Let me just come right out and say it: I passed the qual.

That would be the Syracuse University Physics Department PhD Qualifying Exam.  For those that don’t know, it’s a two day exam, 3 hours each day, 5 problems each day.  These are homework level problems, which means, if they’re assigned as a homework problem, they’ll probably take between 1-5 hours to complete.  And we have to do 5 problem in 3 hours.

Passing this test is considered a Big Deal.  Very important, more or less do or die kind of a thing.  Once you’ve passed it, your done demonstrating that you are capable of being a PhD.  You know your stuff, and you know how to figure things out.  You just have to carry on doing that.

So, what am I qualified to do?

Well, I guess that would be 4-5 more years of work on a research topic.  Write a thesis and present it.  You know, the hard-but-fun part of a PhD program.

some of the recent foods we have been enjoying:

Saturday: blue berry pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes.  party foods: see the picture!

Make sure that you click through- all the dishes are noted with Flickr’s fancy noting system.

Sunday: grilled cheese sandwiches.  Noteworthy because one of them was on baguette, so extra delicious.  But then again, there was no fresh thyme, so it sort of cancels.  Also we had “the best tomato soup ever”, which is the same recipe as the tomato soup of ‘09.

Monday: breakfast: greek yogurt with peanut butter, honey and graham crackers.  dinner: see this picture:

Tuesday: dinner: home made pizza! I can state that the home pizza system is now up and running. we made four, but only at 2 pizzas:

-broccoli and yellow peppers (a favorite)
- portabella, shitake, and onion
- cheese and leftovers other toppings
- tomato, shallot and blue cheese

the winner of the two we ate last night was portabella, shitake and onion.  We also ate the broccoli and yellow pepper, which was also delicious. Sorry, no pictures.

a pita filled with lemony tofu, hummus, red onion, feta and cucumbers.

For the lemon dressing

• zest of one lemon (again, I shave the lemon with a paring knife and mince the larger zest pieces to tiny little pieces)
• scant 1/4 cup olive oil
• black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano (fresh is better, I used dried)
• 1/4 teaspoon each thyme, rosemary
• pinch red pepper flakes

Mix all that together and let the flavors meld for at least an hour, overnight is better.

For the tofu, cut the block of extra firm tofu into 6 steaks, saute over medium heat for about 8-10 minutes per side, until dark golden.  Toss in the lemon oil mixtures, mix around to coat, maybe a minute or two.  A good size pinch of salt on top, then take them out of the pan.

I used store bought hummus and feta/red onion/cucumber stuff.  I’d rather have made it myself, but finals are fast approaching.

Cut the pita in half, smear some hummus on one side, insert your tofu, put a nice pile of the other ingredients on top, and nom nom away.  Delicious!

Variations: grill the tofu instead of saute, before coating with lemon stuff.  Tzatziki, or other dressing.

Just something I thought up on my way home from school today, worked out quite well.

I made lemon pasta last night, for the first time in a few years.  Also, this rendition was the closest to the lemon pasta I had in Italy back in 1997.  The recipe was very simple, and quite tasty.  I made this up on the spot last night:

• zest of one lemon.  I used a paring knife to “shave” off the zest, then minced it to little tiny pieces (also cut my thumb).
• 3-4 Tablespoons butter
• 2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt and black pepper
• 1 pound small pasta (bow ties, penne, etc.)

melt the butter in a pan over low heat, add the olive oil, the zest and the salt.  warm through.  squeeze in lemon juice.  set heat to as low as possible or turn off.  cook the pasta to al dente, drain, add the sauce to the pasta.  Serve with Parmesan cheese.

We also had lightly sauted asparagus: olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, asparagus.  A very yummy and quick Friday night dinner!

SU Quad on a sunny spring afternoon.

It sure looks like spring has sprung on the quad!  Could snow at any moment though…

I’ve definitely got the first-year physics grad student blues these days.  By blues I mean, oh man I’m so busy I can barely catch my breath.  It’s interesting and fun and just a whole lot of work.  After some quite significant personal life events stopped required all of my free time I noticed that I am actually really really busy with school work.  Just to give you a feel for it, I’ve got either three assignments (e&m I, stat mech, qm II) or two assignments (e&m I, stat mech) due every week.  That’s probably on the order of 10-15 hours per assignment!  Plus classes, and group meetings, and don’t forget eating and sleeping.  Here’s a quick recap of what I’ve done since I last wrote anything (like a month ago!)

1. got pizza making equipment, peel and stones.  stones (really pavers) were too massive.  on the lookout for unglazed terracotta tiles.
2. went to Boston to help a friend move.  Had a good time, but Boston did it again: I got behind on my homework for a few days!
3. made a new friend and cooked a fabulous dinner with her!  We had orange salad, zucchini soup, lasagna eggplant rolls, and vanilla pots de creme.  everything was delicious!  Yes, we were either cooking, eating or relaxing for about 7 hours.
4. went running and played racquetball.
5. started getting into the thick of ‘The Office’ season 4, it seems to be jumping the shark.
6. Fellow LIGO-er Sam came to SU for a faculty interview.
7. worked on about 10 assignments! holy smokes, that’s a lot.
8. did some, but not enough LIGO research.
9. Watched 300, the pink panther, hellboy 2, a scanner darkly.  Sadly, 300 was the one liked the most out of these.

I guess it doesn’t seem like that much, it sure felt like it was really packed in there.  I’m looking forward to taking a day or two off during spring break!

Below, you will find my set list for the month. Normally I like to listen to music in whole albums, but sometimes you have to just pick and choose a few songs. Also, I’ve listened to my White Stripes radio station a lot, and just added some Zydeco.

“Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand
“Ocean Breathes Salty” by Modest Mouse
“Steady As She Goes” by The Raconteurs
“When You Were Young” by The Killers
“Your Touch” by The Black Keys
“Where Is My Mind?” by Pixies
“I Turn My Camera On” by Spoon
“Where Flamingos Fly” by Gil Evans
“Mad World” by Michael Andrews & Gary Jules
“still alive” by GLaDOS
“Hash Pipe” by Weezer
“She Don’t Use Jelly” by The Flaming Lips
“Love You Madly” by Cake

I went for a run this evening.  The weather has been “warm” lately, that is above freezing during the day.  Really nice actually.  Visit the map below to see my running commentary. Because of an error in judgment I went for a 65 minute run instead of the 30 minutes I had planned for: shouldn’t have made that left on Smokey Hollow Road!

View Larger Map

Josh and I tried to find our way into the sandcrawler, it’s attached to Link hall and Slocum Hall. We didn’t find our way in, but we didn’t try very hard- we were on our way to somewhere else. It looks like the entrance must be somewhere on an upper floor.

Only one picture today:

From Syracuse University Campus

I made a short video of the snowy moring.  It was cold out there!  This took about 30 minutes to film and produce, so it didn’t take too much time away from the homework (thermodynamics, e&m I, quantum 2) that I should be doing. Enjoy!

(be sure to watch it in high quality, HQ, mode to see all the snow flakes!)