July 4th Vacation: Day 1

Happy Independence Day!  Better late than never, right?

So when I was finishing up my thesis I made my husband promise to take me on a trip to celebrate.  Because we're cheap and can never make up our minds about anything, we decided to keep it close to home and head out to Atlanta, Georgia.  On our first day there we went to Gladys Knight & Ron Winans' Chicken and Waffles, then headed over to the World of Coca-Cola, and visited The Vortex Bar & Grill for dinner.

The chicken & waffles place wasn't what I expected but it was still good.  The World of Coke was like a giant advertisement for coke products (ya think?) but was still fun.  And The Vortex was...not on par with my expectations.  I think my biggest disappointment was that they allowed smoking.

Lots of walking, but definitely a great day!  The hubs did a great job picking out a hotel...he even upgraded us to the Executive Level.  Here are some pictures for your enjoyment - sorry about the quality, I didn't take many this day:

This was my favorite part of the whole place.  I stayed here for a while.

Look closely...

16 oz. serves THREE!!

Everyone got a complimentary coke - you can see the bottles being transported at ceiling height.

Here's a better picture of the bottles - the big blue thing was the station where you could sample Coca-Cola products from North America.  There were four other stations but I can't remember now what they were.

Coming soon: Day 2 Georgia Aquarium & Atlanta Braves game!

The Little Engine That Could

I DID IT! 

I defended my thesis last Friday & passed.  I'll be honest, I was a nervous wreck & thought for a second that they might actually fail me (forgot to refresh my memory on the DNA analyses I did!). 

But let me tell you...last weekend was the best I've had in a while.  Such a burden off my shoulders.

I shall have to leave you now...I have more edits to do before I turn it in.  :)

Crunch Time!

Me releasing a Carolina northern flying squirrel - you can barely see it on the tree there.

• 95% done
• I'd like to submit my thesis to my committee members on Friday - might end up being Monday.
• My defense is next Friday at 3pm.
• I think I'll celebrate by taking a nice long hike in the woods.

A welcome retreat

Sunday afternoon I headed over to my coworker's house to do a little scrapbooking.  I had so much fun!  For one, it was the first time I'd ever sat down to scrapbook (I've had the stuff for years, just didn't know how to start) and second, it was absolutely wonderful to hang out with a peer and craft.  It was incredibly relaxing and just really good to socialize in a way that didn't involve my husband, a bar, or alcohol.  Sometimes it's just plain good to have some 'me' time. 

I'm not sure I've said anything about this here but my advisor gave me some deadlines...June 30th for a completed Results section and July 31st for a completed Discussion section.  *Side-note:  I've been thinking about moving from blogspot for a while now.  This might convince me--blogspot is saying I misspelled 'advisor'*  So I didn't meet the June 30th deadline but I'm so much further along than I was originally that I'll be okay with that.  As Dory would say, "Just keep swimming swimming swimming." 

After a recommendation from a friend, I purchased Turbo Fire.  Heard of Insanity or P90X?  It's basically another one of those programs.  It's killing me because I thought it would be here Saturday and it wasn't.  Thought it would be here today and it wasn't.  If it's not here tomorrow I'm going to rip my hair out.  I was thinking about documenting my journey with Turbo Fire with pictures and my thoughts in a blog--seems like I'd stick with it and would be able to see my progress better.  I'm tempted to create a new password protected one with just my bout with Turbo Fire, but I'm beginning to think I should just document it in this blog & password protect it here--I've been thinking about doing that for a while anyway.

At any rate, those are my three thoughts for today.  Have a good one!

Career Path

It's sad when you want to stay away from Facebook because all of your veterinarian friends are posting about animals.  It makes me sad for what could have been.  And then I think, 'could have been'??  It makes me wonder if I should still try.  Yes?  No?  It's a big decision.  I'd have to be 200% sure it's what I really want and worth all of the cons.

My Calling?

My husband and I went on a hike with a friend this weekend.  It was absolutely awesome to be back outside again.  I couldn't tell you the last time I went on a hike it's been so long.

