Will the top ever stop spinning?

So I'm a week away from being back home, back to that reality. We've been working 9-2 and traveling on the weekends. In Spain. Yeah, that place over the Atlantic. I still am in awe, I can't explain it. I have felt a freedom like I've never had. My free time has been well spent, and my time at the university even more so. I'll take this in parts though. First, university time.

I am four days from presenting my final project and I am very happy to be this close to finishing. Everything I have is basically wrapped up, the learning process, the experimentation, and the data analysis. Only thing left is to put it all together and not look dumb at the presentation. I have had the greatest of times at the university. Jose Ramon, the PhD student I have been learning the most from, has been sitting down and explaining the things that are going on in the trials I have done, and I am so grateful for it. I got freedom within the lab as well, after Jose had shown me all about what was going on in the reinforced concrete samples. He helped me setting up the first runs, and after that I was free to work at my pace. Whenever I had a doubt, he'd be available for me to take it up with him, and if not, anyone else in the lab were always helpful. I think that's what I liked the most. People in the lab genuinely want you to do well, and they know that if you learn the material right, in the end it only benefits all of us. This work in corrosion has been an eye-opener too, because the work these guys are doing is pretty legit. Hazard mitigation is a real problem, and we need people aware of these things, everything does not last forever. Through this experience, I have also gotten to visit a few of the projects they are doing, and to have Dr. Gandia explain what's going on and meeting some of the people involved with the mussels raft was amazing. The applications for science, man. So cool.

Gandia after the gym (straight flexing)

On change.

Satisfying need
to pet donkey.

I can probably say I am the youngest person to come on this IRES research experience, in all 3 years. I turned 20 in the first week here in Valencia, and from my point of view, nothing in the world could have been better. I have started some of my Civil Engineering courses, and I know that what I have learned here will be applicable throughout the rest of school, and work too. I have discovered I am fond of a laboratory setting, something I would have thought impossible five weeks ago. Finally, and I do not take this lightly, I think I have learned something about myself. I say I don't take it lightly because I feel it's something you read at the end of every high school essay, ever. I have done a lot of things that I never have done and never would have thought of doing. I pushed my boundaries, I have changed how I view people and these scenarios, and I know that I will be useful in the future, it's a hunger in me that needs to be satisfied.

I have learned that I'm not sure anymore about where I want to live when I grow up. Yes, grow up. Life is dark and full of terrors (I have been waiting so long to do a GoT reference, this won't be the last one) and I know I can do something about it. Things seem to be happening worldwide, and if I can do my part, maybe the world will be a bit better. I recently talked to a childhood friend, and he seems to think that breaking the wheel seems like an admirable thing to be a part of back home in Honduras. It's something that is in everyone's mind, but there aren't many who actually step up to the plate and do something about it. Being in contact with people all over the world can help change perspective, how others might have it better or worse than we do.

I know some of my fellow participants have been having a tough go at it, but I can only speak to how amazing this experience is when it is done right. The professionals I had a chance to work with were hands down the best part of the trip. Traveling Spain was cool and all, but I can not be happier about anything more than I was  being in the lab and learning from the people there. Leaving here I will always keep that with me,it was my first real job (doing stuff I enjoy), and the people that were with me on this crazy trip that I met, like my two roommates (pictured above), will also be a great part of the experience. I know I could stay, it's been tempting, but I know I can always come back to this small world I have. It's feeling more like family time, and I'll see them at the end of the week and tell them about everything that happened around here.

Looking back, it all feels like a dream. I don't think I'm going to wake up though.

Social Identity

Michuuu

Got to see Pablo in
Madrid!!

Coming into this trip four weeks ago, I had nothing figured out. I was planning on doing research, and looking up where to go, but I was relaxing after my semester of school when it suddenly dawned on me I was about to leave. According to me though, I knew Spain. My brother had told me a bit and I had heard more from Spanish friends I had made during their time at UTA doing study abroad programs.

Well, I got to Valencia, and I realized I didn't know anything about anything. The advice I had gotten was good, but being there in the moment it didn't make a difference. We were completely lost, and we didn't even have WiFi (this is where you gasp in horror). New country, new setting, same old me.

