Day Four

I feel quite sad knowing that today is day four and I only have one day left! I really have had a brilliant time, I don't want it to end..

Today I went to the academy after mentally preparing myself for my data not to have come back. I was a little disappointed but I had convinced myself that I was fine with it. Then I spoke to a few people and they all told me that everyones' data had run! They had all worked! I was extremely excited and was desperate to get started. I ran to my computer and although they are very fast, the computer seemed to take years to set up! I can barely even describe the crushing disappointment I felt when I found all of my jobs folder void of any output. I checked the queue and sure enough, there are my jobs - waiting in the run column... Our undergraduate ambassador seems to think I might have set up some kind of loop but I'm still in the stage of denial and am still praying my results will come through by tomorrow morning - I won't get my hopes up too high though!

None of the zeolites came back with a negative thermal expansion though (the volume  increased with temperature) so maybe mine is contracting and that is why it is taking so long? Possibly? And if that is the case - my data will be the most interesting and brilliant! Fingers crossed?

So now I have to prepare for the presentation tomorrow and we are going to talk without notes which completely terrifies me!

This morning we did a workshop on presentation skills which I was convinced would be a waste of time but it was actually pretty useful! We had a quick go at a presentation but only had half an hour to prepare and were supposed to teach the rest of the group something. At first we struggled to come up with an idea and then I remembered about the origami jumping frogs! We had the best idea by far and I did the demonstration without anything going very wrong so I'm actually feeling quietly confident about public speaking at this precise moment.

However tomorrow the presentation will be in front of strangers (I don't count the group as strangers anymore!) so it will be a bit different! And of course I don't know as much about Physics as I do about origami frogs... Oh and to make it even scarier - I think my teacher is coming! She hasn't told us but I heard from my friends that she has booked the afternoon off!

Today was good, I just hope tomorrow goes well - eek!