Anonymous thoughts

BotanicalGirl has recently written a very thought-provoking post about anonymous blogging, and what or what not to write. This got me thinking a lot (as I'm sure it got most people thinking) about my own blog and how anonymous I am.

I've thought about this a little before. I changed my "name" to just K (before it was my first name). I don't have much in the way of a profile. I have made my geographical location clear in previous posts, and my university. I have talked about my department a couple of times, nothing very specific. I have talked a little about my research, but not in any great detail either. This is different for me than BotanicalGirl, because I'm not afraid of getting scooped, I just think it would bore all my potential readers to death! I try not to complain about specific things, such as university policies, my advisor, department, labmates, etc. Because I don't want them to find my blog and potentially read what I think about them, of course. So I try to keep that to a minimum. Except that I have expressed the fact that I don't particularly love my research and I'm looking for something new. But my advisor knows that already anyway.

Very few people I know personally read my blog. I think my husband reads occasionally, and my mom reads maybe once a month. My *constant* reader is my father-in-law (hi dad!). I really love the fact that he reads my blog on a regular basis. I love it because I know at least someone will read what I write (and that's always a good feeling). But I also love it because I feel that by reading whatever I write, he is getting to know me a little better, and with that I feel closer to him. We get along well already(which is fairly lucky I think), but we don't get to talk much, so this is a way of keeping mentally in-touch.

Sometimes I would like to post more about my research (when it is interesting), but I do feel like it is boring to the average reader. A few readers of BotanicalGirl's blog commented that they enjoy her more personal posts. I enjoy them too! I feel that we're all sort of getting to know one another in the blog-world, however anonymously. And it is always soooo nice to find out that someone else is going through similar things in their life. Whether you read about it on someone else's blog, or post something personal yourself and get comments, you're pretty much assured that someone out there can empathize. I love that about blogging. It's almost like group therapy. I know that sounds totally corny!

Getting things together

I spent this morning getting ready for my trip to Salt Lake city, where I'm going for the Geological Society of America conference. I'm not presenting a poster or giving a talk - I'm going to meet some people doing what I really want to do. I want to get to know more people in the paleobotanical field, maybe to find some PhD research or just other research in general. I'm really looking forward to this.

The weather should be nice for the trip too. My husband is driving down with me. It should be a nice break from school here, for a couple days.

Hooray!

More time-wasting quizzes! What else is the internet good for?
.

You Should Get a PhD in Science (like chemistry, math, or engineering)

You're both smart and innovative when it comes to ideas. Maybe you'll find a cure for cancer - or develop the latest underground drug.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

I just did something extraordinary

For me that is.

I was having a misunderstanding with my advisor. And what I did was clear it up right away. I told her exactly what I meant and what I was thinking. The whole story is too complicated for me to write right now, but the point is that I did something I haven't done before. I didn't let this thing stew in my mind, I just made myself clear. That was so nice. Now I don't have to be annoyed or angry or anything. Whew!

This weekend - two field trips to Yellowstone. Saturday it's for the Yellowstone class (that I'm TAing), and Sunday it's for the Veg History class I'm in. On Sunday Danny's going with, which I'm super glad about. And I rigged it so we don't have to core (which we've done enough times, thank you very much), but we're going to hike up on the hills above the lake they're coring and take pictures! Heheh.

Changes to comps

Right now in the Earth sciences department here the faculty are discussing changes to the comprehensive exams. Here at MSU, the graduate college requires all Master's students be given a comprehensive examination before graduation. Previously in the department there were significant differences between the "geology" and "geography" comps. Your distinction as "geology" or "geography" was based on your committee and your project. I've been struggling with this since I got here, because I don't really fit in to either. I would rather be a geologist, but I can't escape the fact that my research is much more geographical than geological. I'm studying the last 1000 years! To a geologist that's practically nothing. They would all probably laugh in my face if I told them I'm a geologist. And I've got no training as a geographer, I've taken one geography class in my whole life. The paleoecological research I'm doing is definitely on the line between geology and geography. So I'm actually relieved that they're changing the comps.

Now the comps are going to involve an agreement between student and committee on 3 areas of depth that the student will be tested on. These areas will most likely have a lot to do with the specific project the student is working on. This is probably a good thing for the geologists, because previously they could be tested on any facet of geology imaginable. Whatever the people testing them wanted to ask. And it wasn't just your committee, no, any geology professor in the department could come and ask you questions. Your committee decided whether or not you passed. It's also probably good for the geography students. They used to have to decide on 2 areas of depth with their committee. This meant you had to know those two areas in fairly great detail. So it might be better for them because now they have to focus on 3 areas a little more "lightly".

