Christmas is coming

Today was the last day of the "Santa Claws Pet Photos" at Petsmart. It was soooo busy almost all day. Lots of customers got photos of their dogs with Santa, and even two people brought in their cats! It was a great day. The afternoon Santa was late, so I filled in as Santa for about an hour. It was kinda fun, but really hot. I only did one picture with two dogs, but it was fun!

Me playing Santa

I also had an awesome dinner (courtesy of a patron at the library who gave me a gift card) at Montana's. SO full now. The cookie skillet for dessert didn't help! And now I am sooo tired. I bought my cat two gifts today while I was at Petsmart and have them hidden. The cat knows exactly where they are and is crying so that will make for a fun night of listening to that!

Back to real life tomorrow. Will blog about more important things soon!!

What a week!

This past week has been insane. Just totally nuts. I marked exams for hours, upon hours, upon hours this week. And I finished them all by Thursday night which was awesome. Monday night we held an e-readers course and it was busy! I think all 12 spots were filled and we helped people with Kobos, Ipads, etc. set up their device to read ebooks. Tuesday night I had a busy class at my regular library with 4 people showing up. 4 is the perfect number since everyone is doing something different.

Wednesday after a full day of marking, I spent 5 hours at Courtney's house making centrepieces for our biology department Xmas party. They turned out awesome!

The prototypes

Many, many bottles

I didn't get home until after midnight. Thursday I marked literally every second of the day until my hair appointment at 5:00 PM. I went to Luce for the first time, my friend Sarah gave me a refer a friend 20$ off coupon. The stylist Emily did an awesome job and although it was a long 2.5 hours, it was a relaxing 2.5 hours. I soaked up all the free stuff that I usually say no to, drinks, hand massages, etc.

The new hair

 After that I met Court to go shopping for a) Christmas sweaters and b) more stuff for the party. Then I went back to the lab, and we discussed activities for the party while I finished out door decorating. Each year our dept has a door decorating contest. This year our theme was "Santa does field work". I taped an obscene amount of fake flowers and grass to our door, and put all the students in our labs faces on elf bodies, and my supervisor was Santa (basking in the sun and doing no work of course). Then Court and I spray painted (after cutting down) a bunch of branches. I made it home by 11:30 that night.

Spray painting twigs late at night

Our door

Santa

Sarah trimming the tree

Me playing with butterflies

Blaire

My X-mas vest

Friday was spent running around like crazy people all day trying to get stuff for the party. The Xmas tree, the table cloths, the prizes and decorations. It was a CLOSE call. Just as people were arriving we finished putting everything together and up. The venue looked great. The food from the caterer was great, the lasagna especially was delicious and the bar was obviously good too. After last night I think that gin and tonic is my new drink... soooo delicious. All of the activities we planned were also really successful and everyone staff, faculty, undergrads and grad students were good sports. We played a model organism game where you had to dress a member at your table up as a model organism. SOMEHOW my supervisor's wife convinced him to let us decorate him....but first he had to go get another drink from the bar...understandable. He made me swear to never posts pictures of this on the Internet, so I won't....for now. He was supposed to be a mouse, and it was not obvious what he was, he literally looked like a pig/hamster gone horribly wrong. Even the head of the dept came over and asked "what the hell are you???" We also had candles lit on all the tables, and our tissue paper ignited! Oops.

The party all set up and ready to go

Centrepieces looking great

The party in full swing

Cleaning up afterwards was rough, but it all got done. One of the things I was in charge of was the Sears wish tree drive, where people donated money towards a gift for a kid on the wish tree at sears. I got there today, and ended up getting a nice watch for a teenage girl. I was happy with the purchase it was so nice!

Tonight, I need to seriously, get my life together... my apartment is a NIGHTMARE. And I have absolutely NO groceries. I have spices and oil, a few frozen vegetables and some dry pasta. I literally think that's it. I don't think I have cooked this week, other than maybe a grilled cheese and a few eggs which I am now out of all of the above I think. I have eaten subway, or cans of soup or just eaten somewhere on the run all week. I want to cook, just no energy to.

Tomorrow, I am doing photos with Santa all day at Petsmart again, just like I did two weeks ago. And then going to dinner.... so I guess no cooking tomorrow either!

It's only ten days until Christmas. SO crazy. This time next week I will (hopefully) have a rental car and be packing it up because one week from tomorrow morning I am headed home for Christmas!

