Hello everyone, I’m back! After a really busy summer filled with research and weddings and moving in and out, I am once again working my way through the school year. I’m living at Aggie Mansion this year with eleven other girls which has been… an adventure. A few of them seem pretty nice, especially Annie, Bryn, Kayla, Kenzie, Karcen, and Allie (of course). Maren and Sam are still around as well, though they’re down the street and pretty busy most of the time. My first week back at college has been very, very busy. On top of getting used to a new house and new classes, I was also ‘blessed’ with the opportunity to remove 80 mice brains since all the mice from Korry and Bob’s study had to be sacked this week. So yeah, it was crazy busy, because those were three hours worth of work for Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with Sara standing in on Thursday. Anyways, let’s get started talking about the first week, shall we?
Monday was kind of all over the place. My first class (Design
and Analysis of Ecological Research Using R) is around 8 am in the morning in
the Natural Resource building which can be a little bit of a maze if you don’t
scope it out first. Thankfully, I’d located my classroom during the summer, so
I knew where I was going. Funny thing is, I’m pretty sure the teacher was
confused about what classroom she was going into since I saw her enter at least
three before finally setting up in the one for the class. Dr. Manlove, or Kezia
as she prefers, seems pretty scatterbrained in general though, but she is
really good at memorizing names and faces, and she tried her best to ask
questions about each research project for all the grad students in class so she
could use it to help us learn the class (which is super nice and make it seem
like this class will be easier than I was fearing it would be). She ended up
focusing on my research project since all the other students in the class were
either working on ecology-based projects or were in the QCNR department so
their projects were similar. It was pretty intimidating to be interrogated
about my mice experiments and I had to try and re-explain things a lot since
she didn’t know anything about the gut microbiome or the gut-brain axis so she
thought I was studying brain bacteria. Very interesting experience. But
anyways, I found out Caroline is in the class, which is a familiar face and relieving—the
only thing more relieving being the fact that Kezia said she thought grad
school was already difficult enough that as long as we show that we’re trying
in the class, that everyone will get an A.
After class, I had to run to the Lab to pick up the equipment
for brain removals. Lexi was the one to drive us to the USTAR building (though
we found out there were two USTAR buildings and we’d went to the wrong one).
Other than that it went smoothly. No moral freak outs on my end, Bob asked us
very interested questions about my research, the process went fast. It was
nice. Actually, we had one of Bob and Korry’s students come up to us and freak
out because he said, “Is that the ScALp?” (yes I did the letter capitalization
choices for emphasis) when he saw that we were putting them to the side.
Personally, I think the scalps looked like squids, and Lexi and I were enjoying
ourselves with humming the Seagull song, and making a bit of a game (don’t
judge us) to try and get a ‘hole in one’ which just meant we were trying to
make it so the brains didn’t catch on the sides of the really small vials we
were putting them in. I was the only one to get a hole in one, which made me
feel pretty proud, but Lexi only did three brains so it was likely just the
sheer number of ones that I did that let me do it. Once that was done, I met up
with Allie to go and get my parking pass, and then we went to Carl’s Jr. to
reward ourselves for surviving that first day. It was a party (not really).
Sadly, I had to be back in time for the Freeman lab meeting at 5 pm, which I
joined on Zoom since I was exhausted. We just did introduction and Sara
explained how the semester was going to work with our meetings and the like. Nice
and simple, which was sorely needed. Though, I still did conk out pretty soon
after prayer with my family.
Tuesday was much less fun but no less busy than Monday. Institute
was decidedly not fun, but now that I’ve gone to more than one class, I think I
was just freaked out because I had nothing to do but stare at the thirty plus
people in the classroom, with most not wearing masks and there being no social
distancing. Regardless, I was panicking and ran outside as soon as I could.
Maren was thankfully on campus, so I met up with her and hung out until it was
time for me to head to my Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience class that I have
with Sara as the teacher. It was mostly just basic introductions again, though
since it’s an accelerated 7-week course we still did some of the material. For
this class we have to present each day, but Sara forgot to account for that
into her time, so we went almost thirty minutes over class, even though we only
have six people in the class. It was a little chaotic and I ended up a little
grumpy afterwards, though it was soon fixed after I had time to transfer my
brain samples from Monday into their new solutions. I also got invited around
that time to play Phasmaphobia with Maren, which I accepted gladly because of
how upset I was. It was a lot of fun, especially with the new update and
ghosts. I died once, but we only played four games, and it was lots of fun.
When I got home I felt refreshed enough to work on the reading and presentation
for the next Neuro class on Thursday while calling in to pray and then passed
out pretty soon after. Most days of this week, I just up and conked out.
