New-kid-in-my-blogroll Bill Mitsuru Shimizu tagged me with the 123 meme. For the sake of those who are not familiar with this meme, here are the instructions:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Mark the fifth sentence. Pick up the next three sentences and post. (In other words, post sentence nos. 6-8 on page 123.)
4. Acknowledge the book and the author.
5. Tag 3 people in turn.

Well, you see we’ve got bookcases all over this house, it’s just a tad difficult to “grab” the nearest book. So like what Rhodora did with her 123 meme, I asked my four-year-old daughter Aya to get a book for me. Smart, eh? 🙂
She happily came back and handed me a maroon-colored bound book. My heart sank. It was the bound copy of my masteral thesis! Nyehh! I know Bill is expecting something geeky, but not this geeky! 😛 But that’s what she brought me, so what else can I do? Fortunately, my MS thesis is 132 pages long. Unfortunately for you, though, it would probably bore you to death. So here are sentences 6-8 on page 123 of my thesis:

“Comparing the volume fractions obtained for all three batches, the conclusion one will arrive at is this: the 2212 phase is more favorably formed at higher temperatures, while the 2201 phase is more favorably formed at lower temperatures, specifically, at temperatures below the liquidus curve of the 2212-KCl system.

7.6 Batch B samples: varied rotation rate
The analysis of this particular batch would entail a different undertaking, since variations in growth time were not conducted.
Continued to p. 124 (Uh, this thesis was typed double spaced.)
It has already been established in the preceding disucssions that the existing mode of growth in the LPE system is the transient mode.”

Title: Growth Kinetics of Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O Films Prepared by Liquid Phase Epitaxy”
Author: ME!!!

This was my MS thesis in UP, completed way back in 1996. I remember the days when we were making those films in the lab, losing sleep, pulling our hair in frustration, fretting about getting good results in order to graduate. In case you’re interested, the 2212 and 2201 phases mentioned above coexist in the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O film, which is a superconducting material. What’s a superconductor? Liquid phase epitaxy, on the other hand, is just a method for, uhm, preparing the superconductor. 🙂

Not giving up so easily, I asked Aya to get another book again. She happily came back with another book; this one was a bit thinner and had a red cover. But when I saw exactly what she brought, it was all I could do from slapping my forehead. Oh no – it’s Baggy’s PhD dissertation! Sheez! LOL!

Ok na! Sige, just to make things balanced, here are sentences 6-8 of p. 123 of Baggy’s dissertation (good luck na lang sa inyo; ako rin di ko maintindihan eh):

“The initial search space was d= 3 and k = 6 and the obtained model is again given by Eq. (7.13). Figure 7.12 shows the eigenvalues. For κ = 0, there is only one significant eigenvalue consistent with the number of bifurcation parameters.”

Title: Reconstruction of the Bifurcation Structure of a Dynamical System from Time Series Data
Author: Mi esposo aka Baggy

Good thing I didn’t have to input equations! LOL! Ok, enough geekspeak. We should really keep these books out of reach of children. 🙂

Anyway, I’m done! Now I’m tagging Herb, Raquel, and Belle. 😀