Dear Diary,
Professor Burke treated us to dinner at his house last night. He graciously provided us with a full meal and lavish deserts. I'm still full and, thankfully, was not one of the main courses. I forgot to take a picture of everyone, though, so I might be toast at tomorrow's group meeting.
Oh yeah, we even played a game where you substitute horse for a word in a television show!
A new postdoc has joined us. Paul is coming to work on semi-classical projects with us. He and his family seem really nice! As soon as I figure out what his email is, I'll add him to Burke Blog Plus so he can get all the latest inside Burke knowledge.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Never Sleep In
Dear Diary,
For the first time in a while, I was going to sleep in this morning. Big mistake! I thought it might be nice to ease back into things. However, the residence hall where I live decided that 8:15 am would be an ideal time for a fire drill (read: 'arson alarm' since they planned it).
But I have my weekly meeting with Professor Burke at 9 am. What's a graduate student to do?! (Hint: advisor > arson alarm)
It seems like something out of the ordinary happens to me approximately every five days (plus or minus four) around here. So, I was prepared. I put in some of my enormous purple ear plugs and set off on the five minute walk to work. A conversation with one of the staff herding people to a registration table went something like this:
"Head to the registration!" he said waving.
"Good morning!" I said.
Pointing, he says, "go over there!"
"Yes, it's a beautiful day!"
He looks exasperated and mutters something. I point to my ear plugs, put on my confused expressions, and then wander into work. He'll never know what was going through my head!
In truth, the fire alarms periodically go off in my complex anyway--be it from an undergraduate overcooking something, an undergraduate smoking, an undergraduate pulling the fire alarm, an undergraduate being an undergraduate, a graduate student getting extra sleep/relaxing/getting work done, etc. So, I'm truly desensitized to it by now. Some nights I wonder if I can get to sleep if someone doesn't set off their alarm. It's like counting sheep at this point.
It's a good thing I didn't go swimming this morning or else I wouldn't have been able to get back into my room and change. I'm going to go and brush my teeth in the bathroom and purchase a croissant for breakfast. C'est la vie!
For the first time in a while, I was going to sleep in this morning. Big mistake! I thought it might be nice to ease back into things. However, the residence hall where I live decided that 8:15 am would be an ideal time for a fire drill (read: 'arson alarm' since they planned it).
But I have my weekly meeting with Professor Burke at 9 am. What's a graduate student to do?! (Hint: advisor > arson alarm)
It seems like something out of the ordinary happens to me approximately every five days (plus or minus four) around here. So, I was prepared. I put in some of my enormous purple ear plugs and set off on the five minute walk to work. A conversation with one of the staff herding people to a registration table went something like this:
"Head to the registration!" he said waving.
"Good morning!" I said.
Pointing, he says, "go over there!"
"Yes, it's a beautiful day!"
He looks exasperated and mutters something. I point to my ear plugs, put on my confused expressions, and then wander into work. He'll never know what was going through my head!
In truth, the fire alarms periodically go off in my complex anyway--be it from an undergraduate overcooking something, an undergraduate smoking, an undergraduate pulling the fire alarm, an undergraduate being an undergraduate, a graduate student getting extra sleep/relaxing/getting work done, etc. So, I'm truly desensitized to it by now. Some nights I wonder if I can get to sleep if someone doesn't set off their alarm. It's like counting sheep at this point.
It's a good thing I didn't go swimming this morning or else I wouldn't have been able to get back into my room and change. I'm going to go and brush my teeth in the bathroom and purchase a croissant for breakfast. C'est la vie!
Monday, October 7, 2013
More 1984
Dear Diary,
I'm back! I have to get going on all my chores, research, and ABC of DFT duties. Professor Burke asked me to set up a dropbox system on the university's EEE online websharing something something.
To do this, I logged onto EEE, saw that the boss had added me as an administrator and got to work. To make a drop box, you just need to
1) click on the course you're administrating under 'MyEEE'
2) click on 'Dropbox'
3) since we wanted one dropbox for each assignment, I clicked 'create a new dropbox' and followed the instructions
I even made three groups for each subsection: Weenie DFT (the first few chapters of the ABCs), Tweenie DFT (the next few chapters of DFT...and Twilight fanfiction?!), and Advanced DFT (hard-core, 1999 mode physics). I'm in the first two because I wanted to review the first few chapters from this last spring. Now that I've got my feet wet, it might be good to take a fresh look at everything. Li is joining me too, and Justin is teaching.