I think these changes are great. They're super for me, because now I don't have to worry about being on the line. I can just exist. That's nice. I think they're good for everyone else too. It just makes more sense. I'll be taking my comps in late January or early February. I still haven't solidified on a committee. I'm waiting for my radiocarbon dates. *sigh*

It is way too late for me

I'm sitting in the "physics library" at school with my husband who is frantically working on a quantum assignment for tomorrow (I think). He's been in here since 5. I've been here since 7. We're not doing so well. It's past my bed-time.

I want to write a really long complain-y post about the huge hole in our front yard. And about how I hate Bozeman. I feel like I'm the only person in the whole world who hates this place. People flock here! To ski! Or snowboard! Whatever! I'm really going to try not to write that though. I want to try to have a positive outlook.

I suppose I'll use the rest of the laptop batteries for looking for a new apartment.

Yay for time-wasting quizzes!

I just spent a few minutes taking these tests:


You are Schroeder!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are a Social Liberal (66% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (30% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Something we don't think about every day

I was just talking with a professor who I want to be on my committee. I'm way behind on this committee thing, since one of my members dropped off last spring. I haven't gotten around to getting another member until now. But I've also been re-vamping my thesis.

Anyway, I had a lot of great things to say about my project, which is one reason I think maybe you shouldn't have to choose all members of your committee so early. I have a much better idea now of who'se expertise I might be able to use. So I think that I can use this woman because she is a biogeographer and she's studied modern climate in Grand Teton National Park where I'm working. As we were talking about my project and possibilities for research, she emphasized something that I don't usually think about. She said that my ideas for pulling lots of things together sounded super interesting to her, but more importantly it sounded like I was interested. She said it is great to have a thesis that you like and that you can get excited about. That way you actually work on it, and you can be interested in the outcome.

I know that some people probably keep this in mind most of the time. Especially those working on PhD's. Who could do a PhD without being interested? But right now I'm surrounded by uninterested people. The other grad student who actually has cores working in my lab is completely "over" her project. She's just in the data collection phase and she has so much data to collect that she hates it. She's forgotten about the big picture.

And I think I had forgotten a little bit too. Sitting around collecting data all the time isn't really that great. I got super excited when I saw my raw charcoal data graphed because I think it shows something really cool. That kind of got me excited again. And thinking about adding a couple facets to my project also gets me excited. I'm not particularly a fan of pollen analysis. That is pretty mundane to me. Sure, you can find out a bunch of cool stuff about past climate and how vegetation has changed over the past few thousands of years or more, but it's not my bag. I'm much more interested in my charcoal questions, and also the possibilities of thinking about how local climate controls the low-elevation lakes, and how people affected the whole landscape. I like variety, and this brings several things into my thesis for a nice variety. But I think I had forgotten that I have to make this project something I like. Even if it is just until it's done and I graduate, I have to like something out of it.

Teachers/ lecturers

What are some things that you out there think make a good lecturer (or university teacher)? I'm saying specifically "university teacher" because I think that they need different skills than high school teachers and elementary school teachers. So, what ideas have you got?

I pose this question because I know a few people who want to be teachers (both elementary level and college level). Some of these people I think would be absolutely wonderful teachers. Some I think would really stink at it.

I might actually have something interesting to write about...

The first purpose of this entry is to draw attention to my "nerd score"(bottom of sidebar). I just took this test that I linked to from Ms.PhD's blog. I did NOT expect to be a "High-nerd"!! Hmm. I suppose I'm nerdier than I thought. Oh well.

Now, there is something that I'm trying to figure out that actually has something to do with my research. For part of my thesis I'm looking at the macroscopic charcoal records from 3 lakes. My advisor has done this sort of thing many times before, so she knows how do analyze this type of data. I'm reading *the* paper on the CHAPS program (written by P. Bartlein at the University of Oregon), which is what we use to "decompose" the charcoal record into background and peaks. Supposedly this is the only paper published on CHAPS statistics, and there is of course the manual that goes with the program. I am reading this to hopefully become more familiar with the actual statistical calculations that go into the program. But I have found the paper a bit un-helpfull. (By the way, this is the Long et al. 1998 paper from the Canadian Journal of Forest Research).

I think I understand the methods, but I feel there is something missing from the paper. I wish that the authors would explain their statistical methods better. I said that I am reading it to become more familiar with the calculations they use. But they don't specifically talk about their calculations. They describe their statistics with words, and don't ever show any formulas. I think this is a poor way to get your methods across to your readers. I don't think that I could just read this paper and then do the same thing all by myself. I have someone who can explain it to me, and I have people that I can ask questions independently. But I think it is crummy as a methods paper because it doesn't really give you any methods.

