best laid plans

My summer plans all just got tossed, really. I sent my CV out to a couple of people in order to volunteer on some fieldwork for experience, and lo and behold, I'm going away for three weeks next month. Immediately after I get back from a conference. Eep!

I'm not ready for the conference yet, but I have time to prepare and practice my talk. Slides are done and waiting for revisions from a sponsor, so I should be working on the written report to go with that. That was the plan for today, but instead I'm blogging on my fancy new lap desk that I bought so I wouldn't have to go into work and could instead spend the day in a nest of blankets and pillows on my couch. Oops?

Meeting with one of my committee members tomorrow to discuss switching tracks with my thesis... should be interesting, considering that I have no idea what I'm going to say yet. Ugh. Why do I feel like I'm floundering and everyone else is just smiling and nodding at me???? I need HELP, but this is something I have to figure out myself. I hate that feeling. Advisor and I did talk, though, and she gave me a bit of a pep talk, which was encouraging. And then she went and did something that pretty much ruined it, but I'm not at liberty to talk about that yet. Oh well.

Alright. I suppose I should get to work, if only to have less to do tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Bugger.

That holiday time

So, Thanksgiving happened. I'm a bit confused, because I feel like we should still be in June sometime, rather than almost December....

Had a good holiday - enjoyed being back in my apartment with no horrendously close deadlines and no imminent travel, as I'd spent the last month away from home or with guests and big grant deadlines immediately after I got back. I do actually have things that need to be done this week, though, so I'm hoping for some productivity.

I almost feel like this time of year is a waste, as far as getting anything collaborative done. It's almost impossible to find everyone you need to talk to, and I'm personally so distracted by the holidays and getting to see my family (which I do once or twice a year, tops) that my productivity is pretty low anyways. Anyone have tips for actually being productive this time of year?

Goal logging

Today I:

~ faced up to my fear of the telephone and made a call to a collaborator (who was not in, so I'll have to call again later this week. Practice is a good thing?)

~ drafted the methods section of the paper Advisor wanted to have submitted last summer. She did the intro, and we're working out the results section tomorrow. So, way behind schedule, but progressing nicely at the moment.

~ went to a workshop on how to use one of my new software tools. Spiffy.

~ got two new books from the library, which will join the collection of library books that have been kept hostage on my shelf for the last year. Eventually I will read them all, I swear!

Tomorrow, I will:

~ revise and insert details into the methods draft mentioned above.

~ Meet with Advisor to keep her informed of my thesis work (phone calls count!) and talk about her project.

~ Continue my foreign language lessons, so that I'm not completely lost in fieldwork country come September.

~ try again to make contact with a lab-person who is in charge of the equipment I need to use this summer.



My officemates recently got bored and (with minimal suggestions from me), hung a whiteboard up by my desk. This has been good, because I use less paper on to-do lists and because I can keep said lists where they won't get covered with other papers and books. Unfortunately, it also provides space for me to spend time doodling whales and tropical islands. Hmmm. Then again, if I consider that to be stress-relief, maybe it's productive, too.

Oh. This week, I also sent off a draft proposal to another collaborator (whom I telephoned last week. this phone-paranoia has got to go. More practice necessary).

Also: I've recently changed my habits and am no longer drinking a glass of wine with dinner each night. I find that my sleep has improved, and I'm much more likely to get work done after I come home. That didn't happen until a few days after I stopped having wine with dinner... maybe I'll confine my drinking to weekends from now on.

I seem to be slowing down on my blogging - I suppose that's fitting, as just about everything else in my life has also slowed to the pace of molasses on a cold day, but it's frustrating. On both the life and blogging counts.

So. I have a conference next week, but after that (and possibly even during!), I resolve to get my lazy bum in gear and get working on my dissertation research and writing that paper that's been hanging over my head for years. Will do.

I am currently procrastinating on prepping for my talk next week (and my practice talk during lab meeting tomorrow)... It'll go fine, I'm just slightly more anxious than really necessary because 1) this is my first oral presentation at a meeting, and 2) I have no idea what the culture of this meeting is like, because I've never gone before. From all accounts, it's less formal and back-stabby than the October meeting, which is good.


Field work is now complete -- lots of good data, but short of the main goal again this year. Upsetting for my advisor, I'm sure. I personally think that new technology is going to be needed before we can get that data, because our lovely study species is doing a behavior that is just not working with the tech we have. So we'll see.

Random notes:
- People are confusing. And adorably sweet, but mostly confusing.
- Beets are kind of gross. Anyone have a recipe that can improve them?
- I love the weather. Especially as opposed to where my family is, which got several inches of snow yesterday. :)

So, that spring break thing...

