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By Alison Krauss, Union Station

"Walking around with a shovel is just fun!" Dr. Newman
My first class, my first day at grad school...

Dr. Newman was actually referring to a picture of himself he'd put in his ppt. He was referring to being a park ranger one summer and how he just walked around with a shovel all summer and cleaned things and made trails.

Also, another highlight, this one from my job. I'm beginning to think that this could be a very interesting, silly job. We had lunch together today, everyone is now here and working, so we're a crew of 6 now (rather than 3). After pizza Brian's wife, Carol, came and met us with bunches of tie-died shirts. Now, just a little background here: our outfit/uniform for the Little Shop of Physics is a tie-died shirt that says "Little Shop of Physics" on the front and the "tour dates" on the back (dates that schools were visited!). Apparently some upcoming Sunday we will be getting together to make 160 shirts. So, we had to pick the colors. Carol and Brian apparently love to tie-die, because the shirts she brought in were options they had made so we could vote on our favorites. It was super democratic (unlike the election procedure in the US, as Brian mentioned about 5 times) and we narrowed it down to a second elimination. Brian took this very seriously, and we were supposed to, so we did too. These shirts, he said, we would be wearing almost Every Tuesday This Semester and More, so we'd have to like the colors. Finally, after maybe 10 minutes of discussing our options and why we liked each shirt, we decided on a nice option that is cobalt blue, turquois and yellow.

Can you believe that? All the while I was participating part of my mind was in disbelief that such a simple decision as colors for tie-die could be so important and take as much time as it did. Makes me smile. This is who I work for!