Astronomy Day and My Astronomy Life

Happy Astronomy Day! Today, I’m celebrating Astronomy Day by looking back at how astronomy has completely shaped my life. As long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by science. But astronomy in particular held a special place in my heart. Growing up on a farm allowed me to have some spectacular views of the night sky. Everything came together in sixth grade when my science class covered a unit on astronomy. From then on, I started learning the constellations and I read every single astronomy book I could get my hands on. I constantly pestered my teachers and my dad with questions about space. The passion never faded and the course of my life was set.

In 2005, my parents sent me to space camp. I looked through a telescope and saw Jupiter for the first time and I was at the telescopes the night the Deep Impact mission hit a comet. While most of the other campers chose to watch movies on our free night, I spent the night at the telescopes, staring up at the stars.

In 2008, my mom took me to the Kennedy Space Center. I saw this trip like others would see a trip to Disney. In 2009, I took my first astronomy class during my junior year of high school. Then, in 2010, I helped create a new astronomy course for my senior project.

From 2010-2014, I studied physics and astronomy at Calvin College. I got to work at the campus observatory and assist introductory astronomy classes and labs. I studied asteroids and discovered a variable star. The greatest opportunity came through a 3-week trip to the Southwest to visit astronomy research facilities including Los Alamos National Lab, Kitt Peak National Observatory, Lowell Observatory, the US Naval Observatory, and many more. This trip prompted me to return to the Southwest for the greatest summer of my life.

During the summer of 2014, I moved to New Mexico to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. I spent that summer working for Dr. Roger Wiens on the ChemCam instrument on the Mars rover Curiosity. It was truly a dream come true to work on this amazing project with such incredible scientists.

In the fall of 2014, I moved to Bloomington, IN to pursue my Ph.D. in astronomy at Indiana University. I transitioned from working on solar system objects to studying dwarf galaxies. Now, I’m done with classes and I’m going to teach my own class on the solar system this summer. In the fall, thanks to my advisor’s NSF grant, I’ll transition to doing research full time for the next three-ish years.

This journey has been incredible. It’s been full of challenges, but the highs that I have experienced through astronomy have been some of the greatest times of my life. I’ve been able to travel across the country and learn from the most incredible scientists. I’ve lived a life full of non-stop learning and growing.

Astronomy fills me with so much joy. It fills me with peace and hope, too – to me, there’s nothing the calms the soul like standing under a beautiful night sky. It can be hard to explain all that astronomy means to me. But to sum it all up, Jon Foreman of Switchfoot says it best:

“When I look at the stars, I feel like myself.”

Leaving home, Returning home

Well, I was home for just less than two weeks, and just yesterday I moved into my new apartment in Bloomington. (I’ll post more about Bloomington and IU later this week.) It was great to spend some time back in Michigan for a while! I missed it a lot, and my time there went by way too fast. I’ve been wanting to write about transitioning from Los Alamos to Berrien Springs for a while now, but it’s taken some time to process all of these transitions. And I’m definitely still processing all of it, and now, I have another transition that I’m working through. There’s just so much going on right now – it’s very exciting but it’s just happening so fast! But I have spent a lot of time lately thinking about all the transitions I’m going through this summer and how they’ve been affecting me.

Los Alamos became a sort of home to me. I lived there for 2 months, my first time really being away from my family here in Michigan. Sure, I had spent plenty of time away from home during my time at Calvin, and I even lived and worked at Calvin for a summer. But, I was still only an hour and a half from home. I easily go home for a weekend, or even just and evening, if I wanted to. But I couldn’t easily travel 1400 miles this summer.

Adjusting to life there was hard. But leaving it was hard, too. I miss weekends spent exploring the mountains, evenings spent at the climbing wall, days spent learning from the ChemCam team, dinners spent with the Wiens. Back in Michigan, though, I can walk along Lake Michigan, cuddle with my puppy, see the sights of farmland close to harvest, and spend time with my family. Both places are wonderful. And now, both places are home.

Over the years, I have created many homes. Of course, Berrien Springs will always be home. And so will many other places. The shores of Elk Lake. The trails of Five Pines Camp. The halls of 3rd van Reken. The craziness of Calvin’s physics room. The rooms of Koinonia. The mountains of Los Alamos. Hopefully, the town of Bloomington will feel like home at some point, too.

Home isn’t just a place either. I am at home whenever I am with those that I love. We could be in a completely unfamiliar place, but when I am with my family or my close friends, I am home.

