page 1A

---

Fusion

---

LAWRENCE BERKELEY LABORATORIES -- a job in intertial fusion.

As many of you already know, i have recently started a job working with fusion technology. It's all been going decently well, except that i'm completely and totally under-qualified for the job. Now, i know what you're thinking, "no that's not true, you're a perfectly competent girl." That's exactly what every person i've talked to about this problem has said to me. What they don't realize is that i didn't say that i was incompetent. What i said is that i'm an incompetent nuclear engineer. This is totally different. For example, last week LBNL asked me to make a 3D model of this superconducting ion-accelerator solenoid. After two entire days of CAD modelling, i discovered that i had modelled the entirely wrong superconducting solenoid. Somehow, i had clumsily mistaken the neutrino-accelerating solenoid for an ion-accelerating solenoid. Silly me, why didn't i read up on my nuclear accelerators.

Nuclear engineers aren't exactly the most exciting of people either. Let's just say that they don't go clubbing on the weekends or party as much as i your typical Berkeley resident. For example, last night i went to a nuclear engineering party on the Berkeley campus which consisted primarily of dorky-looking white guys in google t-shirts and bowl-cuts. Maybe i should have expected this, but still, it was what one might call "slightly under-stimulating." Looking for something a little different, i made my way over to this young-looking afrifan-american girl who was busy conversing with a couple of guys. She appeared pretty chill and rather social until i reached the group of people, at which point i realized that the conversation she in which she was passionately participating was about Sega RPG's and the reasons why they were better than Nintendo RPG's. Not only was this a little less exciting that i was hoping for, but i might also note that she's totally wrong: nintendo is better.

Sigh. As you might imagine from what i've said about berkeley, my work life and my home life are a stark contrast to one another. It's really hard to make communication between the two.

Roommate: "Hey Laura, how was work?"
Me: "Not exciting. I had to CAD model stuff for the lab all day."
Roommate: "Oh cool, did you get to wear a white lab coat?"

Hmm. I was originally gonna tell her about the solenoid modelling mistake that i had made earlier that day, but... nnaaahh.

Me: "No, i wear my regular clothes."

  ¶ 11:41 PM