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Kategori: phd

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til Monday again…

...and a new week and a fresh start - again 🙂

I'm just here to wish you all a great week, and show you my TODO-list this week; which turned out longer than I thought it would 😛 Anyway: here it is - I have to run to start on the list, meaning today: move from the old office, read Cecilie's article, and spend one hour on old e-mails (BIG I'm sorry to all of you that haven't received a reply!)

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til Berkeley baby!
It's official: Cecilie (my fantastic and talented colleague) and I are going to Berkeley, one week in August!!!
It is of course for working (but who doesn't want to go to Berekely and work there, huh?!?), so the trip basically takes away (big parts of) my summer vacation, since I have to do a lot of preparations before we go - or else I have really no reason to go, since it wont help to go there unless I have my results that I need to get more results 😛 On the other hand, this trip will (hopefully) enable me to write my third paper, and if so, I'll be a GIANT  LEAP (like, really) closer to my degree, so I think losing a summer vacation will definitely be worth it! 
I have some plans for that third paper (article) that I'm not yet ready to share with you - but I'll do it later, when I know more about how it will go...;)

We're flying with Norwegian, directly from Oslo to Oakland (which is even closer to Berkeley that San Francisco - where we normally fly to), and it will be so nice not to change flights somewhere. Also I'm excited about flying Norwegian on such a long-distance flight - wonder how it will be...:)


Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til My plan
A while ago (January or February) I had a very brief plan for the rest of my time as a PhD student, and how I should manage to finish my degree. Since that time, some things have changed; first of all, my contract at the University of Oslo lasts until the end of 2016, so I wont be submitting my thesis in December this year, but rather next fall.
An updatet, and more detailed version of my progress towards the Big Day (which is what I will refer to when I talk about the day when I submit everything from now on) now looks like this: 
So this is not a plan all the way to the Big Day, but rather a list of the first half of 2015. The rest on this list should be finished by the end of June - if I don't manage to do that I'll have to work (much more than I've been planning on) during July, and then it's bye bye summer vacation...:/ I hope there wont be any big surprises during the next five weeks, so I don't have to use my "buffer" (July), but I'm still optimistic, and the feeling of crossing out stuff on the to do-list is amazing! I think I should make these updated lists every month, actually 🙂
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Yesterday I gave a talk for the INSEAD Alumni group on the topic of nuclear energy and thorium from a Norwegian perspective, with the title "Thorium is Norway's "new oil" - or is it?". My (very) short answer to this is a very, very careful "Maaaaybeeee"...;) I felt it went pretty ok, and some even wrote that it was a great talk - so I guess I shouldn't argue with the audience 😛 Anyway, it was great fun, and I met a lot of nice people; and since several of the people in the audience stayed after the talk (and 30 minutes with questions and discussions), I guess it wasn't too bad 🙂
If you want to hear more about it (thorium and nuclear and stuff), you can come to the "breakfast talk" I'm giving next Monday at the University <3  

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Collapse
I'm dead tired right now... After I held my talk yesterday (outfit above; trying to "be me" but just enough "conservative" at the same time) I felt like I just collapsed (I managed to take part in the conference dinner, luckily 😛 ), and this morning I just slept through my alarm - which never happens, except maybe if my body is trying to tell me a needed a couple of extra hours sleep. I've been really stressed about the talk yesterday, and the (preliminary) results that I showed was finished on Wednesday afternoon. Being so "last minute" didn't exactly feel great, and that was probably one reason why I was so nervous.
It has been a great week though; and even if I really  just want to go home now, and go to sleep, I'm going out with all my great nuclear physicist colleagues from all over the world <3
Wishing everyone a great Friday and a great (long) weekend!
(from my snap chat story - follow me at sunnivarose ;))
- in action -

