Ok, now that class has been over for a little while and dinner has been had, time to finish the update. I've been rereading the Harry Potter books in my free time and I've gotten through the first two so far. Other than that, just looking forward to this weekend. I get Monday off, so I'm going home for a good chunk of it.
In other news, Spore comes out a week from Sunday and if I didn't already have other things eating all of my time, it would. I'll need to find time to put into that. Also, the game currently eating my time: Dwarf Fortress. It's graphically pretty basic, but the game itself has amazing detail. Someone described it as a digital ant farm and they got it pretty close in describing the detail. Anyway, I'm going to go play or read or something.
Fourth Day of Classes
Hmm... been a few days. Not a whole lot's happened since Monday. I had a few more meetings with professors and got my first rotation worked out. I think I have the other two as well, I'm just waiting on confirmation for the second (the third is worked out). Anyway, class is starting, so I'll post more later.
First day of classes
Today is the first day of classes and my first class is already over. I have an appointment with a professor at 12:30 to talk about doing a rotation in their lab, so I'm just hanging out on campus waiting for that. I also have a seminar to go to at 4 or 4:30, so I'm not sure whether to go back to my apartment in between. I need to have a lab to do a first rotation in by the end of this week, so I'm hoping the professor I'm going to talk to is going to have room. So far I've talked to three and they all said something like, "come back for second or third rotation, first isn't so good for me." That makes it difficult to find a first. =/
On the other hand, I hear the dairy store right next to the science buildings has $2.50 grilled cheese and soup on Mondays, so that's something to look forward to.
Hey look! It's where I am! And this post being made on my computer!
On the other hand, I hear the dairy store right next to the science buildings has $2.50 grilled cheese and soup on Mondays, so that's something to look forward to.
Hey look! It's where I am! And this post being made on my computer!
Tired...
I'm kind of tired. Not mentally or physically, so it's hard to say why (or describe it much at all, really), but I think it's just because I've had to focus for the entire week and I haven't had to for most of the summer.
Anyway, on to what matters. My mom and brother came up to visit today after they dropped some stuff off at his apartment. It was really cool to see them and they brought me some things that I had forgotten. I'll get to see them again next weekend too for Labor Day weekend, which will be nice.
I've been talking to professors about doing rotations in their lab and so far two have said, "I'd be more than happy to have you for the second or third rotation" and one said, "I'll sign you up for the third one!" While it's nice that they're open to having me, it's getting frustrating to not have a FIRST rotation, which is the one I really need. I still have two more to talk to and I can scavenge for more if I need, but I don't even know where I'd start with that if I had to.
I also have a retreat to go to this weekend with the genetics and CMB (cell and molecular biology) program, so there's a chance I could talk to professors about rotations then I guess. I'll be there from 11 tomorrow until about 3 or 4 on Sunday, so most of my weekend is kind of shot. It should be fun for part of it, though, so hopefully that'll make up for it. I know I'm going to have to work a lot in grad school, but my main life philosophy revolves around having fun while you're doing what you're doing, so it's going to be hard to work if I don't get free time. Hopefully that won't be too much of an issue though.
Anyway, on to what matters. My mom and brother came up to visit today after they dropped some stuff off at his apartment. It was really cool to see them and they brought me some things that I had forgotten. I'll get to see them again next weekend too for Labor Day weekend, which will be nice.
I've been talking to professors about doing rotations in their lab and so far two have said, "I'd be more than happy to have you for the second or third rotation" and one said, "I'll sign you up for the third one!" While it's nice that they're open to having me, it's getting frustrating to not have a FIRST rotation, which is the one I really need. I still have two more to talk to and I can scavenge for more if I need, but I don't even know where I'd start with that if I had to.
I also have a retreat to go to this weekend with the genetics and CMB (cell and molecular biology) program, so there's a chance I could talk to professors about rotations then I guess. I'll be there from 11 tomorrow until about 3 or 4 on Sunday, so most of my weekend is kind of shot. It should be fun for part of it, though, so hopefully that'll make up for it. I know I'm going to have to work a lot in grad school, but my main life philosophy revolves around having fun while you're doing what you're doing, so it's going to be hard to work if I don't get free time. Hopefully that won't be too much of an issue though.
