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....

Last one...

Forecast for my field site...
Mon: 105
Tues: 106
Wed: 106
Thurs: 104
Fri: 95
Sat: 99
Sun: 102
Mon: 101
Tues: 100

From the severe weather warnings: This hot spell has the potential to rank in the top ten occurrences of consecutive 100 degree days and to rank in the top three occurrences of consectutive 105 degree days since records began being kept in 1930.

Good thing I packed extra sunscreen (and liquids, and bought an extra hat, and extra long sleeve shirt!)

Bye!

I'm 6 hours and 15 minutes till my flight. I need to finish packing still! I'm in a better mood about it all so that is good. No turning back now!

I think I will have some Internet access (it is remote, but even remote has to keep up with the times!). If I don't, I will be back and commenting very late on all your posts in about two weeks.


Oh- I have to say that I have the best husband ever! He took me to the 10:50 am showing of Sex and the City. I would see it some point in time anyway but wanted to see it opening weekend to avoid spoilers and also to support a woman driven film in the summer blockbuster season. If Sex and the City could have a bigger opening than Indiana Jones- I think that would be huge. As a plus- it was WAY better than Indiana Jones.

Ok, bye for now!

Lonely lab

My advisor and lab mates are all gone for 3 weeks of field work. This would be awesome for labwork, if I had any to do. Instead, I am enjoying computer analyses, writing and reading. I thought this time would be super productive with all the peace and quiet, however, it really has been about the same but with different, nice weather related distractions. The Chronicle recently had an article about what it looks like to work. If you were to watch me work this week, it would be pretty pathetic. My computer and I are morphing into one and when not staring at the screen, I find myself staring out the window. Despite this unmoving display, I have re-analysed data, found about 100 relevant papers and most importantly-- done a lot of thinking.
Luckily, I am not too bothered by my lack of outward progress because....
I get to go into the field this weekend!!!!!!

Are you convinced that I am excited about that? Ugh. The main reasons I am soooo not excited about this trip: 1) Don't know if my methods will work. 2) Have to try to do experiments with no assistance which is going to be hard. 3) Camping alone for 2 weeks in temps that range from 98-102. 4) I really wish that I wasn't doing this replacement chapter in the first place.

I know it is time to suck it up and get down to work, I'm just having a hard time doing it. Usually I love field work, but this trip feels like a chore. Luckily, V is being very good about reiterating that being upset about it will do no good and it is getting close enough that I am past being too whiny about it*.

So far, reading other, similar studies has been helpful in getting in the right mindset and focusing on organizing the details has kept me moving forward. How do you get yourself psyched to do things you have to (but don't want to) do?






*My friends and family are awesome. I whine a lot. They listen AND even still like me despite it. Love them!

When the cat's away

The mice will....uhhhh...work? Right now would be the perfect time to goof off. My advisor is out of town and the semester is basically over! However, a lot of folks are out of town (or going out of town) and V is still studying for quals (next week!). So instead, I will just try to take advantage of the quiet and get some work done. Hopefully 2 more papers will get submitted in May! And that ticker will move it along!

The lower stress work-time will be nice. After I got word that I might not be able to finish one of my dissertation chapters, it was a mad whirlwind to figure out what to do. I threw together a replacement experiment and proposal. My first field experiment went so well that I am going to try to do another complementary field study. Field work is high risk but typically you always end up with something. I sent my proposal to my committee yesterday and none of them seem to really care. It is a good thing that they have faith in my abilities to do something else- I just hope they feel the same way after it is done!

I don't understand my advisor

A labmate and I went to the field last year and found very few research organisms. We came up with a little project based on a crazy observation we made and also on what kind of data we could take that could be treated independently enough to do good statistics on and still maybe get a publication out of the trip.
Turns out, that data is really cool. And important. And it could be big. BIG. Or it might go somewhere smaller but I have no doubt it will go somewhere and that is great news for a field based, non-dissertation project.
Well, we are putting the finishing touches on the manuscript before it goes out for friendly review and had a meeting today to discuss the final figures, who to send it to, etc. My advisor comes out of nowhere telling us that he doesn't want to be on the paper.
WHAT?!?
I don't get it. It is his established system and field site, his partial financing of the trip, his time in the field and his input as we were re-grouping to come up with this project in the first place. He usually is not on publication from students' dissertation work but this isn't! As far as the work is concerned, he is very pleased and was the one to suggest sending it to an higher impact journal in the first place so it doesn't seem that he is distancing himself from it because it is of poor quality. Perhaps he is just crazy. Anyone have any better ideas or interpretations?

Good news!

Woo freakin' Hoo!
*happy dance*
Those two sort-of-maybe talks I thought I sort-of-maybe would get to do as a result of conference beer time (should that be official? CBT?) are now both at the 'Let's check the schedule and see who's around when' stage! I was very nervous just emailing these two folks earlier today but am so pleased that it turned out well (and that they both remembered extending invitations to me!)! Yay! The last thing I really need is to add some more high stress plans to my life, but you gotta take what you can get while you are on that side of the country! Plus, I am sure I am going to get great, helpful feedback from these two research groups!

