Sunday, August 28, 2005

Titles, and countdown

The title of my dissertation, on my first progress report:
Levels in 27Si that are resonances for 26Al + p

My private working title of my dissertation, after I had the first good look at the data:
Levels in 27Si that are NOT resonances for 26Al + p

The title I was considering when I realized that I had 50 figures on 60 pages of text:
Baby's first illustrated guide to explosive nucleosynthesis

The "sexy" title that my supervisor suggested:
26Alm + p resonances in 27Si

The title that I ended up putting on the title page of the document that got circulated to my committee:
27Alm + p resonances in 27Si

...you'll notice that that last option involves adding 27 + 1 and getting 27. I'm looking for new and unusual phenomena, but not quite THAT unusual.

So, um, yeah. I'm sitting around, reading papers, going over my slides one last time, and watching the clock until it's time to leave for the airport. My thesis defence is on Tuesday (10 am EDT, if you want to burn a candle for me) and I'm having trouble sitting still. I know there's very little point trying to DO anything more at this point, but still I can't shake the feeling that there's one more paper that I can read that will make all the difference when I get asked a hard question.

tick tock tick tock

4 comments:

Karl Elvis said...

Wow, and I thought I was geeky. You Win.

Ray said...

At 10am EDT on Tuesday, I will be sitting for my last tattoo appointment. I'll try to take some of your pain, it'll just get mixed in with my own anyway.

Rachel said...

Thanks, Ray and Julie. Karl, do not even START having a geekiness competition with me.

evilsciencechick said...

you can calm yourself with the knowledge that I have not even started writing yet. so you are WAY COOLER THAN ME!

also the only part of your title I understand is "resonances"