Safety
So now I apparently know what I need to know to not kill the world with radiation or biohazards, which is nice. Also, I forgot that my mom has painting stuff for me to pick up the next time I'm home, so I have that to look forward to. In case anyone doesn't know I'm living in an apartment with one of my friends from Hope and she has a cat that I'm responsible for when she's not here. Basically that means I put food in her bowl in the morning and make sure she's not dead before I leave and when I get home, so it's really almost no work. And now the cat is trying to play with (and eat I think...) the light coming in through my blinds. Hmmm... Good news is that she doesn't seem to shed, so I don't have cat hair all over me when I leave. I think I'm going to go make dinner and figure out what to do with my afternoon/evening.
On a (not so) completely unrelated note: it's a little too fun to make juvenile/adolescent cats think they're doing something wrong, if only to see the look on their faces.
(crappy pictures taken with my phone... haven't put batteries/memory card in my camera yet)
On a (not so) completely unrelated note: it's a little too fun to make juvenile/adolescent cats think they're doing something wrong, if only to see the look on their faces.
(crappy pictures taken with my phone... haven't put batteries/memory card in my camera yet)
Need... Hobby... lobby...
I heard from the Genetics program director and admin. assistant that there are 2 options on campus for art stuff and a Hobby Lobby on Grand River nearby.
I need to get painting stuff.
I need to get painting stuff.
Schedule!
Ok, so here's how the rest of my week's going to go:
And that table should have been a LOT easier to make, so be happy for it. 'Professor talks' means 15 minute spiels from different professors talking about their labs and their research, so interesting and easy to sit through, but potentially brain melting (see previous post). Also, over the weekend is a retreat with Genetics and Cell and Molecular Biology at the Kellogg something or other bio research station. I guess it's kind of fun and there's more talks (probably a good and bad thing) and a bonfire and some tours, so that should be a bit of a good time anyway. Monday starts my classes. MWF from 9:10 to 10:00 is biochemistry, which is apparently really freaking hard and about 20% of people who took it last year didn't get a 3.0 or above average, which is passing (and also a B, for those less familiar with the GPA scale). But we'll see. TR from 2:40 to 4:00 is Microbial Genetics and I have no idea what to expect from the course (what it's about or the difficulty) since all discussion was overshadowed by the biochem class. Meh. My first rotation starts the week after that, so I should probably get going on picking someone to do that with. I have one idea and I should probably e-mail her to make sure she has a spot for me so I know whether I should be scrambling for another one in the next few days.
Finally, if people are actually reading this, could you leave a comment? I'll keep posting regardless, but it helps keep me going if I know someone's looking at this now and then.
| Tuesday | |
| All day(10:45-4:30) | Professor talks |
| Wednesday | |
| All day(9:00-3:30) | Safety training |
| Thursday | |
| All day(8:45-3:30) | Professor talks |
| Friday | |
| 3:00pm | Meeting with Plant Sciences people |
And that table should have been a LOT easier to make, so be happy for it. 'Professor talks' means 15 minute spiels from different professors talking about their labs and their research, so interesting and easy to sit through, but potentially brain melting (see previous post). Also, over the weekend is a retreat with Genetics and Cell and Molecular Biology at the Kellogg something or other bio research station. I guess it's kind of fun and there's more talks (probably a good and bad thing) and a bonfire and some tours, so that should be a bit of a good time anyway. Monday starts my classes. MWF from 9:10 to 10:00 is biochemistry, which is apparently really freaking hard and about 20% of people who took it last year didn't get a 3.0 or above average, which is passing (and also a B, for those less familiar with the GPA scale). But we'll see. TR from 2:40 to 4:00 is Microbial Genetics and I have no idea what to expect from the course (what it's about or the difficulty) since all discussion was overshadowed by the biochem class. Meh. My first rotation starts the week after that, so I should probably get going on picking someone to do that with. I have one idea and I should probably e-mail her to make sure she has a spot for me so I know whether I should be scrambling for another one in the next few days.
