Working working working
So I'm trying to write weekly-ish updates ;-)
-Current manuscript is going. Figured out photometry issues (oh boy, code someone else released doesn't actually mosaic moving targets properly and smears the point spread function, gee what a surprise that it wasn't tested), have statistical analysis done. Just suffering through the writing up. The local astro dept had their beginning of the year "party" on Friday and well. . . nothing like parents with poorly supervised children to inspire me to come home and bang out a couple of good paragraphs on a Friday night. Oh the upside I have all the bits for my DPS poster together so I can just take plots from paper, up on poster and maybe add a little context that is from the next paper and analysis I've done and also just need to write up.
- I might want to throttle the advisor- suddenly I'm busy planning observations for the end of Sept/ beginning of October, so I'm worried that I'm going to have to be babysitting this program while travelling to Pasadena. I just want to finish this damned PhD! However political games are starting (some related to this sudden observing program) and they could have good effects for me down the line. . like in a decade kind of down the line, so I think I'm just going to try and ride things out. Worst case scenario in the short term is that I have some more postdoc application issues like last year where there were concerns that I was too independent for certain research groups (but hey, if they have those issues with me, that probably means that I'm not the best fit for what they're looking for anyways). I haven't however had a full weekend in a few weeks though- the emails asking for skype calls the next day as the plotting goes on are interesting. . . if they weren't filling me with dread about what an epic time suck this *could* become. I think my main problem may be that the advisor forgets I'm a grad student at times and treats me like the postdoc he hasn't had yet (and I hate to point it out, but as a postdoc I'd actually be cheaper for him).
- After yesterday's skype call we went up to the local apple orchard with the dog. They still had peaches so uhh. . . I may have filled my skirt with 6 pounds of peaches without meaning to. I don't expect this orchard will have peaches next summer for picking though- the snows this past winter added with crazy fruit loads this summer seem to have completely cracked huge limbs off most of their trees. I did see that they had some newer peach trees planted by the backside of the barn though, so maybe those will be ready come next summer, though I really hope to be out of here before peach season comes again.
So yeah, still alive, still dissertating, still hoping for a job and am hoping the perfect job for me will get posted this fall.
-Current manuscript is going. Figured out photometry issues (oh boy, code someone else released doesn't actually mosaic moving targets properly and smears the point spread function, gee what a surprise that it wasn't tested), have statistical analysis done. Just suffering through the writing up. The local astro dept had their beginning of the year "party" on Friday and well. . . nothing like parents with poorly supervised children to inspire me to come home and bang out a couple of good paragraphs on a Friday night. Oh the upside I have all the bits for my DPS poster together so I can just take plots from paper, up on poster and maybe add a little context that is from the next paper and analysis I've done and also just need to write up.
- I might want to throttle the advisor- suddenly I'm busy planning observations for the end of Sept/ beginning of October, so I'm worried that I'm going to have to be babysitting this program while travelling to Pasadena. I just want to finish this damned PhD! However political games are starting (some related to this sudden observing program) and they could have good effects for me down the line. . like in a decade kind of down the line, so I think I'm just going to try and ride things out. Worst case scenario in the short term is that I have some more postdoc application issues like last year where there were concerns that I was too independent for certain research groups (but hey, if they have those issues with me, that probably means that I'm not the best fit for what they're looking for anyways). I haven't however had a full weekend in a few weeks though- the emails asking for skype calls the next day as the plotting goes on are interesting. . . if they weren't filling me with dread about what an epic time suck this *could* become. I think my main problem may be that the advisor forgets I'm a grad student at times and treats me like the postdoc he hasn't had yet (and I hate to point it out, but as a postdoc I'd actually be cheaper for him).
- After yesterday's skype call we went up to the local apple orchard with the dog. They still had peaches so uhh. . . I may have filled my skirt with 6 pounds of peaches without meaning to. I don't expect this orchard will have peaches next summer for picking though- the snows this past winter added with crazy fruit loads this summer seem to have completely cracked huge limbs off most of their trees. I did see that they had some newer peach trees planted by the backside of the barn though, so maybe those will be ready come next summer, though I really hope to be out of here before peach season comes again.
So yeah, still alive, still dissertating, still hoping for a job and am hoping the perfect job for me will get posted this fall.