It has been so long since I last wrote. Before I had nothing important to write about, but I faithfully wrote every week. Now so much has happened since I last wrote on 3 Sep, I have not written a single thing. How ironic!
In short, I must say that life is good, real good.
First I have finally finished some minor editing of the wedding photos, and I'll send Emilee and Dad DVD's of the photos. Also I'll post the reception photos on Picasa webalbum.
At the end of last month I took my qualifying examinations (8 hour written test and 3 hour oral defense of my answers). The orals only took 1 hr 45 min. It pays to know your stuff. Interestingly the most difficult questions were where one committee member asked a question about someone else's subject. The mycorrhiza professor asked me to explain to him what the Global Meteroic Water Line was. It is so easy to understand, but I had never had to explain what it was before. It was not as easy to explain as I had expected. Then the genetics professor asked me what linkage disequilibrium was and I could not remember for anything. Of course, that was my fault. I said that linkage disequilibrium could explain what 2 species that share the same area do not successfully form large hybrid zones. Right when I said it I realized my mistake. I should not have invoked a term that I could not explain. In the end I still passed with flying colors.
I lost a committee member and asked another new professor to take his place. The new professor first told me, no. Then later said yes but was quite brusk. I was not at all impressed and did not want her on my committee. I tried to find someone else, but to no avail. I did not talk to her for several month because she was quite unapproachable. After several months she started working with stable isotopes. Now she comes to the lab quite often. She is so nice now. She emailed me before I went to Puerto Rico to wish me luck. I am very glad we are much more friendly as she is on my committee.
Before going to Puerto Rico I gave a talk in front of the biology department at UMiami. A row of 7 professors were seated on the back row. As soon as I showed some my first graph, one professor asked a question. After that the questions did not stop. I received at least 50 questions during the talk. The more they asked questions the more questions and excited they got. At the end it was a feeding frenzy. I basically just fielded questions for the rest of the time meanwhile trying to finish my talk. Most of the questions were sincere, but some were purposefully designed to trip me up and find holes in my research. I not only had to defend my data but also my future research as some of the professors knew what I planned to do. They asked questions about what I would do under specific conditions or if certain things happened. Gladly I can say that both my research and I held up under the scrutiny. Afterwards several grad students came up to me with a look of horror and admiration. Horror because such a spectacle had never happened before in the department and they were very glad that they were not in my place. Admiration because I did not buckle. It was more tense in many ways than more qualifying examination.
I must say that none of the professors had it out for in a vicious way. They all congratulated me for not falling apart and a few of them offered their help in my future research if I needed it. In the end it was a good experience, but not one that I want to repeat anytime soon.
Of course that brings up another point. I went to Puerto Rico to give a presentation, visit research sites, and set up collaborations with the plant physiological ecology lab at the University of Puerto Rico. I was invited to talk there on my root function research. The professor, Elvira Cuervas, that paid my way was really a neat person and we had so much fun. We saw Guanica Forest and the Robos mangrove and dry tropical forest. I stayed in San Juan, the capital. It is such a crazy city, much like Miami. After giving my presentation, Elvira invited me to give a mini course at the University of Puerto Rico on DNA fingerprinting. It should be very exciting. I'll teach a course for 2 weeks in Puerto Rico. Afterward I'll take a select group of students to the field to collect some data and then take them to Miami to develop the DNA fingerprinting technique.
Puerto Rico is a very beautiful island. I'll put photos up later. I have not had time to do anything with the photos yet.
Probably none of you watched the Breeders Cup, so I'll give a little important info. Corinthian won the Breeders Cup Dirt Mile! Corinthian was bred by Aunt Sandra. He annihilated the field by 7 lengths. Now he'll be retired to Gainesway Farm and will command an impressive stud fee of $40,000. Here you can watch a replay of the race.
I will later update my website with more photos and I'll put links in my next entry of the pages I updated.
