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wSpring Tide |
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The tandem pull of the sun and the moon
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wThursday, March 28, 2002 |
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I"m too cool. I bet the Papacy isn't running X. Upgraded today so I can join Team Pogue in folding@home. Gotta love educational software pricing.
School! My classes are great. I'm very pleased. My prof for physics is pretty cool. A very smart woman, around my age, pregnant, brilliant... an best of all, so far the class seems much more accessible. Yay. For stats, I decided to do it within the Environmental Toxicology department, rather than the the standard Engineering/math route. My prof is about 6 but just adorable... she's got a very thick english accent and is very excited about stats. We'll be doing a lot of hands on work rather than enduring lectures about standard deviation, mean, poisson etc. So it should be fun. Its also a small class.
The very best thing about this quarter is, of course, marine plankton. I'm so completely freaking jazzed about this class. There's only 6 students enrolled, ranging from a first year undergrad to a grad student. We have TWO projects for the class -- culturing a toxic diatom is one and the second is setting up our own experiment and writing it up in a paper -- the topic on that is wide open. The prof will set us up with any local folks we're interested in collaborating with, so its a tremendous learning opportunity all around. And we'll do a presentation on it in lieu of a final (and have a lil party. I like this prof. heh)
The class will be a metric buttload of work, but that's ok. Its very cool stuff. I'm also psyched that we'll be getting hands on experience with electron microscopy. Overall, I'm just so so pleased that I decided to do this instead of an independant study to work on my thesis. I was practically doing backflips at the end of class on Tues.
It will be a good 10 weeks, I hope. At the end of it, I get to walk in commencement and toss my lil hat. And then finish up my thesis.
posted by
Just Mary at 1:48 AM
8 comments
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wMonday, March 25, 2002 |
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Atchoo!
Going off the nicotine gum now. had only 2 pieces over the weekend and I'm now out of gum. The cravings aren't too bad. The part I hate is how my allergies become horrible.
For some reason, nicotine seems to make my allergies go away. Or maybe my allergies are worse because I'm going off nicotine... I'm not sure. I think its the latter.
Good thing I'm stocked up on kleenix.
Lots of fun last weekend. Went up to see some friends in Berkley. Sushi, saki, margaritas, playing music til the wee hours. Very fun.
Classes start tomorrow. I thought I was over with "fun" classes, but it turns out I can take one more. So, marine plankton gets the nod. I'm jazzed... 6 hours a week of lab, 2 of lecture. I've wanted to take a class with the prof before I left the university -- she's an older woman, a female tenured UC prof (not that common) and widely considered to be a pioneer in ocean science. So I'm hoping it will be a good experience.
My other classes are another quarter of physics plus lab and a stats class. I decided to take one that might be a bit harder, but sounds more interesting than a straight statistics class. So, statistics of environmental toxicology will be my stats requirement.
I will have two more things to do after this quarter in order to graduate. Hopefully a petition with the academic senate will take care of one of those. The other is my senior thesis. Originally I was going to do an independant study this quarter (instead of the plankton class) to take care of the time spent reading the literature and setting up and running the experiments. But I realized I've done most of the literature work... and I really wanted take a class with the woman teaching the plankton class. So I'm just going to be really fucking busy and will basically do a bunch of the work for the thesis as an extracurricular thing.
And ah, the thesis. I'm bored with the topic and concerned its not going to be original enough. I'm pretty sure I don't want to do coral reef biology (which its related to) when I grow up. I know I need to just do *something* and my thesis will be fine. I'd rather go off and work on something else, but I need to finish my undergrad work so I can move on to Phase II of Mary's great academic adventure.
posted by
Just Mary at 10:43 AM
8 comments
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wWednesday, March 20, 2002 |
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done done done done done done done done done.
posted by
Just Mary at 11:24 PM
10 comments
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wSunday, March 17, 2002 |
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Two down one to go.