On Wednesday, Maren and I met up early in the morning to
show off the drawings we’d done while apart and to just hang out, which was awesome.
Sam was there too, and overall, it was a nice start to the day, though I did
forget to pack myself lunch which sucked, since it was day two of brain
removals and I was working and driving to the USTAR building all by myself. I
ended up having a blast and went even faster than we had on Monday (so many
holes in one!!!!). I even think I was invited to a pizza party with the rest of
the crew, but I’m still not sure if that was a joke or not, so I’m just keeping
that in the back of my head for now. After that was said and done, I ran everything
back to the lab, and changed out Monday’s solution again, before heading home
to do a zoom meeting with my fellow TA, Emily. Apparently Brett, our instructor
that we are TAing for, got in trouble last year for asking for TAs and never
using them, so now he’s just giving us vague busy work. It sounds like we’re
never going to get instructions, so we’re just doing our best with what we
have. We put the quiz for the reading stuff together, and chatted about how to
work with office hours and Q&A sessions. After that was done, I crashed
hard. For some reason, even though that day was going really great, my anxiety
was really high, so I just needed to stop for a moment. So what did I do?
Minecraft. I played Minecraft and wrote. Like usual. XD.
Thursday ran me ragged. Institute was significantly better
now that I brought something to draw with, but holy cow I was EXHAUSTED. I kept
on yawning all day and was overly lethargic. I did both Monday and Wednesday’s
solution switches, but I had to stick around and help Lexi when she and Sara
got back from brain removals. It was a mad dash to put things in the fridge and
make up a 30% Sucrose with a small amount of Sodium Azide. I actually ended up
late for Sara’s class, but she knew where I was and why I was late, so it was
all good. I didn’t miss too much, since that day’s lesson was about action
potentials and the chemoelectrical mechanics of neurons, which I’m already
pretty familiar with. My presentation on patch clamps went well, and I found out
we didn’t have to worry about any of the math equations for neurons so I was
happy. I hung out with Maren again after school, though Logan popped over and
drained my social meter before I even got home and was then invited to a pizza
party with my roommates (Karcen, Kayla, and Annie). We had to wait for Howie’s
to make the pizza, and we ended up at Zurchers at one point, where I ran into Jessica.
And Jessica is Jessica. Hasn’t changed a bit. It was exhausting. I didn’t even
stay for the movie night afterwards, I just went to bed.
Friday was… well. Fun fact, I write notes throughout the
week so I don’t forget what I do each day and let’s just say my first notes for
Friday were: “lots of math, really tired, brain hurts”, which I think is a
honest indicator of what I was feeling (XD). But hey, the math class went
alright, and I got the brains all finished up. I was pretty out of it during
brain removals, though, but nothing went wrong so I count that as a win. Almost
all of them were holes in one too. Switched solutions out again of course, then
came home and took a nap. I woke up super groggy just in time for dinner, which
I ate upstairs while Allie and Annie started watching Good Place and tried to get
me to join in. I decided I didn’t like anyone but Michael and Janet, so I didn’t
stick around. They were having another pizza night (holy cow my roommates do a
lot of pizza nights, why???) while I just had delicious tacos (Thanks Mom and
Dad!). I went downstairs after eating to work on my math homework until my
phone call with the fam, but I ended up being invited to join Allie and Annie
again for a foray into Yogurtland. It was a blast and I actually convinced them
to give Merlin a try—we ended up staying up until past midnight watching Merlin.
It was great, even if I up and passed out as soon as I was in bed.
Speaking of passing out, I slept in until ten today (Saturday)
and it was glorious, though I was once again, super groggy. But, I still
had things to get done. I had to go up to switch solutions again, and do
laundry. It took a while to figure out the laundry machine (longer than I like
to admit), but it was soon rumbling away while I took a shower and then made
myself some food. Two of our roommates (I think the sorority ones) tried to
have people over for drinks tonight, but Abby and I said we weren’t comfortable
with that, so they ended up somewhere else. So, Abby and I hung out in the
kitchen for a while, me making pasta and her making zucchini bread. We even
ended up putting Nightmare Before Christmas on in the background when it got to
quiet. And now I am back down in my room, writing this up, with Ben 10 playing in the background, and feeling tired
once again. I feel like I could sleep for a month and still be exhausted, but,
hey, at least it’s over, right? Next week looks remarkably better than the
crazy nightmare this one looked, which is a relief. Hopefully with that all
over, I can relax for a little while and take it easy. Anyways, talk to y’all
later. Until next time, bye!
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