Yet another cop-out blog

Apparently starting your thesis means you never get to think about anything else. It's... kinda exhausting.

So I think I figured out why my research hasn't been done before: freezing dirt takes a really long time, and tracking long-term strength development takes a lot of freezing cycles. Also, I'm working in a lab and equipment breaks. A lot. You have a schedule? What's that? Screw that. Schedules have no place in a lab.

Oh yeah, I tried (and failed!) to start a fire in a climate and humidity controlled room a couple weeks ago. Luckily I caught it before anything more than a bunch of adapters melted and all my Peltier elements overheated. Note to self: it only takes 1.5 hours for a Peltier element with a failed heat sink (cooling system) to go from -15C to +38C. This raised the temperature of the room almost 2 degrees.

Obviously, my committee is giving me a hard time about this.

My life is not very exciting by any standard that doesn't involve living in a lab and breaking dirt occasionally. Good times, good times.

Sanity is slipping away.

My attempts at exercise have been a bit lacking lately. I've been running home from Delft once or twice a week, and attempting to run to and from the climbing gym on the weekends when Ev and I go. Did I mention that Ev is climbing again? I missed that. Having a trusted belayer is the best, plus, for the first time possibly and probably ever, I might be a better climber than him. That won't last, but I'm gonna ride that train as long as possible.

And that is the story of my life. Exciting stuff, I know. I think I'll start working up a post that has a little more substance to it but for now, this is yet another 'hey guys, I'm still alive' post.

Here's a picture of some frozen dirt.

Spring Break year 2: haha, just kidding

When I planned out my thesis schedule, I built in 20 days of what we in the experimental research world like to call 'shit's gonna break' time. The good news is, I haven't broken anything yet. The bad news is I am down to 3 days of flux time before life starts getting... complicated.

Also, I basically have 4 months to finish my lab work and write my thesis.

What the hell was I thinking?

As far as classes are concerned, I have to finish the assignment for my Bed, Bank, & Shoreline Protection course and take the oral exam. Then I'm done. I can't wait.

This week is 'spring break,' or, as we call it at TU Delft, Ski Break. Which, of course, means nothing to those of us trying to graduate this summer. We're all in the lab, doing literature review, or writing code. Friday was kind of depressing: I was the only person at the train station in Delft without luggage and/or a ski bag. This time last year, we were en route to Grenoble for a magical skiing weekend in the Alps. This year, I'm basically living in a lab that's 14 degrees C and having some surprisingly enlightening conversations about American politics (hello, Iowa caucus) with PhD students, post docs, and professors. I've had some really interesting discussions over the past year about this stuff, and I must admit to being quite impressed with the level of knowledge of international politics exhibited by the people over here. I like to think I'm fairly in touch with European politics, but I certainly don't know the intricacies of the different governments. Either the US is political reality TV, or we're a big enough deal that people pay attention to what's going on.

Anyways, that's all I've got for this week, unless you want to look at sheared clay cylinders.

What's that? You're totally excited about dirt?

Awesome!

Enjoy.

EDIT:
Apparently Facebook feels bad for grad students, too...

I giggled.