Is it spring yet?The lack of posts is glaring, I know. The day after we arrived from Argentina , I had an experiment, and time has just flown since then. I’ve been taing a lab, which has been great, but very time consuming. I have to go in Monday and Wednesdays from 1:30 to 5:30pm, but usually goes over. The students are great, they’re excited about having a lab that has an actual relevant project. I like the fact that there are always three of us teaching, so we can interact with every student. I also got to grade their first assignment about a month ago. I started grading 2 papers an hour, and with 31 students the pile seemed infinite! The pace quickened, thank goodness, and I had to leqrn all about Ir0n abs0rpti0n in pl@nts, so related to what I do… Not. The slew of emails before the assignment was due made me realize two things: one– wow, I am the TA and have all the answers, or have to come up with them at least. Two– wow, I must have been a really annoying student! I promptly IMed my old TA, who claims I wasn’t… At least not in his class. Other things keeping me busy/stressed: lab. Things went from turtle slow to roadrunner crazy! Half my project is finally progressing, and the other half too but in a more frustrating way. I don’t want to delve into the specifics, but oh boy is grad school a tough roller coaster of emotions! We also went to a keyst0ne symposia (big meeting in a narrow field) in Taos, NM. It was such a good meeting, about 80% of the talks were somehow relevant or interesting. Very awesome. But it also made us realize that we needed to speed up my project progress. So, “spring break” started on Friday and since then I’ve had 2 office hours and have been in lab since Sunday with crazy hours! Ok. Off to work. |
