Catching Up

Haven't posted in awhile because life got busy again. Andrew and I spent the last two weekends away (one for my sister's wedding, one for the Houston Ren Fest because it is that awesome). AND I've had one test and about four quizzes in H's class since we last talked, and that's been keeping me on my toes studying wise. I also have a paper to present to him a week from today--not feeling it too much because I know he's going to ask me something he knows that I don't know and I don't think I have the time (or energy) to do a ton of background research on the paper itself. THAT would be because I'm in the middle of writing my thesis proposal (it's coming along nicely, thank you) which takes time. Even though it's a small paper compared to the actual thesis--I am shooting for at least ten pages with this proposal. After all, it's just a proposal. It's coming together well--the hardest part was reading all the articles so I could have a good knowledge base before I started. Is there anything more boring than a scholarly article? Actually, to be fair, some of them are quite well-written and interesting. It's the poorly written/uninteresting ones that make me fall asleep while reading them. LOL. Anyway, I'm taking a short break from writing the thesis because my hand hurts. I'm old-fashioned, and always write my rough drafts by hand (Bets, you'll probably appreciate that) and then type the final copy. I find I have to do less editing that way since I can edit as I type, and the handwritten rough draft allows me to scribble notes every where as I'm writing and therefore brainstorm/write at the same time. When I started writing this I thought it would be much harder than it's actually turning out to be. I hope that's a good thing, LOL. BUT I have done my research--I have nearly 50 papers saved to a citation manager (Mendeley--it's excellent) and for my proposal I've narrowed it down to about ten-eleven good, solid papers. I'm dreading the bibliograpy, but I think Mendeley has a "cite while you write" feature, so I'm sure it won't be as bad as I'm thinking, either. I'm pretty tired as well. Andrew and I have been having some late nights, and I'm just getting over a head cold (always happens around this time of year) and I'm currently listening to my office mates watch their favorite television show and be as loud and obnoxious as possible while doing so. LOL. At least there's a wall between us. And a door, but I don't shut it while I'm in here because these doors have a tendency NOT to open from the inside. Stoopy doors.

Quick Weekend Update

We have a test in Howard's class next week, I've finally started reading the papers for my thesis proposal, and I'm up to date on all my grades (I have to turn in the mid-term average to Doc Monday morning). We have a wedding to go to (my little sis is getting married tomorrow and we're both in the wedding), and I am going to be very busy this weekend just as I have been on week. So now, for your viewing pleasure, I am including a Buzzfeed video on "Eight Essential Studying Hacks." It's actually pretty interesting. http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewilnyckyj/8-essential-study-hacks Ciao! ~H

Busy Week

I've been pretty busy this week, between classes and grading and just life in general. Today we had a power outage that affected the entire campus (save a few spots with emergency generators) for about two hours. Because of it two of H's computers no longer work. He's pretty ticked. He shorted class so he can go and play with them. I offered my husband's services, LOL. Guess I'd better give Andrew a head's up. In other news, I finished grading all of my lab reports and handed them back yesterday. I only had about six F's total, but there were a few people who were quite disgruntled. I pulled a Judy and told them that I would not be taking questions or discussing grades during class because it would take too much time, but that if anyone wanted to discuss their grade they could come by my office. That usually will cut down on the people who actually come, because they have to make a separate trip. Today is my first day after giving back grades, and as I have office hours Monday-Thursday, we'll see if anyone actually shows up. In other, other news--I'm working on my thesis proposal by gathering scholarly articles. My goal is to have at least thirty articles saved in a citation management program (I'm using Endnote) by tomorrow and then I'm going to read the abstracts and pick the first five that catch my eye, print them out at school (to save money) and then read them. I'm then going to make a list of the common methods of soil analysis that I see used by other soil bacteriologists, and present the list to Doc Friday. Also, I'm going to be working on some research questions to expand my topic from a general overview to an actual legit scientific research topic worthy of a thesis. Once I've done that, and presented a list of those to Doc, the actual writing of the thesis proposal begins. It's due on Halloween (hope that's not an omen, LOL) so that gives me roughly three weeks from today. If all goes well, I hope to have it written up by the 26, so Doc and Chris can read it and get back to me before the 31. It will give them the weekend at least. Naturally if I can get it done faster, I will. I just don't know since it's a lot on my plate and I feel like things are just going to keep coming. Of course they are, it's grad school. To lift my spirits (and yours), here are a couple of links from my new favorite tumblr "What Should We Call Grad School?": Enjoy. http://whatshouldwecallgradschool.tumblr.com/post/63389066937/remembering-that-i-missed-a-time-point http://whatshouldwecallgradschool.tumblr.com/post/62908413491/how-i-feel-choosing-to-go-to-grad-school

