I Used to Do Something That Was Almost Like A Real Job. . .

Image of Jeremy taken shortly after his thesis defence.

So, it finally happened. My paper, "Quantum tunneling and reflection of a molecule with a single bound state," has been published in Physical Review A. I promised in a previous post that I would write a summary of paper. So, with reading week quickly evaporating away, about eighty physics assignments yet to be marked, and a Japanese midterm on Monday, I thought I should get on that.

The approach I decided to take was a basic parsing/elaboration of the abstract, since that's the only part of the paper available to read on the internet without having to pay a fee. The abstract, by definition, pretty much lays out the content of the paper anyway, so with a bit of explanation you should be able to get the jist of what we, i.e. myself, Danielle Kerbrat, and my supervising prof Dr. Mark Shegelski, discovered and published. I'm going to assume that anyone who reads this has about high-school level science education, which means I'll have a lot of explaining to do.

Abstract:

In this article, we present the results of studies on the quantum mechanical tunneling and reflection of a diatomic, homonuclear molecule with a single bound state incident upon a potential barrier.

Hoo-boy. Where to start?

The "diatmoic, homonuclear molecule" is basically a pair of identical particles that interact with and, loosely speaking, "attach" to one another by means of an attractive force. Usually, the particles in question are atoms. However, our formulation is general enough to be applied to any pair of "attached" particles, such as Cooper pairs and excitons. These examples appear later in the abstract, so I'll explain what they mean later on.

When the atoms are attached to each other, we say that the molecule is in "bound state." When they aren't, we say they're in an "unbound state." To be in a "bound state," the atoms in the molecule must have lower total energy than two free atoms. To understand what that means, imagine a you're in a region that's entirely flat except for a small, bowl-shaped valley. If you're in the valley, you have to expend energy in order to get out of the valley. If you don't have enough energy to climb out of the valley, you're stuck-- "bound" to the valley. Another way of thinking about this is that, if you're standing in the valley, you have less energy than if you're standing in the flat plain. When two atoms are "attached" to each other in a molecule, what's really happening is that the force they exert on one-another creates a sort of potential energy "valley," whereas two free atoms are in a potential energy state more akin to standing in the flat region outside of the valley.

So what does it mean for a molecule to have a "single bound state?" In order to understand the behaviour of small objects, like atoms, molecules, electrons, etc. we had to discover a whole new set of physicals laws, which we call quantum mechanics. The problem with quantum mechanics is, well, it's weird. One of the implications of quantum mechanics is that, if two atoms are bound in a molecule, then they can only occupy certain energy levels-- we say that the energy levels are "quantized," hence "quantum mechanics." Think back to the valley for a minute. You could stand at the very bottom of the valley, or half-way up the valley, or two-thirds of the way up, or one-quarter, or any other place you like. With any given height up the valley, there is a corresponding potential energy level. In other words, the laws of physics do not restrict you to one or another given energy level in the valley. However, if the valley were like a molecule, you could only occupy certain specific energy levels. You could, say, be at the very bottom, or half way up, or two-thirds of the way up, but you could not be at any other altitude. When you're standing at one of the permitted altitudes, you could be said to be in one of the given "bound states" of the valley. Likewise, the atoms in the molecule can only exist in certain bound states. What these states are depends on the kind of molecules we're considering. For our paper, we consider a molecule whose parameters are such that there is only one bound state. If we go back to the example of the valley, that would mean that we can only stand at the very bottom of the valley-- no other altitude is permitted. One more thing that I may as well mention now is that the title of the paper mentions that we're considering a "weakly bound" molecule. This is akin to a very shallow valley. The implications of weak binding will be made more clear later on, so I'll leave it for now.

The other important thing mentioned in the above excerpt is the idea of "quantum tunneling." Purge your mind of the valley, for now I'm going to ask you to imagine you're riding a bike toward a hill. I'm also going to ask you to imagine, for the sake of argument, that once you start climbing the hill you stop pedalling you bike. If you were going fast enough before you started climbing, then you'll have enough kinetic energy to coast over the top of the hill and reach the other side. If not, you'll come to a stop before the crest of the hill and begin rolling back down. This makes sense, so of course quantum mechanics has to find some way screw it up. The way it does this is through the phenomenon of quantum tunneling (since my paper was published in an American journal, I will continue to spell it as "tunneling," and not "tunnelling").

What I'm about to tell you is strange, but since I'll have to discuss it eventually, and since it does have bearing on the explanation of quantum tunneling, I figure I may as well get it out of the way now. Do you remember in science class when you were taught that light behaves as a wave? Do you also remember hearing somewhere or reading somewhere that light is composed of particles called photons? Did you ever step back and wonder why scientists just can't seem to make up their bloody minds on the issue? Is light a wave or a series of particles? It must be one or the other, it can't be both. Well, according to quantum mechanics, light is both a wave and a series of particles. . . and so is everything else! Electrons, protons, atoms, molecules, your computer, you yourself. . . all waves. "But waves of what?," you might ask. Probability. Basically, the wave part of a given object, be it a photon, electron, atom, or molecule, determines the probability of observing that object at a given place (it also gives the probability of the object having a given momentum, but that's a whole other story). I'm oversimplifying a bit, but at any position where there's a crest in the wave, the probability of observing a particle at that position is high; wherever there's a trough, the probability is low.

This complicates the study of physics at the microscopic level quite a bit. Since the days of Newton, physics has always used particles to understand the laws of motion, with the implicit assumption that we can always take a measurement or make an observation and determine where the particle is at any given time. Additionally, if we know exactly where a particle is, what its speed and direction of motion is, and all of the forces acting on it are, it was assumed that the laws of physics could be used to predict its position and velocity at any time, past, present, or future. It was assumed, in other words, that the laws of physics act in a deterministic way. Quantum mechanics, however, says that, if we think in terms of particles, the laws of physics must probabilistic. But this means that we cannot use physical laws to make any solid predictions about the behaviour of a given object, rendering those physical laws next to useless. However, it turns out that if we think instead in terms the probability waves mentioned earlier, we have a lot more luck. Unlike particles, probability waves do behave deterministically. Understanding just how these waves behave allows physicists to make some very interesting, very counter-intuitive predictions.

