For Spring Break 2019, I took a trip with my fiance to New York City. Of all the things we planned to do and see, I never expected the terminal for a subway station to be one of my favorites. The   Grand Central Terminal was the first time I can remember actually noticing and appreciating architecture.

The building was built in 1913 to replace an older building when two competing firms won the bid and merged their ideas for it. The  building  was  designed  in  Beaux-Arts  style,  which originated  in  France.  The  most  striking  feature  to  me  was  the  immense arched  ceiling  and  the constellations  and  stars  that  appear  to  be  looking  down  on  you  from  the  heavens.  Roughly  750,000  people  travel  through  this  hub  daily  and  get  to see the  immense  beauty  that the  Grand  Central  Terminal  offers,  and I hope  someday  you  are  able  to  as  well.

Located right here in Norman, OK, the National Weather Center, (NWC)is a federal, state, and OU hybrid dedicated to understanding, forecasting, and teaching about weather on planet Earth. When seen from the outside and inside, the overall scale

and beauty of the building  screams learning, efficiency, sophistication, and most important of all, WEATHER! The building is filled with faculty, scientists, and researchers that are among the most educated regarding the atmosphere. Further, it holds numerous tools typical of studying the atmosphere, most notably the LIDAR on the roof. As a result, the NWC leaves people who are hungry for meteorology, such as myself, entranced the first time we see the building, and even more so after entering.

It may seem boring and uninspiring to those that are not interested in weather, but if you give it a chance, a simple and short tour will likely change your mind. At first, it may seem like a generic office building, as it did to me. However, the closer you get, and once you go inside, the ambience of the place will draw you in, particularly if you are here studying atmospheric science. This is how I felt the first time going inside. Clearly then, it is a source of inspiration for studying weather.

I certainly hope you go give it a visit!

Maya Lin was asked to build the MLK memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1989. The monument consisted of two elements: a curved black granite wall inscribed with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a Dream” speech and a 12-ft disk inscribed with the dates of major civil-rights-era events and the names of 40 martyrs to the cause. Lin stated, “The minute I hit that quote I knew that the whole piece had to be about water,” Lin said. “I realized that I wanted to create a time line: a chronological listing of the Movement’s major events and its individual deaths, which together would show how people’s lives influenced history and how their deaths made things better.”