Summer of Submission

This summer is all about publications. I have a backlog of data that is collected but not published. My advisor has lectured me about it so now is the time to get rid of it. Need to clear the desk and my mind before I power away on dissertation data and papers that are actually about what I really, really do.
Sneks and I collaborate on many of these smaller projects and she also has a bunch of preliminary data and other projects to get out as well, thus we have dubbed this the Summer of Submission. Things got rolling for me at the end of April with the first paper. It was rejected but will be resubmitted elsewhere by Tuesday (just got the last authors comments on the revision today).
Paper #2 is a long overdue thing from my time at my MS institution. It had also been rejected over a year ago but was resubmitted in June. My coauthor has been a source of frustration with this paper. They are doing fieldwork so drop out of touch for a month at a time with no notice. This data is 5 years old and really, it is just time to be able to move on with our lives.
Paper #3 is the one we sent to Schmiance and now sent to somewhere more appropriate*. We should hear very soon. According to the official website we are "Awaiting final decision." This paper is really neat. It is simple but novel. The most exciting thing about it is that we have figures that we submitted for the cover of the journal. If we got the cover, I might faint. That would be the coolest.....
With these 3 out in submission-land, I am starting work on the second round.
Paper #4 is very, very, very small due to horrible field conditions that season that resulted in a super small sample size. It has been a struggle for me to write so my advisor agreed to take it over. For some reason, every time I go to send it on though, I just write more of it. I swear I am sending it today....after I finish the results and make all the graphs.
Paper #5 is a many author, multi-year study. We interpreted the data this week and agreed upon a small journal. It should be fun to write as it relates to my dissertation research.
Paper #6 is a big chapter of dissertation fieldwork and will be what I present at the Big International Conference in August. It will be submitted soon after that talk to include any good feedback I get from it. Once it is out, there is the bonus that a chapter of the diss is also done!

For now, we are waiting and are really hoping to be enjoying an Autumn of Acceptance**.







*If you are noticing a trend that everything I submit is rejected, you are right. All but 1 paper I've ever worked on has been rejected first before being accepted. It has happened enough that I am actually ok with this (not that I have a choice)...
**Thankfully there are two words for this season because the Fall of Failure doesn't sound so good.

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....

Yay!

V passed his quals!

Yippee!

Details later...

Wait a second

Patience is not my strong point and I am not a fan of waiting. Today, however, all I am doing is waiting. My paper has gone from "Under review" to "Awaiting decision." AND my summer conference is supposed to email with talk vs. poster decisions tomorrow. I am anxious and just trying to not constantly check email/paper submission site. V has been good about waiting decisions with exams. He just keeps studying. I am keeping that in mind and plugging away on work stuff. As long as the weather holds, a run is in the works as well.
How do you deal with awaiting decisions?

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!

Starting something new

Today found me starting a task that is vital to my dissertation, huge, and tedious. I have put off this data collection for a while but it is now time to buckle down. I had a lot of excuses for putting it off and they were all pretty much crap: organizing, teaching, other projects, trying to finish writing things up first. As I finished a couple samples, I mentioned to V that I should have done this a long time ago. Even as I was totally prepared this afternoon, it was hard to just start. I was so worried about messing it up or not doing it just right. Of course, it turns out that it is easy. And if I mess something up, I can redo it or fix it. All the procrastination and fear was just so worthless...

Well, V is also buckling down because he takes quals/comps whatever you call them the BIG exams starting the first week of May. I was not yet a blogger at the time of my exams so will have to re-cap my experiences with them sometime in the next month or so.
My own data related task at hand is looming as committee meetings are scheduled and my return to my research site is imminent. I am staying here through V's exams so that he has more support and less house/pet stress. Then it is out West for one final season in which I will finish my dissertation research in a blaze of glory.
Or, more realistically, I will finish with a whimper and a sigh followed by an evening of drinking good tequila.

But we aren't there yet- all the candy around here has been eaten so I must get back to it...

Presentation date

Writing date is still going strong- we even recruited a new writer! Sneks takes the prize with a big 900 (!!!) words in just over 3 hours! It was discussion too- not just methods or something easy!
I cheated on the writing portion today and mostly worked on a presentation. I then gave said presentation at my departments informal student seminar series this afternoon. The talk was on a side project that was started 2+ years ago. We are trying to write it up but the results aren't great. It could have about 30 more experiments and still seem incomplete. The topic is relatively new and what work has been done produces complex (sometimes conflicting) results. The audience had a lot of questions and I had very few answers. Most of the questions were of the 'Why don't you do X?' or Y? or J? variety. Well. To tell the truth, I had to stop doing experiments on this project because I didn't want it to be my dissertation. But between the cold I'm still fighting, my recent decision to minimize side projects from here on out and the ambiguity of the results I am just happy it is over! The paper will be to coauthors by the weeks end I can move on with my life! Moving things along feels so nice...

