Waterfalls, Bad Puns, and Groceries

I have decided that I would give a brief update on my life.

-As you probably know, I have started a Ph.D. at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. This means that sometime in the next 4 to 12 years you will be able to start calling me Dr. Jonathan Steffens.

-Ithaca is beautiful. I have seen some wonderful waterfalls and wooded trails through state parks and amazingly high rock formations. Ithaca is rather famous for it's gorges. While they can be quite spectacular to look at, the gorges also lead to what is most definitely the largest drawback to living in Ithaca, which is summed up in the next point.

-Ithaca's motto is a pun, and it's everywhere. I won't even lower myself to state it here, but you probably know what it is anyway. If you don't, consider yourself a truly blessed person. I see at least a dozen shirts and bumper stickers a day bearing this monstrosity. You know how animal rights activists sometimes go around splattering paint on fur coats? I've lived here two weeks, and I am considering doing that to people wearing these shirts.

-Luckily there is one place in Ithaca that makes me forget all about the horribleness of the previous point. And that place is Wegmans. Living in Rochester I have grown to love this supermarket. But the Wegmans in Ithaca is awe inspiring. That is really the only way I can describe it. It could swallow 4 normal Wegmans whole and still have room for dessert. You should visit Ithaca if for no other reason than to shop at this majestic place.

-Also I'm taking classes. Unlike RIT, I started a week and a half ago. I did still have class today, Labor Day, however. My two classes are Foundations of Fluid Mechanics and Asymptotics and Perturbation Methods. Fluids should be mostly a review of classes I've already taken. Asymptotics is just fun.

-In addition to classes, I have to TA a senior heat transfer lab. I start tomorrow. The first experiment is taking various measurements of a truck while it's running, like engine speed, power output, etc. It's not terribly exciting but it's how I pay the bills.

-I am also starting research. My current project is focused on developing a model to analyze the effects of roadside obstructions (walls, trees) on pollutant dispersion patterns. It mostly involves computational fluid dynamics.

-I've started making friends. I have been going to activities hosted by the Graduate Christian Fellowship, which is loosely affiliated with IV. We played some Frisbee Golf variant around Campus on Saturday. It was like disc golf but with teams that you had to relay the Frisbee to without dropping it. My team won.

That about sums up my time here thus far. You should come visit me. We'll go grocery shopping.