First Day at Work

June 13th, 2011

Hey guys,

I am currently concluding my first day at work, and while it is still fresh in my mind, I figured I would share it with you. Overall I learned a ton already and I am so happy and excited I get to spend my summer here. 

I will start with the good news, then the bad news, then more good news because I always like to end on a high note. 

Good news - round 1: Although my advisor will not be able to come into the office until Wednesday, I got to work with her grad student, Eric. Eric is super nice, helpful, and knowledgeable. I am sure all the work he has done with the back projection technique will come in handy. I spent all day on UNIX and learned a few tricks of the trade. My project focuses on 3 specific earthquakes so I retrieved the data from two separate databases and have been plugging and chugging along using scripts that Eric gave me. Also, I got a quick tour of the building (I am working in the Harvard University Natural History Museum building, how cool is that?) and met a few of the administrative people - all of whom were very nice and welcoming. I was offered 3 different desks in 3 different rooms, which I found a bit strange, but I ended up just picking the one nearest to Eric since he is such a good resource. That way we don't have to run around all time looking for each other. 

Now the bad news - as I was running these scripts I had to align the P-wave arrivals of the records from each station for each earthquake (3 plots with lots of squiggly lines) and my first one refused to align. I spent 5 hours arbitrarily plugging in whatever numbers I could think of to try and get the stupid P-waves to line up and it just wasn't happening. I didn't know which numbers to change in the 4 scripts I had to use to get the plot and it was just a total failure, well to me. Eric said I got it to the point that it was good for now but I would have to go back and tweak it later. 

Ok so more good news - Miaki and Eric are taking me to lunch on Thursday to "properly welcome me." Also tomorrow Eric and I are going to BU during lunch for a lecture on thermal mechanics of oceanic transform faults. Although it is not directly related to our project, it is really nice to be able to learn even more about other seismic endeavors people are researching. It's definitely a good way to keep up to date on the field.

On a totally random note, I think I saw Tom Rockwell on campus today. This is strange because he is a professor at my school in San Diego and I saw him at Harvard...I have only seen him once in San Diego and I saw him 3 times today. VERY WEIRD. I know you guys don't know who he is, but he is a very respected member of the seismic community. I think I will take the opportunity to finally introduce myself. 

That's all I have for now. I am going to go find food. Lizzie gave me a whole list of places to eat, so I better get crackin'.