Yesterday was pretty awful. I've never had back to back finals before. Two exams in the same day is one thing, but no down time in between is another. I was basically in exam rooms from 4pm to 11pm.
Physics, my first one, was a bit of a nightmare -- our hardest exam yet. Men were swearing, women were crying. Someone in the exam room burst into uncontrollable sobbing in the second hour of the exam. She was gently taken outside by the TAs. I'm not sure how I did, but I'm pretty sure I'm above the mean. At least I didn't cry. That's some kind of success.
By the time I got to the second exam, my brain had stopped working. I managed to kick start it with some Red Bull, but pulling information out was like pulling teeth. Stuff I knew from the last exam wasn't there. I had to twist it, turn it and pry it loose from my now calcified brain. It was also our hardest exam. He broke his pattern of testing us on his notes and broke his trend of increasingly easy exams... the first was hard, second one was easy, this one was way hard.
The good news in all of this is I can bid Gandolf the incomprehensible astrophysicist bye bye. Great guy, but needs to teach at wizardry school rather than teach us dopey biology majors. We get a new prof for the second half of the series. We all have high hopes she won't be as arrogant and that she'll be a bit more accessible in teaching style.
The other happy news is I never have to sit in an ochem lecture again. While I really liked our prof, I'm very pleased to be DONE with this subject.
One more tomorrow at 8am. Non comprehensive. Biological oceanography. I'm not too worried.
.
posted by
Just Mary at 12:55 PM
2 comments
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wThursday, March 14, 2002 |
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The last day of classes and the beginning of finals is not nearly stressful enough. To add to the excitement at the university, there are motorcycle cops at every stop sign, behind every bush. So far I've seen most of them engaged in pulling over motorists, but I also got to witness the apprehension of a devious bike criminal. The nefarious cyclist rolled through a stop sign at a clear intersection. The motorcyle cop roared through behind him and pulled him over.
I'd love to know who the genius was who thought bringing herds of town cops onto campus today was a good idea. Real nice touch. Nail those lawbreaking cyclists!
No, I'm not going to post (much) about that NG mess. I heeded the Papal call for restraint. I am Catholic, after all. Plus there are indeed things in life its best not to give energy to.
Monday at 11am the quarter will be over for me. Saturday is my worst day with 6 hours of ochem and physics finals back to back. I'm not going anywhere fun for break -- its just not in the time budget. I have a metric buttload of things to do before the spring quarter starts. I'm really hoping to find a new place to live, for example, plus I want to spend a lot of time on that fun computer game, MacInTax.
Just got my paper back from my prof via email, but no score sheet and no comments beyond a couple grammar suggestions. I'm dying, here. I vacillate between thinking I came up with some good ideas and insights and "it totally sucked." If he liked it, wouldn't he have said it? Waaaaa. I would have loved to have spent more time on the writing.. worked on the draft once more, but I ran out of time. Actually, if I'd had my druthers, I would have completely changed the focus, but I *really* didn't have time for that.
I NEED FEEDBACK, DAMMIT!
posted by
Just Mary at 4:06 PM
8 comments
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wWednesday, March 06, 2002 |
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bleah. I feel like shit.
I've been trying really hard not to get sick. I'm not being 100% successful here. Head stuffed, tired... and at the store tonight while buying food and study supplies I was feeling kinda dizzy sick to my stomach and lightheaded. "Nooooooo" say I. I canNOT get sick. I have too much to do.
So I bought soup fixings and made a beef soup from one of those "soup starter kits"... added a weird lil cabbage to it, along with some zucchini. Turned out good. Feels nutritious and healthy, anyway. I'm also downing the "Wellness" herbs again.
I'm completely disillusioned with the PI (primary investigator) on the pfiesteria issue. I know there is some basis in fact in her work -- but there's a lot of things she has said and done that are rather disturbing. Things like taking credit for discovery of the organism when she didn't discover it... claiming cross collaboration where none has been done... Perhaps my sources are off, but there's enough shit that something stinks.
This woman was my hero.
