I had an amazing Wednesday last week, and it is these days that make the trip up here worthwhile so much more than simply the project that I am working on. Like a waterfall of information lapping down into a vast blue sea, the opportunities light a bright and exhilarating path.

I visited a smoke detector laboratory where they perform detector activation experiments:

I got a chance to meet with the Executive Director of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers:

And my co-advisor accompanied me along the way and was extremely insightful as he shared some tips that will make my future ride in life sure to be a must-read story. It’s exceptionally nice to have people who are in a great position recognize the potential in you and to assure you of their confidence. It makes my brain spill happy juice to be told that I “get it” with respect to the bigger picture of things; and that is what will cause a single person to alter the world as we see it and make it a better place. Feynman comes to mind. And then goes.

Why get worked up with the small annoyances in life when there’s… this.

Sure, I am working on stage 2 of a cable failure model using fire dynamics simulator (FDS) research, and the best part:

• I get to act out the day-to-day life of a NIST FDS worker
• I wholly appreciate the resources here, such as the macronormous computer cluster and teeming fire literature
• I meet and immerse myself into the brainy and non-stop academic world of fire ‘people’
• My wisdom takes in the important and cutting-edge topics and gets familiar what doesn’t matter, which is usually more important than what does

Now, let us just hope that I can effectively take all of this back with me to Houston in 1.5 weeks!

I just had the best start to a morning that I have experienced all summer. Maybe it was the morning air that breathed through me like a cold front in my lungs. Or maybe it’s the idea of a looming deadline and my last true week of work. Maybe it’s the suspense of being here at this awesome research complex hours before others arrive. Maybe it was the pleasant and early energizing breakfast with a good friend. What amplifies this morning experience is that that I don’t do this everyday, nor would my mind wish to: but today is today.

However I break it down, it feels good to be alive and working on science so early in the morning, with a clear plan of what I want to accomplish today. Not only to work “hard” (as society calls this thing that I love doing), but to better the way that I have been doing tasks before. Today, I want to drain my new pen of its ink. I want to fill up a ridiculous amount of pages in my science notebook with ideas and delicious tidbits to take back home to the academic world in Houston.

I want to breeze through my tasks like I was meant to be here. Aren’t I?

Finally, I don’t expect to impress my advisors here at NIST with my work. I am, after all, just a mere undergraduate student at this point. I do, however, intend to leave a positive impression of myself on them. And looking at the past 9 weeks, I can say that it has been quite successful in my eyes. Successful not just for me, but for them, my school, my friends, my family, my …

I hope you have a wonderful and astonishing day as well. I’ll be home in two weeks.

Time is winding down here like a trickling cold spring. I already have feelings of missing the summer rapidly being replaced by the joys of the exciting fall semester coming up real soon.

After the summer, I’ll wholeheartedly miss:

• the community of nerds
• the few amazingly mental and livingly appreciative friends that I’ve made here
• the free golden breakfasts and dinners (seriously)
• the lack of humidity and the cool, crispy delicious mornings
• the vacant worries about so many obligations - the vacation-like atmosphere
• having the top fire scientists merely a few feet away to talk to and learn from
• peeking through the vast fire science library - like no resource that I have seen before
• the ability to SSH into a sea of 40+ linux computers to calculate my FDS curiosities
• sitting by the pond having lunch with a dear friend, dear deer, geese, and a shady tree in the breeze

This fall, I explodingly and excitedly look forward to:

• sharing what I’ve learned here for the rest of my life, scholarly and real-life related
• getting to teach classes!
• learning more and more about Fire Dynamics Simulator and the beauty of the dynamics of fire for the rest of my life - I’ve only been working with FDS for a year now, after all, I know nothing…
• the sickening number of trips, and thus, experiences that I will be able to take around the world
• growing with the dedicated students at UHD who wish to be something in the fire protection world
• writing non-stop all week long
• meeting more and more progressive people in the world
• moving into a new house and making the most mentally conducive, fire studying, brain leaking, progressively thinking, and soul soothing place in my universe
• wondering how the weather will be in Massachusetts in a year
• having a comfortable amount of money to perform my goods in life

It really has been a fantastically mind-expanding experience. It’s not over yet! I still have two projects to work on, a presentation to give, a paper to publish, a lab notebook to fill, and many more days and nights to grow.

Also, I am bursting for Wednesday to come, when I get to visit one of the coolest and most robust smoke detector laboratories as well as the headquarters for the Society of Fire Protection Engineers and meet the director and such!

If you ever wonder what else you can do in life, take a moment to just start writing what you are thinking.

And they separated ways into the forest. Who knew which ending he would take? How many choices did he have? Would it be on his own terms? Why don’t we live life on our own terms, anyway? We seem to take this tool called “social” and grant it access to dictate our thoughts, actions, and schedules. Whomever invented this “social” did not mean for it to become this sort of crap festival.

Firstly, one thing he did was to suppress his thoughts until his bladder burst. That was a terrible decision, and he had heard that before. Didn’t make a difference to him. To silence one’s own thoughts is similar to dying. And it just made him more anxious, anyway. Anxious about the whole situation. What is a situation when it changes your whole outlook on life?

He was an experimental guy, so he moved on from this thoughtless stage of mind. Next, he walked for miles, trying to clear his mind. Use separate minds!

