Progress

Of late I have felt so cut off from my online social life…I haven’t read others blogs or updated mine in so long. There are three primary reasons for this: (1) its summer, (2) no internet at home, and (3) I’m focused on my research. The “its summer” part probably isn’t totally accurate because it was summer a month ago but I was still on top of things. More accurately is that it is August, which could encompass both its summer and I’m focused on my research. It is during this month of summer that it dawns on me that the summer is nearly over and I have made very little progress on my research (or as much as I had hoped). Last year I was in Memphis starting in the middle of June, didn’t collect a single useful data point until August 14th, and completed three full experiments by the middle of September. This year August hit and I realized that nearly nothing was completed with respect to my dissertation and then got focused and have been working during every free moment I have (except this moment). Then on top of this the not having internet at home means that I can’t check or update while taking a break from work at home and I spend my time in the office trying to deal with the emails I received the night before. Thus I have plenty of excuses for why I have been a poor blogger of late.

On a slightly different note, while being so focused on my research I have had to go back and reprocess data from 2005. This was the first experiment that I ran at Michigan. Going back over the data sometimes gets me frustrated trying to figure out why I sampled a certain way, didn’t record something, test condition selection, etc. Then the moment after I ask those questions I’m really encouraged because I get to see how much I’ve learned and improved as an experimental fluids researcher in only 2 years. It is also good so that perhaps I won’t be so hard on some of the younger grad students if I take some time to reflect on where I was not that long ago.