Green Light

Last week at my meeting with my advisor, I showed the data from (what I thought was) my last set of experiments before I could finish my Master's thesis.

I had worked very hard to get all my data into pretty graphs, and I thought I had some very solid results.

I put up my slides, and spent a while discussing with my advisor the possible interpretations, and explaining some of the deficiencies I knew were in the data. In the end my advisor was very interested. He finally sat back in his chair, set down his pencil, and declared "Well this brings up some very interesting questions."

*face palm*

Oh, no.

So I had a list of new experiments I had to run. I was so discouraged, because I felt like I'd never be done with this thesis. Does advisor REALIZE I'm studying for qualifying exams at the same time here?? So the long shot was I had a night of feeling sorry for myself, but I picked myself up and busted my rear this week to get the other experiments done.

I stayed up way too late last night analyzing the data, formatting graphs, and organizing literally hundreds of measurements. At the end of the night (or, as it were, wee hours of the morning) I had many pretty figures for the thesis appendix. I took what I had learned from all my analysis and distilled it down into one, simple, holy grail plot. It concluded, pretty much, that my thesis was valid.

And then I dreamed last night that I went to my meeting with my advisor, and I couldn't find my holy grail plot. In my dream I thought, oh gees, I know I saved it, now what folder on my laptop did I put it in? And search as I might, I couldn't find it, and the folder trees were never-ending.... such a nerdy way to dream!

But the good news is that I indeed do have the plot, I did indeed show it at my meeting today, and I now have the green light to finish writing my thesis and graduate.

Hallelujah.

Now it's a race to see if I can do that without dropping the ball on all the OTHER things I'm supposed to be doing...