Coxie

A few posts ago I mentioned that I was reading through How to be a Good Graduate Student. In that article it was suggested that I should have "30-second, 2-minute, 5-minute and 10-minute summaries of your thesis ready at a moment's notice." I am not at that point yet but I'm getting there. I'm mostly not there yet because I'm still in the beginning stages of my work.

This past weekend I was at a perfect place to practice this idea: MSOE's greek reception. MSOE is my alma mater and the annual greek reception was a way for me to show support for my sorority, Alpha Omega Epsilon, and help with fall recruitment.

While there I was able to share with my sisters some of what I have been working on. I've been picking up where another student left off with desalination using microbial fuel cells. One of my sisters mentioned my habit of naming inanimate objects and decided that my three microbial fuel cells needed a nickname. "Ballcock" was suggested due to my fondness for toilets and thus my cells were named. I think my sisters were trying to come up with something embarrassing for me to say and ballcock does fit that definition. Now the name has been shortened to Coxie and that's not so bad to say at all. :)

I haven't had the opportunity to use Coxie yet (explaining where the name Coxie came from to my research advisor doesn't seem very professional) but someday I will be discussing my research with a colleague and the term will slip out. Ah, well.