My advisor even said, "some people say CHAPS (the program) is a black box, where you just put in your data and it spits out some statistics. " She went on to say that it is not simply a black box, but that "we" know what is going on inside. I don't think this is true. I think someone knows what's going on inside (namely Bartlein, since he wrote the program and he is pretty brilliant with statistics), but the majority of people who use it don't. I have seen a few talks about this type of data, and usually the speaker just says some things that sound nice, so it sounds like they know what they're doing, but if you ask them specific questions about their statistical methods and why they did some things and not others, they usually falter and can't answer. This is a bad way to do science. I feel that any scientist presenting something in a poster or a talk should be able to answer questions about their data! Even funny questions. You shouldn't have to say, "Well, I know that CHAPS does a locally weighted moving average, but I couldn't do it by myself, I don't really know how to do it." I'm not saying that you shouldn't save time by using programs written for your specific situation, I'm just saying that you should still know exactly what is going on, and why.

Rain and sleepiness

It is cold and rainy today. And yes, I'm sleepy. Mostly from sitting in a warm room right after lunch listening to a boring statistics lecture. Very difficult to stay awake.

Friday's are Physics Colloquium days! I love to attend physics colloquia, and I have since I was an undergrad. I am a geologist, but I have always found physics colloquia to be more exciting and interesting than your average geology or earth science colloquium. Why? I'm not entirely sure. Geologists and earth scientists tend to have good ways of explaining topics to a wide audience, and make their topics interesting. But I find I'm usually way more excited by the physics topics. If I go to the earth science colloquium I'm usually bored.

An example of a super interesting colloquium - when I was an undergrad a physicist gave a talk about the atmospheres of brown dwarf stars. It was so interesting to me because he was talking about models for the condensation of these atmospheres, and these models were very similar to models that igneous petrologists use to simulate crystallization in a magma chamber. I was enthralled and sitting forward in my seat for the entire hour. It was so exciting. (The funny thing about that colloquium was that I was probably the only one awake. All the physicists there were bored out of their minds).

Now, today's physics colloquium is:

Thallium atoms, diode lasers, and 'table-top' tests of fundamental symmetries.
By: Protik K. Majumder Department Chair and Associate Professor of Physics Williams College

I'm not sure if this one will be super interesting. But here is the one I missed (sob!) last week:

Did a Gamma-Ray Burst Initiate the Late Ordovician Extinction?
By: Adrian L. Melott, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas

Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions known in the Universe. A GRB within our galaxy could have catastrophic consequences for the Earth. Extrapolations from the global rate suggest an average interval of a few hundred million years for events in which the Earth is irradiated from an event on our side of the Galaxy. The atmosphere would become heavily ionized, resulting in major destruction of the ozone layer, darkened skies and nitric acid rain.
Both the prompt UV and the solar UV resulting from long-term loss of the ozone layer are destructive to living organisms. The attenuation length of UV in water is tens of meters. There is a strong candidate for a GRB based mass extinction in the late Ordovician, 440 My ago. Planktonic organisms and those animals living in shallow water seem to have been particularly hard hit during this mass extinction.
(www.physics.montana.edu/news/seminars/Semfcollomain.htm)

When I found out I missed that one, I was quite upset. Cool topic! I love learning about things other than my specific field, which is probably why I love physics colloquia so much.

Being a "secretary" is hard

Especially when it's only a very part-time job! I'm working for a small lab on campus for ~10 hours a week. I started at the beginning of the summer to make some money, because all I had for the summer was 6 weeks of TAing for $1500. And I needed more money than that to live on. So I got this job, which is really cool. I'm continuing during school so that I don't have to TA full time. I'm TAing 2 hours a week, which sort of equates to a 10 hour a week job (because of prep time and grading and all) which is a 1/2 time TA. So I'm working another 10 as a "secretary". I'm not an actual secretary, I'm doing all sorts of weird things. I'm keeping track of money, but separately from the department accountant. I'm trying to keep things organized in the lab space, and I'm doing odds and ends for my boss. I like organizational work, so this job is fun for me most of the time. But it is hard as well. Especially today. I'm supposed to get all the paperwork from purchases with POs and the lab corporate credit card. Apparently this hasn't been happening. So if people don't give me their paperwork, I don't know what is going on. And when things don't work out, the department accountant calls me and yells at me. (Actually, she's really nice, but she seems like a witch and everyone is scared of her) And if I don't have any documentation, I can't help her. So she gets blacklisted somehow within the University purchasing system. Altogether not a good thing. So, being around for only 10 hours a week, it is difficult to communicate with all the lab employees and get them to follow my purchasing rules. And they all complain that I shouldn't be able to tell them what to do because I'm only a "secretary" and I don't know the first thing about engineering or whatever else.