In the macroscopic world that we all live in, this doesn't really amount to much. Even though there is a probability wave associated with each of us, the probability of any of us being exactly where we are is 100%. At the microscopic level, however, this becomes much more pronounced. One example of how much more pronounced it is quantum tunneling. Recall the proverbial hill I discussed earlier. The microscopic equivalent to the hill is something called a "potential barrier." Imagine some microscopic particle approaching a potential barrier with some given kinetic energy. If it behaved the same way as the bike climbing the hill, then the particle would definitely pass if it had high enough kinetic energy, and would definitely not pass if it didn't. But, you'll recall, nothing is "definite" as far as particles are concerned, and in order to make predictions we have to think in terms of the wave, or "wave function" in physicist parlance, associated with the particle. It turns out that, no matter what the energy of the incoming particle, a chunk of the wave will always manage to travel past the barrier. What this means is that, no matter what the energy of the incoming particle, there is some probability that the particle will be observed on the other side of the barrier. This is like the bicycle appearing on the other side of the hill even though it was only going fast enough to make it half way up-- the only way this could happen is if the bicycle travelled through a tunnel in the hill. Hence, "quantum tunneling." Make no mistake, though, the particle didn't "dig" its way through the potential barrier. Rather, the laws of quantum mechanics allowed the particle to travel through the barrier as though it were not there at all.

If we're only considering a single particle incident upon a given barrier, then it's relatively easy to calculate the wave function and thus find the probability of tunneling. However, when we start to consider more complex objects like, say, a diatomic homonuclear molecule, things get very ugly. Instead of one particle, we now have to consider two, which means we have to consider the object as having size and being spread out in space. Moreover, these two particle are being affected not only by the potential barrier but by the force attracting them to each other. This attractive force creates a "potential well"-- the microscopic equivalent to the metaphorical valley-- which must be taken into account as well. Recall also that the molecule can exist in any one of a number of bound or unbound states. As a result the molecule can undergo changes of state upon interacting with the potential barrier. These factors complicate things so much that the tunneling of molecules wasn't seriously investigated until 1994. Quantum tunneling of single particles, on the other hand, has been investigated since the 1920's.

From the next part of the abstract:

In the first study, we investigate the tunneling of a molecule using a time-dependent formulation. The molecular wave function is modeled as a Gaussian wave packet, and its propagation is calculated numerically using Crank-Nicholson integration.

(Our paper is actually a combination of two different studies. We had initially intended to publish two papers, but due to various circumstances we decided to publish both studies in a single paper.)

In quantum mechanics, you can look at things in either a "time-independent" way or a "time-dependent" way. For the purposes of describing the results in the paper, the difference between the two formulations is as outlined as follows.

In studies of quantum tunneling, we're usually interested in calculating the probability that a given object will be observed ahead of the barrier-- "probability of tunneling"-- or behind the barrier-- "probability of reflection". The time-independent formulation is very useful for calculating these probabilities, but it's not useful for describing what happens to the molecule as it's tunneling through the barrier. In order to study this, the so-called "tunneling dynamics," you need to use a "time-dependent" formulation. The problem is that this is quite a bit harder to do than using a time-independent formulation. For that reason, every study (that we're aware of) in molecular tunneling that came before this paper used a time-independent formulation. In other words, to my and my co-authors' knowledge, this paper is the first to use a time-dependent formulation to investigate the tunneling of molecules, making me and my co-authors the world's foremost experts in time-dependent molecular tunneling!

What's that, Alexandre Bilodeau? You're the first Canadian to win gold at the Winter Olympics on home soil? Big whoop.

Anyway. With a time-dependent formulation, we basically created a computer simulation of the molecule's wave function and calculated how the wave function behaves as it interacts with a potential barrier. That, in a nutshell, is what all that talk about "Gaussian wave packets" and "Crank-Nicholson integration" is referring to. It was a very difficult calculation. Like all previous work done at UNBC on molecular tunneling, we had to use the university's supercomputer in order to run the simulations. So what do we have to show for it?

We found that the molecule could take one of multiple paths once it begins to interact with the barrier. For one, it could reflect. Basically, the molecule hits the barrier, temporarily breaks apart (i.e. transitions to an unbound state), recombines, and bounces back from the barrier. This isn't really a surprising result. But a couple of the other paths it could take are surprising.

From the abstract:

It is found that a molecule may transition between the bound state and an unbound state numerous times during the process of reflection from or transmission past the barrier.

This means that, if the molecule follows a path such that it does tunnel through the barrier, it will break apart and recombine some number of times before it passes the barrier. The reason we think this happens is summarized, in highly simplified fashion, as follows. We chose to use a very thin potential barrier called a delta barrier. In time-independent studies, this barrier provided results that captured many of the features of tunneling when more realistic barriers were used. We think that when the molecule hits the delta barrier, there's a chance that one of the molecules passes the barrier, but the other is reflected by it, and hence the molecule breaks up. However, there is still an attractive force drawing the molecules toward each other, so the atom that passed the barrier may be drawn back toward the atom that remained behind the barrier and eventually recombine with it.

This leads into another surprising result, one that is not considered in time-independent studies:

It is also found that, in addition to reflecting and transmitting, the molecule may also temporarily straddle the potential barrier in an unbound state.

