no new words today

[kareina]

On of the thesis tasks I've been putting off is using the program thermocalc to calculate estimated pressure/temperature for my samples. My advisor used it with my data months and months ago, and got a first, rough, estimate for them. Step two is to take those estimates, use them in the "Ax" program one runs before thermocalc to create the input file, and then re-run thermocalc. He explained to me then how to do it, I gave it a try, and the program crashed. The estimates from the "second pass" are likely to be a bit different, and a bit more accurate than the "first pass", so it needs to be done--the "first pass" results have been sitting in my thesis, highlighted in garish, ugly pink, to remind me to revise it (I don't expect the numbers to change so much as to need to change the rest of the sentences). Today I tried getting it working again, but once again got crashing. Tried downloading the latest version, hit a crash in another spot, and e-mailed my advisor. However, the initial run he did all those ages ago was for a single analysis spot for each mineral in a sample, and it will really make much more sense to run multiple times for each sample, since in general we analyse three different spots per grain--so if we run each combination (biotite A, Garnet A, muscovite A) with Plag A, then those three with Plag B, and so on through each possible combination, then plot all of the answers on a graph and look--are they all about the same? If not, why not? Which ones do I trust, and why? Thermocalc is one of those programs which needs an "input file", so I've spent the evening creating text files, one for each combination. Takes quite a while. Probably should have been done for each sample right after the initial microprobe run, but I didn't. Pity I have to wait till tomorrow to hear back from my advisor to get the program working--it would be comforting to test these text files and be certain they will work before creating all of them...

Yesterday's phone interview seemed to go well. He told me that he planed to speak with all of the qualified candidates yesterday, and then he and the rest of the hiring committee would meet later in the week or early next week to discuss them all and write up a report. Then he would send a copy of the report to us candidates, and give us two weeks to send back any comments we'd like to add, and then they'd send their recommendations off to the University, which would make an offer to one of us. It will be interesting to see their report. Even if I don't get the job, the information they send is bound to be useful!

Now, off to do yoga and get some sleep...