I’m really not doing too great at this whole daily posting thing, am I? It’s a good thing I didn’t bother to attempt NaNoWriMo this year, I suppose.
I wrote my chemistry midterm this morning, and immediately afterwards, I felt like throwing up. It was pretty bad. There were multiple questions that quite seriously almost made me cry. I’m really not cut out for chemistry. Which is why I’m majoring in a biology subject. But they’re making me take chemistry anyway. Which makes me very, very sad.
I have a chemistry quiz on the same stuff on Monday. Woo. >.<
But! Good news is I got my genetics midterm mark, and I managed a B! Considering the last one was a C+, this is an improvement! Woo! I was one mark away from a B+, too, which drives me NUTS. It was probably a really easy question, too.
Now, I get to look forward to final exams! Woooooo!
I missed another day.
I’ll make up for it!
And this is how:
Giving you the opportunity to learn about what’s keeping me from my NaBloPoMo obligations!
Enjoy!
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? I am requesting that the person who invented midnight madness sales please step forward.
So I can beat you.
Alright, so I like tax-free stuff. I bought two pairs of corduroy pants today (in red! and purple!) for only $19.95 each, with no tax to make me cringe! Just today! I’m wearing the red ones now, just because it has been forever and a day since I’ve owned a pair of cords. I love cords!
But to get back on topic. I worked nine and a half excruciating hours today. It was busy as something that’s really, really busy. And people asked a lot of stupid questions regarding the percentage off. And the hours… crept… by… so… slowly… and… people… irritate me… except for that one guy who started talking to me about wine tasting and whatnot. That was random, and kind of cool.
So! Tonight I watch “What the Bleep do We Know!?“, a film that my brother borrowed from the library and sounds really interesting. Science, interpreted in a rather unconventional (to most) way that, from what I’m told, sounds right up my alley.
Tomorrow I start studying for my organic chemistry exam. Monday I do the same thing, at least until around 2:30ish, because I have to work at 4:00. Until 9:30. And then I have to get up at 5:30am and go to school and we have a new prof for the last lecture block of my microbiology class.
I’m kind of excited about the opportunity to work in a lab this summer. The prof who replied to me already is Dr. Arunika Gunawardena, and her lab studies programmed cell death in lace plants. This could be a really cool opportunity. I’ll let you know what happens. 
I missed yesterday’s post. I would like to apologize to all those who expected more of me. *sniff* *wipes a tear away*
I won’t let you down again, I promise!
Yesterday was… weird. I had multiple people tell me on Wednesday that I looked like I was about to collapse from exhaustion. Then I wrote my exam. Then I studied for the next one. Then I went to bed. Then I got up yesterday, went to my other exam, wrote it, and went and worked on my chemistry pre-lab for hours.
And today, my chemistry lab lasted forever (it went half an hour overtime), and! That’s not the last of it! I boiled away half my product, and so my percent recovery is going to be squat, and… well. Next week’s lab is going to suck. But it’s also the last one, so it’s going to rock. I kind of hope I get my “Stand Back: I’m Going To Try Science!” shirt before next Friday, because I really want to wear it to lab.
I have a paper on the Alu sequence PV92 (a type of SINE), and whether or not my genetics lab is in Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium for it, to do that’s due on Tuesday. I have a chemistry exam on Wednesday that’s going to focus heavily on organic reaction mechanisms, which is something that I fail miserably at, and it will probably show in my mark for this test.
However! This weekend is a long weekend, so even though I work 9.5 hours this Saturday, I will have all of Sunday and Monday to study my brains out and get stuff finished. Yay!
I am going to be so bunt out by the end of this term, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Actually, I do: Go straight into 40 hour work-weeks. Woo. Why do I do this to myself?
I’ve started contacting professors regarding having a summer placement in a lab next summer. The positions are limited, so I figured if I started contacting people now, my chances of getting in there will be higher. I’ve already had one prof reply and ask to set up a meeting. Woo!
And… that is all…
Filed under: school | Tags: microbiology and immunology, midterms, parasites
I really don’t know what to write about today, and since I am studying, and cannot really put too much effort into this tonight, I will provide you with some interesting links! About the things that I am studying at the moment!
(Bear in mind that it’s eight o’clock, I just wrote an exam on genetics and molecular biology, and am now trying to cram for an introductory microbiology exam that is tomorrow morning, I’ve caffeinated myself, and I don’t expect to leave the library until around eleven o’clock. My sanity may not be with me on this night.)
Plasmodium vivax! The parasite that causes Malaria!
Giardia lamblia! Good ol’ Beaver Fever!
Taenia saginata! Tapeworms! Woo!
Enterobius vermicularis! Pinworms, baby! The embryonate on your perianum!
Ascaris lumbricoides! A common roundworm in humans about the size of a pen, that can cause bowel blockages!
And finally, Toxocara canis! This is what you get your dog dewormed for, dudes.
Have fun with those.
(And stop trying to tell me wikipedia isn’t a good resource. Everyone knows that everything that Wikipedia says is true!)
(The immune response stuff isn’t as interesting as the parasites, so I won’t subject you to that.)
