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Time to kill, how strange.
Jan. 13th, 2015 04:32 pmI have a little time to kill in the lab, but not enough to run any experiments. There's certainly work i could do but I'd rather not. I'm buying a new to me computer from craigslist in an hour and a half. I'm going to pick oliver up a little early from school first and get a treat and go watch a building being torn down for a bit (except I just realized, they probably won't be working on it after 4).
I've been wanting to post here for a long time. Like i said in my last post, it always seems like too much to catch up on. There is no way to summarize everything so i don't bother. Today I've been thinking about all of the roles I'm filling right now. At school alone, it is MANY. Here:
This last is taking up more of my time because we are ramping up our efforts. Adding a quarterly movie night, bolstering undergraduate involvement, trying to connect undergrads and grads and faculty and the outside science community and other departments.... building webs. It's incredibly satisfying. February 12th we're throwing a big party for Darwin's birthday. I sourced the speaker through my instructor from the awesome field course I did in Alaska. The guy is the lead geologist for that part of the world, and I can't wait to meet him. While talking last weekend, he offered me a PhD project. He can't fund the research, but he can get me around southeast - helicopters, boats, atvs, whatever. The research would cost only a few hundred bucks after that (not including my living expenses, obviously). After that conversation, Jodie and I started seriously talking about moving to AK. We would both have many more opportunities there - instead of trying to figure out who would give us jobs, we could decide what we wanted to do and make it happen. SCIENCE. Then, our conversation also turned to traveling around the world, taking small research opportunities and homeschooling Oliver. It's hard to imagine, but exciting and I actually think it's doable.
Things with us are going much better. We haven't had a fight in a long time. I don't want to say the fights are all her, but I do think that, to a point, I do a great job of deescalating a situation. She gets into an incrediby unreasonable and defensive space where nothing I say can be okay. This happens a lot more when she's tired and her job has been having her switch between day and night shift. I HATE her job. When we have routines and downtime together, things are so great with us. We've been in a really nice, caring, sweet space with each other lately and I get very attached to that. When it goes away, I kind of panic. Anyway, I think we're working our things out pretty well. Ups and downs. The downs aren't going quite as low these days.
Other school stuff... I'm taking two computer heavy classes this term - GIS and multivariate statistical analysis. Both of them are kind of throw-you-in-the-arena classes; not much direction. With some things, I'm good with that, but computer stuff?? Not so much. This is not even a little bit intuitive to me. I'll make it happen, though. I absolutely must do a better job of giving my classes my time this term. That's the only way I'm going to make it. After this term, I will take 9 thesis credits next term and TA invertebrate Zoology. All of my time will be spent gathering the last bits of data I will need, writing and editing my thesis, and hopefully I can defend at the end of the term. Bing bang boom, masters degree. Then I can hopefully teach the first term of principles in the summer, and head off to do long crew. Inertia don't fail me now....
I've been wanting to post here for a long time. Like i said in my last post, it always seems like too much to catch up on. There is no way to summarize everything so i don't bother. Today I've been thinking about all of the roles I'm filling right now. At school alone, it is MANY. Here:
- Mom
- Girlfriend
- Daughter
- Crappy friend
- Teacher
- Researcher
- Student
- Head TA for Principles of Biology Labs (a ~600 student class)
- Biology Investigations and Outreach VP
This last is taking up more of my time because we are ramping up our efforts. Adding a quarterly movie night, bolstering undergraduate involvement, trying to connect undergrads and grads and faculty and the outside science community and other departments.... building webs. It's incredibly satisfying. February 12th we're throwing a big party for Darwin's birthday. I sourced the speaker through my instructor from the awesome field course I did in Alaska. The guy is the lead geologist for that part of the world, and I can't wait to meet him. While talking last weekend, he offered me a PhD project. He can't fund the research, but he can get me around southeast - helicopters, boats, atvs, whatever. The research would cost only a few hundred bucks after that (not including my living expenses, obviously). After that conversation, Jodie and I started seriously talking about moving to AK. We would both have many more opportunities there - instead of trying to figure out who would give us jobs, we could decide what we wanted to do and make it happen. SCIENCE. Then, our conversation also turned to traveling around the world, taking small research opportunities and homeschooling Oliver. It's hard to imagine, but exciting and I actually think it's doable.
Things with us are going much better. We haven't had a fight in a long time. I don't want to say the fights are all her, but I do think that, to a point, I do a great job of deescalating a situation. She gets into an incrediby unreasonable and defensive space where nothing I say can be okay. This happens a lot more when she's tired and her job has been having her switch between day and night shift. I HATE her job. When we have routines and downtime together, things are so great with us. We've been in a really nice, caring, sweet space with each other lately and I get very attached to that. When it goes away, I kind of panic. Anyway, I think we're working our things out pretty well. Ups and downs. The downs aren't going quite as low these days.
Other school stuff... I'm taking two computer heavy classes this term - GIS and multivariate statistical analysis. Both of them are kind of throw-you-in-the-arena classes; not much direction. With some things, I'm good with that, but computer stuff?? Not so much. This is not even a little bit intuitive to me. I'll make it happen, though. I absolutely must do a better job of giving my classes my time this term. That's the only way I'm going to make it. After this term, I will take 9 thesis credits next term and TA invertebrate Zoology. All of my time will be spent gathering the last bits of data I will need, writing and editing my thesis, and hopefully I can defend at the end of the term. Bing bang boom, masters degree. Then I can hopefully teach the first term of principles in the summer, and head off to do long crew. Inertia don't fail me now....