You know how I said I was going to get work done last week (and you were all secretly laughing and saying "yeah, sure...")? You were right. I didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted to/ should have. Rats. Now I have to do extra this week, along with classes, and meetings, and field-prep.

I've gotten used to it being light outside when my alarm goes off in the morning, and it was great, because it made it that much easier to crawl out of my nice warm bed. But when I woke up today, it was dark. Thanks, daylight savings time. (on a related note, happy Pi day!)

Also, the undergrads are back and mobbing the grocery store. Which I should have expected, but was still shocked by when I went to buy things to make scalloped potatoes with today. I'm trying out my grandmother's recipe for the first time, so this should be interesting. Do any of you know if potatoes freeze well? I'm essentially making these to use up a bag of potatoes before my fieldwork, and I'd like to freeze about half the pan for the week between my trip and my conference, but I've never tried to freeze potatoes. Hmm.

Still impatient about my DDIG application, but I was accepted to the other thing I applied for. Excellent.

Alright. On to cooking and back to finishing up homework I should have done last week. :)

Wait, what happened to February?

I am astonished that it's March already. I haven't accomplished nearly as much as I feel like I should have (though I've done a fair amount and jumped at least one major hurdle), and I can't remember what happened through most of February (which is why I'm meeting with Advisor tomorrow - I feel like my brain shut off on the 4th and I need a kick-start to get it going again. eep!)

To follow up from last time:
point 2: YES. This will happen. I'll be gone for 10 days, which works perfectly - just enough of a time crunch to motivate me but not enough to really interfere with classes, and a lovely short break from the bench. Awesome.

point 3: We will also NOT extend an offer to the second prospective student we interviewed. Note to applicants: please have an idea of what you'd like to work on, and have some questions for the current grad students. Sitting and staring at each other for 30 minutes is not really a great way to impress us.

I'm starting to panic about conference stuff and thesis stuff... but I can discuss that in my meeting tomorrow, and spring break is next week (!!!), so I should have some time to deal with it.

I'm getting impatient about the two applications for things that I have out... my NSF DDIG app, which I don't expect to hear from for at least a couple more months, is driving me nuts. The other one is minor and as Advisor is on the review panel, I can probably dig up hints. Hmmmm.

December of this year will bring this. I can't wait.

I have no witty title today

It is snowing. Again. Please, please, please.... can we just go one week with no new snow? Please? (I've almost decided that if and when I get to choose where I live & work, there will be zero possibility of snow, and it will be glorious.)

I've been meaning to update for a while and just haven't gotten around to it. So here we go, in list form.

1. A fairly major person in my field, Dr. Ronald Schusterman, died recently. I don't know much of his work, but his lab focused on some really interesting stuff, and I know my advisor is close to at least one of his students. I'm disappointed that I never got to meet him.

2. There is a possibility that I will go on some field work in the next couple of months. YES. I need this. I need to get out of the lab and to see some of the people that I've worked with the last couple of years. (I also need the time crunch that will get me motivated to finish my analyses for my conference in April, but we won't talk about that...)

3. Advisor has told me that our lab will "make an offer" for one of the students we interviewed. Kind of makes it sound like we're buying a car, rather than hiring someone, though I suppose that's how it's done. Should be interesting.... when she interviewed, she mentioned that another school was going to take her whale-watching during her visit. I still haven't decided if that's a point in our favor (the other lab doesn't study whales), or not. Hmm.

4. It turns out that my cooking repertoire is somewhat limited. Pasta, while lovely, gets very old, very fast. Do any of you have favorite recipes I can try out? I'm a decent cook, so if you have something you really like (that hopefully involves minimal pasta!), tell me!

And there you have it, my life in bullet points. Or numbers, I suppose.

Let's hope for warm and sunny weather this week!

Growing up can suck.

How does one decide when to end a friendship? I thankfully haven't had to deal with this very much in my life, but it seems to be an issue now. I've known my friend (we'll call her Erica) for about ten years; for most of that time we were very close. When she was dealing with the aftermath of assault, I was the one she called, and when I had professional setbacks that put me in tears, she was there to talk me through it. My problem now is that we seem to be growing apart, and I'm not sure whether it's worth trying to fix the friendship or just let it go.

Erica is bubbly, bright, intelligent and can be very sweet, but she has always been kind of selfish and not the type to really put effort into friendships. I have almost always been the one to call her and to make arrangements to get together when I'm in town (once or twice a year, recently). She likes to talk about her work and her social dramas (especially the boyfriend(s) of the month), and often doesn't pick up on when I want or need to talk about something. Subtlety is very much not her strong suit. Nor is remembering important dates, or being anywhere within 15 minutes of when she's said she'll be.