Winter is here, at least for a moment

Last night we got a lot of freezing rain, rain and snow. I went to bed thinking "winter is finally here". And this morning, it has pretty much recovered. There is a little snow on the ground, but that's it.

Today will be a busy day, like Mondays always are. I have some time at the library this morning, and then need to get marking those exams. In fact, I managed to work for MANY hours straight yesterday and finish 100/400. So that's not bad. I also have a meeting today with a few Biograds-we have formed an ad-hoc committee to help plan out our grad student research day in January. We have done NOTHING for this, because a) it wasn't our idea it was the faculty's idea b) we have no idea what is expected. We are hoping to come up with a proposal this afternoon and send that off to the faculty and most importantly, see if they will pay for it. Tonight is the last Monday night course of 2012: Ebooks and overdrive. Not one I am terribly excited (or knowledgeable about) so I won't be sad when it's over!

I am excited to get marking over with and start working on my project again. I have a potential collaborator in Australia which is really exciting and I can't wait to explore that!

I also FINALLY submitted my Gradifying blog post last night, if it actually gets published I'll post the link here.

Off to start the day, BYE!

Quick update

It’s a Sunday morning, well, afternoon I guess, and I am sitting here at my desk in my office, with my favourite earl grey tea latte and waiting to start marking the final exam for the course I TA. Not the greatest way to spend a Sunday but I guess it could be worse.

The last few days have been busy, I taught 2 busy classes at the library this week, and made a lot of progress in terms of developing a PhD project. I will get more detailed about this when I have more time to blog. I am relieved that I finally have something to get started thinking about and am excited to develop my project further and get everything figured out. It will be an experiment…which is always nerve-wrecking but it will be SO cool.

On Friday night my friends Sarah, Kari and I, joined my little sister from BBBS at the BBBS Charity Gift Wrap at the mall. It wasn't very busy but everyone had a great time and we raised some money for them which was great.

This week brings lots of marking, amongst other things like helping prepare for the biology Christmas party, the actual biology Christmas party, getting my hair done (nicely… I HOPE…for a change), lots of meetings, and more.

I will try to be a better blogger soon, I swear!

How is it 2 PM?

Yesterday was a fairly productive day for me...shocking I know. So today I am compensating for that, which I really shouldn't be doing at all. I have been at the lab for about 5.5 hours now, and accomplished next to nothing. I have been doing a bunch of busy work like typing up meeting minutes, setting up the Biograds Moodle site, photocopying and filling out a scholarship application. I just set out my lunch of chicken keilbasa, cheese, crackers and vegetables to "take a break"...as if I need one.

My new stuff

I ordered a bunch of stuff off of amazon on Tues night and it arrived yesterday but I missed UPS so picked it up this AM. My two new mice, my USB port extender and my pre-ordered Galapagos book all arrived. I was pretty excited. Half way through the morning I could hear a jingling behind me and suddenly a chocolate lab was sitting behind me. She came under my desk, sat for awhile, sniffed the garbage can. I took her out in the hall and in due time, Shelley, a faculty member came to claim her. Was a nice mid-morning surprise.

Gracie, my visitor, checking out my breakfast wrapper in the garbage

I guess I should do something... ANYTHING. Sometimes I seriously amaze myself. I accomplish nothing, but am never actually doing nothing. Quite the phenomenon!

One of those good moments

Last night, I had a chat with an older woman at the library, who seems to have adopted me as her granddaughter. She started her PhD, which was in the Philosophy of Learning, in her 50's. We were talking about how hard it is to get through a PhD and the ups and downs of the journey. Hers is actually undefended for a slew of unfortunate reasons. Anyways, I was talking about how lately it has been an uphill battle, just making it through day to day. It's been almost 3 months of it. And she said, well, you know your're doing the right thing if at least part of the time you doubt yourself and think what the hell am I doing? But there are always going to be those moments when you know you are doing the right thing. When you are so consumed in your research because you love it or, when you discover something, read something or figure something out  that you have been working on.

Today was (sadly) the second time that has happened in 3 months, but at least it happened. I have been working on the data analysis for my recruitment project (the data I collected throughout the fall). Today after hours of fiddling with the spreadsheet, ratios, log transforming variables, double checking all my data and addition, came that gut-wrenching moment when you put the data in to run your tests. First I had plotted the scatterplot and after that I knew. I could tell it was obviously a negative trend, I could even see it was significant. What are the chances? Obviously, I spent the next few hours trying to figure out if I somehow screwed this up, but I don't think I did. It's real. Pretty crazy, smaller plants are recruiting more offspring for the future generations than larger plants are, relative to other species. Makes me excited to get my MSc written up and submitted for publication.

