it out of the orientation building because this week I am part of a teacher’s workshop. I got to the workshop when everyone was introducing themselves. On the walk over Dennis told me that they want me to keep a journal and possibly do a podcast later on in the program! This week in the workshop I’m in charge of taking pictures and creating a journal so there will be lots of pictures from this week especially.

Next was the intro to the website which Dennis did himself and then Penny introduced the LAS (Live Access Server). LAS gives you live data from the specific area you are looking at and you can look at pictures around the world and the United States. It can give you data about the atmosphere, as in amount of aerosol in the air and air quality, clouds and cloud coverage and much more. The maps are very colorful, but I’m not sure if that is a good or a bad thing… I’m going to assume bad. From those pictures you can get lots of data and amounts of everything. Penny and Dennis showed us everything we will need to know and use for the next couple of weeks. I could not get Internet at the center so I couldn’t follow along on my computer for the introductions but I followed along up front anyways.

We had a break where everyone could work on the computer and test out the LAS. After that we had a talk about the Science of Clouds. We learned that every day 50 to 70 percent of the earth is covered by clouds. The lesson was really interesting and I learned a lot. Pim ran the talk and she was very good at it. It was very informative and I learned all about clouds and the atmosphere.

Next was lunch… It was okay we ate in the cafeteria and just kind of hung out there for a bit. I went back to our building early just to go on my computer and just kind of hang out before I had to get to work again. But, at lunch I told Cheryl (the G school director) what I was doing this week and she was pretty upset and she said that she will find another place for me to go. That makes me feel a lot better because I would rather do anything else than make a photo journal for this workshop.

This was a total waste of a day. I sat on my computer and did nothing after lunch and basically just listened to my music and photoshopped a picture. But we went to the wind tunnel soon after.

The wind tunnel was really cool and we got to see them test it with a fake race car! But i felt really bad because i was 20 minutes late getting back for cheryl to pick me up. :( the rest of the day was pretty un eventful... we played soccer right when we got back and then we went to dinner. After dinner we played tennis and then i went in and took a quick shower. Then the internet wasnt workign so Cheryl was freaking out. We decided to go on a Ben and Jerry's run for a destressitizer :) We headed back to the dorm and hung out in each other rooms and in the hallway for the rest of the night.

I talked to people back home and i miss you all!

Day 1 (Moving On In)

So today we moved into our dorms. It was pretty cool. We left my house around 9 and got down here around 2 ish. Moved in and got everything unpacked and ready and i met my roommate. She is super sweet. Her name is Lauren and she is probably one of the coolest girls i know.

Well after we all got moved in I hung around the dorm... There are a bunch of rec rooms and such and we all like to chill there. We (Lauren, Nick, Joe and I) walked around campus for a bit and saw the library. I love the fiction section there. We walked into some random buildings which were the physch building and the medical building. We went back to the dorm and had our group chat with Cheryl, Roni and Cathy (our RAs).

Then we went to dinner. It wasn't that bad, fried chicken, potatoes, and mac and cheese. Then for dessert slushies and oreo cake :P. Not very healthy but it still tasted good. We did a Walmart run and got most of the stuff we forgot at home. Then we came back to the dorms kind of chilled and now I'm here writing this blog. I hope you all are having fun back at home. See you in 6 weeks :P

And it all begins...

Wow... So I'm starting this blog for my engineering governor's school. I have 11 days until I start my first day and I am extremely excited. I'm going to write in this blog to keep everyone up to date back at home. Also it will be my personal journal for the trip so I can remember everything that i did. :) I can't wait!! Well start checking on June 22nd because that is the first day :P