Chemistry Senior Seminar

Last Tuesday was a milestone for me. That was because I finally completed my senior seminar for chemistry.

Senior Seminar is a 35-40 minute talk that all senior chemistry majors must give to the Chemistry Department and the public regarding a subject in chemistry. This is an IN DEPTH analysis of a subject's chemistry. I chose Carbon Dioxide-Binding Organic Liquids. They are proposed as a means of capturing carbon dioxide out of industrial systems-- carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas-- and storing it so as to not contribute to global warming.

Well, my first downfall was that I spoke fast at a certain points, and along with my talk being very tight (in terms of time), this resulted in my final presentation time to be 25 minutes total. However, the entire experience was really rewarding. I was able to present on a subject that related to an issue that I was truly interested in- global warming. That, and this was good practice for things I will be presenting on in graduate school. I also used collaboration. A mentor at Iowa State (a scientist I hope to study under) provided certain papers on carbon sequestration that were extremely helpful, a good friend who is a graduate student at Penn State helped me with a mechanism I was having trouble portray, and my Monkey (inside joke) from Iowa State helped me with papers that I really needed, but Coe did not have access to.

I was pretty touched. The room was filled during my talk. My roommates took up the entire room, and friends who had graduated came back to see me present. That felt really good. I guess I had really high expectations of myself that I didn't feel I met. However, a few days later, a good friend of mine told me something that lifted my spirits. A few weeks prior to my talk, I attended the seminar of my advisor's wife. Her presentation was amazing, and I remembered thinking, "That is how I want to present. That is how my senior seminar needs to be." My friend compared me to her, saying it reminded her of that talk. I believe that Cindy (my advisor's wife) did a thousand times better than me. But still, it was nice to know that I was at least compared positively to her!

Either way, senior seminar is over, and now I can focus more on applying to graduate schools and jobs... it's very very daunting to think that there is only about 1.5 weeks of actual classes left before finals. Frightening....

My argument for why global warming was important and why people should go to my talk. This was on the final slide of my presentation... after the references, so I didn't really get to it. But it was there!!!

Tuesday, November 4th: I Voted

I woke up pretty early on Tuesday after my trip to Vegas. It was Election Day, and unliked most of the rest of Iowa, I opted to vote on this day itself, not necessarily early. This would be my first time that I have ever voted in general, let alone the presidential election.

I left Coe around 8:30 am, and walked to the voting station. Much to my surprise, there was no line!! I don't know if THAT many people voted early, or if everyone was just at work... but at the time, I didn't mind, so long as I got my vote in.

I'm not offended to say who I voted for. I'll admit: I voted for Obama. I was a great Hillary supporter, and even though she didn't win, I was still for Obama over McCain/Palin ticket. What truly won me over was Biden; my dream ticket would have been Clinton/Biden, but this worked out really well!

Anyway, here's a snapshot of election night:

All night, people around me were tense with excitement. I had to work at telecounseling RIGHT when the first polls on the east coast began to close. We immediately put CNN on the computers at work, and watched the projections live. As soon as work was over, I rushed to my apartment to watch the rest of the projections. As I entered the apartment, I looked at the TV: Obama had won Ohio!!! I was so excited and immediately text my roommate, Jeanice, who was at work, but I knew wanted to know what was going on. About a half an hour later, she burst through the door with an excited look on her face. "When you text me that Obama had won Ohio....!!!" She couldn't even finish her sentence, she was so ecstatic!

10:00 came, and I was staring at the screen as my roommates rummaged through the fridge in the kitchen. Another projection came on.

"Oh, look," I said. "Another projection, and it goes to Obama."

"Who is it for?" one of my roommate asked.

I looked. Something was different. I blinked.

And then I jumped up. "OH MY GOD!" I shouted. "HE WON!!!"

"He WHAT?!?!?!"

There was running into the living room as we crowded around the screen. There is was: Obama, President-Elect.

We began to cheer. Cell phones were ringing off the hook as friends and family called each other to announce the news, to offer congratulations to each other. I called my grandmother and my 'big brother' and many other close people, shouting "Happy President!" At one point, during a conversation, I heard noises.