I have lots of more work to do, and now 5 project ideas to develop, package together nicely, and decide what my proposal will focus on, and what parts of my project can be completed as an undergraduate thesis and then collaborated with for my dissertation.

Teaching the computer basics course at Isabel Turner

This is not the picture I wanted but one of my TBBT sessions with Lonnie

Check Mate. Game over.

Trying to get back into things

I am pretty sure that I have blogged a lot in the past about how I like routine. I like to get into habits, and I like to stick with those habits. This whole academic term so far has made that utterly impossible. I know what hours I am at the library every week and I try not to change that. I meet with my supervisor at the same time every Wednesday. Coffee time, meetings, office hours, I have those all permanently scheduled in and I try not to change them.

These past 8 days or so now have been tough. My routine was totally broken. And now I need to find a way to get back into one.

I guess your question may be, why was the routine so broken? Well, I had family visiting over the past week, some would come, then more would come, then some would go, then more would come. It was exhausting, but so worth it. I love when my family comes here and gets to experience my life first hand. And we got to do a lot of things too.

My Mom, sister and I went to KHS on Friday night for a midnight madness event, in which the KHS was open until midnight, and wanted to get as many cats adopted as was possible. They ended up getting 28 cats adopted, and the final adoption, of an older black cat Ashra, left all of the KHS followers on Facebook on edge. Thankfully, someone came through an adopted him just after midnight. It was a huge success. I got to show my Mom and sister the society and they held and played with a lot of the cats that were there. I think it is overwhelming at first for anyone, I know it was for me, and for both of them, but so worth it.

On Saturday, I took them to the Common Ground, for the famous Top Secret Bagel. We then walked around some stores downtown, looking at all of the Christmas stuff and had lunch at the Toucan, a pub in downtown Kingston, and used the gift certificate I had won for there in the Big Paws at the Point live auction in August. They also checked out the Farmer's Market and experienced the wonder that is Wolfe Island Bakery. Then we headed home to watch Elf (Fave Xmas movie) and then to the Kingston Santa Claus parade- a night time parade that runs down Princess St. It was long, and cold, but a lot of fun. In my 6 or whatever years here I have never gone outside and watched the entire thing. I used to be able to see it from my window when I lived downtown on Princess.

Foster kitten Rosie

Sunday came, and this was my last chance to get out to QUBS. I needed to go to QUBS because I had some stuff to make sure was good to go for the winter. My Mom and sister tagged along. It was unfortunate because at this time of the year, there is nothing really nice to see there. All of the leaves have fallen, and there's no snow, everything is just blah. But I think they enjoyed seeing what QUBS was and what it is that I always talk about. We prepared a few things for a big dinner on Monday night and I took them to see my friend Kari's foster kittens. They are SO cute.



On Sunday night, I found out my Poppa was really sick and him and my Nana couldn't make it to Kingston. I was disappointed but I knew it was for the best that he not come. My Dad came up Monday though, and we had an awesome dinner of beef stew and chicken sandwiches that we prepared the evening before. We then went shopping around the Riocan for awhile and I got a 4 foot Christmas tree from Michaels, and two new fish for my tank (I only had 2/6 left, it was looking a bit too empty in there). Then we all watched Christmas with the Kranks (2nd fave).

2 new dalmatian lyretail Mollie fish: Spot and Sally

Little Xmas tree all lit up

Tuesday rolled around, the day of my Convocation, the reason everyone had come up. We got to campus early to get a good parking spot and then headed over to Grant Hall at 9AM. I got my gown and hood and was lucky that my friend Sarah, whom I have known since first year, was right behind me in the procession. Everything went smoothly.

We had a guest speaker, Gerretson Trudeau (of the comic strip Dunesbury), who also received an Honourary degree. He gave an amazing speech, that was very witty including this great joke:

"Doctor, Doctor, I can't help it, I just keep thinking I'm a moth" 
"you need a psychiatrist not a doctor"

"I know, but I was walking past and I saw your light was on...."

