Happy TG! My brief list of giving thanks

It may be a bit of a cliche topic, but helpful things and people deserve recognition. Thanksgiving is a good time to remember that.

I'm thankful to have a secure, steady income. That's partly due to my advisor, partly due to the DoE, partly due to department policy. Between the three of them, they will not leave me without a paycheck unless I catastrophically fail (which then makes it my own damn fault).

I'm thankful that my advisor has been extremely flexible and let me chart my own path through grad school. It certainly isn't traditional, but so far it's working for me. He also makes my work easier by providing all the technical goodies I need or want (within reason :) ). Thank you, advisor!

I have to acknowledge my friends, family, research groupmates, and professors for their undying support through personal and professional challenges. I would be much worse off now if they hadn't been so understanding.

Despite all the difficulties of the past 2+ years, things are going surprisingly well. I attribute that largely to a supportive environment and understanding people. I suppose I should take some credit for it too, but that seems rather unimportant because this is just the way I function. Everything else is extra :)

Fall Break!!! Yay!!!

Ahhh, fall break!

My mom may have helped me figure out why I've felt so apathetic towards school this semester (in addition to the stress of drama into the beginning of the semester and a bit of burn out from seminar, qual, and thesis in less than six months). I'm not excited about either of my classes this semester. They are both related to my research, but only indirectly. Well, two more weeks and they're over.

Next semester looks brighter class-wise. I'm taking a new class directly related to my research in my department. Granted, it is a bit of an unknown being a new class, but the course title is promising. It is also in a sub-field that I like, but find hard to grasp. Maybe this will help me understand it better.

I'm also taking intro Spanish. I took a year of Spanish in high school... ten years ago. I didn't retain much, as shown when I assumed that nombre had to do with numbers rather than name. It'll be a challenge to learn a year of college Spanish in one semester, especially since I cannot roll Rs to save my life.

Soggy and gloomy

Rain, I am done with you. You may leave now.

Another deadline

I returned to Grad School City on Wednesday. After hashing through recent drama with a friend Wednesday evening, taking a midterm Thursday morning, going to jujitsu Thursday night, and organizing finances Friday, I'm finally ready to say something here again.

Ahhhhhhh!

I also met with the advisor on Friday. He wants a paper draft by next Friday. He's okay that I don't have all the research done that I need to make the paper publishable. As long as I can write up something that looks like a journal article based on my thesis and whatever I've done since, it'll give us a starting point for the article. From there, I can add whatever details I produce and pretty up some figures before we submit.

Even though the idea is a bit daunting, I'm glad he's giving me a more concrete deadline. It should light a fire under my ass to get moving towards a more defined goal. We're hoping to get the paper submitted before Christmas and I have a poster at AGU, so stoke the fire!

Still, ahhhhhhh! But in a good way :)

Love, love, LOVE hot apple cider, especially spiced

Please excuse a bit of a hiatus while I am away from internet access (only twice in the last four days!). Blogging will resume shortly.

Brought to you by a coffee house that serves tasty hot apple cider :D