First Third of Summer

A third of the summer has come and gone. Overall I’m happy with the way I spent my time. But since I blogged about summer plans, or perhaps I should call them aspirations, I thought I would compare my aspirations with reality. So here’s what I’ve done or not done in one month.

Research Goals.

I have not started writing up the paper of a close-to-complete student project yet. Two reasons. One, not all the results are in yet. The story is unlikely to change, but maybe I’m just using that as an excuse. Two, I was considering actually having the student write up a first draft to the paper. She’s very talented. In my fifteen years as a faculty member, I’ve only had two other undergraduates write up the first draft, and therefore were the first authors on their papers. This student has the caliber to do the same. However, the process will take much longer compared to if I just wrote it up. There’s still time to decide.

On the other hand, I have been making excellent progress moving another student project forward. I had a breakthrough in mid-June on a problem that had stymied me for several months, and now I can see my way forward to another paper and have been generating results in earnest. A paper is a narrative – there is a beginning and an end. However its end is a new beginning. In thinking about the story arc for this paper, I’ve been reading some of the older stories that I will cite in my contribution to the grand story. I now have a better glimpse of several sequels – or the germ of a grant proposal. It will need to percolate a little more before I determine where best to request funding for my next grant. As a bonus, I also have more results for my upcoming conference presentation later this month. Making figures for the presentation also means making figures for the paper, so I’m killing two birds with one stone.

I’ve made reasonable progress in learning the new piece of software at my disposal, although I still feel like a novice. I wrote up some new crib sheets for my students, and modified some analysis and calculation setup scripts. There is still much more to learn.

Teaching Goals.

I have made no progress on my Potions textbook. Perhaps I should set myself the goal of writing drafts of it as blog posts.

On the other hand, I am making good progress in redesigning my General Chemistry course for the upcoming semester. The theme is “Hiding in Plain Sight: Using Light to Uncover the Structure of Matter”. The idea is to emphasize the many uses of electromagnetic radiation in hinting to us what is going on in the world of electrons, atoms, molecules, and network solid structures. This leads to the conceptualization of models to visualize the atomistic world – how those models give us a hint of “reality” but have their limits. I’ve written up material for the first two weeks of class up to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and how we cannot precisely determine the location of electrons. Orbitals are next!

I have not started work on the new Research Methods course, but I’ve asked my colleagues who taught the course last year for the first time for access to their materials. My plan is to start working on this in July, i.e., I should start this coming week.

Hobby Goals.

I cooked three new dishes in June, a pasta with colatura, salmon with lemon and ginger dressing, and a stir-fry lamb dish. It was my first time cooking lamb. I did not get around to playing Bios Genesis, but I did get in a few games of an older Phil Eklund design, Origins: How We Became Human. It had been five years since I last played it, so I had to relearn the rules. Eklund games are rules-dense so it took a while and I made many mistakes in the first couple of games. I have not read The Silmarillion yet, but I did read five other books in June – several of which I’ve blogged about. One that I didn’t mention in a blog post was All These Wonders presented by The Moth. I don’t normally read short autobiography, but this compilation was excellent. I highly recommend it.

All in all, a good first third. But it’s a new month, so Onward!