Ugh, I suck at blogging right now…and the worst part is, I have some high hopes for this stupid blog and there’s actually interesting stuff happening in my life. Trust me, super interesting stuff here folks.
Well anyway, I’ve had a request to post some of my recent figure drawing practice, but I can’t do that until I post my previous watercolors so here these are first.
I’m a little behind with maintaining my website, what with packing up all my worldly possessions and moving literally across the country, but I’ve been meaning to share this gem for a while. Nathan commissioned a portrait many moons ago that I had been working on for months. Anyhow I worked up to the wire and was able to present him with “Centaur Nathan” at Christmas. I did the whole deal with pencil (primarily Staedtler Mars Lumographs) except for the crab on his shirt, which I did in colored pencil to pull in the eye. All in all, I’d say he’s the most handsome centaur I’ve ever seen.
Life update: I have one.
This week a ton of awesome things happened. First, my paper “Network motifs provide signatures that characterize metabolism” was officially accepted for publication! You can read it in the advanced section of the Molecular BioSystems online journal.
Second, I accepted a position at BigDoor, a Seattle-based tech start-up that gamifies websites to increase user engagement. I’m now a software engineer focusing on all things data. I’m puuuumped to get started and thrilled to reach the happy conclusion of my 6 month job search. Hopefully no future job search will be quite as grueling.
But enough about me! Big Baby Bryan accepted a postdoc at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He’ll be continuing his infectious disease modeling research, but now in the domain of reproductive health. Of course I’m welling up with pride at the thought of him contributing to vaginosis research. Lets put this pest to rest, am I right ladies?!
In preparation for my journey out west to seek my fortune I started de-hoarding today. I found a bunch of my childhood art that I thought I’d share since it’s pretty hilarious. While going through my early works, I was impressed with my archival ability. On the front or back of each work is a title, date, artist name and age. If only I’d used archive-quality paper.
Well I’ve been hoarding this one for a little while now because it was a gift and, even though I know that my own mother doesn’t read my blog, I thought I’d save the surprise. This is a portrait of my mom when she was almost two years old. I drew it with Staedtler Lumograph pencils and did the background in pastel (I would link but I am not sure what pastels they were). I tried to replicate the soft glow around the head by mixing a deep purple color with waxier, white pastel to give it that milky, luminescent look. This is the second portrait I’ve had framed at Parrish Framing and I love the gold frame with the deep purple background…I’ll share the first one later.
It’s Dr. Shellman to you.
I’m done! I officially turned in my dissertation to Rackham today so I am officially official, scientifically speaking.
I thought I’d share with you an excerpt from page iii:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to the people, academic and otherwise, who made it possible for me to complete my PhD studies and research. Specifically, Conner Sandefur served as a mentor, therapist and friend throughout graduate school, and was constantly supportive during my career search. Likewise, many thanks to Ethan Obie Romero-Severson, Grant Meadors, Ian Spicknall, Meghan O’Grady Milbrath and Bryan Mayer (Collectively known as The Edit Club) for the Oxford commas, tense corrections, and many, many beers. I am also indebted to Tanya Salyers, Brian Beck, Dave Ziegler, and Chris Hesse for the career advice.
My research was made possible with the financial, academic and mentoring support I received from my two advisors Chuck Burant and Santiago Schnell. Thank you both for hanging in there through the ups and downs of my thesis projects. Yu Chen and Nina Lin provided 60 metabolic network reconstructions that were essential to my third chapter, and for that I am grateful. Thanks are also in order for those who contributed to the creation of this handy LATEX template. You guys saved me a lot of stress.
Above all, I absolutely could not have completed my PhD without the love and devotion of my partner, Bryan Mayer and my mother, Caryl Carver (Mamakita). Countless nights of debugging and trouble-shooting would have been insurmountable trials if not for Bryan’s patience. Likewise, my mother was always a source of emotional support and encouragement. Thank you all for your kindness and patience during my thesis work.
Peace! /dropsmic
Here’s a sneak peek at what I’ll be talking about at my thesis defense on Tuesday. Ever wonder where Eukaryotic organelles come from? I’ll tell you!
It’s come to the point where this is who’s telling me how to make my dissertation defense? Somebody give that kid a PhD!
“Are you graduated yet?”
Am I done yet?
- Me: I have the ultimate senioritis.
- Kelly: Yeah you do. You have stuffed crust senioritis.
