There is only 6 more weeks in this semester. Halla-good-dog-u-lah.
I’ve been tired before. I’ve been frustrated before. I’ve been excited to finish a semester before. But I tell you all right now, I am having the hardest time ever staying motivated this spring. I think I’ve finally hit that wall I’ve been seeing approach. I don’t want to fail, but damn it’s hard to make myself focus.
Sitting at the show Saturday (when I wasn’t forced to engage in inane conversation with Young lady, that is) I kept thinking how I missed those weekends when my time was my own, back in the days of having a real life, when you were tired of the work week and Friday at 5pm meant you were free and could sleep all weekend or read for leisure or go for a walk. Friday at 5pm now means, if I don’t have to work at my tour guide gig, I have to still get up early to catch up on all the studying I didn’t have time for during the school week.
Gah.
Anyway, there are moments when I really feel like throwing up my arms and walking away from it all. If I want to go to graduate school, I have to find time to actually apply and sit for entrance exams in the next few months. Or, I could just stop with my Bachelor’s and hope for the best. I’d have leisure time again. Probably no money to enjoy it, but OMG it is soooooo tempting.
And then I get a little carrot. See it? It’s right there, dangling just beyond my reach.
Dr. Smythe, the professor who took me on to count Borrelia, replied to my email about my data and the next phase of my project. He said, and I quote:
“Thanks for the data…. The higher temperature is an interesting issue, one I never considered. Keep up the good work!”
I think of things he doesn’t. He thinks it’s good work. Awesome sauce (as those youngsters say). Considering I felt inept and frustrated the whole time, that casual compliment feels pretty damn good. Maybe I can do this.
And while we are on the topic of school and things I can do, I’m not struggling nearly so much with using the word moiety. Dr. Smythe used it during our weekly meeting and I thought to myself, “Aha! I remember what that means, and now I actually kinda get it!!!”
Here’s one last thought. My seminar grade isn’t posted yet, but I think it went well. Now that it’s over I do have a question I can’t quite shake. You see, in the U.S., mice are the primary natural reservoir for Borrelia, the bacteria which cause Lyme disease. If it wasn’t for the tick feeding on mice carrying Borrelia, the tick would not pick up and be able to pass it on to humans and other animals. But if Borrelia naturally live in mice, where did the mice get the Borrelia? In my seminar I made a little joke out of it saying it was kind of like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. But really, seriously, how did Borrelia get in mice in the first place?
Oh-ho-ho. Possibly a doctoral thesis theme?
Perhaps I’m hallucinating that there’s an entire carrot farm just up the hill….
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