On Sabbatical #12

It’s hard to believe, but Friday is my last day in the lab!  After that, it’s off to California for the Holidays, and then back to Oregon, where I’ll teach CHEM 300 – The Art and Science of Brewing during Linfield’s January term (yes, I have an awesome job).  Here are some top five lists – things I’ll miss, things I won’t miss, etc.

Top five things I’ll miss when my sabbatical is over

1. Freedom.  Definitely #1.  Time to work on what I want to, when I want to.  Time to read through the literature, or just read a good book.  Time to walk around campus.  Time off in the evenings.  Time without committee work.  Time to sight see.  I guess you might get the idea that I really have enjoyed my time.
2. Mexican Food.  It isn’t surprising that Tucson has amazing Mexican food and McMinnville doesn’t.  Mi Nidito, Guadalajara Grill, Casa Molina, Cafe Poca Cosa, …  Sadly, I’m returning to a Mexican food desert.
3. Jeanne’s Group.  The Pemberton group is full of helpful, intelligent and motivated students.  Anoma, Dallas, Angela, Colleen, Tracy, Matt, Goyce, Hui, and Lucinda.  Undergrads Greg and Ben were great too.  I hope that anyone going to graduate school or already there gets to work with a group like this.
4. UA Volleyball. We made it to almost all of the home volleyball games.  Best entertainment value in Tucson!
5. Weather the last month or so. It was pretty hot from August – October.  High 90’s if not over 100.  So I was really happy when it cooled down.  It’s been in the mid 70’s and sunny for quite a while now – perfect weather!

Top five things I won’t miss about sabbatical.

1. No beer thirty. ‘Nuff said.
2. Not being able to brew.
3. Ok, there really isn’t anything else.

Top five things I’ll miss about Tucson.

1. Mexican food. See above!
2. Rillito River Walk. Tahoe and I have really enjoyed this, with great views of the Catalina and Rincon mountains.
3. Saguaros. They’re awesome.
4. Sam Hughes Neighborhood. Near the University, a great neighborhood.  If we lived here, I’d want to live there, which would mean I’d need to have a pretty damn good salary.
5. Sun. It’s been nice seeing you…  See you again in June.  I hope.

Top five things I won’t miss about Tucson

1. The crackhood. We don’t live in the best neighborhood.
2. Beer desert. This ain’t beervana.  Nimbus and Barrio are good, as is Four Peaks, but it’s nothing like Oregon.  Even McMinnville has better beer offerings than Tucson.  Then there’s Portland…
3. Lack of seasons. I like the sun and warmth, but I also like to see fall colors and (a little) snow.  Tucson seasons:  hot and warm.
4. Brown. It’s a real desert, not just a beer desert.
5. Tucson. I wouldn’t want to live here – feels like big box central.  Tucson hasn’t done a good job of preserving it’s character.  Or maybe it’s character is defined by strip malls and chain stores.

Top five things I’m looking forward to.

1. Katie & her friends. It’s been rough for Katie, and she loves her friends.  It’ll be good to see them together again.
2. Our friends. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Sappy, I know.
3. Brewing and Beer culture. I didn’t bring my brewing equipment with me.  I need to brew.  Soon.  I also need some good NW beer.
4. Linfield Students & Teaching. Yes, I missed it all.  There’s a reason I went into this business.  Of course, I’ll probably not miss it when the first stack of papers to grade appears.
5. Seasons. Bummed we missed fall, my favorite season, but it’ll be nice to get back to a place where there are seasons.

Top five things I’m not looking forward to.

1. Grading. I despise it.  I wonder if it is a necessary evil, or just an evil.
2. Committees. Yeah.
3. Riding into the wind on a rainy day. I don’t mind wind or rain.  I don’t appreciate the combination.
4. Mexican Food. I think it’ll be awhile before we go out for this in Mac.  It took us nearly 15 years to come down off the Tucson Mexican food high last time.  Plus Indiana (not known for Mexican food), Massachusetts (not known for Mexican food) and South Carolina (surprisingly not known for Mexican food).
5. Loss of free time. I have to get used to the idea that I have a job again.

Top five most enjoyable moments.

1. Katie – Daddy days. While Dayna spent time with buddies from her past, Katie and I had a blast at volleyball games, mini-golf and frozen yogurt places.
2. Tahoe at the dog park. He loves dog parks now.  I hope Mac’s comes through.
3. Renewing Acquaintances. Getting to know the Kurmes family, Millers, Henegars, and Suzy + kids again.  Awesome families.  Wish we could take all of them to Mac with us.  They’d be a great addition, and all our friends back there would like them too.
4. Visiting Grandma. She’s 98, and I don’t know how much longer she’ll be with us, so it was really great to have a chance to see her again.
5. Walking around Campus. It’s always sunny and nice out, so it’s fun to walk around and see what has and hasn’t changed in 20 years.

