Weather's been nice... almost too nice to concentrate on research. Here's a few pics from around the plantations, which seems to be my favorite place to go take pictures around campus. At this time of year, it's different every 2 weeks or so with so many things blooming...


































I guess the theme of this set is white, yellow and purple...

Watkins Glen

In the interest of regaining a sense of sanity and mental balance after finishing the Quals yesterday, I took half the day off today to get some fresh air and enjoy the beautiful spring weather we're getting here. A friend and I headed over to Watkins Glen, which is a quaint "village" at the south end of Seneca Lake, which (in turn) is another of the finger lakes that is about 50 miles long (about half an hour away from Ithaca). Apparently the counties in NY state are divided into townships which contain towns, villages (which still have a mayor), and hamlets (in order of decreasing size). Cute.

Anyhow, I got a good taste of some beautiful rolling countryside on the drive over there. This part of the finger lakes region is mostly a combination of wooded and open space, divided by wandering "cricks" and roads that meander a little. Nothing dramatic; just nice. There were several hamlets along the way, which tend to have an abundance of nice victorian houses.

So Watkins Glen is a village, but taking off from one side is Watkins Glen State Park, which incorporates another of the well-known gorges of the region. I'll let the pictures do the talking from here...

One of the higher waterfalls of this walk (left)

Typical gorge trail scenery (right)

More gorge bottom scenery.

Note the trail on the right-hand side of the gorge (right)

This is the view from the bridge that is barely visible in the first (upper left) image in this post. There are three level of trail visible! (left)

The trail winds under several waterfalls. Here is one of the most interesting ones, taken from the entrance to a short (man-made) cave that connects to the next level up of the gorge (right)

Whew...

Today I've finally reached the conclusion of finals week, the semester, the year, and the last 17 years of "full time" classes. Not bad for a Monday...

The main event that sparked this was the fact that I passed my Ph.D qualifying exams today. From now on, I can focus almost entirely on research, and take "no more than one" class a semester (according to my adviser). Sign me up! (Oh wait... I already am) Anyway, is been quite the push the last two weeks or so to get to this point. Besides the normal load of finals and final projects last week, I've been preparing heavily for the Quals today, which I needed to pass to continue here at Cornell.

The Ph.D Quals here at Cornell involve a one hour BBQ of a grad student. 24 hours in advance you get a question to prepare a 10 minute presentation on. Then, you have one hour in a room alone, in front of three professors to make this presentation. They ask a few questions about the presentation, then for the last 45 minutes they ask you whatever they want to whatever depth they want, and you have to answer and work out the problems standing up front at a whiteboard. And through this all you have to convince them you're fit to be a Ph.D student in a well-ranked department. Sound like fun? right...

However, things went pretty well today. I had a pretty good idea of what was going on, and I was able to maintain composure and keep pretty much on top of the scholastic onslaught. Well, I make it sound miserable. Actually, I had spent a sufficient time preparing, so it was actually kind of fun in a way to be able take it and dish out (mostly) right answers. I certainly feel smarter after all this.

Finals went pretty smoothly last week, as well. Nothing significant to report there, although I don't have grades back yet. But then again, grades really don't matter at this point in my academic career. That's pleasantly enlightening...

As far as summer plans, I really haven't given it much thought other than the majority of my time will be here in Ithaca doing research. Not a bad thing, because things are really starting to get nice around here.

(Real) spring in Ithaca

Things have finally started to show glimmers of growing here! I think its safe to say winter is over at this point. About the same time that school is getting out for the summer. (I just had my last class for the year...) Here's a couple pictures from yesterday afternoon, when I just HAD to get out of the lab after doing an intense 48-hour prelim (which took pretty much the whol 48 hours...)