Candidacy!

In the Natural Sciences there are (typically) three milestones along the road to a Ph.D. The first is a Qualifying Exam which tests you on general knowledge and, to a lesser extent, experimental design. The second milestone, the Thesis Proposal Exam (or Prelim.) is the most important milestone because it is an evaluation of your competency to do Ph.D. work; the actual defense of the Ph.D. is more of a formality (read: party) than an exam.

Today I took my Thesis Proposal exam. I performed the requisite preparatory activities including getting muffins, donuts, and coffee for my exam committee members (bribery is good) as well as putting on one of my nice suits (increases "Damn Sexy" factor). Things started a little late, but I jumped right into my presentation once all the examiners arrived. I'll be honest, I didn't actually practice my talk, nor did I study a written talk. I just created the slides and went through them in my mind. The timing was perfect - just over 23 minutes. After the presentation there were about one and a half hours of questioning and discussing. I had answers to most of the questions and was convincing in the justificaiton of my first two Aims. Aim 3 I was fairly shaky with, but I admitted that an alternative may be more appropriate and the committee was glad to see that I had come to this realization.

When all was said and done I got a great deal of constructive feedback from my examiners, but I also got tremendous approval. I was told that my presentation was excellent and flowed wonderfully. In addition, all the examiners said that my written proposal was superb and the best Thesis Proposal they had ever read in all their years as faculty. Daaaaaamn! So, the major hurdle was passed and with flying colors - I am now a Ph.D. Candidate!

10th Annual Indoor Classic

This weeked was the 10th Annual Indoor Classic soccer tournament organized by my soccer club. This was my first time as a co-organizer of such a large event and it was a ton of work. Although I helped out a great deal there were others that really deserve tremendous credit. None of us were overlooked - we all got beautiful flowers for our hard work. The organization of the tournament was highly successful. We had a total of 14 teams compete and they came from all over the USA as well as Toronto. One of my club's teams placed 3rd in the tournament and although my team didn't place, I had some great games with great saves. There were some truly awesome moments when everyone I knew was cheering for me and the best part was that my parents were sitting behind the goal watching it all happen!

Chicago

Hot on the heels of Hawaii was my trip to Chicago. The occasion was to attend the annual meeting of the Orthopaedics Research Society and thankfully it's a trip that I get completely reimbursed for (hopefully soon). I flew in early so that I could see my friend Dan whom I haven't seen in nearly two years. It was great to see him and find out what he's been up to. For the record Chicago is a city I do like, though it's no NYC or Vegas.

The conference was about what I expected - underwhelming. ORS is never as interesting as ASBMR because there just isn't a lot of bone and mineral stuff, which is what my lab does. The logistics of this conference weren't great either; it was supposed to be in New Orleans, but got relocated to Chicago because of Katrina. The hotels were scattered all over Chicago and the convention center was south of downtown on the lake which made transportation a pain. They did have free internet cafe computers for us and there were a couple of talks that got me more excited about the work I do, so that was nice.

I was happy to get some time to actually walk around Chicago, but unhappy to see several items that I felt compelled to buy. I bought Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on DVD as well as the new tricked out Sin City. I also bought a Dance CD which I listened to in the store and loved, but am not so wild about now (what was I thinking?). I also broke down and bought one of the new Nike hoodies commemorating the original soccer clubs around the world. This was pricey, but I know what I was thinking there (I'm a soccer whore). My romp around the city was made complete when a several thousand person protest against the Iraq War marched down Michigan Ave and in front of my advisor's hotel. Why are we still in Iraq anyway?

Let me mention that Chicago is a great city and, by definition, has great food. Let me also mention that Ginos East is not where you want to go if you want good food. Yes, they're famous for their deep-dish pizza and for letting you write on the wall of their establishment ($$ to anyone who can find where I signed my name), but the fact is, the crust of the deep-dish is like fried corn mean and tastes awful. Also, don't order their antipasta as it's more like a salad with a few pieces of lunchmeat. That being said, Potbelly is the best sandwich store/chain I've ever been in and Portilla's has great hot dogs.

During my last day in Chicago I got to visit the infamous Field Museum which is trying to be the NYC Museum of Natural of History, but isn't quite making it. They have lots of nice exhibits, though and plenty of bones which is a plus in my book, especially when the bone in question rivals me in size. That's one large femur!
I also have to give the Field Museum props for the hilarious on-screen cartoon tutorials they have. The cell to the right was my favorite, but there are some other good ones (check out singleh.shutterfly.com to see the full collection of pictures from my trip).

How Much Am I Worth?

A lot of us have taken those quizzes that calculate your worth based on numerous questions, but few of us know what we're really worth and have seen that money firsthand. Not true for me! Last night was perhaps the wildest night of my life (this one's for you Steve W). In order to raise money, my soccer club held a fundraising event at a local bar in the west village. In addition to selling raffle tickets for various prizes there was also a date auction and I got roped into being one of the guys auctioned. Getting up on a stage and being auctioned off like a piece of meat is very intimidating for those of you who haven't been through this (I can't imagine any of you reading this have) and it was even scarier hearing potential bidders talking and not quite understanding that they were bidding on just a dinner with us and nothing more. Eek!

We realized fast that you can increase your bids substantially by taking off more and more of your clothes. After this trend got started it was pretty hard to deny the bidders. I kept reminding myself that it was for a good cause, my soccer club. The above picture shows our coach Amanda taking a picture of one of us revealing ourselves (for all I know it is me). I can't really show other pictures of this event because it was pretty much rated R+ the whole night through. In addition, I have not yet seen all the pictures people took, though I'm told there are some great ones of me. I'll get them eventually (I hope!).

