November Writing Goals

Well, to put it in writing, here are my research goals for the month:

-Finish writing a F32 post-doc grant and have it go through at least one pass with my advisor. If it gets done, it has to be submitted by December 8th (otherwise wait 4 months). I've already got a lot of writing done on this - all the relevant sections are at least started, and the Specific Aims are pretty solid. But, this is a lower priority than dissertation research, and getting feedback from my advisor (still waiting on Aims and training portion for weeks) isn't easy.

-Bulk out the outline of two dissertation appendix items. These were small studies that weren't investigated enough for a paper, but I'll have to stick in the appendix so they can be referenced in the future.

-Start outline for dissertation 3rd aim work. After spending 2007 getting together the hardware and preparing for the studies, then having an experiment in early 2008, it is pretty certain that my original plans for Aim 3 aren't going to happen. 10+ months of waiting on others to have more experiments. What a joke. Granted, there have been several staffing changes and clinical work always has challenges, but the inefficiency of team members and the lack of updates from the advisor on this has been maddening. So, I can't wait any longer if I can still hope to finish by May so I'm looking into a replacement aim. I'm not overly confident of being able to finish it in time, though. We'll see...plenty of experiments to come yet this year...

-(low priority) Write outline and first draft of paper for professional society magazine. This magazine is for BS grads of the last 10 years, and it had an open call for articles on career development and other categories. I figure it'd be semi-easy to write about my BS-MS-industry-academia path - with thoughts and things to consider. It is low priority, but would be a good way to bulk my CV without having to wait for advisor feedback, and to get my name out there a little more. I'm hoping I can get motivated on this...we'll see. It has to be submitted by 12/1. I've gotta get feedback from someone on a draft by Thanksgiving if I'm going to make it.