January 2025, Daily Log

monthly goals
Author

Kathleen Durkin

Published

February 4, 2025

31 January 2025

Friday

  • 0.5 hr - prep for E5 meeting

  • 1 hr – E5 meeting

  • 1.5 hr – SWED102 class

  • 0.5 hr – QSCI381 ed discussion board responses, canvas inbox

  • 3 hr – talk with prospective student, Sydney, get lunch w her and lab, etc.

  • 0.5 hr – E5, add final tasks + person assignments to deep-dive-expression Github issues

  • 2 hr – SWED102 writing assignment

  • 0.5 hr – updating lab notebook and summing weekly hours

Daily total: 9.5 hr

Weekly Overview:

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday TOTALS
Classes 1 1 3 5 3.5 13.5
TAing 8.5 3.5 4.5 0.5 0.5 17.5
Thesis work 0 3.5 2 3.5 2.5 11.5
Misc. 0.5 1 0 2.5 3 7
TOTALS 10 9 9.5 11.5 9.5 49.5

As a reminder, one of my monthly goals is to work a maximum of 50hr/wk, with a rough time allocation of: 20hr/wk classes (SWED 101, FISH 513); 15hr/wk TAing (QSCI 381); 15hr/wk thesis work.

I’ve realized that I didn’t account for the miscellaneous time commitments that come with being in grad school (e.g. seminar, emails, etc.), so I decided to start tracking that as well.

This week looks good! I (barely) stayed within the 50 hr limit, I was able to keep TA hours under 20 hr/week and increase time devoted to thesis work. The miscellaneous time commitments were a little high this week because of the prospective grad student, Sydney, who visited the department and lab this week.

30 January 2025

Thursday

Early start to the day to prep for FISH513 today and E5 tomorrow

  • 2 hr – brainstorming/project planning for E5 meeting tomorrow

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 2 hr – FISH513 lit review + slides creation for presentation today

  • 0.5 hr – QSCI381 weekly meeting

  • 0.5 hr – lunch/meeting visiting prospective grad students

  • 1 hr – lab meeting

  • 2 hr – FISH513

  • 0.5 hr – prep meeting w Steven for E5 meeting tomorrow

  • 2 hr – Seminar + TGIT + meeting/talking with prospective grad students

Daily total: 11.5 hr

29 January 2025

Wednesday

  • 2.5 hr – QSCI381 finished grading Assignment 2 and posted grades. Somehow a couple section BD students managed to submit to Gradescope? Double checked assignment settings on other assignment’s I’ve already created to ensure they’re only viewable to BA and BB.

  • 1.5 hr – SWED102 class

  • 2 hr – QSCI381 office hours

  • 1.5 hr – misc. related to EPIMAR 2025

  • 0.5 hr – notebook post and daily log updates

  • 1.5 hr – FISH513 compiling GCRMN and WoRMS info for presentation tomorrow, adding to slides

Daily total: 9.5 hr

28 January 2025

Tuesday

Got to campus early to get some work done, but honestly just ended up reading a bunch of news articles about the Trump admin freezes of federal grant funding, updates on the NIH freeze, and updates of the NSF cancelling grant review panels, sooooooo

  • 1 hr – existential crisis about the trajectory of research, academia, higher education, and my own life/career under an administration that has repeatedly vowed to dismantle these very institutions

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 0.5 hr – QSCI381 checking/answering posts on Ed Discussion board

  • 3 hr – E5 work, looking for instances of an miRNA targeting genes that encode DNA methylation machinery (largely lit review + some coding)

  • 2hr – QSCI381 Lab

  • 0.5 hr – weekly meeting w Steven, focused on project planning for deep-dive expression work

  • 1 hr – QSCI381 creating helper doc for students on Multinomial Coefficient (posted to Canvas)

Daily total: 9 hours

27 January 2025

Monday

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 2.5 hr – QSCI381 Lab prep (had to skim all of this week’s course content, since I haven’t used probability stuff in a while), setting up Module 5 Assignment and Lab pages

  • 2.5 hr – QSCI381 Lab

  • 3.5 hr – QSCI grading (50% done)

  • 0.5 hr – misc. (start-of-week read-throughs and responses for emails, Slack, Ed Discussion chat, etc.)

Daily total: 10 hours

24 January 2025

Friday

23 January 2025

Thursday

  • >2hrs spent on Dr appointment + travel today, so shorter work day today

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 2 hr – FSH513 class

  • 2 hr – SWED101 hw + study for test tomorrow

  • 1 hr – TGIT

Daily total: 6 hours

22 January 2025

Wednesday

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 1 hr – SWED102 office hours to cover Week 1 material i missed while at SICB.

  • 0.5 hr – QSCI381 misc. (check new Ed Discussion posts, check Canvas inbox, discuss week’s meeting items w Steven and Tsering)

  • 2.5 hr – QSCI381 office hours

  • 1.5 hr – lab stuff (read paper for lab meeting, helped Megan move some U cars from campus lot to FTR)

  • 1 hr – SWED102 hw/studying for friday exam

  • 1 hr – FSH513 reading

Daily total: 8.5 hr

21 January 2025

Tuesday

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 1 hr – SWED102 weekly quiz, hw

  • 1.5 hr – QSCI381 grading (completed!)

