Hopp til innhold

A couple of days ago I came across what I thought was a hilarious post on a web site: PhD theses dumbed down... My favourites are these:
  • Nanoparticles are weird and I accidentally made a bomb and electrocuted myself.
  • Inpatients with schizophrenia are happier and socialize more in the context of a music listening group. It was obvious before we began the project and we learned nothing.
  • Little things stick together. Here's a slightly easier way to calculate their stickiness. 
  • This protein looks like it might contribute to asthma. Oh, turns out it probably doesn't. 
  • Two proteins touch each other in a specific place in the developing heart. No idea if it's important for anything. 
  • People sometimes think about animals as if they're people. People like those animals a little more than regular animals. Except when they don't. I can't believe they gave me a PhD.  
  • Sand washes away, don't build important stuff on it.

Some of my friends, who have either finished their Phd's, or are in the middle of it, like I am, got inspired by this, and made their own "dumbed down" versions:

Jonathan: "All models are wrong, but at least now we can confirm they are wrong much faster"

Veronica: "Can electrons surf on an electric wave? Yes"

Kyrre: "How many sparks do we see when we push ridiculously strong micro waves through thin vacuum tubes? (And how do they work?)"

My thesis is, as many of you know, about issues with the thorium fuel cycle. Another day I think I will write a blog post about my thesis/project (so, a little bit more than just a one liner, but less than the entire thing - would you like that?), but it will have to be after I've finished my next paper, because after that I will hopefully know  a little more about how everything will be.
As of today, this is the best way I can "dumb down" my entire project, but I guess if it was just another day (when the weather was nicer, maybe, and it wasn't fall, and I wasn't feeling not like the best version of my self)I would probably write something different - maybe more positive :). Here goes:

Thorium is a nice thing for a nuclear fuel, but you get the f****** uranium-232 from it, and it makes everything s***. Now we kind of know a little bit more about it. Which is just sort of true.

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Here's yesterday's outfit - as I said I'm trying to be better at posting my outfits, and yesterday I was actually really satisfied with what i ended up wearing (after trying on, for example three different skirts and a pear of jeans) 🙂 My problem these days is, well, I actually don't really know what it is, but it's just hard :/  It takes forever to put together a simple outfit like the one from yesterday. Luckily I got "awarded" when I got to the University, and I bumped in to Anders, and he was like "wow, you look really great today" <3<3<3 

I'm very happy with my new, pink coat, that I ordered from Nelly.

top: Zara // ear rings: Snö of Sweden // coat: Nelly // scarf: HM // hair: I grow it my self // boobs: I grew them my self // eye lashes: au naturel (well, that's not exactly true; I do wear mascara, of course 😉 ) // skirt: 5 years old, don't remember where I bought it anymore // shoes: Bianco // lips: lipgloss from L'Oréal - otherwise they're like nature made them


Happy Tuesday everyone! Guess where I'll be in exactly two weeks. I'll be on a plane, on my way to one week of vacation with Alexandra and Anders <3
I din't have a real vacation this summer, since Anders was one month in Asia, and I had to spend a lot of time preparing for the Berkeley trip in August, so I promised Alexandra that we should go on a trip when it had become fall; and that is NOW! We will finally have a week of sun, salt, and sea. We're going on a real just relax and do nothing else than sleep, swim, eat ice cream and maybe have a glass of wine or a beer-trip; to Las Playitas - a small village at the Fuerteventura Island (one of the Canary Islands). The big plan for the week is RELAX, RELAX and RELAX (and SUN) 😉
(the pictures are from the Apollo website)
BUT! Before I can take my to loves and go away, there are some to dos... 
The one, really big thing before we're leaving is of course the TEDx conference in Bergen (saturday October 3rd, if anyone are thinking about going 😉 ). The theme is The (im)possible reinvented, and I think I finally know what I want to talk about this time; I've thought it through, and looked at several possibilities, and yesterday I made the decision that I will actually talk about thorium. I was first thinking about a more general "science is awesome" kind of talk, but then, when I was out walking and thinking, on my way to the University yesterday morning, it just came together - this will (probably) be my most "technical" TEDx talk, so far (who knows if there will be more talks like this in the future...the big dream is of course to give a real TED talk!). So, then I just actually have to make the talk - which will be one of the things I will spend a lot of my time on from now on and until the 3rd.
In addition to the TEDx conference, I have these TALYS calculations I'm doing. I should finish them before I go. If I manage to do that I think it'll be soooo much easier to relax - knowing that I more or less have the material ready for two papers, that "only" have to be written, when I get back to Oslo again 😛 And if I have made most of the tables and most of the figure for my uranium paper, I'll be so relaxed, I will probably be flying...
So, list of TO DOs that have to be done before Sunniva can go on vacation:
  • TEDx - thorium and weapons and stuff (and maybe Titanic...;) )
  • TALYS - finish it all (!)
  • My paper - make the tables and the figures, and place them where they are (probably) supposed to be

In addition I'm co authoring two papers that I have to give my comments on. I will definitely be doing some reading today;) And some writing on my talk. And maybe some TALYS work.

