Tomorrow is the big day!! I shall defend my thesis!! Once I do that, I'll have more time to post and more time to actually describe what I've been doing (I know I've promised it for a while).

Schedule for tomorrow:
early morning - probably wake up a few times and go back to sleep :)
8ish - get up and get ready (my own person and my family and the foodz)
by 11:30 - get some goodies to the physics office to have them set up
by 1:30 - get the goodies my family and I are providing to the pre-talk snack room
2 p.m. - START DEFENDING MY THESIS!!!
3 p.m. - end the public portion of my defense
3:10 p.m. - start the private, committee-only part of the defense
2ish hours later - end the private portion as a gibbering mass of goo
7:30 p.m. - go party hearty at my advisor's house!! With other astronomers!! :)
late - go home! Or maybe go to the blues club ;)

We'll see if it works out this way... Heh.

I'M DONE!!!!!!

Yes, it is true, I am done with the dissertation!!!! :) :) :)

Final stats:
598 pages total
350 of the total is appendix (A. a 5 page explanation of a technique, B. a 6 page list of useful programs I made, C. 339 pages with 3 large tables and also individual information on 128 stars)
13 of the total is references
29 of the total is "frontmatter" (acknowledgments, dedication, table of contents, list of figures, etc.)
206 of the total is actual writing with figures and tables embedded

It is a large thesis. And I'm proud of it.

YAYAYAYYAYAYAYYAYAYYAYYY!!!!

Now to think about all the other things that I have to do... And I can get excited about Nashville!!

One week from this time, I'm going to have copies of my dissertation handed out to my reviewing committee.
OMG!!!

Currently, I'm experiencing a bit of burnout, but I have stuff to do so I just gotta deal. Just get the next thing done... Then the next... Or write an LJ post :)

It is now 555 pages and I haven't concluded yet. Or fully introduced. Admittedly, about 370 pages are appendix (pictures and tables) and 11 pages are references :) So, 175 pages of writing. Hunh, that's not as bad as I thought... Anyways, it's certainly big enough (and has enough info) for 2 dissertations. Or 3. Or 4. Some of this stuff could really be analyzed more, but that gives me (or fortunate underlings!) research to do in the future ;)

Dissertating is hard. And time consuming.
Error analysis is a royal pain in my rear end.

Belly dancing is fun and I recitaled on Monday :) I'll post some pictures one of these days... In a silly move, I didn't ask anyone to take any pictures with my camera though... Therefore, most all of the pictures I have are of other people. Other people took a bunch though :)

Not as much swing dancing and/or going out as in past months, but it will pass soon :) Then I shall be found carousing many a night ;)

Last night was "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Shakespeare Tavern - I'll review that later this weekend - I don't want my train of thought to get too far off the rails :) It provided much food for thought. Short review - I liked it ;)

For the duration of the summer, I get to hire an undergrad - she's a nice girl from the Ukraine :) I'm excited to work with her and the tasks I'll set her to will be useful to me and to the community at large.

I'm in astronomer-mode most hours of the day - terse, very analytical, literal (i.e. jokes fly right over my head), and tact readies itself to jump out the window :)

Yay!!!

I just submitted another journal article!! To the Astrophysical Journal!! It's on RY Scuti, a massive eclipsing binary in the constellation Scutum. YAY!!!! I've been working on this darn system for a couple of years now - it was my masters project, it got me to Minneapolis for an American Astronomical Society meeting in 2005...
I've been working really hard on this paper and I'm really pretty happy with it :)
Now it is on it's way to the reviewer (a.k.a. the referee) who will look at it with a critical eye and then give it back to me with comments for improvement.
The thing is I've pretty much had a bunch of people review/referee it already! I sent it out to the 6 co-authors and got back 4 sets of comments that were basically like referees reports (and I went through a couple of back-and-forth things with one particular one). AdvisorDoug (who is the other main author of the paper) said that the referee who gets it will have an easy job because it's pretty much been scrubbed up and prettified already ;)

It's an EXCELLENT paper if I do say so myself :)
It's also an EXTREMELY long paper... With 1.5 spacing, just the words are 20 typed pages. References take up another 2.5 pages, there are 7 tables and 11 figures. Altogether, in non-journal-style form, the thing is a 40 page behemoth :) In the journal when it's all compacted and 2-columned and stuff, it will likely be 20 pages or more... That is a LONG paper in our world.
Good news - this WHOLE thing is goin' right into the thesis :D Yay!!
When it gets accepted, I'll post a link to it so the whole world can see!!

