Weekly Update (8-1-10)

Hello all and happy Sunday! It's been a long time coming, but I figured I had better get to posting more consistently on the blog. I will try to put up a post weekly, probably on the weekends, to keep you updated on the goings on here in Provo or wherever we may be. I am also planning to start a website for things like photos and more of a general "where we are, what we're up to" kind of page, but we'll have to see how that turns out. If you want to keep an eye on it you can follow the link here. I will probably try to mention any major updates in future posts on the blog, though. Also as a final note before I go on, I hope to still occasionally post some of my thoughts as they occur, so don't be surprised to see multiple posts! Hopefully you will find them interesting, and possibly entertaining. Now without further ado, the weekly update:

The week has been pretty good to us overall. We got to spend last weekend in Logan and the surrounding area, visiting both sets of grandparents. It was nice to see them and to have time to chat, and I really wish we could have had more time to spend with them. We also got to visit Aunt Jane with Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen, and that was quite entertaining (especially having her bird Tink pecking and biting at us for the first little bit). We didn't get to see much else in the way of family, and we had to head back after lunch on Sunday so we could get settled back in before school on Monday.

The following week was fairly typical for us--lots of school! Well, more so for Julie than for me. I have my French 102 class every morning during the summer and Julie is taking African American Literature and Literary Analysis. She's done well in them so far, but she has lots of books to read and papers to write--I suppose that's part of the job description of an English Minor. My class is also going well and I've been really enjoying learning about the French language and culture. It's interesting to see the similarities and differences between French and Spanish. I also noticed this week how my ability to speak in French is developing somewhat differently from how I learned Spanish: my vocabulary in French is probably more well rounded, and what I know in each language seems to be more comprehensive in different aspects. Certainly there are things I could talk about in one that I couldn't talk about as well in the other. It will be interesting to see where things are at by the time I get through French 202.

Aside from school, I'll add just a bit about work. For those that don't know I'm currently working as a research assistant here at BYU, working for Dr. Rees and Dr. Czirr on the Neutron Detection Project. For me it's just been a matter of figuring out what exactly they're doing and where I can fit in. Dr. Rees suggested to me that I look around, but eventually seemed hopeful that I would take over the Monte Carlo programming, basically simulating experiments that they are considering. The program simulates the random paths and interactions of the neutrons we're trying to detect, letting us know what experiments and designs would be worth trying. After a while of weighing my options, though, I've finally decided to go with that, so I'll probably be taking over once the student working on it graduates in a few weeks. It should be an interesting challenge, but I'm glad that I get the chance to have the work.

Aside from work and school, this weekend has been quite a bit of fun for us as well. After wanting to get some more furnishing done for the past few weeks, we finally headed out yesterday and got it done. We ended up getting a rug to cover some of our "church carpet" in the living room as well as a bookcase from Walmart, so now we should finally have places to put everything. Also exciting (for us--a bit sad that it's exciting, really) was getting three plants to add to our decor: lucky bamboo for our bedroom, a bonsai tree that's currently in our kitchen, and a hosta for our patio! We may be just a bit crazy to be as happy as we are to have it, but I figure it's the closest we'll have to pets or a garden for quite a while.

And that should bring you up-to-date. This coming week will be our last week of classes, so we'll have to see how that goes. Until next time, have a great week!

--Brian