In other words, the molecule, upon contacting the barrier, stays near the barrier for a relatively long time. This is what happens when the scenario described in the last paragraph occurs repeatedly, only without the molecule recombining and entering into a bound state. Straddling, as we called it, does not occur for a molecule in the bound state. In order for a molecule to break up, it needs energy. This energy comes from the initial kinetic energy of the molecule. Straddling occurs when the energy needed to break up the molecule is nearly the same as the kinetic energy of the molecule, so that when the molecule breaks up, the atoms don't have very much kinetic energy left. Again, this is a bit of an oversimplification, but it captures the main physical features of what's going on.

In the second study, we consider the case of a molecule incident in the bound state upon a step potential with energy less than the step. We show that in the limit where the binding energy e0 approaches zero and the step potential V0 goes to infinity, the molecule cannot remain in a bound state if the center of mass gets closer to the step than an arbitrarily large distance x0 which increases as the magnitude of e0 decreases, as V0 increases, or both. We also show that, for e0→0- and V0→∞, if the molecule is incident in the bound state, it is reflected in the bound state with probability equal to unity, when the center of mass reaches the reflection distance x0. We verify that the unbound states exhibit the expected physical behavior. We discuss some surprising results.

The second study, unlike the first, was entirely analytical, i.e. pen and paper mathematics, with no computers needed. What we considered was the case of a molecule that was extremely weakly bound incident upon a "hard wall" potential barrier, that is a potential barrier that was very long and very high. The binding energy is the term e0 referred to above; the term V0 refers to the energy "height" of the potential barrier. We considered this case, initially, as a simple test of our calculations. It turned out that this "simple" case was actually very hard, and yielded very counter intuitive results, as I'll explain below.

Intuitively, what we expected to happen for the weakly bound molecule to come close to the barrier and break up, with the atoms reflected away from the wall. What we found instead is that there is a distance, x0, from the wall within which the molecule cannot remain in the bound state. The distance x0 grows larger the more weakly bound the molecule is. Furthermore, we found that the probability of the molecule being reflected in the bound state approaches 100% in the case of extremely weak binding and extremely large potential barrier height. Taken together, this means that a weakly bound molecule, coming towards the hard wall potential barrier from a very long ways away, comes to a within a distance x0 from the barrier, and is then reflected away from the wall in the bound state. To get a bit of an idea of how weird this is, imagine throwing a brittle champagne at a brick wall. You'd expect it to hit the wall and shatter, with shards of glass boucing back. If the glass behaved like a weakly bound molecule, what would happen instead is that the glass comes within 50 feet of the wall and bounces back, intact. A champagne glass is more than a little bit different from a diatomic, homonuclear molecule, I know, but you get the idea.

Connections between our results and investigations done in cold atoms, excitons, Cooper pairs, and Rydberg atoms are discussed.

Apart from the sheer difficulty of the calculations, another problem with the study of molecular tunneling is in connecting it to real world applications. Direct experimental applications don't yet exist. However, connections can be drawn to many real world systems. Rydberg atoms, for instance, can be modelled pair of weakly bound particles, i.e. a very high energy electon and an atomic nucleus + lower energy electons. Rydberg atoms can also combine to form very weakly bound molecules. Collisions of Rydberg atoms with the surfaces of certain materials has been investigated. This scenario is akin to a weakly bound molecule incident upon a hard wall.

The tunneling of other composite particle objects, like excitons and Cooper pairs, can also be studied and are a subject of research interest. Cooper pairs are basically bound pairs of electrons which exist inside superconductors, and are indeed what make supercondutivity possible. Excitons are weird things that form inside of semiconductors and other materials. Basically, when an electron in such a material becomes excited, i.e. gains energy (by means of a photon collision, for example), it leaves an "electron hole," or absence, in whatever state it used to be it. This "hole," weirdly enough, behaves like another particle, and what's more, it can become bound the excited electron, forming an electon-hole "molecule" known as an exciton.

So, there you have it. I've summarized my crowning acheivement as a physicist, and with that out of the way, I'll get back to work on what really matters-- Sailor Moon: The Movie!

Well. . . I guess this means I'm going to Tokyo.

I sent an application for the JET program again this year. I applied to the program once before, and was interviewed last year. I documented that experience here. I just heard back from the Japanese embassy, and the good news is that I won't have to go through it again.

I was rejected, flat out. This is strange to me, since I thought my prospects would have improved. By the time of my second application, I had successfully defended my master's thesis (with a clear pass, something which only one other grad student in physics had accomplished at UNBC) and satisfied all of my dgeree requirements-- in other words, the only thing standing between me and a MSc degree was a silly robe and a long, boring ceremony. Not only that, I had been taking courses in Japanese course, and even got a letter of recommendation from my prof (I guess a measly 99.5% grade just doesn't cut it for JET). Plus, I had been doing teaching work as a supplementary instructor for a physics course, which added to the lab teaching experience I already had.

So what the hell happened? Did the poor economy result in less teaching positions? Did they decide they weren't going to give a one time semi-reject (I made it to on to the alternate list) like me a second chance? Did I bungle the application in some way that I managed to avoid doing last time? Did they somehow manage to find my blog and discover all the nasty things I've been saying about certain Japanese politicians? Honestly, the confusion that arises from being rejected despite being a stronger candidate is actually less distressing than the rejection itself.

Why? Well, first off, being rejected means I can leave for Japan sooner. If I were accepted, I would be waiting around until August before flying off. Second, it means I can go to Tokyo-- you don't even mention the word Tokyo on the application form for JET-- and that, to say the least, will be an adventure.

But ultimately, what it comes down to is that I don't need JET. I chose JET because I thought it offered the path of least resistance to getting to Japan. We all know now how well that idea turned out. On top of that, I'm a master of fucking science. A government position teaching English in some podunk high school in Asscrack prefecture is-- and I don't say this often-- beneath me.

(Gosh, that didn't sound bitter at all!)

I'm still willing to tutor English, don't get me wrong. I may even take a TESOL course before I leave. Until then, I'll keep saving up my money, kicking ass in Japanese. . .

