So close to the end

So my thesis has gone to committee. Scary, huh? I spent yesterday scrambling to get myself together; Mathematica crashed on me 5 times. While that sounds unfortunate but not too bad, Mathematica chose to crash when I finished loading all 6 sets of data. Those six sets take about an hour to load.

I’m right now saving video and putting together my talk. I look forward to it on some level. I like talking , but I’m also a little nervous. I’m only getting one dry run through it on Monday with my advisor.

I’m also a bit sad. A few people who I would have loved to have show up will not be. Oh well. I plan on doing what a former grad student did after he got through the grilling: sleeping. I sleep terribly right now. I don’t want to do poorly. I don’t want to be stuck in huge rewrites (I learned today that a former grad student had 40 pages to add onto his). I expect some revisions, but I don’t want to get swamped. Right now, I’m simply too busy. I’m thesising, working on getting a job, TAing, and trying to plan a move. A lot for one person to get done in a short amount of time.

I defend on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

 

My thesis rewrites

I’m in first revisions right now. The good news is that 3/5 chapters aren’t hideous to have to rewrite. There’s nothing major, just some additional information and supplemental stuff.

I feel good about that. I hope nothing grave happens when my second set of revisions occur (Monday). I feel like I can breathe a little more than I have been for awhile. The thesis has been so time consuming. Even though I still have plenty of work, I don’t have to go crazy trying to cram it all in.

 

The end of one class

My friend, K, was the last of his class to go on as a MS holder. His these was quite good. It was a short presentation (about 30 min), but it was solid.

I feel a little sad, because thesis defenses at this point are what funerals are to a lot of families: the only time we ever see each other anymore. Now that the bulk of them are finished (we have 2-3 three left, including mine), I don’t know when I’m going to see everyone next as a group. I hadn’t seen K in about 2-3 months. He isn’t my BFF, but I do like seeing him and just the old group of grad students and a former professor. There was more of a cohesive group. On a whole, we all liked each other. I could always count on having a good conversation with many of them.

While I look forward to being finished with my thesis, I didn’t look forward to everyone else being done. When I’ll see everyone again? I don’t know.

 

And he passed!

E successfully defended his thesis today. Besides not wanting to see someone fail, I was rather nervous, because E is the first student of my advisor. In other words, I had no proof that my advisor is able to get a student through the MS thesis. Although I had no reason to doubt that, it is comforting to have proof.

Part of what I like about grad school is the thesis defense. My program has very little community, so I’m always amazed to see that people come out for the defenses and that people do wait anxiously to see the defender succeed. It’s like a weird family; even if people don’t appear to care about each other, perhaps they truly do. I also like learning about physics. I feel like come away from everyone’s research learning something new.

On another note from the past two days, I found out that two jobs I had applied for in 2006/2007 are up again in the Boston-area. They upped their ante from last time; the minimum requirement is an MS and one of them has an even more complicated process.  I have to write a teaching statement and submit three recommendations. While I am indeed applying for both jobs, the cynic in believes that I will be overlooked for a PhD. In this job market, I would believe that they could get a PhD. *sigh

 

In need of another vacation

The funny thing about vacations is you need a vacation from them. Time to catch up on sleep, home stuff (grocery shopping, laundry)… Unfortunately, I had to jump back into work. We didn’t get home until around 10:30 PM, and I had to be at work/school by 10:15 AM. Not pleasant.

We began summer school teaching today. It went okay. I’m amazed that students sign up to take summer physics and get something out of it. My learning style involves more time for digestion; I don’t care for the quarter system (10 weeks of class, as opposed to the 15 weeks in a semester), and I don’t understand how you can learn something in about 3 weeks.

I also came back to being part of my lab. One of my favorite things about my lab is we’re a community of sorts. Everyone is interested in everyone’s research, we do at free will talk to each other about it, and there is some level of respect and appreciation there. Today’s sign was the practice run of a grad’s thesis defense. I thought it was cool that people did make the effort to show up, even if that was the only reason to be there. My advisor genuinely wanted us all to support this student. My experience at school has been- variable, but I genuinely do enjoy my lab. Today is just an example of why.

Tomorrow is yet another day of work, as well as the real run of this student’s thesis defense.

 

Last Day

This is the last day of the academic year. Although I have the end of summer to get really sentimental, this is the last day the hallways will feel like school. Summer is much emptier here, with less students and faculty spotty on the days they are in.

