Summer Job of Awesome is over for six days. Thank God. You know those commercials where the fat little green slimeballs of mucus are playing pool in someone's nose? Yeah, well, they've been in my head for the past week for some Brobdingnagian booger convention, where they enjoy bubbling up and down my sinus cavities every time I take that 2,341 foot journey into the Underground Lair and forcing me to give a tour with crappy hearing. You know how embarrassing it is to be 20 years old and having to ask people to repeat their questions four times before you can answer them? VERY. I'm starting to wish my parents had taught me sign language when I was a baby, "Meet the Fockers" style.

Everything, for the most part, is going well. Last week, I had a Physics Ph.Douche. He wanted to ask many questions, such as:

P.h.Douche: So is the neutrino interaction based on (Insert LONG and INTENSE and COMPLICATED scientific reasoning into this space that you can't hear because of the fact he speaks in a quiet voice and your eardrums are attempting to implode) ?

Me: Yes.

P.h.Douche: So then the (yet another collection of BIG SCIENTIFIC WORDS I DON'T KNOW) is caused by the (more words, every other which I can hear and every other other I actually know the definition of) ?

Me: Yes. Yes it is.

P.h.Douche: Excellent. I can clearly see you know exactly what you are talking about.

Actually, he was pretty cool. After the tour, some girls aged high school and middle school started asking me some surprisingly in-depth questions on anti-matter. Physics. P.h.Douche was nearby, and I took the chance to pull him into the conversation, which he seemed to really enjoy. We were an odd little group, talking about the mysteries of the universe in the tiny gift shop while other tourists awkwardly sidled around us, but it was, well, fun. There's something very cool about being able to talk in a group of wildly different people about a subject that no one fully understands; the kids kept pushing us, the old man and I kept bouncing off each other. Afterwards, he told me that I had done an exceptional job making the subject material relatable for visitors. At least I think that's what he said. My ears were still pretty effed up. 

It was incredibly, I don't know, satisfying. Kind of affirms what I'm hoping to do in life.

Physics joke of the day:

Your head is so thick a neutrino would have a 0.5 percent chance of hitting it today.

BURN.
 
 
Picture
A dated photo of my workplace, located a half-mile underground
(Facebook friend): OMG Matt Nelson! How are you??!! What are you doing this summer?? Lolololol

Me: Nice to hear from you! I'm actually working a half-mile underground in a cutting-edge physics lab located at the bottom of a century-old iron ore mine where I'm trying to teach bored tourists about a mysterious little particle called a neutrino as well as dark matter. What are you up to?

(Facebook friend): omfg whATT?!

I've had this conversation at least five times since the start of the summer, regarding Awesome Summer Job.

I had applied for Awesome Summer Job in April, but I never expected to get it. Then I got the phone call while I was literally on my way to take my Modern Physics final.

Future Boss: Congrats Matt! We want to hire you to work in the Soudan Underground Mine! We're going to pay you well, give you free housing, and incredibly flexible schedule and a chance to flex your physics teaching muscles while working with bonafide high school physics teachers.

Me: (trying to speak while drooling out my mouth and simultaneously jizzing in my pants) THAT'S SO #$@%!!#% AWESOME! But my final is in ten minutes canicallyoubackplz?!

The lateness of the summer job threw my summer plans completely out the window. I had been intending to take a morning class from the U in Duluth that I could no longer take. I had to drop out of that while at the same time begging and pleading professors back at Drake to let me into their equivalent classes in the fall.

My workplace sort of resembles the lair of a demented Bond villain. Located 2,341 feet underground, it can only be reached by taking a cage down a small mine shaft. On one side, mine tunnels extend a mile into the surrounding rock, which visitors can travel on a historic tour. On the other side is my occupational space, where a 6,000 contraption of steel and plastic carefully monitors a pivotal particle that humanity knows almost nothing about. Every time I walk in there, the little kid in me goes apeshit at the sight of miles of cords, blinking lights and terribly complicated monitoring boxes. I get giddy when I go in there.