After adding everyone into groups, I apportioned the dropboxes and set a Wednesday (Tweenie)/Thursday (Weenie, Advanced) at 7am deadline. Students can upload their assignments by logging onto EEE after clicking on 'Dropbox.' It should show right up with an intimidating message about the due date!
For now, I'll let students upload late homeworks but they'll be marked late. They thought of everything--even shame! The instructors (Justin, Raphael, and Professor Burke) can modify that if they want...well, except for me. I couldn't simultaneously be an administrator and add myself as a student, so apparently mixing those roles together makes me a tyrannical hypocrite. It appears our computer software is forcing me to make a power grab!
Friday, September 27, 2013
The bewitching hour(s)
Dear Diary,
I swear this is true: It is impossible to get any work done during the week. It is also impossible to get work done during the weekend.
The only time that actual productive work gets done? A mystical second wind appears to give you a magical boost 5:30-7:30 pm on Friday evenings and Tuesdays around 9 am (this is when you fix what you messed up between 5:30-7:30 pm on the previous Friday). Any other time is notoriously unproductive; it's as reliable as the sun rises.
Lucas had me fit an LDA functional for a few weeks now, and I finally got reasonable looking numbers. Sure, there's a big discrepancy between using the numbers from the Kohn-Sham opposed to the LDA, but that's what Tuesdays at 9 am are for!
Paint has literally been drying faster than I've been able to work through this, but I feel like it's a big milestone in this little mini-project. Now that we have the functional nearly fit, I can start running the programs that depend on those numbers and get to work on the next perplexing mini-issue.
I swear this is true: It is impossible to get any work done during the week. It is also impossible to get work done during the weekend.
The only time that actual productive work gets done? A mystical second wind appears to give you a magical boost 5:30-7:30 pm on Friday evenings and Tuesdays around 9 am (this is when you fix what you messed up between 5:30-7:30 pm on the previous Friday). Any other time is notoriously unproductive; it's as reliable as the sun rises.
Lucas had me fit an LDA functional for a few weeks now, and I finally got reasonable looking numbers. Sure, there's a big discrepancy between using the numbers from the Kohn-Sham opposed to the LDA, but that's what Tuesdays at 9 am are for!
Paint has literally been drying faster than I've been able to work through this, but I feel like it's a big milestone in this little mini-project. Now that we have the functional nearly fit, I can start running the programs that depend on those numbers and get to work on the next perplexing mini-issue.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
My little secret
Dear Diary,
I've been keeping a secret from you. I failed my first qualification exam but SHH! Don't tell anyone!
Here, they don't give you your score, so it's really not possible to tell how I did on it, but they do tell you if you either passed, failed, or should get out of graduate school. This second time, I passed after studying the previous exams and problems from the courses for several weeks. It was such a relief that I missed this morning's seminar on the imposter syndrome!
But there's lots of work to be done...now I have to see what classes I'm taking...and work with physicists...and not earn nearly as much money as everyone else I know who has a job...and work with professor Burke for however many years he sees fit...and write this blog...
Oh God. I've made a huge mistake passing the exam--it's too late!
I've been keeping a secret from you. I failed my first qualification exam but SHH! Don't tell anyone!
Here, they don't give you your score, so it's really not possible to tell how I did on it, but they do tell you if you either passed, failed, or should get out of graduate school. This second time, I passed after studying the previous exams and problems from the courses for several weeks. It was such a relief that I missed this morning's seminar on the imposter syndrome!
But there's lots of work to be done...now I have to see what classes I'm taking...and work with physicists...and not earn nearly as much money as everyone else I know who has a job...and work with professor Burke for however many years he sees fit...and write this blog...
Oh God. I've made a huge mistake passing the exam--it's too late!
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
We don't need no education
Dear Diary,
Whew! What a day! With Professor Burke away, I had to cover his math preparation course. When I walked in, the students couldn't even tell that there was someone different teaching them (or was it Professor Burke the whole time and I'm at the conference?!).