It is truly amazing to feel at home in so many places. But honestly, sometimes it hurts. Because no matter how much I enjoy being in one home, there’s a part of me that is homesick for another home.

That’s how it felt leaving Los Alamos. I really couldn’t wait to be back in Michigan. I was so excited that my brother could come and visit me in New Mexico and that we would make the journey back to Michigan together. New Mexico was great, but by the end, I was very ready to be back in Michigan. But as Nate and I drove away, and the mountains and mesas of Los Alamos faded into the distance, I felt like I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this place and all of the people I met and the experiences I had. It was like I was leaving a part of myself behind.

And that’s the way it’s going to be from now on. While I’m in Bloomington, part of me will be longing for Berrien Springs, part for Grand Rapids, and part for Los Alamos. It means that I never feel completely at home. Sometimes, that hurts, and I just want to feel like I truly, completely belong in one place. But I’ve learned to embrace it. I have learned so much in each of my different homes, and that will always be a part of me. I am who I am today because of all these different homes – both the physical places and the people.

So, I’m not that great with words. But my friend, Josh, is. I’ve mentioned this before, but it really gets at what I’m trying to say here. If you haven’t read it yet, check out I Am Lord Voldemort by Josh deLacy. And even if you have read it, read it again. Because it’s awesome. Josh is an incredible writer, and this is one of my favorite pieces by him. Here’s a great quote from his piece, where he talks about how through his different “homes” he’s made something somewhat analagous to Voldemort’s horcruxes:

My horcruxes happened naturally. They were not planned or deliberate, and I did not make them for strength or safety. I made them by loving—and that, I believe, is a far more effective method for splitting a soul.

It is how all of us make our horcruxes, how all of us rip apart our sense of self and give it to those closest to us. It is not calculated, nor is it wise. It is inconvenient and painful, and it leaves us itching and hollow, because we love recklessly, and we love long distance, and we love the dead and the dying. But despite the consequences, extreme and dangerous, I have no remorse. There is hurt in this existence, but there is no remorse. And greater than all, there is love.

Having these different homes–especially experiencing life in Los Alamos–has taught me a lot. I’m still figuring out all that I have learned, but I know that I have grown. I’m sure I’ll post more in the future as I discover the ways I’ve grown and what I’ve learned.

But for how, here’s one lesson from this summer. I’ve learned to love the adventure of exploring. I really do love travelling and making homes in all sorts of different places. It’s truly incredible. And I never want to stop exploring. But, that doesn’t mean that it is always easy. It comes with the price of saying goodbye, and sometimes, not knowing if/when I will see these people again. I like saying “see you later” better, but sometimes, I have to say goodbye and just hope that our adventures will lead us back together.

With all of the changes going on in my life, I do know this: I will go back to Los Alamos at some point. I don’t know when, but I know I want to go back, at least for a short visit. And I will keep exploring this world, hopefully crossing the paths of some of the people I have met along my journey so far.

One More Adventure: Colorado

For one last big adventure before my brother comes and we drive back to MI, I got to head up to Colorado with some of my friends from Bible study. It was such a cool trip! We camped for two nights, and got to go stargazing, whitewater rafting, and hiking.

Three people drove up to Colorado early to set up camp, and four of us left after work. During the drive, I loved looking at the mountains…I will definitely miss those when I go back to Michigan. We drove through Carson National Forest, which wasn’t much of a forest at all. And in Colorado, we drove past a gator farm. I was confused, but Carson explained it to me. Apparently, some people in Colorado decided that they wanted to have some alligators. They set up this attraction where, apparently, you walk in and they just hand you a baby alligator. And you can also wrestle alligators there. Colorado is strange. But awesome, too.

My group arrived at camp after dark. But that meant the stars were out! It was one of the clearest nights I’ve ever seen! I tried to point out some constellations, but I didn’t have my laser pointer, and there were just so many stars, pointing things out in the sky didn’t really work. I was so happy; starry nights are the best!!

Saturday morning, we drove over to Salida to go whitewater rafting. We spent a few hours rafting on the Arkansas River through class III-IV rapids. It was really fun! One really interesting thing happened during lunch. As we were eating, someone mentioned that someone was coming down the rapids on a stand up paddleboard! So I went over to the water and watched him paddleboard through rapids. I had heard of whitewater rafting and kayaking, but never paddleboarding! I can’t imagine how crazy it would be to try to do that. In the afternoon, we again witnessed the weird monsoons. There were some small creeks that flow into the Arkansas River…I’m not sure if they always flow into the river or if they just appear during the monsoons. But, because of the flash floods during the monsoons, the creeks carried very muddy water into the river, and the river completely changed color. But even with a very rainy afternoon, we all really enjoyed going rafting.