In honor of the occasion, a new icon :D

Oh, seven weeks and counting til give-complete-draft-to-AdvisorDoug time...

From Wed evening to Sat morning the past week I went to Nashville :)

The purpose: to visit my future department!

Yes, we had a good time - I think the department will be quite good indeed! The astronomy side is growing (2 new profs coming in this year), most profs are friendly (you always have one or two crotchety ones ;) ) and the grad students are also friendly... My future boss-type-guy is fun-loving but works very hard - I suppose a good model for me.

Some things I observed:

• Vanderbilt is a lovely campus even when there are no leaves on the trees. The School of Education has a gorgeous look to it - very Jeffersonian :) I look forward to seeing it florated ;)
  
• the town is fun so I'm looking forward to an active social life :)
  
• housing is cheaper and there are many older neighborhoods with differentiable houses :) I likes that.
  
• I like giving public talks :) I gave one to the Barnard Society (amateur astronomers) and they really liked it and it really went over well.
  
• I've realized I'm going to have to grow up a bit. I'm totally "grad student" - not quite a young whippersnapper but not quite on the level above of people with real jobs and a bit more responsibility. This is not to say that I can't have fun or anything but it's just that I need to get out of the student mentality when I go up there. Since I'm still a student and will be for the next few months I can still behave like a student :) but the next stage of my life will be a little different.
  
• the one unhappy-making-yet-useful part of the whole trip was my talk to the department people - I did pretty well but there was one guy who asked me questions that I did not know the answer to. The thing is, they were not unreasonable questions. I have discovered I lost the forest for the trees - that big picture needs to be looked at again. It was sobering but I'd rather have those questions from some other person than the dissertation defense committee in July.
  
• I have some growing up to do in my research stuff... A post-doc is a time to make the transition from grad student pseudo-underling to a full-fledged independent researcher... Eek.
  
• even though I already agreed to take the job, this trip had a bunch of meetings and it was a bit tiring. One of my friends on the job market told me once that interview trips were a test of willpower and stamina - very exhausting. From this trip, I can totally see why. Wow. I was so thrilled to sleep every night :)
  

It was a fun trip and I'm excited to move :) But first, I have to do my dissertation ;)

He's gonna beat me for lateness in the department today!!!

Damn.

We're the last two left here tonight... And I'm about to go home.

I think I need a new chair...

We have a winner!
The day I will defend my dissertation is Thursday, July 12, 2007 :) :) :)

Much trial and tribulation went into figuring that out: one of my committee members will be going to Kenya, Pennsylvania, and Chile this summer, not to mention various family vacations and such of other committee members.

My committee is set - I had to lose one due to the date :( but I asked another so I will have 6 people reading it - 5 astronomers, one physicist and one of the astronomers is from USC.

My application for graduation is all in and everything :)

Commencement exercises will happen on December 15, 2007 - irritatingly, GSU decided to discontinue summer commencements and will phase out fall commencements (I believe) so there will be just one ceremony, held in the GeorgiaDome, once per year. Ugh. Ph.D. recipients will be the only ones to have their names actually read. From what I hear, GSU wants to be able to get nationally known speakers :( Sigh.
Anyways, hopefully my family will all be able to be present :) I'll be living in Nashville by that time so we'll make a trip out of it :)

YAY!!! Now all I have to do is write that dissertation!!

My advisor just asked me:

"So, do you want a slave?"

omg.

( more )

I'm so excited!!!!

I just got a call from my friend at Vanderbilt University - we had put together a proposal to do education research (along with some star science research) through the Learning Sciences Institute there. The proposal was for grant money to help provide me with a post-doc position. We plan to study students' concepts of long timescales and develop an assessment to determine how much they know and don't know and how much they learn after instruction. The cool thing about this is that it is relevant to astronomy, geology and biology. I proposed to work with a geologist at Vanderbilt as well as the astronomers there.
This aforementioned call was to inform me that the proposal is accepted!!!!