After my field research was complete I shipped my hiking boots back to the manufacturer because the seams were coming undone and I only had them a couple of months.  I never did get new boots, however, because they're just so blame expensive.  I feel like once I get a new pair I'll feel whole again.

I went looking back through my pictures of Belize and the river work I did.  Such great times.  I miss it so much and really look forward to doing field work again.  A GREAT feeling to have considering I went through a long period of time when I didn't want to think about hiking or going into a forest or anything.

I love love love love love the work I'm doing in the rec center right now and the people with whom I'm working.  Everyone is very mindful of their "wellness" and generally upbeat.  I can't imagine my life without fitness and positive people now.

I'll have to try to find some way to meld the two together.

P.S. My friend over at Wandering Thoughts wrote about having a glass of wine while working on her prospectus.  I tried that tonight and it didn't work so well.  My written words have a certain slant and letters keep getting transposed.  Perhaps I should work up to a full glass?  :)   

Feeling Productive

I'm sure you're all tired of reading about it, but it's a major part of my life.  I'm making major progress on my thesis.  Really, all it is is baby steps, but the baby steps are huge to me right now.  And right now, I'm seeing the light at the end of the thesis tunnel.

C had an Open House to work today, so I got the house to myself from 7:00 this morning and he'll probably be back in an hour.  In that time I was able to complete my sixth Methods edit.  A major feat considering most of what I had to edit was my "Data Analysis" section.  You want me to explain my data analysis to you??  Can you please give me an easier task?  How about describe what the squirrels look like?  I can do that. 

I am happy because I can know focus on doing fun things today like hanging out with C when he gets home.  Going to dinner with my fam.  Going to see Harry Potter at the University Center ($2 entry w/ free popcorn & drink).  I had a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch--always makes me happy.  I'm happy I've been successful with my 5k training.  I'm happy I'm lifting weights on my off days.  I've apparently gotten to a running length where I see differences in the fit of my clothes and on the scale.  Yay!

It has been a good day.  Tomorrow I will spend the afternoon (& evening maybe) at the library to complete my fifth Results edit.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Happy Valentine's Day!

How we celebrate at our household:  C plays World of Warcraft and me?  Well, I'm working on my thesis.  Right?  Right after this post.  I need to take a look at the thesis guidelines & formatting requirements.  Probably should've done that first thing, but whatever--I like a challenge.


I spent part of last Saturday at the library working on my Methods section.  Actually got a fair amount completed.  I had to because: 1. I have a meeting with my advisor tomorrow and 2. I'm to submit a "final" draft of my thesis to my advisor by March 7th if I want to graduate this semester.

As I sat there in the library checking Facebook for the umpteenth time sitting open in a window right next to my draft, I realized I needed to nix that distraction.  So guess what?  I deactivated my account.  YESIREEBOB I surely did!  I may reactivate once this whole thesis thing is over unless I find I like my life better without it.  So far I haven't missed anything except posting status updates and checking others' statuses and pictures when really bored.  That came out wrong.  Correction:  I miss having something to mess with on my phone when I'm bored.

End Post.

Hello 2011!

I've been MIA for a while...not sure whether I just haven't had much to say or I'm burnt out on technological life.  Both perhaps?

My sister had to yell at me to play my turn on Words with Friends.  Not sure what my deal with that was...I think it was because I was consumed with playing the best words possible & winning.  Needless to say, it took tons of time & therefore became not very much fun.  Now I'm just playing whatever word comes to mind (most of the time) and I'm enjoying it again.  Yay!

My husband bought me a to-do list app for my phone the other day.  It's call Epic Win & I think it was designed with me in mind.  They describe it as a role-playing game where you level up, collect loot, etc. as you complete the tasks on your to-do list.  Totally cheesy & totally me.

The house is pristine right now.  Bed made, dishes done, office clean, chili cooking, rolls rising...is it because of my new app?  I'm placing my bet on the thesis I don't want to face.  Moving on.

