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Rock, Paper, Conference

Profile picture for user Valentin Aslanyan
Valentin Aslanyan
York Plasma Institute
University of York, United Kingdom
Submitted by Valentin Aslanyan on 19 December 2013

Hello again. It's been an interesting couple of months of my PhD since my last entry. At the time I was looking like this ---->

It was Halloween and I dressed up as a British redcoat to come into the office. Unfortunately, the other staff and students were not as enthusiastic. Nonetheless, I am hopeful that I can repeat the subtle suggestion which led to the popular "bring your hat to work day" last year at the York Plasma Institute.

My first research paper

My cheerful demeanor changed to what I hope can be described as a determined diligence, as I've been collating results for, and writing, my first research paper. I'm working on a zero dimensional, so-called Collisional Radiative theoretical model of a plasma and have some interesting results. It's nearly written and I hope to submit it for review in the first few weeks of the new year.

I've just attended a Christmas meeting for the high power laser community of the UK. I presented a poster with my findings, which was a good chance to get a preliminary feeling of what people thought about my findings. Usually, one does not cite many references in such posters, but one of the authors I referenced and whose work I built on was suitably approving when he saw my poster.

Experience in teaching undergraduates

Since I'm a PhD student based at a university, I have the opportunity to teach some undergraduates. It's a good experience for me, since I want to pursue an academic career and it pays fairly well. In my first year, I only had the opportunity to mark students' assignments, because much of my time was spent doing fusion related academic courses. 

Teaching a class of students went, I suppose, exactly as one might expect: some kept their heads down and worked hard, some got stuck a few times, some mostly chatted to their friends and a couple acted cheeky. Overall, a good experience!

So, that's how I've been busy. I leave you now for what should be a busy holiday with a selfie picture inspired by the Oxford English Dictionary and world leaders:

Happy Holidays!