notes on lab life

[nibot]

The first couple months here were all work. I mean, we were at the lab from something like 10am to 11pm every workday. And there's about an hour commute to get there and to get back. Delightfully, however, we recently had an influx of visitors, Nic[olás] and Aidan , giving us a kind of critical density of Young And Hip Persons* (in the words of the chief scientist), which has made our lab-rat existences infinitely more pleasant. For example, we somehow stole away 2 hours of time at the lab late one night to project a movie (Gerry—it was kind of terrible) in the lab's auditorium; and we have variously gotten away to New Orleans and Lafayette and the Chimes and Louie's. It's also nice to have another student to work with; Nic is my counterpart at the LIGO lab in Washington, and we are working on the same thing here, and keeping the same schedule, which allows carpooling, and stealing breakfast at his hotel. Aidan was staying at the same place, and it kind of makes me imagine our little microscopic labrat social group might as well give up renting places of our own and just crash and carpool with the visitors (whose hotel, car, and per diem are paid by Caltech).

* Also including Kate (visiting grad student from Florida), Dan (interferometer operator at LLO), and Rupal (LSU grad student and laser enthusiast).