Hello, everyone!
Good news, this week was a lot better than last week, so let’s
get started.
Sunday sadly started out pretty rough. It was a bad day for
anxiety, so I ended up not going to church that day, and instead we watched the
broadcast from Maren and Emily’s home ward because her mother was speaking. It
was a really good talk about family history, so I think it was a good trade. We
also watched the Chosen again (I think that show feels good so I seriously
recommend it to anyone for Sunday watching). After that, we tried out Among Us
for the first time with Maren’s family. It’s surprisingly a lot of fun, though
it does take a while to get used to. I hate being the imposter, but then again,
I was playing it on Maren’s phone at first though I bought it the next day.
Monday was a bit of a relief compared to last Monday. It
seems like everyone was struggling with boundaries, even Lauren, so I wasn’t
alone last week. TAing on Zoom is very hard to do, so I’m not the only one
having issues. I also was able to talk to my therapist, who assured me I was
doing fine as well, and that he thought I could do it, it’s just going to be
really challenging for me. After therapy, I felt a little drained, but I still
had homework to do, so I multitasked. Maren had hermitcraft videos on the tv,
so I watched those while working on my paedomorphism and peramorphism
assignment. We got to read an article on weird looking “cute” crabs from the
prehistoric eras. So that was interesting. After that we killed some time
playing Among Us because I was so anxious about TAing that night that it felt
like I was crawling out of my skin and I needed a distraction. TAing itself
wasn’t that bad, I definitely felt more prepared and organized this week, so I
think it’s going to be a bit of a learning curve. Thankfully though, lab was
really short and no one really needed anything from me—which meant I was
fearing what that meant for me for the rest of the week. I was sure it was
going to lead to many emails and me having to support students. Then after that
I decided to go and try FHE just to know what family I would be in. Tim is the “Pa”
for our family, and I’m with all my friends, so I think it will be fine, though
the activities for FHE that night were awful. They bribed us with Aggie Ice
Cream though, and I stood out for most of it (It was a sensory hellscape-
playdough, popping balloons, a chance of wet clothes, etc.).
Tuesday was busy and slightly uncomfortable. Super short lab
in the morning once more, just adding onto my worries about answering emails. I
had a meeting with a student who never showed up to the meeting and never reached
out again. Neuroendo meant a talk about homosexuality and how we study it. It’s
a little awkward right now in class because we are talking about sexual
behavior for a large chunk of the beginning of the year, and I do have personal
beliefs that I have to keep to myself just to not cause a big issue when
certain statements are used. Though it is interesting to know how animal models
are used to study homosexuality in humans, so… yeah. After that I had a Biology
Seminar which was sadly about insects, so I struggled to pay attention for most
of it, just because it was about bugs. I know, it’s silly, but after everything
else it was kind of sucky. Thankfully though, friends came over and it was a
good end to the night. We introduced Allie, Karin and Tim to Among Us, Karin
brought over a really tasty peach cobbler (her first time making it and it was
actually really good), and I also made popcorn. And they were awesome and let
me beg off to bed early too when it was clear that I was exhausted. Man, I love
my friends.
Wednesday was very relaxed in comparison. I didn’t have
anything but reading to do and Evo Devo. Then again, I was reading three
different scientific articles that day. One was for Evo Devo and talked about
dogs being tested to see if they were a heterochronic derivative of wolves or
not—spoiler, they’re not. We discussed it in class and it was just discussion
groups the entire time, so no pressure. The second was about microglia and how
they relate to oxytocin. That was for the Freeman Lab Meeting on Thursday, and
I’ll admit, I still don’t really understand what it was about, but Lexi (our
lab’s post-doc) explained it and how it related to our work. And the last one
was the most interesting, and was about my actual research area. It was fifteen
pages of microbiome, gut-brain axis based goodness. I kept on fangirling over
it I’m sure I drove Maren mad. At least, that was the case until Karin and Tim
popped over with smoothies to share (pumpkin-gross). It was an enjoyable break
to say the least.
Then came Thursday. *long sigh*. Thursday was hard. I had to
help out a lot of students who waited until the last day to do their work and
reach out—so many meetings, and I did my best to help them. I also had classes
from 8 until 4:30 which was awful. Intro to Graduate Studies was boring, but it
had tips from upperclassmen in grad school, which was nice and I took some
notes. After that was Neuroendo again, and I had to watch a documentary about
intersex where one of the people was very open about his… sexual
activities. I was not a fan and felt very uncomfortable, but I got through it because
we needed to do a discussion post about it. After that was the Freeman Lab Meeting,
like I mentioned earlier in Wednesday’s paragraph. Sara and I were even able to
talk a bit about possibly looking into serotonin along with microglial activity
in the brain for my staining in practice runs. Then I was back in more meetings
with students. I also sadly dropped one of Maren and Emily’s bowls while trying
to do dishes and cut up my hands pretty bad. I had three band-aids, with my
pinky having the worst of it and bleeding everywhere until I got it bandaged
up. After that, I was pretty done with everything and I crashed hard last night.
We ordered out and tried a place with some pretty dang decent food (I think it’s
called Juniper). I think the best part of that day (outside of talking to my
family for prayer) was the fact that Mrs. Gatfield asked me for a commission. I’m
excited to work on it this weekend!
Alright, Friday is my chill day for the most part, and I
used it to my advantage. I just powered through the morning, working through
grading the Science Reflections from my students, starting on my GAD paper
(which I was ironically super anxious about XD). I even had some time before Mas
and Dad showed up for me to clean up a little bit. It was awesome to see them
again, and I even got a couple of hugs from Dad and got to show him some of my
drawings and projects on Minecraft. Hopefully I didn’t talk his ear off. After
they left, Maren, Emily and I decided to do a manhunt where we hunt Maren. She
really wanted to try it after watching Dream do it with his friends. We kept on
killing her, but the lag was pretty bad, so… who knows. Tim also came over
since Allie and Karin were busy yesterday with a girl’s day out with other
friends. And we topped the night off with watching the finale of the Flower
Fight on Netflix, which was super cool, and I totally liked the build that won.
So yeah. That’s been this week. Today we have a hike planned
later in the evening, I’m planning on working on my commission. We also need to
go shopping, and I still have to prep for next week for at least a couple of
minutes, but yeah. It’s been a better week.
Talk to you all next time.
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