Monday!

Meaning another week with my plot... Obsessing about my plot. Trying to make it just perfect. Try different colours. Different styles. Obsess - science style.
On Friday I was actually thinking that this is it, that I was finished with this part of the data analysis; but then, today, I realised that other people have done similar things (analysed other uranium nuclei, for example), and that they have put five of those black pumps in the plot, instead of just four - so now I'm thinking about doing the same thing. 
As you can see I've added more colours to it now; there's another, lighter pink colour, a yellow-orange'ish colour, and the uranium-235 is bright green - since someone suggested that as a colour 🙂 Maybe you have suggestions for the black bumps? They don't have to be black...;)

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Right now I'm having a glass of wine with supervisor Jon - he's here for the week, and in addition to obsessing about this plot, I've shown him where I am in the entire analyse thing. We looked at a couple of other plots too today, and he said that there's definitely a cool paper in there...:D (Of course we don't know for sure yet, but I choose to be optimistic <3 ) If you follow me on Snapchat (I'm sunnivarose, of course), you've seen the plot that Jon was so excited about.

Today I've spent time at the EXFOR database - hate it and sort of love it at the same time... 
So far it's the "worst" database I've visited, but so far it has also given me what I've needed *mixedfeelings*.
Then I've worked on my strength function plot, which is starting to look like something now. Tomorrow I hope to tweak it so that it will be ready for my next article 😀  #phdlife

Here are some details of today's plot:

//this may sound silly; but I was so proud of my self when I managed to make these labels (no, I do not love ROOT - yet) 😛

//shapes <3 
//this has to be fixed - the slope of the square points needs to be more in line with the two sets of triangles (task of tomorrow!)

Good morning everyone <3 Day two of this California/Berkeley trip has just started, and so far I'm very happy 🙂
Yesterday I "finished" the first part of the uranium analysis (which is to find the nuclear level density of uranium-234) - that I wrote about in my last blog post - and started the second part of the analysis (which is to find the gamma ray strength function of uranium-234). The picture above show the very first result of my gamma ray strength data (the squares - both black and white) plotted together with different data from the big nuclear data bases. When I wrote "plot" and this appeared I actually screamed with excitement and joy, and hugged Cecilie, who was sitting next to me and helping me, because it looks soooo pretty - even before I've started to "tweak" my data to fit with the ones from the data bases (the ones on the right side of the plot - the little triangles). 
The goal of this trip is btw to put these two properties of the nucleus (the nuclear level denisty and the gamma ray strength function) into simulations of different reactors (that uses thorium based fuel) and see if they affect the results of the simulations - when we compare to standard simulations where we don't do anything about these nuclear properties 🙂 *excited*
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Below are a couple of pictures from yesterday and today. The first one, of Anders, is probably more like what you would imagine when I say "pure joy"...;) He has just rented a nice car and is on his way to Palo Alto as we speak - he is also excited. (Actually kind of wish i could go with him, but I'm on my way to the lab now, with Cecilie - and that will of course also be fun...but in a quite different way 😛 )

beautiful morning at Berkeley campus
cutest squirrel at Berkeley campus

Cecilie and Darren discussion something important (I'm guessing 😉 ) at Jupiter, where we had dinner yesterday - and the day before, when we'd just arrived

Jupiter <3

Jupiter <3

Listen to "Going to San Francisco" - check
Packing - check (but in a hurry, so not really sure if I'm bringing everything I want to...)
Passport - check
ESTA - check
Print of tickets (yes, I'm old school) - check
Print of hotel booking conformation (still old school) - check
Wearing comfortable clothes - check

I think we're ready for Berkeley/San Francisco, and a week of PhD life on the other side of the Atlantic, now <3
Below is what I did yesterday, as part of my preparation for this trip - on the first picture, the dotted line is not in agreement with the black squares, but on the second picture, it's like a perfect fit 😀 This means that the first part of my uranium analysis is coming to an end (if you ever can say that anything in science is "coming to an end" - I guess you actually really can't...:P), and I'm really excited about this trip!

