Gregory Mulholland

Weather: Cold (in the 40s right now), might rain today

Sorry its been so long since my last post. Over the last week, I have finally begun my research. First though, a bit of congratulations:

Kelly was awarded a research position here with professor Alan Windle. While she isn’t exactly sure what her topic is going to be, nor where she is going to live, she does know that she will have a place to live AND a topic. We are both really excited that she is able to come. So far: she has published 4 papers, attended two conferences, and is now doing research at Cambridge. Not too shabby for an undergrad. It will be really nice to have her here.

So in the interest of playing catch-up, I have begun my research. It has, like all training, been rough going at first. I am still getting the hang of the processes here. Starting last Monday, though, I have been doing my own research. If something interesting comes of it, I will be sure to post. But for the most part, I have little glass slides onto which I am supposed to deposit Tin Oxide. Right now, I am getting something, but it is certainly not Tin Oxide. Thus is research.

Last night I attended a meeting of the Cambridge University Energy Network. They are the student group trying to work with energy issues globally. They are more about bringing speakers in than being activists. I prefer that I think. Activism and protests don’t seem to have much of an effect. They seem like their discussion groups could be interesting. My one concern is that the topic of their symposium for the summer is Clean Coal. I know that it could solve an immediate need and it is a good stopgap, but they are going to have to work pretty hard to convince me that pumping the CO2 emissions from a coal plant into an empty aquifer is a good idea.

Tonight is another Grad Hall, our formal halls for Grads only. We have a talk by a grad student who presents his or her research (so far all humanities and philosophy), then we have dinner in formal hall. It is usually a fun time.

Next week, my college’s boat club (of which I am in the top 4-man boat) will be racing in University IVs. We race at 2:00 in the afternoon on Tuesday. It is a bracketed system (like the NCAA tournament). You race head-to-head against another boat, if you win, you race the next day. If you lose, you are out. Even these races are not done side-by-side, though. Because the river is so narrow, we have to do one-on-one time trials and compare times at the end. It should be interesting.