snow observer ❄️ @cryospheroid@scholar.social

#introduction
Hello everyone! I’m a PhD student studying atmospheric physics; Arctic snow, at the moment, to be more specific. Most of my work is of the computational/data analysis variety, though I’m working both with data from remote sensing observations and from models. I spend much of my time wrangling large datasets with Python, but thankfully, I enjoy doing it (most of the time)!

Almost everyone in my research group seems to have picked up baking as a strategy for coping with self-isolation.

We send each other photos of baked goods, now, which is fun

Will I ever start working before noon during all of this? Will I ever catch up with the pile of assignments I still have to grade? difficult to say.

when I started this PhD, I was happy to be doing computational work, with the reasoning that “I don’t have to go to campus, and I can work from home instead, which is convenient”

now, I’m realizing that maybe I enjoyed working on campus, actually...

I’m really missing being on campus; working from home is difficult

I just wish I’d remembered more of the science from that meeting, and less of the grant-related stuff

me: “I don’t remember much from this meeting I went to. Most of it was stuff about funding that was hard to listen to, because I don’t find it very interesting.”

me, 2 minutes later: -provides a surprisingly thorough summary of some new, somewhat controversial government research grant process-

lately, I’m being confronted with essentially irrefutable evidence that I’m not as incompetent as my impostor syndrome leads me to believe, but part of me can’t seem to accept that, so I’m sitting with this annoying cognitive dissonance

They ended up replying to me with an exclamation mark in their email, so now, I worry that I came across as unenthusiastic

But then, I doubt anyone thinks that much about emails they receive from me; I definitely don’t overthink the phrasing in emails I receive. For the most part. As long as they’re not very important

It takes me ages to send academic emails, because I’m always second-guessing phrasing and etiquette and such

My latest dilemma: Do I use an exclamation mark? Do I not? Would it be too much?

I know this probably seems fairly common-sense, but I don’t see a lot of people in my department doing this. The other bonus is that your container can double as a plate/bowl so you don’t have to use disposable ones. I also keep a reusable spork around to save on disposable utensils as well.

Granted, I have an office, so it’s easier for me because I can keep all this in my desk and not have to carry it all the time. But if you can manage it, I highly recommend it.

If you’re a grad student in a department that has free food sometimes, keep a reusable container in your office or close at hand. If there’s leftovers that nobody wants, you can grab some in your container and have food for later.

Just be sure not to grab excess food if there’s still people who haven’t had any, but once everybody’s done, it’s fair game. (As a bonus, if the food was going to be thrown away afterwards, then you’re reducing food waste!)

I really should map one of the keys on my keyboard to the degree symbol

I should probably just put a mat under my desk in my office, but that requires forethought, which I lack

I keep forgetting to wipe the snow off my boots when I go to campus, and I end up having to do the “walk of shame” in which I walk down the hallway with very squeaky boots and try my best to walk quietly so as not to bother anyone

The answer, incidentally, is that it depends on how old the sea ice is; new ice tends to be very salty, but older sea ice is generally fresh! There’s more information below, for the curious: https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/index.html