research in progress

enjoyable (for phd/researcher folks most likely) tumblr: http://researchinprogress.tumblr.com

think my favorite one so far is this one: http://researchinprogress.tumblr.com/post/33288624311/appealing-paper-turns-out-to-be-pseudoscience

phd tips

ran across this the other day, seems like i'm working on #1 at the moment:
http://www.nextscientist.com/graduate-school-advice-series-starting-phd/

and i'm sort of on top of #7 with my academia.edu page, so that's good. but it's number one that i'm going to focus on for the next 2 months (and then after that too)!

half a month

wish i had something super exciting to include in this catch up, but i don't think i really do...

October

01 Monday
Watched Juliana present her candidacy for her physio phd.  She did an incredible job - especially in a second language in front of lots of staff and doctors (and us students).
To celebrate we ordered pizzas to the hub and played 'cards against humanity' which is sort of like apples to apples.  it was a great evening.

02 Tuesday
Had a meeting to run through the orange juice project and do a trial run.  Got it all set to start data collection on thursday.
Had a meeting about my phd.

03 Wednesday
Spent time finalizing the playlists for the orange juice study.  had to buy a few 'australian' songs for it.

04 Thursday
Day one of the orange juice study data collection.  3 hours of facing people rejecting me.  Haven't done that in awhile, yet the feelings were quick to return.  ugh.
Went to the fedex place to pick up my inline skates.

05 Friday
Data collection for the orange juice study day two.  not as many people as day one.  more annoying no's.
Went to the travel agency people on campus to find out about flights home for christmas.
went to the bank to open an online savings account.

06 Saturday
Didn't do anything.  mostly watched tv.  did go to the library to get some dvds although that floor of the library closes early which i didn't realize and so i was 5 minutes too lare for that.  stayed and used the internet though so it wasn't a complete waste.

07 Sunday
Skated a short skate around the neighborhood.  went to the body balance class at the gym.  went to the hub to work on my article drafts.  joel came into the hub and invited me to come with him and juliana to  dinner.  we had delicious pizza.

08 Monday
skated to the hub.  orange juice data collection day 3.
didn't feel awesome - quite tired.

09 Tuesday
Felt even more tired.  went to the library before my supervisory meeting and finished the two article drafts.  found out the person who was supposed to collect data with me wasn't coming so we had to deal with that for most of my meeting time.  a fourth year undergrad student was able to help out and she did an awesome job.  we got like 3x the amount that we did the previous day.  she was great and i wish that she had been helping every day.
we discussed looking into the smpc conference for next year and about doing my candidacy before december so i could go home for christmas.  we got neville to join us and the decision was made that i wouldn't have to do the whole candidacy process (which really could have been decided back when i was asking that question months ago but anyway).  so that's exciting.
went along in the evening with a few students to get bubble tea.  it's a really popular thing here, although i hadn't had it.  i think i remember brittany talking about it. speaking of i chatted with her online and she's currently in the states getting ready for her sister's wedding.  crazy. anyway i didn't get my own bubble tea but tried some of the ones they all got.  there's like gummy things in it - hence the bubbles.  some flavours definitely better than others.  but good to consider in the future.

10 Wednesday
bought a plane ticket to go home for december.  a lot of money, but i am excited to go home.  i do have a grand plan of a lot of things that i want to accomplish before going home/christmas, but i think it is possible.  5 papers to submit to journals and getting my candidacy submitted.  that's a lot, but i believe i can do it.  and also i really think it would make me feel like i've accomplished something.  so that's a lot of work.
i spoke on skype with a guy in new jersey who wants to help out with adrian's research - which by proxy means mine at the moment hopefully.  which would be great.  so hopefully that'll pan out.
also got a draft of another journal article emailed off to the supervisors (so that's 3 on the way to being worked on to get submitted).  just have to wait for lauren (and then adrian) to go through them and then i'm sure i'll have a large job to do to improve them.  but i haven't gotten feedback on this since may, so it'll be nice to get feedback and hopefully finish them off.
worked on my candidacy proposal in the afternoon - got maybe a third of it written.