What Makes My Day?

Getting an email from a former student like this (former student’s name and current place of work removed):

Dr. Gilbert,

My name is Former Student. I’m not sure if you remember me, but I was a  Gen. Chem student of yours about 4 or 5 years ago at Linfield. I won’t exaggerate when I say that Gen Chem was the proudest “C” I ever earned. Your class was tough and you and Dr. Reinert both had high expectations of us. At the time, I didn’t truly understand what its application in my future would mean,  only that i needed it for the next step in my education. Well, college has been over for a few years now and looking back, Gen Chem might have been the most useful and applicable course I took at Linfield. It wasn’t just the stoichiometry and gas laws; It was the way you taught us to analyze, think, and problem solve. Also, no 8am lecture is complete without kegs of “whoop ass” (one of my favorites, by the way). So, thanks for the mind molding and development of my scientific thought processes! These days I’m working as a RN in a Transplant Intensive Care Unit at A Big University Hospital here in a large city on the east coast. We admit highly unstable liver, kidney, and small bowel transplants from the operating
room in hopes of keeping them alive and providing a better quality of life for these chronically ill people. As a nurse, my job is essentially managing and applying a variety of different pharmocological therapies and treatments based on laboratory values and patient assessments. I analyze results of arterial blood gases and a multitude of other tests to prompt the physician when acid/base disturbances and electrolyte imbalances occur. Yesterday, as an example, I administered 3, 50 meq ampules of NaHCO3 to correct a patient in a metabolic acidosis with a pH of 7.05. How cool is that?
Chemistry in action…

If you have pre-nursing students (or any students really) who are wondering why they have to take general chemistry, this guy does a great job of stating why.  It ain’t really the chemistry you’re learning – it’s the analytical and critical thinking that are important, and that’s good for whatever you want to do.  Of course it probably helps that this student has been working in the real world for a while.  That tends to put many things into perspective.  Which is why I’ve avoided it for as long as possible!  Feel free to pass this on to any students who you think might need to read it.

On Sabbatical – #11

Wow, it’s hard to believe, but I’ve reached the half-way point of this sabbatical.  What does that mean?  Well, for this post, it means a little looking back, and a little looking forward.

Winning Name?

The votes are in.  Brianfredo Dalefino Gilbertega is the winner.  Frankly, I’m just glad some people actually voted.

Poll – Nobel Worthy Name?

The other night my wife told me I’d never win a chemistry Nobel prize until my name was more interesting.  If that’s all it takes, I’m willing to take the plunge!  Several folks suggested some names – here they are.  Let me know by your vote which is the best.  Or make a different suggestion.

Holy Batballs Batman!

Surprisingly, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) isn’t as exciting as it might sound.  I know, I was shocked too.  A lot goes into SEM.  First, you have to coat your samples.  I’ve been coating mine with gold and palladium (not enough to get rich on though).  Then, you have to sit around while the vacuum chamber that your samples will be placed in vents (generally three whole minutes!), put the samples in, and pump it back down (another three minutes!).  After that you have to turn on the electron gun (cool) and align everything.  Just getting ready takes about twenty frickin minutes!

After all of that, you take pictures of your samples.  Here’s one I got yesterday of a silica nanosphere (ok, nanoball) array:

On Sabbatical #10

Life, especially Katie’s, has gotten much better since the last update.  Katie was having a real hard time for a while – new town, new school, new friends.  The folks at her school wanted to move her into a new class, which she didn’t want to do, even though the kids in the class were really rowdy and disrespectful, because she had made several friends.  Dayna and I spent the better part of a day at her school talking with the counselor and then observing the new class.  Many things about it were better:  smaller (13 students instead of > 20), quieter, and more advanced math.  By the end of the day, Katie wanted us to leave and was fine.  Since then, she’s gotten to know the kids in that class better, and has joined a Girl Scout troop that includes some of the girls in her class.  She’s even told us that she actually likes Tucson!