Besides this, everything seems to be going smoothly. I just remembered that I have to talk to my department accountant and see the records of what has been spent out of my grant. It is not really my personal grant, but it is specifically for my master's project. We got some more money (a lot in fact), and so I want to go over the entire budget. I had to pay for radiocarbon dates (6 at $300 a date) and lead-210 dates (I don't even know how much those cost), and I paid a bit for field work this summer and over Labor Day weekend. But now that we have tons more money, I think I have plenty left for some lab supplies and another trip to Jackson in December, and maybe I might even be able to afford to pay myself for 10 hours a week next semester, so I can just work on my stuff and not have to TA at all! That would be cool. My advisor wants to go over the budget with me, and I want to go over it myself so we'll figure out what we can spend.

Dedicated to Tom (dad)

Well, yes, it has been a long time since I've posted. Last night I promised my father-in-law that I would post more. So this post is dedicated to him. Hopefully knowing that he's out there watching will help me keep up.

First of all, I haven't posted in the last few days because I have been getting stuff done! Since school has started I have been having weekly meetings with my advisor about my research. Right now I still don't know exactly what direction my thesis will take (arrgh!!) because I'm waiting for some radiocarbon dates. But I do have some cool and potentially exciting data! I will show some of that in a couple days. But, that is kind of exciting and I feel like I've been accomplishing something.

Yesterday I drove on a field trip for the Yellowstone class I'm TAing. We went to ... Yellowstone. But it was really fun. It was cloudy and cool and starting to look a lot like fall. Very nice. We saw several bison and several elk. Some of the bull elk had huge racks, and that was pretty cool. There is one more field trip for that class, back to Yellowstone, in October. Hopefully that one will be just as fun.

And I'm definitely going to GSA in October. I've already set up one meeting, and hopefully I'll set up more. I'm looking forward to meeting more people.

It's turning into fall!

Today is the first football game of the season here. And the weather matches perfectly. It is overcast and drizzly. Ahh, it is turning into fall. Fall is definitely my favorite season. It feels like it's coming a little early, but I still like it.

I made up my mind yesterday and registered for the Geological Society of America meeting this year in Salt Lake City, UT. I'm going for the purpose of meeting people in the field that I want most to work in. I'm in the master's program here, but I'm not doing what I want to be doing. And I think I could be. So, my tentative plan is to finish up my master's here and try to work on a really cool project with a real paleobotanist. This is my dream, I guess. So I'm going to GSA this year to meet with some paleobotanists and talk to them about their work, and other paleobotanical things. Hopefully I'll learn some things that will be useful when I'm done here.

Supposedly one of the professors here has some nice leaves that go along with a dinosaur dig. I would like to work on these leaves. I understand the fact that no one here wanted to accept me as a real paleobotany grad student because nobody here knows a thing about it, and I'm sure they would feel inadequate as advisors. But that is what I really wanted to do! I thought I made that clear in my application essay! Rrr. It's okay though, I'll work something out for my Ph.D.

Eh?

What's your favorite NASA mission patch? Mine is Gemini 4. So many are cool though! Talk about a dorky post...

Happy September

Here we are almost done with a week of school. Wow!

I have to say that I really feel for all the people in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and all the rest of the places hit hard by the hurricane. It is all over the news. We listen to NPR in the mornings during breakfast and then while we're making dinner, and we have hardly heard any other news but hurricane news. The other day they were talking to someone from Idaho Falls who had decided, along with her husband, to drive down to the affected area and offer to take a family back to their home and house them for however many months it takes to rebuild. And others in their community were offering the same thing, and to enroll children in school and provide transportation and help out with food. I was just amazed when I heard this, and it made me feel really bad that I'm not in a position to do something like that. I would love to help out in a "real" way like that, instead of just donating some money or some blood (although blood is very important). I just feel like I'm sitting around hearing all this news and not doing anything about it! Being a grad student leaves you in a funny place in the community because you don't have a lot of time or money to help out.

I also feel guilty because it's sunny and nice here, and I'm going down to the Tetons this weekend for a day of field work. It's supposed to be nice there. Why should I get to do normal things when all these people's lives have been turned upside-down? Huh.

Forgot...

