Danielle Blog

Lot going on

Ironically, when I have the most interesting things going on in my life, I have the least amount of time to blog about them.

So, here is a synopsis of what has been going on.

I went to a really awesome career/grant workshop. I was noticed by the Provost and Associate Provost. I actually sat next to the Provost for the first part of the day. She was really excited about my research. I think that this will definitely help my chances of being hired.

I was super energized by the workshop. It is great to know that other people think my research is worth pursuing.

That energy helped keep me going to prep for the start of my research. I spent pretty much every day working pretty hard on it and still didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped. But, it was enough to get going.

Research officially started June 1 – a week and 2 days ago. It has been really crazy. I’m trying to teach my two students all of this background info that took me years to really learn well. I’m breaking it into 3 segments and am doing mini-lectures with them where I pretty much explain the basics and they ask tons of questions. They are soooooooooo bright and soooooooooooo excited. I pretty much knew that going in, which is why I chose them. But I’ll tell you what, it has just been awesome. The first “mini-lecture” was outside on the lawn on a beautiful 70-ish degree day. We ended up taking about 3 hours, which was pretty intense, but was also really great.

After working with them for Monday and Tuesday, I pretty much had to abandon them for SeaQueen’s graduation with her Ph.D. in Boston. The timing was unfortunate, but there was nothing to do about it. I put them to reading and prepping the lab for experiments. It is great that they have each other, because they ask each other questions and really seem to brainstorm up interesting ideas with each other.

SeaQueen’s graduation deserves a post all on its own. Once I get some photos up on Flickr, I’ll start writing about it.

In the meantime, we have family coming to visit…
… today!
HB’s parents, his brother, and his cousin are coming for a really short trip. It would be a long weekend, if it were a weekend. With taking time off last week, it is really hard to squeeze in more time. But I’m going to take Friday off and that will be another “reading day” for the girls.

And then, I sing in the church variety show on Saturday night. Which means I have practice tonight and a small segment on Friday night for the dress rehearsal. Our family won’t still be here on Sat night, but they will be here Fri night when the dress rehearsal is going on. So, maybe they will get to see a little bit of that.

For now, I need to continue trying to remember the things we need to get done before everyone arrives tonight!