Folksez, I'm gonna go to Nashville!

(( squeeeely squeeely happy dance!! ))
   

Sir stargaz3r, ever the pragmatist, tells me, "You know what this means don't you? You absolutely HAVE to get done by next summer. Have you started writing yet?" Sigh.

But I now have a job!!!! A well-paying one!!! I just have to finish!!!
Things were so easy for this one :) It's the only application I sent out (my friend was very confident about its acceptance), I got the offer because I went out and had fun at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Calgary (to bars, out booty shakin') and it was just perfect :)
Life is good.

So I found out last night that I DID invalidate the results of the Great Cookie Experiment!! Sigh.

Remember I said that I had accidentally used melted butter instead of just softened butter for the WhiteLily? Well, last night I baked another batch of cookies for Kevin's dissertation defense this morning (he did a great job!!!). He requested the SpringWheat ones. He also requested that I not screw around with the baking.
Weeeellllll, I screwed around with it a little :) not_that_todd suggested that I try using some margarine to make them a little fluffier so I decided to have it 3/4 unsalted butter and 1/4 margarine (let's decrease the trans-fat load here). SeesterTyan has also stated that she uses a bit of margarine too. I remember Mom and my aunt always using some margarine and some butter. So, that's what I did (I want the cookies that I remember dang it).

Again, the butter was frozen so I had to thaw it and I accidentally ended up leaving the butter in the nuker too long. Sigh. Partially melted. So I used it. Also, I put in some more flour (to give it the proper taste).

The dough was gooey like the WhiteLily stuff was the other day!!! But not quite as bad... It was an odd mixture of the 2 different textures from the actual Experiment... It stuck to my fingers and the spoon, but not quite as bad as the WhiteLily did... The chips actually could make an appearance too as they were not quite as engulfed as the WhiteLily ones.

In baking, these margarine-ified ones turned out fluffier and didn't spread quite as much. I like them. It's too bad I have to deal with trans-fats :( I don't like that. Must be some sort of molecular structure difference...

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED:
- careful with your butter!!! The more melted it is, the gooier the dough but the cookie is a bit smoother
- a little bit of margarine will help fluffiness
- WhiteLily makes a gooier cookie in general...
- don't invalidate your scientific results by doing stupid stuff! :)

MissAngela is a doctor now!!! Yay!!! :) She did very well during her talk and we are all very proud of her :)

The cookies were a hit of course - we all love home-made cookies :)

Of course, I had to determine what people thought of them and also notice other things...

So, here is how I set out the tray - you can TOTALLY tell the difference between the cookies...

Left - SpringWheat, Right - WhiteLily
An interesting thing to notice... The ones that distinctly had more chocolate chips went faster than those without...

As far as opinions go... Everyone thought they were good so that's good :) There isn't all that much difference between them really so good is good :) Both were soft and chewy, both had good flavor, neither were overwhelmed by chips.
Tabby totally thought the WhiteLily ones were better - smoother, lighter, a little sweeter...
Deepak only had the WhiteLily and he liked that you couldn't see the chips and so it was a little surprise every time you ran into one :) Also thought them very smooth.
MissAngela still slightly prefers the SpringWheat :)
I still slightly prefer the SpringWheat (a little denser - I enjoy that with most things - I like dense breads better too).
I didn't get any opinions from anyone else really... Perhaps some more tomorrow :) I'm baking more :)

Another paper accepted to the Astrophysical Journal and up on astro-ph here

:)

Yay!

There should be yet another one up there in just a few days (roman numeral I) - there's a bit of back-and-forth with the editor right now :|
Argh.
Perhaps we'll have to change the order of I and II...

I just got an acceptance letter for a paper!! :D
YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY :)
It will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters in about 2 months :)

You can see a pre-print version of it here - it's number 0609602 :)
Or if you want the direct link to it, it's here.
Oh, it will be 3.69 pages when it's all in the nice, pretty, compact style of ApJL.

