Welcome back!

I'm back home after a week of camping in the desert and a week of failures at the Desert Outpost. It was interesting....here are some high and low lights....

• Most of what I planned and tried in the field didn't work. In the end, some data turned out ok. It isn't too exciting, but solid enough for dissertation/publication and that was all I needed.
• The weather was more extreme than expected. 115+ on multiple days. The physically taxing work combined with the heat was rough.
• I hardly slept at all. Lots of wind to blow the tents around and 100 degree heat at sunset.
• Camping alone is not something I had done before or will ever do again. I had a major anxiety attack the first night and went back to Desert Outpost 2 nights early to avoid doing it again.
• People are awesome. The staff at the site were super helpful. Another guy I have seen every summer for the past 3 years remembers me, asks great questions about my work and shared a mango with me. A local business also was very supportive and gave me great deals on supplies. Seriously. Awesome.
• More awesome people: you might remember the worst conference ever from March. Luckily, some networking I did there payed off. Two profs, 5 students and a kid came out to help me and rocked out some data collecting.
• I found a western diamondback rattlesnake while herping.
• Some javelinas were all up in the neighboring campsite. Like 10 of them and they were fighting and eating up all their food. Some old dude with a thick Texas accent yelled "Git! You git outta herr!" at 2am. Hilarious.
• Doing labwork was a comedy of errors. Running out of reagents, power outages, people I was working with getting sent home early for ridiculous reasons. In the end, none of my stuff worked but the ball is rolling and hopefully the lab will turn out my samples quickly.
• Less than a week after I got back, V is off to his first conference! We spent the week hanging out and enjoying each others company so I am just now getting back to the blog and catching up on any blog reading!
• I haven't been alone (well, it is just me and the pets) in my house in over 2 years! It is weird but the quiet is strangely nice. Plus, with nothing else to do, I can get some old projects done. While there is still one coat to go, our living room is almost all painted!

I can't wait to catch up on all the blogs and am very happy to be back! Exciting times- it is open season on postdoc positions....

Final of Doom

• One of my students told me they'd see me at the Final of Doom. Is a cumulative final in an upper level course really that bad?
• One of my other students got into all their special professional schools they applied to. They now just have to choose which state to move to. Oh yeah, and get a B+ on my final in order to pass the course and graduate.
• Hmmmm, I thought I had more bullets than that...

RBOB: Random Bullets of BUSY

• I gave my second exam yesterday. It didn't go as well as the first and was too long. I hate making questions worth a ton of points but oh well. I need them to finish the darn thing.
• Now, I am stuck grading that test that was too long. It sucks. My students aren't so great at identifying the question and giving the information needed to answer it. Half of them see a topic and write as much as they can about that. Relevant to the question or not.
• I am stressed about a big grant due in 3 weeks. It needs more work but currently I am in the stage of wondering why I am even bothering, as I have no shot in hell.
• Speaking of hell do you think the phase 'when hell freezes over' will have more impact in our globally warming world?
• Speaking of crazy weather, the roof doesn't leak! Super awesome husband is the best!
• We are trying to get a paper out the door. I am dragging my feet with the final edits because I am busy with other things but it is getting to be that scary I-don't-wanna-send-it-out time. Can't give in to the fear, people! Doing the edits- tonight.
• 2 friends with babies in 1 week! How exciting!
• Looking forward to November writing month. As progress gets made on finishing up this paper and getting my ass in gear on that grant, I can think about the next writing projects. Currently choosing from 1) Awesome diss related data 2) Ancient but interesting data that was rejected and needs to be rewritten and resubmitted anywhere that will take it 3) Old not-so-solid data that was never written up and is also headed to a small journal 4) Cool side project that is slowly getting its last bits of data collected still 5) Other data that I know I am not going to choose because it needs too much analysis still. Oh, the suspense of what to choose!
• My birthday is on Saturday. There will be a party (woo hoo!). Anybody want to guess how old I am (not fair if you know me though- I'm looking at you, Mom) ?

Success and failures of the past week

Successes in the past week:

• Getting through a lecture series about stuff-I-don't-know-too-much-about. Probably my least favorite 3 lectures of the semester. They were difficult because other resources (books, old lectures) don't even cover the topics. Add in a book that is hard to follow and makes mistakes in deriving equations and I am screwed. Today we cut our losses, moved on and a student already told me they really enjoyed today's lecture. Hopefully I am on a winning streak!
• Getting the last experiment of a project started. We want to submit by the end of the year. Data must be generated!
• Getting a manuscript in order. We want to submit by the end of the month. Revisions must be made!
• Pesto Bread
• Parmesan Peppercorn bread
• Small successes they may be, but getting things organized around the house. We created a new office space for me and made room for some new furniture in our cute little breakfast nook! My mom is coming this weekend and bringing lots of wedding gifts. We need to make space and also you know, not look like complete slobs.
• Taking a night off. We went out to local-heritage-fest on Friday night. We indulged in just enough drinking to be super fun with very little hangover and too much funnel cake. It was great fun though!

Failures:

• Catching up on Ugly Betty. People are engaged that I didn't know about, things are happening and I am just trying to put it all together and watch last seasons' finale as soon as possible. The new season premiere was last Thursday and I am amazed I have avoided any spoilers!
• Saving money. Between lunches, take out for dinner and local-heritage-fests' overpriced booze I am flat broke. And still need to hire some house painters.
• Finding new phones and new phone plans. It is just too depressing to deal with.
• Pumpkin bread. It turned out like a brick. A tasty brick, but the dense texture was really disappointing.
• Posting pics of knitting. Boo. Bad knit blogger.

