After spending so much time at such a huge university in the middle of boring corn fields, I REALLY miss Dartmouth!
I'm getting jealous from all you guys'
stories and pictures of accomplishments and trips all over the place. I've
been playing with a scanner that my lab just got, so I'm sending along some
pictures so you might get a better idea of what I've been doing. I'm sure
it's a bit different than what most Hermanos are up
to these days.
-Hermano Gerardo Lucio Fausto Carfagno '99
I've begun to analyze the data I've gathered over the past two field seasons which has meant a lot of number crunching and weird statistical procedures that I don't fully understand yet. But I'm still far from being done, so that means more long hours of sitting at my desk, having absolutely no social life, and being a slave to my academic advisor. hopefully it will be worth it some day!
My next trial is to study for and pass the preliminary
exam that will
probably be in early March. Basically, they stand you up in front of a
committee of professors and they drill you on anything and everything
they think you should know. If they decide your answers are sufficient,
then you are allowed to continue working towards
your PhD. It's all downhill from there, I hear.
My next field season starts soon after, and right now I'm interviewing to hire field assistants for this season. I'm hoping to work it out so that I can take some time off to
radio tracking a surgically implanted ratsnake (in the foreground stretched
out along the vine)
Me in Costa Rica when I was doing
work there 2 years ago
I hope you all had a great holiday season. I finally got to go home for just enough time to spend Christmas and New Year's with mia familia after another hectic semester, so I've been back in Illinois for a while now.
I'm proud to say that I can add on to the chapter's academic successes by maintaining a 4.0 throughout my time here while teaching lab courses to undergraduates and working on my project. In graduate school, however, the classes are secondary. What is more important for me is to complete a novel research project.
The swamp that I work in (for about 9 months of the year)