Posted by barb on Jun 20, 2003 in
Thesis/Grad Life The plan was to go to The Hulk after my defense, but I only wanted to go to a matinee showing (I’m cheap, and I hate crowds). Unfortunately, the defense went about 20 minutes too long for us to make the last matinee (at 4:45 PM). Instead, we went straight to the Macaroni Grill for dinner, and then I dragged Andrew around the mall for several hours. (Oh, shut up. He needed some new shorts, so part of the trip was for him.)
I dragged him into the Build a Bear store (for probably the umpteenth time). He was a good sport, but I could tell that he was tired of taking me in there every time we went to the mall. So, I decided that it was time to put together a bear for myself. But what to do? Based on the day, it seemed appropriate to do a PhD-candidate bear. What does this entail? Well, we dressed the bear in grad-student clothes (a peasant top, shorts, sandals and glasses), and bought her a school bag (the kind that has a flap under which you can insert pencils and a calculator). Her name is Felicia , and she’s working on her thesis in my home office as I write this. (She even has her proposal defense talk in her bag with her.)
Posted by barb on Jun 20, 2003 in
Thesis/Grad Life The proposal defense was at 2 PM.
All morning I tried not to worry too much about the defense. I did do a bit of cramming, trying to track down a tidbit on column density/flux correlations in Seyfert 2 galaxies and how this might indicate that not all Seyfert 2s are created equal, but I couldn’t find it. Fortunately, I didn’t need it.
At about 10 AM, I decided that it was silly to cram for the defense. I had no idea what the committee might ask, so there was no way to prepare any more than I already had in writing the proposal and presentation. So, I went back to analyzing the Akn 120 data set. It’s odd how playing with data has a calming effect. In some ways, it’s so mechanical that the brain can just go on autopilot. On the other hand, there’s the knowledge that this data set might, just might, hold some cool bit of science that no one has seen before, and if I could just find it. I didn’t get further than fitting the first spectrum to my four models, but I was encouraged that it showed a strong sign of reflection (which none of my other four sources so far had shown). I had been getting worried that I was doing something wrong with the data.
At 11 AM, I received a very encouraging e-mail from my UMD advisor (“Try to have fun this afternoon… you’ve got a good proposal that should sail through, so you can mainly use this as an opportunity to harvest ideas from Cole and Pat.” — Cole and Pat were the committee members, besides Chris and Kim). Unfortunately, I didn’t feel any less nervous after that. Sigh.
I tried to think about lunch at noon, but couldn’t manage to get too excited. I didn’t really want to put anything into my stomach that might just end up coming back out again. I did manage to have a bag of Veggie Chips, and a small cup of applesauce, but even those made me feel barfy.
My plan was to leave for the university at 1 PM. It only takes about 15 minutes to get from Goddard to UMD, but I thought I’d stop by Stef’s office for a bit, and let her boost me up a bit. Just before leaving, I decided to check my favorite blogs. I skimmed through Wil Wheaton ‘s entry for yesterday , and paused as I got to the “Thought for the Day”:
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
–Thoreau
Holy crap! How appropriate was that for me today? I have wanted to go as far as my intellect could could take me in my education for as long as I can remember. I’ve known that I wanted to be Dr. Barb since I entered college over ten years ago. So what if I’ve hit some bumps and slow patches on the way? So what if I took the scenic route for a couple years? So what if I had to take a year-long pit stop to find the strength to pursue my dream again? I’ve made it. I know where I want to go. I know how to get there. And all I have left to get to full candidacy is this silly little proposal defense today. Somehow, the thought that I was finally following where my dreams had led me was more encouraging than anything anyone else could say.
That’s not to say that I wasn’t still nervous. I won’t go into details on the defense itself. Let me just say that it went pretty well. There were a few questions that Chris had to lead me toward the answer to, but overall the committee thought the project was worthwhile. I’m excited to get back to work on it.
Posted by barb on Jun 17, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
This is a very difficult movie to watch. A former neo-Nazi (Derek; Edward Norton), fresh out of prison, endeavors to keep his brother from following in his foot steps. Black and white flash backs tell the story of Derek’s seemingly inevitable path to jail for murdering two black men who were prowling around his house. We also see the signs of the same path being followed by Danny (Edward Furlong), Derek’s brother.
