hello... is there anybody out there?

I am still here... surprise, surprise. I have been asked by a few people in the last week if I am still blogging. This makes me feel loved, but also like a slacker. I actually have been blogging a bit over the last few months, but not here. I contribute (more science, much less personal) to a blog called We Beasties that got picked up by ScienceBlogs a few months ago. This has been very exciting because it turns out that a lot of people actually read ScienceBlogs. Yes, this means I am "outing" myself here, but I think I am OK with that. Its not like my identity was particularly well hidden before, or that I wrote anything I mind being public. Anyhow, it's one of the reasons I haven't been writing much here.

I feel much more like a scientist these days than I did 6 months ago. I am beginning to formalize my research plans and goals, and feel generally less clueless. I am in the stages of preparing for this summer's research cruise, and also starting to think about my oral (scary!) qualifying exams that are going to happen some time next September... that reminds me, I need to add "schedule quals" to my ever growing to-do list. Apparently professors schedule's fill up months ahead of time, and getting 4 of them together in a room is quite a scheduling feat.

I got to travel to (sunny!) California last week for a conference on microbial genomics and metagenomics. Basically I spent the week starting at screens (computer and projector) thinking about how to deal with absurdly large data sets that are generated by sequencing DNA from environmental samples.

So that's me in a nutshell (help! im in a nut shell! - sorry couldn't resist). If you are actually reading this consider leaving me a comment... I am debating whether or not to keep this blog going, and that partially depends on whether or not there is actually anybody following me anymore.