Oops, I forgot to mention that my husband, Danny, passed his comps!!! This is an awesome thing because now he is officially in the Ph.D. program, and we have a bit of security. So next summer can be a real summer, maybe.

First day of school

Well, today is the first day of school. I only have one class on Mondays, and it is statistics. I went, and it seems OK. It might actually be interesting because I have data. I want to think up my own ways of analyzing my data. Or at least something new. So I'm looking forward to learning some statistics.

I had a meeting with my advisor this morning (whoa!). We had to talk about the lab I'm TAing for her. Plus we talked a little about my project. I guess it seems to be going OK at this point. I told her I'm going back out in the field this weekend, and I'm coring one lake... either Swan or Heron. I made up my mind, and she seemed to take it well. She was really not bitchy or confrontational. She thinks I'll finish this year (meaning by May). I'm not so sure, because I still have all my pollen to work up, and data analysis and writing to do. She thinks I'm efficient. Interesting.

Today the department here had a huge meeting of new grad students, old grad students and faculty. There are 11 new grads, which is a lot for this department! So many people! A bunch of the older grad student's weren't there, but most of the second-year's were. It's interesting to see all the new people and hear what they're working on. There's just so many! And I've been displaced from the department because I don't have a desk there anymore. I have to have a specific reason to head over there now. It feels a bit strange. Over the weekend Danny and I also met some of the new physics grad students. They seem fairly normal.

So, this weekend: the Teton's! Mucking around in lakes! Ahh well, at least I'm fully funded now. Yes, the Park Service found some end-of-year money for my project. So, where before I had $5k (which didn't cover my project in the least, because I need lead-210 and radiocarbon dates) I now have $13k. Whoa! Weird! That means this time the grant is paying for the gas to get there. It's not that much anyway.

Super Monkey Ball 2

The last week-day of summer. We had ham and eggs benedict this morning to "celebrate". Now D's playing Super Monkey Ball 2. We just bought it as an "end of comps" thing. We are the only people we know around here that play video games. I miss playing Mario Party with our old friends. Anyway, this is all there is to write about today. Just enjoy the end of summer!

Last week of summer

This week is the last week of summer. Classes start on Monday. So I've been taking advantage of a little bit more laziness. Last week I was in the pollen lab all week trying to figure out how to process pollen. We're trying something we've never done before - using a Schulze's solution instead of performing acetolysis. This means nitric acid instead of sulfuric acid and acetic anhydride. I'm not sure which one I'd enjoy doing more. Using Schulze's solution is easy though. But we were trying to come up with new standardized lab methods for this new procedure. So it took me all week to process 9 samples. (You should be able to process at least 12 in 2 days, normally)

Actually, this week I have been using my birthday present (a sewing machine). I have been sewing a shirt for my husband! I just finished it about half an hour ago. It turned out pretty nice! Sorry no pictures yet... My next project is a bag for my patterns that they will fit in properly, and then I'm going to make an easy skirt for myself and then on to the first pair of pants. I'm very excited about sewing.

So, like I said, school starts Monday. I'm taking 2 classes and 4 thesis credits. The classes are statistics and a vegetation history class. I'm TAing half time for one of my advisor's classes. We have talked about it, but nothing in detail yet. She doesn't seem too worried about this. But I just know I'll have to write a bunch of labs overnight. I think it is going to be pretty easy on me though. We're encouraging a lot of class participation, and I'm not sure how that will go over in a class dominated by freshmen and sophomore's who aren't majoring in Earth Sciences (the class is about Yellowstone "as a scientific laboratory" or something). I had quite a lot of trouble getting people to participate in my teeny geology labs last June. I had 2 labs, one had 4 people and one had 6. At the first lab I said, "I want you all to work together, and talk to each other. Because if nobody's talking it's going to be really quiet in here and it's going to get really boring." Well, in the lab of 6, nobody talked. In the lab of 4, everyone followed my suggestion and worked together. The smaller lab consistently did better, because they would discuss the questions and inevitably someone would know something about it and they got to "teach" everyone else. I had to work a lot harder (I don't mind that though) in the class with 6, answering questions all the time, and they consistently got lower grades. They didn't care to talk about the material with one another. And they had a real problem with creative thinking. Finally on the last lab I had to write a question that said something like, "Just think about this and give me a creative answer, don't worry so much about whether or not it is exactly correct!" They always just wanted to get the right answer, and not care about why or how it was right. So I had to force them to be creative. That was tough!

Anyway, so the Yellowstone lab this semester is going to be interesting. I'll have 2 labs of 15 kids each. Not too bad. I hope some learning goes on.