quasigeostrophy | School Update

Met with my advisor today, for the first time since early summer if not before. I had more than a little trepidation about the meeting for a few reasons. After all the personal crap I dealt with in the fall of 2010, I never have really gotten completely back on track in making progress on my research. I’ve been moving forward, but much more slowly than either she or I would have preferred. More of me broke after that semester than I realized. I tried to deal with a lot of the mental and emotional post-processing on my own, because the counselor at CAPS had reduced hours and availability in the spring semester, and I just learned she is no longer there, so if I want to go back, I need to break in a new counselor. Physically, I didn’t realize the major issue until I was in St. Croix last month climbing the big hill at the resort with one of my lab mates.

Anyway, I’ve written about the exercise-induced asthma diagnosis previously. Explained that to my advisor and that I think I’m already doing a little better on the new meds and exercise regimen, and we talked about how we both agreed I have been going slower than either of us would have liked, but when we started talking about my timeline going forward, she thinks I am still on track. The plan is still for me to take my preliminary exam in December, go to the ICCP conference in Leipzig next summer, and graduate December 2012.

We then talked about funding. I learned earlier this week that my office mate (who is working on a related project) was no longer a TA because she had procured a Purdue Research Foundation Grant. I asked my advisor about those, and she told me that, unfortunately, a faculty member can only have one student at a time on a PRF grant. She figured I would be able to TA this semester without much extra effort, even though I’m teaching a lab that usually requires a lot more work. She also told me that it’s well-known in the department that I’m a good TA, and I don’t need to be as good as I’ve been in the past anymore – it’s OK if I phone it in a bit this semester so I can get enough research done. We talked about some other avenues for me to investigate to get me off the TA treadmill as well.

So, this semester I am teaching the lab for the undergrad senior Atmospheric Observations & Measurements class, grading for the junior Atmospheric Thermodynamics class, finishing the current phase of my research, finishing my journal paper based on same, writing the prospectus for my dissertation and defending it at my preliminary exam in December. I’m dropping the second required semester of seminar and will probably take it in the spring instead. The semester starts Monday, and I had been concerned about being completely buried. Still going to be a lot to do, but I feel better about things than I did this morning.

Originally published at Abnormality Locality. You can comment here or there.