The rest of Saturday was just a nice, lazy day at camp. Then, on Sunday, we went on part of the Colorado Trail, which was right next to our campsite. We spent about 4 hours or so hiking and getting incredible views of the mountains. It was a tiring weekend, but it was wonderful.

I’ve had tons of amazing experiences here in New Mexico, both in and out of work. This was definitely a great way to bring my time here to a close. I’m so thankful for all of the experiences I’ve had, and I wish I had time to do more in New Mexico. But I cannot wait for my brother, Nate, to come on Thursday so I can show him around. And it will be wonderful to be back in Michigan soon!! I will miss being in the mountains, going rock climbing (especially climbing outdoors), having tons of places to go hiking, seeing incredibly clear nights, and the lack of humidity/bugs here in NM. And of course, I will miss the friends I’ve made here and working with the ChemCam team. But there’s so much back in Michigan that I’m excited for. I can’t wait to be back in farm country, be surrounded by beautiful green plants, go for walks along Lake Michigan, go skiing and kayaking, go for walks around my orchard, and see my family, friends, and puppy. This summer has been wonderful, and I’m so excited that I get to spend the last little bit of it back home in Michigan!

It’s all coming to an end

I can’t believe that my time in New Mexico is almost over! One week from today, my little brother will be here to visit for the weekend, and then we’ll make the long drive back to Michigan. This summer has been incredible, and I’m really going to miss Los Alamos. But at the same time, I really cannot wait to be back in Michigan!

Next week, for my last week of work, we will be doing ChemCam operations out of Los Alamos. I’m very excited that Nate will be able to see some of the operations at the end of the week! And on Monday I’ll (hopefully) get to shadow one of the ChemCam scientists as they receive and analyze some of the data from Mars. Usually, during operations, I sit in with the engineers as new plans are made for the rover, but I haven’t gotten a chance to see what the scientists do with it yet. It should be a really cool opportunity.

There have been some really interesting press releases about Curiosity recently. The two big ones deal with a meteorite on Mars and a ChemCam movie. Curiosity spotted an interesting rock that looked like a meteorite. The rock was very large – about 7 feet long! Here’s more info about it: http://www.space.com/26533-curiosity-mars-rover-meteorite-photos.html. Also, one thing people have been interested in doing for a while is using one of the cameras on Curiosity (in this case, MAHLI, a camera on the arm of the rover) to take a video of the ChemCam laser zapping a rock. They tried this recently, and it turned out to be a success! Here’s a link to a story about it and the video: http://www.space.com/26548-curiosity-s-laser-sparks-a-mars-rock-video.html. Because of the speed of the frames and the speed of the laser shots, the video doesn’t capture each laser shot. But it actually caught the very first one, and about the next 10 or so shots. In the rest of the frames, you can still see dust moving around from being zapped by the laser.

Also, at the end of June, Curiosity celebrated one year on Mars. Part of that celebration included a “women’s operations day.” JPL released a special feature about it, which included pictures of women doing operations from different locations. And there are a few pictures from Los Alamos! Check it out:

 http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/missionteam/women-scientists-engineers-mars/

Now, back to life outside of work. I’ve described how different life in New Mexico is from life in Michigan. But there’s another thing that makes this area unique that I want to tell you about: monsoons. New Mexico is basically a big desert. Luckily, I live in the mountains, but it’s still pretty dry and not too green. This was especially true my first few weeks here. But near the beginning of July, something changed as the “monsoon season” started. I had heard of this before, as we couldn’t do much observing with Calvin’s telescope in Rehoboth, NM during the monsoon season. But this was my first time really experiencing it. Basically, almost every day in the early to mid afternoon, the sky will go from bright blue to overcast very quickly. Then, it’ll downpour (and sometimes hail), typically with lots of thunder and lightning, for 30-60 minutes. And then, it’ll clear up again. A few times, we’ve gotten these storms in the evening, too. It’s absolutely crazy! I’m used to the weird Michigan weather, but New Mexican weather is very strange. The other day, I was driving around town. I looked out one window in my car, and saw bright blue sky, perfectly highlighting the mountains. Then, I looked out the other window, and the sky was pitch black because of a thunderstorm. It’s like you can just drive through town and experience just about every type of weather. The weather here is pretty isolated – it can be raining in one area, but sunny just a block or two away!

