Spring Semester Coming in Swinging

 Hello everybody! I’m back to school again, which means weekly blogposts from me. Christmas break was awesome, and I loved seeing everyone at home again. And it was nice to be able to sleep in a really nice and quiet environment. I got pretty far on my turtle craft thing, and I even got to go and see Hamilton with my dad which was honestly super awesome. The Farbecraft server also started up, which kept both Mas and I busy now that he’s a member of the crew. That being said, spring semester has certainly had a strange start so far.

Monday had me shaking in my bones. I had to go up to campus at 7:30 in the morning for the TA meeting, which was exhausting enough. Thankfully, Allie let me know that the parking booth’s computer in the premium parking lot was broken and that it was just going to be open all day without having to pay for it. I took advantage of this, and drove up there for the TA meeting, and stayed there until around 4:30. The TA meeting was fine, just the usual review of policies and what needed to be done. After the meeting, I went downstairs to prepare for teaching the Human Anatomy labs. I ended up grabbing a hot bowl from the Sushi Bar on campus for lunch before hurrying up to do my first lab session of the day. I found out that my UA was a previous student of one of my labs, which was awkward and cool at the same time. She did really well in the class, apparently. We just watched the Iceman Murder Mystery after introductions and that as about it for lab. I had an hour long gap between Lab sessions after that, so I just hung out until the next session. My second UA is the person who held review sessions last year. So overall, I lucked out on teaching buddies this time. After that, I just kind of went home and crashed. Made myself some spaghetti to celebrate getting through the first day of teaching too.

Tuesday was the true start of school for me. Unfortunately, it didn’t start well. Banner had the wrong time for my Veterinary Immunology class, so I had to do a lot of awkward social situations and asking around to figure out when the class really started. I did not like it at all. However, the class itself is amazing so far. I think I’m really going to enjoy the class. Honestly, I think I’m more excited for this class than the Neuroscience one I took last semester. It’s almost up there with my excitement for nutrient gene interactions and herpetology . Thank goodness that Susannah suggested it, even if it’s a 7000 level class and I’m stuck with all VET and AGG students. I kid you not, I think I’m the only BIO major there. The professor had all of us grad students sit in the back and I’ve made very little conversation with them, but that does seem to be the case. Anyways, after class, I came home and crashed for a little while. Bryn and I had agreed to go shopping for what I didn’t have later that day, so I was waiting for that. It was fun, actually, and made me realize that I don’t talk to her that much. Because of the later shopping trip, I was a little late to lab meeting, but it hadn’t actually started due to tech issues so it was fine… what was less fine was the fact that I signed up to give the presentation for next week since Sara was asking for volunteers. Better to get it over with, I guess, and when I don’t have lab to teach either. I was able to specify the slicing schedule though, which was good. I’m actually pretty in charge of it since I have a personal project, so I can make it work.

Wednesday was probably the low of my week. It started out nicely enough. We talked about innate immunity, which meant I had a hard time not just thinking about cells at work. I have a really good set up for notes, and the class is a perfect length for my attention span, which is nice. It was after class that things went wrong. I went up to the lab to slice, and there were so many problems. The first brain I tried fell apart and I was kind of like “huh, that’s weird”, so I tried with another one thinking it might have just had internal damage, but then that one fell apart as well. This psyched me out so badly, that I just stopped for the day. I had ruined two good brains, and I was really upset—I mean, I have back ups, and I’ll could use practice brains until I figured it out, but I felt really upset about it. I was not in a good mood when I came back home. My roommates were watching the bachelor, which is as boring and stupid as usual. I had just come upstairs to eat and hang out with them, but ended up watching it with them just so I could not be alone while I was so upset. And then… I got the news that made me feel really crappy. The Farbecraft server had crashed late last week, and Ben had been trying to figure out what was wrong, and he found it. The SD card was completely screwed and all the progress we’d made so far was gone. I had worked so hard that I kind of just shut down for a while. It was silly to be so upset, but I was really not in the mood for another thing to go wrong, and kind of just gave up on the day after that. It sucked a LOT.

Thursday was better, but had its own problems. I didn’t really eat breakfast since I woke up really anxious and worked up. Class was great though! We talked about Neutrophils and I was on another Cells at Work kick and had to try really hard not to grin or laugh while thinking about the Neutrophil character in the show. We even talked about cell adhesion and how they get from the bone to the blood, and I couldn’t help but smile thinking about how they put that in the show. I am such a Nerd, and it tickled my funny bone, okay? It left me in high spirits while I headed to lab, though, so I wasn’t too focused on how scared I was. I ended up having to problem solve some more and call Sara in for assistance. I let the brain freeze for longer to make sure it wasn’t my error, but that wasn’t the case. Issues still happened, so  one FaceTime later, and we figured out it wasn’t user error. There was a repairman in over break, so he might have messed with something on the stage that usually stays the same, and we also found a smear of brain matter that might have been scraping the brain. I got praised for my problem-solving skills though, which was nice. Sara ended up just telling me to wait until she can get a better look at it, so I got off early again. I grabbed some sushi since I needed food, before heading home. And that was when things went a little wrong. I was walking down the hill, when I saw ice and decided to avoid that and walk on the grass area next to it to try and not slip. My mistake. Apparently that area was super muddy, and I slipped and fell in the mud. I ended up smacking my head in the process and landed pretty hard, getting mud all over my right side. I didn’t really know what to do after I fell, so I kind of just got up and walked the rest of the way home covered in mud. I got a few laughs for my efforts, but there were no signs of a concussion, even with the aches and redness on certain areas of my body. Nothing broken so far at least. Either way, I still had a lab to teach that night, so I came up with Allie, not wanting to walk very much with my ankle hurting from the fall. My buddy for the Thursday class is very good too, so I’ve got all solid UAs, which is nice. She’s taught this class over four times now, which is amazing. Anyways, thankfully the lab was the movie one, so I was able to sit most of the time and my out-of-it-ness didn’t cause too many issues.

Friday was a welcome rest day. I didn’t end up going into work because I was very sore from my tumble the previous day. Sara was nice enough to let me know the machine was fixed an was fine with me taking a breather, which was very much appreciated. I ended up resting for most of it and doing my best to remember to take medicine to stay ahead of the pain. At some point, I got bored of that though, and Maren invited me over to hang out, so I drove over and we just spent a good amount of time talking and she even had me try out this puzzle game which was loads of fun.  She had a game night with some other couples though, so I left after that and came back home. Didn’t end up doing much more the rest of the day, though the Server did get rebooted.

Saturday was another chill day. I actually got a lot done on the server and hung out with my roommates. Kenzie, Kayla and I got some Tandoori, which was nice, and they invited one of their friends over for it too. I also had a movie night planned with Allie, and Karin and Tim were invited as well. We watched Aquaman, which was great, though Tim and I were trading commentary most of the time. But, yep. This was my week in a nutshell. I don’t teach at all next week thanks to the holiday, which is great. I’m not looking forward to my lab meeting though, which I’ll have to power through. Anywho, that’s it for me today, I think. Bye!