Waiting in the lab

Sunday evening. Before going to our friends for a nice roast dinner, Katsu had to drop by the lab really quick to "fast the rats" so he can do experiments tomorrow. Giving me ample time for a post.

Michigan is really pretty in the spring and summer. It is really really green here. Especially after all the rain we've been having. It's quite a bit different from the meticulously watered and very nicely mowed lawns in Oklahoma or Texas. Here, it's like half the yards are errupting with flowers and weeds and who even knows what else. I am sure it has to do with the neighborhood we live in ... mostly old houses that you can distincly identify by decade - oh, that one was definately built in the 60's. I like it - a little messiness and not the cookie cutter suburban neighborhoods I've always lived in.

This has been a relaxing week ... sort of. I started my research. Which is basically reading papers, thinking, and writing equations. All by myself. And only talking to my advisor every now and then - once a week or so. I am sure it will take a little getting used to. It is so much more free-form than any job I've had before (excepting the other time I did research, but even then it was a very well-defined computer programming task) and definately more so than Katsu's research which is a 9-5 doing lab experiments kind of gig. We'll see if I like it. For anyone interested - I am researching the phase wrapping problem coming in imaging problems, especially in MRI applications, and developing a more statistical framework for solving the ill-posed problem. Exciting stuff, eh?

Church today (and yesterday) was Stake Conference. It was our first of those "broadcast" kind because we were out of town when they had one in Boston. So, all of Michigan and Pennslyvania stakes got to hear from Elder Perry, President Monson, Elder Tingey, and a sister from the Primary with a Japanese name. It was interesting ... I still don't really enjoy Stake Conference. Ward or general are more my thing. And it was interesting, because they called new stake presidency members and new bishops and counselors for one of the wards all during the adult session on Saturday night. And so on Sunday, we were with the University ward which seriously must have an average of at least one baby per family making for a very noisy meeting.

We want to take off on some small road trips this summer. Katsu's research has been a tad frustrating and he needs to get out of town and relax a bit more. And hopefully Tomo will come visit us this summer. SO that should be fun.