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.

Cookie Pride

So I just watched an older episode of the Colbert Report (June 19th) and I found out some horrifying news: Cookie monster has abandoned the cookie movement! Some of you, especially those with young kids, may have known about this for awhile but I thought that it was just an urban legend of sorts. Fruits and vegetables are any time food and cookies are sometimes food... well okay but Cookie monster isn't Cookie monster without the cookies. It is like Fuzzy Wuzzy I suppose. My dad used to tell me:

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't Fuzzy was he?!

I understand that kids are overweight left right and center but I don't think that Cookie monster had much of an impact. I'm a kid of the 80s and 90s and I never thought that I should eat like Cookie Monster. But then I also didn't feel that my Barbie made much of an impact on my self esteem or how I though that I should look. Barbie is a doll, not a role model. Fashion shows, magazines, TV shows with real people, models - those are the things that might make a kid think that she should be super thin, not a doll. If changing the behaviour of Cookie monster is going to affect children then I think we have a different problem on our hands - kids watch too much TV and/or TV is too influential. And I think that there is going to be a generation of Sesame Street watching kids that are going to be confused as to why Cookie monster is called Cookie monster if what he eats is fruits and vegetables.

I love cookie monster the way he was, he didn't need to change at all. Cookie monster, if you are reading this, don't fight your addiction - eat cookies, they aren't a harmful drug like heroin and they didn't seem to make you gain any weight over 20+ years. Your metabolism can handle the cookies so go for it.

As a side note, the Cookie monster segment is hilarious - the car runs on a very good fuel - imagination!...

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!