Academia & thesis

This week is the end of the school year for me. I don't have any "finals" during finals week. (I had one a few weeks ago for a short course.) However, I have 3 group project presentations on Monday/Tuesday of this week. The fact that I will then be 95% done for the semester isn't any comfort as I'm struggling to get caught up and still make sure my children remember who I am. I was up most of the night trying to improve my part of a project - I realized how stupendously half-assed a job I did. It approaches, and perhaps surpasses professional embarasment. Well, that's corrected, although my sleep deprevition isn't.

I have accepted an offer of a summer internship with ... wait for it ... Honeywell. Unfortunately, I won't be at the same facility as Peter. Even better, I'll be paid. Anything to mitigate the cost of daycare.

Perhaps the most exciting to me: I have picked a research topic and adviser for my thesis. In short, I will be trying to determine if someone else's gizmo works for measuring something other than its designer intended, to measure the size and other aspects of solid aerosols.

For any of you Ph.D. science geeks: the gizmo is described in Induction charging and electrostatic classification of mirometer-sized particles for investigating the electrobiologic properties of airborne microorganisms, Mainelis, et al., Aer. Sci. Tech., 36:479(2002).

Doesn't that sound impressive? Yeah, then I saw reality. The instrument in our lab is certainly not nearly as cool as its name implies.

I don't care how impressive it looks. I want the big piece of paper that has my name next to the words "masters of public health". That will be impressive enough for me.