backtracking a bit

i realized i was a bit remiss in my last post - mainly 'cause i assumed that the people who read this crap already knew what was going on. however! it turns out...i have lotsa friends (<3)...that i forgot to update. so, lemme back-up a bit.

in february, i saw a listing in a newsletter from the american astronomical society (AAS) for an internship in india through the national solar observatory (NSO) at the university of arizona in tucson. the deadline was in two weeks. i asked some professors in my department, including my pseudo-adviser (aka the devil) who is from india, on their opinions and if they thought it was a good idea. a week before the deadline, i ran around getting transcripts, recommendation letters - wrote up the essays, and mailed it all on such that it got there on the day it was due. ::pant pant::

a few weeks later, oddly enough - the day of my grandmother's funeral, who was a ridiculous traveler herself, while i was in new jersey - i was told that i was accepted into the internship. lo and behold, they are paying me to travel.

now, i'm not too sure on my project. thus far, i know that it's theoretical (so for non-astro buffs, that means that i won't be looking at data or going to observatories - instead, concentrating on the math, geometry, programming, and simulations) and it's about pulsars - again. i studied pulsars when i was in oberlin, in fact, we were published for the work that we did. =) but this will totally different. my india advisor has given me a paper of his to read which discusses the geometry of the pulsar radiation that we are able to see based our line of sight to the pulsar. i don't know, though, what part i'm going to play. we'll see.

other than that - the internship is for 2 months, which i think most people gleaned from my previous post, and then the other three interns and i will be traveling around northern india for a week after the program is finished to see the sites. i've had to get a lot of shots before going (hep a/b twice, polio, tetanus) and also typhoid pills. while i'm there i have to take malaria pills like they are birth control (everyday, at the same time) and bring along a first aid kit for myself. essentially they said that there won't be anything cvs-esque while we are there, so we have to bring it ALL with us. oh, and we can't drink the water either. i know that we have two apartments for the four of us - there are two boys and two girls. we each get our own rooms and there will be a kitchen (with appliances and dishes), living room (with a tv and some english channels), internet (w00t!), and our own bathroom (thank god). the apartment isn't too close to where we will be working (at the indian institute for astrophysics, IIA) , so the program has hired a driver for us. who will take us everywhere. of course, women have to dress conservatively - but bangalore is a lot more westernized than most of india, so they said we should be okay. all and all, doesn't sound too bad. might get a bit rough when we are traveling around, though.

i think that's about all the general stuff i can think of. feel free to ask me about anything else i haven't mentioned, which for right now is kinda speculation. but, of course, i'll say what's going on as it happens.