New home and office furniture

Last weekend, Ben and I purchased a new dining table. It replaces the 38-year old table that my parents got when they first got married, but got passed to us when we got married (they also had a new dining table and did not need it anymore). The old table new lives under our guest bed, to be brought out when we have the whole family over like at last year's Thanksgiving. Ben and I are loving our new table, as we can comfortably seat 8 people around it, and if people have especially small backsides, it might even seat 10.

I also acquired a new piece of office furniture; a nice big whiteboard. It is awesome. I have already used a good bit of it to write out my conceptual models for my dissertation. I feel so scientific now, as every good (and slightly nerdy) scientist needs access to a personal whiteboard.

Offensive behavior

Apparently, it is quite offensive to assist a toddler with an activity (i.e., putting on shoes, buckling the top part of the carseat, walking up or down stairs, etc.) if she has not explicitly asked for your help. The toddler considers this assistance even more offensive if she is tired, and her response will be quite emotional in nature. Additionally, the toddler must often be given a few minutes to "emotionally prepare" for some activities, such as mealtime, bathtime or leaving a friend's house. To not allow her that period of preparation could also be taken as offensive.

Lab happenings

Just a little while ago, the professors and most of the grad students in my lab left for a regional conference. I decided to stay behind, 1) because I am not presenting anything this year, and 2) to get some schoolwork done. It is going to be a VERY quiet next couple days in the lab, which will hopefully be conducive to productivity on my part.

Considering the figurative sense of the word "quiet", things are also quieting down in our lab because we just finished a faculty search. Over the past 3 weeks, a lot of us have been busy with giving tours to the candidates, going to their teaching and research presentations, and sharing meals with them. Hopefully we'll find out soon which of them is accepting the job.

My time this semester so far has been spent starting on the literature review chapter of my dissertation, investigating prices of ELISA assays that I might end up using (one word: EXPENSIVE), looking for small dissertation grants to apply for to fund said ELISA assays, and meeting with dissertation committee members to discuss my project ideas with them. I have the last of those meetings on Monday, so after that, I anticipate that I'll be able to solidify my research questions and proceed from there.