Out of Time

I can't believe I only have 2 posts for this quarter. I could have sworn I did 3 already. Grr.

Since I last posted things have gone to hell in a handbasket, and are now holding steady in the 'up **** creek' level. Spanish is done for. Even after agreeing to take an incomplete this quarter I still kept falling behind, so I'm going to have to audit and try again later. My grades have slipped down to 'average' in Calculus, and now, with less than a month to go, we're finally getting somewhere in Chem.

Now I'm screwed, cause drafts for all three REU assignments are due on Monday, and I have no idea even where to start. The fact that I'm the only person officially in my group doesn't help. And that the work that I'm doing now can only be described as mind numbingly boring.

The experiment is to measure the respiration rate of the soil and compare it to the amount of organic microbial carbon present in the soil, in order to draw conclusions about how the microbial activity varies based on the conditions above, below, and between the dams. It also provides a baseline of data to allow comparison in future studies.

There, just summarized the whole quarter in 4 lines. That's really interesting and all, but I don't really feel that Mr Joe Average cares. Animals and fish, maybe, cause he likes hunting his healthy animals and fish, but I doubt he is interested in how those N-fixing bacteria are doing. If we took a vidcast of the last few days of work, the most interesting thing would probably be me scooting around the room in a chair at high speeds to alleviate boredom. That is, unless staring at a computer screen for 4 hours straight is more fun.

A research brief, on the other hand, I can actually do. I can attempt to hook an high school audience with the work I'm doing, but since they're all either pregnant or on drugs these days and could care less and my brief will probably end up buried god knows where, I'll go for you guys. It won't be easy reading, but I don't expect the final journal article to be any better.

I really don't like how much of these last few posts have become so negative, but The last quarter has made me grumpy and bitter, and an outlet like this is hard to come by. I apologize once more.

In other news, the main experiment for the microbial group is on the path to completion. The whole chair racing thing I touched on earlier was about the last step, measuring the respiration rate of the soil. It really is mind-numbing stuff. 1. Hydrate the soil 2. Wait an hour 3. Put the soil in the device and hydrate another sample 4. Wait 30 minutes 5. Take the soil out and reset the tube for 15 minutes. 6. Repeat steps 3 - 5 until all 28 samples are done.

Once that is all done though, we'll have all the data we need to complete the experiment and relate the respiration to the microbial carbon. After that, it's all DNA work, which will hopefully be far more sexy in the public eyes.

So when I come to class on Monday, in all likelihood I'll only have my research brief, with maybe a podcast script if I have some sort of brainwave. I'm sorry Dwight, but I don't like BSing to anyone about this stuff, and I really don't think that what we've done so far is nearly interesting enough for a podcast or vidcast. Even you'll be bored to death. There's a reason only one other person applied to the Microbiology group last quarter.