I have had a hard time getting back into the work and school routine since my daughters birth. I did take about 2 weeks off to help my wife and get things in order for our transition to having two children. That is a big change for me at least. Getting back to work has been difficult. I have no problem with running experiments and doing other lab work but my big problem is working on my thesis and thesis proposal. I am having a total brain freeze when it comes to doing those things.
I think I will have to just do what my wife does and chase away the brain freeze and get the work going for myself. She is really motivating to me. Today I did succeed at working on it for the hour I had for it. So I at a starting point. For the rest of my day I have to get an experiment set up for testing tomorrow. Then I will be able to come back and hopefully keep the flow going.
Other than the brain freeze on writing work is going well. I think that I am actually about 60% or more done with my research and soon I can just hide out and write me thesis. That is exciting to think that I am close to getting done.
I am also working this semester on a paper for publication looking at the influence of dairy farming on water quality in Phoenix. That will be an interesting project. It is a paper that I have been thinking about and it will start as a term paper for one of my classes using my data and others data and maybe it will turn out to be publishable quality and content. We will see.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Butter...yum?
Okay here is yet another crazy thing my child has taken up. This one is handled directly by Zachariah. We were at a church dinner/party and he wasn't really excited about much of any of the food. He was being a typical almost two year old. When they brought dessert out he was an excited boy. But that doesn't compare to what he had up his sleeve for his next move.
When the dessert was not fun any more he decide to see what was in the cute squares...they were of coarse butter. Well we thought let him see what it is and the he will be all done with it. That wasn't the case. We opened it for him to see and he popped it right into his mouth.
Well one wasn't quite enough so let me tell you he was up to table opening more packets and just eating strait butter. It was wild. We stopped in at three servings of butter and he was pretty mad that we drew the line there.
I just honestly never know what to expect from my children. They are amazing to say the least. Maybe the funnest thing about them is that they will always change so fast on you. About two weeks ago Zachariah completely changed the word set he had been using. So now we don't know what any of the sounds he is making mean. The joys of life.
When the dessert was not fun any more he decide to see what was in the cute squares...they were of coarse butter. Well we thought let him see what it is and the he will be all done with it. That wasn't the case. We opened it for him to see and he popped it right into his mouth.
Well one wasn't quite enough so let me tell you he was up to table opening more packets and just eating strait butter. It was wild. We stopped in at three servings of butter and he was pretty mad that we drew the line there.
I just honestly never know what to expect from my children. They are amazing to say the least. Maybe the funnest thing about them is that they will always change so fast on you. About two weeks ago Zachariah completely changed the word set he had been using. So now we don't know what any of the sounds he is making mean. The joys of life.
They Know what they want!
Our daughter is now almost three weeks old. I can hardly believe that it has gone so fast. Her personality is already showing through big time. Here is what she does that is just amazing to me.
Since she has been home about a week she has started to insist that we hold her when we are near. By near I mean that she is able to tell that your close or by her. They can't really see that well at first from what I can tell and from what I have read. Despite this she really wants us to be close and hold her when she can tell we are by her. When we aren't within a range that she can tell we are nearby she really doesn't have much care to be held in general. This blows me away. Already at 19 days old my daughter Andrea is vying for attention.
My children never cease to amaze me.
The other thing that my daughter has recently started to do is she will track with her eyes. She will follow our voices and faces with he eyes, even struggling to move her little head to follow us further.
Again I must say I am quite amazed, even though I saw it all with my son Zach before. Wow. Being a parent is rewarding to say the least.
Since she has been home about a week she has started to insist that we hold her when we are near. By near I mean that she is able to tell that your close or by her. They can't really see that well at first from what I can tell and from what I have read. Despite this she really wants us to be close and hold her when she can tell we are by her. When we aren't within a range that she can tell we are nearby she really doesn't have much care to be held in general. This blows me away. Already at 19 days old my daughter Andrea is vying for attention.
My children never cease to amaze me.
The other thing that my daughter has recently started to do is she will track with her eyes. She will follow our voices and faces with he eyes, even struggling to move her little head to follow us further.