. . . and writing the motherfucking Sailor Moon movie. That's right! You thought that just this once I wasn't gonna mention my little pet project. Well, think again! This is my new thesis, people. Only this time, I'll actually enjoy writing it!

If THIS doesn't convince Hollywood that I'm the man to write Sailor Moon. . .

Since August, I've been working on submitting a manuscript to the scientific journal Physical Review A. The work presented therein is an extension of my master's thesis work. This morning I received notification that the manuscript has been accepted for publication. There are still a few steps to go through, and I don't know yet when it'll be published. I'll keep you guys updated. Maybe in a future post, I can give the title, author list, abstract and a layman's summary of the results. Until then, it's time to celebrate.

CAP Congress, Part I

Greetings from Moncton, New Brunswick!

I've just finished presenting my thesis research at the 2009 CAP congress. Naomi and I left Prince George on June 1st (I handed in my thesis and Oral Defence/External Examiner Request forms the same day) and drove cross country, arriving in Moncton on the June 5th. My journey has taught me many intersting things, about Canada, physics, and life in general. I shall now impart my wisdon in no particular order:

-- Don't wear a suit to a physics conference. You'll look like a pretentious ass, and despite your delusions to the contrary, it won't make you a more eloquent speaker.

-- The Prairies aren't as boring as they're made out to be. Then again, it's hard for any place to be boring when it's rushing past you at 140 km/h. (I kid, Mom.)

-- If you are native, you can get away with naming your convinience store 'How' Convinient. Get it?!

-- Quebec is all in French. I know I should have known that already, but that fact only really dawned upon me when we approached Quebec city and saw billboards annoucing that we were entering "La capitale nationale." Seriously. If it weren't for the fact that we needed to fuel up in Quebec city, I probably would have passed though the whole province without stopping.

-- Despite the anxiety I felt passing through Quebec, though, there were some beautiful towns along the St. Lawrence River. We had to take a detour off of Highway 40 because of construction (I think-- again, it was all French) that took us through some of these towns. This, plus Miyuu Sawai, almost makes me want to try learning French again. Almost.

-- New Brunswick, unlike pretty much the rest of Canada as far as I can tell, actually is bilingual!

-- When giving a presentation, in physics or otherwise, be sure to point at the screen in front of the room and not at the computer screen in front of you. A professor was kind enough to inform me of that rule, and as a result I'll likely be brooding on the embarassment of that moment for months. Maybe I just won't come back home. North America's a big place, I'm sure they'll never find me.

-- There's a maritime garbage disposal company named "Fero." Only three people will understand why that is so bloody weird.

-- New Brunswick, while geographically rather dull, is otherwise quite awesome. Unless you want to find an open liquor store at 11:00 pm on a saturday night. If that's the case, New Brunswick is not for you.

-- You can order a whole lobster at a restaurant in Shediac, New Brunswick. Naomi did so, while I worked on my presentation back at the hotel. Fuck!

-- Despite what you tell yourself, you cannot present thrity-nine slides of text, equations, and graphs in twelve minutes.

-- Time zones change as you travel across the country. Yet another thing I hadn't considered when planning this trip. There's actually a North American time zone east of New York.

-- We're east of New York! And Boston!

-- The beauty of Canada is greatly exaggerated. Aside from B.C., Jasper, and Ontario near the Great Lakes, Canada is just trees and plains on flat earth.

-- Parliament Hill is right smack in the middle of downtown Ottawa. I thought there would be some separation from the city centre, but there it is.

-- Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal is not as good as I imagined it would be.

Stay tuned for Part 2: America!

Lab

I'm in my Phys 111 lab. It's 7:50 pm and I'm not leaving until around 9:30. It's hard going. I mangled my introduction to the lab because I was tired and didn't prepare and basically just didn't give a shit. As a result, I think a couple of students laughed at me, and frankly, I can't blame them. On top of that, I'm also marking labs for Christine, the senior lab instructor. She's telling me that I have to "get mean," which means, in part, that I'll have to be even more vigilant in identifying mistakes than I already am, which means even more work. Either that, or I'll just have to take off more points for the same mistakes, which is easier, but not neccessarily fair to the students.

Labs. My "fuck that guy" of the evening.

(This does not bode well for me if I'm selected by JET to teach English in Japan. Come to think of it, that would have been an interesting blog topic. Way better than bitching about the shitty commercials done by my make-believe Japanese girlfriend.)

Greatest Assignment Evarz!1!

One of my duties as a grad student is to mark undergraduate physics assignments. This is usually a pain in the ass, but every so often I get an assignment that not only sucks, but is actually entertaining.

In this case, it was a doodle in one of my Phys 111 assignments. It shows two situations, one in which two boys are writing on a chalkboard, and one in which one boy and one girl are writing on a chalkboard. In the first case, one of the boys has claimed that the indefinite integral of x^2 is Pi (it's not, just so you know). The other boy then says "Wow, you suck at math!"

In the other case, the girl has written the exact same thing. The boy in that case says "Wow, girls suck at math!"

Simple. Beautiful. And with logic perfectly applicable to many other situations.

For example:

#1

MAN HOLDING BIBLE KICKS PUPPY.

MAN #2: You're an asshole!

#2

MAN HOLDING THE GOD DELUSION KICKS PUPPY.

MAN #2: Atheists are assholes!

(Note: Replace "The God Delusion" with "The Koran", "Atheists" with "Muslims" and, if you like, "Assholes" with "Terrorists" and it works just as well)

Or how about:

#1

WHITE MAN ROBS BANK.

OLD WOMAN: What a horrid fellow!

#2

BLACK MAN ROBS BANK.

OLD WOMAN: Oh, those Negroes.

OLD WOMAN CHCUCKLES.

#3

ASIAN MAN ROBS BANK.

OLD WOMAN: INTERN HIM!!!

Don't you just love it when your entire worldview comes in "Fill-in-the-Blank" form?

My Story, Part II

I'm in lab. Again. Same as before.

