Mentor log

Friday, November 16, 2007 I went over to Jason Locklin, a, at times goofy, but sometimes deadly serious chemistry researcher who really has hopes that what he creates in his lab and with the students he teaches will become something important and influential in the society we live in. I went to his lab and there he was. "I just got a new windshield" he said as he came into the building as I did. He was feeling sick, he told me in an email, that morning and still didn't feel great but worked very hard and well regardless. It was about 3 o clock. He said, "I don't havem uch time for you, so you'll just sit in while I present a project to some new graduate students." I stood around in his lab, among a swarm of lab workers, test tubes of all shapes and sizes, computer screens, the smell of ethol acetate in the air. I examined the glass cabinet doors inscribed in molecule designs and chemical element symbols. I couldn't make any sense of them, but I liked how they looked, how they all overlapped one another. Jason came back into the lab and swept the two grad students and me to his office, then a conference room, and after our conference room was needed, the dark break room. I learned so much in his mini-lecture to these students about polymerization, about the roles of catalysts, about making a molecule conductive, and super-conductive that I don't think I would have ever learned in a chemistry class (on my level anyway). I was intrigued by all that he said, and liked the way he lectured a lot. When he was primarily over, he turned to me and smiling said, "Anne, why don't you explain to these guys your project!" So I proceeded, at first hesistantly, to explain that I was studying solar energy engineering and I was in the process of making a Stirling Engine, and then explained the stirling engine, drew its cycle and what my engine looked like, and then chatted it up with the students as Jason ran around doing his own things about what I wanted to study later, engineering, and chemistry. It was a lovely time and when they mentioned it was five o clock I was taken aback. Already! So I was swept away from their busy business, said good bye to, and planned another meeting (to show Jason my engine) for the week after thanksgiving.

2 Hours