Interview!

A quick note, I just received notice that BYU-Idaho wishes to interview me for the open Chemistry professor position. Let's just say, I'm flippin' excited.

Ups and Downs

Sorry it has been a while since either of us has written anything. For those who couldn't quite follow Kristina's post, we're really busy. She's got this organic chemistry lab class where she's supposed to be there from 9 to 6, and in her remaining time write lab reports and prepare procedures for what's next and order chemicals and everything. It's more difficult and time demanding than anything I ever had to do. And while she's doing that, I'm writing my dissertation. And somewhere in there someone is supposed to go grocery shopping and wash dishes and do laundry. Honestly, we do as little of that as possible. We've kind of gotten on a routine of only washing dishes once a week.

Along with all of that, and because of it, we've had a lot of ups and downs over the past few months. Sometimes it can flip really fast too. I go back and forth between thinking all my data is worthless and I'm betting the rest of my life on shoddy conclusions (yesterday), and then realizing I know what's going on and my data is actually pretty good (today). Let me demonstrate.

This graph got me down:

It made for a hard day. On the right axis is what I measured (FOTOS) for iso-pentane concentrations divided by what was measured at the observatory at Hohenpeißenberg (MOHp) as a function of the measured concentration. It basically shows that the values I measured for iso-pentane underestimate the actual value by up to 80%. That's not good. Especially since iso-pentane is one of the three compounds I measured in Finland on which my big chapter is based. It is times like these when I ask myself what I'm doing with my life. Then I remembered what I had done wrong. (Non-science types can now skip to the next picture.) I had the timing of my mass spec ion grouping such that I switched ion groups in the middle of this peak. Not on purpose of course, but because iso-pentane has signal at ions in both groups, the total ion signal looked okay, but the individual mass-to-charge signals contained clipped peaks. I thought about how I could prove that, then realized that if I plot as a function of peak retention time, it should be obvious. The ion grouping switch occurred at 3.0 minutes, so those points near 3.0 minutes would be more clipped, progressing upward until the peak is fully within the ion group window. I made that plot today.

This graph got me back up:

See how beautiful it is. That is such an amazing correlation I had to run around showing everyone. It shows that I can explain the discrepancy, and better yet, that the changes I made before going to Finland should result in highly reliable data. All is once again right in the world.

So lots of ups and downs, but it looks like we'll both end on an up.

I'm getting excited about becoming a teacher again. A couple weeks back, I gave the lesson at the home evening activity for the young single adults. (I'm the member of the Bishopric assigned to the YSAs). I decided to talk about how the rules, laws and commandments we chose to follow shape the kind of person we are. To demonstrate that, I explained how in quantum mechanics, the difference between a particle-in-a-box and a harmonic oscillator is not related to the nature of the particle (the kinetic energy term for both is the same), but rather the boundaries within which it exists (the potential energy term, which varies based on the type of potential well in which the particle is contained). Surprisingly, only one person seemed to follow my reasoning, but she was so excited about the concept that it made it worth it. (Don't worry, in the end I switched to scripture references, and then most everyone got my point.) Yeah, I'm excited to be a teacher. I haven't heard anything from BYU-Idaho yet, and plan to write a follow-up email this weekend if I don't hear from them by then.

Well, that's probably enough for now. Class dismissed. Please leave your quizzes on my desk and remember to read chapter four, sections one and two before our next lesson on Monday.

Mein schwieriges Wintersemester

Dank Thomas´Motivation versuche ich jetzt mal meinen ersten Eintrag. Gerade schone ich mich zu Hause wegen einer fiesen Erkältung. Dabei sollte ich fleißig im Labor arbeiten... Ich habe nämlich ein großes Laborpraktikum mit vielen Synthesen, das über das ganze Wintersemester geht. Jeden Tag von 9 bis 18 Uhr, jede Woche, bis Mitte Februar. Es ist sehr anspruchsvoll, und ich musste im Vorfeld einige Ängste überwinden, um damit anzufangen. Jetzt lerne ich sehr viel Neues kennen und arbeite sehr selbständig. Das macht auch öfters mal Freude, besonders wenn etwas gut funktioniert. Oft funktionieren die Dinge nicht so gut, etwas Ungeplantes passiert oder ich wurde wegen einem Fehler ausgeschimpft. Dann ist es schwer. Aber ich sage mir, ich ziehe das auf jeden Fall durch. In Aaron habe ich den besten Rückhalt und viel Unterstützung.
Wir freuen uns übrigens auch schon auf Weihnachten bei Mutti und darauf, euch alle wiederzusehen! Die Karte mit den vier kleinen Thronis fand ich sehr hübsch. Das Baby schaut noch ein bisschen skeptisch ;), aber sie sehen alle sehr glücklich aus.
Aaron ist derweile fleißig am Arbeiten. Ich muss jetzt mal meinen Mann loben, denn er ist einfach der Beste. :)
Das soll´s für heute gewesen sein. Das Foto unten zeigt uns auf dem Spielplatz, als Dani und Mathias uns im Oktober besucht haben.

Hello .... Florence

Kristina wanted to start a blog together. So here we go. We're both signed up as authors here, so some entries will be from me and some from her. To make it even more exciting, we might even switch between English and German. We'll see. That is actually a recurring question. We want to do things for our whole family, but then you have to pick a language. So we end up doing stuff in English, because my family have no German and Kristina's can so varying degrees English, aber manche Sachen werden wir trotzdem in Deutsch schreiben, besonders Kristina. Wenn ich zu viel auf Deutsch schreibe, dann wird Kristinas Familie lernen, wie schlecht mein Deutsch wirklich ist. So welcome.

Okay, so that this post has some meat, I'll also write a bit about our recent trip to Florence. It was awesome. Really beautiful, amazing artwork and incredible ice cream. I really enjoyed the Uffizi Museum. There is so much classic Renaissance art in Florence

that when we came back home and looked through a History of Painting book, we saw more than 50% of the pictures in this book there in Florence. Many of these paintings are ones that I've seen my whole life in history classes and what-not, like the "Birth of Venus" by Botticelli, and other works by Titian, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and others.

But I think what I enjoyed the most was just walking through the city, enjoying the beautiful squares with amazing statues and fountains. Our favorite square was the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio and Uffizi. It was somehow separate from the busy part of the city. One evening we came through this square and a street performer was set up in one corner singing Paul Simon and the Beatles. It was beautiful, we could hear this quite beautiful music as we wandered through the entry to the Palazzo. The entry courtyard had some beautiful statues and decor. I found it to be quite romantic.

Whenever we make such a trip (like when we went to Paris), Kristina says

that we don't have to go to a nice restaurant everyday, but once she wants to go to a nice place. The second night there, we visited the little restaurant Pepo, which we had found in our guide book. When we got there, it was completely empty. I was a little uncertain about going there, with restaurants empty is often a bad sign, right? But then I checked the hours, they opened at 7 pm and it was like five after. I was soon glad that we were there so early because the place filled up. We spent a wonderful two hours wandering through seafood appetizers (caviar, pickled herring, and friends), an Italian Schnitzel, grilled chicken with Parmesan slices (yes it is possible to slice, not sure how they did it, but they did), ending in at a rich, wonderful slice of chocolate cake. It was so great to relax and enjoy really amazing food. It was so good, we didn't have room for ice cream afterward. Before coming, we were wondering whether the ice cream really is better in Italy. (The crepes in Paris weren't much better than the ones in Mainz.) Let me just say, I wouldn't go to Florence just for the ice cream, but you wouldn't be disappointed if you did.