Busy Week

So, after a pretty busy weekend (the little sister is getting married this coming weekend, this weekend was dedicated to her bachelorette party), I am back in the lab. Well, technically, I am back in my office. The lab is right next door. Anywho... This week we're working with Doc on some sulfur-reducers (we made the roll tubes last week and now we have to isolate some colonies, or try to). Also, Doc has another idea for isolating that sporosarcina that has been giving us fits: we're going to try pasteurizing the sample solution first. I'm secretly thrilled to be pasteurizing anything, because my favorite person as a kid was Louis Pasteur. Yes, I am that much of a nerd. Little connections like that make me very happy. Anyway, I think we're quizzed out in H's class although we have a test next week (next Wednesday, I think). I'm hoping exam 2 will be easier than exam 1 since I've worked my butt off to keep up with him this go 'round. Of course, I did ace the last exam, so that's going to be pretty hard to top no matter how much studying I've done. Here's a quick breakdown of the rest of my week, for your reading pleasure: today after H's class (and before) I will be grading lab reports. I have graded half of my stack and it only took me about six hours. LOL. Since I'm stuck here until 6pm because I have a (stupid) fundraiser to be involved with (sorry, anything that keeps me from my house after six is pretty lame, IMHO), I literally have no excuse not to have the rest of 'em graded by tonight. I'll bring them with me to the fundraiser if I have to. Also, I need to run by my sister's apartment to give her a tea pitcher I have so she can use it for the wedding. And then keep it, because I have two and I don't use either of them. She might as well have one. :) Tomorrow I have to teach from 2-6pm and I have Doc's class in the morning and lately it's been lasting from 9:30-12:30ish, which is pretty dang long (but fun, so I don't mind). Anyway, I probably won't have time to do a whole ton of work tomorrow so I'm reserving tomorrow for reading my chapter in GWYCF and then collecting my 20 references that Dr. W wants us to have for Thursday. I present my chapter Thursday as well. Also, if I have time I need to get an article on bacterial genetics and bring it to H so he can okay it. We have to do presentations soon. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are all tentatively scheduled for reading various scholarly articles on bacterial analysis of soil so I can begin my thesis proposal in earnest (which, if you haven't noticed, I'm a little stressed out about). I believe it's due in two-three weeks. Not something you want to be late with. Friday is also sister's rehearsal, rehearsal supper and probably an overnight stay here since the wedding is Saturday and both my husband and I are in it. I can't wait to be in Sissy's wedding, but I'm going to cry like a baby, I just know it. She's leaving me and going to North Freakin' Dakota. Although I did tell her I would visit if she will take me to Fargo so I can pretend to be Frances McDormand. But anyway... :) ~H

Ad·den·dum

So, the quiz in Howard's wasn't that bad, I think I did okay. I made a 6/10 on the last in class quiz (he did take off points for that one problem that nobody knew) and I made two 10/10s on the last two take home quizzes. Now I have another take home quiz which should be a breeze and then I'll be in the clear for awhile, I think. Just letting you know. Now to grade lab reports.

