So, I'm a Masters student. That means my job is research. Last semester I was a Masters student, but I didn't really do any research... > . > In
But I didn't do any research last semester. I had been keeping fairly distant from my supervisors so they wouldn't really find out. My plan was to do most of the work over the exam break once all my classes had finished. In December I had to talk to one so I could get my Health Canada security clearance. So he found out that I hadn't done anything yet and said he'd thus have to watch me like a hawk to make sure I was making progress. > . < But now that he had found out, the due date was gone, so I took the break off and didn't do anything... haha.
Yesterday I had a meeting with my supervisors to go over what has been done last semester.
So you can imagine how I felt when they set the date. "Oh my. I need to do as much work as I possibly can in the next week!!!!!" So I set out to be a productive employee. 9-5 everyday. So I read like 30 journal articles and started writing up a report. It's definitely not done yet, but I managed to get most of 10 pages ready. I also sorted out Microsoft Word and Mendeley and it's pretty sweet, keeping track of my references like a pro. haha I wrote up my report to look like a journal article too, so that was fun. haha
There were a number of questions that were asked of me to research in the literature. My supervisor started by asking "so about the fluorophores?" and I was like thinking 'nooooooo. that's the one question I'm fairly sketchy at having answered.' So I redirected to the document from last semester to answer the questions in order. hehe. Because I DEFINITELY answered the first question! =O So I shared what I had found. The first part, same as they expected. The second part, a bit of a joke. We laugh at 'peptide aptamers' here. If you are a peptide aptamer or work on them, I don't mean to offend. I apologize. The third part, this was the key. It was stuff that I had found that neither my supervisors NOR the other papers I had read had found! =D Amazing! I also found a couple new patents, which circumvent some of the stuff we would have had to do otherwise, so that's cool too. They were impressed. Yesssssss. My two weeks of literature research paid off. *sigh of relief*. The second question, as expected, plus no need now with those new patents / papers. Third question, as expected. Fourth question, a somewhat sketchy 4-page-long table... haha. But it seems like I did well. So I need to clean it up and do a little bit more research, but it was good. I survived, and I think I understand a lot more now. haha
I had been feeling pretty guilty about not really having done much work last semester, but my supervisors acknowledged that part of being a Masters student is class and I did do class last semester. I took 3 classes, and after 1 more presentation this semester I will be done all assigned school work, and that'll be great. And then I can do research all the time. My supervisors joked about some Roman slave thing and that there was hope for freedom even for Masters students. I can't really explain, but it was funny. haha I also asked and apparently I can take vacations, which mean I can go on a mission trip this summer! =D Tell you more about that later.
This semester should be good. TAing is good. This afternoon's section may be tough though. I've got the very last group and all the V-Z last names are in it. Many ethnically Chinese or Vietnamese people. Most of the group. So it might be tough. We'll see.
Ttyl.
D.Fa
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