April update
Hello everyone. Sorry again for the long delay between posts.
As always, I've been busy with work. The end of the semester is in sight and I'm looking forward to a productive summer. My class this semester has been great - I've been teaching a graduate-level "Metabolic Engineering" course and we've covered a lot of neat topics. I have 6 enrolled students and 3 auditors, so the students are comfortable speaking up and asking questions. They all did a great job on their first project and I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle their second project. The first was a summary of published papers and for their second project they are supposed to design a series of experiments. Next fall I'll be teaching the same sophomore-level class that I taught last fall. I'm eager to go back and do a better job than I did last year.
We are also making progress on lab work, slowly but surely. I had a new full-time lab technician start last week, so hopefully that will be an improvement. And a second graduate student will be starting at the beginning of May. So over the summer there should be many hands producing lots of useful results!
On the non-work front, I am continuing to enjoy the stained glass classes. We just finished our second project, a window hanging using the copper foil method. The third and final project is another window hanging, but we use the lead method instead of copper foil. I am eager to pick out my pattern and glass for the new project. And I will be doing a two-Saturday workshop in May where we will put a mosaic-type pattern into a birdbath. I will then put the birdbath outside the bedroom window where the kitties can watch. There are progress pics here.
My neighbor, two friends and I are working on a garden in my neighbor's backyard. We are being VERY overly-ambitious, with plans for herbs, greens, 7 varieties of tomatoes, squash, melons, potatoes, beans, beets, leeks.... So far we have started some seedlings in a greenhouse and are clearing space for the garden. The real fun (digging!) will start soon. There are progress pics for the garden here.
What else... this week I will be attending a performance of STOMP with some of my co-workers. I'm quite excited about that.
Look for more updates soon. Hopefully I will have more adventures to report as the weather improves!
As always, I've been busy with work. The end of the semester is in sight and I'm looking forward to a productive summer. My class this semester has been great - I've been teaching a graduate-level "Metabolic Engineering" course and we've covered a lot of neat topics. I have 6 enrolled students and 3 auditors, so the students are comfortable speaking up and asking questions. They all did a great job on their first project and I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle their second project. The first was a summary of published papers and for their second project they are supposed to design a series of experiments. Next fall I'll be teaching the same sophomore-level class that I taught last fall. I'm eager to go back and do a better job than I did last year.
We are also making progress on lab work, slowly but surely. I had a new full-time lab technician start last week, so hopefully that will be an improvement. And a second graduate student will be starting at the beginning of May. So over the summer there should be many hands producing lots of useful results!
On the non-work front, I am continuing to enjoy the stained glass classes. We just finished our second project, a window hanging using the copper foil method. The third and final project is another window hanging, but we use the lead method instead of copper foil. I am eager to pick out my pattern and glass for the new project. And I will be doing a two-Saturday workshop in May where we will put a mosaic-type pattern into a birdbath. I will then put the birdbath outside the bedroom window where the kitties can watch. There are progress pics here.My neighbor, two friends and I are working on a garden in my neighbor's backyard. We are being VERY overly-ambitious, with plans for herbs, greens, 7 varieties of tomatoes, squash, melons, potatoes, beans, beets, leeks.... So far we have started some seedlings in a greenhouse and are clearing space for the garden. The real fun (digging!) will start soon. There are progress pics for the garden here.What else... this week I will be attending a performance of STOMP with some of my co-workers. I'm quite excited about that.
Look for more updates soon. Hopefully I will have more adventures to report as the weather improves!
posted by Laura at 10:40 PM
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