(no subject)
Well I suppose it has been an interesting few weeks. And I haven't posted in a while.
While doing my PhD work, I'm interning for a company on site at the college. I spend 4 days a week doing relavant stuff, and one day a week doing irrelavant stuff that is mostly pointless, that I had done for five days a week last year. Last week I had a conference in Monterey CA (three flights each way from Albany). The talk went fine, I handled the question well. Only problem was it was on the irrelavant stuff. Oh well. All expenses paid trip to CA, for a morning conference session (leaving me free to hang out with the sea lions in the afternoon), I suppose I can't complain too much.
This week is the fun one... at a local conference sponsored by my division on Tuesday (essentially intended to show relavant companies in the field what we are working on, we are expecting 70-100 people at last check), I have to give two talks (1/2 hour each, but I doubt anyone will complain when I run short). These are on things that are very relavant to my (eventual) degree. I'm mostly done with the talks, which contain a minimum of bs that I can't really explain and that hopefully nobody questions me on. I did some experiments on the SEM on Friday which directly counteract some of my previous work, which is bad... hopefully I can figure out why that happened in the next 24 hours, but worse case scenario I'll just leave out the new stuff (until the next conference when hopefully I'll understand what the hell happened).
We did our yearly apple picking today. Apple picking is fun but it takes 15 minutes, and then you fill up the bag and you end up with a boatload of apples. I guess we'll have to make apple sauce or pie or strudel or something.
My advisor wants me to submit an abstract for a conference in Baltimore in April. This is good and scary... a lot of important people in the field will be there... The guy who invented the technique I use is on the conference committee that decides if abstracts are accepted or not. So instead of random people seeing the talk, as is the case this week (and as my advisor says, not understanding any of it, but realizing that I know what I'm talking about and thinking that I am very clever so they will offer me a job), these will be people who will know in a second if I really really truly understand the material and if the work is actually worthwhile. I suppose if they think my work is good, then that is pretty good validation, but the opposite is also true.
Baltimore is a nice location with lots of kosher restaurants, but that assumes that they will pay for my rental car so I can get to said restaurants. And hopefully my bro can find time to drive up from Potomac with my little niece so I can see her. She is very cute and makes me happy.
While doing my PhD work, I'm interning for a company on site at the college. I spend 4 days a week doing relavant stuff, and one day a week doing irrelavant stuff that is mostly pointless, that I had done for five days a week last year. Last week I had a conference in Monterey CA (three flights each way from Albany). The talk went fine, I handled the question well. Only problem was it was on the irrelavant stuff. Oh well. All expenses paid trip to CA, for a morning conference session (leaving me free to hang out with the sea lions in the afternoon), I suppose I can't complain too much.
This week is the fun one... at a local conference sponsored by my division on Tuesday (essentially intended to show relavant companies in the field what we are working on, we are expecting 70-100 people at last check), I have to give two talks (1/2 hour each, but I doubt anyone will complain when I run short). These are on things that are very relavant to my (eventual) degree. I'm mostly done with the talks, which contain a minimum of bs that I can't really explain and that hopefully nobody questions me on. I did some experiments on the SEM on Friday which directly counteract some of my previous work, which is bad... hopefully I can figure out why that happened in the next 24 hours, but worse case scenario I'll just leave out the new stuff (until the next conference when hopefully I'll understand what the hell happened).
We did our yearly apple picking today. Apple picking is fun but it takes 15 minutes, and then you fill up the bag and you end up with a boatload of apples. I guess we'll have to make apple sauce or pie or strudel or something.
My advisor wants me to submit an abstract for a conference in Baltimore in April. This is good and scary... a lot of important people in the field will be there... The guy who invented the technique I use is on the conference committee that decides if abstracts are accepted or not. So instead of random people seeing the talk, as is the case this week (and as my advisor says, not understanding any of it, but realizing that I know what I'm talking about and thinking that I am very clever so they will offer me a job), these will be people who will know in a second if I really really truly understand the material and if the work is actually worthwhile. I suppose if they think my work is good, then that is pretty good validation, but the opposite is also true.
Baltimore is a nice location with lots of kosher restaurants, but that assumes that they will pay for my rental car so I can get to said restaurants. And hopefully my bro can find time to drive up from Potomac with my little niece so I can see her. She is very cute and makes me happy.