One milestone down
The seminar on Friday was reasonably well attended, especially by other postgrads which was a nice show of support, and is the first milestone down. Only two questions (both from the same person) which I thought was getting off very lightly compared to the stories I've heard from other universities, or even schools here at UWA. One post-doc recalled a school at her old uni requiring research proposals to be defended for up to an hour in front of a panel of seven or so academics. While it's nice to get some constructive criticism and different perspectives on your work, I think an arrangement like that might be taking it a little too far.
5pm drinks were also well attended, even though they were only organised during the afternoon by inviting people I saw during the afternoon or by people stopping in on their way out of the building once we'd got started. It's something Bree and I are working on making a weekly event, and hopefully will start to gather momentum from here onward. In fact, we're hoping that the social club activities in general will do the same - stay tuned. Next on the list is reviving Journal Club (like a book club, except with journal articles), which we'll start up as a lunchtime discussion. I'm thinking something on Martian soils might be a nice first article, because none of us will really know much about them, and it would make for good discussion on how we might apply traditional theories of soil development in a foreign environment. First meeting should be sometime after May 6, after I get back from a week's trip to Brisbane.