I've neglected my blog since June. Now, here it is September and I'm posting mostly to rant because my reactor turned black and died on Friday (see the before and after pictures below).....so, I've essentially lost 1-2 months worth of work. I've been doing research long enough to know - these things happen. I need to get over it and move on but damn it, it still sucks! I absolutely do not regret getting my PhD. I've enjoyed my work and my life during these last six years and I've evolved into a person I pretty proud of. The extra degree has created more opportunities for me in terms of work (despite the clique of being over-educated and under-skilled) and I'm really looking forward to joining the "real world" to design and build full-scale wastewater treatment plants. There in lies the reason for my disappoint - I'm REALLY ready to move on to new things. I finished my prelim* on Monday and my committee agreed that I could accomplish everything I proposed within my timeline. I've followed that timeline to the day since March and I've started the job search process. I see the light at the end of the tunnel - except its 2 months further away now. Grrrrr!

I decided to allow myself today to wallow in self-pity. I'm eating ice cream as I type and I even cried a little in frustration. Tomorrow, I'll begin the catch up process begins. I'll be alot busier than before but I WILL graduate in May. Eberhard WILL hood me at the May graduation and I WILL have my degree before our trip to Italy. Ah yes, the power of positive thinking. I think I can, I think I can.

Luckily, Julie - my best good friend - visited this weekend which was great. We drank and talked, did a corn maze and went to a hookah bar and I had the best time - completely distracted from my reactor disaster.

*FYI: a prelim or preliminary exam is part of the PhD process where the student prepares a research proposal outlining their main objectives and hypotheses and the details on how they are to be accomplished. In my case, I did mine somewhat late which means that I've already collected the data for about 1/2 of the research outlined in the proposal - or two publications worth of data.

Lots of other things have happened since I posted last so here's a bunch of pics.......

Me in my pink gi - the atama special edition kyra gracie design - from jeff on my birthday. Yes, it is overly girly but it makes me smile (and giggle) when i wear it which means its 100% worth it. Now if only my jiu jitsu were as good as Kyra Gracie's.

The grad school gang. Cathy finished her PhD and started a "real world" job recently making Rachel and I a bit jealous but mostly we're happy for her.

Devon stayed with us at one point this summer. We did experiments which consisted on comparing the explosion of mentos in diet coke with that of vinegar and baking soda. The mentos/diet coke combo won by a long shot! Paper mache volcanoes will never be the same.

X-Files case #5,452: The color changing reactor

Left: BEFORE anomalous reactor death (see reactor on right with green labeling tape)

Right: AFTER- that reactor is completely aerobic!

The color changed from orangish red to brown to green to black pretty much overnight. Can any of the science geeks among my 3 readers provide a theory?

If it weren't for my pain, I'd be bragging about my beautiful membrane bioreactors. Maybe I can generate a pink reactor to match my new gi next time.