Sunday Sunday Sunday!

Nothing to do today. Well...stuff to do but nothing I want to do - as observed by my staging of storm trooper massacres with a certain unnamed conure. Went for a walk, did some yoga, read some manga. Yeah...who needs to study?

If you're interested - yes - she does love zippers.

So 4chan tagged my nature trail with paint.

Fuckers.

10-10-10

Birthday came and went this year. 27. For some reason 27 feels younger than 26. I've always enjoyed odd number ages more so than even years. Why in the world I have no idea! Anyways, it was a good day. Rather a weekend? It fell on a sunday. Weekends are always good days for birthdays. Saturday we caught the remnants for a classic car show. I got flowers! Birthday flowers!

Sunday we headed northeast to the Renn Faire. It was fun...most people visiting got really into it, more than I thought they would. There were some costumes that were just sort of pieced together, some that were *really* extravagant. It was a bit disappointing how commercialized it was...you pay to get in, then are encouraged to buy buy buy at the stalls inside. There were some cool shows, the highlight being the falconer handling birds my bird wishes he could be. Other highlights included bagpipers, incredibly foul mouthed Scottish comedians, and a Joker eating fire.

And then there was cake! Yes, that is Roy Mustang battling a lobster atop a chocolate cherry cake. He happens to have a lot of free time since defeating Father & co.

Oh my, what a few month's it's been

So class began. One class fine, one class a nightmare. Stopped blogging because I was so distracted and disorganized. Friend diagnosed with ADD. Me diagnosed with ADD. End result - yay adderall!

Still have no official diagnosis, but its coming. Been on adderall for 2 week today and geez what a difference. The first day I was high. Really high. I've never done drugs but I can see why people do.

I cleaned my entire apartment in ONE day. Never happened before because I was too lethargic and too easily distracted to finish one room, much less 4. I was euphoric. Possibly the happiest I've been in years upon years. But it was weird, because there wasn't any particular reason I should have been happy. I thought it was awesome at first, but now I feel...I don't really want that fake happiness. I want to make it for myself. Anyways, that all went away after the first few days, but the concentration is still there. Mostly. I think it depends a large part on how much sleep I get. Went two days with 5 hours of sleep and was spacey. Get 8-9 hours of sleep, I read papers for 6 hours straight yesterday. Would NEVER have happened before.

So the past two weeks have been amazing. I've gotten work done. I'm excited to clean the apartment. It's sparkling and clean. In one day I can go to class, read papers, and clean the house. I'm not sitting in front of the television out of procrastination/boredom.

I'm not sure how to tell people at school though. I told one professor and that did not go well. When I get my official diagnosis I'm applying to be classified as disabled. That will not go over well with people in my program.

Dorodoroke Rolling Star

Meh. Wednesday. The day the farthest away from the weekend behind or in front of you. Actually, this morning was pretty good. Wednesday's are always pretty good because that's when Bleach, a Japanese manga I love, hits the internet. So I woke up at 6, read Bleach spoilers, got to the hospital just as the last parking spots were filling up, then got a good chunk of studying done before class. I even read the required literature ahead of time, though it helped a ton that it was a Science paper and really short.

So far I'm pretty much on schedule for the semester. Wouldn't have hurt to have reviewed some when I got home, but was tired. So I had some leftovers, took the conure for a walk (amazing how many weird looks you get walking with a bird), watched some more Doctor Who season 1, and relaxed. Oh, and read the newest Bleach chapter, which was *a*m*a*z*i*n*g*. It's 10:30 and I'm feeling knackered, so hopefully I'll be off to bed soon.

Tomorrow will be busy. Class at 10, meeting at noon, more class at 1...which we haven't received material for, so who knows. I really hate it when instructors wait until the last minute to post stuff.

Well I'm off and leaving with one of the most amazing videos I've seen on youtube lately - an hd walk through Tokyo streets.

Sweet! Free upgrade to Human 2.0!

Sleep plan did not go as planned. Woke up at 5 am with bad migraine, was so exhausted by the time it dulled that I slept until past 10 in time to turn on BBC America and catch a Dr. Who marathon.

Went to class, just an intro meeting, but the class seems like it'll be a ton of work. Every four class meetings we have to submit what is essentially a mini-lit review, as well as heavy speaking up and discussion contribution - which I suck at.

Not to sound snobbish, but typically things easily make sense to me and I never see a point in asking questions when I understand everything. I never know when I'm saying enough to satisfy the instructor, either. This will require coming up with a plan to fix this...so far I've thought of:

1) Thinking of alternative techniques to solve their problems and asking why they did what they did.
2) Why they used their specific model organism.
3) Holes in their logic,
4) Things they didn't show that they should have done
5) Ambiguous data that they draw conclusions from...

Meh.

Speaking of discussion classes, our colloquium seems to be quite chaotic this year. Last year's was boring, just various instructors presenting papers each week and the class discussing them. To prevent repetition, this year they decided to have us attend other program's colloquiums and right papers on them. The thinking is that we can participate in programs that we are interested in. However I am interested in genetics, so I have no genetics focused coll to attend, and this just seems kind of nuts. We'll see.

Got home just in time to make a giant tuna noodle casserole, grab a bowl of ice cream, and watch more Doctor.

Year 2 - First day of class - done

OMG I am tierrrrrrred. Switching back to a normal sleep schedule doesn't suit me at all. All summer I stayed up until 2, 3, 4, sometimes 5 A.M., my record was actually 9:30 a.m. one day! I went to bed around 2 this morning, but could not sleep because my brain was in class mode already and wouldn't turn off. I ended up dragging myself out of bed a little after 6 am, got to the hospital around 8 (which was good because parking was already almost full), and studied for two hours outside next the a fountain because it was so hot in the library. Speaking of which, why is it that whenever I sit down to study anywhere, nurses or secretaries always decide sitting next to me having a conversation is a good idea? Seriously people, there are a ton of other seats elsewhere!

After that was a hour of class, taught by a guy with a terribly thick Russian accent (good teacher though). I got to see at least FOUR other people repeating Cell Biology. Amazing.

That was followed by driving home and crashing on the sofa. I really feel like crap and need to get back on a normal sleep schedule. Hoping to go to Rita's and get sugar fix when J gets home.

What one year of grad school looks like...

My first summer as a grad student is coming to an end. Yesterday I organized all of the paperwork from year one -- well...a good chunk of the paperwork at least. There are a ton of powerpoints and papers I either tossed out of disgust or never printed out. The sad news is that I'm not done with them, I still need all of this to help prepare for candidacy. But at least I will be organized!

I still can't believe this is only a fraction of the scientific papers I've read this year.



Onward to second year!