So, I’ve been here almost three days now.  Nice place.  Covers a ginormous area.  The weather is colder than in NYC and it has been raining intermittently.  Yesterday, we were able to locate “Fall Creek” - famous for a high suicide rate.  Let me make one thing clear: Cornell and Ithaca are gorgeous (or gorges - same thing).  But they are also far away from any large town/city, so things can get boring fast.  As an undergraduate user of the Cornell Nanoscale Facility, I am not allowed in except during 8AM - 6PM.  This has restricted what I can do and when.  Training took more or less all of Monday and Tuesday but I got the ball rolling on my processing today.  I’m hoping the first stage will be done tomorrow morning and then I can do the second stage in the afternoon.  The final stage will probably have to be done by the graduate student I work with since I won’t able to get into or stay inside the facility after 6PM.  We have to get out of Ithaca on Thursday night or early Friday morning.  I’m hoping that I don’t have to return for some small processing.

Also, once I get back, I’ll upload all the pictures I’m taking here.

Perhaps some of you know about this already, but I’m staying in NYC for the summer to work with my adviser on research.  I haven’t settled on a project yet, but I have a choice of two groups that I can work with.  I can either work on solar cells or I can work on microelectronics.

Both areas involve electronic materials (mostly silicon) and the use of sequential lateral solidification to make better cells or microelectronics.  Both areas sound interesting.  If you’ve followed my epic quest that finally ended when I bought the N95 back in February, then you know how picky I am and how much time I spend thinking and researching before I make a decision.

Right now I’m leaning more towards microelectronics and I have until the week of May 26 to make a final decision.  For those not scientifically inclined, the two choices as follows:  I get to either save the world (no cheerleaders involved, sadly) or I get to do something that will eventually help the electronics industry tremendously.  And as of right now, I’m biased towards the electronics industry.

If you feel like it, leave comments.  Otherwise, sit back and wonder how I’m only two posts away from a full week of blog posts.