Hello everyone! It’s been a long winter break, but I’m back now, and ready to dig into the new semester. Just as a brief overview of the holidays: it was fairly busy. We had a lot of family around despite the pandemic, though everyone was making sure to be safe about it as far as I’m aware. We found a really good new barbeque place which was delicious. I also went to my friends’, Karin and Tim, wedding, which was stressful, but really great. I think they’ll be really happy, and they’ve been entertaining neighbors so far so at least there is that XD. Ben, Maren’s brother, has started streaming on Twitch, and I’ve been keeping up with the Dream SMP, so be prepared for some nerd-dom about it later.
Now, let’s get onto the first week of school, yeah?
Monday wasn’t technically a school day, since it was a
holiday, but I figured I should include it since I still did a fair amount of
stuff on it. Maren says I’ve taken to stress baking, since I made perrines and
have been cooking for most of the previous week too, and I hate to admit but
she might be right. I just need to do something ‘productive’ when I’m anxious,
so I’ve just been cooking and cleaning a lot. I’ve been really anxious about
this semester since I have a lot more lab responsibilities on my plate with the
in-person TA-ing of Human Anatomy, and my 3.5 hour shifts in the new Freeman
lab. I think I’ll be able to keep up with everything, but I feel a little out
of my depth. Hopefully it will all work out though. Sam was also over on Monday
(and basically every day last week, much to Maren’s happiness), and he and Maren
played Age of Calamity for a while, when I was on Minecraft. I also managed to play
some Age of Calamity later on in the day, which was nice, and it helped me
destress for Tuesday.
Tuesday started early, with a TA meeting at 7:30. I was so
anxious about this lab, and I’m still feeling the pressure, since it was announced
that I need to try and memorize faces and names along with being able to teach
the material, which is scary to think about. Though, Nick, one of the people I’m
working with in the lab (two people teach every lab to share the workload) was
pretty nice and actually talked to me, and I learned that Andy (teacher) is
going deaf early, which was interesting information. He’s also really nice, so
that’s good. The only other class I have on Tuesdays (and Thursdays) was Animal
Molecular Biology, which didn’t have a Canvas page. Of course, buses weren’t
working at the time either, so I had to climb all the way up the hill again
(third time that day-since Maren and I walked up to get some school supplies)
which wiped me out. I then proceeded to go to the wrong building and classroom
since Banner was dumb and told me the wrong location. Eventually I found the
right place, and the good news was, I wasn’t late to class. The teacher didn’t
seem to be having the best day either since Canvas had deleted all the course
information he’d put in, which was apparently why it wasn’t up. Dr. Rickords is
hilarious and pretty witty too, so I think I’ll have a lot of fun in his class.
We spent most of class-time talking about proper notebook etiquette (which I
already learned from one of my classes previous) and joking about the chances
that we would all get COVID since it was in person, even with the masks. That
was pretty much all that happened that day. Normally, I would be teaching
classes after that point, but it wasn’t the case for the first week. I’ll be
busier next week.
Wednesday was really chill for the beginning part. I got to
sleep in, which was nice, but eventually I got myself worked up since I couldn’t
find my asynchronous lecture for Nutrient Gene Interactions for a long time. I
emailed the professor eventually, and he let me know where they were at and
that they’d been up for a while. While I waited for the email however… I may
have stress baked brownies from scratch, which was an experience. Maren was
laughing at me a majority of the time, because she’s mean, but it was fine. The
lecture on Wednesday was just the introduction on what we would be talking
about, and was pretty dang short, so there wasn’t much information in it,
though I am nervous since the class is all test grade/project grade based,
which means I have a little more pressure on me to perform well. Besides that
lovely realization the day was chill… well mostly. Crap went down on the Dream SMP. Holy Cow, it
was wild, and I spent a lot of time watching streams and theorizing outcomes
with Maren. Honestly, if anyone wants to, they should watch the streams, they’re
really entertaining, and fun to have in the background while you do other
things. But it was the season two finale, so it was crazy (defeating the bad
guy, a lot of self-sacrifice, psychological torture of children and forcing them
to make decisions of life and death, possible character who has blackout periods
where they commit crimes for the bad guy, imprisonment in an inescapable
prison, etc.).
Thursday was pretty slow, all things considered. I worked on
Minecraft for a good chunk of the morning before reporting in to get tested for
COVID since I was out of state (results came back negative later that night, so
no worries). I scheduled the test for half an hour before my Animal Molecular
Biology class, so I had some time to get to there, but I ended up getting there
super early, so I kind of just hung around and worked on my HP fanfiction.
Class was pretty interesting, the projector wasn’t working for the first
fifteen minutes until IT guys showed up, so Dr. Rickords basically went “ah
well,” and presented the information without slides at first. We were mostly
talking about RNA and how you handle it since we’ll be doing that in the lab
next week. Nothing was really all that surprising, and I was able to answer a
few of his questions in class for the hows and whys of handling RNA, which was
a neat experience. After that, I just chilled at home again. Sam came around for
a little while before he left for some sort of pancake night at his place or
something, and Maren left to go and watch a movie at Karin and Tim’s. I was
feeling kind of anxious that night, so I more or less decided to go to bed
early and turned on a silly movie to watch as I fell asleep.
Friday was actually the best day of this week. I didn’t have
many plans that day, so I actually ended up watching another silly movie (one
with Shark Boy and Lava Girl as adults with a daughter named Guppy, and boy was
it just cringy, but funny cringe) before heading off to go and meet with Sara
to go and tour the new Freeman Lab in the BNR building. We were able to talk some
shop about other things I need to get done this semester and what was expected
for committee members, before we left for the lab. I actually saw Dr. Womack in
the lab, and she mentioned that I got the highest score in her class last semester
and that she really enjoyed my ‘poop paper’ as Mom dubbed it. It made me feel
really good to hear that and I was really happy for a good chunk of the day
after that. I actually ended up conking out for around an hour almost right
after I got back, though I don’t remember falling asleep. After watching my
lecture for Nutrient Gene Interaction (also about RNA ironically enough), Maren
and I kind of felt the need to play pokemon for a little while, and we ended up
doing that until it was time for me to call my parents. I argued with Mom about
there being snow in Logan, but it wasn’t long before I was “officially living
in Logan” and the snow started to fall. Karin was going nuts outside, so I went
out to go and chat with her and Tim about their plans for today (Saturday)
before heading in and going to bed.
So yeah, that’s been my first week of the new semester so
far. I know it’s not much, and I’m already trying to think of what that means
for the coming weeks. It’s still snowing out right now and will likely continue
all day, but hopefully we’ll still be able to go to the store soon so I can get
milk and some supplies for curry tonight.
Anyways, talk to you all later! Bye!
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