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September 20, 2005
Football Pictures
OK, its been a while but I finally managed to get my pictures from the last two football games uploaded. The first set were taken 2 weeks ago when Irwin came to visit. The second set were taken last weekend when my parents came to visit. Enjoy...
Posted by kfeigh at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2005
Last Friday Morning
Hi Karen,
Just to let you know, I've solicited questions from your comp exam cmte (me, Bill, and Steve).
The questions may not show up until next Friday (or maybe even a little while after that). So are you comfortable
with a start date of, say, next Friday (if I can put everything together by then)?
I'm thinking that we'll give you 10 days for the take-home and then have an oral follow-up afterwards.
We'll also try to accommodate your schedule, so let me know if you have any qualms about the above.
Cheers,
Dave
And with that my week is pretty much shot it my scramble to get everything ready to exculde all else from my life for 10 day starting (possibly) on Friday.
Posted by kfeigh at 11:24 AM | Comments (1)
September 09, 2005
4 page thesis proposal
Well the unexpected event of the week has gone better than expected. My office mate Alex is currently looking over the proposal for typographical errors and gramatical mistakes (and possibly even some spelling errors). As I predicted it did indeed take up any and all time that I had planned on devoting to my literature review, but it wasn't really a bad experience. For one I actually had a thesis topic which was developed enough that I could sketch out what I wanted to do. Scarry.
This weekend should be busy though. I've got a fair amount of work to do over the weekend including typing in somemore corrections to my journal paper (will the pain never end), public policy homework and reviewing a journal paper. Plus Irwin is in town so we will be at the GT football game tomorrow and probably hanging out afterwards. He's here until Tuesday for the career fair.
In other news. I've wrangled a grading job this semester. Normally I try to stay involved with my lab by working 6 hours a week on a contract so essentially I'm a baby graduate research assistant (GRA). This semester though funds were tight and so I offered instead to teach/grade. So I am now grading for the cognitive engineering class. Also I felt it would be best to have some sort of grading/teaching experience if I apply for a job at GT in the spring. It is a rather daunting experience to grade for this class because so many of the assignments are subjective. The class is discussion based format where the students are required to read papers and respond to a discussion prompt online before coming to class to ensure they are actually doing the reading. So my job is to read through the discussion give grades and feedback. Good thing the class is small or this would take for ever. Today it took about 2 hours. If I'm lucky it will also help me studying for my comprehensive examse. Which by the way still haven't been scheduled...
Posted by kfeigh at 04:04 PM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2005
Things never go quite as expected
Yeah, one would think upon looking at the PhD process from the outside that it was a nice orderly progression. Where the big ideas came out of lots of reading and a long deliberate process of thought, reflection and scholarly deliberation. No not really. All progress is made in a hurried state of panic while trying to meet some arbitrary deadline for publication, funding or some combination of the two.
I am currently engaged in that. Sure I knew that later this semester I would need to begin thinking about my thesis. Writing up the hypothesis, objectives etc. Trying to come up with an experimental design to adequately test the hypothesis. I figured this would all happen in November after passing my comprehensive exams and moving on the the next phase of my research.
Instead I find myself writing it all up now (including a budget in 4 pages or less), as I try to meet a Saturday deadline for $1000 in funding for my experiment. Ah, this is what reading email does, it sets deadlines. So much for my nice orderly life -- there will be no working on literature review this week.
Posted by kfeigh at 10:19 AM | Comments (5849)
September 01, 2005
Gasoline
Well there are lots of reports of astronomical gas prices and gas lines and gas stations which are out of gas. Well when I went to the grocery store tonight I pulled into the nearest gas station and had no problem filling up and for only $3.21 a gallon. Not nearly the horror that was predicted. However just one block away the BP was completely cleaned out and it was $0.20 more expensive. I guess you just have to know the out-of-the-way stations.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:59 PM | Comments (2)
Things are underway
Well in the 2nd week of class I am happy to report that things have settled down a bit and things are underway. Some new developments to report include Tech deciding to host students from Tulane University. No word currently on where they are being housed or if they will be enrolling as temporary Yellow Jackets, but I am curious and will keep you posted.
The gas shortage is on here. I'm not sure if it will be just a brief acute thing or something that will last much longer. I plan to wait to try to find gas until Saturday when hopefully the rush will have subsided. I figure I will pay something like $4 a gallon. Ah just like England. If only the Mazda got 11 miles to the litre like my Micra.
The weather today is beautiful. Sunshine, low humidity, light breeze and temperatures in the mid 70s. Fall in Atlanta is a wonderful thing.
Oh and if anyone saw the Gov. of Mississippi give a CNN reporter a dressing down today, it was classic. I also enjoyed the Senator from Lousianna giving it to the major Hotel chains for not stepping up to the plate to help out refugees.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:09 AM | Comments (1)