(no subject)
Not only has this news become prevalent enough to appear on CNN, but it is also currently listed as a top story. I am quite interested in the issue. Read more here: "Soldiers' widows sue for pagan symbols on headstones".
I'm still waiting to hear from the Primate Center about the behavioral position I applied for. If I don't hear back by Friday, I'm going to call HR and ask about my application. I've been looking for other animal behavior jobs, but I haven't found anything even remotely connected to behavior.
I'm also currently looking for more graduate schools with programs I am interested in. It's very hard to find schools that offer PhDs in animal behavior, and even harder to find schools with faculty that research in environmental enrichment. I've decided to expand my research interests. Now I am not only looking for environmental enrichment for laboratory animals, but also am searching for verbal and non-verbal communication in companion animals. Even then, my research interests are still rather limited. Most environmental research is conducted for primates as welfare supporters are concentrated on species considered to be closer evolutionary to humans. Personally, I'm really not interested in primates. There are already laws in the United States regrading enrichment for primates. It's the laboratory animals that don't have any laws surrounding their enrichment. And then, most communication behavior studies are for vocal communications, specifically in avian wildlife. I'm not so much interested in the birds. I think it would be more useful to research and understand communication behavior in dogs and cats (mostly non-verbal, since verbal communication in both animals actually appears to be a result of what their humans expect to hear).
Astronomy is going decently. My supervisor has been more understanding lately and she has taken to asking my opinion on lab matters. I've had some fun times with astronomy events, too. Last Wednesday, Mercury transited the Sun from about 11 am to 4 pm. I got myself up to the roof early and set up telescopes with solar filters and watched Mercury transit for all 5 hours. Many, many people came up and I showed them the event as well. I accidentally shattered one of the solar filters. It fell off of the telescope and it really wasn't supposed to. The previous Friday, I pulled out the 12" and just looked at whatever deep sky objects I wanted to for hours.
The 12" Schmidt-Cassegrain Meade with GPS that I played with. Feel jealous!
A view of the South Water Tower on Campus from the PhysGeo roof at night:
Greg viewing Mercury's transit across the Sun in an 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain Meade with a visual spectrum solar filter:
A view of the North-West side of Campus from the PhysGeo roof:
Love always,
~Rachel
I'm still waiting to hear from the Primate Center about the behavioral position I applied for. If I don't hear back by Friday, I'm going to call HR and ask about my application. I've been looking for other animal behavior jobs, but I haven't found anything even remotely connected to behavior.
I'm also currently looking for more graduate schools with programs I am interested in. It's very hard to find schools that offer PhDs in animal behavior, and even harder to find schools with faculty that research in environmental enrichment. I've decided to expand my research interests. Now I am not only looking for environmental enrichment for laboratory animals, but also am searching for verbal and non-verbal communication in companion animals. Even then, my research interests are still rather limited. Most environmental research is conducted for primates as welfare supporters are concentrated on species considered to be closer evolutionary to humans. Personally, I'm really not interested in primates. There are already laws in the United States regrading enrichment for primates. It's the laboratory animals that don't have any laws surrounding their enrichment. And then, most communication behavior studies are for vocal communications, specifically in avian wildlife. I'm not so much interested in the birds. I think it would be more useful to research and understand communication behavior in dogs and cats (mostly non-verbal, since verbal communication in both animals actually appears to be a result of what their humans expect to hear).
Astronomy is going decently. My supervisor has been more understanding lately and she has taken to asking my opinion on lab matters. I've had some fun times with astronomy events, too. Last Wednesday, Mercury transited the Sun from about 11 am to 4 pm. I got myself up to the roof early and set up telescopes with solar filters and watched Mercury transit for all 5 hours. Many, many people came up and I showed them the event as well. I accidentally shattered one of the solar filters. It fell off of the telescope and it really wasn't supposed to. The previous Friday, I pulled out the 12" and just looked at whatever deep sky objects I wanted to for hours.
The 12" Schmidt-Cassegrain Meade with GPS that I played with. Feel jealous!
A view of the South Water Tower on Campus from the PhysGeo roof at night:
Greg viewing Mercury's transit across the Sun in an 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain Meade with a visual spectrum solar filter:
A view of the North-West side of Campus from the PhysGeo roof:
Love always,
~Rachel