"I'm Not Dead Yet!"

 So… I’m not dead. Sorry for the gap in updates this last week guys, things got busy and my family came down for the weekend so I was hanging out with them instead of updating the blog. Thankfully I kept notes of what happened so I can still vaguely report in, since I know some of you would be curious. That being said, this is going to be a double-duty post, so it’s likely going to end up being very, very long. Let’s get started, yeah?

So Monday (22^nd) I was really tired for most of the day. I ended up making a presentation for teaching that week, after the TA meeting and during the office hours (since nobody ever comes to those). I did a fair amount of homework that day, and kinda ended up frying myself out rather early on. I ended up doing a lot more “fun” things that day, like uploading on my Harry Potter fanfiction and then spending hours upon hours over analyzing Star Wars. My poor roommates had to listen to me rant about Mace Windu’s equally disastrous lineage since I finally put two and two together and realized Ezra is his great-grand padawan (WinduàDepa Bilabaà Caleb Dune/Kannanà Ezra), which is hilarious because most of the time he ends up complaining about Yoda’s disaster lineage so that was really chaotic to think about.

Anyways, the Tuesday after that was a bit of a bummer. The results from last week’s lab were found to be utterly trashed because the machine was on high for too long so we had to redo it later that week. We started talking about protein extractions which are significantly harder for me to understand than RNA/DNA so it was a little rough. And then during the teaching time Matt forgot that he was teaching reproductive system this week and I found out later, so I had to teach it to one of the groups. I totally wasn’t salty about it at all. Thankfully Ulrick was back this week and made up for it. Sam came over that night too, but I didn’t really care all that much and crashed.

Wednesday was my “get everything done” day. I was very stressed because I wanted to get everything done before my parents showed up on Thursday, which meant getting stuff I usually did on Thursday and Friday out of the way for the most part. Thankfully Meagan and I met up for dinner at Tandoori Oven and I got time to not think while she talked about her and Ashley’s wedding plans. After dinner I don’t think I did all that much, and I probably went to bed early.

Thursday was a roller coaster. It started out really rough, because apparently Maren and Sam were talking wedding plans which means my living situation was going to possibly involve a new roommate… so I panicked. Allie apparently had decided to move to a different place next semester, so I had to figure out housing. Thankfully, Mom stepped in and told me we’d figure it out while they were here, so I kind of just put it out of mind as soon as I could so I could get on with my life. So, I worked on my Animal Molecular Biology Test for a while instead, before heading off for lab. It was a longer lab that day, and since the last one failed, we had to do two in one lab this week, and that just involved a lot of waiting on centrifuges which was annoying. Teaching went fine though, and so I actually went and drove to the hotel early to meet up with my parents. They brought Chick-fil-a with them, and we talked some of the situation over.

Friday was pretty dang busy. Mom wanted to eat locally while we were here, so I took everyone to Stacked, which everyone agrees in my family is one of the best places here in Logan. After that it was back to figuring out the stressful stuff, before grabbing lunch at Five Guys (not local, but we went out shopping for a little while for clothes for Mas). Mas was doing school work on and off all day, so I ended up listening to one of my lectures (all about broccoli I think), and then Dad and I headed to my apartment to hang out until I had to go to work. We played Minecraft for an hour or so, before I headed up to campus to meet with Sara. She gave me the go ahead to bring people to the lab, so I was able to show my parents where I worked, which was pretty awesome. Basically right after that I went to go and sign for housing so I will be living with Allie next semester, which was a relief, even if now I have to worry about moving and stuff. Anyways, after that it was another local restaurant favorite--MayMoes—before we went to go and grab myself some groceries for the next two weeks. By the end of it all, I was tired and worn out, so I just crashed and watched some HGTV with Mom, which was a nice way to end the day.

Saturday started with tacos. There was a taco stand near the hotel that we grabbed breakfast from real quick, before I headed off to talk with the Blotters about changing my housing arrangements with them to account for the new contract. By the time we got back, I was still pretty worn down, so we watched TV for a little while longer until people got hungry. This time, we went to the Creperie where I actually tried a new crepe, which was actually really good. While we were out, we found the Bluebird Candy Shop and a Great Harvest store an bought some goodies from there. I was kind of wanting to peace out, so we once again, lounged about in the living room for a while and I got to hang out with my family, which was wonderful. We finished the day with HuHot—bit of a disappointment sadly, but oh well—and I watched a really cool show about Chateaus along with the figure skating world championships, which was awesome as well.

