Day Ninety Eight

In the past two and a half days, I've read 140 pages of my Physical Organic textbook. I only have 20 pages left before I've covered everything that's coming up on my exam this Saturday. No time to blog........must........study.....

Day Ninety Seven

I went on a run today for the first time in forever. And now all of me is exhausted and sore. And my brain is exhausted as well, considering I've been reading my Physical Organic textbook all day. So my day has basically been...study, lunch, class, quiz TA, study, come home, run, study, Whataburger Wednesday for dinner, then...study. Are you noticing a theme? It's not one that I enjoy. But it has to be done since my exam is on Saturday and I'm completely flustered about it. Nooo!

I learned that I apparently have a celebrity doppleganger today. One of the students I quizzed asked me why I didn't dress up as Lisbeth from Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, since I look just like the actress that plays her, Rooney Mara. I googled her, and I can see it. My roommates apparently can definitely see it, as they looked at a photo of her and went, "What?! That is totally you!" Weird.

I need to sleep. I have early office hours tomorrow. Remind me to never again make the stupid decision of holding 9am office hours.

Day Ninety Six

I had my first group meeting as an official group member today. My advisor, Dr. Shear, announced to everyone that I had officially signed on with them, and people clapped. It made me feel both happy and a little ridiculous at the same time. But luckily the group is full of pretty funny individuals, so the meeting was fun as well as scientific.

Unfortunately, I started losing focus during the second half of the meeting due to pure physical exhaustion. After staying up late to finish my personal statement for the NSF fellowship, I was woken early by Otter barking (ugh). This resulted in my struggling to stay awake during both the second half of the group meeting and all of my Physical Organic class. Needless to say, I'll be listening to that lecture over again tomorrow. I retained nothing.

Then I began to grade papers, until Dr. Shear called me to his office to discuss the research proposal I had written for my fellowship application. He proceeded to systematically dismantle the entire thing, then help me piece it all back together. Luckily, I was able to revise it and get the entire thing submitted with an hour to spare before the deadline. I definitely feel lucky to have an advisor that is so helpful and adept at giving constructive criticism, it makes the entire process way easier. Now, all I can do is cross my fingers and wait. Which means all of you should probably cross your fingers as well. I'll take all the good luck I can get with this application, especially since it was all thrown together 5 days before the deadline.

Tomorrow should be a calmer day now that the application process is over with. Pretty much every available moment until Saturday morning will be spent studying Physical Organic. That's right, my next monster exam is this Saturday, and I am scared to death about it. So I'm going to go to bed before I can think about it any more. Lucky for me, my Physical Organic textbook works as a wonderful sleep aid.

Day Ninety Five

As promised, photos! The first is of the giant mustache on the Co-Op in celebration of "Movember." Basically, they're using "No Shave November" as a way to increase awareness about prostate cancer and raise money for cancer research going on at UT.

A classier Co-Op.

This next one is from the halftime show of the football game last weekend. Dad expertly captured the giant state of Texas formed by Longhorn band. They did a show based off the musical Les Miserables, which means I didn't know any of the songs and had no clue what the significance was of the various images they were creating. Can we go back to Disney themed halftime shows? Cause I identified the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song with no issue at all.

Texas!

I had to buy a Movember T-shirt. It's a longhorn with a mustache. How could anyone not buy this shirt? The only thing that could have made it better was if they gave him a top hat. And possible a monocle.

A classier longhorn.

Dad after the game, right after we sang Eyes of Texas with the football team. 

Hook 'Em!

Jeff and Krystle drove up to surprise Dad at dinner!

Brother and future sister-in-law.

Mom, I wish you could have been with us! But as you can see, a Longhorn
themed shirt was required.

Tomorrow I attend my first group meeting as an official member of the Shear Group. I'm pretty excited about it! Especially after the train wreck that was today's lab. Every machine malfunctioned, and all the undergrads were asking me how to fix it, and I had absolutely no clue. I don't know how to fix the software or the machine, I'm only here to make sure you don't spray yourself with acid. Through some kind of divine intervention, everyone finished lab in the allotted 3 hours, but we were all pretty frazzled by the end of it. Let's hope that never ever happens again.

Day Ninety Four

It's another late post from a very tired grad student. I got to spend most of the day with my dad, which was wonderful. We went to eat at SmashBurger (delicious), went to HEB for groceries (I finally have bread again!), then topped off my gas tank for $2.95/gallon. I honestly never thought I'd see gas go that low in price again, and it's still dropping. My budget is very very happy about this. When we got back to my house, it was time for me to get down to business and write a research proposal for a fellowship I'm applying to. So while I typed away about biosensors, Dad caught up on his Survivor episodes. It felt just like I was back home again, working on homework with my dad relaxing nearby. I liked the feeling. And he comes back in 2 weeks! Yay.     :)

After dropping dad off at the airport, I took a break from proposal writing and went to see a movie with the roomies at Alamo Drafthouse. We saw The Counselor, and it was one of the most confusing, disjointed movies I've ever seen. We walked out of the theater in utter confusion, but made new friends waiting in line for the bathroom as we all talked about our waste of $10 that evening. Then I came back to the house and finished my proposal. Woohoo! I sent it off to my advisor to look over...hopefully he doesn't think it's utter nonsense.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. It's lab day. Let's all pray that no one breaks anything or injures themself.

I'm doing this update via smart phone. I tried attaching a photo of the mustache on the co-op with a sheet over it (I took it before the grand unveiling). If it doesn't show up, I promise to post it and more photos tomorrow!

Day Ninety Three.

I couldn't fall asleep, and it dawned on me that it's probably because I almost forgot a blog post for today. Whew! Today was game day, which equals completely exhausting day. But, I picked up my dad from the airport and was able to spend the exhausting experience with him, so therefore it was wonderful. And the longhorns won, extra wonderful. Then I got to see my brother and future sister-in-law when they drove up from San Antonio to surprise my dad at dinner. Basically, this day was the best. Even with the grading that kept me up late. Thank you daylight savings time, for giving me extra sleep tonight.

Day Ninety Two

It's late. I don't have class tomorrow morning (first Saturday in 2 months that I get to sleep in). There's a home football game tomorrow. And dad's flying in to Austin. So...it's going to be an awesome Saturday. Complete with literature research for a fellowship application, grading lab reports, and studying for a monster exam coming up in a week. Because who has free time on the weekends anymore? Not me.

Also, the Co-Op is rocking a giant mustache right now. I'll provide photos tomorrow.