"Do you hear that?" I asked my roommates.

"What?" they asked.

I shushed them, and we listened. There were cheers outside. Students had rushed out to the quad and were cheering at the top of their lungs. The apartment ceilings and walls were shaking with people jumping up and down. A few minutes later and group of girls passed right by our windows, singing, "Party like Barack-Star! Party like Barack-Star!!"

It was truly... TRULY... a special night! I've seen many students get excited over silly things. But that night was truly a very American=spirited night. There is such a stereotype of our generation not caring, not doing anything about our potential leadership; but I felt Coe became very involved. I can't tell you the numerous conversations I've had with people regarding issues and politics in every aspect. I was so proud that so many of us had worked to make a difference that night, and were proud for doing so.

Vegas, Vegas, Vegas!

Hey readers! I'm back!

Sorry for the huge delay in posting-- life got REALLY REALLY hectic from a particular event: Senior Seminar. So much has gone on, and instead of trying to fit it all at once, I decided I'm going to write about each topic one at a time over the next week (in order to make up for all the time I've deprived you of my adventures!). 

We'll start with Vegas. Right before Halloween (has it really been that long? wow!), the Writing Center went to LAS VEGAS, Nevada!!! Dr. Bob was taking us to the IWCA (International Writing Center Association?) conference where all these writing centers from around the nation (and world, I suppose, there were some people from London and Japan and Korea there) came and gave presentations about their writing centers.

Well! Let me tell you! I don't think I've ever been so proud to work for Coe's Writing Center as I did during this conference. There were SO many people from SO many universities there, yet when I asked almost everyone the size of their college, I found out that we were representing probably the smallest college there. But with that being said, we had the largest representation! 21 students went on this trip, along with three faculty. We were all required to presen

t a poster or seminar. Dr.

 Bob put me in charge of a team of five girls to do a poster on our Writing Fellowship Program, a program to allow incoming freshman compete to work in the writing center five hours a week in exchange for a $1000 fellowship each year. Well, needless to say, our poster was AWESOME! Not only did it look great (note the color coordination in poster in the picture; that's me talking about the program with a director of a writing center at another college), but no other writing center has this kind of program. People were really fascinated with the success of the program. ~75% of the people who now work in the Writing Center come from this Fellowship program. If you like writing and want a great way to make friends who are sociable and involved and serious about schoolwork as well as great leaders 

on campus, I recommend trying to go for this Writing Fellowship. The Writing Center has honestly been one of my greatest joys at Coe.

I learned a lot of other things at other presentations I attended. By the time the conference was done, I came out with two things: (1) Our writing center rocks. I don't know how many times people looked at my name tag with "Coe College" on it, did a double take, and said, "You're from Coe?! You guys are famous here! Oh my gosh, we hear SO much about you, you guys really know how to successfully run a writing center!", and (2) I wish we had a greater diversity of ESL students (English as a Second Language). Most of the ESL students here are Japanese, which is great, but I heard some of the difficulties with other students from other countries (such as Saudi Arabia, Korea, Thailand, countries in Africa) and wished that I could experience interactions with these people as well as study their writing.

Vegas social life: Well... Needless to

 say, Vegas is a whole new world. It's definitely NOT the Midwest! Flying over the Rockies was my favorite part of our 15-hour trips to and from (to save money, Bob drove us to Omaha, flew us to Denver, and THEN to Vegas!). Because everything is so expensive in vegas and I'm trying to save money for after college, I mostly went with friends to free events or to 

see the ridiculous resorts. Here is a pic of myself and three other WC consultants hitting up the Bellagio resort to see their autumn display. I also saw a pirate vs. sirens dance on Halloween night outside of Treasure Island, and then had a staring contest with the men of Blue Man group. It was fun! Nevertheless, there's no place like home, and after four days in Sin City... it was nice to come back to the heartland of America: Iowa. There's just something about the laid back atmosphere and "takin' it easy" ideology that suited me much more. :-)