The next part is all about how I was completely lost and didn't understand the language they speak, and missed home dearly, etc. etc. That's not the truth though. I've been adapting to these kind of situations ever since I was small, moving from Honduras to Arkansas when I was 6 years old, moving from Arkansas to Miami a couple of years later, from Miami back to Honduras, then Honduras to Paris, Texas, and finally, from Paris to Arlington. Except, that's not where it ends. Now I'm getting used to Valencia. This one has been particularly fun. Oh, and this past weekend, a completely different one: from Valencia to Granada.

So my roommates couldn't travel with me to Granada. I was set on going, no matter what, so I booked a Bla Bla car and decided I would stay at a hostel (I haven't told my mom this... surprise). I have heard different things about hostels, but one thing that is consistent is that you meet people easily. This hostel was no exception. Within five minutes, I had left all my belongings at my bed, and gone up to the terrace to see a group of about ten people, most of which didn't know one another, just talking about where they're from, where they've visited, and where they're going. I met an American and an Australian that I met up again with at the Alhambra, and had a couple of other adventures with. I also met two French sisters, who ended up being the people I hung out with for most of the weekend. They barely spoke English, and I could barely even understand their French, but we got along well and we had the same goals in mind, seeing some flamenco. We accomplished it the second day and it was definitely one of the better things I've done here in Spain. In the end, this Granada experience has been the most different from what I've experienced in my entire life. I have never traveled alone, I've always had my family or friends, and even here in Spain I've always been with my roommates. I would do it again if I had to, but I feel traveling is best with someone you care about. My grandfather has told us that it's not about the journey, but about the people you meet getting there. And it's so true. The thing I miss the most about the places I've been is the people.

Shoutout to my gramps and
whole fam, miss them.

My parents are currently living
it up in Honduras.
(happy bday dad)

  Here's some Granada pics too!

View of Albayzin from La Alhambra

View from hostel terrace

Beginning of flamenco show

Me and the Sierra Nevada

Chilling by the Genil River

High garden at Generalife

Okay, so let's take this back to social identity. My view of the world isn't really about how different they are from us, or how better the United States is because they have stores that are open 24/7 (although I can say that would come in so handy here). I just appreciate how different cultures have different customs, and that's that. All that's left is for you to get used to it, or make an entire country get used to your ways... Yeah, no.

Career Aspirations

Things at the lab in Valencia have gotten busy since I got here. They have been in contact with these people that want to build a mollusk farm in the north of Spain, and they want the raft that holds this farm to be made of reinforced concrete, so it can last more than a season without having to change the entire raft. Apparently up until now they have been made of some type of wood that would last a season before it got harmed too much from being in the ocean. Right now, you probably have a few questions like:
How does a concrete raft even begin to make sense?
What does this have to do with researchers at a university?
Why do I even bring this up when talking about career aspirations?

 This is a model of a section of the raft that will be created with reinforced concrete. This section is about 4 meters wide by 2.8 meters, and the entirety of the project will be 28 m x 20 m, or at least that's what I heard. This part is filled from the bottom, so the picture shown is what will go connected to another steel frame that in turn will be connected to huge floaters. I haven't had a chance to see the floaters, but I know they are at least the size of a bus! Everything in the middle not seen filled with concrete will be hollow and used to connect to another part of the raft or simply to decrease the burden on the floaters. So, with the huge floaters and some hollow parts, the concrete raft begins to make sense no?

My mentor focuses his research on the the effects of corrosion on steel and how to mitigate the effects of harmful elements to the reinforced concrete structures (Harmful elements like chloride, which causes oxidation of the steel bar, and leads to a weaker structure).
The ocean itself has chlorides that affect the prestressed concrete that these rafts will be made of, so the researchers here got in on the project to study the effects of an environment in a real situation to obtain results that are going to be great to look at. Given, it will take a long time to get results back, because they are using really good cement and the effects won't be seen until the chlorides get through the concrete coating to the steel.

Corrosion isn't cool, but this picture is

I think we can all agree working in a lab is cool.

