Hi. I'm Leah Wang. I'm from right outside of Boston, MA. Neither astronomy nor physics are passions of mine, but this opportunity is amazing. Not to mention, after 2 years of science on the tiniest of scales (chem and bio) I've wanted to explore all frontiers of science, and this program will definitely help me do that. I also love meeting new people/traveling/hiking/being tourist-y/southwestern culture/getting away from high school drama/etc.

Day 1 - June 17, 2007
A day full of traveling. I met Katie and her mom at Logan airport - but it was too bad Katie and I didn't have seats near each other. We rushed from one side of O'Hare to the other to catch our next flight to Albuquerque, where we found Andrew and Pia who had been waiting for some time. That was another 2.5 hour flight, but I managed to doze off for some of it. Luggage was claimed (against my worst fears) and we ate at a restaurant in the airport - I've already forgotten the name of that amazing dessert we had, the fried dough + honey amazing-ness. A long drive to Los Alamos but even with the darkness we could tell the scenery and skies were amazing.

Day 2 - June 18, 2007
A long one, to say the least. Up at 6 with a phone call from Scott, our chaperone. We were gathered by 7 to go down to LANL's badge office. Getting a badge is quite the process - but it's understandable. Even when entering the Canyon School Complex every day for lectures and tutorials, everyone must individually swipe their badge and go in the door. OH - I almost forgot. The first major story of the trip...waiting for the badge office to open, we were standing in a circle, being awkward and only slightly talkative. All of a sudden Katie dropped to the floor, face first. The ambulance was called (from across the street) and, even though Katie was fine at this point, they took her blood pressure and took her back to the hospital on a stretcher. Frank was making phone calls all morning but eventually we went to get her. I felt like we'd already done so much and it was only about 10am. We got to Canyon School and first heard from Don Casperon, who taught us about CCD cameras. When I first saw it, it looked pretty new - just a bigger version of a thin digital camera that anyone would buy. He then told us it was about 10 years old. After that we learned about telescopes - specifically his Meade telescope. It's pretty big and requires some assembly. Then there's the Meade catalog, programmed with tons of stars and planets and clusters and nebulae that help the telescope find out EXACTLY where it is relative to the night sky. We went up to Fenton Hill around 815 and looked around. It's just a few huge telescopes and some random buildings - much more laid-back than I imagined. We set up three telescopes, attempted to align them, and tried to find random things using the catalog. My eyes could use some more adjusting to the sky, but I saw some pretty neat things. The moon sat in the middle of Venus and Saturn - Andrew got a really good view of the latter through the telescope. Jupiter was harder to find...

Day 3 - June 19, 2007
Up at 8:30 after a peaceful night's sleep. The first thing on the schedule was a presentation from Cathy, one of the PI's. She told us about the project we hope to complete in the two weeks - tracking the orbit of the asteroid 9 Metis. It sounds pretty straightforward but still "smart." Later Frank continuted our "astronomy 101" syllabus with a lesson about time and geocentric cosmologies. Those silly Greeks and Romans. We stopped at the elementary school where Scott teaches 3rd graders, and were disappointed in the playground structure. After dinner was the first of a series of "talks" at Bradbury Museum. Brian O'Shea talked about the formation of galaxies - it was really really interesting. Too bad we were sitting in the front row and had to strain our necks to see the Powerpoint presentation. So much for guests of honor! After/before dinner (I forget) we played cards in Katie and Clare's room. It was a game called Mao - the rules are that there are no rules, and certain people make them up as the rounds go on. Pretty frustrating until you get it. We went up to Fenton Hill around 8pm to start our 9 Metis observations. Jim Renn was around to tell us about RAPTOR, the main project going on there. A bunch of telescopes and cameras with one-letter names do a bunch of things...most of which I can't remember. But they have tons of supercomputers automatically processing the information they receive. I think more credit should be given to the programmers and technicians. So anyway...that night I worked with Clare, Katie, and Andrew. According to Cathy, we aligned the telescope pretty quickly - however we still weren't completely familiar with some of the major stars with which to align. 9 Metis was tricky to find - in fact we didn't find it, but tomorrow we'll look at the same star field to see if any movement has occurred.

