I'm not dead, I swear
Just... trying my damndest not to let the summer do me in. It seems like every week has been hectic in one way or another, this summer. No idea why. Well, I take that back, it *might* be because I have to try to get the bulk of my research done now, so that I can start writing up my dissertation in the Fall semester.
I can't believe it's been since the end of May since I've posted anything. That's unacceptable. I need to try to get back into the habit of posting things. Problem being that there hasn't been a whole lot going on that feels worth posting. Well, with the exception of the random trip out to Yellowstone that I went on, but I'm still not finished sorting through all the pictures that got taken (upwards of 5000, good gods) and editing them. They will eventually be posted somewhere. Really. And I will link them here once they do. I just haven't decided where to upload them once I'm done, for one thing. Google's habit of massively compressing pictures and murdering the quality offends me, and Flickr only allows about three photos per week on an unpaid account. (And yes, I know I'm exaggerating, but that's what it feels like. :P )
There was also a weekend in the Keys that went down, but since the conditions sucked, not much snorkeling happened, and I wound up taking all of about ten photos. And not very exciting ones, at that. On the upside, I did end up tanning a few shades darker, which was nice. I need to spend more time outside.
Life IRL goes on, more or less as per usual. School, research, writing of journal articles, and the occasional night out with my friends to watch movies or whatever else. We finally got around to watching the season finale of season two of Sherlock. Holy crap, the rollercoaster and mindfuck. But I loved it. After which we watched The Final Countdown. Which was hilarious in that it was so easy to make fun of.
There were plans to go diving with a group of my buddies this weekend, but they fell through. Instead I'll probably get to see them in two weeks instead, since I'll be in Orlando for a conference anyhow. Exact logistics for that trip are turning out to be a bit of a nightmare, but it'll work out. Somehow. Not entirely sure how, yet. But I'll find a way. Nearly everything possible is making the trip complicated:
-- the people organising the conference still don't have a definite time and location for the poster session I'm taking part in
-- the tentative time for poster set up would require me to get up at 5 am to drive out to Orlando during rush hour, if I go out there on the day of
-- if I stay the night with my friend in the area, that goes down to about 40 minutes, but one of my labmates is also going to the conference and doesn't own a car, so will likely have to ride over with me
-- said labmate is going to be staying at a hotel and will therefore most probably need me to give her a ride to the hotel and then also from the hotel to the conference, and back home
-- my best friend, and last member of our core group of four (the other two will meet us in Orlando, if this works out) has stuff to do here in town the night before the conference, and so can't ride over with me
-- I'm going to have to drive the 'rents to the airport the night before right during rush hour
-- KJHSUDUTHDJFHVJKLSYDUGDKFHJKLHSDKJFH
Just... good gods. And it promises to potentially get even more ridiculous.
At least I'm finally making some better progress on getting my experiments to work the way I want. I have a few more test runs to do, and then I should hopefully be on the right track to move on to working on the next step in my synthesis procedure. I'm also working my way towards (finally) finishing out that second journal paper, and starting the third. Precise timing is still not quite determined, but I'm nearly finished with the data analysis, now. Here's to hoping I can get it done and submitted by the end of the summer. I have a fair bit of editing to do, now that I've got more data and more analysis to add.
I've also been tapped to TA again next semester. But no one has any idea yet of who I'll be working with. And it's only a 10 hour appointment, where normally as a graduate assistant, I get 20. So I'm wondering what exactly the deal is. I guess we'll see. I do have to remember to deal with registering for my research hours. Note to self.
Let's see... I can't think of anything else off-hand. Maybe I'll add to this later. It's already fairly long and rambly as it is, though.
I can't believe it's been since the end of May since I've posted anything. That's unacceptable. I need to try to get back into the habit of posting things. Problem being that there hasn't been a whole lot going on that feels worth posting. Well, with the exception of the random trip out to Yellowstone that I went on, but I'm still not finished sorting through all the pictures that got taken (upwards of 5000, good gods) and editing them. They will eventually be posted somewhere. Really. And I will link them here once they do. I just haven't decided where to upload them once I'm done, for one thing. Google's habit of massively compressing pictures and murdering the quality offends me, and Flickr only allows about three photos per week on an unpaid account. (And yes, I know I'm exaggerating, but that's what it feels like. :P )
There was also a weekend in the Keys that went down, but since the conditions sucked, not much snorkeling happened, and I wound up taking all of about ten photos. And not very exciting ones, at that. On the upside, I did end up tanning a few shades darker, which was nice. I need to spend more time outside.
Life IRL goes on, more or less as per usual. School, research, writing of journal articles, and the occasional night out with my friends to watch movies or whatever else. We finally got around to watching the season finale of season two of Sherlock. Holy crap, the rollercoaster and mindfuck. But I loved it. After which we watched The Final Countdown. Which was hilarious in that it was so easy to make fun of.
There were plans to go diving with a group of my buddies this weekend, but they fell through. Instead I'll probably get to see them in two weeks instead, since I'll be in Orlando for a conference anyhow. Exact logistics for that trip are turning out to be a bit of a nightmare, but it'll work out. Somehow. Not entirely sure how, yet. But I'll find a way. Nearly everything possible is making the trip complicated:
-- the people organising the conference still don't have a definite time and location for the poster session I'm taking part in
-- the tentative time for poster set up would require me to get up at 5 am to drive out to Orlando during rush hour, if I go out there on the day of
-- if I stay the night with my friend in the area, that goes down to about 40 minutes, but one of my labmates is also going to the conference and doesn't own a car, so will likely have to ride over with me
-- said labmate is going to be staying at a hotel and will therefore most probably need me to give her a ride to the hotel and then also from the hotel to the conference, and back home
-- my best friend, and last member of our core group of four (the other two will meet us in Orlando, if this works out) has stuff to do here in town the night before the conference, and so can't ride over with me
-- I'm going to have to drive the 'rents to the airport the night before right during rush hour
-- KJHSUDUTHDJFHVJKLSYDUGDKFHJKLHSDKJFH
Just... good gods. And it promises to potentially get even more ridiculous.
At least I'm finally making some better progress on getting my experiments to work the way I want. I have a few more test runs to do, and then I should hopefully be on the right track to move on to working on the next step in my synthesis procedure. I'm also working my way towards (finally) finishing out that second journal paper, and starting the third. Precise timing is still not quite determined, but I'm nearly finished with the data analysis, now. Here's to hoping I can get it done and submitted by the end of the summer. I have a fair bit of editing to do, now that I've got more data and more analysis to add.
I've also been tapped to TA again next semester. But no one has any idea yet of who I'll be working with. And it's only a 10 hour appointment, where normally as a graduate assistant, I get 20. So I'm wondering what exactly the deal is. I guess we'll see. I do have to remember to deal with registering for my research hours. Note to self.
Let's see... I can't think of anything else off-hand. Maybe I'll add to this later. It's already fairly long and rambly as it is, though.