To answer the question a couple of you have asked this morning, yes I did indeed survive the celebratory festivities yesterday just fine. I was out a bit late, and didn’t get ‘to’ work until about 9:30, but it was well worth it. I’m delighted to report that my friend Andrew is now Dr. Andrew, owner of a shiny new PhD. It’s very humbling to see someone defend a thesis that they’ve evolved over years rather than months or weeks. The thesis, in this case, was that the acid rock drainage from years of anthropogenic (a big science word meaning: ’caused by humans’) environmental interference in the Snake river watershed – mining activities, principally – has a dramatically negative impact on downstream ecosystems. This thesis was proven out by a raft of data and some experimentation in which trout were stocked in experimental and reference areas and monitored pretty much continuously over a 10 day period.
While academia is still a very strange world to me, possessed as it is of very different customs to the business environment I’ve occupied since the day I gradutated from school, I can’t help but be pleased at yesterday’s outcome. So I just wanted to say to Andrew: congrats buddy, and now that you have a bit of freetime, get blogging 😉