To pass the time this time around, I decided to add another incomplete exceprt for my short story, "Achilles." This time, you'll actually figure out part of what the title means. Enjoy!

Megan had nearly forgotten about Peter's party. Though good friends since high school, they had not seen each other very often those last few months. Megan's tendon was healing, and Peters was visiting universities around the country. Her invitation to the party was almost accidental. She crossed paths with Peter at the shopping mall near his place.

"Peter!" she said.

He stopped in front of a t-shirt logo shop and turned around. Megan limped toward him.

"Hey, Megan," he said.

They usually hugged when greeting, but this time he didn't move, so she hugged him. They talked about the universities that Peter had visited. Megan thought it would be impolite to talk about her heel, and she didn't, apart from a brief mention about coming to the mall to try out her "sea legs." This had nothing to do with why she was really there-- or rather, it was as good an excuse as any. It was conversation at any event, even if it didn't compare to the beaches of Point Grey.

"Yo, Peter!" said someone else.

"Oh, Jim!" Peter said.

Jim emerged from behind Megan, standing at their side.

"Jim, this is my friend, Megan."

"Hi," she said.

"Hi. Jim." he said. They shook hands, and after some small talk, he then asked, "So, you looking forward to the party?"

And that's how she was invited. This was thursday morning. The party was friday night. A couple of hours after sunset, the guests arrived bearing gifts: nachos, vegetable platters with dip, fried wanton, some cases of beer. Megan had only remembered the party early that evening, just before she was about to go to sleep at her friend Mel's apartment. By the time she arrived at Peter's houce, most of the guests had already come. Still, there was enough room in the driveway for her to park her car. She knocked on the door once, and then again when Peter didn't answer. Finally, he opened the door.

"Megan!" he said. He was clearly surprised to see her.

"Hi," she said.

"Come on in!"

She handed him a shrimp cocktail on her way in through the door.

"Hope no-one's allergic," she said.

"Wow, thank you!" he said, admiring the platter.

She was pleased. She had stopped at a grocery market to buy the platter, even though she was already late. It wouldn't have been worth it if he didn't like it. She liked feeling like she still knew him after all. He set the platter on the kitchen table with all the other snacks the guests had brought. None of the guests were downstairs, and loud noises eminated from the floor above.

"We're just upstairs, watching the game," Peter said as Megan untied her shoes. "I'll see you up there, unless you need a hand?"

"I'm fine."

Peter walked up the stairs. Megan slipped her right shoe off first, careful not to bend her foot upward the way she always did when she took her shoes off before the accident. As she slipped off the other shoe, she heard Peter upstairs.

"Hey guys, my friend Megan is. . ."

His voice, and the sound of the TV, faded. Peter must have closed the door, she thought. Why would he do that? She made her way carefully up the stairs and through the door to the media room.

"Megan!"

"Hi--!"

"Megan, how are--?"

"Come on in--"

"Sit down--"

"Have a seat--"

"--how are you--?"

"Nice to meet you!"

Peter's friends, about ten in total, greeted her in unison, the moment she entered. They sat on a half-ring of sofas surrounding the TV, watching a hockey game. The couches were packed, save for a big, conspicuous gap between Peter and Jim from the mall.

"Hi everyone," she said.

"Have a seat!" Jim said, pointing to the empty spot on the couch. "We made room."

She moved to her seat quickly, trying not to block anyone's view of the TV. The room was dark, and she nearly tripped over a guest's leg.

"Oh no! Are you okay? I'm sorry!" the guest said.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine."

She say down.

"You like hockey?" Jim asked.

"Enough, I guess," she said.

"Canucks verses Oilers. Third period, score's--AWW!"

"AWW!" the others said.

"Reeeee-jected," Peter said.

"Aw shit!" JIm said. "So close. So close."

"How the hell does he get away with this all of a sudden?" another guest, a girl, said.

"What?"

"Not sucking, that's what!" the girl said.

"He doesn't suck," someone else said.

"He so sucks!"

"He's not the best."

"They've had him all season, he hasn't done shit all."

"Well, he did do shit all th-- OH!"

"OOHH!" they all said.

Megan's spot wasn't as big as it looked, and she was uncomfortaable between Jim and Peter. She actually didn't enjoy hockey at all. It was boring to her, and she started to wonder if she should have just crashed at Mel's place after all. It was another one of those times when she went without sleep for days, and the fatigue was starting to hit her. The room seemed to spin a little as the game wore on, and it was harder for her to keep her eyes open and focused.

The light came on suddenly. The game was over. Megan lifted her head from the couch. Everyone was standing.

"Don't get up, Megan!" Peter said.

He stood at the entranceway of the media room.

"Where are you going?" Megan asked.

"We're playing werewolf downstairs," he said. "But don't get up. SOme of the guys are gonna stay up here and play Halo."

Jim and the girl were connecting a game console to the TV.

"Do you play Halo, Megan?" Jim asked.

Megan didn't like how curious Jim was. She turn to the door, but Peter was already gone. The girl placed a contoller in Megan's ahnd, and the five other guests who stayed upstairs all took seats on the couch as the game began.

"Like Halo?" Jim asked again.

"Never played it," she said.

"You've never played Halo deathmatch?" the girl said. "You're missing out!"

"I'm more of a Metal Gear person myself," Megan said. "So how do I start?"

The girl took Megan's controller, pressed a few buttons, and handed it back to Megan.

"Just use the d-pad to type in your name," the girl said. "Whatever you want."

After a momeent of thought, and longer fiddling with the buttons, she entered the name of her player: Achilles. No-one asked whether this had anything to do with her foot. Within that very minute, the game began. Achilles and his partner, thrilla_in_vanilla-- who together made up team O'Doyle-- stood side by side on a beach near an otherworldly ocean. Their enemies, the Lesbian Seagulls, lay hidden in the wastes beyond. Guns in hand, they moved forward along the beach, the thrilla in long strides and impossible leaps, Achilles more cautiously. When thrilla was well ahead, he begun to shine a bright orange. He was under attack. He tried to dodge, but was down quickly.