We watched Julie & Julia on our Netflix Instant Queue today.  I have to admit, I'd love to do that (just the working through a cookbook bit--not the blogging about it bit) but it'd have to be from a cupcake cookbook or something like that.  :o)

Two people asked me over break if I'd consider becoming a veterinarian.  I used to think I wanted to go that direction but after working at a vet clinic and hearing over and over how difficult it is to get into vet school, I decided against it.  Recently I've struggled with "my path".  As I've grown older I've come to realize, I'm smart, I can do it.  I haven't had much confidence in my capabilities up until now.  I'm contemplating looking into the programs at NCSU after I graduate.  I glanced at their website a couple of days ago & was surprised at how many options they provide.  My thoughts on this are:  What's the harm in trying?  I don't want to go through life thinking, "What if...?"  I'd also love the prestige...I'm sorry, but I don't want to be doing the grunt work of an administrative assistant my whole life.  I've spend the majority of my life in school, why not take a break?  If I've truly found where I need to/should be, it'll be fine. 

What am I passionate about?  What makes me happy?  My dogs.  Animals.  Doing wonderful things for all creatures, great and small.     

If you ever wondered what my field research was like...

I thought I might post a youtube video of the northern flying squirrel for my readers.  Little did I know I would stumble upon this gem of a video.  This is as close as you can get to understanding what I did out there.

I kept thinking, "Wow.  This is exactly what we did.  Wow.  They're talking about the subspecies I'm studying.  Wow.  They just mentioned the NCWRC (who I worked with)...& there's a comment below about the squirrels crossing the Cherohala (my study area)."  But I don't think it was filmed on the NC side of the Cherohala because there wasn't a tunnel on the road we took.  It might've been filmed on the TN side.

So yeah, that's part of what I did out in the field.  And when she was complaining about the poop--I would've been collected it in a vial for later DNA analyses.  We also set traps along traplines that we checked every morning & I did vegetation surveys in 10x10m plots around every place we found/trapped a squirrel & random plots corresponding to the known squirrel points.

Anyway, not sure why I'm blogging about it when I should be writing about it in my thesis.

Later gators!  Enjoy the video below!

ASB Conference Thoughts & Feelings

Went to the awards banquet last night...didn't win anything.  The submission instructions were terrible--in fact, I never saw any; I found out at the banquet.  Apparently you had to submit an abstract for a lot of them.  When we registered, we were to check the boxes next to the awards we wanted to apply to and most everyone assumed that was all we had to do.  Apparently not.

Which leads me to my next statement:  the ASB website is crap.  I would really like to use a stronger word, but I shall not.  I'll leave it at that.  Well, I will say this:  they need to either hire a company to do their website for them or if they already have someone doing it, fire them & hire someone else.

My university co-hosted the conference and it sounded like there was some sort of bickering going on between our folks and the ASB Conference folks.  Our folks (the meeting coordinators at least) didn't even attend the banquet.  Sounded like it was in protest, but I don't know for sure.

I was having a pretty good time until one award presenter stood up and spent about 5 minutes discussing the fact that he was not going to give out the award because no one could follow directions on how to submit.  We heard a gasp and an entire table got up and left while he was speaking.  The whole thing was just so ridiculous.  Okay, fine, say you're not giving out the award and leave it at that.  Don't go on & on about following directions and your award is so important that if people can't follow directions then they don't deserve the award.

Everything just kind of culminated and I came away feeling I was surrounded by hoity toity assholes.  The remaining smidgen of desire to pursue a career in Biology just flew out of my body.

Good.  Got that out.  Not going to think about it or talk about it again.  Until of course the bio students go out for beers--I'm sure it'll come up then.  ;o)

An aside:  a bird flew into our window today and laid crumpled on the ground still breathing and moving its eyes around.  I'm not very good with things like this (ex: the time our dog caught it's paw in-between the wire table and table rim of our outdoor furniture, flipped over, broke its toes, and hung there while I ran around screaming) so I called everyone I could think of until I got my brother on the phone (oddly enough he was the one that had to deal with me & the dog) who said don't worry about it, it's just stunned and will get up in a few minutes.  Sure enough, several minutes later this blue jay rights itself, sits there for a minute and then goes on its merry way.  Thank goodness!  I asked my brother what I do if it doesn't get up.  His answer, "Go get a shovel and smash it."  See picture proof below:

Oh yeah. Watchin' Lost tonight.