Day 4 - June 20, 2007
Today's my last day of school...HAH. We woke up too early to do our geology tour. By 9am we were on our way towards the mountains, passing through Bandelier. Carol Hogsett led us around. The Valle Grande was beautiful and MUCH bigger than it looked. That was something that confused us a lot...we walked over the soda dam and tasted the hot springs around it (ew). Lunch was delicious as always...we discussed mountain goats and I ate ice cream with a fork. I lost horribly at the dots game. Right after we stopped by MILAGRO, the project sitting next to Fenton Hill. Five million gallons + of water sitting in a pool and in various tanks that are also equipped with PVC tubes that catch the angle of gamma ray showers and proton showers. The latter is the kind they need to weed out in order to effectively study GRBs. It's really too bad that MILAGRO's funding was cut off. Went back to the hotel and showered. We were all confused as to how much free time we had, so we played card games in my hotel room. Now across the street at the school, we're all trying to recollect what we've done and asking for the correct spelling of certain names. Scott just came in with pizza, so...

Day 5 - June 21, 2007
We didn't go up to Fenton Hill last night, so we got to sleep a reasonable amount. By 9am we were at Bandelier National Monument for a hike. Although we stayed OFF OF THE TRAIL and DID NOT DEFACE THE CLIFFS we saw beautiful excavated ruins and cliff dwellings. The climb up to the ceremonial cave was a workout but totally worth it. We all took billions of pictures. After lunch we wandered the (lack of) streets of Los Alamos, where we bought frisbees and hacky sacks to pass time/juggle with. John O'Donnell took some time out to talk to us about our asteroid tracking project; he ended up staying a bit long and was probably an hour late for his next appointment. Talk about dedication...or maybe his next task wasn't as fun. Tonight we're heading up to observe again - I hope I can take a nap before then. Just kidding! It was raining and thundering, so observation was cancelled. The group headed to Cathy's place with her boyfriend Vick and we ate ice cream and played cards. A good alternative plan.

Day 6 - June 22, 2007
Today was a relaxing day for the most part. Breakfast, then an introduction to radio astronomy from Don. Turns out that radio waves are much easier to detect because it can be cloudy and they'll still come through. Lunch and finally the laundromat/the park while we waited for our clothes. Not surprisingly, I'm horrible at hacky sack. The second lecture at Bradbury Museum was tonight by Dan Whalen, about the very first stars and the shape/expansion of the universe. We got to see some of the movies from the first lecture again, which I didn't mind. Of course I was listening, but an intense game of Dots had to occur. It's hard to pull that off sitting in the front row. Afterwards we walked practically across the street to a concert at Ashley Pond. The atmosphere was pretty chill, with little kids running around and daring to go into the water. A few of us tumbled down the (slight) incline and it got dark quickly. From there we piled in the car to go up to Fenton Hill. None of us thought we were going to do any work with the telescopes, seeing as the sky was full of clouds with but a few stars in sight. When we got there we stayed around the van and used some crappy ipod speakers to listen to good/nostalgic songs. Don's makeshift antenna went up and we huddled around to try to hear radio waves from Jupiter. Nothing planetary, but a good amateur radio station monologue about tax troubles and the IRS. Around midnight, we were just sitting down to continue our music party when we were told that it was time to set up the telescopes. Lucky for me I was quite awake last night and didn't suffer any yawning streaks or heavy eyes. We aligned it and again looked for asteroid 9 Metis. We sketched the star field that was supposed to contain 9 Metis, and, because we needed to wait ample time for it to move, we headed into the main building for some late-night cards and newspaper finds. Around 3am we headed back out to our telescopes to sketch another star field - one that would hopefully contain some of the same fixed stars and a moving asteroid. In comparing our sketches with the star map on Xephem (the coolest computer program ever), we're not sure what data we have, if any. Drawing what we see in the telescope is a daunting task, not only because there are SO MANY stars of various magnitudes, but because our night vision is destroyed anyway by the lights of the keypad, our pens, and Cathy's laptop. I really hope that we're able to track the asteroid... we need some content in next week's presentation at Bradbury (besides juggling and sing-a-longs; these we've decided must be incorporated).