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Getting there…
My talk is tomorrow.
It's not finished yet.
I feel nervous, but also excited...
Nervous, because I wish I had come further than I have, and that I understood "everything". Excited, because I actually do have results, and they are nice, and they make sense. They make me believe that I will actually do this; not just the talk tomorrow, but I will finish my next paper (article/publication) in June (or maybe July - but hoping for June). After that I will start directly to analyse the second part of the uranium experiment, and hopefully it will be much "easier" since I have already done it once 😉 
I'm in my bed right now, working on the presentation for tomorrow, which is around 11. Think I will work for around 30 more minutes, and then go to sleep. I'd rather get up at 5 tomorrow morning, and finish it then.
Wish me luck <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til #oslogamma
Good morning everyone <3
I'm at the University, attending the second day of the "5th Workshop on Nuclear Level Density and Gamma Strength" - the conference/workshop that our research group is arranging. Nuclear Level Densities and Gamma Strength (Functions) are fundamental properties of the atomic nucleus, and they are sort of the main goal of my data analysis just now.
I think my favourite talk so far was the one called "Neutron capture cross sections for the astrophysical r-process" by professor Artemis Spyrou from Michigan State University. Nuclear astro physical applications are really exciting <3 Unfortunately I missed the first talk this morning (stupid rain), which was by Luciano Moretto - I really regret this, because he always gives great talks...:/
Anyway; I'll be spending the rest of the week in this same auditorium, listening to talks - together with around 60 other nuclear physicist from around the world (West Coast of US, South Africa, and India, for example 🙂 )
I just realized that a hashtag has occured; #oslogamma! I don't think it will be the most popular hashtag on twitter, but at least it's there, if you want to follow 😉
Ok, now I have to pay close attention to all the talks - or, if there's something I don't understand ANYTHING of, I need to prepare my own talk that I'm giving on Thursday. Also, I need to work more on the actual analyzis of my data, so that I have more than just one plot to show...that would be a very short talk 😉

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Happy face
I'm so relieved right now...! It turns out I've (probably) done a good job when I've calibrated my gamma detectors - and now I'm actually getting real results.
It's preliminary, of course, but it's there - something I can actually show in my talk at the conference here in Oslo next week (that I've been so nervous and stressed about :/ ).
There is still tons of work to do, but I must admit I'm really happy and motivated for everything right now; nothing can stop me, and the rest of 2015 will be about analyzing data and writing papers...<3<3<3
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Here are some happy pictures from yesterday (spending a day off with Alexandra) and todays celebration of 17th of May in kindergarden - just love Biørneblæs, the student marching band!

Happy weekend and 17th of May (for those of my readers that celebrate such things) and everything!
TGIF <3

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Publisert 3 kommentarer til Finished…!

...in several ways...

Finished with the calibration of the gamma detectors (happyhappyhappy 🙂 ), but now I'm also "finished" mentally :/
Started this day by oversleeping (not the best start of a looong day), then I gave a talk about nuclear power and radiation at the biology department, and after that I've been working at Gry's office (she helps me A LOT <3) and my own office.
me, ready (sort of) for talking to the biology students - wearing one of my favourite dresses from HM, and of course heels  
After spending a couple of hours fine tuning my gamma detector calibration, I made this plot - showing gamma radiation from oxygen and beryllium. It looks like the peeks are only 20-30 kilo electronvolts "off", and I think that's ok (I'll ask someone with much more experience than me tomorrof, of course!).
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So now I've started to look at time correction stuff - having "fun" with staring at these different graphs. If they look the same, I can tell you they're not, but it's definitely not easy to see which one is "best". At least not for me...
After a good night's sleep it will probably be clearer when I can discuss this with someone (Supervisor Sunniva? 😉 )  tomorrow - meaning; I've been at the University for 12 hours, and now it's time to go home <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Finally…

...it's starting to look like something (I hope...).

In the plot are the two beryllium-peaks that I have used for the calibration - the first one is supposed to be at an energy equal to 3.368 mega electronvolts (of energy), and is now placed at 3.399 mega electronvolts, and the other one is supposed to be at 5.96 mega electronvolts, but is at 5.97:

The error is less than 1%, so it's not too bad - but I have to see what Sunniva has to say tomorrow...hope she approves 😉
Anyway; I can "tick off" my main goal for today - to get the gamma detectors calibrated. There are probably adjustments that have to be made - for example, there's something strange with the low energy gammas, since I suddenly don't get anything from oxygen-17 anymore - but this is the best I can do today. 
Now it's time to get home, and prepare for tomorrows talk about nuclear power and radiation and thorium. 9 AM in the biology building - open to everyone (and there's free breakfast 😉 )!

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til Science continued

Not even a teeny tiny step for mankind.

(Possibly) a small leap for me - today I did this <3

This means that I've (probably) figured out the gamma radiation, well enough so that I can calibrate my gamma detectors - and then figure out the rest (*playing puzzle*). I'll know more tomorrow...
I'm quite satisfied, though, since I'm really moving forward - even though I'm moving forward one very small step at the time 😉

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PS: Check out the new page I made for Sushi and Nuclear 😀

PPS: For my fabulous Norwegian speaking readers; the talks from yesterday's "Women in Tech" conference can now be seen HERE - so proud that I was part of that event!