Bucket List #26

#26. Get my Master's degree.

I finally defended my thesis in March of 2012 and officially graduated in May!  I even have the fancy hard-cover bound copy of my thesis sitting on my bookshelf now.  Boy, oh boy, does it feel good to be done with that!

There's my brick of a thesis all ready to ship to the graduate college!

It's official!

Create a Vacuum Day

Vacuum desiccator

According to holidayinsights.com, last Friday (February 4) was Create a Vaccuum Day.  Man, if only I had known that sooner!  I would have celebrated on time.  Instead, I guess I celebrated a week late.

Today I vacuum-impregnated my rock core samples from the Klamath Mountains.  You might be thinking, "Huh??"  One of my office buddies (a PhD student) showed me how to set my samples in epoxy and then put them in a vacuum chamber so that all of the tiny little air bubbles get sucked out.  Thus, I'm left with a nice (and bubble-free!) sample to look at under the Scanning Electron Microscope.

Yep, I think this is my nerdiest post to date.  And, by the way, I had no idea that Create a Vacuum Day existed until I stumbled upon it this evening. :)

Thesis stuff...

from PhD Comics

Mine's only a master's thesis, but the folks at PhD Comics are genius.  The goal is to defend my thesis in the summer (assuming I get it mostly written this semester).  But... it's hard to schedule anything with faculty during the summer (let alone 4 of them) due to busy schedules and field work.  And... things always take longer than anticipated.  The other day, I agreed to let my adviser request a TA spot for me in the fall. :(  I don't want to be in Vegas in the fall, but I guess if that happens, it would be nice to be able to pay rent.

My Poster

The trip to Denver for GSA was over a month ago, but it was so much fun! We got to see lots of friends (friends from undergrad, former professors, field camp buddies) and it was great being able to catch up with everyone. I can't imagine what next year's conference is going to be like. It's going to be in Minneapolis, so I'm guessing that even more awesome MN geology-types will make an appearance.

Aside from all of the fun, I also survived my poster presentation (see above). I got a lot of useful feedback from people. It was also great to hear people suggest things that my adviser and I were already working on (but didn't include on the poster). Presenting on day 1 (which was Halloween, btw) was also very lucky, as I came down with a nasty cold halfway through the conference.

End of the Semester Craziness!

There are 23 days left until the semester is over, and it feels like I'm swimming towards a shore but I'm not getting anywhere. Each week, more gets crossed off the To Do List, but there's always so much more to do!

Here's what I'm dealing with. (Not trying to complain, just need to get it off my chest. The person I generally vent to is out in the field somewhere camping and digging soil pits)

[x] Practice poster for Geosymposium
[x] Contaminant Hydro paper on Acid Mine Drainage
[x] Revise students' policy letter rough drafts
[x] Form my thesis committee
[x] Get committee to sign paperwork
[x] Schedule my Thesis Proposal Presentation for my committee
[x] Final poster for Geosymposium
[x] Presentation on Acid Mine Drainage
[x] GPSA Fall Grant Application
[x] Geosymposium
[x] Aqueous Geochemistry homework
[x] Revise and complete Thesis Proposal
[x] Get the completed Thesis Proposal to my committee
[x] Grade students' final drafts and normal homework
[x] Figure out students' final grades
[x] Run olivine dissolution models for Aqueous Geochemistry
[x] Write paper on olivine dissolution model
[x] Prepare presentation on olivine dissolution model
[x] Finalize dates and other info for summer field work
[x] Survive my Thesis Proposal Presentation
[ ] Get all thesis proposal-related paperwork turned in

Holy buckets. I needed to get that out, but... that's a lot!

To end things on a positive note, here are some SEM images that I took in the lab last week (of my olivine samples) that reminded me of a doggy and a frog. Does anyone else see a resemblance?


Note: I may occasionally cross more things off my list as they happen. Might not keep up though. We'll see.

So much to do!!

Grad school is busy. Oiy.

In the next two weeks, I must accomplish a lot of stuff.
- Hydrogeology Problem Set (or two)
- Hydrogeology Take-Home test (almost done!)
- Cut a bunch of basalts down to size
- Schedule SEM time to look at the olivines in said basalts
- Give a short presentation regarding my research to my adviser and her other students
- Have my GSA Grant Proposal draft finished
- Give a practice Thesis Proposal talk to my class
- Finish the Thesis Proposal draft
- Prepping the last two labs of the semester
- Grading policy letters for those labs
- and any 'normal' homework that pops up in there (and it will)

I may need to use a substantial amount of caffeine to do this. It might hurt. Oiy.

My Life as a New Grad Student

It's already the third week of school! I can't believe it! (And I still don't have a good routine set up...).

The Office: This is where I place the blame for not having a good routine so far. I didn't have a key to my office until the end of last week. When I had down time between classes, I would "office crash" with my fellow students who had keys (I'm in the new building, hence the lack of key), or I would find a random couch in the hallway and try to get some reading done. Not the best for being productive... But now I have a key, so I can get my office set up and hopefully I'll start getting things done in a more efficient manner.

The Classes: They're going alright so far. The fact that our program considers a B- failing is kind of intimidating though. I think if we get two B-'s we're put on probation from the program. I'm hoping that won't be an issue, but it's definitely motivation to study, study, study.

The "Teaching:" So I don't really teach, I mostly just say "Today we're doing Lab 3, it's in the lab manual. Ask me if you have questions." And then I end up explaining certain things over and over again to different groups of students. My students seem like they're doing fairly well so far, and I think I've been able to help them understand concepts that they've asked me about.

The Research: I'm going to be studying the weathering of ultramafic minerals, particularly olivine. I have a list of papers and dissertations to read and look through to gain some understanding of the subject and what people have done in similar experiments. My adviser told me today that we've got the sampling permit we need to go obtain samples at one of our field sites, so we'll probably be doing that in early October. This isn't really what I envisioned studying when I applied to grad school (but really, I didn't have a good idea of what I wanted to do anyway). Yet, I know that I'll be learning a lot because this is all new to me.

Alrighty, now I must get going. I've got oreos and a paper about geology and the scientific method waiting for me.