• Who am I?

    I am Qrystal; or at least, that's my dot-name! Har har. (My name is really Crystal, but that's not as internet-searchable; hence, switching the C for the little-used letter Q.)

    I am here because I enjoy writing. I do this mostly for myself, but I also have a passion for helping others learn things from the things I write. Now that I am done my Ph.D. in Physics, I am stepping away from academic research so that I can indulge in some creative ways to share my knowledge and inspire the appreciation of scientific thinking in others. I am also working as a tutor, which is one of the jobs I've most enjoyed doing in my life so far.


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    • Just Like My Computer Desktop…

    Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

    Oh. My. Gosh. PHD Comics creator Jorge Cham knows what MY Computer Desktop looks like!! I especially liked the section entitled, “Papers you’ve been meaning to read for months.” I have five of those… :)

    My First Computer

    Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

    My first computer was a Radio Shack MC-10. With it, I learned elementary BASIC programming, and I’ve been a geek ever since. According to my research just now, the MC-10 was released in 1983 but discontinued in 1984, which means I was about five or six years old when I started programming. I can’t remember [...]

    Concept Mapping with VUE

    Friday, October 17th, 2008

    Concept maps are … free form, [with] multiple hubs and clusters [that] can be created, unlike mindmaps which fix on a single conceptual center. This quote from the concept map article at Wikipedia clearly summarizes why I should’ve been looking at concept mapping all along, instead of trying to constrain myself to the formats available [...]