Flink Pike?

Hørt om "flink gutt"?

Nei...?

Ikke jeg heller. 

Eller, altså, jeg har hørt om det som noe man sier til hunden sin, men ikke som noe man sier til gutter/menn, slik man gjør til jenter/kvinner - "Flink pike-syndrom". Det er liksom noe negativt.

Anders er vel minst like mye "flink gutt" som det jeg er "flink pike" - men jeg har definitvt kjent på bekymringen om at "nå må du passe på så du ikke er for flink, da", noe jeg ikke tror Anders får høre, for det er vel aldri negativt at gutter er flinke (?).

I denne ukens KK er jeg intervjuet av Inga Ragnhild Holst om nettopp det å være flink pike, og Charlotte Wiig har tatt noen, i mine øyne fantatsiske bilder av Alexandra og meg <3 Saken er jo den at det er bra å stå på å være flink, og det er inmari teit at vi har gjort det til en greie at jenter må være forsiktige med å være flinke - det å være "flink" er jo det som gjør at du kan oppnå målene dine, og hadde jeg ikke vært "flink" så hadde jeg ikke klart mastergraden min, og hadde kanskje ikke vært økonomisk selvstendig til å feks kjøpe meg leilighet helt alene for to år siden... Jeg er stolt av å være "flink", og veldig fornøyd med den fine saken i KK; hurra for flinke piker!

I dag har jeg vært flink pike og jobbet med noen plott av et av de viktigste resultatene i den snart ferdige artikkelen min (åååå, som jeg gleder meg til å bli feridg med den, for jeg er gabske lei), og så skulle jeg lage en milepælplan for hvordan jeg skal komme meg i mål med doktorgraden, men det fikk jeg ikke tid til. Vi dro fra kontoret ca halv åtte, og det får være ok ;) Skal starte morgendagen med å lage en god overisktsplan over milepælene fra nå og til fullført avhandling, tror jeg, for det er definitivt en god del arbeid som ligger foran meg (samtidig som det er nesten uendelig mye mer arbeid som faktisk ligger bak meg - hurra!). Jeg må definitivt fortsette å være flink pike for å dra dettte til målstreken. Jeg har også vært flink pike og fått logistikkabalen for denne uken til å gå opp - hurra, igjen!

Håper alle har en strålende start på uken! 

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PS: Ja, jeg er klar over at det er noen (både jenter og gutter) som stresser seg i hjel, og som kanskje kjenner på et nærmest umennesklig press ift hva de skal presetere - jeg mener selvsagt ikke å kimse av det i denne saken.

Nails ready for PhD Day :)

Good morning everyone!

It felt good to get my nails fixed yesterday. Now they're not too long, and have a bright, pink colour - just perfect for standing next to my pink poster on PhD Day this Friday ;) Big surprise: I'm the only one with a pink poster. (Wonder if I'm the only one thinking about matching my poster with my nails...? Haha, no I don't wonder about that - I'm pretty sure about the answer :D )

Today's plans are:

• answering some emails
• meet with Sunniva and discuss the article that's very soon ready for all the co-authors (we were supposed to meet yesterday, but then she didn't have the time - that happens :) )
• get help from Gry with my stupid plots that are stupid (she's the nicest office mate <3 )
• WRITE! I'm going to work on one of the chapters in my thesis, and if there's time I'll work a little bit on the "popular" thorium article I just started...

Wish you all a great day <3<3<3

Why are my stupid plots stupid?!? (#phdlife)

Oh, I get so frustrated...!

This day started great; I was sort of on a roll with making nice figures for thesis and papers, and then someone told my I should look into some stuff (some threshold for some electronics), and I did, and I realised some of my plots look really strange :/ I mean, they're not supposed to be like that, going up and down like that systematically - nature isn't that "pretty"...  (Nature is pretty, but it doesn't work like this plot over here.) And I can't figure it out, so I'm back to feeling stupid again :P

Baaah.

I guess this is a good time to freshen up my make-up and go get my nails done - just gonna spend one Pomodoro on a paper I'm planning to write about thorium; like "what's the deal with thorium and what are the options and what are people around the world doing in this field" ;)

See you <3

Why is the nuclear sweat from fission always the same?

