Post 1

Flying on a plane was honestly just as scary as I imagined it to be, in all honestly there's no reason I should be launched into the sky going that fast, I'm sorry mechanical engineers but I'd rather just stay on the g\ round. I met two fo my roommates, Olivia and Megan, and they're both really cool and chill people. Olivia goes to UT@Chattanooga (sp?) and Megan goes to Kenyon up in Ohio. We went grocery shopping and really made the apartment feel like \ a home. Bought a crockpot so we could make easy meals and I have a feeling that this is going to be a great 10 weeks.

During the first group meeting we got to meet the other students here and they're all living in the same apartments except for some locals and one who lives in dorms for another program that she's doing. I met my grad \ student and the vibe of the lab is really relaxed, it's a computational chemistry lab (I'm the only one allowed to wear shorts because it's a dry lab). Honestly this Florida heat is something else though I need to be careful and not spen\ d too much time outside.

Post 2

One of the students here, Sarah, is also in a ministry group on campus and they invited some of us to go to the springs with them for a swim. If I'm being honest the spring water tastes better than the tap water. It's \ a huge group we went with, around 50 people, whereas the people in our research group only add up to 14. I've been biking around campus, trying to figure out and familiarize myself with the area, as well as just getting out into the sun \ which I've missed in New York.

I'm missing home a little bit if I'm being honestly, but I'm going to try to just devote myself to this research and enjoy the summer. I'm still not sure what exactly my project is, I'm supposed to be designing it but \ with little to no background in this subject it's fairly difficult. I could work on testing a catalyst to help in the water splitting reaction or could go another direction and work with capturing CO2 emissions.

Post 3