Sorry for the Freak-out

Things are looking better now. I had a productive day. Had pretty good classes. And figured out I only have to take one "class" next quarter. I will be TAing and doing independent study, but I feel like I'll be much less stressed out.

Sorry if you were concerned.

Also, it helped that Susie and Colleen were there to talk to me last night and then Colleen again today at dinner. Didn't hurt that she had some hilarious news... hahaha...

Yep...

Unhappy

I find myself still unsure as to whether or not I want to continue with graduate school. I'm unhappy for long stretches of time. I also find myself thinking I'd be happier working. There's a wide variety of jobs that I'd like to do... I wouldn't mind just working in an office, or at a library, or in a bookstore, or I don't know... I'm just not sure graduate school is where I want to be. This feeling as put me in a rather... emotional instability field. Things that normally wouldn't bother me are making me exceedingly unhappy - like getting a less than stellar grade on an assignment, or an off-hand remark from a professor or another student, or being unsure what the next step in a homework problem is. And things that would normally make me really happy aren't making me as happy as they normally would.

I miss weekends and evenings. For example, this weekend was awesome (because I was away from school) until it came time for me to come back to school, at which point I found myself wishing that I didn't have to come back. It's not that I want to stay at home, because I really, really don't, but ultimately I'm not happy in Santa Cruz. The place is wonderful, but the school, not so much.

Anyway, this weekend I spent time with family and also hung out with Julia. Rented Lucky Number Slevin and watched it with Mom. An excellent movie, full of twists and turns and good actors. I was very impressed. Wish I had purchased it, rather than rented it. Went and saw Running With Scissors with Julia. Very bizarre. That's all I can say. Don't really know how to describe it or how I felt after seeing it.

A Midterm?

Today was my first and last midterm of the quarter... I was in denial pre-midterm, didn't really study (well, not as I studied in undergrad), and just kind of walked in to take it. And I still don't really feel like I took a midterm today. I did do the whole post-midterm celebration, but it wasn't really all that heart-felt. Oh well.

The celebration included Sara, Susie and I eating out (Seabright Brewery) and then coming back to watch The Little Mermaid. My Mom bought it and shipped it to me in a care package. Yay for new DVDs! I had forgotten how much I love it.

Anyway... Going home for the weekend. But before that... I have a paleoclimate brown-bag meeting at 12:15 that I'm supposed to read a paper for and a meeting with my 205 group that I'm supposed to read 2 papers for. Have been super busy and unable to read said papers. Will need to split it up between now and tomorrow morning. Yay for me... hahaha. I wish. Oh crap... Also need to print out my math and isotopes problem sets to take home to work on. Being a grad student is a little harder than I thought it was going to be...

Hm... guess I should break out one of those papers and start reading it... It's all very exciting!

A new post...

Yesterday after my Graduate Seminar I wrote a post indicating that I was not so happy. Somehow this post disappeared from my blogger, and probably a good thing. I need to try and stay happy and not get so upset about things. The brunt of it was that I was upset because a professor made me feel really stupid. I'm not saying that he did it intentionally, but he did it. I called my Mom and talked to her, and she made me feel better. Reminded me that I am in fact not the stupidest person in existence, by a long shot. Horrah for me.

Anywho, things are looking a bit brighter today. I do have a midterm on Thursday, but I think it will be okay. Just have to get serious about studying for it. I can do it!!

Well... that's all. You're dismissed. :-P

Enlightenment?

Over the last few weeks I've learned a few things

1) Homework sucks, but I get very happy when I'm able to finish it. Days of agony end in harmony if I am able to finally figure out the answers, or at least what I think they should be.

2) Scientific papers are pretty boring. Although, I seem to find Jim's papers pretty interesting... Good choice in research?

3) Part of the reason I'm not so happy with school - the classes I'm taking. Apparently I'm taking too many (as Heather tells me anyway). Interesting...

Yep... Okay... I have to give a presentation today. Think happy thoughts for me!

Um... yeah, not a whole lot is going on besides school. Did have a crazy dream last night where I was some sort of vanquisher of evil using different types of bows and arrows depending on whatever the type of evil happened to be... Interesting, as I am a Saggitarius.

Also have discovered something interesting, but cannot discuss it here! Talk to me later if you're curious.

A Good Weekend

Angie came to visit! And we had a really good time. I'm super glad she came. It's not that we did anything particularly exciting, but it was really nice to spend time just hanging out with her. We did go to the mystery spot - which was mysterious. We also decided to plan a winter trip to New York - Yay!

In other news... I registered for the AGU conference today. Also became a member of AGU... Isn't it exciting? I know you're jealous. Not sure if I'm supposed to go everyday, but it's Dec. 11-15th in SF... at least I get to be in SF while Union Square is all decorated for Christmas... Maybe I'll take some time out from the conference to hang around a bit.

Also, I have a new vision plan through my graduate student insurance... but I don't know how to choose a provider... it's just a list of names, locations and phone numbers.... blah... I will figure it out tomorrow...

Gosh, I have been such a downer lately. Here's to being positive!

Hm... yeah... that's all. :-D

Frustrated

As anyone who reads this knows, my main reason for having a blog is to complain about things going wrong in my life... so here it goes! (said with a slight hint of facetiousness)

1) Spent an hour on the phone with the people at Verizon Wireless... actually an hour on the phone with some guy named Ron from verizon. My problem? No service. Their solution: it's because your phone is so freaking old. Right... So basically my phone won't let me make or receive calls if I have less than 2 bars... So what they did is make it so my phone will make and receive calls when I have no bars. What a solution. Stupid bastards.

2) My cold will not go away. And keeps getting worse. Yay for that... makes all my other problems seem even worse. Bah.

3) An annoying presence that will just not go away. Can't really elaborate here, but some of you probably know what I'm talking about.

Anway... Other than all of those things, life is going pretty well. School seems a bit better. We'll see.

What Have I done?

Well, I guess the top spot on my list of regretable things I've done is currently that I let myself get sick. How could I do this to myself? A cold. Stupid. Hahaha.

Okay, really... I think one of the top things on my list right now is coming to graduate school. When I first arrived there was this constant voice of worry in my head saying things like "you of all people, should not be here" and "what am I doing here?" So I wrote it off as nerves. But now, a few weeks in the voice is steadier, devoid of hysteria, and saying things that are a little more convincing - "what are you going to do with a PhD? do you really want to teach?", "oh my god, I'm going to be here for five years and I don't even know why?" and "who the hell cares about this crap?". I have always believed that I came to graduate school because I didn't have anything better to do with my life... and now that's starting to really bother me. I feel like graduate school shouldn't be the fall back plan...

So now I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to do graduate school, but I don't know what else to do. Plus, I'm already here... what was I thinking??

The Coolest Dorky Person I Know

Dee told me that I was the coolest dorky person she knew during the field trip, hence the title of this post. So, the camping trip was a lot of fun and I got to know all the people that went on it a lot better. I'm really glad I went. I mean, I was right when I said it was going to be cold because it was! It got to below freezing at night. But aside from somewhat miserable sleeping conditions it was a blast. I would recommend visiting the Eastern Sierra to anyone interested in pretty and/or exciting geology, but would also recommend staying at the motel in Lee Vining to anyone not appreciative of sleeping on the ground.

Oh, and the Decemberists are pretty cool. Good music. Just thought I'd add that...

Also, I'm trying to figure out if I want to drop my math class or not. Just not so sure it's going to be useful as far as my research is concerned. Thinking of taking Climate Dynamics instead - definitely seems more like what I should be taking. Have emailed Jim to ask him about it. We'll see what he says.