Today: The Grind

View of the Mediterranean (Antalya, Turkey)

It's already February. My dad always told me that your life accelerates. When I was a first grader, it seemed like the summer stretched on forever, to the point that I actually looked forward to school starting again. How I miss those days.

This semester I am teaching four (3 hour) sections of general biology lab until March 6, when I will trade off with another grad student, who will take over for the rest of the course. I am doing this for two reasons: 1) I need a real break from TA duties to analyze my song data from this summer--I have 117 hrs of raw recordings to sort through, isolate songs, figure out who sang them, and take measurements to see how different aspects of song performance affect mating success; 2) I am leaving for Turkey to begin the new field season on April 14th, so I would not be able to finish teaching if I didn't double up on labs.

In addition to my concerns about the upcoming field season (I won't hear about funding decisions on grant proposals I've submitted until March and possibly into April) and how I'm going to interpret my data from this summer, I've also got my 3rd semester meeting coming up in two weeks. It's that dreaded three hour all-of-biology quiz show where I am the contestant, there is no audience, and if I lose, it means--you better get a move on or no PhD for you! So I have a lot of reading and review and worrying to do. But, that's about it. Just the ol' work-a-day grind. Results of the meeting and grants to come.

Cool link of the day: (Thanks to Charlie) Solar-Powered Sea Slug

Next --> Predictions