#howdyhowdyhowdy everybody

[faces-in-unexpected-places]

Do You Have the Time? Episode 017: Under Pressure

Synopsis: While Leopold and Leslie work to ease their newfound professional discomfort, Jeremy has the unique opportunity to experience both professional and personal discomfort.

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[To: loonely.lm@cvu.edu, brilliant.jf@cvu.edu, goodchild.la@cvu.edu, hyde.da@cvu.edu,  moreno.br@cvu.edu, ramone.ag@cvu.edu, mendez.se@cvu.edu, nguyen.ch@cvu.edu, murphy.ma@cvu.edu, lawrence.gl@vcu.edu, solis.dt@cvu.edu, molina.mo@cvu.edu …]

[From: nguyen.xv@cvu.edu] [Received: 9:54 (1 hour ago)] [Subject: CVU Research Symposium]

Hi all,

I’d like to address the rumors that have been circulating in our building for the past few weeks. After a lot of deliberation with my peers in the CVU Board of Research, it has been decided that our yearly conference – which is often hosted here in Curiesville – will be relocated this year. Proposed by B.S. Dexter Hyde and Dr. Blythe Moreno of the CRISPR-Cas-9 molecular biology lab, we will be hosting our research symposium in San Diego California this year at the San Diego Convention Center. This change in venue was made in hopes of generating more interest in us as a research-driven university. The goal is to expand on the population that will attend the conference for better name recognition and to open us up to more potential sources for grant money. To be economically sound, we are combining our conference with the interests of numerous other universities in California that will also be presenting at the symposium. Thus, the symposium will not only last one day as it has in the past.

The symposium will start on Friday, August 17th at 9:00am, and will officially end on Sunday, August 19th at 5:00pm. Presentations will end each day at 5:00pm. We are currently working to have a portion of the Mission Beach reserved in the evenings for the participants to relax, network with one another other, and discuss research in a casual environment along with some fun activities.

As for transportation, there are a few options. Most of you who planned on participating anyway will likely be able to afford your own airline tickets with the grant money that you already have. If you are short, then you may apply for the numerous grants that will become available to the university over the upcoming months. I will send a separate email listing the institutions that are likely to be the most helpful.

Lastly, if the grants do not work out, then your lab may write a proposal that explains your research topic, how it is beneficial, and why it is important for you to present at the symposium. Send these proposals to Dexter Hyde, and he will review them. Calculate your projected expenses for your trip, and the Board of Research will cover up to half of your expected costs if your proposal is sufficient.

In order to participate in the symposium, your lab must email your abstracts to me by June 15th. Your completed papers should be submitted by July 30th along with an appropriate slideshow presentation.

If you plan to participate, then please email your general topic and a list of all the members of your lab that will be involved in the presentation to me by the end of this week at 5:00pm. I will be able to keep track of everything much more efficiently this way, when I start getting everyone’s abstracts and papers down the road.

Expect more emails during the week for more detailed instructions on the upcoming deadlines. I look forward to reading your papers over the subsequent months. Have a good week.

Best Regards,

Xuan “Sophia” Nguyen CVU Board of Research Secretary Center for Advancement in Technology and Science (219)-555-6295

[April 24th, 2018, 10:57]

           Leopold’s eyes frantically jumped through the email from paragraph to paragraph. Down, down, up, down, up again. He took an anxious drag from his cigarette, then crushed the half-used remaining butt beneath his foot. He blew the smoke out, tucked his phone away in his pocket and burst back through the doors to the Center of the Advancement in Technology and Science. Martha waved to him, and he gave a forced smile and nod as he maneuvered through the sea of lab technicians that were scurrying back and forth between their labs, cluttering up the lobby. Normally he’d feel reassured if he wasn’t the only one rushing last minute to finish before the deadline. But he knew how much further behind his lab was compared to everyone else’s. This meant that he needed to accomplish years of research in a couple of months.

[04-24-2018; 11:00_Research_Video_Log_007_Start]

           He plunged through the front double doors to his lab to check in with Jeremy and Leslie who were hard at work on experiment one, still.

           “Sand in place to block excess heat transfer?” Jeremy said.

           “Check,” Leslie replied, “heat resistant gloves?”

           Jeremy’s hands were bare. He rifled through the pockets of his lab coat, pulled out the gloves and donned them.

           “Yeah…” he said hesitantly as he slipped his fingers into place.

           “How’s the piston doing?” Leopold asked.

