2004: A memory // Un recuerdo

Graduate school, at least for me, was a fully immersive experience. By that, I mean that every activity revolved around physics - and I think this is true for a lot of people in graduate school, which requires far more than a 40-hour per week commitment. I took physics classes, I did physics research when I wasn't doing physics homework, and everyone that I interacted with on a daily basis was also a physicist.

You take a lot of classes in your first couple of years, preparing for the two-day qualifying exam, and group homework sessions could last all day. In other words, my friends and I were eating, breathing, and sleeping physics equations. somehow, I got the idea to turn my 1988 Pontiac Grand Am into an art car, with the theme being physics, of course.

I invited a bunch of friends over, set out the paint pens and textbooks, and we went to town. There was a time in my life when I knew what almost all of these equations meant. I drove this car for most of graduate school, it may surprise non-dorky people but I received compliments on it constantly, and at least two pieces of fan mail were left under my windshield wiper. Eventually the car got too unreliable, and it now lives in the field of my parents´ property, with several other cars that have gone to meet their maker.

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Para comenzar, para mí, la escuela de posgrado fue una experiencia inmersiva. Ya que todas mis actividades giraban en torno a la física. Espero que sea igual para muchos estudiantes de posgrado en física porque eso requiere una semana laboral significativamente mayor a 40 horas. Más concretamente, tenía clases de física, investigaba sobre física y hacía deberes de física, y todos mis amigos y conocidos eran físicos.

Un estudiante toma muchas clases en los primeros años para prepararse para el Examen de Calificación, que dura dos días. Además, las sesiones de deberes pueden durar casi un día, nos desvivíamos por la física. Otro aspecto de esa etapa fue que tuve la idea de pintar y decorar mi coche. 

Invité a mis amigos, les proporcioné marcadores de pintura y libros de texto, y empezamos. Hubo un tiempo en mi vida en el que sabía que significaban esas ecuaciones. Conduje ese coche muchos años durante la escuela de postgrado, recibí muchos cumplidos e incluso cartas de fans. Eventualmente el coche no funcionó bien y finalmente le dimos pasaporte, después de esto quedó en el prado cerca de la casa de mis padres, junto con otras máquinas en desuso.