I had an amazing Wednesday last week, and it is these days that make the trip up here worthwhile so much more than simply the project that I am working on. Like a waterfall of information lapping down into a vast blue sea, the opportunities light a bright and exhilarating path.

I visited a smoke detector laboratory where they perform detector activation experiments:

I got a chance to meet with the Executive Director of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers:

And my co-advisor accompanied me along the way and was extremely insightful as he shared some tips that will make my future ride in life sure to be a must-read story. It’s exceptionally nice to have people who are in a great position recognize the potential in you and to assure you of their confidence. It makes my brain spill happy juice to be told that I “get it” with respect to the bigger picture of things; and that is what will cause a single person to alter the world as we see it and make it a better place. Feynman comes to mind. And then goes.

Why get worked up with the small annoyances in life when there’s… this.

Sure, I am working on stage 2 of a cable failure model using fire dynamics simulator (FDS) research, and the best part:

• I get to act out the day-to-day life of a NIST FDS worker
• I wholly appreciate the resources here, such as the macronormous computer cluster and teeming fire literature
• I meet and immerse myself into the brainy and non-stop academic world of fire ‘people’
• My wisdom takes in the important and cutting-edge topics and gets familiar what doesn’t matter, which is usually more important than what does

Now, let us just hope that I can effectively take all of this back with me to Houston in 1.5 weeks!

I just had the best start to a morning that I have experienced all summer. Maybe it was the morning air that breathed through me like a cold front in my lungs. Or maybe it’s the idea of a looming deadline and my last true week of work. Maybe it’s the suspense of being here at this awesome research complex hours before others arrive. Maybe it was the pleasant and early energizing breakfast with a good friend. What amplifies this morning experience is that that I don’t do this everyday, nor would my mind wish to: but today is today.

However I break it down, it feels good to be alive and working on science so early in the morning, with a clear plan of what I want to accomplish today. Not only to work “hard” (as society calls this thing that I love doing), but to better the way that I have been doing tasks before. Today, I want to drain my new pen of its ink. I want to fill up a ridiculous amount of pages in my science notebook with ideas and delicious tidbits to take back home to the academic world in Houston.

I want to breeze through my tasks like I was meant to be here. Aren’t I?

Finally, I don’t expect to impress my advisors here at NIST with my work. I am, after all, just a mere undergraduate student at this point. I do, however, intend to leave a positive impression of myself on them. And looking at the past 9 weeks, I can say that it has been quite successful in my eyes. Successful not just for me, but for them, my school, my friends, my family, my …

I hope you have a wonderful and astonishing day as well. I’ll be home in two weeks.

Time is winding down here like a trickling cold spring. I already have feelings of missing the summer rapidly being replaced by the joys of the exciting fall semester coming up real soon.

After the summer, I’ll wholeheartedly miss:

• the community of nerds
• the few amazingly mental and livingly appreciative friends that I’ve made here
• the free golden breakfasts and dinners (seriously)
• the lack of humidity and the cool, crispy delicious mornings
• the vacant worries about so many obligations – the vacation-like atmosphere
• having the top fire scientists merely a few feet away to talk to and learn from
• peeking through the vast fire science library – like no resource that I have seen before
• the ability to SSH into a sea of 40+ linux computers to calculate my FDS curiosities
• sitting by the pond having lunch with a dear friend, dear deer, geese, and a shady tree in the breeze

This fall, I explodingly and excitedly look forward to:

• sharing what I’ve learned here for the rest of my life, scholarly and real-life related
• getting to teach classes!
• learning more and more about Fire Dynamics Simulator and the beauty of the dynamics of fire for the rest of my life – I’ve only been working with FDS for a year now, after all, I know nothing…
• the sickening number of trips, and thus, experiences that I will be able to take around the world
• growing with the dedicated students at UHD who wish to be something in the fire protection world
• writing non-stop all week long
• meeting more and more progressive people in the world
• moving into a new house and making the most mentally conducive, fire studying, brain leaking, progressively thinking, and soul soothing place in my universe
• wondering how the weather will be in Massachusetts in a year
• having a comfortable amount of money to perform my goods in life

It really has been a fantastically mind-expanding experience. It’s not over yet! I still have two projects to work on, a presentation to give, a paper to publish, a lab notebook to fill, and many more days and nights to grow.

Also, I am bursting for Wednesday to come, when I get to visit one of the coolest and most robust smoke detector laboratories as well as the headquarters for the Society of Fire Protection Engineers and meet the director and such!

If you ever wonder what else you can do in life, take a moment to just start writing what you are thinking.