Not a bad start to this week; I've "finished" my draft for Sunniva, sent it away to her, and planned for us to meet tomorrow. I've also caught up with the fission gamma analysis (it really is that way; if I'm away from some kind of analysis or something for more than two days, it's always a lot of work to get into it again - luckily I get better and better at writing good notes, and keep everything in a system, so I know what I did and how I thought, and therefore it's not so often anymore that I have to spend an entire day just trying to understand what I was thinking the last time I was working on that particular problem), and I actually think I'm ready to start producing the actual figures that will go into the article about these gamma rays that comes when a nucleus fissions :) That will be my third article, which means that I really have enough for my entire PhD...:D And last but not least, my poster for PhD day came, and is now hanging at the Science Library. Omg. I must admit I think it looks kind of pretty (at least I think I'll win the competition for the most pink poster - but nuclear physics and pink goes well together, right? ;) ).

The title for my poster is Why is the nuclear sweat from fission always the same?, and if you come to the poster session on Friday (11 AM at the Science Library) I'll be there and explain everything. Also, if you think I deserve it, you can vote for my poster as the "audience choice" - but then you'll have to be there ;)

One small step...

...at a time...

Today is another day where I feel I've been highly ineffective, but is still not sure if that's true.

I have read four(?) articles (when I say "read" I don't really mean read, like picking up the article, starting at the first side, and read all six pages or whatever; but more like, pick up an article, scroll down to the place where it's written something about the stuff I'm working on right now, read that part and look at most of the tables), and looked at two PhD theses. I've discussed a paragraph in my article with Sunniva, about some part of my analysis, that I don't really understand (which is what I've tried to figure out by reading all these articles and theses), and I have actually come one step closer. The second last section of my article is now close(r) to finished.

So, the conclusion of todays work is that I did manage to clean up some of the analysis mess in my head (and also in my article :D), and that means that I walked one more step on that long road that leads towards my PhD. And no matter how small that step is, it still takes me one (tiny) step closer to the goal - meaning it's so worth it.

At least that's how I envisioned it today ;)

Wish you all a great weekend! We're actually going camping at Langøyene tomorrow. Alexandra's never slept in a tent before, so that will be interesting. I've heard it's supposed to be colder tomorrow, but I'm crossing my fingers the FANTASTIC weather will just stay the same!

Kisses <3

Six plots (#phdlife)

Today has been a good day; meaning I've worked continuously all day, and feeling like I've been effective. Still, when I look at what I've actually accomplished, it doesn't really look like much: six different ways of plotting one of the resonances I'm studying - to try to see if there is some kind of pattern in it. 

Pattern hunting.

Good thing is that I've might have found something, but I'm not sure before I've discussed it with Sunniva tomorrow.

I also managed to write a couple of sentences on my article...

BTW: I finished my poster for PhDDay, which is next Friday, yesterday, so that's good :) I wish I'd had more time to work on it, but I'm quite happy with the result (guess three times if it's pink ;) ), and now it's just to wait for the poster session and see how it goes... If you're at the University at 11 (AM) next Friday, you're welcome to stop by and check out our posters of our research.

It's getting real...

I am so sorry I've been away for a week now, but Jon (my supervisor from Paris) was here, and we've been working more or less non stop. Don't get me wrong; I love these kinds of visits, and of course there's also been time for socialising after a long day at the office - what Jon calls work hard, play hard.

If we'd skipped the socialising bit I guess I would've had time for updating here, but the part where we're actually also friends, and not just colleagues is so important - I don't even really see that as an option. Therefore I'll repeat: I'm sorry I've been away, but I'm not really sorry for the choices I've made; we've made great progress and had a lot of fun at the same time.

play hard - Sunniva and Sunniva at Herregårdskroen <3

But to the title; yes, it's all getting real now... 

We went through the article that's almost finished, and even though we didn't finish it completely (which was sort ofa a goal), I feel really close now - and sure that I'll make this last part by myself :)

We worked on the gamma rays, and we did start the next article. 

And me and Jon went through the entire outline for my thesis, and he said something I took as a big compliment: I'm not at all worried about you writing this thing, you'll do a great job, I'm sure of it. Jon really is Mr. WorriedGuy, so when he says something like this, it really means a lot :)

I feel like from now on it may come more weeks like this one, where I actually won't have time for updating the blog. Wish it wasn't so, but then again it feels really great to take these leaps forward, towards the finishing line. It's still a lot to do, but tomorrow I hope to finish the last big "hole" in my article, and if Sunniva approves, we'll send it off to all the co-authors (that won't happen tomorrow, sine I know Sunniva'll have quite a lot of comments, and then I'll have to fix all those, but then maybe it's time...;) ).

Another thing that's getting real is Alexandra becoming a big girl; today she had her preschool visit at her school; in just two and a half months she'll be a real school girl. That's such a big leap, and somehow it feels surreal and fantastic and almost sad (not really sad, but "strange sad" that she's not a little girl anymore) - all at one time <3