Day Forty One

My day started off fancy, with "Coffee with the Deans," an event held to celebrate all of the graduate fellowship recipients. Most of the graduate programs at UT were represented, though not many deans actually showed up. Instead, they sent representatives in their place. Sadly, this didn't surprise me at all. There was a huge amount of delicious food though, which totally made up for the lack of deans. There were about 10 grad students from the College of Natural Sciences in attendance, and only two of us were first year chemistry grads. We both felt pretty awesome, being some of the few fellowship recipients out of the 50 or so new chemistry grad students. I was also able to reintroduce myself to Dr. Marvin Hackert, a chemistry professor (who also serves as a big-wig in the department of graduate studies) that my dad had when he was an undergrad. I thought it was pretty cool, but I'm pretty sure it just made Dr. Hackert feel old. Oops.

After this, I had an hour to kill before my TA meeting, so I just wandered around campus. And quickly learned that the tower follows me everywhere. I'm not even joking, I took photographic evidence. First, I sat down in one of the comfy chairs in the Union (the building where Coffee with the Deans was held), and looked out the window to see this.

Then after my TA meeting, which wasn't that exciting, I went to NHB to have lunch. And looked up and saw this.

Then I decided to go hang out outside Welch Hall until my class started, and once again saw this.

It's almost spooky. It's like no matter where I go, the tower just looms right in front of me. It's an awesome building, but it felt like it was stalking me. 

After class I got to act as Quiz TA for the first time! For each undergrad lab section there's a Head TA (who runs the entire lab) and a Quiz TA (who quizzes the students on pre-lab questions to make sure they're prepared). This was the students' first time being quizzed on pre-lab questions, and some of them were shaking they were so nervous - because they knew that if they didn't answer the questions well, they wouldn't be allowed in lab and would have to sign up for a make-up session later in the semester. Luckily, all of the students did just fine. Relief was felt on both sides. And I got them all quizzed in 18 minutes, which the lab director was pretty impressed with (yeah!). And then I got to come home. And cleaned my study and ran to the grocery store and had Whataburger for dinner with Kelly (so delicious). It was a good day.