Summer in Virginia

What I did this summer:

1. Research
2. Research with undergrad
3. 3 days of holiday
4. Research

Research picks up as soon as classes are over. No more undergrads pestering the boss. And data is needed. I swear the cows in our study hate us now. I would too, if someone collected my blood from the jugular twice a week. Summer holidays are for undergrads.

Having an undergrad research person work with you is a double edged sword. On the other hand you have an extra pair of hands to do stuff. But you have to train the pair of hands. And that pair of hands usually has absolutely no experience in research to begin with. Needless to say, the extra stress broke me down gradually. And I found again that I am not a huge people person under stress.There are lots of things I think I did okay on the training, but also some I will do better next time. It is a bit like training a puppy - consistency being the key. (Although undergrads rarely bite or pee on the carpet.)

The actual holiday sadly was shadowed with power outage. During the hottest and most humid time of the year. I found that I love air conditioning, warm water, unspoiled food, and electricity. To cool off during these days, Luray caverns was visited. Constant temperature underground was heavenly.

Hiking the Palisades was fun. Especially since it was really early in the morning and trails were absolutely empty. The water falls were great as usual and the spray felt nice after trekking in the increasing heat and humidity. Apparently the water there is always super cold.

The environment and nature here are really nice. Rolling hills (at least it feels like hills when you are biking up them), fields and forests. The commercials for travel around here always say "Virginia is for lovers". I can see where it comes from. Although It seems a bit discriminating to singles. The most prominent touristy things of this state are probably the Natural bridge and fake Stonehenge. And of course the coast has beaches and such. Oh and the movie Dirty Dancing was shot here at a hotel up in the hills. 

I managed few weekends for biking and even an afternoon on the river to relax. Biking here is great. I you do not do what I did. After going down hill at reasonable speed for OVER 30 MINUTES and gawking at the beautiful valley, the uphill part is bound to be horrifying no matter which route you take. And I tried every single route there was, cursing all the way up. Generally it is a bad sign when you see those professional looking bikers go the opposite direction.

All in all. Summer was awesome.

Spring semester 2012 over

The quiet few days after first semester were the calm before storm. And looking back the first semester was ridiculously easy. After class load, research and teaching obligations, there was hardly any time for relaxation (things like preparing food, cleaning, laundry, and sleeping. Oh and updating this blog....).

Time management was an issue. Big issue. Trying to get everything done in timely fashion caused a lot of stress. The famous spring break of the American schools, known for fun-beach-party-time, is for undergrads. Graduate students work their ass off and put in long days in the lab. With zero days of downtime during the break, any statements following the lines of "hope you had a relaxing spring break", brought on near homicidal rage. 

On the other hand the courses were mostly useful. And I got a draft of my very own research plan, designed by yours truly, done. But what I really want to write about is academic presentations.

The first academic longer presentation in departmental seminar was a success. Talking to large crowds seems very scary to begin with. Just add the stress of the department head and all professors attending in the audience, ready to pounce you with difficult questions, and we have a nice cocktail of nerves and sweaty palms. The old performance anxiety lifted its ugly head. And I really had to work to not go for my primary stress response - telling inappropriate jokes and cursing.

Here are some things that helped me put together a successful academic presentation:

1. Prepare! Start very early! Like minimum of 3 weeks before the actual date...
• Do your research on general papers and reviews, but do not dwell on it. Go boldly for the in-depth, hardcore specialized stuff.
2. Prepare!! 
• Make up a list of topic sentences - the four to five things you want to really say.
• To support your message, collect data from your researched articles.
3. Prepare!!!  
• Put together the first version on Power point. (Trust me, this is nowhere near the final. You might change 90% of your data on the slides, before you are done.)
4. Modify
•  Make it concise
• Imagine you have stayed up until 2 am (you might not have to imagine this actually...) and are attending this talk at 8am. What would you like to hear and see?
• Also imagine you are presenting this to people who have attention span of a 4-year-old child. (Hopefully this is only your imagination)
5. Practice
• Time yourself
• If you are saying things, not all of them have to be also read by the audience (at least I am not going to read anyone's slides at 8am after 5 hours of sleep)
6. Practice more
•  Find a practice audience. Make sure they are not too nice. They will need to point out your mistakes
7.  Wear nice clothes
• Psychological effect on you AND the audience

Next post will be on what happened during summer..... yay!