           Over the last few days, Leopold managed to construct the final piece to their microscale time machine prototype from the parts that Jeremy gathered. It was a singular piston with the crankshaft that allowed it to go up and down secured to a rotating, circular platform on the table. The battery was built into the base of the platform that powered both the spinning and up-and-down motions. It looked like a record player. Very simplistic, but effective. Flip one switch, begin rotating the platform. The piston spins and eventually wraps the cosmic string around it to form a loop. Flip the other switch, the piston pumps up and down, thereby pushing the newly made cosmic loop toward the object intended for time travel.

           “It’s all intact! We’re going to try again right now,” Leslie said.

           Leslie lit the fuse on the thermite reaction. Just like the previous time, brilliant light and sparks erupted from the powders in the ceramic pot. She jumped back and Jeremy strenuously turned the crank to spin the metal pipe just above the fiery pot. The glowing redness of the reaction snaked its way along the pipe towards Jeremy’s hand. Leslie watched cautiously. He gave her a subtle nod to indicate that the gloves were still working. There were popping and clanging sounds in the metal bucket as the ceramic pot blew to bits inside.

           Wearing oven mitts, Leslie pushed the metal bucket out of the way and replaced it with Leopold’s piston-platform. The first switch was flipped, and the platform whirled around almost too fast for comfort. Jeremy clenched his teeth as his arm and hand began to cramp from rotating the crank so vigorously. He let go and jumped back next to Leslie to watch. Their motions were like clockwork from repeating the experiment so many times. The pipe rattled in its ring stand supports as it compacted the string of heat together.

           The redness at the far end of the pipe began to fade in exchange for a bright, golden thread-shaped mass that lazily slid out the other end towards the spinning piston. Leslie’s jaw dropped and Jeremy pointed forcefully at it.

           “There it is!” Jeremy shouted.

           “It’s working!” Leslie joined.

           They eventually had to shield their eyes; the energy made from the reaction was so great and so compact that some of the heat energy had to be converted into light-emitting energy. As more of the thread came out, the heat became more apparent. It felt like standing in front of an industrial oven. The string glared like a shimmering sunset reflecting off a body of water. The end of the thread reached out towards the spinning piston. The concentrated heat and light immediately dissipated upon contact. For a split second, the world went quiet with only a low hum to be heard followed by a resonating bass drop. 

          The room’s lighting promptly shifted from glistening and golden to shadowy and moody as the light scattered to the corners of the room before completely vanishing. Simultaneously, a forceful gust of hot wind burst forth from the pipe in all directions. All of the papers, folders, books, and the pack of orange sticky notes on the meeting table went flying along with Leslie’s half-empty coffee cup. The shear force and surprise knocked her off balance into Jeremy, which knocked him into Leopold standing behind both of them. Jeremy caught and held Leslie just as Leo had done for him. Leopold helped them both back to their feet.

           “That was great!” Jeremy exclaimed, “We have to do it again. Leslie let’s make another pot of reagents,” he said with determination. Jeremy took his first step and the world began to spin around him. He tipped forward, but was caught by the forearm by Leopold whose reflexes kicked in. Feeling dazed himself, Leopold led the two of them to the recently cleared meeting table to sit down.

           “We should wait a minute, Jeremy,” Leslie suggested, sluggishly, “the lab isn’t going anywhere,” she weakly chuckled while holding her head on discomfort.

           “The more progress we make, the more unexpected things we’ll find. We’ve got to be careful from here on out, boy,” Leopold said with a smirk.

           “We need to be focused from here on out,” he said, “Leslie and I saw this email that Sophia sent out with all the deadlines—”

           “I know, I read it before I came in,” Leo assured, “We do need to be focused. But we can still do that while resting a minute.”

           “We can still talk about it while we rest,” Jeremy suggested.

           Leopold laughed wryly.

           “Why do we think the string dissipated?” he continued, “Is the temperature difference between the piston and the string too small? Since energy flows from hot to cold, maybe the string doesn’t want to flow towards an already hot piston?”

           “I actually don’t think so,” Leslie interjected, lightly smiling at Jeremy’s determination to analyze the experiment, “The strings are very hot and condensed into an extremely small space for the amount of energy it holds. Even if the piston were on fire, the string would still be magnitudes hotter, so the piston would still appear ‘cold’ to the string.”

           Jeremy spotted a pen and notepad on the floor that had been blown off the table. He held up his finger while Leslie was talking and slipped out of his chair to retrieve them.

           “Boy, be careful!” Leopold urged.

           “It’s fine,” he said, limply falling to his knees from the vertigo. He landed near the notepad and pen. Keeping his head still to stop the world from spinning again, Jeremy made himself comfortable on the floor.

