So I thought that I'd be less busy after the defense - turns out I was partially wrong. I am still a little busy with school and my life has gotten somewhat boring. So I didn't have anything to tell y'all in the time that I had. I'm currently writing up one of the chapters in my thesis for publication but it is to be submitted for a special issue so it has a deadline attached to it. Which is a good thing because right now I'm pretty good at procrastinating. But yesterday I got the bound copies of my thesis and I took pictures because this is the last thing I have to do for the technical completion of my degree. There is convocation but I don't have to actually attend - and I'm not sure I will. Finishing my masters just doesn't seem like a really big deal because I still have another degree to go. I'm leaning towards attending but still not completely sure. Anyway... pictures!




"Oh wow! Look! It is done!"


"Yep, and it looks so professional too"

And on a final note, my friend also had her thesis bound but the bindery had an issue with her title...

It should read 5-HT1A Receptors and the Circadian Clock. She is getting it re-bound for free but we got these funny pictures in the mean time. I've heard of Canadians being polite, and saying certain phrases more frequently than other places (eh?) but our own time? This is a new one.

Defense

I passed my defense. There were stumper questions and I was nervous but I passed! And I did well. Now I have revisions and then I will be done. I don't know how many revisions I have - thus I don't know how long they will take but the end is near! I'll let you know when I am done done and you can all call me Master Catie (tee hee, just kidding).

Book Review: Too Far From Home

I recently read an interesting book that I thought I'd share with you. I bought it as a Christmas present for Cory this past year but I am the one who has read and enjoyed it. Too Far From Home: A Story of Life and Death in Space, by Chris Jones. The byline on the front of the book sums it up pretty well

On February 1, 2003, ten astronauts were orbiting the planet. Seven were headed back to Earth on the space shuttle Columbia. They never made it. And the three men left behind found themselves... Too Far From Home.

The book is somewhat dry (according to Cory) but I loved the book. It talks mainly about the astronauts, how they felt, how they coped with not knowing when they would return to Earth, how their wives felt... It talks about their histories: how/why they became astronauts, in some cases, how they met their wives, what they are doing now that they are back on Earth. I'm not fascinated with space, space travel, or stars but I loved this book because it was about people, and coping with the unknown.

I learned about this book via a CBC podcast: Quirks and Quarks. I think it is like the US's NPR, but perhaps a bit more scientific (at least more scientific than the pieces of NPR that I've heard). Quirks and Quarks gets leading scientists to talk about their research in an understandable and interesting way - Harvard, McGill, University of Calgary... People who are big names in their fields. People who recently published in the leading scientific journals. There are a lot of segments on space because the host, Bob McDonald, is very interested in the topic, as are a lot of the listeners I suppose. It is available from the website I linked to and via iTunes and I recommend it. One of the next books on my "to read" list is The World Without Us - which I also learned about from this podcast. I'll try to remember to let you know how I like it.

Now I must return to studying, my defense is on Friday! eeeeeee! so close.

Update

I'm late posting the pictures but we managed to remember to have someone take our photograph on our anniversary - woo hoo for remembering 2 years in a row (anniversary = July 8th)



I took part of the day off and we got a picnic from a very nice restaurant (The River Cafe) and watched Shakespeare in the Park on Prince's Island. It was the Tempest. I loved it, Cory liked it well enough - especially seeing as he didn't understand most of it.



I have a date for my thesis defense: August 22, 2008. Cory says I that the best defense is an offense and I should call mine the thesis attack... On Thursday I handed in my first draft of my thesis to my supervisor. Good thing as it turns out he is away on vacation this coming week... It was a relief and a bit scary. I put a lot of heart and soul and sweat and tears into that thing.