It's got 3 legs, 2 hearts and a headless chicken for a pet

Ahhhhh, the subject of this post is what V just said to me. It is good to be home.

On my drive I stopped and did 2 research seminars. The first was informal- we had it in super-awesome-guy-who-invited-me's office. Although his office has about as much furniture as my house so it was alright. It was a small lab group of 7 people. The second was a full on research seminar with 20+ people from 3 different colleges of the university. They said that was even some sort of record. Not bad for a late summer afternoon! It was cool, I had people to meet with, drinks, dinner- the whole deal. Great comments on my talk AND great contacts. I still have to post about postdoc stuff that has been swimming around my brain but possibly some good connections there and definitely good advice about it all.

The drive back to PA was loooooooong and boring. I got to see my mom and some family I rarely see so that was very nice. Last week there was also a lot of unbloggable, work related drama that I really hope is now over. Moving on....

I teach a class starting on MONDAY. In LESS THAN A WEEK. Holy cow. Currently, I am working my way through 3 textbooks putting together powerpoints. I am more excited than nervous. The biggest concern thus far is that I really don't know if I am giving too much or not enough time to certain topics in the syllabus. I guess if I don't stick to it exactly and provide updated versions to the students it should still be fine...

In domestic news, I am totally ready to make cappuccinos and homemade bread this weekend while I clean the house and prep for class. Yay for wedding presents!
And being in the right state to use them!
My sewing machine also got its first use last night. Of course, I was making tree cozys for V's research (which he isn't even going to use probably), but it was easy and I am ready to sew stuff. Don't know what yet but stuff. will. be. sewn.
Woo Hoo!

Who could win a rabbit?

The 4th of July brought a nice cook out, lots of fireworks and regular old work too. Plus.....BUNNIES!

This place was lacking a bit on the cute.

I am trying to fight off the shakes so I can do some pipetting today. How about some bullets

• My trailer is leaking again. It drips right onto my head while I sleep. I don't fit in the bed to begin with so when I have to scrunch down to avoid getting wet, I don't really sleep at all. This is why I 'm all shakey.
• I had two mini-candy bars for breakfast with my coffee. It is one of those days.
• I am still knitting on the baby blanket. I meant to take pictures of it but got distracted by this.....
• You will notice on the side bar that I finally put up progress bars for my work. It was time. More on this later if I get things running in the lab.
• I just got SO excited. Under 'Sweaters' at Anthropologie there was a tab for 'Patterns'. I thought they were selling sweater patterns. Turns out there are selling sweaters with patterns on them. Given my first reaction, there is hope for me as a knitter yet!
• V is sick. Really sick. It sucks being away because there is absolutely nothing I can do.
• I lied last week when I said I was going to take the whole day off on Saturday. I will take most of the afternoon off but the whole day is just out of the question.
• They just put up the schedule for the conference I am going to. Some awesome folks I haven't ever met before will be there plus some awesome folks I have. Also, shit. I am sooooooooooooooooo not ready.

I'm off to the lab. Nothing like a little fear as a motivator!

TV Waves

Just a few bullets of things that have been on my mind, waiting to be posted about. I have major writing to do for a first draft deadline next Monday in addition to the weekend of experiments, lit searching and data collection. Tonight, I am running and knitting. Yay!!

• On the plane back to NM, there was a man with a big tv camera as his carry-on. He was sitting on the other side of the plane on row behind me. I overheard him tell the people next to him that he was a cameraman for the Discovery Channel..................No. Freaking. Way. I have wanted my own Discovery Channel show forever. It is pretty much my dream job. Not any show though- I have a specific topic and a whole seasons worth of ideas already. Plus-I'm fun! Put me on TV to talk about science already!! I even applied to be the host of "Ms. Adventure" on Animal Planet last year. I think I was either too science-y or not hot enough. Annnnywaaays, after spending the plane ride dreaming up situations where I introduce myself and they want to hire me as soon as they hear I am a scientist, I did actually go talk to the guy and his producer at baggage claim. It sounds like the stories they are doing here are pretty interesting. I tried to tone down the fangirl in me and didn't ask any details like what show they were working on but I did tell them about some of my research. No tv show offer or anything but they seemed genuinely interested and we had a nice chat!
  
• I was asked to write my first letter of recommendation. It is for a professor from my undergrad days who I did my first research with. She also taught the first classes I ever took focusing on my field and subfield. She had a major influence in the general sense of what I am doing with my life and the strict sense of what I am doing my research on. I am so honored that she thought of me to ask for a letter.


• I've never actually written a letter of recommendation before. Any advice?
  
• This sign is off of I-10 (Maybe I-20? I can't remember) somewhere we were for field work. The maintenance man didn't understand why I wanted a picture of the two signs together. He had no answer when I asked him if I was supposed to email someone if I saw a snake....

No phone

Talk about NOT falling off the face of the earth right? Ha!

My phone died. Totally and completely dead. V still has hope but I really don't think it is magically going to turn on. The closest phone company store is 4 hours away so I won't be getting a phone before at least Monday. And then it will likely be V's backup. So if you know me in real life- email me your phone number!

Time for a few bullets!

• I finished the first trial of my third experiment. Woo Hoo!
• I decided and registered for the conference! Now to finish an abstract....
• Jaywalkers are still on the needles. Only 3 though- cats at house sitting job #3 got to them and broke a needle. They managed to not break in my carry on flying to IL and back but 1 night in a house with cats and they are toast!
• House sitting job #5 has Internet, the Dish, and an awesome hammock. Yay, Saturday! You know, except for the whole needing to try to find a phone and run experiments thing...