           He cleared his throat.

           “I’ll just work from here,” he said and began taking notes on what Leslie had said already.

           “Okay, come on, boy,” Leopold said, raising himself out of his seat and approaching Jeremy, “The only one who actually likes working on the floor is me, so— whoaa-a-a-oh.” he stumbled and cautiously lowered himself to the floor after becoming light-headed, himself. He sighed as he plopped himself down next to Jeremy who looked at Leo with a faintly smug grin.

           “I’m not sure that I see the appeal of working down here, but I can make do with it,” Jeremy poked fun.

           Leopold laughed.

           “We make one little break in our research and suddenly he’s a wise-ass,” he commented to Leslie who pulled her chair over to them, away from the table. Jeremy chuckled and continued writing with part of his tongue sticking out as he concentrated.

           “I think I have an idea of what it is, actually,” Leslie said. The boys looked up to her to continue, “It’s like what we saw in GraviTime, Jeremy, remember?”

           “Mmm, can you be more specific?”

           “When we made the cosmic strings, and we saw them dissipate! What did we do that made them dissipate?”

           “Oh, we stopped spinning them!”

           “Exactly!”

           “So, if we keep spinning the pipe, then it should… ohh… aww, that’s not going to be easy,” he said, realizing that he would have to be the one spinning the pipe.

           “Okay, so, we’ll automate it,” Leopold said, shrugging.

           “Really?” Jeremy said.

           “Of course! If that’s what we need to do, then that’s what we’ll do to begin the next phase of the experiment. We’ll make a jig for the pipe like I did for the piston. It’ll be easy. I just need another motor and a few other parts.”

           “Are we up for a trip to Home Depot?” Leslie asked.

           Jeremy’s phone abrasively rang, scaring him to his feet. He looked at his messages to find another graduate student who TAs the same class as him. He’d just been reminded of the class he taught at noon. There wasn’t much time before then. He sighed in disappointment and gathered his things; the world had finally stopped spinning.

           “I actually have to go TA today and it looks like there might be a problem with the class, so…” he let out a frustrated exhale, “I can’t go today,” he said hesitantly.

           “That’s okay! It’s just a run to the store, anyway. You were here for the important part!” Leslie consoled.

           “We’ll be just fine, boy,” Leopold said with a relaxed grin, “Those students need you, too. Just come back when you’re able. We’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone.”

           Jeremy relaxed with their assurance.

           “Thanks, you guys,” he said softly. “I should be back between 3:30 and 4:00. I’ll see you both then.”

           They said goodbye and carried on their plans as he left the lab. As he wandered through to the exit of the building, he opened up the messages he’d received.

[JEREMY_RANDALL_CONVERSATION_START_11:29]

RD: hey bud i’ve got a student who overslept and missed my 8:00am lab RD: they said they wanna attend a different lab section so they don't get marked absent and yours is the only one that works with their schedule RD: you mind if they sit in? i’ll still grade their assignments B)

JB: Hi, Randall. JB: I’m heading over to campus right now. JB: Unfortunately, all the seats in my class are filled; I can’t let anyone new come in without going over the capacity. Are you sure there’s nobody else who can take them?

RD: yea :/ RD: we could just steal an extra chair from another lab that doesnt need it RD: tbh i don't think the boss would mind too much RD: its the end of the semester, i know he doesnt really keep track of that kinda stuff too much RD: if she misses this class and gets a zero on the last two assignments, shell probably fail the class

JB: Could she get at least a D if she does the assignments?

RD: yea i think

JB: Okay. I guess that’s fine. We’ll find a place for her to work so she can attend. What’s her name? I’ll make a space on my attendance sheet for her.

RD: her name is madison brilliant

JB: It is?

RD: yea RD: why you kno her or somethin? RD: … RD: dude you there? RD: hellooooo

JB: Yes, she’s my younger sister.

RD: omg no way! RD: lmao thats hilarious RD: tbh didn't know your last name so i didn't make the connection lol

JB: Well, now you know. JB: Thanks for the heads up. JB: I’ll get her assignment to you as soon as I can.

RD: shaka B)

[JEREMY_RANDALL_CONVERSATION_END_11:37]

 [April 24th, 2018, 11:49]

           Jeremy approached the classroom in which that taught every week. The remaining few students from the previous class finished leaving just as he walked in. The TA that taught before him had seemingly left already, despite still having students in the class. Didn’t seem to be the most responsible move, in Jeremy’s eyes. He made his way to his desk in the front of the room, facing all of the laboratory tables. There was a large cart in the front of the room containing piles of electronics for circuits like batteries, lightbulbs, resistors, and the like.

