I probably should have posted something like this in January, when the year is young enough to merit a "year in review" post. But I hardly ever visit or think about this blog anymore, as my academic and personal duties, and commitment to my project's website and blog, are such that I rarely have time for this one anymore. Nevertheless, the urge struck me this afternoon to revisit this, and while I sit around waiting for a 12V battery to charge, I need something to occupy my time.
My goals for 2013 were as follows:
-Survive my fourth semester of grad school. After coming back
from a LONG stint in the field, the thought of being on campus, taking
classes, and TA'ing sounds awful. I'm really not looking forward to the
semester ahead at all. My motivation for grad school is very low right
now.
Done. And my fifth, and my sixth. I DID have very little motivation at the end of my second year. My third year was also difficult-- incredibly time consuming as I was doing fieldwork and had to study and take both my comprehensive and qualifying examinations. Examinations were undeniably stressful, although my qualifying exam at least forced me to write out a dissertation prospectus as a single document, which allowed me to think for the first time about how each piece is linked to one another. And with the help of the NSF GRFP, I no longer had/have to TA, so I was freed from an enormous burden in terms of administrative duties, which has allowed me to focus exclusively on research. Pretty sweet.
-Secure enough funding to continue my big research project. I
started this project this autumn, mostly on shoestring funding I scraped
together from a whole host of sources. But for the work to continue and
sample sizes to be large enough for statistical inference, I'll need a
lot more funding. A LOT. Grant writing looms in my future.
Done. Sort of, at least. This continues to be a work in progress. I schelp along for a few months on one grant and then move to another. I spend a lot of time grant writing. It seems, however, that I might finally have reached a point where I've secured enough funding to complete the research. So I might actually be finished with grant writing for the time being.
-Get the NSF GRFP! This is my last opportunity. I'm hoping I walk away
this year with an award, instead of ANOTHER honorable mention (or, worse
yet, nothing) I won't have to apply again, but I also won't GET to
apply again. Getting the GRF would ease a lot of my worries about my
future fieldwork prospects, as a lot of my research needs to be
conducted away from campus in autumn. It will be very difficult to do
fieldwork if I have to support myself by TA'ing.
Done. I thank my lucky stars that this happened. I honestly don't think about it as much as I probably should, as it's an incredible gift to be freed from TA'ing. I have so much more time now to focus on research, and I honestly could not have put together the research project that I have if I'd been forced to remain on campus most of the year to teach. I spend half my year now in the field. I literally could not do it without the GRF.
-Go to a big conference. I have one in mind. It might conflict with the
time frame during which I need to leave for my fieldwork. But I really
think I should try to go to this one. I may or may not be able to
present. I think I could scrap together a poster presentation of
preliminary results and future prospects for the study. It might be
worth it just for the networking.
Done. I'd actually almost forgotten that I did this last summer, but I did, right before I left for fieldwork. I presented both a talk and a poster about some research I did during the end of my first year in grad school that is unrelated to my dissertation, but has very broad appeal. Both the talk and the poster presentation went fantastically. I love talking to people about my work-- it's hands-down my favorite part of the job, aside from fieldwork-- and I went to the conference with a group of friends, so we had a blast. Much nicer than the last big conference I attended, alone, between college and grad school. I should probably go to another conference this summer, but I'm in the field and not only is it outrageously expensive to travel anywhere from here, it takes multiple days, so I just don't see it happening again any time soon.
-Start doing dog agility with Monster Dog. He's had the freedom of
running wild during my fieldwork for the last five months. He's not
going to be happy when I start disappearing for 6-8 hours a day again.
He's athletic enough to do dog agility, and I think he'd enjoy it, so
we're going to try and find some classes and equipment somewhere nearby.
Done. We started classes in 2013, took a break for fieldwork, and resumed them in early 2014, continuing right up until we left for fieldwork again. He's crazy about it, naturally talented, and we both enjoy it as a break every week from work.
-Keep my CV and website updated. I'm really bad about this.
I could still do a better job at this. I update them both when major events occur (passing exams, new publication, etc.) but otherwise don't even look at them for long stretches of time. My CV in particular could likely use a good overhaul.
-Post two blog updates each week. But... not here. Sorry! My other, non-pseudonymous blog.
Meh... sort of. I'm very good about updating my project website and blog once or twice weekly while in the field, when I have lots of interesting happenings and photos to share. But when I'm not in the field, and am instead on campus, I have hardly anything to say and the blog lags a bit. I've gone a couple months between blog posts, which I don't like, but I think is better in the long run than posting a bunch of trivial pieces or BS that no one will enjoy reading anyway.
-Give at least one additional public talk. I did this last year and felt
pretty good about it. It seems to help a great deal with outreach.
In addition to the talk and poster presentation at the conference last year, I gave three public talks, one during a conference of sorts, one during a wildlife advisory council meeting, and another to the general public. The latter garnered a crowd of over 70 people! I had a blast with that talk. I really enjoyed myself and loved seeing so many people interested in my work. I hope they enjoyed the talk, too! I'm not sure if I'll give another talk this year, as my research is in a weird place right now in between novel start-up data and actually doing meaningful analyses.
Not bad, all in all. Turns out 2013 was a pretty good year for goal completion.
I guess 2014 is already halfway over, but I do have a couple things I'd still like to do.
2014: Stuff I'd like to do
-Finish fieldwork. Should everything go as planned, this will be my last field season. I should be able to collect all the data I need for my dissertation by the end of this field season.
-Make significant progress on the Introduction and Methods section, and preferably some analyses, for one chapter of my dissertation.
-Uh...
Actually, that's all I've got. I'm not sure if it's reasonable to expect to finish my data collection by the end of this year or not, but it's what I'm aiming for. I'm still not sure what this whole "dissertation" thing is supposed to look like, or what it's all about. During my qualifying exam, my committee gave my outlined list of projects and chapters the 'okay', but I'm still not entirely sure they'll be satisfied with the final document. Right now it's looking like it will be a series of four discrete papers, tied together with an intro and conclusion, from three separate projects. But it's difficult to tell at this stage if that's reasonable or not. I feel like I need to be doing analyses NOW to really get the ball rolling, but I also feel like I need to finish data collection before I start in on anything major. For one project, there are some 'test runs' I can make now with data from the last couple years, but I'm also using data from outside sources for this project and it's A HUGE MESS and nearly every time I sit down to try to sort it out to the point where it's usable for my work I end up frustrated to the point of wanting to chuck my computer out the window.
So I'm putting that off as long as possible. :)
