So my thesis is due in just under a month, and I have successfully sent a complete draft to my supervisor. He said he'd get it back to me tomorrow, and then we'll see how horribly bad it is. Not really surprisingly, I had a panic attack about getting it done in time, worked my butt off for a while, and finished it a month early. This is pretty much par for the course for me: ultra stress case assuming the worst, then getting it done early and doing ok on it. I still have a few figures to finish, but they are basically done. I basically just need to figure out a title and I'm done. Not sure how that happened exactly.
Update number 2
I finally got word that my abstract for SVPCA was accepted with no corrections, so it's official: I am giving my first ever conference talk in September. I am super nervous for it already, but I've heard the conference is really friendly and a good place to start out. I'm hoping it all goes well, and I don't make a fool of myself. My talk will be titled "A novel approach to estimating pterosaur bone mass using CT scans". It will mainly be about exactly what the title says, with some more detail on what my study found, especially with respect to using birds as pterosaur analogues and the internal structure of pterosaur wing bones as seen in CT scans. The talk will be co-authored by my supervisor, Colin Palmer, but I'll be the one getting up in front of the crowd and talking.
Next step: work on my publication attempt! Of course, in order to get scholarships, I need publications, which is why Colin suggested I try to publish my preliminary results. I have been working on the paper for months, but because of many things (for example, a thesis to write), haven't submitted it yet. I'm hoping to get it submitted soon, maybe even before my thesis, but that will depend on how many corrections I have to make on my thesis. Hopefully I'll have a publication to put in my scholarship applications!