11 Thursday
day 5 of data collection.
continued working on my candidacy proposal - pretty much half written as a draft.  not sure about all that's in the lit review, but i figure i can get lauren and adrian's input before putting more time in on that section.  so now the tough section is the bit where i have to really plan out the 2 new studies i'm proposing to do.  but i definitely think i'll be able to get that done sooner than later (and definitely before christmas).
went to dinner with 5 of the phd students.  we went to this popular italian place that doesnt take reservations but turns over tables pretty quick.  they had been talking about how good it was. and it was very tasty.  ate far too much food, but it was really good.

12 Friday
last day of orange juice data collection.  yay for that.  emily and joel helped get a few people - it was much more enjoyable when they were around to chat with while trying to get people to participate.  definitely an indication of (like on tuesday) of having good company when getting all the rejection.
came back to the hub to some students still hanging out from lunch so that was nice.
tried to get work done after that but wasn't super focused - and felt so tired that i went home around 6 without getting too much done on my own work.  but at least the orange juice data collection is done with.

13 Saturday
today.
watched some tv this morning.  trying to sleep in even though that didn't really happen.  went to the library to return a book and get some dvds.  looks like a bit of rain for the afternoon which hopefully will stop when i walk back home from the hub.  going to see if i can get a bit of work done today so i can try to wrap up another article draft (that'd be 4 of the 5) before the end of this week. we'll see - i'm not super motivated to write but maybe i'll find some good references to include.

this week

23 sunday
went to the gym, did some work at the hub. nothing exciting

25 tuesday
-had a supervisory meeting.  discussed some of what the results of the CLOUD study might mean, discussed how to go about some analysis for the FTP project, and sadly didn't have enough time to review the ESM study.  so lots of work proposed to do in turn.

sat with a group of hubsters and had a nice chat towards the end of the day.  tried to figure out what sort of meal we should have following juliana's candidacy next week which made most of us hungry.  a lot of time spent discussing the possibility of italian or mexican/ burritos.  the burritos talk was enough of a chat that we ended up going out to have burritos at a place in leederville.  i hadn't been to that area, and there's lots of restaurants and bars in a nice grouping so it looks like a place to go back to.  and the burritos were good.  so that was a win.  plus randomly ashley and i somehow got to talking about driving and she offered to take me to the dmv equivalent to get a license.

26 wednesday
so ashley and i ventured out to the nearest dmv place.  unsure of whether they would just accept that i had a us license and give me an australian one or if i'd have to do some sort of testing, we were pleasantly surprised that they would transfer mine (providing i had a ton of identification - which i did). and we were able to take care of it with enough time for her to get back and go do her research.  so that was an awesome achievement.  now bouncers won't be able to say anything, joel can teach me possibly to drive a manual car, and perhaps then a car in the future. we'll see.

i spent the rest of my time at the hub marking assignments.  randomly was able to pick up a bit of marking (grading) that another student wasn't able to do.  so i had 28 assignments to grade.  and i managed to get through them quicker than the alloted time.  so that's awesome.  got them all done on wednesday - think it helped that i didn't do one at a time but one question across all of them.   all about the efficiency.

went to the gym.


27 thursday
had a meeting about a research project adrian and two other professors are doing.  2 others and myself are going to work on it as research assistants (RA).  so that's work to pay me.  which is awesome because it being one of adrian's projects, it's at least semi-related (at least broadly in the music psychology subject) to my work, or rather i'm familiar with the project completely AND i will get paid to work on it.  so that was the first meeting, but it had to be a lot because the data collection has to get done in the next two weeks - so it's moving pretty quickly.
and luckily i was able to get five minutes of adrian's time to discuss an issue i quickly found when trying to accomplish my own work as set from tuesday's meeting.

went to the gym.