It’s been great to get to know people in Los Alamos. I mentioned earlier that I got to go rock climbing outdoors with some people that I met at the climbing gym in town. Well, they invited me to go with them again the following week! It was actually an event for one of the groups at the lab, but they invited me to join them. So I spent all morning rock climbing in the Jemez mountains (and playing with an absolutely adorable puppy!!!). That was followed by a cookout. It was wonderful to spend all day up in the mountains! It’s going to be sad to be away from the mountains when I go back to Michigan (but I am excited to be on the water once again!)

Prayer Requests / Praises

My time in New Mexico is quickly coming to an end. I am very thankful for the time here and the people I’ve met – the great people I work with, the Wiens for adopting me, the Dilts for hosting me, and the friends I’ve made through Bible study and rock climbing. This summer really has been incredible. It’s crazy that I’ll be home soon. Although I will miss this place a lot, I cannot wait to go home! I hope I can make the best of the time I have before I leave.

Requests:

• That the summer will finish up well and that I’ll make the most of the time I have left
• A safe trip to Colorado this weekend with people from Bible study, and safety/fun/fellowship as we camp, hike, and go white water rafting
• That my little brother, Nate, has a safe flight out here on the 31^st and that we can enjoy the weekend together in Los Alamos
• A safe, uncomplicated drive home with Nate from August 2-3
• Transitions – saying goodbye to everyone here in New Mexico and heading back to MI to see family and friends and prepare for grad school (and changing time zones again…)

Thanks for all of your prayers and for reading my blog! I’ll try to get another post or two in before I leave about my Colorado trip and about some of the different tours I’ve gotten to take around the lab.

Adventures in Chacos

I just realized that it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. But I’m working on making some new posts about my adventures over the past few weeks….an update on Curiosity and life in New Mexico, some of the opportunities I’ve had through work (seeing Bill Gates and touring an archaeological site on LANL property), and my recent trip to Chaco Canyon. There’s been a lot of cool things going on here, and I can’t wait to share them all with you! I’ll start with the adventure I had yesterday – visiting Chaco Culture National Historical Park. When I found out that I was going to be in New Mexico this summer, one of the activities on the top of my list was visiting Chaco Culture National Historical Park (also known as Chaco Canyon). I first visited there during January 2013, on an interim trip with the Physics and Astronomy Department. And I knew then that I wanted to go back and explore there some more. It was about 0 degrees then, and we only had time to explore one pueblo, Pueblo Bonito. I had a great time then, and couldn’t wait to go back. Here are some pictures of Pueblo Bonito I took last January: So, yesterday, Carson, Josh and I made the long drive out to Chaco. The drive out there, especially the first part (in the Jemez Mountains) was beautiful! Then, we took a wrong turn, but we figured it out and headed back in the right direction. And we still got to Chaco with plenty of time to explore. First, we stopped at Pueblo Bonito, which is the largest building at Chaco. Last January, we did a guided tour of Pueblo Bonito, so I did my best to remember all the information as the three of us explored. The architecture of this pueblo is phenomenal. Parts of it were at least three stories tall, all made with small rocks and mud. They used wood to support the ceilings, but there are no trees in this area, so the people who lived here (the Puebloan people occupied this area c. 1000) carried the wood a great distance to build these pueblos. The pueblo walls are aligned perfectly north-south or east-west and the alignment of some windows marks celestial events, such as the summer solstice. This is known as archaeoastronomy. Pueblo Bonito is somewhat of a mystery to archaeologists. It’s absolutely huge (2 acres, 600+ rooms), but it shows no evidence of people actually living there. The rooms show no ventilation system, and there’s a large lack of artifacts in these rooms which would suggest habitation. The center of the building has a large plaza area and many circular rooms that may have been used for religious ceremonies or other communal events. It was absolutely incredible to walk through this area! It’s just so big and impressive! After Pueblo Bonito, we took a trail over to another pueblo, Kin Klesto. I don’t know much about this pueblo, though. It was much smaller than Pueblo Bonito, but still incredibly impressive. From there, we took a trail up the wall of Chaco Canyon. After some scrambling up rocks, we got a great overhead view of Kin Klesto. We kept heading up the canyon, and were able to walk along the top of it for a ways. Actually, we walked back to an overlook to see Pueblo Bonito again. The long drive to Chaco was worth it just for that view. We could see other pueblos in the distance, and the view of Pueblo Bonito was amazing. You get a good idea of the size of it by walking through it, but you learn so much more by seeing how big it is and seeing the layout of all the rooms when you look at it from above.

