School Days

Pretty, isn't it? I snapped this on the University of Auckland campus recently, and was amused by how nice and British it looked. Here's a view from the path...

The church-like tower is the symbol of the University of Auckland and is filled with various offices and classrooms, and the wall is a remnant of the Albert barracks built in 1846. Back in those days Auckland was the capital of New Zealand so they thought it nessecary to protect the old government buildings (which are now also part of the university, I have a class in the old ballroom of all places), so by 1852 said wall enclosed around 23 acres of land.

I mention this bit of New Zealand history because I really don't have that much else to report, but everyone seems to not like it when I've nothing to say. I want to go camping to Lake Taupo this weekend with the Canoe Club so I've been trying to get my physics homework done, and everyone knows how that goes! Hopefully it will be whipped into reasonable shape tonight...

Oh, and I finally had my first lab today and got permission to start straightaway on the "hard labs" as they're wonderfully described here (basically the same ones as you guys do at Case now, from Compton scattering to the Quantum Hall effect). I got started on the Mössbauer effect lab, which is going to look at special emissions you get from atoms in a bound solid, on which I shall reserve judgement for now as I am still in the honeymoon phase. The lab facilities are really impressive here by the way, thanks to the rennovations everything's brand-new, but you do your lab without a partner so it's rather silent in there. You do get a lot more work done this way though.