My mentor's name is Lisa. Yes, this creates some confusion. When greeted by Prof. Alan Heeger, (winner of the Nobel Prize in chem in 2000) he exclaimed "Lisa and Lissa! What do i call you? Lissa squared?"

Her project has to do with thin film coating of polymers... This summer, i've learned so much. Things i never would have guessed. Like, the politics behind getting patents. And how hard it is to find proper housing in Santa Barbara when you have a pet dog.

Ranger in science lab

Ranger comes a lot of places with us. He likes science.
I look like i really do... though in reality....
Lissa at Uv-Vis

just kidding! of course! My summer so far has been a lot of fun, definitely. I've made a lot of new friends. like craig. boy is he an odd character .
lissa and craig.

Let me tell you a story about craig . We, as you can see, worked briefly in the clean room. This means we wanted to gown up like silly ghosts and play in particle-free air. This means we cared about cleanliness, and thus took measures to ensure that there were no particles on our samples (thin film resistors that we created with the help of elaine ). This means that we blew off our samples with nitrogen, as we held tightly to a corner with tweezers. But craig... forgot which was nitrogen and which was water, and sprayed his sample with water. Thus my sample came out clear and shiny. Thus his sample came out with rainbow streaks.
Below is my group, B, of resistor-makers!

We've taken a lot of field trips. In addition to the UCSB cleanroom that we are using in the picture above, we also went to a clean room at Able Engineering.
Danielle and the Sea Star

This is Danielle. She's a teacher whose doing an internship of her own, but she hangs out with us, in our morning meetings and such. She's so amazing. Danielle loves everything about biology, especially octopus. Her enthusiasm about it never fails to excite everyone else around her. Man, she cracks me up... Is she sniffing a sea star? Yep, i guess she is. Well, better sniffing than eating, i suppose. This took place at the Marine Biology lab at UCSB,another field trip of ours.
Below is a picture of most of us, having a good time, outside the Marine biology building.
From left: Backrow: Kelley, Diana, Sherry, Lissa, Chelsea, Will, Lukas, and Albert
Front row: Zach, Karen, Craig, and Danielle

But i think that until this point i have forgotten to mention one of the biggest parts of my summer experience... Sports. As you may or may not know, my biggest sport is lifting the food to my mouth. I do not make a habit of exercise, unless i absolutely must. Thus i was in for a shock when my fellow Apprentice Researchers revealed their love for both soccer and ultimate frisbee. And yes, both require tremendous amounts of running. But look! I'm actually moving, as indicated by the swish of my ponytail...
. sports

This is not to say that the whole summer has been fun and games... nono, quite on the contrary. Wednesday mornings means presentations, and most require a lot of laborious research. Below are Craig and Chelsea presenting on wafer fusion. The same bubbly people from sports now have to calm down and present their scientific data in an orderly, presentable way. However, if you look closely, you can see that they've added a bit of humor: on the slide is a "picture of my colleague" says Chelsea.

Craig and Chelsea

Early on in the summer, we took a couple field trips to Isla Vista school to teach the kids about static, current, electricity, and the rest. My fellow teachers were Chelsea, Karen, and Daniel, and we had a great time though our class was undoubtedly the noisiest!!
A week before the program ends, we gather to take a picture outside Physical Sciences North. Back row: Craig, Albert, Zach, Will, Daniel, and Lukas. Front row: Karen, Lissa, Sherry, Diana, Chelsea, and Kelley.
group

Amazing that we all, for once, kept our hands to ourselves. I've gotten to know everyone quite well, and we've hung out OUTSIDE of the program also. For example, most of the girls went to see legally blonde 2 together the second day it came out in the theatres. During the movie, Craig called me. Then he called Diana. Then he called Chelsea . and so it went, down the line, in rapid succession. Odd to think that 2 months ago, I had no idea who half these people were. Also, i've gotten to know the people i DID know before even better. Now, when we get back to school and the yearbook comes around asking for summer pictures, Karen and I will have plenty to show them! Below: us in the chem lab
karen and lissa

Future scientists? hrm i'm not sure. We'll see. We started the summer as two silly girls trying to earn enough money to go to europe next summer. And now? we're two silly girls who know how to solder, and trying to save our money so that we have enough to go to Europe next summer... Below: Lissa, Karen, Sherry in marine biology field trip
lissa, karen, sherry

My summer of self discovery has turned into a summer of science discovery, into labs with noxious fumes and noxious personalities, but also into uncharted territories of wonderful, kind people. Like elaine , a grad student who hung out with us, despite being attacked by craig every time someone had a camera.
elaine

And Dr Evelyn Hu, whom i had only read about before.

And wendy and mike, with us all the way.
wendy and dog

And to my fellow researchers, i bade a fond farewell... Thanks for the great summer. funny