I fell asleep in the library while studying for genetics today. I think that means I need to sleep.
I bought two t-shirts from the xkcd store. One says “Stand Back! I’m Going To Try Science!” and the other says “maybe if this shirt is witty enough, someone will finally love me.” They both suit me very very well. I want to wear the trying science one to my chemistry lab. I think that would be splendid.
My dear, dear best friend since forever (which means, since I was eleven) managed to get my package containing last year’s christmas and birthday presents to me. Perfumes! I’m playing with all sorts of splendid new fragrances that were involved in this “invent your scent” kit of samplers she sent. There’s 11, I think? so far I am a fan of two out of three. The only one I don’t like so far is a cinnamon-ey, spicy-type one called Zinzibar. The other two that I have tried, I am rather fond of. Beleaf and Aztique. They are from the Body Shop. She also sent me a bottle of my beloved Fuzzy Peach perfume oil, also from the Body Shop… I do love to smell good, and that store is amazing. (I can’t find the other fragrances besides Aztique on the site, hence the lack of linkage, btw)
She also sent me an awesome t-shirt with an amusing message about Saskatchewan being windy because Alberta blows and Manitoba sucks. I had to laugh. I lived in Saskatchewan for close to 12 years. You’d have to live there to understand, seriously.
This was a sad excuse for a post, but I had to do it, you understand. For the NaBloPoMos. And all. You know.
PS: does anybody out there know how to get google ads or amazon associates ad-thingies to show up when using wordpress to blog with? Does it involve CSS? Am I just dern outta luck?
I am slowly disappearing under a mountain of cue cards covered in information about things like DNA structure and replication, RNA synthesis, details of experiments done a billion years ago, and definitions for words and phrases like “gyrase”, “polymerase”, “ligase”, and “Multiprotein Origin Recognition Complex” (still not 100% sure what that last one means. Wanna Google it for me?!).
More importantly, I am slowly going crazy. (One, two, three, four, five, six, switch.)
Filed under: lifestyle
Folks, I am in love. What’s that? What about A? Oh, well, he’s kicking around here somewhere, too, but this is bigger than that. This is tummy-fluttering, palm-sweaty, head-over-heels, love.
You see, I was innocently reading some blog or another, and the next thing I knew… bam! The most amazing piece of Freeware to ever grace my vision. It’s a beauty, folks. And what we have may not be usual, and some folks may shun us because it’s a strange love, and doesn’t fit into their traditional ideas of what love can and can’t be…
But, you have to understand. This one’s special. You’ll understand what I mean if you’d give me a moment to explain…
(more…)
Filed under: school
Let it be known: I am nothing if not a giant nerd. This is made obvious by the fact that I have theme music from a number of different Star Trek series’ on my playlist. I am not ashamed of this. In fact, I am proud to be a nerd. So there.
My nerdiness was evident at an early age, and honestly, I’m pretty sure it’s hereditary. My grandmother has the entire Star Trek: The Next Generation series dubbed onto VHS. Seriously, my own condition was inevitable. My mother and I used to stay up through the night to watch all the Star Trek reruns (original, TNG, Voyager, DS9), as well as X-Files, First Wave, Earth: Final Conflict, The Twighlight Zone, and whatever else the Space channel ran. It was how we bonded.
When I got bored, which happened kind of often, because I finished all my schoolwork very quickly usually (the tribulations of being homeschooled, O, woe was I), I would read the encyclopedia. Or, I would walk down to the local library. I had a system. I started at the back, at the top shelf, and worked my way to the front, only skipping ridiculously dry books. I did read a number of how-to’s and nonfiction though. Eventually, I had to move out of the children’s section and into the adult’s section. The librarians loved me.
That particular library was across the street from an elementary school. By the time I was around 10, I was reading to the little kids who came over after school was out. I remember one little girl in particular, who I just adored. Her name was Sonia, and she was a sweetheart of a kid. I was always the first person she looked for, and we read a lot of books together.
These days, I’m so tired that I don’t find the same joy in learning that I did when I was a kid. I still find the information fascinating, but knowing that if I don’t remember it I will fail tests and ruin my future kind of puts a damper on the whole experience.
Here’s to getting back that excitement that I used to have.
Good luck to everyone undergoing midterms right now.
My internet went down for a few hours, so while I certainly got some extra studying in (re: midterms), it was a close call as far as NaBloPoMo goes.
So, what to tell you folks today. Would you like to learn about DNA replication? No? I don’t really blame you.
New prof in Genetics today.
Random: there is a ladybug on the ceiling fan. I suppose they are attempting to move inside now that the weather is getting colder.
And it is certainly getting colder. And speaking of weather, tropical storm on its way? Momma and I were supposed to go to the Farmer’s Market tomorrow morning, but a combination of rain from the storm, and the fact that I work Sunday so really need time to study tomorrow, has resulted in a change of plans.
Instead of the market, I will sit at home and drill a thousand pounds of genetics readings into my head, and I will make them stay. Of course I will. And I’ll chase that magical information stuffage with a nice dose of studying for my microbiology test.
Go school! Woo!