And, of course, I was pretty excited to wear my Chacos (and my Chaco belt!) in Chaco Canyon 🙂

The original plan was to stay at Chaco until dusk to hear an astronomy presentation. However, by the time we got down from the top of the canyon, we didn’t have quite enough time to explore some of the distant pueblos before the park closed. But there was still a decent amount of time until the astronomy presentation. So, we decided to head back to Los Alamos. But, Carson had an incredible idea on the way home. We would be passing through Valles Caldera, just outside of Los Alamos, around 9:30pm, which is a perfect time for stargazing. The caldera (a giant supervolcano right next to Los Alamos) was an INCREDIBLE place to see the stars!!! It’s far enough away to avoid most of the light pollution from Los Alamos, and there are no other cities nearby. And although it’s surrounded by mountains, there are some huge clearings in the caldera, so you can still get a great view of the sky. When we got there, it was perfectly clear. We were able to see the Milky Way, and there were just so many stars out. I pointed out some constellations, ad we were all just in awe of the beauty of the stars. It was the perfect ending to a fun, adventurous day!

Constellations and Caves and Climbing

I’ve had someone tell me that there’s not much to do in the small town of Los Alamos.

First of all, I don’t think Los Alamos is small. Sure, it’s definitely smaller than Grand Rapids, but it is a lot bigger than Berrien Springs!!

Second, there is so much to do here! There are so many hiking trails all around town. And then there is all the beautiful scenery and even more hiking trails and climbing areas surrounding town. I don’t think I could get bored here.

So, here are some stories about the cool adventures I’ve had around Los Alamos recently.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, the stars in Los Alamos are INCREDIBLE! The people here know that, so every so often, there are astronomy events. Bandelier National Monument hosts some, as well as a local group of astronomers. I stopped by Bandelier for one of these nights the other weekend. It was probably the clearest night sky I’ve ever seen! There were three telescopes set up, and one the park rangers gave a constellation tour. I had a lot of fun just talking with one of the astronomers who ran one of the telescopes. Everyone got the chance to look at Mars and Saturn through the telescopes. After the constellation tour, we could go back to the telescopes and look at more objects. Most people decided to leave at that point, but of course, I decided to stay as long as I could. I had some great conversations with the astronomers and got to see some incredible objects! My favorite thing (besides Saturn) was the Whirlpool Galaxy. Most galaxies just look like a fuzzy blur through telescopes this size, but you could actually make out some of the spiral structure of the Whirlpool Galaxy. And you could see a second, satellite galaxy as well! It was beautiful! (Click here to see something similar to what I saw through the telescope). I also got to look many other objects: (click each object to see what they look like) globular clusters, The Ring Nebula (that’s what it looked like through the telescope – here’s a picture from Hubble), The North American Nebula, and the Virgo Cluster – a galaxy cluster, which the Milky Way is a part of. I thought everything was absolutely beautiful, even if it didn’t exactly look like all of the pictures I put links to. It was definitely an incredible night! And I just found out that there are astronomy nights at Chaco Canyon – I’m definitely going to make it out there for one of those soon!! (Looking at the stars while wearing my Chacos in Chaco Canyon….it sounds like the perfect activity for me!!)

This past Saturday (June 5), I went to White Rock, a town near Los Alamos, to explore a cave with some of my friends. It was crazy and so much fun! The cave, known as Hell’s Hole, is on the side of the mesa that White Rock is located on. Carson had me lead the way through the cave. The entrance to the cave was kinda small, and there were a lot of tight squeezes throughout the cave. We ended up at this large room, covered in graffiti. Well, the whole cave was covered in graffiti, and Carson joked that to find the entrance to the cave, you just follow the graffiti. Then, we headed out the same way we came. Apparently, though, there’s another way out, but it involved about 15 minutes of wiggling your way through some really tight squeezes. It was a pretty awesome adventure!