We got out of the house today - amazing. You see we live in a really really beautiful part of Canada - about an hour and a half outside of Banff. On clear days you can see the Rocky Mountains from Calgary - not our house, we don't have a view of anything - but on the bus route there are a couple of places. And we seldom go out there. So we went today, and stopped where we liked. We'll definately do it again, possibly soon-ish too. Next weekend we head out to the Okanagan Valley - another really beautiful place that y'all should visit if you have the chance. It is where my parents live and I lived for the 9 years before I moved to Calgary. We have a wedding to go to, yea - I love weddings. The atmosphere is so great, everyone there is so happy for the couple. That was one of the most amazing feelings at our wedding. Knowing that everyone there was so happy for us and supporting us. It was so thick in the air that you could almost feel it. Anyway, back to amazing nature places in our back door - I took pictures, landscapes, water, grass...

We stopped by a lake on the side of the road - it was cold...


We threw rocks in. Cory played a game where he would throw a rock and then try to hit it with a second rock.


I took pictures of the splashes that rocks made in the water. This is just one of several - they look really cool


We took time to relax and just lay down and look at the sky (my knees are purposefully in the picture... Cory tried to put his finger in the picture but I avoided it :)


There were the requisite flower pictures.


Cory took off his shoes for awhile, when we came back we learned a truth about butterflies - butterflies like salomon... There were 3-4 butterflies on his one shoe...


And there were more mountains. These three are called the Three Sisters and are right outside of Canmore.


When I got back I checked my email and found a message from my supervisor. He had read my thesis, liked it and had a few small changes to recommend. So I called him (he leaves tomorrow - and talking is way easier than emailing multiple times). There is a hard copy in the lab with some things written on it and then there are a few changes to make. The biggest one is to move a section from my intro into my discussion and make an appropriate linking comment. Oh and I have to make a few extra figures. So other than formatting, and these changes - 5 figures to make and then it is off to the committee. Yea! Considering it is due on August 1st (3 weeks before the defense it needs to go to them) I am right on track and on time. So relieved. Not out of the woods yet, I don't know how to make those 5 figures... but getting closer by the minute. I may even get caught up on my blog reading soonish. Lately I've only been able to keep up on a few.

I'd like to set up an appointment with the people in white coats and to book a room in the padded hotel for this weekend. Does anyone know who I should call?

Blue?

No officer, I have no idea why my cat is blue.

ETA: if anyone knows how to cite the observed statistical power of a test in APA formatting please let me know. I'd really appreciate it.

Tip #14 for a Successful Thesis

Do parts of your thesis months in advance, save them in a logical spot with a logical name on your computer, then forget about them. When you go to write that part of your thesis a little bell should (hopefully) go off by seeing the file name and presto wammo - you have a section done that you thought you still had to do. It is best gift you can give yourself, second only to starting really early to give yourself a lot of time... But we all know that that happens once in a blue moon.

Tip #13 for a Successful Thesis

Tip #13: Remember it could always be worse, you could have to write the thesis on a typewriter, or even worse, by hand, without whiteout.


These are the tomato plants from before, they don't seem to be getting much bigger and they haven't produced any tomatoes but I can't blame them - yesterday and today were the first days that it hit 30oC here in Calgary. And yes, those are red plastic knitting needles supporting them - I love how it looks.

I'm still plugging away at my thesis. I am scared by how much I still need to do - I'm sure I'll finish on time, but I'm going to have to pull some (or a lot) of long days. Not that that has stopped me from posting more this month than ever before, but I think it is a bit of many things - being near a computer all day, needing brief breaks from the monotony (at times) that is the literature on animal testing, and having ideas about what to briefly post about.

Tip #12 for a Successful Thesis (cigarette anyone?)

Tip #12: Try not to be distracted by sexy article titles while searching for articles related to your thesis.

Cigarette smoking induces apoptosis in rat tesis - and they think this is one of the reasons why they found defective spermatogenesis in the rat following chronic cigarette smoking in a previous study! I haven't read or downloaded the article, such restraint I know, but I had to share my distraction with you. Bet it wasn't funded by the cigarette companies eh?

by the way, the citation for the article is

Rajpurkav A., Jiang Y., Dhabuwala C. B., Dunbar, J. C., & Li, H. (2002). Cigarette smoking induces apoptosis in rat tesis. J Environ Pathol Toxicol Oncol., 21(3), 243-8.

