Archives for the Month of April 2008 on GEOL 390
Week 15
i cant believe the last week of class is finally over. this week was the "final draft" peer review of our research proposals. i got a lot of good feedback and talked some of it over with mccall today. i have a meeting on tuesday to go over the critique before i make any changes. once i edit it again, i'll be done.
on the project side of things; alex had the computer apart for the weekend and i didnt have time to go in and check on things this week so ill be in monday to start the scanner again. also, mccall is still undecided about the date of the new hampshire trip and won't really know until the may field course is sorted out. which im really excited to be taking.
the end.
Week 14
this week has been so crazy and next week looks even worse as finals come into view and due dates pass. i have invested a ridiculous amount of time into editing my research proposal and i'm pretty confident that my advisor is getting annoyed with all my questions. ah well, almost done. im kind of nervous for the panel review. but all in all i'm really happy this semester is almost over.
in laboratory news; the scan has finished running. i'll be analyzing the data today/over the weekend to see how the curves look. also, i'm pretty sure alex is almost done making the backup system. so things are going well.
Week 13
this week has been pretty hectic with classes starting to wrap up. the research proposal is coming together pretty alright. i've never had to write one before so despite the guidelines we have i'm not super confident that i'm saying what i need to say. i might be writing it more like a lab report with some extra sections like budget and timeline. i guess that's what the first draft is for though.
as far as the actual project goes, the scanner is catching on the track it runs on. we put the cells in the aquaria and ran the scanner but when i went in to check on it, the scanner was in the middle of two cells...so obviously it got messed up when it started moving around. we're going to have to figure out what to do about it before we collect the organisms, this can't be happening when the real experiment is going. today we're going to be moving around some microcosms and reprogramming the setup table so we can scan the last four cells. the first 5 cells it collected data for were aligned just fine, i still have to analyze the data though.
Week 12
this week has been going good so far. i got some good feedback, our discussions spurred some good questions, and got me motivated to really get down to the roots of what the project is all about. which is what i intended in the first place but something always gets in the way...like school. so i'm pretty happy it's required for me to ask these things or else i wouldnt've found the time. which is partly why im so excited for summer cuz i'll only be taking one class at a time and working in the lab. so, ill have a decent amount of time to read up on sedimentology and background.
in the lab we put the cells into the aquaria and started an initial scan to observe how the peaks look. hopefully they look splendid and i wont have to redo any of the cells. it'd be kind of a crunch i feel, but totally doable, to have any redo's done by the time we get the organisms.
i'm just trying to give these last 3 weeks everything i've got...it's just my luck to be a point away from a higher grade...but not this time mr. gpa monster...today is not your day...i will win.