As a student in my junior year of high school, I had my very first physics course.  My teacher, who was affectionately known to his students and colleagues as “Mr. Pal”, was a fantastic teacher.  We were always excited to come to class to see what physics puns he would come up with next.  One day he sat at the front of the class while we all filed in and took our seats.  He sat silently behind his lab bench with his fingers folded and smiling down at a pile of garden stones.  After a few minutes he looked up, and said, “Physics rocks!”  We took his pun for what it was – which admittedly, was awful – but his message was one that he conveyed with deep-rooted passion and contagious enthusiasm in every class.  He kept the stones on the edge of the chalkboard rail for the rest of the semester, and whenever he provided us with interesting trivia, or a connection between the coursework and a complex real-world problem, he would point to them and repeat his mantra, “Physics rocks!”  He was part of the reason I chose to pursue an undergraduate physics degree.  It was that decision that led me to discover my passion for science outreach.  I always knew that I would fondly remember Mr. Pal’s physics classes, but I didn’t realize that one day I would adopt his mantra in my blog dedicated to science!

At that point in my life I was also spending much of my free time reading from Discover magazine, a subscription my mother bought me for christmas.  I would cut out articles that captured my imagination, or about scientists that inspired me in some way, and I pinned them to my walls.  I thrived on the notion that I was somehow a part of their work by getting excited about their discoveries, and by telling my friends and family all about their breakthroughs, but I wanted to be more involved.  I wanted to contribute.  I knew that if I wanted to make this passion a part of my daily life that I would need formal training, and a lot of dedication.  Five years later, here I am, finishing my undergraduate degree in physics, writing a thesis(!) and applying to graduate school.

My hope for this blog is that it can be a resource for many people, and an outlet for me and my readers to share our passion for science.  Here it goes!