Tip #11 for a Successful Thesis

Tip #11: Time is a really good motivator, well lack of time. Try to use other motivators before this one.

I am so tired, want a break and can't have it. I might not even go to Stampede next weekend - I really wanted to this year - a first for me. I was going to go to the Sheep shearing contest. It might still happen, by a miracle or some amazing writing. In the mean time it is 8 am and I'm going to read Behavioural Effects of Neonatal Lesions of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Subchronic Pubertal Treatment with Phencyclidine of Adult Rats by Schwabe, Klein & Koch (2006). Ugh...

Tip #10 for a Successful Thesis

Do not trust the spell check on your writing program. Beyond this cute poem it will lie blatantly. For example, my program currently dislikes attentional, immunocytochemistry, and immunohistochemistry (Blogger doesn't like the last two either). There are more words, I've just added them to the dictionary on my computer. But some words that are caught, like attentional, make me wonder about my spelling and I go to my dictionary to check. And low and behold, I am sometimes right. Perhaps one day I'll tell you why my spelling and grammar are crappy - it involves not being taught any grammar and very little spelling until I was 11 years old...

And since I like adding a picture to these posts, here are two from my trip to Kelowna in May. The dog is the irresistible Zeke (my mom's dog) and the thing on his head is called Doggles. I guess one of my mom's friends gave them to her. We didn't keep them on very long - just enough to snap a few pictures.

Tip #9 for a Successful Thesis

Tip #9: Post-it notes are awesome. Of course you need different types and sizes. My collection is currently small as you can see from the photo above. I use these things all the time, and could really use some more sizes. I'll pick some up the next time I am at the grocery store if I remember.

Yesterday I got to meet my friend's horse, Baytoven (yep, his breed is Bay). He is super friendly and I thought that y'all might want a break from cat pictures.


And least you think that I ignored the barn cats, here is the guard cat - he was super friendly and followed us around.

Tip #8 for a Successful Thesis

Tip #8: Do not become allergic to your test subjects prior to the completion of your thesis, or at the very least, before the end of data collection.

Why yes, my allergy to mice is progressing quite well and quickly. I've had hives for about 2 months now and they only get better when I am not in the lab for 4-5 consecutive days. Not fun, I highly recommend avoiding allergies in general - they are the pits. Luckily most of my testing is done and I will work from home or my office at school. Oh yeah, because even being in the darn lab, when no one is doing anything with the animals at the time, makes me react. I didn't mention anything until now because I didn't want to give too much information, but it fits with the tip theme so I'm telling you now.

Above you can see the latest fashion accessory, a N95 mask, that helps with the allergy IF I wear it all the time that I am in the lab, and I'm not in the lab for more than one day - two consecutive days and my body gives me the old f**k-you!

Ciao!

Tip #7 for a Successful Thesis

Tip #7: Back up your computer/important files regularly (you should do this even if you are not writing a thesis). Do not believe your friends and family when they tell you that you are acting paranoid because you have your data on 3-4 computers and 2 of them are backed up on external drives... and they are in 2-3 different locations for extra security against fire and theft.

As a side note, I personally have most of my stuff in this situation. There are a few things that are on one computer only and may not be backed up - this scares me and I will remedy it soon... But I'm not paranoid... seriously... I just back up my own computer and my supervisor backs up the lab computers... Well okay, I look paranoid but I don't feel paranoid... It is 2 years worth of work and worth a degree! Okay, I'm a little paranoid but I maintain that it is a normal level of paranoia...



The above picture was taken from the airplane on my way home from Kelowna earlier last month. If you look closely you can see the Rocky Mountains peaking through the breaks in the clouds.

PS: GO ITALY! The 2008 EuroCup (soccer) quarter finals are today.

