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| I was a cowboy for Halloween! |
This has been a great week. The week started on Halloween when I had my preliminary exam. This is where I gave a thirty-minute presentation on my dissertation research proposal and then get questioned about my proposal and general biochemistry. As it turned out I was asked next to nothing about general biochemistry, I guess my proposed research was just that interesting. The research topic is rather unorthodox within the realm of scientific research. Almost all scientific research is hypothesis based; one proposes a hypothesis to explain an observation and then goes about to find supporting evidence, or lack thereof, of the said hypothesis. In contrast, my research is exploratory in nature. What this means is that I have no hypothesis, I have to go out and find one first. This fact led to a lot of interesting discussion in the prelim, which kept all of the questions on the research. The exam went a lot quicker than I was expecting. I passed and a celebration ensued. After the canonical lab party, the celebration continued as my lab mates and roommates took me out to Bull City Burgers. It was great!
On Tuesday I didn’t even go into lab, I needed a break after a solid month of studying for my prelim. Instead I helped out the missionaries; first, by taking one to a transfer meeting and then bringing a new one back and, second, by taking them out to dinner and accompanying them to an appointment. The rest of the week was spent either in the lab or in the yard. I got back to lab quickly, researching the usefulness of map correlation coefficients. Since I let the yard go while I was preparing for my prelim it was in desperate need of TLC. I cleaned up fallen branches, raked leaves and weeds, mowed the lawn, turned the soil over in the garden, etc. There is still plenty to do.
On Friday night I went to a concert given by Ingrid Fliter, an amazing classical pianist. I am absolutely in love with piano music. She played Beethoven and Chopin. It was nothing short of incredible! The pieces that she preformed were rather fast paced, thus her fingers were moving at a hundred miles per second up and down the keyboard. She made it look easy. Saturday I went to the volleyball game which is always fun.
Looking forward, I have to get ready for a talk that I have to give at department retreat, which takes place this weekend out on the coast. I will then focus 100% on my research.