My research is moving along.  I’ve gotten to be pretty decent at making silica nanoballs.  Now I’m trying to make 3 dimensional arrays of them with some gold nanoparticles included.  This takes time – 2-3 days for array formation, so I have a lot of time on my hands to work on other things.  A couple of weeks ago, I spent most of my time preparing for group meeting (my first since I was a postdoc about 14 years ago!).  The group meeting went well.  I talked about research at Linfied (DMAC for those of you who’ve been following this blog), and what teaching/researching at a school like Linfield.  It was well-received, with some good discussion – both about my research (Jeanne had some excellent suggestions of things to look for at some point) and questions from students about teaching positions.

Dayna’s enjoying catching up with friends.  It’s amazing how many of her’s still live in the area.  Today she got to have brunch at La Paloma with a Tucson friend from grade school.  Katie and I weren’t invited, but we had fun anyway.  Let’s see, what else?  We’ve been going to UA volleyball games – this will be a big week since both of the Oregon schools are coming.  It’s definitely fall weather here (sunny, mid 80’s), and Tahoe still loves going to the dog park (although he tears his paws up chasing balls).

On Sabbatical #9

“I miss the cold and the rain. I love McMinnville. I love Oregon. I want to go home,” cried Katie tonight….oh, how it pulls on my heartstrings.

My wife’s Facebook status this morning.  One of the most difficult aspects of this sabbatical has been the emotional part.  Yeah, hard to believe it, but I actually am a sensitive guy.  On one hand, I really am enjoying the work I’m doing in the Pemberton lab, rediscovering U of A, and reconnecting with old friends.  On the other hand, this trip has been and is really difficult for our daughter.

Our daughter is in middle school.  So, right there, you know immediately that she is in one of the more interesting portions of her life.  To come on this sabbatical, we, ok I dragged her away from the really great friends and school she has back in McMinnville, transplanted her in the middle of an unfamiliar city, with a strange climate, and forced her to go to a school at which she knew no one.  So, if you were her, how would you feel?

She has made some friends here.  Of course, she’s only known these girls for a few weeks, which can’t replace friendships she’s made over years back in Mac.  There have been tough times too – the first group of girls she made friends with dumped her rather unceremoniously.  Middle school drama.  Gotta hate it.  She made new friends who seem to be nicer so far, but part of the difficulty is getting them together outside of school.  The school is on the Davis-Monthan Air Force base, and nearly all of the kids live on base, which is difficult to get onto.

The latest problem has been misbehavior in the classroom.  One of the teachers was out for a week after an emergency appendectomy, and the sub apparently had no clue about how to manage the classroom.  The school has strict discipline – talking in class can result in Saturday detentions – but the sub didn’t follow through, and instead had large numbers of kids in the class yelling obscenities when she was out of the room.  The school’s solution seems to be to try and move our daughter into a different class – thus removing her from the only friends she’s made here.  Yeah, she’s not thrilled with that.  We’re meeting with the assistant principal tomorrow morning to talk about it.

So, as parents who love our daughter, what are we doing to try and keep her spirits up?  As much as we can.  We’re trying (as many of our friends have suggested) to find fun things to do here that we can only do in Tucson.  We’re going to fun things like the Grease sing along at The Loft, and Spamalot next weekend.  We’ve broken down and let her have a cell phone with a texting plan (amazingly she’s not glued to the thing) so she can keep in touch with her friends back in Mac.  We Skype whenever schedules work out.  And we try to remind her that she only has X # of weeks left.  Of course, to her, 13 weeks may as well be forever.

How to Increase Problem Solving Abilities

Melanie Cooper from Clemson University was yesterday’s speaker at the chemistry department colloquium.  Her talk was about research in chemical education about what increases problem solving abilities in general chemistry students, most of which she has published in the J. Chem. Ed. vol. 85, pg 866 (2008) (sorry, not a free article).  I’ll highlight what she and her co-workers found, but for the full story you really should just read the article.

One of the first issues she dealt with was exactly what she meant by problem solving, which she quotes from Anderson as “What you do when you don’t know what to do.”  Her talk, and the JCE paper referenced above, both center on students solving open ended, ill-defined problems (so, not something like, how many Ne atoms are there in 1 g of Ne?).    Students in her study were applying previously acquired knowledge to case-based problems.  The results of the study debunk five common myths about learning and problem solving.

On Sabbatical – #8

I’ve decided that I really like being back in a research group. Especially as a visiting professor – no classes to teach, no committee work, no advising. Just regular lab work. In other words, fun! So what, exactly am I doing here, and what is the group like? I’m sure that’s exactly what you’re all wondering. If you aren’t, too bad, because that’s what this sabbatical post will be about. If you want to know about something else, leave it in the comments and I’ll write about that sometime.