While the content may be hard to watch, this is definitely a worthwhile, and important, film.
Posted by barb on Jun 16, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
The movie follows a young man (Homer; Tobey Maguire) on his first venture away from the orphanage where he grew up. Homer was trained as a doctor at the orphanage (and the director (Dr. Larch; Michael Caine) hoped Homer would succeed him. But Homer needed to see more of the world.
Woven through the main story are statements about abortion, racism, and incest, which make it difficult to watch at some points. However, they also make the story full and rich.
Posted by barb on Jun 14, 2003 in
Concerts We bought tickets for the NSO “Gershwin Galore” show at Wolf Trap a couple weeks ago. We figured that it had to stop raining all the time by then, so we bought lawn tickets. Hee hee hee. Our county was under a storm warning pretty much all day, and in the afternoon we went to Target to get a couple lawn chairs to sit on, since the lawn would undoubtedly be wet. While we were there, the clouds rolled in. About a half hour later, while checking out a local used bookstore (McKays, which had a very large selection of sci-fi!), the rain started pouring down.
Well, nothing to do but go to the concert with an umbrella.
As it turned out, the storm must have passed to our south, because we didn’t get rained on, and in fact the clouds broke up just enough to see a couple of stars. The storm didn’t dissipate, though, because right as the orchestra was hitting the last note, a flash of lightening sparked in the distance.
Pieces that we heard:
Cuban Overture — I quite liked this one. I had forgotten that this one was first, and wondered why the Piano Concerto had a Caribbean feel to it. Duh!
Piano Concerto in F
Rhapsody in Blue — always love to hear this one. It reminds me of my first date with Andrew nearly three years ago, when we went to see Fantasia 2000
Porgy and Bess suite
Posted by barb on Jun 13, 2003 in
Thesis/Grad Life I worked a couple more days on the proposal this week, incorporating some comments from Kim, and I declared it finished yesterday. I’m certain that any omissions will come up during the defense next Friday (YIKES!). I’ll admit that I’m starting to get nervous….
Posted by barb on Jun 8, 2003 in
Around DC,
Movies I wanted to see Spellbound, so as a reward for working so hard yesterday with such spectacular results (see yesterday’s entry), Andrew took me up to Bethesda to see it. He also took me to lunch (yummy portabella fajitas at the Austin Grill) afterwards.
One of our favorite used bookstores is in that area of Bethesda, too, so we poked around there for a while. I found a pop-up book of the Universe (cool!) and an oversized book on celestial maps. Unfortunately I did not find Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, the second in Frederik Pohl’s Heechee series. Of course, the state of the sci-fi section was such that if you weren’t very motivated, you would never find a single book (lots of books on far too little shelf space).
Overall a very good day, making yesterday all the more worthwhile.
Posted by barb on Jun 8, 2003 in
Movies 4.5/5 stars
This is a documentary following 8 children participating in the National Spelling Bee. Excellent film.
Posted by barb on Jun 7, 2003 in
Thesis/Grad Life I spent the bulk of the day at the library doing a complete re-write of my thesis proposal. After re-reading the draft I sent Kim and Chris, I’m completely embarrassed! Chris sent me comments, and I began to wonder if we had read the same paper, but as I combed through the paper more today, and read over my stack of journal articles, I saw his point, and what I needed to do.
Andrew came with me, and I was worried that he would get bored, since the plan was to stay until the re-write was done or the library closed. It was nice to have him there, though, since he reminded me when I needed to get lunch. (We headed off to Anita’s around 12:30 PM — after I’d been working for 2.5 hours, and completed reworking the first big section.) As it turned out, he had plenty to do looking up books on how to buy a used car. He also went out to a nearby comic book store for a bit. And I finished the re-write by 3:30 PM.
I spent another 4 or so hours at home entering the re-write into LaTeX, but overall the day was very productive, and I’m happy with the resulting proposal. It’s much stronger, and more coherent than the draft I turned in on Monday.
Posted by barb on Jun 6, 2003 in
Movies 0/5 stars
I want that hour and a half of my life back. Yes, I know the movie is actually about 2 hours, but I didn’t even finish. The story and characters were one dimensional and completely uninteresting.