Grad School, Year 4

Tomorrow I begin my first full semester as a Master's student in the ECU program.  I'm a lot excited and a little nervous.  This is a new direction for me, but I feel like it's the right direction.  I'll still be working in the FXS lab, so I may disappear from the blogging world as I get accustomed to my new class schedule (I have all evening classes instead of morning and early afternoon ones). 

An Explanation

I found out today that I've had mono since sometime in October.  Who knew?  I didn't have most of the visible symptoms, which is why we realize it until now, but I definitely had the constant exhaustion and lack of motivation.  At least now I know why I felt so out of sorts this fall!  Hopefully a good solid week at home without work or school will help me get over it.

And yes, this means I did defend my Master's thesis while I had mono.

Master's Thesis

I have scheduled my Master's thesis defense. 

It's a scary and exhilarating idea - to defend my thesis.  It means I have to justify why I did the study I did and explain what I found and why it is important. It also means that my last two full years of work haven't been for naught.  I'll have something tangible to show for those long days and short nights.

Performing Arts

One perk of being a student at a large public university is the wide variety of performances I have the opportunity to attend.  Friday night I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the National Acrobats of the People's Republic of China at KU's Lied Center.  Last year I saw Fiddler on the Roof, and later this school year I'll see two Broadway shows - South Pacific and Mamma Mia!, as well as the Celtic Tenors and Mannheim Steamroller.  What a year!

Vacation? What is that, again?

Yes, that's right.  I get to take a "real" vacation for the first time in about 6 years!!  I know that as a GRA I'm supposed to be working all the time, and that is definitely what I've been doing for the last two years.  The difference is that I also worked all the time during my undergrad years, which meant I never got a "let's go somewhere for fun" vacation.  Sure, I've been home and seen my family several times since I moved away from home, but none of those trips were a true vacation.  I haven't been to the beach in years, and I've never had a wintertime skiing vacation, nor a cruise, nor any of those things.  That all changes in 2 weeks!!

Blizzard Day

Well, apparently I managed to miss posting in all of January.  As far as work goes, it wasn't terribly exciting for me.  My colleagues did have a couple interesting trips, and I did have a good time working with our family in Topeka, but no major snow dramas or anything.  Personally, I got to be a bridesmaid in the wedding of my best friend from middle school.  We've known each other for nearly 15 years.  I'm super happy for her!!

We're welcoming February 2011 in with a serious blizzard.  KU is closed today, so I'm attempting to be productive from home.  At least it's warm and cozy here.  I'm sure the lab would be absolutely frigid today since it's quite chilly on warmer days.  It's been snowing for several hours, but the wind is blowing so hard it's difficult to tell how much snow we've actually gotten.  The 1/10 inch of ice is definitely there, though! 

Apartment Hunting

Day 2

Whew.  Yesterday Dad and I drove all over Lawrence, KS, looking for a place for me to live next year.  We were a little worried when it seemed like all the places near campus were full for the fall.  But then we stopped by a complex we had only passed by on Wednesday.  Success!  I even put a hold on the apartment to give us 3 days to decide.  We've got another appointment today, and I'm sure we'll drive around a ton too, but at this point I do have a place to live.  It's a bit pricy, but totally worth it since it's head and shoulders above all the other places.  The only problem is that it's not available until Aug. 5.  And I have to start work at the lab July 27.  So we've got to figure out somewhere for me to stay for about 10 days.

End of Semester

Classes are finished.  Finally.  I'm one final, one grad school application, one paper, and one brief meeting away from winter break.  Two weeks (plus more I hope) of freedom from 67-page theses and demanding professors.  Granted, I do have to read and do some work over the break, but that doesn't seem nearly so awful compared to what I've done in the last 1.5 weeks.  I just hope my GPA reflects the ridiculous amount of work and stress I've been through.

I think I've done well this semester.  It's hard to believe it's my last fall semester as an undergraduate.  I just hope I'll have some fall semesters as a graduate student.  I won't know for a few months, though.  I'm planning on finishing up the last 6 applications over break.  The applications themselves aren't so bad.  It's the application fees and ETS's score-reporting fees that are killing me.  Oh well, college students are supposed to be poor, right?

I feel like I've been on a rollercoaster this semester, both academically and emotionally.  There were several times I didn't think I'd make it.  Yet here I am.

We've already had several days of snow here, though nothing too deep.  I'm kinda sad I'll be going away from the snow on Thursday, but I'd much rather see Max & Sugar!  Plus, there are times when Indiana is a bit too far north for my liking.  At least in Kentucky no one makes fun of the way I talk! :)

allergies, boys, and grad school

Whew.  I've had a wild few days.  The boy finally started talking to me again, and he apologized for taking out his frustration on me earlier this summer.  I appreciated the apology and am glad he still wants to talk.  I miss him very much.  In talking to him earlier today, he told me he's off work till Saturday and bored out of his mind, but when I asked him about getting together, he said things were too crazy and he couldn't drive out of town.  I wish he'd understand that I need to save all my money too but I believe seeing him is worth spending a bit of it.  It wouldn't be so bad if we met halfway.  Hopefully things will get better in August.

I went to the allergist this morning to have an allergy evaluation - that wonderful procedure where they scratch your back with a billion different allergens and see what happens.  Well, nothing happened.  And when they did the under-the-skin test on my arm, nothing happened.  So I'm not allergic to anything.  I'm not surprised since even poison ivy doesn't bother me.  However, I did find out I have asthma.  It's not bad, but it is enough to mean I'm clinically asthmatic.  I have to use an inhaler twice a day for a month to see if that does anything.  I never thought I could be asthmatic.  But it does explain why I can't breathe as well when singing and why my frequent bouts of bronchitis are a minimum of three weeks in duration.  I guess I'll know more in a month.

I've registered for the GRE.  Exactly one month from today, I'll tackle the test that will largely determine where I go to grad school.  Between now and then, I get to study study study.  I've got the books and will be doing practice problems for the next few weeks.  Hopefully I'll do well so I won't have to take it again.  This fall's gonna be wild enough as it is.  I'm also still in the process of picking grad schools.  I've found about 10 that I like, but I don't know if I'm done looking or not.  My GRE score will help determine that.

update

It's been a few days, but life kinda got crazy on me.  It was wonderful to have a long weekend of no work and to have the 7th & 8th off from the lab.  However, the usual daily grind began again on Wednesday.  It wasn't a bad week by any means.  I'm a little excited about Monday because we have 5 families coming in and I get to test all 5!

Mom and I've been doing a lot of yardwork lately, so I'm sleeping really really well.  The yard also looks pretty good, too, since we've put in some new flowers, weeded a couple beds, trimmed back some wayward branches and done a lot of watering.  There's still quite a bit to go, though.  I'm hoping that tomorrow Dad and I will successfully install a french drain so that we don't have quite such a runoff problem.  If this one works, we're gonna get at least one more.  However, getting Dad to do much of anything these days is rough.  I was amazed he helped us water everything tonight.  Granted, Mom and I were the ones pulling up trees and such, but hey.

I'm still trucking away at trying to narrow down my grad school options.  Additionally, I still need to take the GRE, choose an empirical thesis project, finalize a HoScho thesis topic, and prepare for comps.  Ugh.  I though summer was supposed to be a break!