Day 7 - June 23, 2007
We got home at 5am. I called home because I knew my mom would be up (it was 7am in Boston). I hadn't had the chance to call anyone in the past few days, so it felt good to talk to her. I went straight to bed and slept fine until 9am...oops. Tonight's not gonna be as successful as last night in terms of alertness. At 1pm, after most people had slept like logs, we ate (breakfast? lunch?) at the Hill Diner, where portions know no boundaries. Even the drinks were huge, and we were all full of food. We managed to make an origami collection before our meals came. Now we're at school...we just watched a movie (narrated by Morgan Freeman, of course) about the crazy huge-ness and tiny-ness of the universe. I'd seen it before, only an older version with less dramatic music and sweeping nature images. Soon is a class from Frank and at around 5, a social/party type thing at Don's. Sounds good to me...!

Day 8 - June 24, 2007
Don's was fun, filled with food and charades. We watched the movie Contact - it deals with radio astronomy and features the VLA in Socorro. Of course I couldn't stay awake for the whole thing, but the parts I saw were good. This morning we hiked at Tsankawi, an ancient village whose people carved out the trails that we walked on with their bare feet. The carvings and pottery shards provided a look into the past, while the sun gave us no mercy. Many pictures were taken - even though I dropped my camera into the sand (it still makes a grinding noise when I turn it on). We headed up to Fenton Hill early today to set up our telescopes and align accurately. After juggling and music and being silly, the sky cleared and we got 9 Metis in our field of view close to midnight. After our sketch, we rushed inside to play canasta, our new card game of choice. Apparently Katie and Clare have psychic powers. Two amazing pictures of Scott later, we sketched our field of view again. It was definitely our best observing night - we all definitely observed movement among the fixed stars. We got home around 4am...not bad.

Day 9 - June 25, 2007
Up at noon for a lazy day. We ate brunch at the park and watched a red-haired boy run around the pond - we gave him a slow clap. We also encountered an aggressive trash can. At school, John O'Donnell went over our asteroid data with us. He introduced us to a huge formula he created to find the (circular) orbit of the asteroid. Luckily we didn't have to do any real math - we just saw how the equation translated into a graph, then reasoned out one of the solutions. We felt accomplished so we headed to Scott's place near Santa Fe for another party. We tried to teach Frank how to play Mao, and he, naturally, didn't obey the "rules." We also had some more intense canasta and a ton of food. We met Charlie the horse and showed the Harry Potter puppet movie to people who hadn't seen it. I made friends with the sweetest dog ("you don't even live here!")...it wasn't one of Scott's. We also played Pit and Mafia - we live on group games. Another night in before our big trip to the VLA.

Day 10 - June 26, 2007
This was the trip we had heard about every day until now. A four-hour trip to Socorro, NM to see the VLA - the Very Large Array. (The wicked big array...?) The trip there was relatively quiet, and the sun was sweltering hot. We put on bright orange hard hats and headed up one of the 27 antennas that make up the VLA. We looked at the various control rooms and saw how everything worked - and finally, to Andrew's relief, we climbed up onto the dish itself. It was a blinding white parabolic dish that concentrated radio waves to one point - wicked scary to walk on, especially towards the edge. The trip back was much more action-packed - probably because we had started a game of canasta in the restaurant and were determined to finish it in the van. It worked out...sort of. We proceeded to quote every movie and TV show ever, as we always do. When we got back, I speed-showered and we headed out to get ice cream. Back at the hotel we partied and watched movies on homestarrunner and played more canasta. I think I need a break from that game.

Day 11 - June 27, 2007
Today was our tourist-y day in Santa Fe. They only gave us 45 minutes to go shopping! But I managed to spend most of my money on people back home. The authentic jewelry was really amazing. Now we're back at school, starting to work on our presentation. Katie and I volunteered to talk about the asteroid project, probably so we can sound smart. There's a lot of information to cover, and we have to run through it in about an hour. We'll figure something out.

