Okay. Hi again everyone! It’s been
a busy 2+ weeks, so there’s a good amount of stuff to talk about. I actually
had to go back and look at what the last things I talked about were. So,
without further ado, here’s a look at what’s happened in the past two weeks.
School
stuff: I had my first two exams (in Genetics and Analysis of Biomolecular and
Cellular Systems). They were not great, as far as I can tell without seeing all
the grades, but probably not insurmountable (i.e. there’s still enough of the
semester left that I can probably recover from any mishaps on these tests,
especially since in the future I’ll be more prepared for how the tests are
written). I also had a bunch of written assignments due for my two
communication intensive classes (Spanish and my lab class). Writing isn’t
generally very hard for me... but when it’s in another language, either
literally or figuratively, it’s certainly not a walk in the park. Writing in
Spanish is hard because I have to actually think about the grammar on a more frequent
basis than just wondering if I’m supposed to use ‘who’ or ‘whom’. The
conjugated forms of verbs don’t just magically pop into my head the way they do
for English, so there’s a good deal more thought that goes into writing a paper
in Spanish. Writing for my lab class is hard because there’s a larger series of
constraints about what you’re supposed to write, and how you’re supposed to
write it. There’s basically a language of science writing that they’re trying
to teach us at the same time as we’re learning a bunch of new lab techniques...
so there’s a lot of thought that has to go into those papers as well.
UROP: My
grad student has been gone from the lab for pretty much the past week, so he
left me with a bunch of stuff to do while he was gone. In combination with the
various tests and assignments that I had due over the past two weeks, it was a
bit difficult to complete everything that he wanted me to do. There’s still a
couple of things left to finish up, but I was able to get almost everything done,
which was nice. I’ve learned that it’s extraordinarily difficult to work around
other peoples’ schedules sometimes though... As an undergrad, I’m not supposed
to be in lab by myself, so I have to work when other people are in the lab. On
Monday, I intended to go do some work in the two-hour break I had between
classes, but I ended up not being able to, because the lab had a meeting I
didn’t know about. Other than scheduling issues though, everything is going
smoothly so far, which is nice.
Choir: Our
pieces are actually coming along pretty well, which is awesome, since there’s
only about a month until our first performance. There’s going to be tryouts for
the solo parts next week, and I’m trying to decide if I want to audition for
those. I probably won’t, since solo-ing will require being able to sing out
loudly enough to be heard over both the rest of the choir and the orchestra...
and although my ability to project has improved, I’m not sure it’s quite at
that level yet. We’ll see though. I’ll probably practice the parts over the
weekend and go from there.
Non-school
things: There’s not a whole lot to talk about here, since I’ve spent most of my
free time not doing much besides putting around on the internet and hanging out
with my friends. We did do a couple of fun things in the past two weeks though.
First, the Great Glass Pumpkin Patch took place on the last Saturday of
September. MIT has a glass-blowing class, and a lot of what they do is make
glass pumpkins to sell at this pumpkin patch. It’s not just a small thing,
either. The women in front of us in line woke up at two in the morning to drive
three hours into Boston, to get a ticket for the pumpkin patch, so they could
be first in line. Since I’m not quite so dedicated, and since I
have the good fortune of living on the campus where the pumpkin patch is held,
my friends and I didn’t have to get up nearly that early to get a good spot in
line. And even getting up as early as we did was totally worth it, since we got
some gorgeous pumpkins. I bought one for myself, that I absolutely love...
here’s a picture:
The other
exciting thing we did was celebrating one of my friend’s twentieth birthday. We
went to a Thai restaurant in Boston, which was pretty delicious. Dinner was a
lot of fun, not least because a table near us was celebrating a 21st
birthday, and kept ordering the special birthday drink that came with strobe
lights and the birthday song played throughout the entire restaurant. It was a
little jarring when the dimly lit restaurant suddenly descended into green and
red strobe lights and singing over the loudspeaker, but it was actually pretty
fun. After dinner, we walked a little further into Boston to go to an Asian
supermarket, which was really cool. I had to convince myself that I didn’t need
a teapot, because they were all really pretty and I was very tempted to buy
one. Since I don’t really have loose tea leaves, it wouldn’t make a whole lot
of sense to buy a teapot though. :P I did end up buying some jasmine tea
though, which is delicious. I may need to go back and buy some more soon, since
I’ve been going through my caffeinated teas at a somewhat alarming rate this
semester. Luckily, there’s a whole aisle to choose from, so there shouldn’t be
any shortage.
It’s late, and I don’t have class
until 11 a.m. tomorrow, but I should probably still sleep... so I’m going to
end this here. Have a good week everyone!
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