 My job is chiefly physics outreach. The Soudan Underground Mine has been home to physics experiments for 30 years, but only the most recent one has been open to the public for tours. I bring visitors down the cage, into the lab and explain to them that they are being shot by millions of particles smaller than atoms every second by a beam from Fermilab in Illinois. Did your eyes glaze over when you read that? My tourists' eyes do too.

I'll also be doing some design/writing work hopefully soon — wait, what?! You mean I'm going to be combining physics and journalism, two of the areas I've had extensive training in? THAT'S EVEN POSSIBLE?

Starting to see what this Summer Job is full of Awesome?

It's harder work than you'd think. I haven't nailed it all down yet, and I live in terrible fear of of the Physics P.h. Douche from MIT who will inevitably appear on my tour and stump the hell out of me. Still, I'm teaching, I'm learning, I'm thinking about a subject I'm fascinated with. 

The only real concern I have is if the Zombie Apocalypse breaks out while I'm underground. You might think the seemingly inaccessible location of the mine would be a plus... but you're wrong. Assuming Z.A. occurred within a short span of time, it would be impossible to stock the caverns with enough canned food to last until the infestation was overcome. We would have to resort to either cannibalism or bats. Ugh.

Also, the only way in or out of the mine is the mine shaft, and if the hoistman is bitten or scratched by an enraged zombie tourist, we'd be stuck down there; the only way up is a ladder that goes up the entire 2,341 feet, hitting 50 or so other platforms as it does so. Zombies would almost CERTAINLY be attracted by our zesty human flesh and throw themselves down the shaft, meaning we would have to fight off a Scad of them at every platform. Unless we could use our physics skills to invent some kind of super Zombie Zapper, we'd never see the sun again.

...but other than that, it's great!
 
 
I'm so glad this month is almost over. It's been a rough one, Enduring Readers. I had this funny idea that this semester couldn't possibly be as hectic or as time consuming as Fall 2009. In April alone, I created an 8-page section of the Drake Relays Edition Times-Delphic (Features A, you better check it out!), studied for and took a quantum physics test (I can summarize that awful experience in one Northern Minnesotan word: Uffda), developed what I hope is just a mild caffeine addiction and pretty much decided on the course of the rest of my life.

I'll begin with the latter. I am now enrolled in Drake University's School of Education program, going for an education degree plus endorsements in physics, journalism, general science and, believe it or not, possibly math. Also, I'm getting my BA in Physics — that elusive physics major, and, if it doesn't mean too many more classes, possibly a math minor.

Yes, this will mean a solid platform (I think) I can sell myself to employers on. No, it won't mean I can graduate in four years. That's okay. I've accepted that, for the most part. I wish I'd planned a little better earlier on, but hey, what can you do at this point? I'll sneak in a few summer classes wherever I can, but I'm not holding my breath.

I imagine that in the near future I'll feel the same way about my physics degree as I do about the Relays Edition of the Times-Delphic: intensely proud, but I still want to take it outside and burn it in a trash barrel.

Don't get me wrong. I've pushed myself to places I didn't know I could go to with physics and the Times-Delphic (like pulling two all-nighters in a row, for instance). But when I think about tearing up the Relays Edition, even jokingly, I feel this strange sort of catharthis, like I'm telling this thing that had so much of a monopoly over my time that it doesn't own me anymore. That I won. I beat it.

It's a pretty strange juxtaposition of ideas, I admit, but don't get worried; I'm not about to go Office Space any time soon. I haven't torn up the Relays Edition, and I'm definitely not going to torch my future physics degree. It's just my thought of the night, I guess.

Does anyone else have any idea what I'm talking about? Do you ever just want to tear up that paper you spent hours writing, because you suddenly have the power to? Or am I nuts?
 
 
Picture
This morning, in Modern Physics (don't you dare click away. If I have to suffer through this material for 6 hours a week then you can damn well pay attention to one blog post. Besides, I will reward your patience with pictures of cute animals if you keep reading) we talked about more general applications of Schroedinger's Time-Independent equation, as well as specific, vector-like properties of energy components in three dimensions.

