新年快樂 (Xīn Nián Kuài Lè)! Happy New Year! I had gotten myself into quite a bind about how to spend New Year’s Eve here in Taiwan. Part of me wanted to go to Taipei to see the fireworks at Taipei101. The pictures and videos I have seen in years past have been amazing, and to […]
Author: debondad
Happy New Year!
2012: A Retrospective
With just a few hours left, it is time to look back at the year that was!
Games for EFL Classes
My awesome co-teacher Erica shared a new game with me. Games are a great way to reinforce learning in a fun way. The new addition to the arsenal is The Pizza Game. Draw a big circle and then another just around the outside (to mark the crust). Divide the pizza into wedges, one for each […]
A Quick Musical Note
I have come into some free time recently, and have been loving it! In addition to polishing off Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights (aka The Golden Compass), I unpacked the bamboo flute (Sogeum) that I bought at the Korean Folk Village in Yongin. When Mike was out of the house, I took advantage of the solitude […]
A Weekend in Hong Kong
Mike and I spent a long weekend in Hong Kong with our friends Mike and Angelina from Toronto. Then they came back to Taiwan with us, for two weeks of fun!
Lessons Learned from My Master’s, Part 3: Writing
When I started my master’s degree I had envisioned 3 experiments, each taking up a chapter. My plan was to write up the results of the first experiment while performing the second and so on until I had the bulk of my thesis written. It seemed easy, but it did not turn out that way! […]
Manuscript Accepted!
I am pleased to announce that Chapter 2 of my master’s thesis has been accepted for publication in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. It will be published in a special issue dedicated to the application of hydrogen isotopes as environmental recorders sometime soon! The title of the paper is Variable δD Values Among Major Biochemicals in […]
Lessons Learned from My Master’s, Part 2: Good Weekly Habits
Last installment, I touched on 3 ways to improve data organization. Today’s theme is “good weekly habits”. I always found my weeks filled up quickly in graduate school. There were always experiments to set up and execute, results to analyze, and don’t forget your coursework! However, there are a few things you can do that […]
Lessons Learned from My Master’s, Part 1: Organizing Big Research Projects
One of the big reasons I wanted to complete a Master’s program rather than embarking on a Ph.D. immediately after my undergraduate studies was to get a handle on managing big projects. Everything in an undergraduate program is necessarily limited in scope to either one or two terms, and you don’t have to be particularly […]
Friday Night in Downtown Hsinchu City
Outside of the train station in Hsinchu there is a great public area, where there are often performances going on. Two weekends ago we drove past a very professional looking choir in tuxedos and evening gowns. This past weekend we decided to drop by, grab baked potatoes with all the fixings (cheese sauce, broccoli, bacon, […]