The Daily Grind.

Sooo about all those books I was going to read this summer. Errr...well it didn't really happen. I'm pretty damn disappointed in myself. BUT it stands to reason that I wouldn't have read as much because I was taking ORGANIC CHEMISTRY for heaven's sake! Anyway, here is the continuing list!

1. Dragonhaven--Robin McKinley : 342 pages.
2. The Graveyard Book--Neil Gaiman : 307 pages.
3. City of Bones--Cassandra Clare : 496 pages.
4. Psych: The Mind Is A Terrible Thing to Read--William Rabkin : 288 pages.
5. The Time Traveler's Wife--Audrey Niffenegger : 537 pages.
SUMMER:
6. Invisible Monsters--Chuck Palahniuk : 297 pages.
7. Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story--Christopher Moore : 304 pages.
8. A Dirty Job--Christopher Moore : 416 pages.
9. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies--Jane Austen and Seth Graham-Smithe : 320 pages.
10. The Tales of Beedle the Bard--J.K. Rowling : 125 pages.
11. Watchmen--Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, John Higgins, Len Wein : 408 pages.
12. City of Ashes--Cassandra Clare : 472 pages.
13. Lavinia--Ursula K. Le Guin : 279 pages.
14. Perfect Fifths--Megan McCafferty : 255 pages.
15. The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters Volume One--Gordon Dahlquist : 464 pages.
16. Dead Until Dark--Charlaine Harris : 292 pages.
17. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes--Neil Gaiman : 234 pages.
18. The Sandman: The Doll's House--Neil Gaiman : 227 pages.
19. Living Dead in Dallas--Charlaine Harris : 291 pages.

Total = 6,354 pages.

And now I'm back at Bryn Mawr...which means not much pleasure reading at all. BUT I have a kickass schedule so maybe if I get lots of work done I will actually have time for some reading on my own. =] A girl can dream right? As far as the schedule goes...it's pretty simple actually. Only three classes until sometime in October, then I'll pick up a fourth half-credit bio class at the H-fordd. Pretty sweet, right? Well those classes happen to be Genetics, Biochemistry, a Crusades history class, and the fourth at Haverford is Immunology. I'm pretty sure I'm still going to have one hell of a semester.

It's already started off with a bang due to unfortunate circumstances surrounding my stupid dorm room. Don't get me wrong...I really am beginning to be really comfortable and love it. Sure, it's not in the prettiest or my favorite building on our beautiful campus, but it's been home for the past three days and it's growing on me. BUT, there are those who would oppose me. Namely, my mother. We've had two fights about it now that have ended with me in tears. Today I called my dad for about an hour afterwards crying about it. I'm at the point where I'm just so frustrated about her opinions and judgments that I just can't take it anymore. I love her and I do respect her opinion, but if it obviously hurts my feelings and is making me cry...in front of my FRIENDS...I don't want that. I don't want to be mad and upset and crying all the time because my mom doesn't like my dorm room. Sure, she played the "But I AM paying for it you know" card, but if I'm happy...she should be happy for me and happy that I'm happy. If I can deal with it...she can. It hurts to know she'll never come spend time with me in my dorm room though [because she "hates" it so much]...whenever she visits or drops me off sometime it'll just be like a drop-off and run. Or we'll sit in the car for an hour...that's no way to be. UGH. I need to stop thinking about it and letting it affect me so much or I really won't be able to concentrate on my work. I just can't help being a people-pleaser in the respect that I want my mom to be happy with my decisions and what I'm doing with my life. And I don't want to be afraid of her picking me up to take me home tomorrow...which I now am. DOUBLE UGH. I haven't written this long a blog entry in a while. Usually it's when I have to rant about a subject...which I have obviously here, but I've also told this to three other people already. I guess it bothers me so much there's no way to let it go. TRIPLE UGH.

Anyway...classes are great so far. I'm really looking forward to and pretty much scared shitless for them. But I'm determined to kick-ass and get some better grades this semester. I was pretty disappointed with myself last semester, and even though I have really tough classes this time around I really want to not get bogged down and depressed all the time and breakdown for every little thing. Not that I didn't before...but I'm really going to try my hardest. I need to. GRAD SCHOOL. ACK.