On the other hand, I am nearly always 5 minutes early, make a point to remember and acknowledge birthdays, etc., and would rather talk about current events or entertainment than her work (which in no way relates to my interests), though gossip is usually okay. These differences have started to grate on my nerves, and over the last year or so, I've started feeling drained when I hang out with her. Also, when we had several months of no communication this year, I found that I didn't really miss her all that much. Am I an awful person for thinking this, and yet still wanting (somehow) to fix our friendship and get it back to the way it used to be?

I think one of the major issues is how busy we both are. I don't have the time or energy to chase her down for a phone call or a meetup that will ultimately end in me being frustrated and angry, and she hasn't picked up her half of the burden, either because of time constraints or just not caring. But at the same time, I have gone through a lot with this woman - I've trusted her with every secret I had, and had so many good times with her. I'd like to think there's still some good in the relationship and that it can be rescued.

Readers: what do you think? Given that I see Erica at most twice a year, is it worth the effort to salvage this friendship? Do you have any suggestions on how I should go about saving or ending it?

You know it's the end of the semester when...

It's definitely the end of the semester. It's obvious from the declining number of cars in the parking lots at 8am, from the conversations undergrads have as they walk around campus, and from the attitudes in my grad classes. No one is interested in this week - it's all about getting through it and getting the heck out of here. I am no exception, as I seem to have lost all motivation, despite the fact that I have assignments, an exam, and a take home final standing between me and home.

I'm working on a couple of posts about relationships and how to deal with problems in professional and personal situations. Both are pulled from issues that I've had this semester, so I'm working on how to make them slightly more anonymous. We'll see if I can do that and get them posted before the holiday.

I'm leaving for home early next week - here's hoping that the storms this week are clearing the way for a no-weather-delays week next week. I'd really like to not sleep in airports this trip.

For now, though, it's back to forcing myself to study and write papers. For everyone else with the same issue - Good luck!

Sometimes long weekends... are really long

Happy late Thanksgiving, all. Hope everyone had a good and safe holiday (the first time I typed that, I wrote "food" rather than "good"... tell you anything about my Thursday?). I didn't get to see my family this year, because I couldn't take the time after being sick last month. Not that I've gotten much schoolwork done, but my apartment is clean, my labmate's cat is fed, and I'm so bored I'll probably be productive tomorrow. Slightly less than 3 weeks until I get to take data on the plane and work from the relatively stress free environment in my parents' house. I. Can't. Wait.

Science-wise: At the conference last month, there were a couple of talks about using passive acoustic monitoring to estimate population densities of marine mammals, especially off the northern coast of Alaska, where it's often very difficult to visually observe whales/walruses/ etc. This article summarizes an attempt to use computer algorithms to do the same thing from bird song, with associated applications to marine mammals. The summary isn't very detailed, and I'll need to read the paper before I can really agree with whether or not it will be useful in my field, but it seems promising.

October? What?

I finished my poster today. Despite the weeks of panicking over doing one certain analysis (which it turns out I didn't do or even need to do for this poster) and procrastinating to the best of my extensive abilities, it's done. All I have to do is get it printed tomorrow or Wednesday. Hooray!

I've also been invited to another talk in December... we'll see. I might talk to Advisor about taking one of my labmates... I feel like I'm being favored and as much as I like it, it isn't fair to let my labmate wallow in misery while I go jetting off to all sorts of places she'd like to be. Though she may shun this one because it's funded by people she doesn't particularly care for. We'll see.

Classes are going better than I have any right to expect them to, but my apartment has taken the hit for that. I'm behind on all of my chores and trying to get ready to leave for a week on Friday. hoo, boy. This is also not helped by my forementioned Procrastination Skills (yes, they are good enough to deserve capital letters. Maybe that's a bad thing...)

In science news... yeah, I've got nothing. Sorry 'bout that. How about this: the biennial conference of the Society for Marine Mammology meets next week in Quebec City, Canada. If you want to see the biggest and best collection of Action Nerds (Moore, C. 2003. Fluke; or, I know why the winged whale sings) on the planet, be there!

Panic Mode

I hit panic mode last Monday, because I realized that I have a little over 3 weeks to get my analysis done and a poster designed and printed for October. So I've been staying late in lab pretty much every night since (I took one night off because I was completely exhausted, but still). I'm fairly certain I'll be able to get it done (I really don't have a choice....), but I'm really hoping my analysis works the first time I run it. (Yes, I know that's an unrealistic goal. I've planned for it to not work. Stop laughing at me.)