On a separate note, I'm hella stressed. I kinda had a minor melt down today. Heh. I had most of my physics homework done -- the homeworks collectively have the same weight as an exam -- and was ready to turn it in. Two hours before it was due, I discovered that I didn't have the notebook with the homework in it. I figured I left it at home... raced home to look -- hitchhiked, actually, -- tore apart my apartment -- no notebook. Holy shit. Not at home? must be lost. Fuck fuck fuck. No chance the prof would cut me slack - I wouldn't even ask because I know how much they get the "my dog ate my homework thing." I started thinking about how this zero on this homework was going to cost me -- possibly a grade level -- I dont' know what happened, but I got pretty upset. I kept trying to talk myself down... you know..."it will be ok, it will all work out" etc etc... So I get back up to school and decide to stop by the lab. There, on the lab bench is The Notebook. I burst into tears. In front of a professor (not mine).
Whee.
Where the hell is my perspective? Damn. Before realizing I lost the notebook, I was considering the fact that I have a metric buttload to do before 3/16... the day I have back to back Physics and Ochem finals. (6 hours of fun). In fact, I'm a bit stressed about that day. Its pretty fucking formidable -- at least for me. Anyway, I think being in a stressed state already and then realizing the notebook was lost was what did it.
I'm just glad this day is over, I'm home and I have some yummy soup in me.
I've chilled long enough. Time to get to writing.
posted by
Just Mary at 7:54 PM
7 comments
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wFriday, March 01, 2002 |
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Intrigue. Metric buttloads of money. Large sectors of the economy. Professional jealousy. Government suppression of research. Harassment. Death threats.
These are all flavors of the issues surrounding my research paper subject, Pfiesteria. I've mentioned this toxic dinoflaggellate before in this blog... mostly regarding my excitement about learning more about it. One of the things I've learned is how funding has been slanted towards this creature, in spite of the fact its less harmful than many other toxic algal blooms. It's a "sexy" issue, and it seems that a large bloom and fish kill in Washington DC's back yard led to metric buttloads of funding being diverted to it... that and the airborne nature of poisoning. No one has ever died from it, unlike many of the other Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs).
Irony is, the "sexyness" of the organism is what led me to want to learn more about it. I mean, its a wacky critter! 24 stage lifecycle -- toxin emission only in a seemingly transient life cycle stage, no bioaccumulation that's known, unlike most other HABs. Throw in aerolosized toxins and mass media comparisons to ebola. (its now a Level III biohazard, which means serious containment procedures in the lab.) Most of the time its this harmless lil critter grazing on other phytoplankton and algae, until a bunch of fish come along when it transforms into the Hell Cell, as its been nicknamed. The very things that make it attractive to me as a study subject-- its seeming uniqueness -- are the very reasons its getting, perhaps a disporportionate amount of funding.
It just strikes me as ironic to see that my reasons for wanting to learn more, even tho' its not the most deadly of HABs, are the reasons its getting a metric buttload of funding.
Not that the funding is a bad thing. But there have been no major fish kills since 97. No deaths. No illness reported, really in the past 3 years, unlike other HABs.
I don't know if the above conveys the amusement I find that I'm drawn to it for the same reasons its getting so much money thrown at it... But I am amused. And I didn't anticipate the politics around this critter when I started all this.
It also seems there is quite a bit of criticism of the major PI's work. What I've found published isn't huge, however. But my prof keeps pushing me to go further. So I'm going to try and see what some of the email lists have to say about the controversies. If that fails, I've asked my prof to put me in touch with folks he knows, so I can hear their side of the tale. So far, the PI hasn't responded to my emails -- I'm prolly presumptuous to think she would. Hopefully I can learn more over the weekend.
I'm aware that I'm doing way more on this than I need to for this class. I have to remind myself to be sure I get my other work done and don't sacrifice my other classes in pursuit of issues around this organism. Perhaps I'm being a bit obsessive. But damn, its fun.
posted by
Just Mary at 11:28 AM
7 comments
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