Annular Eclipse

I had a great day yesterday.

Yesterday there was an annular solar eclipse that was visible from the western half of the U.S., and we're about 2 hours south of the zone where it was a "total" annular eclipse, meaning the moon was positioned squarely in the middle of the sun, so there was a perfect ring.

We drove straight up from San Francisco, into the gray zone on this map.

If we had been able to look straight at the sun while it was happening, this is what we would've seen.

A small group of us decided to drive the 2 hours north so we could get the full effect, and it was such a fun trip.  Our original "plan" (or lack thereof) was to drive up to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, because it was just across the border of where the total eclipse happened.  We got there around mid afternoon, walked around a bit, and still had a bunch of time to kill, since the eclipse didn't even start until about 5:15.  We had all completely forgotten that once you leave the immediate Bay Area, it gets hot in the summer, and it was so nice to feel the hot sun beating down and be sweating a little bit.  I'm used to 60-65 degrees temps year round now, but I still miss seasons!

We didn't see too much wildlife, but I did snap some photos while we were walking around.  It was really nice to be on a little mini hike-adventure with friends.

Jack rabbit!  (Or something like it.)  Look at its long ears!

When you gaze across a California landscape, you can usually see some mountains in the background.
It's still pretty weird to me, even after several years.

Action shot.  Melanie reading about California wildlife and Jevon looking slightly skeptical.

There were little lizard guys everywhere!

Then, because everyone I know has iPhones, we discovered that just a few miles further north, there was a county fair going on!  So we decided to hop back into the car and spend the afternoon at the Glenn County Fair.  That made it really feel like summer.  It was hot and sticky and smelled like livestock, and we ate funnel cakes and corn dogs, listened to the live music, and played around at the fair for a few hours.

The baby goats.

Melanie doing giant bubbles in the kids' play area.

Eventually it started to get noticeably darker out, so we knew the eclipse was happening.  We brought some index cards with little holes poked in them, so we could project the image of the sun and see where the moon was covering it up.

What we weren't expecting was all of the awesome shadow projections everywhere!  I had no idea this happened during an eclipse - when the light gets filtered through leaves or other small openings, there are tons of projections of the image of the sun all over the ground, so we ended up being able to see the eclipse everywhere we looked.  It was so cool.

Then as we were leaving, there was a group of people that had brought a welder's helmet for people to look through, so we all took a turn looking at the sun and we could see the moon still covering up part of it.  It was really cool.

Yay Glenn County Fair!  Yay Eclipse!

Dissertation Mode: STALL

I am so anxious to sit down and actually work on this dissertation, but I have so much grading to do today and tomorrow.  Why can't this semester be over??  I thought it was over!  Jeeminee.

So I told myself I'm submitting an abstract to the conference I went to in Boston last year, because it was such a great conference and I'd love to go back, and plus they publish their proceedings, so it's a good way to get a little publication.  Anyway, that abstract is due Tuesday, and it's supposed to be based on preliminary findings for my dissertation, which are starting to trickle in a little bit here and there.  The problem is that I have to write a preliminary-preliminary version of that abstract to turn in for one of my classes - today - and I really wish I could just work on the dang project more to get some more data for the real abstract, which has to be submitted by Tuesday.  Oh well.  Maybe it will be nice to have a draft of the abstract so I can spend more time getting more data over the weekend...?

And then the week after that, I'm submitting an application for a dissertation research grant, which also relies on me getting this pilot study done, so I can say something realistic about what the rest of my dissertation is going to be about.  And then the week after that, I'm applying for a postdoctoral researcher position, which I'm super excited about but also freaking out a little bit, and that involves writing up my preliminary findings into a research paper I can submit with my application.

So yeah.  It would be nice to just be able to work on all of that stuff instead of staring down this mountain of syntax finals I have to grade.  And I'm going to Palo Alto (Stanford) this evening to hang out with my friend/collaborator and have a little research group meeting, and we have our departmental graduation tomorrow!  I love graduation, so it will be really nice to see all my friends get their PhD and MA hoods and all that, but I'm just feeling kind of antsy for the next few weeks!

We just hired a new professor in our department.  I like him very much, and it's a little weird, because he's only a few years older than me, and he's in the position I hope to be in myself in a year or two or three - young, newly hired professor at a prestigious university and all that.  Anyway, I was talking to him at his welcome party last week, and he passed on some advice from one of his former professors.  Apparently this guy asks undergrads who think they want to be linguistics professors, "How much do you love linguistics?  Do you love it enough to do it in your spare time?"  And the more I think about it, the more important of a question that seems.  If you really want to make it in this academic racket, you have to love sitting down with your data at 7:00 in the evening, when you're finally home for the day, and spending a few hours here or there puzzling over it whenever you have the free time.

I need a shower and some breakfast before I head to campus for the day.  Love to all, and I'll write again soon.