'Tis the Season

... of quizzes in Dr. H's class, apparently. We had one Monday, we had two take home quizzes (both of which are completed and I am reasonably sure they are correct), and we have another one today. By this time, I have exhausted the topics that he might quiz on us and will now turn to studying random snippets from my notes and hope that I remember whatever it is he thinks is important enough to quiz us on. Next Monday, we have yet ANOTHER quiz. Darn these quizzes. LOL. On top of that, the grad students here are not-quite-required-but-still-expected to participate in a fundraiser next week that will require us staying after hours and passing out flyers. I wouldn't mind it too much except a) I hate fundraisers and b) I don't even live in this city, so after hours for me means I'll have another hour to drive home on top of however long I'm required to stay. Do I sound old and grumpy? Because I FEEL old and grumpy. Kinda like this old toy poodle (named Willie) my mom has, he growls whenever he's inconvenienced, and his definition of what "inconveniences" him is pretty broad. The older I get, the more I feel like Willie. LOL. I just keep telling myself it's for a good cause, and hoping that I can at least pretend the be enthusiastic the day of. At least the other grad students are cool and I don't mind hanging out with them. In other news, I still have that thesis proposal to work on. Doc and I have pretty much narrowed down where we are going to take our initial samples (we can always expand the base group if we want) and now I'm waiting on him to hear from one of his "buddies" so we can find out who owns the properties we're looking at. We have to get permission from the landowners first, obviously. On top of that, C (Doc's lab assistant) was asking me when I wanted to do a trial run of sampling--basically, going out and grabbing random dirt, and then running a whole bunch of tests on it. This is to show me what I'll be doing when I get the actual dirt I care about. Anyway, C wants me to tell him: exactly where I'll be sampling and how many samples per cite, exactly what perimeters I'll be looking at for my sample sites; and what over-arching hypothesis I will be testing. In case you're wondering, that looks really easy on paper but not so easy in practice, especially when it's something you've never done before. Regardless, I have an idea on what my hypothesis is going to be and I have some data that will help me hit the ground running with that, but seriously: that's a lot of stuff, and most of it I have no idea about. Guess that's what I'm here for, right? Right.

Told you guys that quiz would NOT be what I expected. Dr. H thinks it's great fun to "wake us up on Mondays" by putting a question he KNEW nobody would be able to figure out on the quiz. Fortunately, he seemed to get a kick out of the fact that none of us got it, so I think (hope) he won't be counting that against us. The other question seemed okay. I hope I didn't make a stupid mistake on it. He gave us two take home quizzes, I'm going to do one before I leave so I don't have both of them hanging over my head tonight/tomorrow. In other news, Doc kindly re-streaked the plates for me, isolating colonies that he thought might give us an interesting yield (YAY). Unfortunately, however, when I gram stained them a few minutes ago all I got were stupid gram negative and gram positive rods (bacillus). Not a single sporocarcina cell to be found. Guess it's back to the drawing board. :P Also, I thought I would include a few pictures of what I do: One is of the chemicals I use to make a gram stain (plus my six plates in the background), one is of my flaming my "loop" to make it sterile (using a fire boy, not a Bunsen burner) and one is of me making urea agar in the big pot (before it started boiling). So... there you go. Bets, that was especially for you. :)

So, I have a quiz this morning in bacterial genetics on gene mapping (sort of). Basically, Dr. H wants us to tell him what media we would have to use if we wanted to grow bacteria with certain traits. He only gave us one example, and I've looked at it several times. Both the example and his explanation in class seemed pretty straight forward. In a minute, I'm going to leaf through my textbook to see if there are any other examples I should look at. However, the problem with Dr. H is that he wants very specific answers, and also, sometimes when he tells you a quiz or a test will be on a certain topic, he'll add questions that are not related to that topic, just to see if you have been keeping up. I have no idea what he might ask in addition to these media-select problems, and I have a vague feeling that the problems may not be as straight forward as his example. He's that kind of professor. Still, other than reviewing the one example he gave us, and looking for others in the the text, I really don't know what else I could do to prepare. I understand the concept, so hopefully I will do okay on the quiz. Dr. H's quizzes scare me more than his tests. LOL. What else do I have to do today? Hmmm... I need to get Doc satellite images of the places we want to sample, I need to do a gram stain of the cultures I streaked Friday, and possible re-streak if I get anything interesting... I need to grade some quizzes so I can start on the lab reports my students turned in two weeks ago (yeah, I procrastinate when it comes to grading), and I need to find the rubric that we're all supposed to use to grade the lab reports. Oy vey. I hate grading! But I guess it's a small price to pay for students who are actually a pleasure to teach. I'll let you know how the quiz goes. Pray for me! ~H

Not much to report over the weekend. I have a quiz Monday in my bacterial genetics class, on gene mapping. It doesn't seem too bad, but I'm going to study my notes tomorrow just to make sure I know what I'm doing. My nieces are over for the night and we're about to play Monopoly. I'm also making homemade bread tonight for church tomorrow (we're having a dinner). Perhaps next weekend I'll get some rest. I am excited to be going back to school Monday. I need to gram stain some cultures that I streaked Monday (always chasing that elusive sporosarcina) and I need to get more data on where we'll be sampling so Doc and I can make plans to go there and collect the samples. :) ~H

