My all-time-favorite April Fool’s Day incident happened my freshman year at Iowa State. I had a work-study job in the Band Office in the music building, and our office had a great view of Lake LaVerne out the window. That April 1st when I came into work in the mid-afternoon I looked out the window and did a double take. The lake was a bright emerald green color! Apparently some prankster had dyed it overnight.
The bright green color didn’t last for long though — an alumnus donated blue dye to chage lake to a tropical-looking hue, mainly so that it wouldn’t look awful for everyone visiting campus for Veishea. You can read more about it and see a picture of the green lake here.
As far as I know, they never figured out who turned the lake green. And for the six or seven weeks the blue dye remained in the lake before fading, Lake LaVerne looked more beautiful than it ever has before or since. That year really got my expectations up for April Fools Day, so every year I hope that something equally cool will happen…and so far I have been disappointed! Crazy pranks for everyone to see just aren’t really a tradition around here, I guess!
So, I haven’t posted here in a while. I should probably change that, because there’s been a lot happening in my life.
Everyone asks what I’m going to do after I graduate in May of 2006, with my Ph.D. Today, I can finally tell you the answer!
Through Kirsten, you heard that we were in San Diego for the 229th meeting of the American Chemical Society. I was there to present some of the research that I’ve been doing the last few years. What you didn’t hear (mostly because it was a secret) was that on Sunday, while we were in Los Angeles, I met with a couple of representatives from Google Labs in northern LA. Earlier this fall I took (and did well on!) the Google Labs Aptitude Test (GLAT). So, we set up the interview for Spring Break in northern LA. The interview was hard, but I thought that I did pretty well.
Then this week, I got an offer letter in the mail! I scanned it so all of you could see it. The link is at the bottom of this post. The letter said that I had to keep quiet about the offer until today. Here’s why; Google launched a beverage line today, Google Gulp, a line of “smart drinks” designed to maximize your surfing efficiency. I’ll be working on Google Gulp, so I couldn’t leak that secret until today. Apparently, they need Chemical Engineers to scale up the process. Cool!
My job starts after I graduate, but it’s looking like I’ll be able to do some of the Google Gulp research as a part of my thesis! So, in May of 2006, we’ll be moving to the San Francisco area, and I’ll be working at Google!
Here’s the link to my scan of the offer letter.
Cool, huh?