"Leeessssbian Seagullllllll!" cried their enemies. They would be coming for Achilles next.

Achilles strode to a rock formation and-- after Megan asked which button made her guy crouch-- hid behind it. She waited, long enough for the trilla to return.

"Megan, where are you?" the girl who handed her the contoller asked.

"You're on my team, right?"

"Of course I am."

Megan, who briefly considered pointing out that the Lesbian Seagulls were both guys, instead simply mentioned that she couldn't ay anything that would compromise her to her enemies, who were within earshot.

"Well, I need some fucking help," the girl said.

Achilles rose and marched toward the plastered-on sun to the west(she assumed) following the faint sound of gunfire. Then, after much taunting between the players, he appeared. He was distant atff first, and Achilles could not tell if he even was a seagull, let alone lesbian. Quickly, and while still distant, the figure opened fire, hitting Achilles three times with a bath of orange glow. There was a rapid beeping sound that had to be Achilles' warning system. In a panic, he ducked-- this act, while accidental, helped him evade another stream of deadly energy from the opponent's gun. He circled while still crouched, searching for his enemy, eventually spotting the villain on a quick, straight approach. Megan could now clearly read his floating nametag, King_Dubya. She pressed a button, and before she was even sure the gun had fired, the king was slain.

"Aww!" one of the guys cried.

"O'Doyle Rules!" the girl said.

"Nice shot, Megan!" Jim said. It was the first time he had commented on anyone's markmanship that evening.

"Come on Megan, say it!" the girl said.

"O'Doyle Rules!"

Still unsure of how she had done what she had done, Megan vowed nonetheless that Achilles would vanquish the other foe on team Lesbian Segull-- Jim. Even if this wasn't his nametag, she knew by elimination that he must be the only other player in the game.

Unfortunately, killing Jim proved difficult. He was a talented player, and despite her best efforts, he always managed to escape Achille's clutches. The game went on for more than an hour, and Megan's joy og glory had faded. The hour was not without its conquests-- Achilles had slain the king three more times, to the cheers of her compatriots-- but those conquests were hollow next to the greater prize. The combat was exhausting, and Megan, by the shaking of her hands and the shortness of her nerves, could feel hunger coming on. But she could not yield.

Peter came upstairs to see how she was doing.

"Fuck me!" Megan said, throwing the contoller onto her lapjust a Peter entered.

"Jesus, chill out!" he team-mate said.

"Sorry..." said Megan.

"Hey Megan," Peter said. "You sound pissed."

Megan sighed.

"Yeah, I'm just kickin' everyone's ass is all," Jim said. "You'd be pissed too if you had to go up against someone this talented."

"You, talented?" Peter said.

"Hells yeah," Jim said.

"How you doin', Meg?" Peter said.

"She's kickin' ass too!" Jim said, overjoyed.

Megan lenaed her head back briefly, eyes closed. She didn't seem pleased with Jim's compliment.

"Are you hungry?" Peter asked of Megan.

"A little, but I can wait," she said. "How's the shrimp?"

"Good," he said. "We're all eating up down there. You should join us. It's no problem if she leaves, right?"

"No, we're just between games," Jim said.

"In a few minutes," Meagn said. "I still gotta kick Jim's Lesbian Seagull ass here."

"Really?" Peter said. "Okay, uh... Can I borrow Jim for a minute?"

Jim looked up.

"What is it?"

Jim stood up and followed Peter into an adjacent room, while the others waited for him to return. Their conversation was inaudible at first, but Megan, facing away from the two on the couch, was gradually able to hear.

"Look, I have..."

"I know you have, man."

"I have been...I've been trying all night."

"Why say that?"

"What?"

"That you're kicking ass?"

"'Cause I am!"

"Jesus."

"It's not like her hands are hurt, man."

"Jim--"

"Besides, she's kicking ass too. I meant that. I mean, for a beginner."

"But you know how competitive she is, right? Right?"

"Of course I do. So what?"

"Look, she won't tell this to anyone, but... look, I really think she needs to get some rest."

The conversation was inaudible from that point.

Guess Where I'm Writing From!

Give up?

My Lab!

Yay!

Details.

I'm currently in room 8-229 of UNBC, and I'm teaching the second experiment out of eight in the Physics 101 lab curriculum. I began writing at approximately 12:30, and won't be out of here until just before 2:30.

What am I teaching? Standing waves in a tube. Basically, we just put a speaker at the end of a long tube, connect it to a function generator to control the frequency and amplitude, and run a microphone down the tube in order to determine (a) the resonance frequencies at which standing waves form, and (b) the nodes and anti-nodes of said waves. Measuring the speed of sound fits in there as well. None of this really matters. The important thing is that you can make cool videogame and old-timey radio sounds with the speaker/function generator apparatus.

Two students just came up to me to get their data tables signed. It's a new anti-plagiarism measure. I told them that they have to re-write their data in pen before I would sign it. They were not happy, and I don't blame them.

It's cool that Christine set up a computer right at the desk. If she didn't, this blog entry would never be. I also checked my UNBC email before writing this entry, which reminded me why I so so so so so so so hate to use UNBC email.

12:40.

If someone raised their hand right now I wouldn't even know it. That's a cool feeling.

More students came to get their forms signed. Here comes one now! Alright!

These labs really are exhausting. I only really "work" for half an hour during the actual period, in which I give the pre-lab lecture. This is actually the worst part of it. I've gotten a bit better at these lectures, in that I don't feel quite as horrible doing it as I used to, yet I still get the distinct impression that my students consider me a horrible horrible tool. And their right.

They're right.

Sorry.