Anyhow. I'm at work now, supposedly getting some of my analysis done. I made decent progress yesterday, before I accidentally napped for four hours. Have done decently today. I'm hoping to get through 3 more files by the end of the day, and possibly work on a different section of the project tonight. My timeline is doable, I think.

Re: field work -- not gonna happen. Bugger. Maybe she'll still want to take me next year? Or I'll be able to go for a few weeks in the spring? Labmate S. flew to his field site yesterday for three weeks - lucky him. Hope it goes well. Labmates K. and J. aren't going anywhere anytime soon, though. I'm sort of afraid I'm coming off as a bad person to my new labmate, because I tend to vent to anyone who's around and she's been around a lot. Which is a problem, because I really like her and I'd like to not come off as a bitch. I'll have to work on changing that.

What does one do about a particularly irritating coworker, though? Sharing an office with this person is grating on my nerves (and probably the other officemates' nerves as well), because they doesn't seem to care about anyone else's comfort and makes comments that (intentionally or not) insult people. And then has the nerve to ask for help and snap when they don't understand. Previous dicussions about certain issues (ie bugs in the office) have not helped and only brought on snarky comments. I am about at the end of my rope with this person, and I'd rather it not come down to a screaming match. If you have any suggestions, toss them my way.

Alright. 3 files to go today, then reading up on windows and pulse rates. :)

Assumptions and altruism

I recently read "Among Whales" by Roger Payne. For those who haven't read it, it's his account of living in Argentina and working with right whales, and some of his ideas on science and whales that he hasn't actually done the research to back up, etc. He mentions that if his ideas provoke someone into trying to disprove them, he'd be glad. Well. Consider me provoked.

One of his ideas is that fin whales produce 20 Hz sounds in order to advertise food patches to the rest of the "herd" in the Southern Ocean. Over a whale's lifetime, it will be both the advertiser and the recipient, and the process will continue by reciprocal altruism as all whales benefit and contribute by turns. Sounds all nice and cuddly, doesn't it? But when I read that portion (multiple times, mind you, just to be sure I wasn't missing some key part that would make the whole idea make sense) all that struck me was that he was assuming that no one was cheating (listening without advertising in return), and that no other species were involved. Maybe my background in game theory and ecological modeling shaped my opinions, but why should fin whales advertise patches of krill to other species (blue whales, humpbacks, etc) that very probably can hear and interpret the 20 Hz calls? It made no sense to me, so I started looking for published studies.

One paper from Nature found that only male fin whales in a certain area were producing sounds (9 of 21 males calling; 0 of 22 females calling). Reciprocal altruism under those conditions would not work; all females are thus "cheaters". And what about the non-calling males? Were they not in a food patch at the time, or were they just not advertising that they had found food? The authors of the paper postulate that the calling males are advertising food patches to females in order to secure mating opportunities based on the following facts: 1) only males called; 2) the study area was used for feeding; 3) the calls are acoustically optimal for long distance signalling; and 4) fin whales do not aggregate in specific areas for breeding.

I am willing to be convinced that male fin whales may "mate gift" food patches to females before mating, but the reasoning in the Nature paper seems very weak. I'm reminded of a study breeding amphibians, in which certain males produced calls to attract females, while "satellite" males lurked near the callers and waited for females to approach. When they did, the satellite would attempt to "steal" a mating opportunity from the caller. Isn't it possible that fin whales follow the same strategy? A silent male locates a caller and lurks nearby until the female approaches for food. Then, he either attempts to mate, or begins to call only when he knows a female is nearby. Or, he simply eats the food himself and benefits in that way.

The evidence that I would need to be convinced of "mate gifting" is 1) a long term, individual based study on which males call when; and whether or not they are consistently next to food when they call, 2) a study of paternity in which calling males have increased breeding success as opposed to silent males, and 3) a study indicating that females are indeed attracted to 20 Hz calls during the breeding season. (I am under the impression that the calls are highly seasonal, which is appropriate to a mating display. If they are not seasonal, and still males are the only callers, I would still want evidence from studies 1 & 2 above.)

Reciprocal altruism is difficult to prove at the best of times, and systems of large, long-lived, fast-moving, and geographically widespread animals are NOT ideal for altruism studies. I admit that it may be found in some cetacean species; however, it requires a huge burden of proof, and this system currently does not have that.

New semester: day 3

The undergrads are back on campus. Have been for a few days, actually, but I tried to avoid noticing until I absolutely had to. It's not bad, just....different. Much more active and fast paced than this summer was.

