July 28 (I know that's not today's date)

I finally got four scientist to agree on a two-hour meeting for my prelim defense. It's scheduled for July 28. According to department guidelines I need to send them the written proposal by July 14. Which is effectively July 12 since I'm driving to Colorado with J-man and his kids July 13-14.

I have just under a month and a half to write the long-overdue research proposal for my PhD (I was supposed to do it last year, but my dad's illness came first). It seems like a long time and too soon all at once. I'm supposed to use an atmospheric model that I still don't have running reliably. Before I send my proposal to the committee I need to do some test runs to gauge how much computer time I'll need, which may in part determine which experiments I conduct. Can't if the model's not running right.

Regardless, I am excited to get this out of the way. It's the second big hurdle towards a PhD (first was the qualifying exam). Once I pass the prelim, all I have left is research and final defense. I don't even have to take any more classes (though I probably will because I'm me and there are lots of interesting classes at colleges).

What are the rites of passage on the way to a PhD in your department?

Next Step: Prelim, but first a week off

So I just finished my master's degree--deposited the thesis on Friday. I'm taking a week off from work as part of my reward/celebration. Despite this break from actual work, some part of the back of my mind is working on the next step.

Since I've already passed the qualifying exam, my next big hurdle is the preliminary exam. The qualifying exam was a written test that took ten hours over a day and a half. It tested me on everything I've ever learned in atmospheric sciences. For the preliminary exam, I'll have to write and defend a proposal of my planned PhD research (and I have to choose a PhD committee). After that, I research, write my dissertation, and defend the dissertation.

Looking at the next step, I am a bit intimidated. According to the online description of the prelim, I need to write the proposal and prepare the defense without help from anyone. I've never done this before. I have a few versions of a fellowship proposal that won me three years of funding from which to start, but this proposal needs to be much more detailed and longer than the ones for fellowships.

I think seeing an example or two will help. If I can't get advice specifically about my proposal, I can at least use other people's proposals and presentations as examples so I know the structure and quality it needs.

In any case, I may not be starting on that right away in a hugely meaningful way. I still need to polish the research and writing from my thesis to make a paper or two. I also need to introduce myself to some tools I'll be using in my PhD research. I hope to wrap this up well before the end of the fall semester and get a good start on my prelim proposal before the end of the year so I can present it by the end of next summer.

My brain is recovering...

I have not, in fact, disappeared off the face of the Earth. I just finished my seminar and a literature review for an NSF-style proposal that is the semester project for my class.

The seminar is an oddly justifiable and valuable means of torture. I spent three weeks working 12-15 hours most days leading up to the seminar. The house went to hell, my sleep went to hell, and I may have told the kitties to go to hell at some point.

I've never been very comfortable speaking to large groups, nor very good at it. Somehow, this seminar was amazingly successful. I got good ratings from the group at large and a couple of people even commented that it would shame most conference talks and many invited seminars. Maybe I can do this scientist thing after all.

After all the stress of preparing the seminar, studying for the qual, and immediately having to write a literature review for my class (due today), I am again questioning my intended career path. A large research university seems to fit my skills and interests best as far as the balance between teaching and research, but I'm not sure I want the pressure to perform and publish that comes with that job.

I still want to teach and do research, so I don't think I want to work at a teaching university. (I understand that professors at teaching universities still do research, but I think I'd rather it be a more explicit and significant part of my job.) I don't want to be a researcher because that tends to remove teaching. Maybe a researcher who does a lot of outreach? Or maybe I can still do this professor thing after all, too.

How does grad school compare to being a professor as far as stress and time consumption? And where's that advisor of mine?

a ditty for late-night proposals

A-proposing we will go, a-proposing we will go,
Hi-ho the funding-o, a-proposing we will go

braaaaiiiiins!

Fellowship application is submitted. Finally. Now I wait.

so far, I fail at NaBloPoMo

I didn't post November 3rd, and technically I didn't post November 4th. I claim this post as my November 4th post because I haven't slept yet.

I barely started working on research again when I got feedback from my advisor on the fellowship proposal. At least I got my mind partially wrapped around the program I need to expand. I haven't looked at it in months. Friday starts my focus on research again. Three months from today, I need to have enough done to give my seminar.

I finished the fourth draft of my fellowship proposal today. That consumed about eleven hours of the day. My life has been exceedingly dull because of this major time sink. Tomorrow should be a bit more interesting. I'll at least go out to dinner to celebrate my officemate's seminar completion. Otherwise I expect a lot of the same through Thursday to finalize the proposal.

shopping sucks

This was an unproductive weekend. Yesterday I went to a hockey game and that's about it. Today I went bra shopping. That is a major accomplishment considering how much it usually pisses me off. Unfortunately for something that fit comfortably, I spent $100 on four bras. I hate bra shopping, I hate the bra industry, and men must design them because most of them fit like shit. And to Victoria's Secret: how can a bra possibly be worth $48? You're ridiculous.