A few days ago, Professor loosely mentioned to me that I should book the conference room in order to have a place for those young students to take their quizzes and sit. I went over to the chemistry office and signed out the conference room, writing my name down in the book, and getting the key.
Before the lecture, I had to familiarize myself with all the course material. So, I made solutions for all the quizzes they were about to take (on differential equations, basic complex analysis, and linear vector spaces) and read key passages of the book ("Basic Training in Mathematics" by R. Shankar...a big name in applying Quantum Field Theory methods to condensed matter systems...Happy 80th birthday year, Shankar!). Unfortunately, as soon as I walked in the door, they asked me a question I hadn't reviewed!
So, I had to improvise a bit, but it worked out well. 30 minutes later, they were taking their quizzes. Hopefully now they'll pass the differential equations quiz, but I have to find out since I need to grade and send the scores to the boss before the end of today! I even answered one question about Hessians, huzzah! The students seem to be a little worn down...but they're sure learning a lot!
Oh, and I made sure to return the key so someone else can use it.
Whew! What a day! With Professor Burke away, I had to cover his math preparation course. When I walked in, the students couldn't even tell that there was someone different teaching them (or was it Professor Burke the whole time and I'm at the conference?!).
A few days ago, Professor loosely mentioned to me that I should book the conference room in order to have a place for those young students to take their quizzes and sit. I went over to the chemistry office and signed out the conference room, writing my name down in the book, and getting the key.
Before the lecture, I had to familiarize myself with all the course material. So, I made solutions for all the quizzes they were about to take (on differential equations, basic complex analysis, and linear vector spaces) and read key passages of the book ("Basic Training in Mathematics" by R. Shankar...a big name in applying Quantum Field Theory methods to condensed matter systems...Happy 80th birthday year, Shankar!). Unfortunately, as soon as I walked in the door, they asked me a question I hadn't reviewed!
So, I had to improvise a bit, but it worked out well. 30 minutes later, they were taking their quizzes. Hopefully now they'll pass the differential equations quiz, but I have to find out since I need to grade and send the scores to the boss before the end of today! I even answered one question about Hessians, huzzah! The students seem to be a little worn down...but they're sure learning a lot!
Oh, and I made sure to return the key so someone else can use it.
Room Cleaning
Dear Diary,
Everyone went out of town to UCLA (or is that just in a different part of the same town?) for a conference on semi-classics. Professor Burke sure finds a lot of these conferences to go to!
Since everyone is out of the office, I figured I'd do a little cleaning and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT?! I think it's a keyboard! It's FILTHY! The keyboard for the mac computer in the corner looks like an orphan boy from the street in 19th century England. Something must be done post-haste!
Mysteriously, the return key is completely clean.
I unplugged the computer and took it to the bathroom for a soapy, water filled cleaning. It's now squeaky clean. So long as I don't plug it back in for a few hours (a day?) it should work perfectly according to several Youtube videos and prior experience. Now, when we have guests, they should have the vintage clean feel of an immaculate keyboard. Did I just see it sparkle cleanliness in the fluorescent lights? I think so!
Unfortunately, I didn't notice this yesterday. With apologies to Attila and Professor Gross!
[Editor's note: One can also rectify dirty mouse wheels on the Apple computers by unplugging it, dropped some water in the wheel and working the dirt out.]
Everyone went out of town to UCLA (or is that just in a different part of the same town?) for a conference on semi-classics. Professor Burke sure finds a lot of these conferences to go to!
Since everyone is out of the office, I figured I'd do a little cleaning and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT?! I think it's a keyboard! It's FILTHY! The keyboard for the mac computer in the corner looks like an orphan boy from the street in 19th century England. Something must be done post-haste!
Mysteriously, the return key is completely clean.
I unplugged the computer and took it to the bathroom for a soapy, water filled cleaning. It's now squeaky clean. So long as I don't plug it back in for a few hours (a day?) it should work perfectly according to several Youtube videos and prior experience. Now, when we have guests, they should have the vintage clean feel of an immaculate keyboard. Did I just see it sparkle cleanliness in the fluorescent lights? I think so!
Unfortunately, I didn't notice this yesterday. With apologies to Attila and Professor Gross!
[Editor's note: One can also rectify dirty mouse wheels on the Apple computers by unplugging it, dropped some water in the wheel and working the dirt out.]
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