I hadn't actually intended to take classes this fall, but I ended up signing up for a few last week. I may still have to drop one or two if I end up going on fieldwork with Advisor, but that's still tbd. One of my courses is an upper level undergrad class, and I spoke to the professor about leaving for 3 weeks in the middle of the semester, and he was very understanding - nice to know that some people actually think about these things. :)

Lab stuff is going well... Advisor has projects and labmate K. and new labmate J. to entertain her for a week or so while I frantically try to get my projects in order. Though, braindead as I am I left an essential piece of paper at work yesterday and can't be productive from home this morning as I planned. (Dentist appointments or anything else off campus in the middle of the morning throw off everything. ugh.)

My apartment is almost decorated... I have two or three pictures left to hang, and my new kitchen floor is getting put in on Monday.

No science news today...more political. Senator Edward Kennedy died last night or this morning. I know he had all sorts of admirable views and got important laws passed, but all I can think of is his stance and influence in the Cape Wind Farm issue off Cape Cod. I don't know if I'd support the wind farm myself, as I haven't had a chance to read all of the reports, but Kennedy's NIMBY stance on it grates on my nerves.

Podcast news

I've discovered podcasts. I don't know why it's taken me this long, but it made for a good day. I have free Spanish lessons (with the English bit in a Scottish accent, which makes me giggle), and three difference science podcasts, all for free.

2 of the science podcasts come from PRI. I have "PRI's the world: Science" and "PRI: Science and Creativity from Studio 360". Both very interesting, with lots of different topics about all aspects of biology, physics, etc.

The third one I got is "COSEE NOW: Ocean Gazing", produced by Ari Daniel Shapiro, who is himself a cetacean biologist. The show covers lots of aspects of oceanography, including cetacean acoustics. His website is well worth a visit.

Science can be tedious

Don't really have a whole lot to say today... mostly just trying to keep up with my homework and research deadlines. Made a bit easier and a bit harder by the fact that my advisor was out of town tagging humpies all last week. I can't make up my mind about whether or not I wanted to go... it certainly would have been more fun than my week, but I have so much to do that I don't think it would have been a good idea. Oh well.

Labmate K. is still away. This makes 2+ weeks. I can't imagine that our advisor will be incredibly pleased, but I can't really talk, either, because I've been known to take work with me and leave for a month at a time. Hmmm.

New labmate should be arriving soon, which will be good. Then I move apartments and get ready for a month of fieldwork with the advisor. I can't wait to get out of here, but I'm kind of nervous at the same time. I guess that's the price of doing new things...

A bit more depth, for now.

Alright - since this was set up during a bout of procrastination, I might as well continue that. (and somewhere inside of me, the little person who likes deadlines cringes and dies a bit more. oops?)

My deadline is Monday on a report that I'm supposed to have been working on for months. Key words there: "supposed to". I'm leaving for about a week on Tuesday, so whatever isn't done by Monday probably won't get done before I meet with these people the following week. Dammit. My procrastination habit is not helpful. At all.

I was one of those kids that decides at about ten years old that they want to be a marine biologist. Well, I did it. I went to a state university with an excellent marine biology program and graduated in 2007. During a couple of summers there, I had great internships with two research groups on the East Coast of the US, met my eventual graduate advisor, and applied for grad school inland. I started in the fall of 07.

My family is several states away from here, and while I see them a few times a year, I'd like to be around a bit more. Especially now, because of some recent medical things. But that's where my trip next week takes me, so I can be patient for a few more days. I'm taking one of my good friends out there to do some touristy things and to visit with my family and some of my friends from high school (always an experience in themselves...).

I haven't gotten started with my real field research yet; I've just essentially completed my thesis proposal, and am getting my committee together. I feel like I'm behind the rest of the students in my cohort, but then I remember that their field sites a) don't generally involve boats or massive amounts of permits, and b) are much much closer than mine. I'm still going to have to bust my tail to get out of here in three or four more years, though. (This isn't to say I have no field experience - I've been helping Advisor out with her projects, and will do so again in July and September. My work, though, is completely separate from hers.)

For the moment, I have one labmate (K.) and one pseudo-labmate (S.), who works in a related lab under a different advisor. They are both in a different program than I am, which I appreciate: my program requires much less mathiness. There's the possiblity of another labmate for next year, but we'll have to see how it goes. I'm meeting the prospective student on Monday before I leave.

As far as my philosophy on life, I'm politically pretty liberal, and generally laid back (at least, I think so.). I enjoy reading, spending time outside and especially on boats, hiking, scuba diving, and a variety of other things. I also (as you may have noticed) have an awful procrastination habit. My motto appears to be "do it right, but do it later". I'm working on fixing that. Eventually.

I'm spending this summer in the lab, with a few trips outside for fieldwork or vacations. And on that note, I should get down to work. Ta!