Monday 17Jun19 - Learning, Coding, and Reading
Early Monday morning. In an attempt to reset my schedule to begin work earlier (and leave earlier), I got up at 6:30 am today. I think that time will work in the future as I settle into this routine. It got me here at 8 am. I'd rather start at 7:30. That was when my office work would begin back when I was in the Air Force. It's early enough that you usually miss the hustle and bustle of the rest of the world.
Not today though.
This morning the dining hall was FILLED with adolescents. UT orientation seems to be going on as well! So I expect to be seeing a lot of people everywhere I go on campus this week. I'm beginning to reconsider any prospect of applying to this university. If even in the summer there are this many people around all the time, I am terrified of what it looks like during the fall and spring semesters.
It's the second week of the program, and I have the potential to accomplish a great deal. I have Rebecca Larson's research paper to read, two programming workshops and a research team meeting devoted to Python. I'll meet with my informal mentor midweek, and plan to meet one-on-one with Rebecca as well. Lina Florez, one of the TAURUS program scholars, sent me some slides from a class on astronomical computing she took, so there should be some very applicable programming information to reference in them. I'll spend some time this morning looking through emails, and deposit my check from the university. I'll begin by sending my travel expenses to Lara Eakins.
I traveled to Michigan State University in May to attend a program on Nuclear Physics. I need to reach out to them to be reimbursed for my travel there. I have belongings in my old residence that I need to coordinate pickup for, and I need my deposit back from that apartment. Lastly, my car was totaled last month, and I need to mail the title in to be paid the value of scrap. There's actually a decent amount of money floating around that belongs to me right now. Additionally I reached out to my research advisor at Rutgers to check in on the progress of that project. I've started the process of handling all that this morning, which is a great deal of weight off of my mind.
My emails are cleared. It's time to focus on work. I think that this morning I will continue working on the SQL tutorial on Code Academy. In the afternoon, I will clean up the code I wrote for last Thursday's workshop, and make a nicer plot. Then take a look at some of Lina's slides before going home for the day. My friend Allie recommended going south across the river to see some jazz this evening.
UPDATE: I've gotten through a fair chunk of Rebecca Larson's paper. She and I discussed her research last week, and with the information I learned from her poster and the questions she answered for me, I find that her paper is a good deal more digestible. There are still large sections of it that are beyond my ken, but I hope to sit down with her this week and read through it. She has said more than once that I don't need to read her paper, but I think that I need to. The current research I'm doing is so similar to what she did to write her paper. I think it's in my best interests to understand it thoroughly.
Not today though.
This morning the dining hall was FILLED with adolescents. UT orientation seems to be going on as well! So I expect to be seeing a lot of people everywhere I go on campus this week. I'm beginning to reconsider any prospect of applying to this university. If even in the summer there are this many people around all the time, I am terrified of what it looks like during the fall and spring semesters.
It's the second week of the program, and I have the potential to accomplish a great deal. I have Rebecca Larson's research paper to read, two programming workshops and a research team meeting devoted to Python. I'll meet with my informal mentor midweek, and plan to meet one-on-one with Rebecca as well. Lina Florez, one of the TAURUS program scholars, sent me some slides from a class on astronomical computing she took, so there should be some very applicable programming information to reference in them. I'll spend some time this morning looking through emails, and deposit my check from the university. I'll begin by sending my travel expenses to Lara Eakins.
I traveled to Michigan State University in May to attend a program on Nuclear Physics. I need to reach out to them to be reimbursed for my travel there. I have belongings in my old residence that I need to coordinate pickup for, and I need my deposit back from that apartment. Lastly, my car was totaled last month, and I need to mail the title in to be paid the value of scrap. There's actually a decent amount of money floating around that belongs to me right now. Additionally I reached out to my research advisor at Rutgers to check in on the progress of that project. I've started the process of handling all that this morning, which is a great deal of weight off of my mind.
My emails are cleared. It's time to focus on work. I think that this morning I will continue working on the SQL tutorial on Code Academy. In the afternoon, I will clean up the code I wrote for last Thursday's workshop, and make a nicer plot. Then take a look at some of Lina's slides before going home for the day. My friend Allie recommended going south across the river to see some jazz this evening.
UPDATE: I've gotten through a fair chunk of Rebecca Larson's paper. She and I discussed her research last week, and with the information I learned from her poster and the questions she answered for me, I find that her paper is a good deal more digestible. There are still large sections of it that are beyond my ken, but I hope to sit down with her this week and read through it. She has said more than once that I don't need to read her paper, but I think that I need to. The current research I'm doing is so similar to what she did to write her paper. I think it's in my best interests to understand it thoroughly.
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