Today was a very full day, with a number of jobs. In the morning, I completed a travel grant application to be submitted for Faculty funding. Afterwards, I moved on to lab tasks, specifically working on filtering analogue signals and thinking about a control program to prevent drift in measured data. I didn't get to too much hands on work here, but I laid out what jobs I need to complete over the next week. After lunch I moved back to my thesis preparation. Even after less than a week focusing on my reading, I am feeling very positive about my progress and current state.
All in all it was a great day, but with a limited number of hours, of which I sub-divided to tackle a number of different tasks (as described above), I moved very quickly from one job to another.
On the way home this evening, I was talking to my wife and I explain that although I feel positive about the day, it seems like a small drop compared to the job laid out in front of me. This made me picture the slow growth of stalagmites and stalactites (specifically speleothems) from the amalgamation of individual drops of solution and in my mind I saw the similarity between these beautiful features and an elegantly written thesis. I suppose the main issue with this comparison is that stalagmites and stalactites form on a geologic time scale, where as a PhD at my university has to be completed in 4 years.
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