Being here in Valencia has also been a lot about learning what people do in graduate studies, and exposing me to what research is like. They are in essence, discovering things. This is amazing to me. All this time since I got into Civil Engineering, I thought of getting my degree, and then after that going in to get a Master's degree to get a good job, and applying that in a good engineering firm. After that, somewhere down the road, make my own company where I would be the master of my own time, and not work on another person's schedule.

After spending time here though, I think I am starting to look at research as more than an obstacle that I have to overcome in order to get to work. I am enjoying being in this environment, where people are excited to be involved in their work and learning about their respective fields. I think I could even consider doing something like this in the future, and maybe look at Master's programs in the US and abroad. I can see myself working in a lab, doing research and maybe even teaching? Probably no teaching for me.

When I go back home though, I will keep this experience in mind all the time. I expect to brag about it too, but that's not what I'm talking about. I want people who don't know to realize that it's not just the US doing big things, that the knowledge is universal and everywhere around the world there's things being discovered and people you can consult so you don't mess up a project. Maybe there's a Master's degree in Spain in my future. Going forward, my career will definitely take bigger picture things into consideration, and I believe everything I do (hopefully) will be available to people across the world, if they're interested. Oh well, enough about big picture things. I'm wrapping this blog up with some down to Earth desires I want in my near future.

I want some horchata.

IRES Post #2

Culture

It's been two weeks since I first arrived here in Spain. In that time, what I've done here has felt so  different from what I have lived in Texas. The way people live here is simply different.

Transportation
I know this might not seem like an important part of culture, but it is one of the things that changed the most for me. Living in Texas where huge 4x4 trucks with a lift kit, are used daily to go to church or to school, or simply to go mudding (consists of trying to go as fast as possible through muddy terrain on one of those four wheeled monsters). Everyone has their own car, not necessarily a truck, but some sort of transportation of their own. Even in my family, just recently, we had 4 cars for our household of 5, something that seems unimaginable being here in Europe.

Here, the public transportation system seems to be what a good amount of people use, and honestly, it's soooo easy to use. As long as you're not going the wrong way.

I can definitely see many of the traffic problems in Texas being alleviated with a system similar to the one they employ here that includes trams, metros, and buses. It's frustrating, actually, seeing how the US claims to have the best of everything, but they aren't setting cities up right.

Come on, America

Okay, next.


Workdays
Here, they take it easy. They have the same pressure as we do, but they handle it differently. Work is a good comparison. In Spain, they start work at 8, usually. If not 9, is good too. After an hour or so, taking a coffee break (or beer if you want) is also good to increase productivity, to eat, socialize, and finish waking up basically. I take advantage at this time to eat a bocadillo, almost daily. A bocadillo is a sandwich served on a baguette that can bring pretty much anything. This thing will fill you up until 2, no matter what. Believe me, I know. At 2, another break, this one longer for their lunch and a nice little siesta (I have also taken full advantage of this). After that, they go back and finish the day out strong. They still get all of their work done, but the scheduling is different. I think this is the right way to set things up, because just going straight from 9-5 every day is unbelievably mind-numbing and stressful. I hear UTA might be introducing this system soon...

Food

Bocadillo con tortilla de
 patata y morcilla (blood sausage)

Paella Valenciana

Usually I'm too busy stuffing my
 face to get good pics of food

Simply amazing.

I have gotten along well in Spain. People here are so friendly, and they go out of their way to help us sometimes. Three of us speak Spanish, one of them being me, so moving around and getting food (always important) is relatively easy. Talking to my mentors is a bit more complicated. Since they know I understand Spanish perfectly, they explain everything in the lab in Spanish. The problem there is that a lot of what I've learned in college was taught in English, and some of the words don't really translate, so I have to google them or something of the sort. But apart from that, it's all great. They're always letting me know of things that are happening around Valencia that actual locals go to, which is always a good way to know what the city is all about.