           He placed the attendance sheet at the end of his desk and wrote the instructions for the class on the board. Students began filing in, and quietly going through the motions that he had ingrained in them from the beginning of the semester. Come in, sign the attendance sheet, turn in the homework, pick up the graded assignments, and repeat. It was a well-oiled machine, likely out of indifference on the students’ part. And also their tendency to comply with the way Jeremy structured the class at the risk of losing points. But Jeremy liked to think that at least some of them appreciated the system.

           He faintly smiled and greeted each student who approached his desk to sign in. Some responded to him, others didn’t. Some only replied with zombie-like grunts of acknowledgement when he’d asked how they were. An odd one or two students replied audibly with a smile and asked how he was in return. He appreciated those students the most. They also tended to be the ones to turn in their assignments on time and get the most consistently good grades.

           Madison walked in, unassumingly, if a bit drowsy looking. She registered that she was attending Jeremy’s class and perked up on her way over to his desk. Jeremy felt a sinking feeling in his chest. His shoulders felt like they weighed a ton.

           “Well, well, well, look at what the cat dragged in!” she said in her goofiest tone.

           “I walked in of my own volition, Madison; cats are not allowed in the lab.”

           “Oh, that’s right, you don’t understand metaphors, I forgot,” she sighed.

           “Please sign in and turn in your assignments,” Jeremy changed the subject.

           “Oh. Uh, sure. You make your students write their names down?”

           “Yes.”

           “Randall just calls our names,” she said.

           “I prefer it this way,” Jeremy countered.

           Madison reached into her backpack and slapped her assignment down on Jeremy’s desk.

           “Bam! Turned in!”

           “Great. I got an extra chair for you for this class,” he said.

           “Gucci,” she said, “You gonna give your favorite sister an A today?”

           One of Jeremy’s other students walked in and recognized Madison. She squealed when she saw her.

           “Mads! What’re you doing, you in my class now?”

           “Hey girl! Nah, just for the day since I missed my class. Just shootin’ the shit with Jay, the TA who is also my fam!”

           Jeremy rolled his eyes and sighed.

           “Oh my god, no wayyyy! That’s definitely going on my story. Hit me up after class, let’s get lunch!”

           “Okay, good afternoon everybody, we’re going to get started with class, now,” Jeremy announced, walking to the front-center of the room and ushering students to their seats, “Hopefully all of you did the assigned reading because you needed it to complete the assignment you just turned in, and you’ll need it again for the activity today. We’re going to be building electrical circuits today, both series and parallel. If you flip to page 150 in your workbooks, you’ll find the procedure for the activity. I’ve listed a few modifications on the board, so make sure you take note of my changes while you’re working,” he paused to read the room, “Does anybody have any questions?”

           Silence.

           “Okay. Get to work. You can work in pairs or by yourself,” he projected his voice through the room.

           The students began talking and working as soon as he finished. He wondered if the lab would go faster because it was the last of the semester and they likely wanted to be done as soon as possible. He sat himself back down at his desk for only a brief moment before multiple students formed a line at his desk. It always perplexed him that he can ask the class if there are any questions and nobody speaks up, but the minute it’s time to work, suddenly there is a pile of students with questions.

           “Hi,” the first student said.

           “What can I do for you?” Jeremy asked politely.

           “So… I forgot to do the assignment for today, I was wondering if I could work on it in class while we do the lab and turn it in at the end of class?”

           “No, our class time is meant to be spent on the activities we had planned, sorry.”

           “It won’t take that long; I can do both!”

           “The syllabus outlines that assignments have to be turned in at the beginning of class. I can’t accept it if it’s late,” he explained.

           “So, there’s nothing I can do?” the student asked anxiously.

           “No, there isn’t,” Jeremy said bluntly.

           “Okay. Well, thanks anyway,” they said and returned to their seat.

           The next student froze a moment and began walking back, as well.

           “I had the same question as them,” the student said.

           “Okay,” Jeremy nodded.

           The third and final person was Madison. Her hands were locked together by her fingers and she meekly drew closer to Jeremy.

           “Hey, friendo, sooo… I forgot my workbook,” she said quickly, “What’s the, uh, the dealio? What should I do if I can’t do the activity?”

           Jeremy took a deep, stressed out, breath and thought about it.

           “Umm… why don’t you just partner up with someone who has their book. Just write down the answers on some loose paper. Make sure you number it so Randall will be able to tell which answers go to which questions.”

           “Gotcha. Alright, thanks, bud,” she said and returned to her desk.