Then, on Sunday, I got invited to go rock climbing outdoors. I haven’t climbed outdoors much at all, and the last time I did it was my freshman year of college. So, I was incredibly excited to go again. We went to Las Conchas in the Jemez Mountains, which is near East Fork (where I went hiking one of my first weekends here). There were 4 of us in our group, but we saw tons of other climbers there. I was able to successfully climb all of the 5 routes that I tried. I don’t know the exact ratings of all the climbs I did, but I know I started at around a 5.6/7 and my hardest climb was about a 5.10a. The others were probably around 5.8+/5.9, I think. At first, I was a little disappointed with myself, because the easier climbs didn’t feel as easy as I thought they should have. Climbing on real rock is so much different from climbing indoors! And it took a while to get used to that change. But once I did, I climbed better than I thought I could! I just started climbing 5.10s indoors this semester during my climbing class, so I doubted that I could climb one outdoors. But my group convinced me to try one, and although I definitely struggled a lot with it and it wasn’t a clean climb, I managed to make it to the top of the 5.10! That was such an incredible feeling. The whole day was wonderful, and I can’t wait to try climbing again! I’m so thankful that I’ve been able to meet people here who are willing to take me climbing. Like I’ve said before, it’s a really cool culture here, and it’s been great to get to know people and have fun adventures like this.

Oh, one more quick note about climbing. I go to the climbing gym in town 2-3 times a week. Since I arrived here, I’ve been working on climbing this 5.10+ there. And I’ve just been really frustrated because it’s taken so long to get it. There’s one move that I’ve been stuck on for a long time. But, on Monday, after feeling good about my outdoor climbing, I went back to the gym and tried it again. And I got past the move that I was struggling with! I didn’t make it to the top, though, but I was pretty close. My arms were pretty tired then, so later I just tried the part of the route that I hadn’t done yet, and I did it! So, now I just have to put those two pieces together, and I will finally finish that climb. Climbing is wonderful. I really miss the lake and being able to waterski and kayak, but I am so happy that I can go rock climbing whenever I want to.

Curiosity Update

It seems like both a lot and a little has happened since my return from Michigan. Work has been fairly slow lately. I’ve learned how to do more aspects of my job, but I’m still waiting on other things in order to do more of my job. And there hasn’t been much going on in terms of ChemCam operations lately. Martian days are approximately 40 minutes longer than Earth days, so sometimes the days line up in such a way that makes it hard to do complex operations. Those days, the rover team tries to focus on driving Curiosity closer to its destination: Mount Sharp. And Curiosity only moves about .1 mph, so it takes a while to get anywhere. So that means that there is a fair amount of sitting around and waiting. But during that time, I get to talk to the scientists and learn a lot more about Curiosity.

I have learned how to do some cool things recently, though. I’ve started pre-processing data for the scientists. It just involves running some code and making some excel files, but it is really cool to be able to help out the scientists in this way. Just the fact that they let me handle some of the data is really exciting. Also, I’ve learned how to make mosaics out of some of the ChemCam images. Before I explain what that entails, here’s a brief explanation of the ChemCam instrument. ChemCam involves two pieces – one is in the body of the rover, and one is on the mast/head (where the laser is). The mast unit (RMI – Remote Micro Imager, made in France) basically involves a laser that zaps rocks, a telescope that focuses the laser, and a camera to take pictures before and after the laser zaps the rocks. This sends information via optical fiber to the body unit (LIBS – Laser Induced Breakdown Spectrometer, made in Los Alamos). Scientists analyze the output of the spectrometer to figure out the composition of the rock.

So, back to the mosaics. The laser never zaps just one single location on a target. Rather, it makes a series of shots in either a grid pattern or a line pattern. This means that it can be hard to fit all the laser shots in a single RMI image, so multiple RMI images are typically taken. I’ve recently learned how to use a program to stitch together these images so we have one mosaic image to look at. It also will automatically find and label all of the laser points, in case the scientists want to analyze one more closely.

In the midst of this, Curiosity hit an important milestone – Curiosity has now been on Mars for one Martian year! (In early August, it will be two Earth years since Curiosity’s landing). To celebrate this, the Curiosity team decided to have an all-women’s operations day. So, on Thursday, June 26, women from all over the world worked together to plan Curiosity’s operations. Even though it was technically the French team’s week for planning the ChemCam operations, some of the women here in New Mexico joined in for this special occasion. I got to sit in on operations that day, too. And a story about the women’s operations along with a picture of the ChemCam women (including me!) was featured in the Los Alamos National Lab newsletter! It was very cool to be a part of this celebration!

So, although work can be somewhat slow at times, I am still incredibly excited to be a part of the ChemCam team. There are many incredible things happening with the team, and it is amazing to experience that with them.

