Sawyer: News
4.19.06 - I am doing a rotation project in the lab of Prof. Richard Murray to build a robot inspired by fly visual navigation.
12.2.05 - Kevin "Frostbyte" McCormick, 1976-2005. May he Rest in Peace. He is sorely missed.
7.25.05 - I
guess I passed. I was really worried.
7.21.05 - Ok
last qualifier exam tomorrow, in biochemistry.
Last-minute discussions with classmate Dave Wu about hydration
cages on DNA and the nature of entropy (what the heck is it?!!?
I've been trying to understand it for years and I still couldn't tell
you what it is and how it works. Something about the number of ways you
can arrange the distribution of energy in a system, but I haven't
gotten the hang of getting that idea and the idea of why it's always
supposed to increase together at the same time.) And learning about
redox potentials. Math was really hard on Tuesday. I didn't really
stick it, so I don't know how stringent they're going to be. It
actually happened an hour earlier than I had thought it was going to
be, and I had planned on using that hour to go over some material that
turned out to be on the exam, unfortunately. But my physiology test
today went well enough. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.
7.10.05 - What
a nice upbeat note my last post was. I think they want it to kinda suck
a little bit so you sit up and take notice, and make sure you really
want to bother with the whole thing (the Ph.D., that is).
I have a little over a week till the quals. And a lot to do. Mostly I
am focusing on biochemistry. So that's what I'm going to do now.
6.22.05 -
I am finished with the first year of coursework at Caltech. I'm a
little the worse for wear I think, and maybe I'm getting a little old
for all this coursework, but it's got to be done, I guess. I didn't do
great, partly because I had such a terrible conclusion to my first term
here. I wasn't used to the short study period before the finals on the
quarter system, and I wasn't finished everything by the time finals
came and I absolutely bombed all of my finals. It took the wind
out of my sails. I thought I was past the period where I would get to
the end of the term and be totally floored. I used to take comfort in
knowing that, even in the worst case, I'd probably make it through
alright. But failing a course you really wanted, and that you worked
really hard on? It gives new meaning and weight to the adage that you
have to "roll with the punches."
But satisfaction from a sense of acceptable academic performance has
not been something that has followed me through my academic career, and
I have little reason to believe it will start any time soon. There are
people whose brains work better in that way. And I get to know
that I must be among those they think about when they take satisfaction
in knowing they are better at something than somebody else. Maybe I can
think of it as my contribution to other people's happiness or
well-being or something, so I must be contributing something good to
the school, right?
We are taking our qualifying exams in three weeks, which will decide
whether we are allowed to continue with our Ph.D.'s. So mostly we are
studying. Since my current advisor, Michael Dickinson, is out of town
running the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Summer School, I am
discussing projects with other professors at Caltech and possibly up
the road at JPL. I hope use the summer to learn what is going on and
hopefully pick what I like best at the end of the summer.
The Ph.D. is really, somehow, kind of like during undergraduate life, a
test to see if you can rise above the momentous undertaking you have in
front of you to live in the moment and take care of what you have to do
now. A struggle to see if you can rise above the stresses and sense of
inadequacy that seems to be a hallmark of the whole experience, and
glimpse out of the hole, at least occasionally, that sense of lightness
that makes the heavy things seem not so heavy and motivates you to
continue.
3.23.05 - Here is the new
site!