As the title says, I've been accepted into grad school for a Materials Science PhD. I'm still waiting for feedback from schools in my home state, but for now, U Michigan is my top pick.

In other news, my story is coming along well. I may start writing the thing within a year or two. But before that...I must wait for results of the Planck Satellite. Is there B-mode polarization or not? Does Alan Guth's inflation hold the key? Or perhaps an ekpyrotic model, as proposed by Neil Turok and Paul Steinhardt? Since I'm aiming for hard sci-fi (with a deceiving veneer of fantasy), I want to know this.

Finally, I think I've settled on a character design for the main protagonist of the story (who also happens to be my avatar online, go figure).