Back to the lab for me!

On the road again....

Eh, all I can manage is......bullets.....

• I am 15 rows from finishing the pinwheel baby blanket.
• I've been withholding information from the ol' blog here. I was going to write a big post and am amazed I made it this far without asking for good vibes to make it happen without actually telling you what it is. I am still not going to tell you for lack of time but I promise big, good news with kitty pictures in my next post! (No, not having a baby or quitting my PhD).
• There are lab personnel problems. They end up with my having to do a shitload more work before I can leave today because the postdoc with the lower priority project (and NO deadline) went ahead and used all the supplies. She was told to wait till the new shipment came in and totally ignored that. I know that they are senior to me and we all want to get our work done but don't be like that. And then blatantly lie about it. Not cool. I thought undergrads were bad with the entitlement issues. Apparently, it occurs in people with PhDs too- mostly because of that PhD.
• Yesterday, for the first time in 5 years of working with fish, I dropped some (non-waterproof) equipment in a fishtank. It is sort of amazing that it is the first time but that made for a pretty bad day....
• I am so excited to go to a conference and home (even for only 18 hours) and YAY!!!!!!! I have work, a looong drive, 2 flights with a looong layover in Washington, DC but still....YAY!!!!!

Field roundup

V and I arrived back in Hometown, IL yesterday and I have since had long cuddles with both kitties, drinks with my bestest girlfriend, a trip to a great yarn store with my mom and a manicure. For the first time in 2 weeks I don't feel exhausted!

Field work this time was particularly physically demanding. The heat, cold and long hours and camping in bad weather all took their toll on me. We worked on 2 projects. One for the grant I have been working on since January and another that is an entire chapter of my diss. We got enough done on the first project that I can start analyzing samples and will complete the project with time to spare (YAY!!!!!).

We had quite a few set backs on the dissertation experiment though. Luckily, my methods worked which had the highest potential to be disastrous. Weather prevented us from working for two days which was disappointing but eh, you can't control everything. I never even considered our worst problem- vandalism of our site. The site is a public place that is locked up at night. Catching fish was difficult and time consuming so we tried to save unused individuals overnight to use first thing in the morning. We waited around to be the last people out of the site and woke up extra early to be the first people in. When we got there, somebody had messed up all our stuff and let all our fish go. I have never hated either 13 year old boys or drunk locals more in my life. Seriously. What is wrong with people? Luckily, this happened a week ago and I have dealt with it so that is the extent of my ranting about it but SERIOUSLY? Somebody BROKE INTO somewhere just to fuck up my experiment? Get a freaking life, jackasses.

Luckily, V was a champ and the best field assistant EVER and stayed extra long in the cold water to re-catch all the fish we lost. We ended up getting decent sample sizes for most of my treatments and got just under half of it done. I don't think that has set in yet....research for half of a whole chapter of the diss completed......that just seems crazy! 1/6 of my dissertation!
Wow...

Burn, Don't Freeze

We got to the field site on Wednesday. I got out of the car and immediately remembered what 107 degrees feels like. We started prepping for one experiment and I immediately remembered what 68 degree water feels like. Talk about your hard choices. V and I switch off about an hour at a time in the water and have escaped hypothermia but not sunburn. Luckily, we are doing two projects. The second requires long days in the heat but it is easier than switching between hot and cold. Today is our 'easy' day and we are enjoying the break, a prettier campsite, and the only WiFi in 100 miles.

In our off time, we have been avoiding the crowded campsites full of loud children and people who think they are better at guitar than they really are and going night driving. V loves catching stuff. Look how happy he looks! Even despite the funny sun hat and tick preventing tucked in t-shirt!

Here is a sampling of other things he has found...And don't worry- all were unharmed and immediately released.

Tarantula.

You can see the large ant in the background for scale.

A big yet-unidentified dragonfly

Texas Horned Lizard, Phrynosoma cornutun

Checkered Garter Snake, Thamnophis marcianus, eating a roadkill frog! (Sorry Mom!)

Blacktailed Rattlesnake, Crotalus molossus

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (he's a big 'un!), Crotalus atrox
The pride of the trip thus far....Trans-Pecos rat snake, Bogertophis subocularis

A Punch Up at a Wedding

All pictures here are courtesy of neighbor-down-the-street. I love that last one! Yay!!!

Things around here will be pretty quiet for a few (more) weeks. We have another wedding to attend tonight. It will be great fun and is also a super knit-blogger meet-up wedding. Yay!

Then we head out bright and early tomorrow morning for Desert Outpost on our way to do field work. I haven't knit a single stitch or done any work besides prep for next week. The break has been nice and much needed after the flurry of experiments at DO, wedding stuff and the coming storm of field work, summer goals and the beginning of the end of my time in the desert. There are a lot of work related things on my mind, updates on the blogroll and links to do, and hopefully good reports on research (and baby blanket progress) to come in a couple of weeks!