oi, nao falo portugues

I figured since I'll be posting some blogs, I should give a brief introduction to myself.

I'm a first year PhD student at Michigan State working in the nuclear astrophysics group. I recently received my Bachelors in astrophysics at Michigan State (I know people say you should go elsewhere for graduate work, but the NSCL is a hard place to pass up). My current research is in simulating silicon detector response with GEANT4 and MCNPX. As and undergrad I also did some work on parameterizing nuclear reaction rates for the REACLIB database.

This is my first time in Brazil and my first time outside the United States (besides Canada) in just over 5 years, so it's been enjoyable to be surrounded by another culture. Dinner last night was especially entertaining as I don't speak Portuguese (as the title of the post indicates) and the staff knew no English. Our communication consisted of points, smiles, and me using some words in Spanish, hoping they were similar in Portuguese (...it seems they were not). Ultimately I was able to order and eventually pay, so all was well.

Today during lunch there was time for a brief beach excursion. For those wondering, the water is quite pleasant. I'd equate it to Lake Erie in July.

I think that's all I should right for the moment, in order to fulfil the promise of being "brief". However I look forward to writing more in the future (I expect on both my experiences here and on the talks as well). Remember, if you find yourself in an awkward transaction, "nao falo portugues."

tchau!