With the unsure future, I feel like it’s a bittersweet ending.  I’m glad to be done in most respects. However, there is a lot of uncertainty in the future, which makes the end hard. I’ve been applying for jobs and doing the job search thing, but the 9.4% unemployment rate is scary. Science isn’t being bailed out, and neither is academia.

In any case, I think my last day here will be cut short. My flu is a teensy bit etter, and it’s beautiful weather outside.

 

Last exam of my MS

If I do go back to school, this isn’t my last exam ever, but it is of my MS in physics.

I think the worst part of exams is waiting to take them. I have about an hour left, but I reached the point where I realized studying won’t help. I either know it or I do not.

I’m going to miss this class a lot. I forget if I mentioned it, but I chose to take a class outside the physics department. It turned out to be a much better choice for me than I had realized. I simply didn’t want to take astrophysics and had to search for a class that wasn’t setting me up for failure and that I could get approved.

I hadn’t taken chemistry since I was a sophomore in high school. I now regret not taking it at the undergraduate level. I thought it was really interesting to see how well chemistry and physics worked together. The professor was incredibly helpful in my research; he suggested two materials that made the research happen.

More importantly, this professor has me thinking more about doing engineering and taught me a lot about the field of science. I didn’t look at physics in a rose-colored glasses way, but talking to him made me realize that I should look at the big picture and that I can get where I want to go in other ways.

Wish me luck on my exam!

 

Classes are done

Today I finished my laser physics class. We did poster presentations. It was odd, because he wanted us to do our presentations a little differently than from when I’ve done poster sessions. He wanted a spiel prepared. I typically stand beside my poster (I’ve done about 4) and let it speak for me. If the visitor has question, I answer. I design my poster such that (as I described today in class) I can go use the bathroom or leave it for a weekend.

It was more fun than I had expected. Our class doesn’t sit around, talking about physics, so it was cool to hear everyone’s thoughts on it. The posters also let me know what people were interested in. Most people did related projects to what they had done in computational physics; for instance, people who did astrophysics computational projects did astrophysics laser projects.

This particular project, though nerve wracking, was a good way to end the quarter.

 

I don’t know how to dance!

Since I finished my homework for the week at last, got some research in, I feel like I really have reclaimed my life. February (I know it isn’t over yet) as been a pretty bad month for me. I’ve been on pins and needles waiting to hear back from grad schools (nothing in either direction, and it’s been frustrating to say that when the few well-meaning people I’ve told I applied have asked). Schoolwork has been a bit overwhelming, partially because I’ve spent a lot of time in my lab. The stress has caused me not to sleep well. I’m trying to figure out what class I want to take next quarter; I already have figured out one, which is my thesis research credit. My bus pass was confiscated last Friday, because the transit authority accidentally disabled some of my school’s bus passes. In short, it has been rough.

And to top it all off, I had the dumbfounding discovery I don’t know how to dance. I mean that I do, but I spend so much time worrying about perfecting technique vs. letting loose that I find it rather hard to think up my own combos and choreography. I know that I’ve written about trying to choreograph. I think I attributed my issues to lack of inspiration in life or music, but I now think it has to do with the amount of time that I’ve spent doing drill-like stuff to get my technique down solid.

I think my concentration on technique stemmed from hearing people talk about Middle Eastern dancers wanting to dance and perform more than understanding technique, hence seeing sloppy dancers. I don’t want to be a sloppy dancer, so I’ve been working (not this month too much admittedly) on that. However, I think I’ve lost meaning or the big picture. Although clean technique is very important, having that emotional connection and not worrying about being perfect is so critical to Middle Eastern dance or performance in general. It is really what sets one dancer apart from another.

I also think the focusing on technique is about my time. It’s a lot easier to drill 30 hip drops on the right and 30 on the left than it is to think of a little combo incorporating that. There’s no originality in the former, whereas the latter requires more thought, like how to link move A to move B.

I am going to continue my technique drilling and such, but I’m going to work on feeling the music and combining moves. I also hope I have some happy news and less stress soon.

 

Waiting is the hardest part

Slowly around now, the joys and sorrows (acceptances and rejections) are coming in. Somewhere someone must have some weird sense of humor, because it is very easy to worry when you know decisions on the next 4+ years of your life are being decided but you have work to be completed. I would love to tell everyone I don’t worry, that it hasn’t somewhat affected me, but I also try not to lie. Thank goodness my midterm in EM is almost done and that the library is full of good sources for my paper (according to a fellow grad student).

*sigh. And it is very hard not to cave in and check repeatedly about schools. I already did , but I highly recommend you do not. The good news is that I haven’t been rejected, the bad news is I’m waiting.