You are browsing the archive for anniversaries Archives - Magma Cum Laude.
22 December 2017
10 years
It’s not very often that someone my age gets to celebrate a 10-year anniversary. But this year is one of those times, because it’s been 10 years since I graduated from college, 10 years since I started my first job, and 10 years since I started this blog.
22 December 2012
5 years already?!
Wow.
It certainly doesn’t seem like I’ve spent a significant chunk of my life blogging, but the calendar doesn’t lie: it’s been 5 years since my first post on Magma Cum Laude. When I first started, I never really imagined that this would become such a big part of my professional identity as a geoscientist, but I can’t say that I would have changed the path I’ve taken – because it’s led me to some really interesting places! Since I began this blog with the intent to write about becoming a grad student in volcanology, I’ve had the opportunity to write about everything from eruption triggering to fossiling in Western New York to numerical modeling to how many jelly beans it would take to equal the mass of a lava dome. Seriously, everything.
31 December 2011
I’m a travelin’ (wo)man
It’s time for my yearly recap of travels geological and otherwise, and it looks like Chris and Anne at Highly Allocthonous have started up the meme again. This year had a few highlights (and a little more excitement over the summer than I would have liked), but I also got to spend more time at my home base in Buffalo. So let’s start there in January…
22 December 2010
Travels near and far: 2010
It’s my 3-year Blogiversary (for the next 8 minutes, anyway)! I almost can’t believe I’ve been writing so long – and that I’ve gone through so many changes since the whole thing started. Quite a ride, indeed.
This post is becoming a bit of a tradition – a continuation of a post I did at the end of last year, and one that’s been picked up by lots of other geobloggers. It’s a neat way of looking back on all the traveling I’ve done in the last twelve months, and to get me thinking about what I might do in the future. This year has been a mixture of the local and the not-so-local…
18 May 2010
Reflecting on risk
USGS photo of the May 18, 1980 eruption. I don’t have any stories to share with you about the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, since I wasn’t around then – and the other geobloggers are doing a fine job of collecting reminiscences already. Volcanologists, like everyone else, sometimes joke about their jobs, but it’s anniversaries like today that have prompted me to reflect on it instead. I love the work …
22 December 2009
2 Year Blogiversary
Two years already! (It’s a good thing Callan started his blog up before I did, because otherwise I would completely forget to do this. Hope you’re having fun in Patagonia, Callan!) Things have changed quite a bit for me since I started this blog two years ago. I finished working at my first real job, started graduate school in a new state, got my first apartment, earned a great fellowship, …
20 July 2009
When do I get to go?
A proper geologist’s photo, with foot for scale. (According to NASA’s Apollo 11 Image Library, “Second photo of Buzz’s second soil-mechanics bootprint.”) I like this one almost as much as the iconic solo bootprint. I haven’t spent much time today listening to interviews or news reports about the anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, but I did get a chance to watch For All Mankind (1989), which just showed …
23 December 2008
Happy Anniversary to Me! One Year of Geoblogging
Yesterday was my one-year “blogiversary”! Just one day after Callan’s, actually, which is something that I didn’t realize until this week. This is a strangely appropriate photo – it’s from my 18th birthday party. Yes, that’s a volcano cake. Yes, I am a dork. Then again, who wouldn’t want a cake that erupts lava and destroys villages? Looking back on my very first post, I’m glad that I moved from …
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.