The view from my balcony

I've gotten used to Benimaclet, the neighborhood we live in. We are located in a pretty nice area, not too far from the beach, with a fair amount of people around us at all times. They really are a tight knit community, it's like its own town where everyone knows one another and they can tell who isn't from around there in a heartbeat. Maybe it's because people are used to being outside a lot more, so they see each other every day. Kids are usually running around during the day, and at night a lot of the young people can be seen just sitting down having beers and chatting. The European Cup started soon after we got here, so I'm starting to get to see the Spain games at local bars, and the other day we walked past a basketball court that had been transformed so people from the area can get together and watch Spain play. Let's just hope they make it far into the competition. Around the neighborhood I'm starting to see more and more familiar faces, and I try to be as nice to them as they are to me.

Being here, it just makes me want to spend time outside, enjoying the beach as I would do in Honduras, or taking in some of the sights around here. The weather is always nice, the breeze from the sea keeps people cool, and the heat has never been unbearable. On top of that, it gets dark at 10PM, so there's time in the day to go around Valencia. I don't think I'll ever get tired of being here.

IRES Post #1

Before I begin, I would like to thank the National Science Foundation, The University of Texas at Arlington, and the Polytechnic University of Valencia for this project I am taking part of. It truly is an awesome thing to be able to live abroad and have these research opportunities at this stage in my life.

Next, I will tell you what you are signing up for if you do decide to read this blog:

1. This blog will be about my time in Valencia, and some of the things that have led me down this path I'm on. 

2. I will write a blog weekly, and more times than that if I take some cool pics of cool Europe things.

3. I will try to keep this somewhat informal, because the experiences here are some that I am thoroughly enjoying, and as such, I'd like to relate them as close as possible to how I lived them.

4. I'm terrible at picture captions, so sorry for that in advance.

Civil Engineering

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

I still remember the conversation my friend, his dad and I had about Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken".  What is the right path to take? If one looks better than the other does initially, does that mean that is the way that will make you the happiest? Do you go through life thinking about the what-ifs, and how your life might be so different now if you had taken the other path ? I know this poem has been talked about a million times, but still it is what I find myself thinking about when I think about why I chose Civil Engineering. 

The Road Not Taken

I can always look back on school as one of the deciding factors of why I chose Civil Engineering. Growing up, as others dreaded learning new things in math class, I always welcomed the challenge. I was happy solving problems, and this led me to take an elective called Engineering Math in my senior year of high school, which turned out to be the best class I took there. I got to use EasyC programming (turned me away from Computer Software Engineering), used that to program robots we got to put together, and do other things of that sort. However, towards the end of the class, we got to play around with bridge designs, and simulated the forces a truck would exert on the bridge and see how this load would affect the structure. As well as choosing the type of bridge you wanted to make, you could change the material it was made from to change the overall cost of the project. I was fascinated. 

My grandfather was also a Civil Engineer, and I can definitely say that he is another reason I chose CE. Seeing him work on fixing a problem as we waited to go have ice cream with him or go to the movies always made me think he was doing something worthwhile. He must have been doing a great job, because he got recognized for it in Costa Rica, and I'm not the only one to see this in the family. My oldest cousin and my brother (who surely is not reading this blog to compare to his own) are also in the same field. Maybe that's why I wanted to explore more about his profession in college.

A couple of years down the line, I still haven't figured everything out,  but I do know that this path I have chosen for myself is definitely not one I will regret later. I have enjoyed every minute of my Civil Engineering classes, and I believe that the knowledge I am acquiring there will help me in life in one way or another. This IRES research project is an extension of that. This feels like the right place to be at the moment, and having the opportunity to see people so advanced in their fields as involved in what they do as the people I have worked with this past week makes me feel like I am heading the right way. I feel that someday I can be as passionate for one of my projects as they are for theirs. I want to contribute knowledge to my field as they have, and allow people's futures to be improved even if what I do is something that they wouldn't notice on a day to day basis.

Opening reinforced concrete samples to check for corrosion

Looking forward is different. Though I'm not sure of what lies ahead of me, I am sure that I want to continue down this path and eventually be able to create something that will improve the lives of others, and will also carry my name. In the end, I just want to do something along the lines of what my grandfather did, which is take care of the people in his family and I think I can achieve that with Civil Engineering.

Fam time