In a more happy light...I love him. He always finds ways to make me smile and make me feel better. I don't know what I'd do without my boo. <3

It's shower and then reading biochemistry in bedtime!

ciao!

Oh, the Problems I Have...

I'm pretty sure it's about time I blogged again. I've been so busy it just hasn't been able to happen, which is sad. But my day from hell is over and even though it produced more thoughts of hell I don't actually have to think about them for a while. Though I'll probably vent about them on here.

So, things to look forward to:
1. Only 3 days of classes left in the semester!
2. Seeing my boo on Friday.
3. Phillies game on Saturday [thank you SO much Stephanie].
4. MAY DAY.
5. Phillies game next Saturday with the boo. <3
6. GOING HOME SO SO SOON! =D

And things still left to accomplish:
1. Summary Paper for Mad Cow Disease presentation [which is almost done!].
2. Meeting with Prof Truitt about final revision paper on Friday.
3. THREE MORE DAYS OF CLASS.
4. Self-scheduled final Chemistry exam.
5. Take-home Anthropology exam [due May 11].
6. Final 8-9 page revision/extension/crazy-ass reworking paper [due May 7].
7. I'd also like to send some letters to friends, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen.

So the day from hell:
Well, I had to take my microbiology exam last night. I took it from 1 to 4 in the morning. Which, retrospectively, probably wasn't the best idea, but I needed to get it done and I didn't really feel like I could prepare any more for it so I just took it. IT WAS AWFUL. And that's all I'll say about that. Then I needed to prepare for my mad cow presentation, which absolutely took FOREVER because I could not get it down to 8 minutes. I just had way too much information to fit into an 8 minute talk [I'm even having trouble now summarizing my poster into a 2 page paper! AH!]. So I was up really late trying to cut down the presentation. I ended up only getting 1 1/2 hours of sleep, maybe even less because I just kind of lay there for a while trying to think of how to cut down my presentation more. Then I woke up, took a shower, and ran through my presentation a couple of times, still trying to cut it down but could only get it to 9-10 minutes. Went to class. Didn't get to finish. I ran over time. It was so embarrassing. I was so nervous about this presentation, I was sweating up a storm. And I didn't even get to talk about my final topic at all. Not to mention the fact that my Prof scared me shitless and kind of made me feel really stupid...when I was hanging up my poster she said to me, "You haven't taken Orgo yet have you?" And I was like, "No, but I'm taking it this summer in a two month intensive course." And she goes, "Well, you realize you need Orgo for Biochem right? And Biochem is a lot of work. People think that they can breeze through the prerequisites to get to Biochem and then find they aren't ready." And that just left me shocked. I don't know. I like this professor a lot, but I can't stop thinking about how much that kind of hurt. I realize [with help from Joanna] that she is probably just looking out for me because Organic Chemistry is a hard course and the kind of course that will prepare you for the intense course that is Biochemistry, but I couldn't help but think that she thought I couldn't handle it. So that's part 1 of my problems.
Part 2 comes in when Joanna and I go back to her room before going to lunch. I signed up to potentially be a Bio lab TA next year, because number 1...I need a job, and number 2, I feel like it would look really good on a resume to actually have a job on campus that deals with my major. The problem rears its ugly head when Joanna finds that we got an email from the lab professor telling us to give our preferences for lab days. Of course there were a bunch of returning TAs so there was no guarantee we would get a spot, but we should put our time preferences down anyway. The lab times are Monday 1-4, Tuesday 10-1, and Tuesday 1:30-4:30, and Wednesday 1-4. I can't do ANY of those times with the schedule that I prepared for myself for next semester. Monday and Wednesday I have a History class that I am DYING to take from 2:30-4. I'm halfway towards a History minor and this is a 100-level course which I need, taught by my favorite professor. I feel like it would be a waste to not take the class. And on Tuesday I have Biochem [I mean we'll see if I even get in anymore] from 10-11:30 and the Biochem lab form 1-4. I had thought there would be a Thursday Intro Bio lab and that's when I could TA. I'm so depressed. I can't believe that I assumed that. UGH. Here comes part 3.
So, in thinking about the Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry dilemma, I realized that the higher level Biology classes I applied for at Haverford both require Organic Chemistry as a pre-requisite. Meaning I'll probably be lotteried out of the classes because I don't have the pre-requisite. So now I have to email the professors and basically beg to be let in. I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't get anything. It will basically have been pointless to have taken Organic Chemistry over the summer because if I don't get into any of those classes I might as well take Organic Chemistry at Bryn Mawr next year because I'll only have a history class in my schedule. UGH I HATE MY LIFE. Today was supposed to be a big relief and an amazing day because my presentations that I was uber scared for would be done and I only had this summary paper for Microbio due on Friday and then it would be an amazing weekend and then all I would have to do would be to survive finals week. But no. All of these things had to come into my head and make me even more depressed.
I just don't know what to do. I mean I know I really should email those professors for the Haverford classes, but other than that I guess I really can't do anything until the lottery results come out. It's just going to be even more nerve-wracking than usual. I can't believe how screwed I got in the way of classes at this school. And people wonder why I stress about choosing classes so much. It's because I have no effing luck at all.