Day 12 - June 28, 2007
Last night was too stormy to head up to Fenton Hill for leisure observation, so we were at Canyon School until about 9:45, playing with the CCD cameras. We all returned to our room where we played canasta (Katie and I completely crushed Andrew and Michael). Somehow we got to talking about religion - several different beliefs about morality, life on Earth, life beyond it, and the existence of a God went head-to-head. Everyone stayed sane and respected one another's beliefs, and although it was a serious topic, I think everyone enjoyed the questions and points raised. I went to bed at 1:30 and woke up at 8:30, and after breakfast we headed to the Black Hole, the store we'd heard the most about since our arrival. We had no idea what kind of shop it was until we got there. Ed Grothus owns the Black Hole right here in Los Alamos, and strives to keep the town's atomic history alive. The store is a huge room filled with shelves of random computer supplies, gadgets, screws, science equipment, etc. I kept thinking, 'Either I'll trip and fall on sharp objects, or one will fall on me and I'll die.' It was Ed's birthday, and he's quite a character - really passionate about his collection. He really does deserve a museum to carry on his legacy. From there we went to the laundromat and ran some errands while our clothes were going. We ate at the bagel place again and learned about Scott's life (!!). We've been at school since then...we ran our presentation again (with slides), and it's much better, but we still need to get down what we're saying. We're heading out now to the second to last Astronomy Days lecture by Cathy's boyfriend Vick. I'm actually pretty excited to learn about dark matter, considering it's such a strange concept. Apparently after that we're going rollerblading and Fenton Hill after that if the weather's okay. We have further plans to tye-dye and "fork" someone's lawn. Don't ask.

Day 13 - June 29, 2007
Our presentation is today - I'm actually kind of excited! SO last night we watched Zoolander at school. It was 11pm when we ended, and we headed back to the hotel. We chilled in my room for a while and closer to 1am, all of us minus Andrew applied warpaint (my eyeliner) and took pictures. At 1 we piled into the van. Scott brought up painting the rock in White Rock, and although we didn't have any paint, we went to "check if there was any left." Turns out sneaky Scott had several spray paint cans in his bag. We painted over what was there and tagged our names. I got to write the main part - 2007 Earthwatch. Next it was onto the forking. Earlier Katie and I had bought eight boxes of 72 forks each (do the math). On the way to Scott's friend's house (someone who could take a practical joke) he mentioned jacking for-sale signs. We found a few that Katie and Michael successfully uprooted and brought them to the victim's house. We each got a box of forks and went crazy. Notable is Scott's "graveyard" of forks and the flash pictures we got before sprinting off. Driving by the house the next morning around 10 15, everything was gone! We were shocked. We fine-tuned our presentation and at 6:30 almost exactly, we were on. I think everything went great; my only criticism is that we bought way too much candy, which implies that we will have to eat it. Which is something we will gladly do. We headed up to Pajarito Ski Area right after to celebrate. We trekked the steep hill up to the ski lift, enjoyed the view and took pictures. An older woman asked Steven to dance, and Katie made me ask a picture of the band member who looked younger from far away. We were the last ones to leave, but our night wasn't over - we headed up to Fenton Hill. We helped take Don's Jupiter radio antenna down and chilled to see if the clouds would leave. They didn't, so around 1am we went home. Pia and I returned to the hotel room to find our toilet overflowing. Once I took off my shoes I realized the carpet outside the bathroom was completely soaked. Instead of calling the front desk and having to stay up longer than necessary, we took showers in other rooms (Clare and Katie have a taller/better showerhead!) and then settled down. I didn't get to bed until 4am.

Day 14 - June 30, 2007
Our last full day. :( We woke up at 9:30 and headed to Fenton Hill for the last time for our amateur radio broadcast. We helped put up the three-band antenna and set up the table and equipment. After a while, we had pretty much memorized the call: "CQ! CQ! This is W5PDO, that's whiskey-5-papa-delta-oscar. This is a special events station here in northern New Mexico, QRZ?" We got a bunch of responses from 9 or 10 states, the farthest east being Mississippi. A bunch were from California. This is when we ate all of the Milky Ways and Starbursts we had bought for the presentation. We were wrapped up by about 4:30. Now we're at school for the last time, blogging. I wonder what we'll do tonight...one big thing I have to do is pack. We have to leave the hotel by 6 :15 am tomorrow to have time to eat and get through all the security/baggage checking. It really hasn't hit me that we're all parting ways - I'm getting used to this routine and these people and the Riddle Rider and the eating at nice restaurants all the time (for free). I really hope I stay in touch with everyone because they're all so awesome. At the same time, I can't wait to go home and catch up with those who are home and those who aren't. Which reminds me, I have more presents to buy... So kbye earthwatch. It's been so much fun, and I'll never forget this experience. LOVES IT. DANGER!