I have managed to go on one of my longest procrastination streaks so far...four months with no updates! I could give excuses but no one likes hearing those, so let's just say it has been a busy first semester of grad school. I spent September getting adjusted to my new home in the Earth and Space Sciences Department at UW. I started to learn about some of the projects I can work on and once I learned enough to get really into working on them, classes started and stopped me in my tracks. I really need to work my my multi-tasking skills.

I had time for a few outdoor adventures, including climbing Mt St Helens, before becoming bound to the indoors and glowing computer screens. That was a breathtaking hike, driving in was stunning in itself...burnt logs are still lying down in line with the blast direction like matchsticks, Spirit lake is still filled with floating logs as well which have been preserved from the minerals in the water from the 1980 eruption. I guess they are slowly sinking and the raft of the logs is decreasing in size, but when they sink, the heavier root end sinks first so the trees are upright and they are being preserved like this...an underwater petrified forest. Cool.

The entire landscape was absolutely barren at first glance but as we hiked along, the signs of returning life were apparent everywhere. The internet tells me that there are already fish back in Spirit Lake, though I can't imagine how they got there. Birds dropped them? Since this was a hike with my department from the University, we had special access to a path into the side of the crater that was blown out in the enormous landslide/lateral blast, so it wasn't a terribly difficult hike, and the view from the edge of the crater was unforgettable. In the center there is the dome that has been growing on and off since the eruption, it is sort of filling back up to replace what was blown away (Mt St Helens used to be called the Mt Fuji of Washington because it was so perfectly shaped). There has been other activity over the years, and some quite recently, so we didn't get to go past the edge of the crater. The dome, and in fact much of the inside of the crater, has little tendrils of steam coming out from hotspots all over, but in spite of all of this heat, there is a glacier that wraps around the dome and joins up with itself at the bottom. This melts into a stream which dug a canyon into the soft rocks there, this water is joined with hot groundwater and both flow into a raging steaming stream in a huge colorful canyon. After we descended from the crater rim, we also went to see where this stream comes out in a picturesque waterfall. I will post the pictures once I get back to Seattle, I left my camera there. This was back in September...I am a bit behind...

Other interesting happenings...there was a huge landslide near Mount Rainier that took out a highway and some houses, no one was hurt, but it was one of the largest in Washington's history. It also happened to make some interesting noises which we captured on some nearby stations for the seismic network and thus we became involved with monitoring the noises from this landslide as it continues to settle and groan under its new configuration. Furthermore...there is a giant 9km wide ancient landslide of which this new landslide is just a wee little corner...so there is interest in monitoring that to make sure it doesn't decide it wants to reactivate to join its little brother down in the valley. That would be a huge catastrophe and we really don't want that to happen. So we went there a few times to install seismometers (and poke around at a giant fresh landslide...not something many get to see, check out my pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/allstadt.k/NachesLandslideOct162009#). It was crazy...at the toe of the slide, a few houses were gone, but a few were intact but uplifted a few feet, there were giant fissures that opened up along the sides of the slide. All these features are quite similar to what is seen in large earthquakes. The riverbed at the toe of the slide was lifted up on top of the toe of the slide and they actually found fish up on top of the rubble. The slide blocked part of the river and caused flooding which unfortunately damaged houses that were not directly damaged by the slide. The entire scene was unbelievable, particularly unbelievable was how fast the response by the highway department was to rebuild a road. The road is the only access in winter to many people because the pass near Rainier closes at the other end of the valley so it was particularly important to get it done before the first major snowfall up there. We went back about two months after the landslide happened to remove some seismometers and there was a shiny new highway on the other side of the valley where there was just a field of cows last time we had been there just a few weeks earlier and they had made a new channel for the river. Unfortunately, the construction noise really messes up the seismic signals and covers up all but the largest noises coming from the landslide itself, so it kind of throws a wrench in our science except during a few hours in the middle of the night when they stopped working for the most part. Uh well...

The news seemed interested in what we were doing and they followed us around one day. This was a bit unnerving, they arrived to our group when I was up climbing a hill to put in some portable seismometers, and I was all sweaty and out of breath when we got back, but the camera guys and the reporter just ran over and started asking me questions...not something I was ready for, especially since I'm not exactly an expert on the slide...or anything really. Anyway, pieces of that ended up on the news in different bits two times, though I think the general populace forgot about it long ago so no worries. The best part is that I was wearing hiking clothes, covered in dirt and sweat, but I was wearing giant shiny fake diamond earrings. That is probably something the general populace will not forget, and I am just waiting to see my fashion trend appear on the streets of Seattle. I haven't seen anything yet but I remain hopeful.

