NMSU Astro Blog – Day 28

Holaaa welcome to the (almost) last Saturday of SSP! I still cannot believe that we are wrapping up our projects and heading home in a week 🙁

Regardless, the past few weeks have felt like an eternity and Sunday departure day also feels eons away. However, before then, every day is grind time. Although it’s the weekend, I woke up at 7:30 to join a morning walk group where we took a loop around the NMSU campus, with a quick stop at the pull up bar to also catch some snails in the lawn. Following, today’s morning lecture was a bonus topic about electricity and magnetism and Maxwell’s equations from Dr. K. Quite an introspective lecture to dive into, especially since E&M is one of my favorite physics topics (if only I could understand what the Fourier series was about 😭). 

Midday rolled around and we finally were able to go off campus for food!!! Ever since part of the dining hall closed, food options have been limited… However, across the street were shops with ramen, boba, Korean food, Chick Fil A, and supermarkets. We ended up deciding on the Korean bowl place for lunch and it was such a refreshing break from the dining hall meals. Timothy, like his usual self, had a bowl, two boba drinks, and a large Chick fil a lemonade. (For context, he has consumed a total of 192 Poptarts throughout the program along with Goldfish, pound cakes, Celsius’s, ramen, among other foods.) His talent lies in sipping (chugging) a large boba drink in 51 seconds and a Celsius in 1 minute and 40 seconds. After the Korean bowl place and Chick fil a, we headed to Toucan Market to pick up some Neoguri ramen and try out Mexican Cola (it tastes the same as normal Cola btw). 

However, after the moment of freedom, we headed back to our jail cell aka computer lab to finish up the Method of Gauss code and call it a night. Although coding can be frustrating at times, receiving the same output as the test case is an unbeatable feeling. Overall, today was very eventful and balanced with a well deserved break from the workload but still inclusive of concentrated work time to finish a critical part of our research project. I’m looking forward to this last week and especially making the most of every moment with these incredible people! 🥹

Final reflection: SSP pushes so much growth, both academic and personal, and I have met simply incredible people here (y’all better stay in touch, or else). I am so grateful to be part of a community that is supportive and that has truly helped me embrace the struggle. Thank you to all the participants, faculty, TAs, for everything that this experience has provided me. Below are some of my favorite parts of the program so far :))

Thanks for reading, peace out 🙂

White Sands trip

Our amazing AD and TAs (thank god for them 🙏)

College and Career Day 

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Miranda

Hi there! I’m Miranda and I’m from Austin, Texas. I am interested in all things space, engineering, and math. In my freetime, I love music (both listening and playing), traveling, staying active, and spending time with friends and family.