Symposing

I'm presenting at the Undergraduate Research Symposium here today for the third and final time. Oh, the memories.

It's too nice outside for school.

My sister is coming to stay with me for a few weeks soon. I'm excited. I probably won't be very much fun with all of the lab writing/studying I need to do to graduate, but it'll be nice having her around. She gets me. I could also really use the help packing -- the boxes I ordered have arrived and I am again realizing that I have too much stuff, even after having dramatically thinned the herd since Christmas. Why is it so easy to accumulate things I don't need?

I had a TB test placed last week that came back inconclusive and was seriously scaring me. I had another one placed on Tuesday, and I just had it read -- negative. So, good. I am not in imminent danger of being carried off by the galloping consumption and can still do my student teaching in Philly this summer.

I broke an $85 quartz cuvette on Monday, which I will have to pay for out-of-pocket. That put me over the edge: physical chemistry laboratory is my absolute least favorite class of my entire college career. I had been waffling between this class and my debate course a couple of years ago, but there really is only one choice. The combination of thirty-to-sixty-page lab writeups of inane, irrelevant experiments and exorbitantly expensive, breakable equipment has reached Terminal Lameness.

My thesis was approved on Wednesday. Barring any major catastrophes, it looks like I will graduate with my honors degree. Now to finish my classwork. Ugh.

PS: I realize I am being a fussy baby about school. Wah.

Early morning lab worker, teil zwei

Monday didn't go so hot. If things aren't off the chain this afternoon, I am going to start panicking.

I've been re-reading Bulfinch's Mythology and learned the origin of that word, panic. I don't know why, but I've always really liked reading about mythology from all over. I even like reading several different accounts of the same myths. It's just very entertaining to me. I suppose it's further indication that I am in fact in the wrong field. Maybe this week is just the powers that be trying to tell me to get out of the lab and hop a flight to some obscure archaeological site in the Holy Land.

I think my kidney hurts.

My grades from winter quarter came back. Thermodynamics was to winter quarter what biochemistry was to fall. At some point in my college career, I got really good at knowing when to cut my losses and focus on the classes I actually understand, so my quarterly and cumulative GPAs are fine. Not that I'm terribly concerned with either so long as I can keep it above the threshold for finishing with Honors. Of course, if my experiment today fails like Monday's, I won't have a thesis, and therefore won't be able to get Honors anyway. I've come to grips with it not being the end of the world, but I think I would be pretty disappointed.

Charles Mudede at The Stranger wrote a kind of amazing article on Vampire Weekend. My own ranting diatribes had mostly focused on their being pretentious, overrated Ivy League snobs, but I think Mudede raises some good points. Plus, using terms like "postcolonialism" and "cultural appropriation" makes the whole argument sound really, really smart and legitimate.

Early morning lab worker

Greetings. I am in the midst of one of two two-day experiments to be carried out this week. Provided everything goes correctly (knock on Benchkote), it's all that stands between me and being able to complete my thesis. I don't really get a spring break as a result (we're on quarters here so I just finished up finals last week), but it's sooo much easier to do these now rather than trying to work them around my spring quarter schedule.

I've been here every six hours for the past twenty-four and will be staying on through this evening. Even in its new, lesser Zipcar incarnation, Flexcar is still seriously, like, the best thing ever. (Note: I will continue to reference the halcyon days of Flexcar being Flexcar, not Zipcar, indefinitely...$50 late fees? Come on, guys). Rather than taking the bus up from Capitol Hill to the U-District at 6:00 AM on Easter Sunday to walk half a mile onto campus in the rain after a recent string of assaults, I booked an hour with a Honda Civic hybrid for $10.50, drove up, and parked 20 feet away from where I was going. I did the same thing for the 1:00 AM run. Driving in the rain is assuredly less terrifying than being dragged off into the shrubs and bludgeoned.

I had best start labeling my tubes. Happy Easter and/or Spring Break.