* Thursday, October 28, 2004 *  
I got a scholarship! The Boeing/OMA scholarship. I'm working now at the College of Engineering for the EDGE program. I love my coworkers.


The sloth project is coming along well, I've spoken to Kathryn Hoppe, Bruce Nelson and Eric Steig about my project and the consensus seems to be to do Nitrogen analysis with the mass spec. Dr. Hoppe has told me how to treat the bone, and how to look at the bone; Eric will guide me in running the equipment and interpreting the data. (Hopefully Dr. Hoppe and maybe Liz will also help in the interpretation.)


I'm trying to get to TA^2 for Dr. Hoppe. She's very professional, so I think she takes things a bit too seriously (she didn't seem to be the kind of person to have a sense of humor at our meeting), but not only would she be a very valuable person to TA for, it would also be a very valuable class. I've never taken it, and have always wanted to, so if I get to do it, this should be great.

posted by Andy* | 4:23 PM

* Sunday, May 16, 2004 *  
I have presented the Sloths of the Pleistocene of Washington research at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Liz was thoroughly impressed with my presentation skills and with my abilities in pulling together information to create a coherent project. Others were impressed, too....

My TA for 213 tells me she can teach me about pollen. Bruce Nelson, my professor for Geochemistry, wants to help me out with the C-14 dating. He and Terry Swanson were both vying for my attention. Terry Swanson wants to help with something else; Quaternary deposits? Then my trophy-professor.... A guy interested in paleontology. I noticed I had to keep bugging this guy for something, he seemed like a good contact to make, and he kept slightly drifting away in case I wasn't ambitious enough. Turns out he's the department chair for Biology, as well as professor, as well as vertebrate paleontologist. DAMN he would make a good recommendation latter. Even one that says "this student is average on the intelligence scale but my god she's motivated, Signed, DEPT CHAIR OF BIOLOGY, TOM DANIELS." Sweet. Bruce Nelson would make an awesome letter-writer, too. I've been doing well in his class so far (though I'm starting to slip).

So that's the latest on the Search for Vertebrate Paleontology. Oh yeah, and Ringold is sorta moving forward. Tom and I are both to busy to bother with it, really. But they rejected his permit. If I were to write one, they would so give me a permit. Tom is a fool. He can't sell himself. Too bad, he's a really creative paleontologist.

I hope to go far. I was made for this job. Politics... Yummy.

Oh, and there's a new paleobiologist on the scene at the Geology Dept in UW. Vertebrate paleontologist. I should have met her, but I didn't. Bruce Nelson later told me I should have just skipped his lab if I was interested in seeing her talk. I should have. Oh well. More on that later.

All of this referenced at archteryx.blogspot.com.
posted by Andy* | 1:46 PM

* Sunday, October 26, 2003 *  
Liz is maybe giving me the sloth to work on.... But at what cost? I may put in a lot of time and energy, but never get my name on anything. Also, I wouldn't be working with Liz. I may learn how others function, but I won't be at the Burke anymore! The ideal would be to work with taxonomy on the sloth's buddies and also maybe carbon date the sloth, and then maybe come back to do some work at the Burke. Who knows. Liz has yet to tell me the extent of the goal of he project.
posted by Andy* | 6:20 PM

* Sunday, August 31, 2003 *  
Okay so that project is off. I had a feeling it would be, actually.

From now on, when I get a bad feeling about a project, instead of working even harder to try to beat the bad feeling I should listen to my instinct.
posted by Andy* | 11:29 PM

* Friday, July 04, 2003 *  
Well... I've finished the literature, for the most part. Now I just need to review it. And go out to the site, and find a project, and come back and do more research and do more stuff.
posted by Andy* | 8:03 PM

* Monday, June 16, 2003 *  
I started this blog to have a place to put cool dinosaur pictures and to be able to talk about my new Project, which will begin this summer. Currently, I'm in the process of reading the literature while Tom attempts to acquire a permit to collect in the area. Maureen is also going to be involved in the project but she unfortunately has been mostly left in the dark about everything that's going on because she'll just be helping us dig.

This appears to be a perpetual stage, but that's how research is.
posted by Andy* | 5:10 PM