Don't Mess with Texas?

I'll second everything Jill said, but I'm not making any moving plans quite yet. UT was HUGE, the campus was gorgeous and very impressive, and the geology department building and facilities were awesome.

However, I also got a lot of bad vibes about my potential advisor. For example, the first thing I learned was that he is the "antichrist", he is a bad communicator and will not form relationships outside a very official advisor relationship with students (they didn't even know he was having a child until it was born), he treats his male students a lot differently, and he can throw some very stinging comments at you about your work, which makes it difficult to talk to him about problems. But, I will say that those opinions come from two students that I believe are also crazy. What it really comes down to is that I don't think I really want to do the research he does. He does work with eruption dynamics of volcanoes and the project I could work on would have to do with why some magmas (continental volcanoes) form bubbles as they rise and degas CO2 and other volatiles while other magmas (mid ocean ridges) do not. The actual work would be running experiments and then counting the bubbles and measuring their size and surface area to try and figure out if there is a pressure and temp or a time (rate of ascent) cutoff to form the bubbles. I think it's interesting, but my true interest lies more in the area of mantle dynamics and deeper processes.
Thankfully, I just received notice that I was accepted at Oregon State, who has a person who does things more along those exact lines. The package wouln't be as sweet, and the facilities (and everything else that comes with being the richest geology school in the country) probably wouldn't be either, but I think it is worth it to be working with someone I get along with and doing something I actually want to be doing. I also was accepted to University of Missouri, but they guy there does things more with magma viscosities and eruption dynamics also, so I'm not sure about that. I applied at a broad range because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do exactly, but I have become more focused since I applied 3 months ago.

Otherwise, it was a great weekend. I met a bunch of really cool people, including this hilarious southern girl from Auburn, and of course the "its a small world" requirement of two guys from Minnesota, one of whom I had actually run into once before without really knowing it. I'll probably see them again around the city this semester, so that's cool, since more friends are always good.


The photos show some of my highlights....
1. Cupcake, anyone?
2. Cutest girls in Texas
3. Austin at night
4. Texas Hill Country
5. Thrift shoppin
6. Green Texas?
7. Park
8. Texas Hill COuntry -- The *other* Colorado River


Oh, and i've been a bit busy to knit lately... but I am almost done with one sleeve of KAL II