Finally, if people are actually reading this, could you leave a comment? I'll keep posting regardless, but it helps keep me going if I know someone's looking at this now and then.
I'm melting!!!
Sort of. Not really though. Orientation started today, which means I listened to about 8 or 9 different people tell me about MSU and various aspects of it. The first few were about the Genetics department, what goes on there, and what I'll be doing since I'm part of it. The other 6 or 7 were telling us about their research in order to let us know that they're there for us to do rotations with. One of them was pretty interesting and I'll keep watching a couple of others because they're interesting people and what they do is pretty cool, even if I'd never want to do it myself. However, the fact that they were interesting doesn't detract from the melting quality that science has on a brain that is still in vacation mode. And so, until about 7pm I was more or less useless for complex thought. I managed to cook myself a really nice omelette, though, so maybe I've overthought them in the past. But that's not all! That's right, folks, after I felt like I'd recovered considerably (about 8pm) I tried to do some transcription of a class that my mom's been working on to help her out. I though it'd be fun so she sent it to me to give it a whirl. I started in on the last 30 minutes of an hour and 45 minute lecture on Buddhist philosophy thinking, "Oh this shouldn't be too bad. I mean, I've listened to recordings of this guy before and it's not completely intolerable so I should be able to crank through this in an hour, tops." 40 minutes later I felt like there was even less of my brain left and it somehow takes me 10 more minutes to put notes on the times that I started and ended (less that 5 minutes of the lecture transcribed over the course of that 40 minutes, by the way) and write up an email to my mom saying I quit. And then my Gmail stops working. So, after 3 or 4 more minutes of me trying to make my brain work and tell me what to do, I end up just closing my Gmail and going to a couple of other websites. When I come back, it apparently sent and looks completely normal. Bah. Heaven forbid it works when I click send, but at least it worked when I closed the window. And now it's taken me 20 more minutes to rant it out here even when my full intention when coming here was to post the rest of my schedule for the week for whoever cares. So... I'll do that in another post.
Free days
I get a few days off and start orientation on Monday. It kind of makes me feel like I'm in a sort of limbo though. Still nice to have more time off.
Paperwork time...
So I got to go to campus today. Apparently streets that I needed to use are under construction, but I didn't realize until I got where I was going that they weren't under construction where I needed to use them, so I avoided them for no good reason. Oh well, learn and move on. Filled out some paperwork, got my ID and parking pass, got a little tour of the Plant Research Lab facilities, and now I'm back home. I was told I had to fill out some tax forms and that I could set up direct deposit, so I was going to be productive and finish those now, except that the website told me my employee paperwork wasn't processed yet. Oh well again. Looks like I'll have to play some games instead.
Oh and...
For those that may not be as familiar with the blog interface, at the bottom of each post it says "# comments" and if you click that you can leave a comment. A page will come up that will let you type the comment and then pick how you want to be identified. If you have a google or blogger account it'll let you use that, or you can click Name/URL to just use a name. It looks like there are some other options, but I don't remember what they are and they should be pretty easy to figure out if you want to use them.
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(This started as a post to test out posting from my phone, but I'm using it to store pictures now)
(This started as a post to test out posting from my phone, but I'm using it to store pictures now)
Moving Day
So... today's the big day -- sort of anyway. I move in to my apartment for real today and I get to go fill out paperwork tomorrow. I think orientation starts on Saturday, maybe Friday. I'll have to get my emails organized before then so I know what's going on. Moving almost makes me wish that I didn't have so many games/computer things/computers. Almost.
First!
I've talked to so many people that said something along the lines of "Keep me up to date!" or "Keep in touch!" that I figured I actually should and this is likely the easiest way to do that, so here we are. Hopefully I'll update this on a regular basis and upload pictures and other stuff. Blogger actually used my google account to create this, so I may be able to get some really cool interaction between my google account stuff and this blog, but I'm not sure how much interaction they actually have built in. We'll see I guess!