Sunday was sadly the way that my parents had to leave. After Zoom-ing into Church, we retreated back to my apartment and Dad helped me figure out what the deal with the printer was while Mom got tax info from me. They left pretty soon after and I kind of just… vibed for the rest of the day? I didn’t do much except make kale-pesto pasta for the coming week since I knew it would be busy. Maren and Emily arrived back around 8, and I turned in to prepare myself for nightmare week.

Okay, so context for “Nightmare” week. This week I had: Immunohistochemistry staining spanning over three days (each day had time set apart for 2-8 hours depending upon the day), my Animal Molecular Biology Exam was due, a paper for the same class was due, a really complicated lab for that class as well, and my final exam for Nutrition.

Yeah. It was nuts, so bear with me.

Monday was the day before everything went crazy, so what did I do? All the homework I could possibly finish as early as possible to prepare for the rest of the week. I did all my readings, videos and prep work as much as I could. I had my TA meeting and office hours as usual, and thankfully found out that this week we weren’t actually teaching material, just giving out the Lab Exam for students. I also attended the Freeman meeting like usual (which was ironically focused around autism which gave me all sorts of kicks). I didn’t ever really stop working on homework until like seven. I felt like I was going crazy.

On Tuesday I had a surprise meeting with Andy since he was concerned that my students weren’t getting the cadaver experience that was a “once in a lifetime chance”, so he took me into the lab to go around and touch stuff so I would be more comfortable. Since, “If you’re scared, they’ll be scared”. Thanks Andy. It wasn’t too bad though, though I did find out where my limits were. After that I had three minutes to get to the lab to start IHC, which went fine. It was only a two and a half hour day, and we were just working with PBS and the primary antibody. We got ourselves oriented, and it was actually not too bad. After that, I had my Animal Molecular Biology class which was boring as hell, and I then proceeded to prolong the torture further by working on the exam for that class right afterwards and turned it in. As much as I appreciate the open book, open note test with a week to do it, the essay questions are long and complicated. After that was the lab exam, which went fine for both classes, and I got to head home early, which was a relief. Maren and Emily bought Phasmaphobia, and it was an entertaining evening of watching them freak out. I even ended up having to sub in for Emily when she froze up in a dangerous situation. It was quite funny.

Wednesday was a full eight hours in the lab. I mean there were two 2-hour breaks where the brains were soaking in the secondary antibody and the ABC, but it was still something that I wanted to watch over for that time. I did go and take a lunch break because I was kind of dying close to around one in the afternoon, but I was back in the lab within half an hour. The results were… okay? Our brains looked pretty damaged, and the DAB staining was really dark. We’ll have to see how they turn out next Monday, but I don’t have my hopes up. Also, transferring them onto the slides was a little rough. They were really fragile and I ended up damaging some of the tissue while coaxing them onto the slides. Outside of that, during the two windows of time, I turned in my Animal Molecular Biology paper and chipped away at my committee proposal. I also started to work on some of my other papers, but I was starting to flag, and when I got home, I crashed hard. My brain was done, so I watched youtube and Maren and Emily play Phasmaphobia again. Also, Sam came over and we all ended up pirating for an hour on Sea of Thieves, which runs a lot smoother now with my new memory thing on the computer, which was nice. Especially in the vault.

Thursday was the smallest day of IHC. We actually didn’t even take the full two hours that we thought it would take. I was just cover-slipping that day, which is a learning curve. I actually did it perfectly, but then Sara moved some things and knocked my slides over so I had to redo it. It didn’t go as well the second time, but Sara was really sorry so I guess it was okay. Either way, we have them curing over the weekend to look at on Monday. I ended up taking my Nutrition final right after that and I might have actually gotten a hundred percent. I was really surprised that I got none of the multiple choice wrong, though I’m still waiting on the essay response questions. After that, I worked to put together the committee meeting. I’m still waiting on people even now on Friday, but I started working on it then. Animal Lab was alright, it just took a long time. We got our results back quickly though, so I was able to start working on my notebook pretty soon after that . TA-ing went well that night as well, and I got to chill when I came back.

And now we have today. So far, I have done my Laundry today, finished up my lab notebook, and have written this blog. SAD-ist’s newest animation also dropped this morning, and I definitely spent two hours just obsessing over that. It was amazing, and even better, it was Technoblade themed!!!! I loved it, her animation has gotten so much better over these months and I can’t wait to see more already. I’ve officially left Star Wars for Dream SMP/Naruto at the moment, so be warned. Um… Other than that, I’m planning on a chill day. I have an appointment around 2 to go and sign something before getting ice cream with Allie, but other than that, I think I’m going to let myself relax for the weekend. It’s General Conference this weekend, so that means everything will be more chill…. Hopefully.

Anyways, this is three pages of me rambling on and on. I think I’ll call it there. BYE!