I feel like a sponge transplanted from a dry beach into an enriched ocean, soaking up so much knowledge and information that I didn’t have access to before. The immersion is exactly what I wanted and needed to rejuvenate my interest in research. The ‘what’ isn’t as important as the ‘where’ and ‘with who.’ That being said, the ‘what’ is very cool!

Even if I updated daily, I don’t think I could record everything I’ve learned this week. Within timing analysis, I now understand how it works, why we do it, what we’re looking for, some limitations of the data and methods, and what my end result should be. I’ve learned about time corrections, millisecond pulsars, observed variability in GRBs, Swift’s XRT, x-ray optics, and the dozens of topics that Sandy mentions in passing. I’m soaking it all up. I know that I’ve chosen the right field.

I’ve been pouring a lot of my energy into deciphering IDL code and making it work for me. In the process, I’m relearning some basics of Linux. Once I get past all of the library and syntax hurdles, I hope to modify a prewritten program to filter XRT windowed timing event files. If I can’t figure it out, I’ll just filter out the background manually, but it would be nice to automate it. Once I can properly process the data, I’ll run them through an FFT program to search for pulsations, but one step at a time.

My only complaint is that I wish I could spend more time working. My busy schedule this summer only allows me to research part-time, but there’s only so much I can accomplish when I’m working for half a day. I love everything I’m doing. I’m so grateful to those who brought me here and are guiding me though these first steps in my career as a scientist.