Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Typical
My advisor is going on a worktrip, and a few days ago she realised her flight left one day too early. So she asked me if I could do her lectures that day. That would be fun! ... had I not all of a sudden gotten this nasty bug and am now sitting with a terrible throat and slight fever. Half of the lectures are prepared, but I can't rest, because then I just start anguishing about them. Siiigh. Usually I'd just stay home when feeling like this (and it's my pet peeve when people don't!), but when teaching you kind of have to go. TAing this morning went fine though, even though I felt like garbage when I woke up.
Friday, October 06, 2006
dadadadaaaaaa
Just came home from a concert - winnipeg symphony orchestra played Beethoven's 2nd symphony. I've never seen such an energetic conductor, at least not with that kind of personality. He made me laugh right out, and members of the orchestra had a hard time keeping from smiling too. Awesomeness. What's even better is that they are continuing playing B's symphonies, one after the other. I missed the first one, but I will definitely not miss the Eroica (3), and not 5,6,7 either. Somehow I ended up getting 5 stuck in my head afterwards thanks to my musiclistening companion. Good day, despite having to invigilate 2 mid-terms (watching poor students sweat through a test in 50 minutes - I could feel the tnesion, and ended up with a nasty headache already a few minutes into the first one. My advisor laughed at me, knowing my terror about exams). (And for all who worried in my behalf, the meeting yesterday went well, (as it usually does when I'm nervous about it)).
This weekend it's thanksgiving. This means I can eat as much pumpkin pie as I want. yes. There are some excellent things about living in the western hemisphere, and one of them is pumpkin pie. Did I mention that we have an amazing autumn btw? It's WARM (around 20) and the trees are in all colours, not only yellow this year, and it's gorgeous.
This weekend it's thanksgiving. This means I can eat as much pumpkin pie as I want. yes. There are some excellent things about living in the western hemisphere, and one of them is pumpkin pie. Did I mention that we have an amazing autumn btw? It's WARM (around 20) and the trees are in all colours, not only yellow this year, and it's gorgeous.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Cleaning and inverting
ARGH!!! *throws monitor out of window*. Well, fantasizing about it gives same amount of satisfaction, but not having to deal with after effects. I am sure UofM would be less than cooperative about it, since they are most of the time anyways. (no, I'd never throw my little donated monitor away)
Reason to my mild amount of frustration is that I am trying to create an image out of radio data. This is probably a very simple process, if you have done it before. It's the first time for me though. The more I work on it, the more I learn, so that is good. Problem is that all the extra knowledge is still not enough for making it work. Perhaps I'm running out of patience after having worked on it continously (well, almost) for 8 hours so far today. Which is really nothing, so I don't think I'm entitled to complaining just yet.
Tomorrow I'm going to a banquet. Free food is nice.
But, the reason to why I started writing is this: Tomorrow is Thursday. Thursday is day of meeting with advisor. I cannot believe it's already been a week since my last meeting, for which I felt exactly the same as I do now (what have I been working on? where are my results? WHY are there no results? did I get abducted by a UFO without noticing it? Gaaaah, I'll not be able to get out of there alive! Please let me get abducted by a UFO!) And this despite the fact that my advisor is one of the kindest and awesomest advisors one could probably have. I guess, when you're in the middle of something, it's hard to have results ready. This is what I really don't like about being a grad student though - almost always having this feeling of being chased, never accomplishing anything worthwhile. The few occasions when you do accomplish something are heavenly. But could they not come more often?
So, I guess this rant indicates I'm not having a good research day today. next time I write, I intend it to be a VERY good research day. Everything else is quite good though. Weather is awesome, getting paid on friday (YES!!!), wonderful people around me everywhere, birds at home, life could only be better if work gave more results. Yesterday was the first TA-session of the year, which was totally awesome. My little students learnt how to classify stars by looking at their spectra.
Well, I guess step 1 would be to stop ranting here and go back to Miriad (the reduction software) and its tasks. By the end of this day, I want to be able to see a GALAXY from my data and not just concentric rings in every direction. Grmbl.
Reason to my mild amount of frustration is that I am trying to create an image out of radio data. This is probably a very simple process, if you have done it before. It's the first time for me though. The more I work on it, the more I learn, so that is good. Problem is that all the extra knowledge is still not enough for making it work. Perhaps I'm running out of patience after having worked on it continously (well, almost) for 8 hours so far today. Which is really nothing, so I don't think I'm entitled to complaining just yet.
Tomorrow I'm going to a banquet. Free food is nice.
But, the reason to why I started writing is this: Tomorrow is Thursday. Thursday is day of meeting with advisor. I cannot believe it's already been a week since my last meeting, for which I felt exactly the same as I do now (what have I been working on? where are my results? WHY are there no results? did I get abducted by a UFO without noticing it? Gaaaah, I'll not be able to get out of there alive! Please let me get abducted by a UFO!) And this despite the fact that my advisor is one of the kindest and awesomest advisors one could probably have. I guess, when you're in the middle of something, it's hard to have results ready. This is what I really don't like about being a grad student though - almost always having this feeling of being chased, never accomplishing anything worthwhile. The few occasions when you do accomplish something are heavenly. But could they not come more often?
So, I guess this rant indicates I'm not having a good research day today. next time I write, I intend it to be a VERY good research day. Everything else is quite good though. Weather is awesome, getting paid on friday (YES!!!), wonderful people around me everywhere, birds at home, life could only be better if work gave more results. Yesterday was the first TA-session of the year, which was totally awesome. My little students learnt how to classify stars by looking at their spectra.
Well, I guess step 1 would be to stop ranting here and go back to Miriad (the reduction software) and its tasks. By the end of this day, I want to be able to see a GALAXY from my data and not just concentric rings in every direction. Grmbl.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)