Better late than never

I missed allll the fun posts about how many hours people work in a week vs how many hours academics should work in a week.

It is late, but here are my 2 cents. First off, I am tired of the stories of how all professors that have ever gotten jobs anywhere spend from 7 am till 7 pm in the lab and took only 5 days off throughout their entire graduate school experiance. Alright, and you had to walk uphill both ways to your lab and back too right? Barefoot and in the snow, I bet!


Compared to other students in my department, I work a lot. Not the most, and definitly not the least. Lately, 6-8 hour days are normal, followed by 1-2 hours at home after dinner, possibly in front of the tv. I do some work every weekend day. Not always a lot but at least an hour or 2 of grading. The schedule fluctuates with seasons, deadlines and experiments. When it is nice out, we will leave early to go running. When I am running experiments in the field, they are 13 hour days every third day with 10 hour days in between. That schedule repeats as long as I can stand it. Or until I run out of food and have to take a day off to grocery shop.


It seems like as long as you get your work done, it shouldn't matter how many hours you work. The kicker, of course, is that there is always more work to be done. More data, grants, papers to write. So, when does it stop? When you get so burnt out that you never want to see a journal article again? The link above has a lot of good suggestions for how to balance work with a non-work life. I think (as pointed out by many others) being efficiant helps. The days that are really focused on work, I feel less guilty for not working at home. Overall, I just try to take breaks when I need them and do enjoyable non-work things every day. Which reminds me- I have the ugliest purple dress to show you!


Honestly, I don't mind working so much. It is an investment in getting a job I will love someday (hopefully). My husband is still in classes so is doing schoolwork most of the time. We hang out together in our office, surrounded with pets, books, papers and computers. Since we are homebodies, it isn't too bad. As poor grad students, we can't afford to do much else and at least in the winter, can't spend time doing fun stuff outside anyway. I am sure my attitudes about time spent working will change with the stages of my career and as our home life changes. However, I doubt that the number of hours I work will ever decrease...

Quick update

• It is 11 pm, I have 15 assignments to grade. A lecture to finish and class in 9 hours.
• All I want to do is sleep. (A quick blog entry is my way of getting my mind working again after reading 10 paper summaries and almost falling asleep)
• Miss kitty-pants is keeping me company. She enjoys grading because she likes chewing on pens.
• My grant is still going slowly. I made a graph today. And a budget. It will be my only focus all weekend.
• Oh, wait- I have to present a poster on Saturday at Grad Open House. At least that is only 3 hours.
• Oh, wait- we have a prospective coming to visit so I also have to do beer/dinner at least 1, if not 2 nights this weekend.
• I am so screwed.
• *sigh*
• Is it wrong to drink coffee at 11pm?

UPDATE: I didn't finish grading and the lecture was fine. Somehow, coffee was also avoided.

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?

A letter to my research

Dear Research,


I know it has been a while since we got to spend some quality time together. Remember last semester and all summer when we hung out everyday! Long weekends over coffee, late nights staying up together- it was fun and so nice to get to know you so well!
Lately, our special times have just become strained. There is so much riding on our collective shoulders! I am so aggravated because I care so much for you but cannot give you the attention you want and need. This relationship is a two-way street and you have been great- really giving me your all. Your significant differences, your beautiful graphs. I talk about you a lot and everyone seems to love you. It isn't fair to just take and take from you and you deserve better, Research.

Lately, I can understand you are feeling ignored. We both know that I have been spending late nights and weekends with Teaching lately. Even worse, when I am not doing that- I don't even bother to try to spend time with you. Well, I am truly sorry. I assure you, Research- it isn't you, it's me.
Despite our troubled times recently, I want you to know that it is just a phase and you mean no less to me than you ever did. We are going to get through this! Things will get easier if we can just stick together right now. Teaching is only here for a few more months and then you will again be my academic one and only. Maybe next semester we can go on a trip together or something. Just get away from everything and reconnect. Please just know how much you mean to me and that I miss you.

Love,
DancingFish

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!

Glamour Moose and a FO

A few thoughts I had last night as I was doing my mind-numbingly tedious work stuff…

That Fergie song ‘Glamorous’? I like to sing it in my head as Glamour Moose.
I haven’t watched it in a while (months?) but it still bothers me that ‘What Not to Wear’ makes me seriously consider doing things like…..get bangs. Such a bad idea, yet they make it seem like such a viable option.
I wish I had less work to do so I could Photoshop together what I really mean by Glamour Moose.
I thought there was a really bad storm moving through because it was so dark outside the lab. Turns out, it was just nighttime.
I am a horrible knit blogger. I apologize. Here is the Pinwheel blanket v2. In purple. I have ends to weave in and no address to send it to! And bad pics due to it, again, being nighttime. Only 1 more week of experiments left...
I should say something about how I have been reading lots of blogs but not commenting too much. I’m still reading though and will be back to commenting soon!