So, I thought I would start blogging again now that I've decided to go back to school. If you're new to me and my random musings, I first started blogging when I was an undergrad majoring in Biology/Math Education. Then I briefly blogged about being an actual science teacher, but life got hectic so I took a break from blogging. Now I'm back as a graduate student in microbiology, at the same university from which I got my undergrad. And for those of you who are wrinkling your noses in snobbish scorn for my lack of variety in institutions, you should know that Getting What You Came For by Dr. Robert Peters, highly recommends that if you are comfortable with an institution and have positive connections with the faculty, you should totally consider going to the same university as your undergrad. So there. :P Seriously though, I picked my undergrad institution because I WAS extremely comfortable with the faculty and the department. I had very good relationships with the majority of my bio professors, I also have several connections in other departments--math, physics, chemistry, even history (though I don't know what good the last one will do me for my major, but still)--and furthermore, I knew I could get accepted here. There were enough people here who were willing to go to bat for me--a high school science teacher whose biology degree focused on broad, over-arching general biology and didn't specialize in any one subject in particular, especially not biochem or microbiology, which is probably where everyone else in my lab specialized. I am probably somewhat of a gamble for the university because I am a former education major, but so far everything seems to be going good. I got accepted into the program, I passed my qualifying exam, my major professor and I have good rapport and I have good grades in all of my classes. The initial hurdles have been passed. Now for the serious stuff: writing a thesis proposal when I haven't collected any data yet (or any data of my own, I have loads of data from other people, but since I'm not doing exactly what they've done, it isn't much help as far as writing an actual proposal goes); picking a committee; presenting my thesis proposal at a seminar; doing the research; oral examinations; deciding whether I want to get a PhD or stay with a masters... etc, etc, etc and so forth. Good news: I'm ALMOST ready to go out and collect samples (I'm working with soil and bacteria, for those in the audience who are interested) and hopefully I can get some good samples in October. Collecting the samples will be relatively easy; finding sites TO sample from has been the hard part and I'm just getting those places together after working on it all summer and the first half of this semester. No lie. And even then I'll admit that I'm halfway flying by the seat of my pants here and hoping I did the site-picking right. More good news: I've picked my committee! A committee is important because they will follow you through your grad school career, read your thesis (and probably any articles you might get published besides the thesis), counsel you, grill you, etc. They will be the ones who test you on your oral exams. They are simultaneously your strongest allies and most intimidating foes, at least, that's how it seems. So it's important that you pick a good committee--people who know a bit about your research (you wouldn't want a plant ecologist on your committee if say, you worked only with evolutionary relationships between invertebrates) and also, you want to pick people you are comfortable with. So, this morning I sat down with my major professor, or "Doc" as I will now refer to him, and we discussed who should be on my committee. Obviously, he's on it, since he's my major professor, and there is one other microbiologist in the department that we wanted to get on our committee, Dr. H. Those two were a given, I assumed Doc would recommend Dr. H because a) they're buddies and b) they're the only guys in the department who have the slightest idea what I'm doing. The third and final choice was up to me, so I picked a professor with whom I have a long and comfortable acquaintance, also, I did undergrad research with her--Dr. W. I asked Doc if he was okay with her being on my committee, he had no problems with it, so I went and asked her. Actually, I had to find her--she was buried deep in her lab in a side room that I wouldn't have known existed if I had not worked with her (see, going to my undergrad for grad school is already paying off). When I asked her she was frank in stating that she knew nothing about micro, but she said she would be happy to be on my committee because she knew me. I reminded her that she is a great cell biologist and knows a lot about PCR and other DNA analyzing techniques, and that I thought she'd be a great adviser for me in general. Most importantly, I trust her, I trust Doc, and I trust Dr. H. So, I am feeling good this morning because I feel like I hit the committee jackpot and I'm really happy that Dr. W is on it because I kinda wanted her from day one. :) Alright! So that's what's new with me for now, and now I have class. Oh yeah, forgot to mention--I'm a TA, so I haven't completely stopped teaching. :) ~H