Happy New Year, President's Day, Darwin Day, Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day!
Another semester started and this one has been the busiest time of my life. Graduate school is not like undergraduate studies. I have to participate in "professional development" and department functions such as professor position interviews. Abstracts for the 98th annual Ecological Society of America meeting were due this week and my adviser recommended that I submit one. The instructions stated, "Abstracts without explicitly stated results will be REJECTED. These results may be preliminary but they may not be vague."
Did this scientist-in-training meet those requirements? Well, it's my first year and I am not doing any research related to my master's work so...
I'll find out in May.
I'm going to a smaller meeting in a few weeks in Williamsburg, VA. This is a conference devoted to birds and Peter and Rosemary Grant will be there to give a talk! For you non-biologists out there, this is like me meeting (insert favorite celebrity and/or top individuals in your field)! I also was awarded some money to cover the travel costs and I'm giving a short (12 minute) talk at the meeting. I am looking forward to it.
I am also looking forward to spring break but probably not for the usual reasons. As I mentioned earlier, this has been the busiest semester so far. I have never had this much to do or this many events/meetings/seminars happening all in the same 3 week period. After the bird meeting which is the week before spring break, I should have at least a few weeks where I won't be nearly as busy with all these extra grad school/academic-in-training thingys. I will have a chance to work on my dissertation proposal! Wooo hooo!!
Step aerobics and Icelandic folk-indie music get me through Monday-Friday. And a beer or two.
I have been enjoying the warm weather but I still miss the snow. But I can't complain about 80 and sunny in February.
Besides all that, Tampa is still Tampa. It's warm because...
it's Florida. There was one day where the temperature dropped below freezing. And when I say below, I mean like 30 F. A windchill advisory last weekend warned "wind chills as low as the 30's or 20's".
And it did mean 20 or 30 ABOVE zero. Amusing.
I'll try to get out but I never will, traffic is perfectly still.