A couple of students have left. Fine by me, as long as they got all their data. I figure if they really want to crap out and leave early, that's fine. If it turns out to be a mistake for them to leave, they'll pay for it in their marks. If not, why be a douche and make them stay?

12:45.

I missed a seminar being given today by Dr. Shegelski, my grad supervisor. He was talking about research in molecular tunneling in which I was involved. "Involved" meaning that I was standing in the same general place that awesome research by Jeff and Hal was being done and getting paid for it all the same.

I missed it because I had to come here and do stupid prep for the stupid lab. That's the other exhausting thing about these labs. I usually come into the lab room about an hour and a half in advance to make sure that I'm really truly prepped for the experiment at hand. And even then, my preparation is still often grossly incomplete.

They're really piling on to me now. I just signed four data tables, and two are on the way.

12:55. I'm glad I had deluxe breakfast at A&W. There are many reasons for this, one involving the drive in teller girl at McDonalds. Ask my mom about that sometime.

Two students seem to be absolutely captivated by a poster of spectra for various elements. Leni just left. She thought I didn't know her, just because I acted like I didn't know her. I get nervous in these labs! Sue me.

I'm just realizing how abstract my blog labels are becoming. For this post, I've already attached labels like "Just Another Fist," "No One Can Hear You Scream,"-- two more data tables signed-- and "There Can Be Only One." Maybe I'll make up another tag of two. I'll have to give it some thought though. There's abstract and then there's just dumb.

1:03. I have no labs next week. For that, I'll attach the "Circular Celebrations" label.

I came to the lab rooms earlier in the week. The rooms that I teach in are on the second floor of the Teaching Lab building, with big windows that face toward the east. The mountains are blocked by haze today, as they often are, but when I came earlier in the week, on one of those days when it turned to biting cold, the sky was so clear that I could see the Rockys fifty or a hundred kilometers away. There weren't any students when I came in that time. If there were, I would have begun the lecture by just showing them the view, letting them soak it in for a minute or two, because they would likely never see that kind of view again.

Created new label-- "The View From Where I Am."

I've got the stupid live action Sailor Moon theme stuck in my head. I thought it might be a good idea for one of the hosts of a late night show going without writers, like Conan O'Brien or Colbert, to digitally insert themselves into episodes of the series, reciting actual dialogue from the show in really pathetic Japanese. Just imagine Conan as Mamoru-- I don't care if you don't know what I'm talking about!-- in a really big ugly Beatles wig hair cut that seems to be all the rage in Japan. Hilarious. And the best part: it's all legit! (it's Writers Guild of AMERICA. Suck it, union lawyers!)

If I started playing an episode of Sailor Moon right now, would anyone in the lab watch? Probably not.

Added label "Miyuu Sawai."



And with that, I bid you adieu.

UPDATE: Added label "Wow".

My Story

Naomi said:

Blog more you swine!

So I will.

I haven't posted in a while, partly because Christmas, partly because I'm still a little embarrassed about LOLWorf, and partly because I've spent the last month and a half roughly writing a short story. So, now that I'm getting back into the groove of school, I thought I'd put my time to its most productive possible use: showing you an excerpt of said short story.

Naomi, my mom, and Josh Sandu have all seen early drafts of the story. However, the excerpt below is something totally new, so hopefully they'll enjoy it as much as you will!

. . . :|

Just read it. And ignore the fact that one of the characters is named Josh. It means nothing.


Excerpt from "Achilles":

Josh. She met him at Pandora's Box a month before. It was a June the 16th party(the owner was of Irish descent, and considered himself a literature aficionado) but she didn't know this. She just knew that it was a party. A few people dressed in old black suits and dresses, and a couple of people went up onto the bar's small front stage, carrying thick tattered tomes with ugly covers from which they recited lines like "loth to irk in Horne's hall hat holding the seeker stood." But like Megan, most were there just to be there, for fun, and would have been there no matter whose day it was.

But Josh?

"Vain patience to heap and hoard," he said. "Time would surely scatter all. A hoard heaped by the roadside plundered passed-- uh, passing on. Sorry. Uh, their eyes knew years-- knew the years wandering and patient knew the dishonours of the flesh."

He would glance up from his book every moment or so, trying to catch brief sight of the tall limping girl at the bar.

"Who has not? Stephen said. Whaddaya mean? Deasy asked. He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell sideways open uncertainty-- uh, uncertainly. Fuck. Uh. . ."

Few noticed him fumble, and those who did didn't care to react.

"Is the old isdom-- uh, wisdom. . . Is this old wisdom? He want to hear from me." And with dramatic pause, he came to the part he had been waiting to speak.

"History," Josh said, "is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake."

He finished his set quickly and unceremoniously, stepping down and going toward the bar and its limping girl, Megan.

"The rusty boot," he said.

Megan turned to Josh, who was looking at her foot.

"What?" she said.

"I said, the rusty boot. It's okay. Don't worry about it."

"Were you just up there?"

"Yeah. I'm Josh."

"Megan."

She shook his hand. Her friends had left her sitting at the bar, and though wary, she welcomed his company.

"I never caught what everyone was reading," Megan said.

"This," Josh said, holding up his book. "Ulysses. Best book ever written. It all takes place on the sixteenth of June, so every year people get together to celebrate it."

"Do you go to university?"

"Yeah."

"English major?"

"No. Business."

They continued to talk. No-one bothered to go offstage after Josh's recital, and even those in costume had partly disrobed, abandoning the act. Megan had eaten earlier that evening, but she was getting hungry again, so the two ordered meals and took a seat at a nearby table.

"So you're a runner?" Josh said.

"Yeah. Well, track and field in general."

"My brother was into sports. Competing, I mean. I hope you don't mind me asking , but was it a sports injury that gave you than limp?"

"Oh, this? No. Well, not really. It was a javelin, actually. I was at a practice, this was in spring, and a javelin flew right into my heel. It severed the tendon, and I had to get surgery to fix it."

"So it was a sports injury."

