"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.": January 6th

Welcome to my NITARP adventure! I was notified of my acceptance to the NIITARP program very early on the morning of Saturday, September 29, 2012. I was thrilled because I had worked very long and hard on my application and I found out that five times as many people applied for the program as there were spots available. I forwarded the email to just about everyone, including my principal who has been supportive from the very first second I walked up to him with the application and the question of “do you mind if I go to California for a week?” He smiled, as he tends to do whenever I throw crazy ideas at him (which is quite frequently) and said yes. I’m glad I didn’t let him down.

I very excitedly registered for the AAS meeting, booked a hotel and worked with the JPL staff to book my flights. I shared the news with my students, my family, my friends, and anyone else who would listen! Finally, yesterday, January 5^th, I headed for the Orlando international airport to start my NITARP adventure. It was not exactly the best start as my flight was delayed and I got in at 11pm instead of 6. Also, my luggage ended up in Vegas, but I’m excited to be here in Long Beach and that’s what matters! I started the day a little nervous, but after talking to two people from different teams I’ve realized that most people feel the same way as I do.

Our schedule for the day was very full and had presentations from several people, but what I think was the most beneficial was to sit down with our team to get a quick overview of our work. In a (very small) nutshell, we’re working with red giant stars. We’ll be using data – light curves in particular – from the Kepler telescope. Red giants can be fusing hydrogen shells or helium cores, and you can tell this from something called asteroseismography… which just sounds really cool. It’s really just a big fancy word for starquakes. We’re obviously going to be going into much more detail than that, but that’s the background. The database we’re using seems a bit complicated, but I think once I get to play around with it, I’ll manage to click my way around. After our intro session with the scientists, we had lunch as a team. Though I still think we’ll work well together, we’re all very different and we’re all from VERY different schools. One of the teachers on the team is also into robotics though, so I’m pretty excited about that.

Part of the plan for the day was to learn how to read a scientific poster, and what it really boils down to is that the poster is an advertisement for your work. We also saw posters from last year’s teams... they’re all so different and detailed. I hope my team can do something as awesome as some of the teams from 2012.

Spitzer Scientist Luisa Rebull teaching us all about NITARP!

where we're from!! :)

A few of us NITARPers went to an educator reception and met a few astronomers, one of whom I had already met on twitter! I love meeting people in real life. I bonded with some of the other teachers from the other teams, and I can honestly say that the NITARP teachers are some of the coolest people I’ve ever met. I also chatted with the engineer who is in charge of the office of public outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore MD, where I was this past summer for a NASA Explorer Schools workshop.

The opening ceremony was in the Aquarium and it was fun. It was a bit of a walk, but I talked to the woman who is in charge of outreach and education for Hubble at STSci. It’s a really a good icebreaker that I hung out there this summer and know a bit about the programs. The opening ceremony had lots of people, lots of delicious food, petting rays and hanging with seals… so what more could you ask for? Tonight helped me realize that I shouldn’t be nervous when talking to new people, because I tried it quite a few times and everyone was very nice/interesting/awesome/smart. I think I’ll still be nervous to talk to people, but at least I know I shouldn’t be.

After an awesome first day, it got better when I got back to the hotel, as my luggage finally arrived. Goodnight from Long Beach!