  • 2.5 hr – QSCI381 Lab

  • 3 hr – QSCI381 miscellaneous (creating WI2025 versions thru Lab 6 and Assignment 6, created .Rmd templates for Assignments 3-5, corrected Assignment 3 page, created Lab 3 page, Creating Gradescope Submission Assignments for my studentd (thru Assignment 7), creating Gradescope templates thru Assignment 5, linking Canvas and Gradescope thru Assignment 5)

Daily total: 9 hr

20 January 2025

Monday

MLK Day (technically a holiday)

  • 2 hr – QSCI381 (recorded lab video, answered a bunch of weekend emails and questions in Ed Discussion)

  • 2.5 hr – QSCI381 (graded Assignment 1 – 84% done)

Daily total: 4.5 hr

17 January 2025

Friday

  • 1.5 hr – E5 molecular biweekly meeting (notes here)

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 1 hr – SWED102 HW, weekly quiz, nok.se HW

  • 2.5hr – QSCI381 bonus office hours (will not normally host additional friday office hours)

  • 1 hr – deep-dive-expression and timeseries-molecular work. Backups to Gannet, re-familiarizing myself with status of both, etc.

  • 1 hr – writing/formatting EPIMAR 2025 abstract, looking into submission options. Currently seems like you have to pay for a conference registration before you can submit an abstract, but I wouldn’t attend if abstract not accepted… Emailed Technical Secretariat (Steven cc’d). Hopefully there’s an option to submit without paying or to receive a registration refund if abstract not accepted.

  • 0.5 hr – updating lab notebook, weekly summary

Daily total: 8.5 hrs

Weekly Overview:

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday TOTALS
Classes 1 2 4 6 2 15
TAing 8.5 7 3.5 1 2.5 22.5
Thesis work 0 0 1 3 4 8
TOTALS 9.5 9 8.5 10 8.5 45.5

As a reminder, one of my monthly goals is to work a maximum of 50hr/wk, with a rough time allocation of: 20hr/wk classes (SWED 101, FISH 513); 15hr/wk TAing (QSCI 381); 15hr/wk thesis work.

So far I’m happy with my progress! I worked a logged-total of 45.5 hrs this week, spending 15hrs on classes, 22.5hrs on TAing, and 8hrs on thesis stuff. The breakdown could definitely be adjusted. I expect to spend significantly less time on TAing after this first week, as students require less assistance for basic R tasks, and as the course site requires less setup/maintainance. I should spend more time on classes, particularly FISH315 research, and thesis work.

16 January 2025

Thursday

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 1 hr – QSCI381 weekly meeting

  • 1 hr – Lab meeting

  • 2 hr – FISH513 class

  • 3 hr – FISH513 research

  • 2 hr – SAFS seminar and TGIT

Daily total: 10 hrs

15 January 2025

Wednesday

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 0.5 hr – SED102 HW

  • 1 hr – miscellaneous (emails, writing thank you letters for ARCS fellowship donors, etc.)

  • 1 hr – QSCI381 miscellaneous work (responding to student emails, reviewing recent discussion posts, fixing Assignment 1 rubric, grading first few Assignment 1 submissions to check that Canvas and Gradescope are linked appropriately, looked thru Assignment 2 and Lab 2 for 381 meeting tomorrow)

  • 2.5 hr – QSCI381 Office Hours

  • 2.5 hr – FSH513 research (compiling relevant papers, setting up notes structure, start lit review)

Daily total: 8.5 hr

14 January 2025

Tuesday

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 1 hr – SWED102 HW

  • 2.5 hr – QSCI381 Lab

  • 4.5 hr – misc work for QSCI381 (figuring out how to link Canvas and Gradescope Assignments and implementing, creating Assignment 1 key, creating .Rmd templates for student use for Assignment 1, Lab 1, Lab 2, and posting all in appropriate Canvas pages, answering student emails)

Daily total: 9 hr

13 January 2025

Monday

  • 1 hr – SWED102 class

  • 6 hr – misc work for QSCI381 (file modification, putting together Lab pages and .Rmd Keys, setting up Gradescope Assignment 1 for my sections, prepping Lab materials for today, creating a helper doc for .Rmd -> PDF render and Gradescope submission, editing all Assignment pages to include note about Gradescope submission for my sections, create ED Discussion Announcement about Gradescope for my sections, etc.)

  • 2.5 hr – QSCI 381 Lab

Daily Total: 9.5 hr

10 January 2025

Friday

  • SWED101 class

  • catching up on SWED101 missed work/hw (backlog from when I was at SICB)

  • submit SICB meals reimbursement

  • Prep for first QSCI 381 Lab on Monday

09 January 2025

Thursday

  • SWED102 class

  • QSCI 381 meeting w Steven and Tsering

  • Sent out TA announcement to my QSCI 381 sections, looked through some of the upcoming course content

  • catching up on emails from break/SICB, paid tuition, lab notebook setup for January posts/goals

  • FISH 513 lit review, class

08 January 2025

Wednesday

SICB

07 January 2025

Tuesday

SICB

06 January 2025

Monday

SICB

05 January 2025

Sunday

SICB

04 January 2025

Saturday

SICB

03 January 2025

Friday

SICB

02 January 2025

Thursday

01 January 2025

Wednesday

Out