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I won't get to go see Le Nozze di Figaro after all. The only other person here whom I've met who likes classical music, one of the UIowa physics undergrads, can't go. And tonight I've missed Ultimate because the REU student who would have been driving me had to make an unexpected trip to Davenport, an hour away. Oh well, I guess I'll just go for a run. But I'm really disappointed about missing the opera.

So what will I be up to this weekend? If I at least have research to work on I might as well just hole myself up in the lab. That at least beats drinking or just aimless poking around on LJ. I will also continue Anna Karenina.

And stupid me -- I spent half the afternoon trying to figure out why I was getting ratty data from my Langmuir probe. Turns out I had forgotten to open one of 3 or 4 valves admitting argon into the plasma chamber. That would have screwed up all the pressure readings; I guess it somehow managed to make a plasma off the residual gas in the lines.

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So after my last discontented post, I went out for a run. I must have gone for 3 miles or so, which isn't much but is for me a substantial run (gone are those high school higher-mileage weeks with 6-7 mile runs every day!). I ran down to the UIowa Hospital area, which is remarkably pretty. There's a pedestrian traiil through some garden-like woods that felt totally different from the main downtown campus. There's also a quadrangle and arch building that reminds me of Pem Arch at Bryn Mawr. If only the food here was as good as that at BMC!

And then I cooked dinner, having missed the dining hall hours. I reheated the leftover vegetable soup I had made on Sunday, steamed rice, and made a vegetable omelet. It was a good meal, even if the fare was simple. I now greatly appreciate how Sharples is college-run and not managed by some big company like Aramark, as are Iowa's dining halls. One of my biggest gripes here is that the vegetables are always overcooked to the point of being almost completely devoid of flavor and texture.

Also, I called gerbilicious85 and we discussed possibilities of things to do in Chicago when I have a few hours there between my flight and the Greyhound back to Iowa on June 21. Possibilities, depending on available modes of transportation, include the Navy Pier or the Art Institute of Chicago.

Now, time for bed as I'm trying to reset my biological clock to be able to go run early in the morning, like 6:30ish.