Hello, everyone! I’m sorry to report that this week was a little rougher after the high of last week, but it wasn’t horrible. Just a really chill and lazy week due to the fact that I had no ability to concentrate at all. The need for a break is real, guys.
Monday wasn’t too bad. Our GTA meeting let us know that
there wasn’t much happening this week. We’re only doing Part 1 of 3 of our
methods, so it wasn’t too heavy material wise. Lab wasn’t too hard either, and only
lasted 15 or so minutes, so I won’t really bother mentioning it later on.
EvoDevo was… a little harder than that. It was a lot of big picture thoughts
that I had to try and word into essay responses on a vague topic. After that my
brain was kind of just dead, so I played Breath of the Wild for the rest of the
day. I got the rest of the memories (even the one in the castle, which was
super scary with all the flying guardians and normal guardians all over the
place). Later after lab, Sam came over to hang out with Maren, and they played
some more Breath of the Wild, which was fun to watch since they were doing one
controller each person which just leads to chaos.
Tuesday is where things got a little rough. Lab went fine,
though I did forget to record the first half again, so I had to go back and do
that. Neuroendo was also a little technically difficult. I kept on cutting in
and out of class, but I understood what they were talking about (homeostasis
endocrine cross over was discussed in my Animal Phys class and I remember a
good chunk of it. By that point, I had hit my limit of class thinking ability.
I hadn’t slept well on Monday, and Tuesday was not much better, so I was
crashing hard. I didn’t even bother attending the biology seminar—it sounded super
boring anyways. Karin came over for a visit for a little while, and then Maren
started feeling crummy. A migraine hit her full force, along with other general
health issues… which sadly lined up with COVID. Her parents suggested getting
tested, and thus the quarantine started.
Wednesday honestly wasn’t too bad, even with the anxiety
about Maren’s test hanging over us. I had a meeting with my ESL student, which
went alright, and I might not even have to work with her next week which is
nice to think about. I also had a meeting with Sara that day, just to check in.
I felt a lot better after that. We discussed committee members and what courses
I should look into for next semester, which was reaffirming. I was able to read
my article for EvoDevo after that point, and then the class period came around,
and the internet was awful. After that point, I once again hit a wall of
just being done. I ended up playing really distracted Minecraft that afternoon.
Focus was just not happening that day. I also ended up ordering out and not
even cooking that night. Tandoori oven was my savior, and it was delicious.
Thursday was… interesting. In Intro to Grad Studies, we
talked about Scientific Citizenship and what that means for interacting with
others in our field of color. I’m not sure I took much away from it, mostly
because I don’t think race really matters, so maybe I’m just naïve and ignorant
like the lady was saying, but yeah… That wasn’t the greatest start to the day,
but hey, at least Maren got tested that morning and got negative results by dinner,
which was nice. Neuroendo was fine too. We talked about hunger hormones which
are super complicated, and I even got to bring up some of the research Justin
was looking into my second year of college, which was fun. After that I had to
kind of quickly glance at a scientific article about reward centers of the
brain in Parkinson’s, which we discussed in the Freeman lab meeting. The
meeting itself was mostly socialization, and I actually really liked that. A lot
of the people there are really cool and looking into some pretty interesting things.
Other than school, I spent most of the day writing with Maren or kind of messing
around because, as has become the theme for this week: I can’t focus. Though, I
did also watch a livestream between classes (because that’s so
productive).
Friday was probably the best day of the week so far. I
actually slept in until 8:30 which was amazing, and meant that I actually got a
full 8 hours, which is even more amazing. Sure, I had some troubles with the
computer not working properly during the first couple of hours of the day, but
after an almond poppy muffin and some warmed vanilla milk, I was ready to
grade. Three hours later saw me done with grading people’s assignments (and
leaving paragraphs of feedback suggestions for this week because teaching is
wanting your students to succeed *sigh*) and watching Hermitcraft to give
myself a brain break. I then churned through my Neuroendo Assignments and other
basic class work. Sadly, despite my best efforts, I didn’t have much of a brain
left to work on my EvoDevo Paper outline like I wanted, so I had to put it off
until Saturday. So, instead, I gave myself some time to rest. I drew for a
little while and wrote as well, which was really nice. Maren, Emily, and I went
with Emily’s Tim (not Karin’s Fiancé) to a corn maze. It was a decent maze—nowhere
near Linder Farms, but no one can compare to them—and we actually got turned around
a little inside it. Still, forty minutes later had us out of the maze and
heading to the house for games and dinner. I made my self some spaghetti
(yummy) and garlic toast, and sat down to play some weird card/board game
called ‘Love Letters’. It was pretty boring so I tapped out early to call my
family—where I heard about Mason’s Ballard experience at Crwon Burger, which
was really cool and a good way to end the night.
And now it’s Saturday. I’m running the laundry right now,
and we’re planning on going to the store later today (we need eggs because I
want to make brownies and we’re fresh out, also popcorn is all gone which
sucks) and I still need to do my EvoDevo Outline before Monday.
But yeah, that’s been this week. Hopefully next week will be
a little more productive, and I can always hope for that. Talk to you all next
time!
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