I've figured out how I work best.  Set small goals and reward myself when those goals are met.

Current goal:  1 page of Intro per day this week.
Reward:  I'll have the weekend to do whatever I want (that will obviously not be thesis related)

Mission accomplished (so far) got a page written last night & one tonight.  It's been a lot easier than I expected--probably because I've been copying a lot of text from other papers I've written on the subject.  And I've banished C from the office, so that helps.  It's far from perfect, but I'm taking my sister's advice & just plopping it down on paper--that's what editing is for, right?

Had the phone interview today for the job I currently have.  Noooooo, that wasn't awkward. *sarcasm*  But it went well and I'm looking forward to having health insurance soon.

Speaking of health insurance...wanna know something else that was awkward?  Received an email from my aunt with a bunch of jokes dissing Mr. President.  I guess she doesn't know I voted for him.  :o)

I shall end it there.

On a roll!

I'm on a high from getting research items finished; namely, my poster for the upcoming conference.  I think I may be goal & reward oriented, so the goal I'm setting for myself is to get 1 page of my intro written everyday after work with the weekends all to myself as a reward.  Starting Monday.  I'll let you know how it goes.  ;o)  1 page isn't much! 

Now to my bed & Into the Beautiful North.

Nose to the grind

Thesis Introduction due April 26 (~10 pgs)

Results due June 9th

Discussion due June 16th (5-10 pgs)

Finished thesis June 23rd

Thesis to Committee June 30th (preferably earlier)

Defense: ~July 7th

Pray for me.

Abstract for poster presentation

You can find me on page 156/157.

PhD?

I met with my advisor's husband yesterday to work on the rest of the GIS portion of my research. My advisor kept visiting us every now and then to see our progress and she brought up that my research can lead to several potential undergraduate projects (a good thing). And then her husband says, "Yeah, this could very easily lead to a PhD project."

1 second after statement I think, "Hm. Maybe I could earn a PhD."

2 seconds after statement I think, "NAAAAAH!!"

As I was driving home I thought to myself, "Now why in the world would you even consider doing a PhD?! He said it could easily lead to a PhD project...not that a PhD project would be easy!!"

Another note on my project: We've created a GIS model that takes parameters we specify as being prime squirrel habitat and finds those elements in the landscape surrounding my sites. There's an area to the north of my sites called Stratton Bald that shows up as being potential Glaucomys sabrinus coloratus habitat. I was floored with this discovery and assuming the NCWRC hasn't already trapped there, I'm betting they'll want to soon (& I'm betting they'll be granted the money to do so).

It's just great finally seeing the fruits of my efforts.

I'm...famous?

So if you go to a particular website and enter in a particular nucleotide sequence, this might pop up *hint: look under authors*:

Uncultured fungus isolate DGGE gel band 20_5C 18S ribosomal RNA gene and internal transcribed spacer 1, partial sequence

• Features
• Sequence

LOCUS       GQ388268                 190 bp    DNA     linear   ENV 30-AUG-2009

DEFINITION  Uncultured fungus isolate DGGE gel band 20_5C 18S ribosomal RNA

          gene and internal transcribed spacer 1, partial sequence.

ACCESSION   GQ388268

VERSION     GQ388268.1  GI:256557773

KEYWORDS    ENV.

SOURCE      uncultured fungus

ORGANISM  uncultured fungus

          Eukaryota; Fungi; environmental samples.

REFERENCE   1  (bases 1 to 190)

AUTHORS   Allman,N.D., Collins,B.S., Davis,R.W. and O'Connell,S.P.

