More Grad School Demotivators

Apparently I was the only one to submit demotivators to the contest. ha. Well, at least appropriate ones, as two submitted were apparently NSFW in one manner or another. No big deal, except the three previously noted were displayed during a grad student meeting. Thankfully, they didn't say who submitted each. The graduation one got a few chuckles, there was silence during the collaboration one (expected, though someone commented that people were busy reading it...doubtful) and there were plenty of laughs during the accuracy one, which was agreed to be "good."

In the week following that meeting, a few others have been thought up, in collaboration with others. First, several of us were discussing the collaboration one. I noted that I wanted to point to competing with the guy in the back of the image. We came up with this improved tagline:


While looking at pictures I had selected as potential demotivators, another student came up with the tagline for this one. I can only claim taking the picture, which we liked as it can be suggested that grad students are like rats, trapped with ideas (lit bulb) being sucked out of our brains by the administration (connections to head). Kinda funny:


Recently there was a hiliarious SNL music video. Using our juvenile humor, another student and I batted around potential demotivator taglines after he did a screen grab from the video. This demotivator is funny only if you've seen the clip....which made it too-NSFW for the competition. Oh well...we had fun making it.


Finally, when noting someone using wordle on their thesis (can't recall location), I got the idea that it would be appropriate for something like a qualifier exam. With all kinds of things flying through your head during a test, the different sizes and angles of a wordle creation were appealing. So, I grabbed text from my department's website about the qualifying exam and popped it into wordle.net. The first output is a simple one with just the text. I like the second one better, adding in the equations and drawings in the background with a little photoshopping. In the lower right hand corner is an image I found of a spanish inquisition torture...appropriate in a tongue-in-cheek way.



So, now I've got a bunch of submissions. ha...made for an interesting side thing to try and work on creativity with words.

Continuing the busy times

The past few weeks have continued the busy streak. Due to the timing, remaining work needed on my end, and higher priorities of my advisor (a major factor, from my point of view), we decided to not submit a F32 at the start of December. That lifted a huge load off my shoulders, after the writing I had planned to complete in November. Since then, I've been busy analyzing recent experiments and working on paper #3.

Paper 3 is progressing well. My advisor has pushed me to focus on the logics of the study, to make sure that it is solidly supported prior to an upcoming committee meeting. I put solid work into it, anticipating a review meeting before I (possibly) spend too much time going down the wrong path. My advisor says he'll review it...then spends the rest of the week locked away working on a grant of his own. ha. At least with the paper "off my desk" I was able to get a lot of data analysis work done. One thing that bugs me is that I've got a small number of successful trials in 2 experiments and a bunch in a 3rd experiment (which we may omit from the paper as it was in a slightly different model - save for next phase). I guess if my next two experiments go well, then there should be sufficient data for the paper/dissertation. It just doesn't feel like a lot. But, the results are MUCH BETTER than previously published results. And, there are two papers from a competitive lab for experiments in a different model which had a similarly "low" number of trials and experiments....though they always tack on the author list a long, long established researcher which seems to allow their papers to get published easier. Here's where a meeting with the advisor would settle any concerns I have...

Now it is on to working on my dissertation introduction. My (suggested) goal is to have it in good shape by the end of December. That's pretty do-able, considering it just needs to be a couple of pages and I have the Intro for a previous student's dissertation that has overlap with mine. I just wish there was more time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I'm only going home for little over a week, but already that time is coming soon. And, when going home, my productivity falls off. I got work done over Thanksgiving...given more days at home during this upcoming break when I'm not traveling/doing something, I plan to be more productive.

After turning my wonderfully reviewed paper #2 back around quickly, it is back in the "in review" status with the journal. That's odd...I thought it was accepted pending minor revision. Perhaps they didn't like the fact that we didn't revise the manuscript for the single comment, but rather we provided a detailed answer and noted that in-progress research would address the question. It was a good point, but there wasn't really a good place in the paper to directly address the comment (without making part of the discussion disjointed), and my paper #3 does address the comment. It'd be nice to have it truly "in press" soon.

At the same time, I've got to keep part of my mind thinking about post-graduation plans. We're still planning to submit a K-award in February for me to stay here. And, even if I don't have a fellowship, I have been told that I'd be supported to stay here for a year or two. The alternate opportunity that I've got also sounds good. When the time comes to really approach the job market, this is an excellent post. Something to come back to in the future...