For those of you unfamiliar with this website, it's a pre-print server - people put up their articles that have been submitted to various academic journals (only astronomy related for this particular one). Now, people do this at different stages of the process - some people put it up right when they submit it, before they get any feedback from an anonymous peer reviewer (referee). Some people put it up after a round of reviewing (refereeing). Some people put it up only when it's actually accepted. Some people only make it available after it's published. I would say the majority of people post after acceptance, then it's after submission and bringing up the rear is after it's published - see, there is a bit of a backlog in publications in the journals but people want their stuff out there as soon as possible. Therefore - pre-print server.
Doug and I decided to post this particular one only after it was actually accepted - it changed a great deal after the first round of refereeing! But for the second round, the referee was extremely pleased so s/he only had two typographical errors to correct. Totally awesome :)

Yay!! I'm putting it on my CV! :D Speaking of my CV, I should get that sucker up on my website... I'll do that...

I've been going through papers and getting BibTeX references (for future dissertating awesomeness) so I've been looking through all these names and stuff.

Funny ones I've come across so far:
Akos G. Bakos
A. C. A. Boogert
A. W. Shafter
A. N. Cox
And of course a couple of asian names: Wang, Hang...

I'm twelve :)

Here at school, we have an important computer in the department - its name is 'joy' (after the Mt. Wilson astronomer).

Joy has been fritzing out for a couple of weeks now (of course right when our sys admin goes on a month trip to India).
Joy has a failing power supply (I just found out). Heck, I remember hearing a fan on joy whirring intermittently last week... Must be the cause.
Poor joy.

But if we shut joy down, much of the server info and authentication goes through there. AND joy is the webserver so we can't get to web pages and stuff. Sigh.

Info - if you want to ssh in from home (I'm sure Raj will kill me for saying this), use 'morgan' instead of 'ssh' or 'joy' ;)
Also, 'seyfert' is going to be the new web server so I guess you can access all files through seyfert somehow... I dunno. I figured I'd pass along any info I know.

Well, I'm actually already here :)

I've been in California since Sunday and I leave today. But I never had time to post!! I have been doing so much stuff - I've found some really great people to hang out with. If I ever go to New York or to Munich, Germany or here to Los Angeles, I have people to see :D

We've been to the beach, to some telescopes, to Caltech, to Pasadena... Hey, I'm staying on historic Route 66 :)
I'm here for a workshop dealing with interferometry. I'll describe that later. But I just wanted to post some pictures from the beach :)
( The Boogie-Boarding Astrophysicist ;)  )

New icon!!! I call it "Ad Astra" (that's "to the stars" in Latin). I found the image it's taken from on the vintage_ads community (if you want to see it, it's here).
It is appropriate as...

Today I submitted THREE articles to ApJ!!!
AdvisorDoug sez I likely will not do this again the rest of my career - he's never done it...

Therefore, this makes FIVE articles with me as first author submitted within the past 3 weeks. This is very cool because being first author is quite important.
All the info from these articles will go into my doctoral thesis.

However, these submissions are a bit anti-climactic. It's because Doug did the majority of the work (I feel). I really did not do that much. I made a few figures, I read all the articles and understand what's going on, but he really did most of the work. I talked to Tabby (another of us that has him as advisor) and she said that it's the way Doug will work sometimes. Ginny (a former student of his) said that he's like that sometimes. I know he just wants me to get my name out there and papers published with my name on them - it's all for the future. But I still feel kinda funny. I guess I'll just have to let this go and go with the flow... Maybe I'll get to help someone in the future...

I am going to be thrilled beyond belief when I get the paper on RY Scuti out there - I've done EVERYTHING with that and feel so proud of it. Not all the analysis is done yet (but will be quite soon) and the paper has a skeleton with some good parts already. I plan on getting lots done with it by the time Doug gets back from vacation in Italy :D

My poster is at the printer!!! YAY!

It is beauteous and full of figures :) And it has color :) (however, the figures are mostly white as they are plots)
Behind the LJ cut, here it is in all the beauteousness it contains :) (resolution won't let you see much of the text, but this is just a sample).

( Poster! )

Oh, I likes it :) The green will likely turn out darker (I hope I hope!) because that's the way it seems to go at the printer that we use here at school...

It was a very full weekend :) But it was great!

( Weekend events )
All and all, it was a very satisfying visit :)
But I'm a little tired... Ah well :)

One day, I'll show pictures of all the various belly dancing performances I've done recently... ;)