I'm a master of procrastination, and not doing what I'm supposed to. Especially when it comes to stuff that I find hard - write the first 50% of an article, analyse new data, do new stuff that I know I wont understand all of by myself...so, more or less doing my job 😛
Yesterday I spent all the time before lunch not writing on my article, but browsing stuff on line instead. How silly is that? I didn't even realize how much time I spent on this, before I had to leave for my interview with P1 and Norgesglasset (which is HERE, in Norwegian...). One of my colleagues said that "sometimes you just have to sit down and do it, not all the other stuff", and she is just so right. So when I came back, I sat down, opened my article document, and attacked the introduction part. I made a real plan for what should be included in this article, and what should be in the next one, and from this I made a real outline for the article I'm working on now. Even though I know stuff can happen, and that maybe I have to do minor (or major) changes, that's ok, and I can't worry about that. At least if that worrying is gonna stop me from actually doing something.
So f*** everything else (like "oh, but I should just answer these e-mails, and maybe I should go get a soda, and also I need a coffee, I think, and I'm just gonna check facebook, and then think about all those blog posts I should write about different aspects of nuclear physics, and I have to explain why science sort of works to these people who think that Big Pharma are trying to kill them with vaccines") and just do it. It's as simple, and as difficult as that. JUST. DO. IT.
I think it will help me if I become better at making plans and lists that are actually possible to get through, too. Now I feel like a total failure everyday, since I always have, like, half or more of the stuff I was supposed to do, not checked off at my list by the end of the day. My "list" for today is as follows: finish this blog post, finish draft of the "intro" for my article, finish the "experimental setup" part (almost there, I think), and get my preliminary results into the "data analysis" part. Then I will send what I have to supervisor Sunniva, and ask her what she thinks.  If there should be some spare time before the library closes, I'm 100% sure that I will figure out more smart things to do with that extra time...;)
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After work today I'm meeting Charlotte! We haven't been out in a very long time, so I'm really looking forward to have some wine, and talk, and have fun <3
I bought this relaxed, white, thin shirt and this big yellow necklace (I think I'm in LOVE!) at H&M yesterday. Think it looks quite cool, with the hair and the tight jeans and the heels 🙂
PS: I still miss Anders - only 19 more days to go now... <3

Da er tirsdagen over, og det er "bare" 21 dager igjen til Anders kommer tilbake (ja, jeg savner ham fremdeles 😛 ).
Dagen i dag kan oppsummeres med skriving av forord, til et veldig spennende prosjekt jeg jobber med, så stengte biblioteket (klokken fire, allerede - pga ferie, tror jeg), og Therese og jeg ble ganske betuttet over at vi muligens måtte gi oss, men da kom jeg på at vi kunne dra hjem til meg og drikke vin og jobbe videre. Som sagt, så gjort! Jeg fikk sendt fra meg utkast til forord, og kunne omsider begynne på abstract til artikkel og foredrag - noe som gjorde meg mest forvirret, og litt oppgitt og trist ("åååh, jeg er bare utrolig dum, og jeg skjønner ingenting, og dessuten vet jeg ikke hva som skal være med i denne artikkelen, og så vet jeg ikke hva som kommer ut av turen til Berkeley heller, og dermed er alt umulig" - var ca det jeg følte, sånn kort oppsummert). Therese tittet på noe av det jeg jobber med, og ga meg innspill og tips, jeg fikk lagt en slagplan for morgendagen, og vi fikk snakket en del om hvordan det er å være i sluttfasen av PhD'en (Therese leverer kort tid etter sommeren). 
Jeg er har altså en plan for morgendagen, som bla inneholder:
- ringe til veileder og sutre
- se hva jeg får til av TALYS-beregninger (som egentlig betyr at jeg skal finne ut hva jeg kan/må spørre Cecilie om)
- skriv på introduksjonen til artikkel
Dette er de tre tingene som skal gjøres på Blindern i morgen. I tillegg skal jeg bevege meg ned til Marienlyst og NRK, for å være sommergjest på Norgesglasset på P1. Klokken 12:40 - sånn ca. Jeg skal bla ha med meg det jeg viser frem på bildet under, og snakke om det...;) I tillegg er det nok fare for at det blir litt fysikk og forskning <3 
"Høres" vi? 😉

As (some of) you know, I'm going to Berkeley in August. One exciting week to work on my next paper, and to do some simulations of some reactors. To do this I have to fill in forms - and I HATE forms 😛 (But love Berkeley <3)
I tried to do it yesterday, but did of course not have everything I needed to complete it.
The problem was my passport, which wasn't located at the same place I was... I was at my office at the University, and my passport was at home. So why didn't I just do it when I got home then? Well, I got home just after 11 PM, from dinner with the Ludvigsen committee and the minister of education, and at this time my mother was trying to sleep (she was there because of Alexandra <3), and I didn't want to wake her/keep her awake, and besides I was exhausted and didn't even remember that I was supposed to complete my form with the passport information. Luckily I remembered to bring my passport this morning, and now it's finally done.
Sorry, Berkeley people, that I'm so scatterbrained <3
 

Today I spent three hours with Supervisor-Sunniva - I always feel great after supervision from her, like I understand everything (ok, maybe not everything, but I think I understand more every time), and now I have a list of stuff to fix and check before we continue tomorrow 🙂 (I should, of course, have done the things today, after I left Sunniva, but somehow there wasn't any time...don't think I will ever understand why that happens.)