(no subject)
Well, time for my almost 18-monthly update. I've noticed LJ getting a lot sparser these days - lots of folks and communities have vanished, and the remainder don't update nearly as often.
So, the sad news over the past 17 months was the passing of my two favorite pets. Darwin, my blue tegu lizard, passed away from kidney failure about a year ago at the age of 10 (since we bought him, it's come to light that his species/line/whatever is badly inbred, which probably shortened his life). About 5 months ago, Speckles, my 9-foot boa and the very first snake I ever owned, passed away from extreme old age at 20. He'd been ailing for several years, but eventually reached the point where it was time to let him go. I've constructed little memorial areas to both of them, and an artist friend from Brown also gave me some art he'd drawn of them. I miss them both, but they both had long, healthy, happy lives.
In much better news, I finally graduated from Brown with my PhD in biology (in early August)! The defense went great, I got some awesome feedback, and lots of cool congratulations from the faculty, other students, and my friends. I also made a complete, mounted turkey skeleton for Tom (he mostly works on turkeys), and gave it to him at the after-party, which delighted him.
I'm now at my new position, a post-doctoral research gig at Georgia Tech. Due to a quirk of fate, I'm actually in the physics department as part of a large "Physics of Living Systems" grant. One of my advisers is a physicist who works on animals moving on/in sand and other granular materials, while the other is a mathematician who's studied everything from ants to snakes to mosquitoes. My current major project involves turning during sidewinding locomotion, using, of course, sidewinder rattlesnakes (housed at Zoo Atlanta), and I just got back from some preliminary fieldwork/scouting in Yuma, AZ.
So yeah, those are the highlights. Given the current schedule of updates here, I'll be updating again in about 2 years. ;)
So, the sad news over the past 17 months was the passing of my two favorite pets. Darwin, my blue tegu lizard, passed away from kidney failure about a year ago at the age of 10 (since we bought him, it's come to light that his species/line/whatever is badly inbred, which probably shortened his life). About 5 months ago, Speckles, my 9-foot boa and the very first snake I ever owned, passed away from extreme old age at 20. He'd been ailing for several years, but eventually reached the point where it was time to let him go. I've constructed little memorial areas to both of them, and an artist friend from Brown also gave me some art he'd drawn of them. I miss them both, but they both had long, healthy, happy lives.
In much better news, I finally graduated from Brown with my PhD in biology (in early August)! The defense went great, I got some awesome feedback, and lots of cool congratulations from the faculty, other students, and my friends. I also made a complete, mounted turkey skeleton for Tom (he mostly works on turkeys), and gave it to him at the after-party, which delighted him.
I'm now at my new position, a post-doctoral research gig at Georgia Tech. Due to a quirk of fate, I'm actually in the physics department as part of a large "Physics of Living Systems" grant. One of my advisers is a physicist who works on animals moving on/in sand and other granular materials, while the other is a mathematician who's studied everything from ants to snakes to mosquitoes. My current major project involves turning during sidewinding locomotion, using, of course, sidewinder rattlesnakes (housed at Zoo Atlanta), and I just got back from some preliminary fieldwork/scouting in Yuma, AZ.
So yeah, those are the highlights. Given the current schedule of updates here, I'll be updating again in about 2 years. ;)