Since we finished the interior of the house, it was time to clean up the garage and start moving everything back inside. This was also a good time to start tidying up the yard before winter hits. Last weekend, we took down an old dog house that we were using to raise chicks in since the chicks are now old enough to roost in the main hen house. When we picked up the structure, we found that the chickens weren’t the only ones using it for a home.
And now for some other cuteness:
Three months ago, we had some pipes leak in our kitchen that caused some damage to the flooring and the cabinets and resulted in us basically getting a brand new kitchen. We contacted State Farm to see about getting any coverage, and thankfully, they agreed to help cover some of the damage. So, we set about getting a contractor in to look at the damage and give us an estimate. We ended up using one that works directly with State Farm, a decision that may have caused us more strife that we were hoping to avoid, but after several delays, screw-ups, and mis-communication among the different workers, we finally have our new kitchen (and living room).
The photo above shows what the kitchen used to look like, though the island had already been removed. It wasn’t a bad kitchen. In fact, it was originally one of the reasons we liked this house. There were a few things we had wanted to change eventually. The pantry on the left blocked one of the electric outlets and took away some valuable counter space. Mostly, though, we were getting sick of the color scheme. The green and yellow can be bright and cheery, but it was also getting dirty. It was left over from the previous owner, and we wanted something that was ours. Since the kitchen had to be torn apart, we took this time to re-paint both the kitchen and living room, which is really just one big room.
When the contractors first came out, we were under the impression that they would be able to get everything out and replaced before school started. However, we waited about 3 weeks before they even came out and started removing the cabinets and wet flooring. In this time, the smell of mold became more and more intense to the point where we had to call them to come out and remove the damaged pieces. They set up a containment tent with their portable air filtration unit to dry out the place and get rid of the mold. That lasted for several days, during which we were slowly moving furniture out of the living room since the entire floor would eventually have to be replaced. We had a plumber come in and replace all of the steel pipe with plastic tubing. After that, we found that we could drink the tap water right from the sink without any extra filtration. Turns out it was the pipes in the house that were causing us to have rusty water. No wonder the pipes burst.
The contractors finally came and removed the rest of the floor, but neglected to order the new flooring that we wanted. Instead, they kept bringing us samples that were darker than we desired. Finally, we went to Home Depot, chose the flooring and gave them no choice but to order it. The Vermont Maple Pergo® XP looks great, by the way.
The flooring wasn’t the only hang-up. We wanted to order some nice assemble-yourself cabinets that were cheaper than the custom cabinetry at any of the building supply stores have, but better than the pre-assembled cabinets in stock. They came in to measure the walls and gave us a layout using the in-stock cabinets. Apparently, they measured incorrectly the first time and we had to wait longer for the designs to come in. At that point, we begrudgingly went with the cheap in-stock cabinets. They were to paint them white. When they came and installed them, they were barely painted. We could see the wood grain through the paint, which was unacceptable. We were ready to get rid of these guys and call a new contractor to finish the job when they came and re-painted everything.
So, what we thought would be a two to three week job ended up taking three months. Last week, they came in and made all the final touches which left us with the task of finishing up any last bit of painting, which we did this weekend. We have one wall in the back bedroom to finish painting, but as that room is mostly storage at the moment, it’s not on the immediate priority list. We still have some little work to do such as painting the island white and installing handles on the cabinets. We now have more counter space, more cabinet space, a bigger and deeper sink with a working spray hose, a dishwasher, a fan over the stove, and a nice bright new color scheme. I present to you the new kitchen.
Where has time gone? It’s already October, which means I missed out on September.
Well, I didn’t really miss it. I was busy with a graduate school ritual known as the preliminary examination. Prelims are, without a doubt, the most stressful event for a graduate student. You might think it’s writing the dissertation or even giving your final defense. The truth is, by that time, you know your subject inside and out. Writing takes time, and the stress is making the deadlines, but overall, unless you slept through your graduate student experience, writing up the dissertation isn’t that difficult. The defense, generally structured as a 45-60 minute seminar followed by a couple hours of grilling by the committee, isn’t as stressful because, as I mentioned before, you know your subject inside and out, sometimes better than your own major professor and committee members.
Prelims are another story. The purpose of prelims isn’t really to test what you know, but to test what you don’t know. If you don’t know the basics in your field, then you’re not ready to be a doctorate. The structure of prelims varies from school to school, and even between departments within a school. For example, the BCB (Bioinformatics and Computational Biology) students at the University of Idaho have to write a research proposal, present it as a 45-minute seminar, and then defend it in front of their committee members. This is their prelim. The biology department is a bit more traditional. The proposal process is separate and prior to the exam and is all behind closed doors with the committee. The prelims consist of a written exam in 3 subject areas and an oral exam two weeks later. It’s up to each student/committee whether the written exams are closed or open book, whether they are timed or take-home essays, and so forth. My exams were four hours each, split over three days. Barrie gave me 7-8 questions centered around animal behavior, quantitative genetics, and evolutionary biology, and I was to answer four. I felt that this format took some of the pressure off of me, though you never really know what your committee members expect out of you.
If you’ve taken prelims seriously and studied hard prior to the exams, then the testing itself turns out to be not so stressful. The major source of stress is the anticipation, and the uncertainty of knowing just what is going to be asked of you. As a result of this tension, I over-prepared for much of it, but in the end, that worked out in my favor. One of my committee members is known for being a hard-ass. Or so I thought. It turns out, he really wants students to understand the basics. When you don’t meet that expectation, it seems as though he’s being hard. It turns out his questions were very fair. In fact, a few seemed very simple compared to my expectations. Even in the oral exam, he wasn’t the toughest in the room.
Over-all, my committee was pleased with my written answers, and I think that reflected in the orals. Typically, the oral exam is where your committee really throws curveball questions, looking to see how you respond when asked to answer questions they don’t expect you to be able to answer. And, so I knew this and was prepared to admit lack of knowledge when it was there, while making sure I could answer the relevant questions to my field of study. The oral exam didn’t even last two hours. When I was asked to step out while they deliberated, I was pretty sure I would pass. I wasn’t expecting to come back in hearing some suggestions for research ideas.
So, on September 19, almost two weeks ago, I officially became a Ph.D. candidate. And with some relief from the stress of prelims, I now embark on the stress of writing an NSF DDIG grant proposal, of which I have a week left to finish, assuming the government re-opens and the deadline hasn’t changed.