Los Alamos Culture

Los Alamos is a very interesting place to live…it’s so different from Berrien Springs and Grand Rapids!! And it’s not just because its in the mountains of New Mexico rather than the farmlands of Michigan (although that is a pretty big difference). The culture here is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

First, there’s the culture of the lab. As I’ve talked about some in previous posts, the city of Los Alamos was formed because of Los Alamos National Lab. So, basically everything in the town revolves around the lab. And when you talk to people around town, it’s pretty safe to assume that they work at the lab. Los Alamos has approximately 15,000 residents. 10,000 people work at the lab. Basically, wherever you go, you meet people from the lab, and it’s pretty likely that they have a Ph.D. After Bible study, instead of talking about things like how certain sports teams are doing or any sort of typical discussion for college kids, we end up talking about physics and supercomputers. That would be typical if I was in the physics reading room at Calvin, but definitely not anywhere else. It’s really cool – I love being surrounded by scientist and being able to talk about things like that with a lot of different people. But it’s just so different from what I’m used to. I thought things could get strange just being in a small department of physicists, but now multiply that by over 300, and you have Los Alamos.

Another culture here is the outdoorsy culture. With the mountains and all the beautiful, incredible places for activities such as hiking and rock climbing, there are a lot of people here who love being outdoors. One place I run into these people a lot is at the climbing wall in town. It is wonderful to be with other outdoorsy people there! It’s so easy to just start a conversation with anyone at the wall. I love how it is common for me to just be climbing and not have anyone I really know at the wall, but as I’m working on my route, I’ll hear people cheering for me. They don’t know me, but we have this bond through climbing. People are constantly giving each other tips, encouraging others as they climb, offering to belay for people they don’t even know. It’s really incredible. I’ve had multiple people come up to me and ask if I like to climb outdoors and then offer to take me sometime. I’m starting to make friendships with some of the regular climbers, and I love that no matter if those climbers are there or if there’s a new group at the wall, everyone is there to support each other and have fun and overcome the challenges of the wall together.

One of the coolest things is to see how these two cultures overlap here. During ChemCam operations, there’s usually a decent amount of time between the different meetings we have throughout the day. I love getting to talk to the scientists I work with during this time. And we talk about outdoorsy stuff a lot. They’ve given me information about different places to hike and told me stories about their experiences hiking in the area. After work, I’ll head over to the climbing wall. Sometimes, work topics will come up in our conversations, and I’ll realize that almost everyone in the room works at the lab.

Although I can find some similarities between life in New Mexico and life in Michigan, there are a lot of big differences. One big one that I have noticed a lot lately has been the differences in faith. I grew up in the center of Seventh Day Adventism, and then for college, I moved to one of the centers of the Christian Reformed Church. I definitely encountered people who weren’t Christians in these places, but a large majority of people were Christians. There was basically a church on every corner in these areas. That’s not the case here. I’ve met some incredible Christians here, and I am very blessed to have a great church and college/career Bible study to attend each week. But it is strange to look around and realize that it’s probably fairly likely that most of the people I see aren’t Christians. This has really challenged me to think about the way I’m living my life. Do the people I encounter realize I’m a Christian? Do they see anything different about me? I hope that my time here will help me become stronger in my faith and help me find ways to live out my faith in ways that I haven’t before.

Familiarity

I’m definitely getting to know my way around Los Alamos and becoming familiar with the area and some of the people here, but I couldn’t wait to head back to Michigan and be in a familiar place once again. It was so wonderful to be surrounded by familiar faces for a week! Seeing my mom’s face light up as she picked me up from the airport. Giving my dad a hug on Father’s Day. Sitting on the ski dock with my siblings. Greetings and stories from friends who are basically family – people I’ve known for my whole life. Holding the hands of adorable little kids as they’re learning how to walk. Cheering for older kids as they ski – kids that I’ve known ever since they were babies.

But it’s more than just the faces. The familiarity in the surroundings and remembering all the memories I’ve made over the years was incredibly comforting. These are simple things, but they mean a lot. Knowing the weekly schedule – the meals, evening activities, and the water sports. Sitting out on the ski dock, enjoying the beautiful view of Elk Lake as I read a new book. Laying out under a beautiful starry night while listening to the sounds of the water. Finding two perfect trees to use to set up my hammock. Seeing and hearing the meal bell, remembering how much I loved to help ring it when I was little.

The weather wasn’t great, and things didn’t go as expected. But I still thought it was a great week. Spending a week at the lodge with family and friends was definitely worth long days of travelling and missing a week of work (even though I really do love my job a lot). It was just what I needed.