Still no word from the advisor on any of the fellowship stuff.

I'm currently battling a migraine (again). It's not really bad, but it has potential. If this round of over-the-counter stuff doesn't work, it's on to prescription meds.

I hope tomorrow is more productive. I at least have class in the morning, ice skating around lunch time, and orchestra in the evening. I have to do something tomorrow. I also hope the advisor gets back to me in a major way on the fellowship essays and proposal.

By the way, count this as my second post of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). My goal is to write one post here every day. Some may be short and unexciting, but this blog has gotten a slow start due to my busy semester. NaBloPoMo should provide some motivation to pay more attention to writing, which is somewhat therapeutic for me.

I'm trying to be patient...this is not the first time it hasn't worked very well

The boyfriend says I'm not a very patient person and in many cases he's right. This fellowship application is a prime example.

I emailed my advisor all the written portions last Thursday for him to comment on. I got comments on the first half of a two-page proposal Friday around lunch time. I emailed him an edited version that addressed all but one comment so I could get some more input on the second half and see if I'd interpreted his comments correctly.

I have yet to receive another email on the proposal. There are also two other written parts to this fellowship, neither of which he has read. I realize that he has family obligations, especially having been out of the country for two weeks and now his wife being out of town, but I really want to get this thing out of the way so I can return to research. And it's due Thursday, which doesn't leave much time for procrastinating if I do more than one round of edits on it.

Did I mention that this is my first proposal, so much of my first draft is guessing what a proposal is supposed to look like? It's going to take more than one edit to get it reasonably good and within the page limit.

It'd be nice if I could blame someone, but it's been an accidentally badly scheduled semester all around. The advisor wasn't supposed to teach, but another faculty member bailed on his class after the semester schedule was made. My advisor got to take up the slack. That means that next semester he'll be teaching one class instead of two with very little travel--just in time for both of his advisees to be studying for the qual.

Speaking of his other advisee, I feel bad for her, too, because she's trying to put together her seminar, a required part of a master's degree, so she can graduate in December. Her research has not been going as planned and she's been very stressed. It's more evidence for the bad timing of everything this semester.

I've also received preliminary news that my spring semester will be rearranged in such a way that I won't get much break over winter break, but more on that once the details are confirmed.

Second post of the day so I can catch up and blog about something current for once

I know, when it rains, it pours, and now I've given you two posts at once after a week and a half of nothing. At some point I'd like to return to blogging about current events. No time better than the present, right?

Recent events have caused me to disappear from my journal and blog. I hope to remedy that now that a couple of deadlines and other important dates have passed. What were these events, you may ask. Well, I'll tell you (and I'm not going to sing it)...

When I got back from the conference late on October 1st, I had to catch up on a week and a half or two weeks of class work that I'd ignored while working on my poster. It was worth ignoring classes to the extent I could because my first ever poster turned out quite nice. I was somewhat disappointed with the poster session, as I mentioned, but the poster itself looked good and had good information on it. I think the problem was more with the conference and lack of interest than the poster itself.

Back to the missed class work...I had a homework assignment due the second day back in town, which I finished on time, and loads of reading. Reading is easy to ignore.

I was also a bit burned out on research because of spending so much time working on my poster before the conference, so I needed a break. My first full week back, I did very little research and focused on classes and house stuff. Did I mention that housework was very low on my priority list? Frankly, the house was a mess. It hasn't really recovered yet and I don't expect it to recover until we have to pack everything up to move out. The boyfriend and I will be very busy next semester, wo I expect to be eating a lot out of boxes, bags, and cans.

My advisor was also very busy. He only had a week and a half before a two-week international trip to attend two conferences back-to-back. His wife had already been alone with their two small children through the other conference and single-handedly cared for them while he went to the international conferences. In the time between travel, he needed to give her a break to get some of her work done (she's finishing her dissertation). He also needed to work on a seminar, a talk or two, and a poster. I tried to bother him as little as possible.

Then the advisor was gone for two weeks in a foreign country with poor internet access. He was barely available via email. I spent the first week of that reading background papers for a fellowship proposal. The second week I worked on massive data transfer and processing. The computing cluster I was putting it on had a few issues with its setup, so those had to be worked out in the process, and I initially didn't have the permissions I needed to put the files in the correct directories. It took a large part of the week to get all that worked out. I also learned a bit more about shell and batch scripting, which I'm sure will be useful in the future.

Now that the advisor is back, things are getting a bit easier and moving more quickly. He's still busy this week because he's filling in for the person who subbed for him last week, but he'll be in town for the rest of the semester.