While I work the social part of the universe, when I am talking to person A, all thoughts are filtered, targeted, and flowing to that person. This, in turn, makes me the human to person A. Person B comes along, and person A never existed. Think of it as a gutless, more complicated version of his first failed approach of blocking all thoughts. Wait! Did it work? Not this time. He didn’t know, but his heart knew all the time.

Finally, thoroughly frustrated, he tried one last thing before his brain fried. He tried what he thought to be brainwashing himself. Modifying the perspective. He took what most thought to be two entirely different things, like the sun and a small tree, and scrutinized them closel, and he combined them. Mentally. Quickly he switched them back and forth in his mind.

What he found was amazing. Not only was this decision or situation just an answer, but it was a way of life. A way to constant joy. As many places as he wandered in the forest, it all made sense now. Even though the monumental decision existed quietly in his own head, it screamed out from every inch of his soul. He sat by a rock with a busted bladder, and he was that much better for it.

For not settling or tuning out and dying to his life and thoughts. For facing his thoughts in a weird unconventional way. For forcing his mind to think. For not worrying and talking to his family about bills, business, shopping centers, new homes, new cars, new commercials. For taking life into his own terms. That was a huge step. A progressive step, you could say. As you witnessed, the wrong mindful approach to life could have turned our wanderer into a much of unhappiness for life. Instead, he reaches towards and embraces those qualities that set him free. Free to live the best life that he could thanks to thought.

This is an essay that I wrote today, just out of curiosity. I like to write about far-fetched topics that interest me, and here is one that I have been pondering for a few months: touch. Enjoy.

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My thoughts on human touch range greatly from the idea of chemical reactions occurring in the brain to a simple, yet deep way to connect to other people in the world. There are numerous observations about the way that different cultures deal with touch and interpersonal contact, so I will not repeat them here. In my experience in the US, other than significant others and family members, human contact seems to be becoming a less integral part of communication and interaction between people. This phenomenon seems to stem from a learned discomfort of the senses and a fear of the human body.

When someone invades your personal space, a mixture of negative feelings usually arises such as embarrassment, fear, uncertainty, discomfort, nervousness, anxiety, and raised awareness. I think that these feelings are generated from a higher, unnatural thought process. I will expand upon the act of accidental touching, why we should use touch more, and why we should do away with our uppity disapproval of touch as a means to explore our senses.

Why is this happening? Why can’t we openly touch each other? Living in the scientific age of cutting-edge research and information, we know that human touch and contact release certain pleasurable chemicals in the brain and result in feelings of love, security, and compassion for others. Yet we are overriding these natural feelings with a higher level of consciousness for the sake of withdrawing our true feelings and appearing to be in control of ourselves at all times. Our fear of spontaneous feelings has led us into a sensory deprived universe and is robbing us of one of the most fundamental human qualities: knowing others.

Think about a time where touch with a stranger has led to positive feelings. As you ordered a cup of coffee and the person behind the counter held out their hand to receive your bills or credit card, there was a brief moment of touch. This is done by both parties numerous times a day, and it can be either a robotic exchange of currency or a short moment of instinctual human touch, depending on the thinker or lack thereof. Did this experience make you excited? Or did you even notice it? Is there a proper response to this? This transfer of payment for goods is one of the few remaining yet endangered sensory experiences left in our lifetimes. If there exists a way to beam the cash from our wallet or slide a credit card through a machine, the element of humanness is long gone and is replaced by the cold response of the plastic appliance.

But how much of these phenomena are to blame on technology? What about modern urban and commercialized expansion? Is there a part of the mind that takes this distanced human model and embeds it deeply into the social part of our mind? I feel as though the present expansion and growth occurring across the nation reflect our ongoing disdain for touch and interaction. Sure, there are fake ponds, flashy lights, huge stores, outdoor music, ferryboats, and numerous culturally watered-down restaurants that reflect our affinity for the clean, common, and comfortable environments. And is it wrong that these places usually end up removing as much human from the surroundings as possible?

All of these ideals lead to the disbanding of close communities in my eyes. And everyone seems to accept this new-age humanless way of living. I sure don’t. But what can I do about it? I can actively seek community and closeness in everything I do, from academics to hobbies to sports. Granted, you probably won’t be able to reach out and touch those who are deep in the manufactured home farms surrounded by strip malls, but there are still many areas in the cities that retain and promote culture, community, and the human part of being alive.

Whether it is a small concert, art show, or any type of event or gathering, the people there are all searching for some experience. For me, one of the things I am doing is simply searching for other humanly people. People with ideas, motivations, and a certain quirkiness. And not necessarily limited to any or all of those traits. These qualities come naturally to those who acknowledge their human nature and appreciate its response to the natural world.

The subject of physical contact is a broad one at that, and I am not confining my thoughts to exchanging money, holding hands, or sexual contact. Massages, handshakes, hugs, kisses, and bundling are all an excellent utilization of our natural sense of touch and our physiological sense of being. This is not confined to the opposite sex either. As I said earlier, hundreds of cultures around the world treat touch differently. Some countries kiss on the cheek as a greeting, some hold hands and wrap an arm around each other when walking – even, gasp, persons of the same sex. I do not think that this will ever happen in the US, nor is there a need for a universal minimum standard of touching to happen for me to be happy. Maybe these ideas are just coming from my quirky and experimental mind. All I think that we are seeking is a way to be happy and a way to be human, and in the current direction that we are heading, we don’t even know what that really means anymore. To be human.