I was on the edge of my seat the entire lecture. Not because I was particularly excited about the material, or drank too much coffee, but because I was expecting my physics professor to pull a rabbit out of his butt. As my lab partner said during the lecture, "Quantum Physics is pretty much, well, magic."

But not the good kind of magic. Not the happy, feel good magic of most disney movies, but the gut-churning, terror-inducing, fear raging kind in the Prestige that results in dead identical twins and chopped off fingers.

It's sort of like I'm Harry Potter, a young wizard who really doesn't understand what the hell is going on. Physics is my magic. Sometimes it produces fantastic results, like the first time I aced a test in college, and sometimes it explodes in my face. I've never been more proud and/or frustrated than while I work on physics problems. There's something so satisfying to a problem, to understanding exactly how and why every portion of it operates, even if it's just a few scratches of ink on paper. It's what keeps me going, even when I want to rip up paper, flip off my professor and storm forever out of the room.

Now that I'm going into teaching, it looks like I'm going to be sticking with it. Who knew? Definitely not me. I'm starting to feel like one of the particles I'm attempting to study, spiraling out of control while people around me try and fail to predict where I'll end up next. It's kind of an awesome feeling.

...s promised, cute animals.
Picture
Picture
Picture
 
 
Picture
As I took my second swig of Red Bull, my roommate looked over at me.

"Oh, it's going to be one of those nights," he said.

"Yep," I replied, as wings suddenly sprouted from my back and I zipped back into my side of the shoebox, I mean, University Suite. The fact is that my life, like many students at the University, is currently a living hell of papers, presentations and tests known collectively as Midterms. This week, I've got my first test (out of two) on Quantum Physics (my journalism friends will be unhappy to see that I have unnecessarily capitalized the Q and P, but I feel it is unwise to disrespect the subject. I'm a superstitious physicist, what can I say?), a 6 - 8 page paper about the films "Singin' in the Rain" and "Pride and Prejudice," (neither of which I have watched), a massive lab report due tomorrow (which I haven't started) and a physics presentation on "Dark Matter in Minnesota."

(Gulp) More Red Bull.

Actually, I completed the last entry, my physics presentation, earlier today. It went... alright. It got off to a rocky start. First off all, I had cut myself shaving, and whenever I craned my neck in a certain way, blood would start trickling out of my neck in a vampiric way. Second, I had drank two 24 fl. oz. bottles of Diet Mountain Dew, which had me wired and belching like the dog from "Christmas Vacation." Third, I was nervous. Ridiculously nervous. My professor, a relic from the stone age, scares the living crap out of me. It wasn't the actual presentation itself that worried me, but rather the 4-minute Q and A that followed.

Finally, it was my turn to talk. I bravely stood, carefully informed the class that they shouldn't worry if I burped, bled or barfed, and launched into my topic.

I hit the ground running. My overview, which normally took me about a minute and a half, lasted 30 seconds. If I didn't slow down, I was screwed. I began discussing the Virial Theorem, originally used by Fritz Zwicky to deduce that something was amiss in the Coma cluster of galaxies; using mathematics, I showed how he determined that some INVISIBLE AND MYSTERIOUS MASS was at work, bending light: DARK MATTER.

I was feeling better now. I gained confidence, describing some of the experiments going on in my home state of Minnesota, and finally, concluded my discussion.

I handled the Q&A relatively well. It helps to present on theoretical particles, because, well, most of the answers aren't known yet. So I can just shrug and look cute when I'm stressed, something another northerner has perfected.

Afterwards came the real terror: criticism from Mr. Professor.

Silently chiding myself for not attending church last weekend, I entered his office. He was smiling.

"Sit down so I can wipe the blood off the chair," he snickered, indicating the bloody pulp of the first presenter lying in a criticized heap on the floor. Sweet Jesus.

And then came the amazing... shocking revelation... He thought I'd done WELL.

Got an A, end of story. And I'm pretty psyched about it. Not so psyched about the fact I've wasted 25 minutes writing this. Back to beating my head against the shoebox wall-- doing homework.

(Gulp)