And then, it was time to leave. For the first time, I left White Birch Lodge without my family. That was strange. We said goodbye at the lodge, then they left to head back to Berrien, and Conrad took me to Traverse City so I could catch my flight back to New Mexico.

The trip back to Los Alamos was interesting. You see, I haven’t really flown by myself much. Other than this trip, the only time I’ve flown by myself was when I went to Colorado the summer after my freshman year to visit my roommate, Margeaux. But my mom dropped me off at the airport in Chicago and Margeaux’s family picked me up in Durango. At the end of the week, Margeaux’s family took me to the airport, and my mom was there to greet me and take me home from Chicago. This time, things were different. I took myself to the airport in Albuquerque, which was fine. And then my mom picked me up in Traverse, and Conrad took me to the airport at the end of the week. But when I arrived back in Albuquerque, it was the first time that there wasn’t someone waiting for me. That’s when leaving the familiarity that I had in Michigan really hit me. I love my life here in New Mexico, but it was really hard to leave Michigan and everyone/everything there.

But, as I was driving back to Los Alamos, I saw a comforting site. It’s something pretty silly, but it made me happy: I drove past multiple “Denny’s.” Last January was my first visit to Los Alamos, when I spent three weeks in this area with people from Calvin. And it seems like we ate at Denny’s almost every other day. (Ok, it wasn’t quite that much, but we did eat there fairly often, and we joked a lot about how often we ate there.) It just brought back all sorts of fun memories from that interim trip – one of my favorite trips I’ve ever been on! Then, I realized that I could probably drive from Albuquerque back to Los Alamos without using my GPS. After driving for a while, I saw the familiar, winding road heading up the mesas of Los Alamos. I drove past the building where I work, and made my way back to the house that I’m staying in.

And once again, I was in a familiar place. It may not be as familiar as White Birch Lodge or have the same familiar faces, but it’s becoming familiar. I’m making incredible memories here, and I look forward to coming back here at some point in the future and reliving all of these memories. Leaving and change are hard things for me. But I’m learning to embrace them. Because without them, I won’t be able to find new, incredible places that will shape me and become familiar places that I can find comfort in. I love having places like this all over. I never want to stop exploring and making new memories in places that I can call “home,” even if it’s just “home” for a little while. My brother, Josh, wrote an incredible piece about a similar topic, and I highly recommend that you read it: I Am Lord Voldemort.

So, although leaving Michigan was hard, I can’t wait to see what these next few weeks in New Mexico brings! I am so blessed to have such great family and friends back in Michigan, and I am also incredibly blessed by my time in New Mexico. The people here are wonderful, the scenery is beautiful, and I am learning so much already.

From the Mountains to the Mitten

I’ve been in New Mexico for two weeks now, and it’s been so wonderful! But I am so excited that I get to head back to Michigan for a week to spend time with my family and friends at White Birch Lodge. I’m ready to be on the water and go waterskiing and kayaking and paddleboarding and boating. I’m ready to play with little kids and sit around a campfire (with no wildfire danger) and eat s’mores. I’m ready to see a bunch of familiar faces and have a week of relaxing and reading. Yes, I have a booklist for my vacation week already:

• Hacker by Ted Dekker (which I’ll read on the plane)
• An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
• The Scorch Trials by James Dashner (The Maze Runner Series, #2)
• The Death Cure by James Dashner (The Maze Runner Series, #3)
• The Kill Order by James Dashner (The Maze Runner Series, Prequel)

We’ll see if I end up having space to bring more….probably not, but I think that list will keep me busy for the week. (I had to give most of those to my parents to bring so I wouldn’t read them early…)

Anyways, New Mexico is wonderful, but I cannot wait to spend some time back in Michigan, in one of the most beautiful areas I know! I’m leaving early in the morning, and I won’t get to MI until pretty late. So, hopefully the travel goes smoothly and the weather is nice! And I probably won’t put up a new blog post until I’m back in NM.

Oh, side note about work:

I actually did get to start working this week! My training is all done and my computer is all set up, and I can actually get to work! It’s not the most exciting work, but I’m happy to be doing something. And working with the ChemCam team is absolutely wonderful. People are always so kind and friendly. And today, even though the French team is running operations, Roger Wiens just came up to me and said, “Do you wanna see what the rover is going to be doing this weekend?” So I got to look at brand new pictures from the rover and look at all the plans for the weekend. It’s so cool! I still have trouble believing that I’m actually getting paid to do this!