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farewell, dragon of pendor
Now, big dragon, little wizard, take your true shape. I command you by the power of your true name… Your name is Yevaud! The Rule of Names,by Ursula K. LeGuin There is a solitude to an empty home that I have not yet had to face. This solitude is a shadow, which follows me through…
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good morning baltimore! (or, grism spectroscopy from the MSGC-observatory)
If there’s one thing I know about myself, its that if there’s a telescope in my vicinity I am going to try to drive it. I recently started grad school at Johns Hopkins University, whose Physics and Astronomy Department building is host to the Maryland Space Grant Observatory (pictured below). I’ve made some awesome friends…
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DELvE: a short story about feelings and d&d
I’ve just published my new game! DELvE is a short text-adventure that moves between first and second person perspective, a reflection on a dungeons and dragons game I’ve been running for my friends since the beginning of college.
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talkin’ the talk (and presenting the poster)
In which I give a handful of talks and present some research at an exoplanet conference UMass Astronomy Club, 4/20/2021 I was recently invited to stand in for my advisor, Dr. Kate Follette, and give a talk about our lab’s research to the UMass Astronomy Club at their meeting on 4/20 (nice). I spoke for…
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before the next steps, looking back on my grad school application experience
prologue: This past weekend I announced my acceptance of an offer of admission to a Ph.D. program in astronomy. I got a lot of attention, and that makes me anxious, but it was nice to receive so much support from my family, friends, and mentors about my decision. In light of all that, I wanted…
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Ending: Inconclusive
So, the semester has come to a close. For how long I’ve spent operating under a semesterly school system, it almost feels like a natural cycle. Almost. I can’t help but imagine how my experience might be different if I was doing something useful with myself; working a job or something. Would the summer be…
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these are no Pyrrhic victories
The resounding left victories in Latin America lay bare the farce of the United States’ most popular television program. You can feel good about it all you want, but Joe Biden’s victory (or any conceivable outcome of the 2020 election) is not a victory, by any measure, for the American left.
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whelmed
The old english “whelmen” was paired with the prefix “over” sometime 600 years ago, and “overwhelmed” overtook the base word “whelm” in our vocabulary, probably because humans are hyperbolic creatures by nature. I advocate for a return to tradition, or a mutation of tradition, when I write to you now and say we should reclaim…
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anticipating failure
As trite as I think it is to discuss time and the perception of time (especially in the context of quarantine), this semester has really wrought havoc on my sense of time. In this past week alone, I’ve shifted between operating on so many different timescales that I’ve found myself completely disorientated, staring down the…
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American astronomers have a moral obligation to support O’odham land defenders
Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), the beloved observatory which “supports the most diverse collection of astronomical observatories on Earth” is in turn supported by – that is, resides atop – a sacred mountain of the O’odham people. The observatory, which has provided smaller institutions and the public an equal opportunity to conduct and publish astronomy…