Priorities

As I start the last 10 days of one experiment, I am thinking of not bothering with the other. I know I have to continue it next summer and part of me just wants to really focus on the one I might be able to finish NOW rather than mess with the one that I know will be continued next year.
A different part of me just has startitis on things that I thought about at the conference! I want to just jump in to get these new ideas off the ground but should probably wait and make sure I know what I am doing first. Or actually finish the 4 other projects I am currently involved in at some level. heh.

I really need to sit down and prioritize what HAS to be done, what I would like to do and what I should just shelve for the time being. I go back and forth so much, I just need to make decisions, a schedule and not deviate from it. Even my date to leave here is still up in the air because I am torn between what I could possibly get done if I stay as long as possible and when I should realistically just stop, clean up and go home.

Luckily, the beginning of the end of research has got me wrapping up all sorts of non-work things. I will finish the baby blanket today (pics tomorrow!), finish writing wedding thank yous (oh so late!), and am close to the end of my latest book as well.

Out of gas

I am back home for another 20 hours. Here are some more travel bullets...

• The conference was good. Tons of great work presented and lots of ideas to ponder! There were lots of white background ppts. I like the growing populatity of the black background. Also, typos piss me off.
• I got to meet my old advisor's baby for the first time. She is so ridiculously cute it is just, well, ridiculous.
• I put in my requisite time drinking/networking-- even closing down the hotel bar not once, but twice!
• There are really good contacts and possibly two invited talks on my drive back to PA from those (and other) nights at the bar.
• I was only really unfortunately socially awkward once- to a very good friend/colleague to my lab. It was right before I had to go talk to MAJOR people and my nerves got the best of me. Sometimes I just shouldn't talk.
• Apparently, it is about time I started looking for a postdoc. Crap. More on this soon.
• V came to do some collecting the first few days of our trip. Yay for spending time in the same state as your spouse!
• Although I am here for 20 hours, I am going into school tomorrow before my flights and long drive back to DO.
• We are in the home stretch of this research position. In about a month I will start teaching again. This fall I have been given the opportunity to have my own class. I get to write the syllabus, lectures, tests- everything! AND it is an upper level course. It is going to be a lot of work and I might be crazy for trying to pull it off but I think I can do a really good job. That was my big announcement.
• Here is a kitty that tried to run away when we were gone. She came back the next morning.
• I am exhausted.

Expectations

I am a bit overcommited to my in-progress experiments right now and it is starting to affect the rest of my work. I had a feel-good article about my research due that didn't get the attention it needed (luckily the co-author is a GENIUS and it still turned out really, really well). I am worried that my conference presentation will suffer and am torn between running experiments or stopping and taking full days off of lab work to focus on my conference stuff.
It is hard to decide what to do because it would just be really, really, really great to finish my experiments during my time here this summer. I know I can come back next summer and work more but that shorter time frame introduces other variables and it just isn't ideal. I will happily come back to DO to do more experiments that are necessary to clarify the results I've already got but I don't want to continue the same experiments a year apart. Essentially, I am trying to do all the experiments (not including data collection and analysis) for my dissertation in 8 months (this is the length of time of my RA and time at DO).
I know, I know....




Have you stopped laughing yet?




It isn't THAT funny....
Ok, so when I told Advisor and V that I might not actually finish as planned because I added an extra treatment, they both laughed at me, having assumed I was never really serious about it in the first place. Of course, this makes me want to get it all done even more. Which might actually happen, with the help of some lab assistants. I am cashing in all my house/pet sitting favors and having people experiment-sit in return. Ha!
Anyways, it has got me thinking a lot about what types of expectations are placed upon us and by whom. Is it good or bad to have had these really high expectations of myself in the first place? My advisor isn't really clear on where he stands. He doesn't want me to be too hard on myself but also tells us all that to be competitive and get jobs, we should have 10 publications from our time in his lab. Sounds crazy, I know- but then 2 students actually got those 10 papers and Advisor had to adjust his ridiculous, unreachable goal to 10 pubs not including your dissertation research. Someone in the future will reach that one too I bet (not me though). I think he tries to use that as a tool so that we are always trying to achieve more in our research, get more out of our projects and stay focused on the endpoint of publications. But why is that tool useful for pubs but laughable when I use the same lofty, idealistic goal setting tool for my research? You just can't win. You need to motivate yourself to get your work done but not too much!
It always cracks me up to hear professors go on about their expectations for students. How their students should work 28 hour days because when THEY were a grad student, that is what THEY did. Unfortunately, these expectations are touted over beers at happy hour and never actually talked about, implemented or even made clear come Monday morning. I think as a professor I will have documents that clearly state my expectations of students including hours, research progress and timelines for graduating. With the nature of research you can't have hard and fast rules but some gentle guidelines for what I want out of my lab will be clearly put out there. My MS advisor did this and it was very informative. Especially in the early stages of figuring out what being a grad student is all about (free food and CuteOverload).

