Abstract
When asked at dinner parties about my job, I reply that I am a sixth-year Ph.D. student in atmospheric sciences at UCLA, working on theoretical models to help explain tropical climate variability on time scales of a few months. "Stuff like El Nino, but quicker," I say. This is usually enough to end the conversation, unless the person I am talking to happens to be curious about tomorrow's weather. We graciously move on to other topics, with the assumption that I reasonably enjoy whatever it is that I do.