My Mom and sister headed home that afternoon, so my Dad and I toured around Kingston a bit. We checked out the new FarmBoy grocery store that opened, and went for a nice walk at Lemoine Point, a local conservation area. I showed him how to get Chickadees to land in your hands (they overwinter there) and we got followed by one very fat and oddly friendly squirrel for most of our walk. We had a great dinner at my favourite Greek restaurant, Minos, and then went to see the movie Argo. It was amazing. After seeing it we decided that, we had to sneak into the Convocation ceremony the following day, which featured guest speaker and Honourary degree recipients President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. It was incredible. He may not have been the most well-liked President, in terms of his policies, etc. but he is one HELL of a good person. Him and his wife are unbelievable humanitarians. He gave a wonderful speech about all the things he has done, and his wife spoke about taking time to give back before you really get tied down. It was so ironic as he also brought up the movie Argo, and expressed that he was disappointed with the movie because it made the Americans look so heroic, when it was really Canada that did everything. That experience is one that I know I will never forget. My Dad left that afternoon and then I drove to Napanee to visit with my friend Sarah (different one) and have tea.

The next day, Thursday, I was back in the lab, trying to get stuff done. I really didn't. At all. my brother was due to arrive that evening so I knew I had a tight time frame to work with but that didn't seem to motivate me. I did some things, but could have done more. My brother arrived late in the afternoon with his friend Steve. We were all going to a concert that night and they were going to stay overnight at my place. We had dinner at Texas Lonestar Grill and then headed over to the concert at about 6:45, the doors opened at 7. We had GA tickets so we stood right at the front. By right at the front I mean NO ONE was in front of use, except for Security of course. Big Wreck was the opening band and they were awesome. Then Theory of a deadman took the stage at about 9:30. I have been a fan of theirs for years, but this summer especially I have  been on a TOADM kick. The show was awesome. We were in front of the speakers though so my hearing is just now, 2 days later, back to normal. We got home around midnight, and went to bed shortly after. I had to work in the morning and they wanted to fish so everyone left pretty early.

I have to say that after typing that I realize why I am so tired now. 

"I'm leaving here dead or alive"

I'm caught in a hurricane. I'm leaving here dead or alive. And I know that I'd be willing to feel the pain, if it got me to the other side. 

Those are words from one of the songs by Theory of  Deadman I am too familiar with (you can listen above). There is always a song, that I listen to, and somehow relate to my life. Now, I doubt that they wrote this song about a struggling PhD student... but you never know. Regardless, it pins down to a tee exactly how I feel lately.

The tropical storm (hurricane) that I am stuck in is undoubtedly my PhD. It's been about 2.5 months now since I started and it has been, and will probably remain, an uphill battle. I am sure that every student goes through this. The awkward pre-comps phase where you have no idea what you are doing and would much prefer to crawl in a hole and never come out. I can't wait for this phase to be over. Although, it's funny how no matter what stage you are in of your research, you are excited to get there, until the high wears off and reality sinks in. I remember so vividly writing up my MSc thesis thinking I can't wait to start thinking of a PhD project. BOY do I regret that one now!!! Karrrrma!

What surprises me, is that I am actually not THAT down about it. I am more stressed about it then depressed, which in my world is a good thing. I have this mentality, that eventually, I want the impossible, a job in Academia (in the unfunded Natural Sciences) and thus, I will stick with this until it literally kills me. If it does kill me, well it was a good try I guess.

I never thought my MSc would kill me. The main difference is that now, I do so many other things that aren't research related and it's easy to get side-tracked. And then, research comes back into the picture, it is usually the middle of the night, and then it consumes me. I think I have blogged before about finding a balance, and that is still something I am desperately trying to balance.This blog is actually me taking a break from the brutal poster marking I have been doing all day - and should get back to!

Ironically, it looks a bit like a hurricane hit my desk. 

Photo BLOG!

Little buck hanging out in the woods at QUBS

Rosie, one of Kari's new foster kittens

Rosie and her tiny paws

Rosie's sister Lola

My thesis in all it's glory

Gulab Jamun (Indian dessert from the Indian Booth
at the Queen's Farmer's  market)

Best fresh raspberries ever

Pretty evening sky

Biograds fundraiser (beef stew-pre cooking)

Beef stew cooked

Intense wipe board session with Lonnie

Gemma, beautiful german sheppard at KHS

Kittens at KHS

Busy remembrance day service at the water.