"No. If someone from the other team threw it, it would be a sports injury. This was just bad luck."

"Look, Megan, you're at a Bloomsday party. This is the wrong place to be arguing semantics," he said with a chuckle.

Their food arrived at the table. Megan ordered fried, and Josh ordered vegetarian lasagna. They were finished quickly, and just as quickly ordered drinks to wash the taste out of their mouths. They talked about insignificant things, long enough for Megan's friends to return and wish her goodnight, and for Josh's friends to return and join the two. During her conversation about being a runner, she was reminded of something she thought would be a good story. She had been running since before she could remember. Her mother had told her that when she, Megan, was little, she had no fear of going anywhere on those little legs, which her mother called Megan's "Arnold Schwartzenegger Legs." That was the story. She wanted to tell it to Josh, but didn't. She didn't tell it anyone, partly because she didn't remember until the wrong moments, but also because she never felt it appropriate to do so. As the night wore on and he talked with his friends, she felt a dull sort of regret over not telling him, and waited for another chance.

"You know it was based of a Greek legend, right?" Josh said. "The Odyssey, right? But where's the odyssey here? Where's the adventure? Like, what I mean is, you know, every adventure, every adventure was exotic, every adventure, like, it was a new land with something wondrous, something you've never seen. Like magic, gods, whirlpools, you know, monsters. Right? But here's this book with a guy buying a fucking. . . bar of soap, right?"

Josh laughed at his own words. His friend joined him.

"So where's the adventure? he said, and then with a deep, sudden seriousness in his voice, "Style. Style! That's the key. You can't have adventure in Dublin, I mean that's why he left!You can;t do it. You have to internalize the adventure. That's what it's all about. Stream of consciousness, the adventure within. The sexual adventure, man, everything. And he always does it in a different way, a new island. That's what the adventure really was, you know, that's all you could have."

"Tell that to Hemingway," one of his friends said, to which everyone chuckled.

Josh had an angular face which he always wore with a subtle half-smirk. As the night went on, Megan found his smirk more and more appealing, and when the bar fianlly closed she still wanted to be with him. So, after all of Josh's friends said their goodbyes, she was still beside him, limping along as he walked out the door.

"Well, Megan," Josh said once they were both outside, "it was a pleasure."

"You're not saying goodbye, are you? Leaving me all alone on cold Pandora avenue?"

He looked toward a streetsign.

"So that's why they named it Pandora's Box. I never put that together."

She laughed at Josh, and they both went along the sidewalk, south from Pandora Avenue toward the ocean but still far enough from it not to see it. He noticed Megan's limp again.

"Javelin, huh?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah." he said.

"Should you be walking?"

"Hasn't hurt me so far."

"Well, your limp begs to differ."

"It was a lot worse before," she said. "Don't worry, I'm a big girl."

Josh heart beat a little faster after hearing that. He pretended not to know why.

"You know, I can take you home, if you really are worried about being alone. You should see my ride. It's the lasted, imported, German bus pass."

Megan chuckled at that. Josh was pleased.

"But seriously," he said. "Just say the word."

"No. I'm not going home. Not yet."

"Why not?"

She realized she missed another opportunity to tell the Arnold Schwartzenegger Legs story again. It didn't worry her as much this time. She would find her opportunity. She start with that and maybe begin a whole list of stories with a running theme, like how she ran circles around the bored kids forced to attend her mother funeral when she was six years old, or how is was more of the same when her father remarried two years later, and maybe then she'd tell him about the ruckus she raised in the halls of Royal Jubilee while her sister, Helen, was being born.

"I don't live on my own," she said. "My dad lives with me, and he's been kind of unbearable recently."

Maybe its not a genetic thing, she thought, about the running. After all, Helen's mother had no relation to Megan whatsoever, and she ran all the way to Ontario, with Helen right behind her.

"He's going, I mean, we're both going through a rough time right now. My stepmon left him a couple of months ago with my half-sister. Took her to, uh, London. Yeah, London, Ontario. I always wanna say Paris, but it's London."

Josh slowly came to a halt. Megan didn't really notice this as she was talking.

"He's sick too. Diabetic. He's been diabetic since before I was born, but it's gotten worse. he's just. . . well, anyway."

She finally notice that she wasn;t limping anymore.

"End of the line," Josh said, pointing to the apratment building nearby.

"You live here?" Megan said. "That's convinient."

"Well, I guess I'll just. . ." he paused long enough so as not to give himself away. "Do you want to come in?"

It had been since the night before, when she walked out on her father engulfed in one of his moods, that she had been out of her house. The idea of rest sent a wave of warm fatique through her, as if in preparation. She knew what was coming, of course, she wasn't stupid. But she didn't mind it. She figured it was about time.

"Yes. I'd like that," she said.

With that, she followed him into the building.

And you, Peter, she thought with the corn thawing under her ankle, wouldn't you like to know what Josh did to me?

-----------

So there you are! It still needs work, and in its final form this part of the story will certainly be very different, but its a start. I think the biggest change that needs to be made is when Josh is talking Ulysses to his friends. I'll either scrap that or heavily modify it. But there will be little changes all over as well.

It'll probably be a long time before its ready to be published. If you're interested, I'll let everyone know how its progressing.

Mark Your Calendars. . .

October 9th is the earliest that I can expect to get my damned Pacific Century Scholarship money. After waiting until the 10th of September to officially be registered in my damn classes (I handed my registration form in August) and another two weeks after that to get my scholarship money deposited into my student account (which at least paid my tuition), I will now have to wait another two to three more weeks to transfer the remaining cash from the University to my own bank account.

I'm planning on doing a post on "big-L Libertarianism" pretty soon (right after the post on my research paper ;P), so I guess its fitting that I'm dealing bureaucratic bullshit, esspecially since University bureaucracies (both UNBC and UVic) have given me more trouble than any government office.

Still, there was Student Loans. . .