Another one bites the dust

I am baffled by people that find the time to post every day, or heck, every week. I struggle to get something up ever month. Not because I have nothing to say, but because I am drowning in work.
Enough complaining. The title of the post refers to milestones. Last week another one of mine kicked the bucket. I wrote, presented and defended my dissertation proposal. All told, without figures or literature cited, it was over 30 pages single spaced. Ridiculous you say? Well maybe, but my work is very integrative and combines evolutionary theory on the evolution of sex differences with behavior and endocrinology (study of hormones). So, I had a lot to tie together.
But...That being said, I am pretty dern happy about the project and now have a road map for the next few years of what to do. So now i just need to get to work and get some papers out. But first I have to catch up on everything that's been put off. Sigh.

Proposal writing

So, somehow or another I'm now in my third year of grad school, my how time flies. That means it's time to write up my dissertation proposal, which is basically my plan for the rest of grad school. Like many, I have a bunch of projects started, many of them related, but i have to pick an overarching theme that unites my interest, drop the stuff that doesn't fit and ratchet down my focus. Being more than a little ADHD this is a tad challenging. Add this to the fact that this is somehow my busiest semester ever and you can probably get a mental image of a grad student running around like a chicken with its head cut off, as my mother would say.

The comic is from PhD comics, very funny, sometimes a little too close to truth

It's that time again

For a number of reasons, fall is always a time of frantic activity for me. In addition to the usual school and home obligations additional factors add to fuel to the fire. I've recently returned from the field with mounds of unanalyzed data. I have a partner, pet and home that I've been away from for months. The weather is perfect to work on the house/yard. And... it's proposal season.
Many of the major grants & fellowships me and my kind can apply for to fund our research have deadlines during the fall months. As a result, the already hectic schedule is thrown into overdrive as we try to shove another pot on the already crowded stove.
It's about trade-offs, as are many things. You need the data to tweak and support your proposal but if your running the assays and such to get the data you can't work on the proposal. So one must decide whether to do both things shoddily, or one thing well.
And as my sister always reminds me, remember to breathe....

Roving teenage gangs

Sounds menacing huh? Except I'm talking about juncos rather than humans. After fledges become independent (the parents stop putting up with their begging) they bunch up with other juvenile juncos and rove around together in packs. We take advantage of this by setting up mist nets all over the study site to catch anyone we haven't already caught and get them banded. Mist nets are super fine nets that (if you set them up right) are very difficult to see and the birds will fly right into the net and slide down into a pocket and hang their like their in a hammock until we get there and extract them. Here's picture to illustrate. Our field assistant Amy is freeing one. You have to look close to see the net b/c it's so fine. We'll be doing this the rest of the season. Sometimes we catch a whole flock of 15-20 birds at once. Needless to say it's a busy time of year.

Fledging day

So today was fledging day. For those who don't know that's the day the nestling leave the nest. For our project we try to get there before they leave the nest to get a few last measurements. It's also a great time to catch mom and dad and get some measures on them. It's among the more exciting things we do, but to balance out the fun it happens right as the sun comes up. So, if the nest is a mile and a half hike down a rock and stream strewn trail, we get to get up extra early and use our headlamps to hike out there. This morning was textbook. The nestlings were still there, and we had set up mist nets (very thin, fine nets used to gently catch birds) the evening prior. So we opened the nets and grabbed the young ones. The parents try to dive bomb us, and in the process wind up in the net, hanging on their back like their in a hammock. In less than 5 minutes we have the whole family. Now we take our measurements and then release everyone, then hike back up the hill. We were back at the field station before 6:45am.
Field work is not for the weak.
The picture is a fledgling from last summer's field season in South Dakota, which explains the dry brown grass and pine trees in the background. Virginia is much greener and leafier.

Holy hidden nests Batman

So we've switched gears here in junco land. Now is the time when we nest search, and then search some more. And then... what are you doing back already? Get back out there and search some more. Here's a picture of the holy grail of junco land, the elusive nest. It's dead center in the picture. If you look close, and have sharp eyes, you can see a couple of little eggs and the grass and deer hair lining.
Once we find it then we monitor it every few days until it's time for the nestlings to leave the nest, or fledge. Tomorrow is fledging day for two nests. That means we get up before first light to be there and catch the whole family. These are the first two of the year and they conveniently (sarcasm here) coincide with the arrival of my partner tonight. Good thing sleep is only for mortals, not field biologists.

In the trenches

And so it has begun. I arrived Sunday night and got to work early Monday morning. Much of the time has been spent getting organized and repairing facilities that over winter here in the mountains of VA and so are a little worse for the wear. Since I am in VA this year instead of SD, I have the possibility of a much larger sample size. The price I pay from that sample size is having to negotiate and navigate the projects of two other researchers, as well as my advisor's, so that we don't conflict or mess up each other's data. It can get a bit tricky, but luckily we all get along well so I expect things to work out nicely.
It's still early spring/late winter up here so things are just getting started. All the more reason to get everything under control before it blows wide open.
Duty calls.

tic toc

Two weeks and counting. So much to finish up with before I head to the field. At least I go with a feather in my cap. I recently heard that I was awarded a fellowship for the next three years. Wooohooo. This means I am not required to teach, and thus can really get some stuff done around here.
If all goes well I'll return from the summer with loads of data, and with the extra time i can be uber productive.
The bummer is that it is FINALLY nice here in the great white north (okay, I know Indiana is not that cold, but give me a break I'm from Texas), and when i leave for the field I'll be going up mountain, which means back into the cold damp. sigh. But, at least in will be pretty.

Summer lovin

Holy crap.
Somehow it's already April. I have a month, one measly month before I go back into the field for the summer. Between now and then I have one test to grade, another to take, a model to build, permits to finalize, data to collect, and a talk to prepare. Not to mention determining exactly what it is I'm tackling this summer. Where does the time go?

Rite of Passage

It's over and almost anticlimactic.
I've passed my qualifying exams, and still have skin on my teeth so I feel pretty good about it.
For me the hard part is the waiting, once they start asking questions things take on a life of there own and you have some control, but the waiting kills.
So now I get to begin planning for my field season, write my proposal, catch up on all of the things i've let slide over the past 6 weeks.
But first I'm going to just let my brain melt into mush for awhile.
I've earned that haven't I?

Prelim Hell

So I feel like i only post to complain.
Right now I'm at the tail end of my preliminary/qualifying exams.
6 weeks of obsessing on four topics, night and day, day and night.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Question is... is it a train???