In the meantime, I will keep plugging away at my experiments and pick a color scheme for the conference thing already. I'd love some feedback on this topic- who sets more ambitious goals for your work- you or your advisor/lab/program? When you set your own goals or deadlines, how reachable are they really?

Seven Nation Army

Sometimes, miscommunication can be funny.
Also, V is up there among the best smart-asses of his time.


Me: Sorry I didn't call you, my phone doesn't work in the lab and I was in there for-ever.
V: That is ok, what were you doing that took so long?
Me: I did 7 PCRs. They took fooooorevvvveeerrrrrr.
V: Ummm, why?
Me: 'Cause there were 7.
V: Wooooooooooow. 7 PCRs? Did you use a multi-channel pipetter for that?
Me: Of course, it is be torture not to.
V: Yeah, but isn't it just as time consuming to remove that 8th tip each time?
Me: Why would I do that?
V: Isn't that wasteful? Do they even make tubes to hold master mix for 7 PCRs?
Me: Well, you use a different tube for each one.
V: So, you don't make a master mix...
Me: Yeah, a different one for each one.
V: Gee, dear, you really are redefining efficiency. At the rate you are going, you'll be done in about 23 years.
Me: ........7 different PCRs on 32 samples each.
V: ......Oh.
Me: Smart-ass.

Parades Go By

I am taking the afternoon off to do something fun!!!! * Ok, not really the WHOLE afternoon, but at least 4-5 hours. Somewhat close to me is this big festival thing. It starts today with a VW Beetle car show. Although mine is in IL with my mom, I have loved V-Dubs since I was about 7 and have driven one (red) since I was 19.

Yay!*

Next Saturday, I am taking the WHOLE. DAY. OFF. Can you believe it? Well, you probably can... But I haven't really been posting because I have been working my tail off. I have never put in as many consecutive 12-13 hour days before. And they are all grab-a-handful-of-peanuts-for-lunch, don't-get-to-finish-your-coffee busy days. The type of research I do is usually pretty limited by the schedule of the animals. You can't run experiments on them when they are sleeping. But you sure can do molecular work and analyze data at any hour of the day! I have been thinking about all this work and about getting burnt out. When you get burnt out do you know it is happening? Could it be happening to me? Will committing to other time consuming endeavors when I leave DO help combat it or make it worse?

Eh, I don't even care right now- I'm off to a parade!*



*Doing a little happy dance

Beginning to See the Light

Something has changed. It snuck up on me and seems very sudden and drastic. I’m not sure how it happened but I am closer to being a graduating student than a beginning student in my Ph.D. program. Three years have passed and I am on track to have only two left. Of course all of this provides that I finish my research, the data is interesting and I don’t fall to pieces when it comes to writing the dissertation. Those are some pretty big conditions to meet!

Anyways, with this realization, my focus has changed. I have always needed to get papers written and get research done but it is different now. Things that I am most involved in are higher in priority than anything else. Side projects are just that and my own stuff has to come first. This might mean being involved in fewer projects but is a necessary step I think. I know that my time is limited and I am trying to use it wisely (at least when I’m not uhhh, reading blogs...). I have every day till the end on July planned out with experiments and lab work and have only 1 day off to run a race around the 4th. Things will be finished when I leave here.
The dynamic with other students and my advisor has changed too. In the department, I really don’t know the newer students coming in (besides V of course) because I am not in classes with them. Perhaps if I were actually there I would know them more but I’m plugging away at this thing and have been since they showed up. We don't even have shared hallways or happy hours to bond and commiserate over.
Things with my advisor are even weirder. Most of the time, I try to just accept his special brand of crazy and we get along fine- great even. But with some of my work lately, there are decisions to be made about protocol and our usual chats about research that always end with him telling me what he thinks will be best and then my choosing whether or not to do that thing just are not happening. Since it is my research, he is very, very quiet with his opinions and very loud about my making my own choices and making sure I can back them up with well founded reasoning. He even told me to be sole author on my poster at the big conference this summer (and I complied, but not without checking with him three times that it was the best thing to do). This push to research on my own is new and a little uncomfortable.
This light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel feeling is accompanied by anxiety. I’m not ready. It’s too soon. Not enough papers. Not good enough papers. Samples sizes must be bigger. More treatments. Did I miss a control? Will my committee be satisfied? It is also accompanied by confidence. I am ready. Look how far I’ve gotten already! I am sure both of these feelings will pass as I delve back into the intense research period that is planned out for the next month and a half. Either way, I am aware of my progression which is really, really weird.

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...