Tip #6 for a Successful Thesis

When you are working on your computer for long periods of time you should make a habit of looking away from the screen, preferably at things that are far away, and then close - switch back and forth a few times to give your eyes a bit of a break and a nice little stretch. Cats and children are good at reminding you to take frequent breaks, though sometimes the breaks are longer than intended.


These are some Black-Handed Spider Monkeys at the Calgary Zoo a few weeks ago. They were a lot of fun to watch and photograph. Monkeys are often one of my favorite exhibits at a zoo.

And these are some Bison from the same visit. The Calgary Zoo had a lot of baby animals - including a baby elephant but perhaps that will be a different post.

Tip #5 for a Successful Thesis & my Prize

Make a list where you can cross things off manually - writing pages of intellectual mumbo-jumbo may not give you a sufficiently satisfactory sense of accomplishment but crossing off things on our list does wonders. And be sure to make your list detailed (so there are more times you can cross things off) and don't be afraid to add things to the list as you go - even if they are already accomplished and you therefore get to strike them off right away ;o)

Awhile back I won the Happy (un)Birthday contest over on Fuzzy Mitten. I got to choose the stuffed animal out of a wonderful selection and I chose a bunny named Zoe (and I found out that the name matched that of one of my kitties after I chose the toy). June 7th Zoe arrived in the mail and I've only just managed to get the pictures off of my camera. The toy is extremely well made Barbara! And for the rest of you, some pictures with a little commentary:


The packaging was a hit with the cats... as was the tissue paper for several days.

The bunny was inspected by both cats prior to release in the house.

This is Zoe - enjoying some of the little sunshine we had earlier this month. It seemed like it rained for 90% of the past two weeks. Now we have sun though so I'm happy.

Zoe came bearing gifts of her own. In her pocket there were two stickers - they have images of other toys that Barbara has made. I got a sticker with the pirate hippo and the electronic savy bunny. I haven't decided where I'm going to stick them but it is going t be good.

And on a final note, a somewhat illicit picture of Zoe's back side... There is a little tag with a little mitten on it. I just wanted to share the details that Barbara puts into her creations. Something that many of us don't see on her blog. Especially those of us who just buy the patterns and not the ready-made toys. Speaking of the patterns, they kick ass. She has a free one out there too Fuzzy Lamb Knitting Pattern that is as well written as her other patterns.

Well I'm off for now - ciao!

Tip #4 for a Successful Thesis

Chocolate is a food group, don't believe anyone who tells you any different.

I'm still reading all of my regular blogs, just not commenting very much/at all. But I am there, likely several times a day when I don't have lab work... As of Friday all of my data collection should be done (finished testing today) - still have data analysis but yea no more testing!

Tip #3 for a Successful Thesis and a Meme

Adding new blogs to your 'must-read' list is an awesome idea because most of them come with archives of back material to read.

And Amy Lane left the following comment yesterday:
PS - you have been meme-tagged.Pick up the nearest book.Open on page 123.Find the fifth sentence.Post the next three sentences.Tag five people,and acknowledge who tagged you.

Well the nearest book is Sherpa, Popolo Antico by Alberto Ceresa (self published book by my Nonno) but since it is in Italian I will post on the next nearest book: Microbiology, fifth edition, by Prescott, Harley, & Klein
If the sodium concentration decreases too much, the wall and plasma membrane literally disintegrate. Extreme halophilic bacteria have successfully adapted to environmental conditions that would destroy most organisms. In the process they have become so specialized that they have lost ecological flexibility and can prosper only in a few extreme habitats.

I tag Beans and Caviar, Fuzzy Mitten, The Undercover Vegan,Femblog, and Marly, of the Yarn Thing Podcast.

Tip #2 for a Successful Thesis

Ensure that the list of blogs you visit regularly is long enough - otherwise you may visit each one 5+ times per day in the hopes that they have written a new post. A new Knitty will alleviate the pressure for only 1-2 days.


And I just had to share my new desktop photo. It is the sort of picture you only get if you are already focused on the cat...

Tip #1 for a Successful Thesis

If you have a hobby internet connection pet significant other brain, budget time for distractions.