so today I was waiting for the shuttle to arrive and take me back to my apartment; however, one of my favorite professors was driving by and offered to take me up the hill and drop me off so that I could arrive to my apartment faster/easier. We had a short conversation, and he said something completely unexpected, but flattering: "You have excellent writing. I just want to let you know that I don't mark on your papers a lot because they're always a pleasure to read - they save me from wasting a lot of ink." Haha.. so I dunno... I thought that was pretty cool because I've been told by many professors that I have good writing, but it was nice to hear it from a professor I really admire and have been pouring my heart's writing into his class that I am taking currently. My past two papers have been about my self-esteem and "neurotic needs" (power, achievement, independence..those are a few of the options that were from a list and my paper regarded the applicable ones), and I've had him as a professor for various classes since the beginning of my freshman year. *chuckles to self* I recall one *french* professor, who I was not particularly fond of and actually feared.. she once told me, "it is evident that you communicate better in writing than aurally." I tell 'ya. . it really isn't to brag.. but if I put my mind toward writing a nice thought-out paper (research, informal, etc) I can write some pretty decent stuff. Still.. it's frustrating to hear them commend my writing and yet receive a grade that doesn't seem to reflect the extent of their praise. Professors here are so stingy about giving top grades.
Anyway.
I am wasting time.. covering the night shift at work... been at work since 4 pm and going until 12 am tonight. My schedule is pretty packed. Literally every day I work large chunks of time with no rest in-between. If it's not class.. it's a meeting.. if it's not a meeting.. I should be in the lab.. if not in the lab I might have 10 min. to grab some food.. if not any of that I'm taking care of side-issues such as recent-identity-theft... if not any of that.. I'm usually at work.. ... it goes on.. but I'll stop there.
It's just to say, I'm extremely busy right now and miraculously still finding time to hangout with friends (mostly reserved for weekends). I am taking 17 units of class.. which amounts to about 25 hrs. in class per wk.. *each class* expects about 12 hours outside-of-class-time dedicated to hwk. each wk.... I am *working* between 23-28 hrs. a week, two jobs.. I have recently been nominated as an officer in the Psychology honor society ("Historian/Web Master") .. which requires attending several meetings and the work that goes with the position ... I don't know what else.. but it's all adding up. . and somehow I'm not *that* stressed out. . it's just a matter of keeping on an extremely tight schedule. Working in the neurotrauma lab is crazy and difficult to fit in hrs, but I have to make it happen somehow. I recently learned the process for "Western Ink Blotting"... and MAN is it a process! The entire protocal runs over three days, and I missed some of it since they expect you to arrive at 7 am, and on my schedule I'm going to bed at 3 am.. no way am I getting up after 3-4 hrs. of sleep.. I would be no use to anyone if I did that. My mentor plans to put me to work on something else.. something about slicing layers of the brain and imaging.. heh... hopefully it's more interesting/less chemistry/less steps than the western ink blotting. It's increasingly incredible (?) to observe how people must operate in a lab setting. There really isn't any room for mistake, and *so many* things must be taken into consideration. If you let something sit too long, everything could go to hell.. if you let something sit too short.. ditto... if you accidentally let light in a container when there shouldn't be... .. I don't know how people do this because it seems like there is *so much* room for error. I guess once you get good at what you do it just starts to flow. I can't imagine doing these processes over and over and over... the entire semester... just to gather a ton of data to make sense of... and even that data is only a *SMALL* piece of the puzzle.
Alright. Major procrastination right now and I have a critical quiz for a class tomorrow, where half of the material still feels foreign.
Outs.
Lin *
Jason
Sarah
Phil