TITLE     Fungal sequences retrieved from Carolina Northern Flying Squirrel

          (Glaucomys sabrinus coloratus) feces from the Southern Appalachians

JOURNAL   Unpublished

REFERENCE   2  (bases 1 to 190)

AUTHORS   Allman,N.D., Collins,B.S., Davis,R.W. and O'Connell,S.P.

TITLE     Direct Submission

JOURNAL   Submitted (15-JUL-2009) Biology, Western Carolina University, 132

          Natural Science Building, Cullowhee, NC 28723, USA

FEATURES             Location/Qualifiers

   source          1..190

                   /organism="uncultured fungus"

                   /mol_type="genomic DNA"

                   /isolate="DGGE gel band 20_5C"

                   /isolation_source="Glaucomys sabrinus coloratus feces"

                   /db_xref="taxon:175245"

                   /environmental_sample

                   /country="USA: Southern Appalachians"

                   /note="PCR_primers=fwd_name: ITS1-F, rev_name: ITS2"

   misc_RNA        <1..>190

                   /note="contains 18S ribosomal RNA and internal transcribed

                   spacer 1"

ORIGIN    

        1 tcttggtcat ttagaggaag taaaagtcgt aacaaggtct ccgtaggtga acctgcggag

     61 ggatcattac aagtgacccc ggtctaacca ccgggatgtt cataaccctt tgttgtccga

    121 ctctgttgcc tccggggcga ccctgccttc gggcgggggc tccgggtgga cacttcaaac

    181 tcttgcgtaa

//







Don't hate.

Dealing with...

Trying to defer my student loan payments. $581 is no good with a part-time job & wedding coming up.

Trying to register for the fall semester since I didn't make the deadline to graduate in August. I'm being 'prohibited' from this due to my 'student status'. I have no idea.

I guess that's all I'm dealing with...seemed like it was a lot more than that. :oP

Another wrench thrown in the gears

INVITATIONS

So OF COURSE, after we figure out what we're going to do regarding the invitations AND bought all the materials, the print shop guy stopped by my fiance's office and said he hadn't forgotten about us and will give him the mock ups tomorrow via his son. WHAT?! Aagh...it's so aggravating. What's even more aggravating is that I doubt we'll get any kind of pricing information from him tomorrow. So if they're kick-ass and we re-think doing it ourselves, we still can't make a decision until he tells us how much they'll cost. No telling when that will be.

PRE-HONEYMOON

On a lighter note, I think we've picked out where we'll stay on our pre-honeymoon (we'll spend the major bucks at a ski resort later). We'd like a cabin/cottage with a hot tub for a reasonable price for two days. The Cranmore Cottages is the only site I've been able to find that fulfills those requirements. I actually hadn't planned on reserving anything--just planned on going home after the wedding--but was talked into it by some family members.

30 DAY SHRED

I realized something today: this is never going to get easier because when my strength and endurance increases, I'll just work harder.

THESIS

My $3200 imagery that I got for free came in the mail today. Sweet.



Have a wonderful Friday everyone!

Happy happy joy joy!!

My presentation is o-v-e-r! Did a good job except a little short on time. Answered questions concisely. No more seminars! One more presentation for thesis defense and that's it!

Speaking of thesis defense, I picked up a hood at the bookstore today and then tried the whole get-up on when I got home. I've since decided I'm no longer wearing my wedding dress at the wedding-I'm going to wear my Master's costume. I don't think it'll be a problem.

Contacted a magistrate today about doing the wedding. According to the law, he can charge no more than $20. Good news for us because the quotes from others have been ~$300. He's sending me some info and then I'll go from there.

Got a quote of $350 for the ice drink luge. Blech! That sounds about right though.

Got a call from my boss saying someone from the front desk is leaving-which means I might get moved entirely from the kitchen to the front desk. Hallelujah!!!!!

I'm so excited for this evening. I have nothing to worry about, fiancé has no WoW raids scheduled (i'm embarrassed to even say that out loud) so we can chill out, watch a movie, and eat wonderful cinnamon kettle corn made from my awesome Whirley Pop.

Hope your Friday evening is even more enjoyable!