Life

I decided that I should post something, even though not a whole lot is going on right now. Let me tell all what it is that I do do.

I'm taking seven classes here at BYU. The classes that I am taking are Basic Vocal Skills, World History until the Renaissance, Statistical Mechanics, Introduction to Mathematical Proofs, Optics, Computational Partial Differential Equations and Experiments in Modern Physics.

I really enjoy all of my classes, but they keep me on my toes. For example, yesterday I spent about 13 hours on my thermo (statistical mechanics) homework. Thermo tends to take a long time to finish. In my history class we have been reading selections from world literature, and I have found that I really enjoyed reading parts of the Illiad and the Ramyana. I even enjoy discussing their implications in class. This makes me think that a literature class might not be such a bad idea, as I had supposed when I first came to BYU. High school English class didn't give me warm fuzzies.

In addition to class work, I am also doing research. My current research is on exploding balloons. I work on high speed video of various exploding things. We want to post some to YouTube sometime, but we aren't there yet. I also am working on finding an analytic mathematical model for the balloon bursts. I am also still looking for a senior thesis, so my research could very well change soon.

I also work at the Provo Temple as an ordinance worker. That is a wonderful thing to do, in my mind.

Finally, if I have time left over, I usually spend it with my girlfriend, Jessica Morgan. It helps that she is in many of the same classes as me (particularly the long homework ones), so we get to work together a lot.

Here are some pictures!

Here is a picture of the snowman that Jessica and I built. A friend named Chris came over and help us on the cleaning up portion. We named him Calvin, and we found out that he is from Morocco. We also found out the next morning that he is fatally allergic to sunlight. He didn't last very long.



This picture is of my home: the homework lounge for physics majors. This is Zephne Larsen being attacked/hugged by friends.

I hope that you enjoyed the post!

Not the Route

An interesting and varied life

This blog is devoted to pictures I have taken (somewhat) recently. After a picture I will give a brief explanation of it. If further details are desired, please comment!

This is just a really pretty scene I saw coming home one night. I usually come home at times when there is no sun.
This is me doing an experiment for class.
We were measuring current through salinated water.
We were trying to find out whether electrolysis depended on amount of surface area and distance.
We tried a couple of methods of showing this.
Our conclusion was that it does matter.
You can tell which side made hydrogen and which side made chlorine gas by the color of the water.
It was an interesting experiment.
And the crowd came a tumbling down...
BYU vs. UofU. I like the sea of blue and the oasis of red feeling.
Thanksgiving pies at the Oxboroughs!
I like ice cream. I like liquid nitrogen. I don't know if you can get much better than this!
This is a pretty scene that I saw. I'm not sure, but I think that it was coming back from the temple.
I have always wanted scriptures in a raisin box. Not really, but I really liked the idea. Maybe Kathryn could do something like this...
This is having too much fun with liquid nitrogen. This is the result of a wrench, water, nitrogen, water, nitrogen, water, nitrogen, water, ... , ... , ... , and then a torque. You can see the layers of ice if you look carefully.
This is a picture of a different experiment involving superconductors.
The great 2 meter stick balancing act. Sometimes the tutorial lab got kind of slow.
Provo temple.
Isn't it pretty?

Well, that's it for my brief summary. Let me know if more details on any of these are desired.