Lots of Stuff

 Hey everyone! I’m writing this a little earlier than usual since I have a crazy-ish weekend in store for me, so I wanted to do this while I was still at my apartment. Camden is holding a… rather large party Saturday night for her birthday (two birthdays this week, but I’ll mention the other one later). One that is likely to go on until 2 AM in the morning, so I’m staying over at Maren’s house for a pseudo-sleepover, which is going to be a lot of fun. That being said, lets get on with the blog, shall we?

Monday was all sorts of weird. The TA meeting was as normal as usual, but I actually had some people attend office hours which had me feeling a bit strange. I also had so many emails from students trying to arrange make-up labs that it sent me a little over the edge by the end of the day due to the sheer number of them. Labs itself weren’t so bad this week. We’re doing upper body muscles and I’m doing the posterior portion. Both classes went well, and ended early—though I don’t know if that was because the students were unnerved or because the lab itself is just really short. The bodies are better than last years so we’re able to show them a lot more, but that doesn’t mean much when there is still some atrophy. Anyways, I was rather happy when things were done that day since I just kind of never stopped feeling off the entire day and I kind of ended up being more than a little grumpy which sucked.

Tuesday was a stark contrast to Monday. About halfway into lecture that morning, I got super energetic. It was really hard to sit still and I had to stop myself from spinning in the spinning chair in class. Very not good for paying attention. I survived, however, and hurried home. I was totally bobbing my head to “Shake it Off” and other energetic songs on the way home. With all the energy I had, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to accomplish much of anything with concentration basis, so I decided to do some ‘adulting’ that I’d been putting off due to “lack of energy”. This meant going shopping, hanging out with roommates, learning how to do a specific dance with Allie and Annie, putting on the license plate camera that’s been sitting in my room for forever, etcetera, etcetera.  But yeah, I got a fair amount of social stuff done which was nice. My energy started to die out around 4, which sucked since I still had to do my lab meeting, so I attended it on Zoom and admittedly zoned out parts of it (my bad). It was about oxytocin studies in mice from 2004, so I’m pretty familiar with the concepts. After that, I remembered it was Karcin’s birthday, so I went out with a whole bunch of my roommates to celebrate at Costa Vida since that’s her favorite place to eat. AJ came, which was draining, since he’s a very “loud” personality that doesn’t necessarily mix well with mine or some of the other roommates, which made things pretty awkward if I’m honest, but it wasn’t horrible. I think Karcin had fun (or at least hope that she did), so it was worth the pretty bad headache I ended up with at the end of the day.

Wednesday was pretty dang chill compared to the craziness of Tuesday. I headed up to the lab to set up for slicing that day before class and sent Grandma Fergy a happy birthday text—we were able to talk for a little while before I headed off to Immunology. I was still a bit jittery, but it wasn’t as bad. We finished up talking about the content for our first exam—ending with NK cells and all their strange differences. After that, I spent a long afternoon slicing. The first brain was really difficult, which was frustrating, but the second one went really well comparatively. Don’t know what was up with the first one, but sometimes the cryostat is just like that sadly. I was able to listen to a really good episode of Spirits though! I shared it with Mas but basically: Zombie mushrooms, capitalism, and liminal spaces make things spoopy.

Thursday was pretty alright, all things considered. We did a case study with SCID in terriers in class, which was interesting. We’d talked about it in equines but the dog example made more sense to me. Slicing went well, though Ariel wasn’t there that day, which was strange. Hopefully she’s doing alright since she’s normally there. I was also able to get the supervisor committee meeting all scheduled, which was awesome. We’re doing that on the 24^th so that’s going to be a busy, busy day. Lab was alright. I enjoy the smaller class size, and the students there are all attentive which is doubly appreciated. It went well, and I think they’re pretty prepared for the lab exam next week. When I got home I was pretty exhausted, so I conked out soon after prayer.

And now it’s Friday. I have a fair amount to get done today, like researching for my lit review outline, creating a study guide for next week’s exam, along with therapy and a meeting with the missionaries later tonight. It's going to suck with the headache I have right now, but so is life I guess. Currently I’m waiting for whoever did laundry last to pick up their dried laundry so I can switch my wet laundry over, but… yeah. It’s going to be a very busy day I think. Well, I think that’s all for now, so until next time, bye!