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Right now, it is spring break time, so that means the semester is
already half way over. I’m sitting at home, casually working on an
assignment (more on that later). Even though being home feels good,
there’s not much here for me to do. When I left Miami, it was 55 and
sunny. Here in Erie it has been below 40 and snowed an inch or two
last night…joy. Here’s an update on this semester so far:

First, my abstract to the GSA North-Central meeting got accepted, just
like my advisor said it would. w00t! The abstract is titled “A Re-Os
investigation of monogenetic volcanism in SE Oregon”. I now have to
make a poster sometime before late April. When I get a second round
of data in the coming weeks, hopefully that will make preliminary
interpretations just a little easier. I also can’t forget the pretty
figures that will get squeezed in there as well. I believe a post on
osmium systematics is warranted, since many people may not be familiar
with the system.

Secondly, before spring break, I was in the lab attempting to acquire
more osmium data. It takes approximately a week’s worth of man power
to get samples ready to load on the mass spectrometer, not counting
the time it takes to get the samples into fine powder. So during the
day last week I was in the lab, getting re-aquainted with the finer
techniques of lab work. It tedious and meticulous work, but when I
get the data, it’s well worth it. Plus, more data gets me closer to
actually starting to write my thesis, which equals me getting closer
to my master’s degree. That’s always a good thing.

As for teaching, I’m teaching an upper level class this semester:
Petrology lab. It’s much better than teaching introductary geology
labs as in those classes you get a bunch of liberal art majors who
really don’t care to be there and are only taking it because they need
a science lab. At least in Petrology lab, i’m teaching geology majors
who actually like geology.

A few weeks ago I started to watch The Office. I can safely say it is
now one of my favorite shows. Michael Scott, you are my hero. New
episodes air starting April 10th–I have that evening circled on my
calendar.

Finally, as part of our research and graduate Petrology work, my
advisor gives an independent assignment based on phase diagrams and
petrographic interpretations gathered from them. It delves into all
different types of phase diagrams that are mostly not normally covered
or briefly mentioned in an undergraduate course. So, in an attempt to
accomplish something meaningful over spring break, I have spent many
hours every day working on it. It’s difficult. I also left all my
reference materials on phase diagrams at Miami, so I only have what I
can gather on the internet and what few notes I had on my laptop.
Even though I haven’t actually completed one problem out of ten, I’ve
made some progress on several of them, enough progress to feel that
I’ve accomplished something.

Now back to watching college basketball games…

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