Okay. I think that's enough venting. I need to finish this summary paper, which is now approaching 4 pages and is only supposed to be 2. Sigh. I guess I should try to look at the bright side: this weekend is going to be amazing. And I'm not going to think about work at all. Friday = Boo. Saturday = Phillies. Sunday = MAY DAY. And it's going to be a great one.

HAVE I MENTIONED THE WEATHER IS GORGEOUS?! It's made me really happy and has tried to improve my mood and did for a while until today. And sadly tomorrow it's going to be cold and rainy...very exemplary of my mood, but c'est la vie. What a long post. Also, I took that picture. =]

ciao!

Home again?

I'm back at Bryn Mawr.

While nothing can replace home, I feel almost as if I've never left Bryn Mawr. Sure, it's taking me a while to get back into the swing of classes and such, but I moved in and have been sleeping fairly well and everything's been pretty okay. I've been to and got into all of the classes I'm going to take this semester which is a huge relief and I think I'm going to be pretty happy with it. My schedule is also really nice.

Monday: Intro to Cultural Anthropology-- 10:00-11:30

General Chemistry-- 12:00-1:00

Tuesday: Microbiology -- 10:00-11:30

 Chemistry Lab-- 1:00-4:00

Wednesday: Intro to Cultural Anthropology-- 10:00-11:30

             General Chemistry-- 12:00-1:00

Thursday: Microbiology-- 10:00-11:30

      Medieval Medicine-- 1:00-4:00

Friday: General Chemistry-- 12:00-2:00

So all in all I love it. I go to Starbucks with Stafshar Mondays and Wednesdays to do work and chill. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have my fencing. And starting Fridays at noon? What could be better. =] I'm really excited for Microbio and the Medieval Medicine. I'm actually really intimidated by both, especially because I'm expected to participate a lot in both, but hopefully I'll be able to do it. I did really well last semester and I'm hoping to continue that.

In other news, my room is a mess already. I still haven't finished unpacking all of my little shits so I have a big box in the middle of my room overflowing with STUFF. And I [shamefully] bought more posters that I need to hang up, plus I need to rehang the posters that fell down over break. I am proud of myself though because I found out how to work my iHome. HURRAY!

In other other news I actually read three books over break that will begin my 2009 book list/yearly page count! Remember bolded means favorite, * means already read [thought that won't happen too often because I have so many new books to read!]

1. Dragonhaven--Robin McKinley : 342 pages.

2. The Graveyard Book--Neil Gaiman : 307 pages.

3. City of Bones--Cassandra Clare : 496 pages.

Total = 1,145 pages.

I'm also in the middle of about four books that I hope to finish soon before classes get totally CRAZY.

I guess that's all for now. I'm going to try to blog more often because I really do like doing it. It lets me think and let out  stuff that I don't really say that much. Time to read about microbial cell function and structure!

ciao!