Other than those wee glimmers of excitement, most of my semester was spent suffering indoors trying to finish my master's thesis so I could graduate from my Europe program in December (I did...somehow...), trying to keep up with my classes, I took way too many against the better judgment of my professors. I am starting to agree with my older fellow graduate students that classes just get in the way of my education...though I really need some of these math courses. No advisor or professor in my earlier college years ever even mentioned them as being crucial to do anything remotely interesting in modern science, but now that I am in grad school, every professor assumes I have taken them and that I have a full understanding of all the symbols and jargon and so on...confusing... it's funny because all this crazy math is an every day common knowledge sort of thing around the earth and space sciences department, practically like the ABC's, but the second I step off-campus it is the most ridiculous unnecessary waste of time that pratically no one would need in their everyday life. Most people don't even need algebra...some can even get away without arithmetic since cash registers do all the work. Weird world. Though I think it's even weirder that we need all these complicated mind boggling mathematical ways of expressing...or rather...approximating...what happens in the real world, but it happens in the real world without anyone having to write up an equation (or 50) to tell it how to happen. It just does of its own accord. And scientists spend years...or lifetimes...trying to emulate reality through computer modeling so we can better understand and predict what is happening/what will happen in the real world... looking at it that way, a lot of scientists are just fortune tellers with sophisticated tools and complex equations. I could save a lot of trouble and become a fortune teller and maybe be right the same amount of the time. Okay okay, just joking, I really like what we're doing and the more I spend time around a department that does cutting edge research, and the more I am around the people thinking up the problems to work on and doing the science (doing science...sounds weird), the more I am amazed at what we humans have been able to figure out with our little pink wrinkly brains. Our curse and our blessing. But I digress...

So yeah, weekends were spent working on my masters thesis and trying to keep up with classes. Most working days were spent in classes or in a multitude of seminars and meetings which leave only little fragmented bits of day in which to do any thinking. I miss slow European ways, at least I had time to think once in a while instead of rushing around from one event to the next in a frenzy of confusion. Though I very much prefer advisors who answer emails in five minutes rather than two weeks (and a million other things are better), but the pace of things, that is certainly better in Europe. (Admittedly I probably can't have five minute email responses AND the European pace of things...) Most people don't even take lunch breaks! They microwave something and eat at their desks. It pains me. I even would prefer standing in line for an hour with my friends for a subpar, but warm and complete with dessert, subsidized student meal in France, to eating a piddly pb&j sandwich alone at my desk in front of my computer. My goal for next semester is to get more people to take lunch breaks with me. We'll see if I can convince these Americans that sanity is worth coming in a little earlier. I'm not too optimisitic.

As for non-school stuff, I am still adjusting to Seattle and it's dispersed ways and gloomy weather, but I will admit it is growing on me a little. It really is a unique place, though it has the layout and public transportation of a poorly planned sprawling American city, it doesn't have the character. It is filled with independent businesses and interesting shops and it has a ton of really nice parks. There is a huge theatre and art scene, concerts galore, most of which I want to go to, but few of which I have time to. Despite being way too car-friendly for my liking, they are otherwise very environmentally concious, tons of people bike despite the ridiculous hills, nearly everyone recycles and there is collection of compost for everyone (except my apartment because the property manager thinks it will attract rodents...we sneak ours to the neighbors bin under cover of nightfall). People are really involved in local politics, I already voted in the first election...which was by mail which I really like...and we elected an underdog progressive environmentally concious candidate who biked to events and wants to make a lightrail system all over Seattle (of course they had one long ago before cars became so ubiquitous...why oh why did they take it out?)

My new apartment is great...much better than the slug-infested basement of my friends house where we were staying before (though it was more spacious and cheaper). It's really convenient to tons of bus lines, the bike path, two neighborhoods I like and it has an amazing sunrise view over the Cascades, a view of Capitol Hill which sparkles at night and we can even see Mount Rainier if you stand on the couch and look out the corner of the window...and of course it has to be clear...hah! We even have two foster cats that will be really hard to give back. Especially after ridding them of fleas and every other parasite that they came with. That was not fun. But the cats are so charming it's worth it. I will post some pictures of them and their mischief as well once I have my camera again.

So that, in a poorly organized picture-less summary, was my first semester in Seattle. The next one starts soon and I am taking fewer classes and I hope to go in with a more energetic attitude and I also plan on getting to the mountains more. Not going outside, especially when the mountains are so close and the Seattle weather is so gloomy, is a big mistake as far as boosting one's morale goes.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday, I am relaxing in Endicott as we speak, enjoying the marginally higher amount of sunshine here (according to brother Andy, Endicott only has 10 more sunny days than Seattle) and really enjoying the relaxing part. The next installation in the Allstadt Christmas movie series will be coming soon. Be prepared. Meanwhile, search on youtube for Allstadt and Allstadts for the previous two movies to keep you busy until then. Ciao!