Frenetic Friday

Granted, it is no Green New Deal, but hopefully it will give you a better idea of life here at the Nicholas School. This week’s winner (technically last week's) goes to Friday, November 21st. ...

The day began strangely, yet innocuously enough. I had a 9:30am meeting with the head of Waste Reduction and Recycling at UNC-Chapel Hill for a class project for my Commercializing Technology Innovations class. The meeting went well enough, though it dragged on for a bit too long and I missed my 10:30am meeting with my assistantship at the Climate Center Policy Partnership where I was going to hear the latest developments on carbon capture and sequestration.

At 11:30am I had a meeting with my statistics professor to discuss a group project. Then I grabbed some quick lunch, and kept working on stats until 3 pm when my Portuguese class started.

At 4-5 pm I heard a talk by Sirpa Häkkinen from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center on “Shifting Surface Current in the Northern North Atlantic Ocean.” Now, I know what you are thinking: who would spend their Friday afternoon like that? Well, the obvious answer is: somebody who has seen The Day After Tomorrow too many times and wondered if northern Europe will soon be doomed because of the thermohaline circulation (THC) shutting down. And being a Swede, you will forgive me for being overly concerned. Also, I was reminded of the following quote:

"The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it."

— P.J. O'Rourke

At the talk, I learned that there have been increased infusions of fresh water due to melting ice caps, which threaten the salinity balance. However, it appears that changes in surface current have brought high salinity waters to the Nordic Seas, which actually support a stabilizing effect on salinity of the THC. The talk ended with the moderator mentioning that for those who had not slept since seeing The Day After Tomorrow, "you can now sleep soundly." I was glad to hear it.

Because the weather had dropped to 24 degrees (unusual for these parts), I got a hot chocolate and hid inside for a while. At 6 pm I went to my very first Capoeira class. For those uninitiated, Capoeira is a mix of dancing, martial arts, and singing. Pretty cool stuff. At 8 pm I went to a West African Djembe concert. On a side note, both events were on campus and free.

At 10 pm I faced the choice between salsa and a southern blues/jazz fusion concert, I went with the latter and bopped my head throughout the rest of the night. On such a cultural high, I decided to end the night watching Iron Man with some friends.

I certainly took in a wide variety of culture in one night, and so many events it was hard to believe that a week had not passed, only a frenetic Friday.

Have a great Thanksgiving!