Okay, let’s
be real... I’ve been a horrible blogger. Unfortunately, I can say with a
reasonable level of certainty that I will continue to be a horrible blogger, if
only because life has a way of being busier than you expect it to be. Given
that there’s been approximately five weeks worth of blogs that I missed, I’m
not going to try to relate every detail of those five weeks. I think I’ll just
give a brief overview, and then explain a little bit about what I’ll be doing
for the next month (MIT has a January term, known as IAP (Independent
Activities Period). It’s a month-long break between Fall and Spring terms, and
it’s generally used for taking fun classes or working: essentially something
you wouldn’t get a chance to do during the term.).
So, to
begin, final exams and projects were a thing that happened. They could have
gone better, but they could have also gone much worse. For the sake of not
boring you to death with more whining (and not having to relive all of it) I’m
going to leave it at that. Actually, I’ll leave it with this. Siblings, listen
closely: Finals in college are a lot harder than finals in high school. And
final projects kind of always suck. But at some point, you’ve just got to say
“This is what I’ve got (or what I know). I’m going to turn it in, and hope for
the best”. It might not be a perfect score worthy test or project. It might not
be exactly what you were expecting to produce. Occasionally, that’s going to be
all you can give. And as long as you put everything you could into it, it’s
something that you can be proud of, or at the very least, be okay with. I know
these aren’t necessarily inspiring
words, but they’re what I took out of the end of the semester. Do with them as
you will.
On to more
fun things. The day after I finished finals, I flew home. I was expecting my
flight to be delayed because of the 8 inches of snow that fell in Boston the
night before my flight, but it wasn’t, surprisingly. The plane we were supposed
to be on did get stuck in Chicago though, so our plane was downsized, and the
flight ended up being overbooked by 20 people. There were some very angry
passengers trying to get on that flight... I don’t know what happened in the
end, because I booked it onto the plane as soon as my boarding group was
called. I was not getting stuck in Boston. :P
Back in
Seattle, I finally had a chance to attend one of my high school’s yearly ‘Young
Alumnae’ reception, which was fun mostly in that it was a stopping point before
a few of my closest high school friends and I had a sleepover and talked about
life. Both the reception itself and the sleepover were awesome in that they
reminded me that there are more people willing to support me than those I
interact with every day (MIT friends, if you’re reading this, know that I appreciate
your friendship so much. But we’re graduating soon-ish, as reluctant as we are
to admit it, and it’s nice to be reminded that when I’m not seeing you guys
every day for hours on end, I will still have a group of friends (close to
home) to lean on. (Family- I love you dearly, but sometimes you need a friend
rather than a family member to complain to. :P) Okay. Now that I’ve probably
accidentally offended several people, I will continue by sending everyone who’s
reading this a hug, because you’re all there for me, whether I saw you at the
reception/sleepover or not. And that’s pretty awesome.
Moving
on... Christmas was a lot of fun- I saw a bunch of my family who I hadn’t seen
in a long time, and I was finally not the only child being interrogated at Christmas
Eve dinner, since the next grandchild has officially completed his first
semester of college! For anyone unaware of how my family celebrates Christmas,
Christmas Eve is forever and always reserved for celebrating at my maternal
grandparents’ house. (And I do mean reserved... you had better be broken or
bleeding if you miss Christmas Eve dinner. (Kidding. Mostly.)) Christmas Day is
usually spent lounging in our pajamas and opening presents with just my
immediate family. I broke tradition this year, and got dressed about halfway
through the afternoon. When, earlier in the week, I suggested that I might do
this, my sister looked at me like I was crazy. We schedule other activities as
we can, but those two are more or less set in stone.
On New
Year’s Eve, we had my grandparents over to dinner and we all ate hot pot. Which
was an adventure. Trying to fit seven people around a hot pot on a rectangular
table is a... challenge. It worked out though, with everyone throwing things
into the pot, and people grabbing what they wanted when it was cooked, or being
served it. (Or, in the case of my brother and dad, having their bowl filled
with food whenever there was something in the hot pot that had been cooked but
went unclaimed for too long. It’s a good thing that they were hungry. :P) The
rest of the evening was spent trying to stay awake until midnight... which
ended up meaning that I was watching various broadcasts of New Year’s Eve
festivities on TV with my mom. It was quiet, but nice.
On New
Year’s Day, as is our family tradition, we went out to see a movie. This year’s
selection was Frozen, which I highly
recommend if you like Disney, or musicals, or animated movies, or just movies
in general. I really liked it. Don’t know if you could tell, based on that last
sentence there. :P After the movie, we walked over to the Sheraton hotel, in
downtown Seattle, to look at the gingerbread houses. Or really, gingerbread
sculptures, since they weren’t necessarily houses, and most of them were
probably at least three feet tall, and incredibly intricate. I can’t possibly
do them justice in writing, but if you’re ever in Seattle at Christmastime, I
highly recommend going downtown to marvel at the crazy things people can build
with gingerbread, sugar, and copious amounts of candy.
The rest of
break went by pretty quickly, and I found myself back at MIT much sooner than I
expected. Literally sooner, in some ways, because I was half expecting my
flight to be delayed because of the various snowstorms that hit the Midwest and
Northeast in the first week of the year. Surprisingly, my flights were on time,
and after a sleepless night and some frantic wandering around the Newark
airport, I made it back to MIT. Luckily, my grad student decided that he wanted
to get some of his own lab work done on Monday, so I was able to sleep for most
of the day, and go grocery shopping. Frozen burritos will only last you so long
before they get boring.
For the
rest of the week, (and this is what I’ll be doing for the remainder of January)
I was UROPing in the same lab I worked at over the summer and fall. The
difference between fall semester and this month is that I can be in the lab all
day, without worrying about classes and homework and all of that fun stuff. It’s
pretty much exactly what I want to be doing. Which is good, since I’ve already
had an 11-hour day. That was less good... I’m told that I looked rather dead at
the end of it. But biology waits for no one, and it demands to be done on a
determined time frame. This means occasional 11-hour days, and weeks that were
technically only four days long, but that felt like at least 10 days long. It’s
entirely enjoyable though, especially when things actually work. Sometimes they
don’t, which is not fun. But when they do, it’s really rewarding.
It’s late,
and I should wrap up... I’ll try to give more detail about what I’m actually
doing this month next week, when I’m not trying to cram five weeks of blog
posts into one. :P Happy January everyone! And Happy New Year, since I haven’t
said that yet!
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