So, how much did I fetch? Well, there were 8 of us being auctioned and I left an AIM away message up asking everyone to vote on how much I'd fetch. Everybody underguessed (woefully so), except Dan M. who came the closest and clearly recognizes my awesomeness. The bidding started at $1 (eBay style), but it didn't stay there for long. After a large number of introductory bids and the loss of numerous articles of clothing by yours truly, I was bought for a whopping $550!! This was the most money bid on ANY of the guys being auctioned and 25.2% of the total money raised the whole night! That's right folks, $550 for dinner with Damn Sexy. For those of you who've had dinner with me at no cost - remember this post - anything less than $550 is a bargain!

Pro Tour Honolulu

I'm finally back from gorgeous Waikiki in the city of Honolulu (on the southern coast of Oahu). As this is a full-fledged trip, you can (and should) view all my pictures at singleh.shutterfly.com.

I arrived on Tuesday night and was somewhat disappointed to see that it was cloudy and raining. However, it was such a peacful rain and it was just so calm outside that I couldn't help but feel at peace - and the 73 degree weather wasn't bad either. The trip to the hotel was horrendous as Honolulu has the worst city highway structure in the world. The main issue is that there aren't enough roads to handle the volume of cars traveling about. All the cars tend to cluster in specific areas, like Waikiki (where I stayed), because those are the touristy places. For those that don't know, Waikiki is Hawaii's version of New York City with a shot of Vegas. The main strip has such stores as Niketown, A/X, Tffany's, etc.). Still, it didn't take me long to find the Quiznos around the corner. Mmmm...toasty.

By arriving on Tuesday evening, I gave myself all of Wednesday and Thursday to, ideally, explore Waikiki, get a nice tan, and swim in the ocean. As of Thursday WotC was picking up the bill for my room (yay partial sponsorship!), so I negotiated to move into that same room on Tuesday night. After sweet talking the hotel clerk I managed to get my way (I was getting a better room - the WotC room - for those two days). The room was nice, though it didn't have a view of the ocean. It did have a very odd tag around the bathroom showerhead instructing guests to not shower outside the tub. Interesting. It's hard to imagine people unlatching the extendable showerhead and showering in the bathroom, but what do I know.

When I awoke on Wednesday I was disappointed to see that it was mostly cloudy. I wandered around a bit and got my picture taken, but was worried that it might be worse on Thursday, so I decided to go to the beach anyway. As it turns out there were lots of people on the beach and quite a few people surfing and swimming. Hawaii is just that nice - any day is a good day to go to the beach. In addition, as I found out by accident, any day is a good day to get a tan (or burn) since the UV index is so darn high. So, despite the mostly cloudy, I got a nice burn on my back for not using suntan lotion. D'oh! Fortunately it wasn't too bad.

When I awoke Thursday there was even more disappointment as the news talked about flooding that closed schools. I looked outside and it was clearly raining, but no real flooding. The funny thing is that Waikiki normally gets less than 20 inches a year. It appears they got all of that while I was staying there. However, during my early morning walk (never did get off of NYC time really) it cleared up completely and I was like hot damn I gots to get my beach stuff! So I ran back to my room, collected my stuff and headed to the beach. I got some good sun, though I had to lather up so as to protect my wounds from the previous day. While chilling on the beach (Queen's Beach) I met some really nice guys and we met up later that day at a nearby bar for drinks. Good times.

Friday meant that the hardcore vacation was over and it was time for Day 1 of the Pro Tour. There were so many great things about this event that it's hard to know where to begin, but the first thing that happened was us all being told to take off our pinstripe judge shirts and put on these kickass Hawaiian judge shirts made exclusively for this event. To the left you can see the different shirts. There was a head judge shirt, player shirt, staff shirt, and judge shirt (modeled by none other than Damn Sexy). Anyway, on Friday I was Team Lead for the Feature Match team and had two L3 judges with me. I learned a lot from this and really started to see myself grow as a judge. I'm happy to say there were no problems with this aspect of the tournament and that was a relief for my first day at a Pro Tour.

Saturday was Day 2 of the Pro Tour and that had me judging on Side Events because the local side events people didn't have enough staff to handle things (and there are a lot less Pro Tour players on Day 2). However, in the end, they got a lot more staff than they needed and mid-way through the day I was struggling to find things to do. Fortunately, I got to talking with Lee and he offered to have me sit in on a L1 certification inteview. This was a great experience - to see the interview from the other side of the table. I spent a lot of time on Saturday talking to various judges about my work over the years, my Magic community, and what I need to do to prepare for my L3 test.

Sunday was the slowest of the days for me (and many other judges) as only a few judges are needed for the Top 8 and sides. Still, there was lots of learning as I got to attend two judge seminars, one on building a community and one of how to deal with problem players. Paul Morris led the first and Scott Marshall led the second. Both were immensely useful to me and I took a ton of notes. On Sunday I also had a pre-L3 interview with two L3 judges. The purpose of this was to get a better idea of where I am on the road to L3 and to make sure I know what I need to do to get there. To my surprise, both L3s were impressed with my thinking, interest, and philosophy. They said that based on the way I answered questions, I was much closer to a L3 than L2 and that once I got my rules knowledge up to par, I should have no concerns about testing. Wow. Never thought I'd get such a positive response. So, it looks like I'll be seeing more of the world as I pursue my L3. I'm not going to be able to make Prague, but probably will hit Charleston...and may even test there.