Again I must say I am quite amazed, even though I saw it all with my son Zach before. Wow. Being a parent is rewarding to say the least.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Graduation Destiny...
I have spent the day so far making my plan for graduation in May of 2008 with my masters degree in Water Resource Management from UNLV. Well it may still be a perilous journey yet but I think that it will be possible for me to accomplish. There are so any factors to deal with that many around me have given little faith in the possibility of it actually occurring.
Basically here is the time line that is before me.
The day of graduation is May 12th I believe. The last finals are going to be taken on May 9th. For me to get my masters I will need to complete my thesis. To do this I will need to turn in my thesis by April 5th at the latest. That has to be a finished accepted copy (accepted by my committee) with required revisions already made. So to make revisions I need to know what they want changed. So I will have to defend no later than March 5th so that after words I can make the needed changes and then be able to turn in a final copy by the deadline. So this means that to defend my thesis by march fifth I need to have my thesis written and finalized by february 5th. So that my committee can look through it and ask for changes to be make before defending. So to basically be able to have my thesis written by then I will be needing to have all my research done and approved by about 3 months prior to to February 5th. So by the 5th of November I needed to have my research done and finalized and accepted. Today is August 3rd. From today I have 3 months and 2 days to basically be done with all my research.
To finish my research I have to do another entire 3050B extraction which will take 1 week of my time (that is all my time for a week). I have to still analyze again for selenium after that extraction which will take about 3 days. I have to still analyze for arsenic 3 times which may take a week. I still have two days of Scanning Electron Microscope work to complete. 1 more boron run at about 2 days of work. 3 more phosphorus runs at 1 week of work. This is what I know I need to do for sure, and I may get quite a bit more to do as well. This brings me up to a total of 5 weeks of work in the lab left to do in 12 weeks time.
Did I mention that I still need to take seven classes and support my family? Well I am thinking that all things considered I will be able to be successful. So far I am the #1 in my program for academics, but I may be tied with others, who may also have a 4.0 overall. I have complained about the trouble of getting all my classes so that I can actually graduate so I won't even go there.
So overall currently, the goal of getting through with the masters degree by the end of 2 years is still in the possible category. This is a good thing, and I am happy about life!
Have a great day!
Basically here is the time line that is before me.
The day of graduation is May 12th I believe. The last finals are going to be taken on May 9th. For me to get my masters I will need to complete my thesis. To do this I will need to turn in my thesis by April 5th at the latest. That has to be a finished accepted copy (accepted by my committee) with required revisions already made. So to make revisions I need to know what they want changed. So I will have to defend no later than March 5th so that after words I can make the needed changes and then be able to turn in a final copy by the deadline. So this means that to defend my thesis by march fifth I need to have my thesis written and finalized by february 5th. So that my committee can look through it and ask for changes to be make before defending. So to basically be able to have my thesis written by then I will be needing to have all my research done and approved by about 3 months prior to to February 5th. So by the 5th of November I needed to have my research done and finalized and accepted. Today is August 3rd. From today I have 3 months and 2 days to basically be done with all my research.
To finish my research I have to do another entire 3050B extraction which will take 1 week of my time (that is all my time for a week). I have to still analyze again for selenium after that extraction which will take about 3 days. I have to still analyze for arsenic 3 times which may take a week. I still have two days of Scanning Electron Microscope work to complete. 1 more boron run at about 2 days of work. 3 more phosphorus runs at 1 week of work. This is what I know I need to do for sure, and I may get quite a bit more to do as well. This brings me up to a total of 5 weeks of work in the lab left to do in 12 weeks time.
Did I mention that I still need to take seven classes and support my family? Well I am thinking that all things considered I will be able to be successful. So far I am the #1 in my program for academics, but I may be tied with others, who may also have a 4.0 overall. I have complained about the trouble of getting all my classes so that I can actually graduate so I won't even go there.
So overall currently, the goal of getting through with the masters degree by the end of 2 years is still in the possible category. This is a good thing, and I am happy about life!
Have a great day!
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