28 friday
had to turn in some paperwork for my TA and RA work.
chatted with adrian about the RA projects and did some work for that.
then spent time running analyses on my FTP project - getting a bit frustrated with it all.
went to the gym.

watched a random old movie on tv... can't remember right now what it was - but they certainly show odd old movies (like the bodyguard the other week).

29 saturday
walked all about going to the grceryt store and to the library (decided against the gym) and back.
and then to the bus stop and then to other bus stops on my way to juliana's and bea's.
it was the grand finals of footy (australian football - not to be confused with football/soccer or american football).  so a group of us watched that.  and joel (the only australian and person who actually really really cared about the match) was gracious enough to explain it (well) to me/us.  so we ate lots of snacks and had a nice time.
hung out for awhile after the match with them and had a relaxing saturday afternoon. even had bea check out my foot.  she did some sort of manipulation which was great, although it didn't last for today.

30 sunday (today)
went to the body balance class at the gym.
and have spent the afternoon/ early evening trying to get some work done while watching some tv at the hub.
have seen both juliana and joel come and go and now i'm headed home.

found 'cubecraft' online last week and have made the ninja turtles, moss, and the tardis (on friday) and going to maybe make some of the princess bride characters tonight maybe... also i'm hungry.

fotos

photos - 21 july - 9 august 2012 - are updated and linked into the blogs
reviewing might be easier via the photo host page, but anyway, that's my fairshare of catching up for the day

shoe search

22 september 2012

today.

went with juliana this morning on an adventure to harbourtown (a mall near downtown perth) in search of shoes.  

see this past monday, i got caught in bad rain walking home.  again, i must protest that campus and the neighborhood are somehow in two different weather zones.  but anyway, bad torrential rain and such that was flooding the ground and so my shoes were completely soaked through.  and being the only pair of trainers i have here, this posed a problem for most of the week.

not because of it being cold, as i wore flipflops and that was fine.  but in terms of just not having another pair of trainers and not going to the gym until the shoes were dried out.

in any case, it added a sense of urgency to my search for shoes (which had previously been entertaining the idea of buying them online but again finding that most likely that would involve buying them from the US).  

so today we walked in and around the mall going in every store that had shoes.  i could have bought fila running shoes - those were probably the cheapest. but since mom found asics to send me, i didn't really want a pair of chunky running shoes.  i wanted a pair of everyday street shoes.  (think my puma shoes of the past).  and we didn't find any.  in fact most stores had heels or sandals for womens shoes.  very discriminated against in my search today.  or i could have bought 'on sale' nike/adidas/asics for still 150 -175- 200 dollars.  i definitely don't consider that 'on sale'. 

so after striking out at the mall, we went through target. which had some fake keds/chucks/converse like shoes.  i didn't want white ones but there were blue ones that i eventually found that were also on sale for the 'deal of the day' which truly was the deal of the day as they were kids size ones that actually fit me and ended up being only 14 dollars.  so while they're not awesome or anything, they'll do.

and then we had some discount shopping adventures and burritos for lunch.  it was a really nice day.

didn't get adrian's message about going to the park so i missed that this afternoon sadly but did make it to the gym and have now been blogging.  so that's nice.  sadly i don't have a plan for this evening but i guess i'll probably just watch a movie or something at home.  i fell asleep real early last night but then woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep so i may fall asleep early again tonight.  wish adrian's invite would have been for tomorrow, but i guess i can't do anything about that.

on a completely unrelated note, i've been making bbq chicken pizzas for my dinner this week and those have been really tasty. also i made chocolate cake last friday night (while watching the bodyguard because it was on tv - so i've now seen that randomly in india and australia without trying) which was decent for being from the reject shop.

threadless

my tshirts from threadless came this week which was exciting.  so yay for those making it here to me from chicago.

i wore one this week that has an image of the united states with the states designated by their names written to confine the space.

anyway, it proved very useful throughout the day's conversations.  definitely a good choice.