Eeeewwww!

There is a message board by the door at the house where I am renting.  This morning the following was scrawled upon the board:

Please clean up pubes after grooming.

Thank the merciful heavens I have my own bathroom.

What’s the matter with you?

Due today:  Biochemistry lab report on the inhibition kinetics of lactate dehydrogenase.

Due tomorrow:  Rough draft of paper on the epistatic gene inheritance of GloFish.

Due Friday:  Rough draft of the presentation on the immune evasion properties of sGP in Ebola virus.

Monday:  Genetics exam on gene transcription, translation, operons and gene regulation.

Due next Wednesday:  Term paper on ten weeks of study encompassing seven laboratory experiments on lactate dehydrogenase and my final Ebola sGP presentation.

 

Oh, yeah.  And a bunch of other “small” homework assignments are also due between now and then.  If you find me either asleep on my laptop, or electrocuted from the tears of frustration and exhaustion I cry while I type, you will now know why.

You’re a Wonder, Wonder Woman

 

 

Does anyone else find this a bit ridiculous?

A photo from the parking lot where I do a lot of grocery shopping: 

I found a new love

I’ve been poor for so long I don’t usually mess around with “luxury” products like fancy-shmancy soap.  However, the company that makes the cheap aloe glycerine soap that you buy in bulk packs for about $0.33 cents a bar stopped making the aloe variety.  I don’t want to smell like peaches or white tea, so I bought some bargain deodorant soap, which I’ve used in the past, and is comparably cheap.  But, as we enter the alligator season (the time of year when humidity levels fall to minus 50%) my skin, though tending toward oily, is getting too old to handle the harsh deodorant soaps it used to laugh at and just produce a ton more oil.  I have been feeling quite tight, itchy and dry of late.  And, as it is hard to lotion one’s own back, I decided to live life high on the ol’ hog and try, *GASP* an expensive moisturizing soap.

I bought one bar at the drugstore for $1.69 and felt like I was just flushing cash down the toilet.  But, you know what?  I really like it.  I’ve used it for over two weeks now and decided that it was much better for my skin, plus it smells really nice.  Clean.  Not fru-fru-y perfume like, but just nice, fresh and clean.  Still, $1.69 a bar.  I’m pretty poor.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to that kind of monthly expense.  Then, I Googled it.

Good gravy.  What did we ever do before Google?

Well I found this online drugstore called Pharmapacks.  You can get it through them for less than a dollar a bar and if you buy in bulk you get free shipping.  Still pricey.  But hey, I’m worth it.

I did a little more digging and found out that Pharmapacks also carries many other personal hygiene products I have trouble finding elsewhere.  So, double score.

And so it goes

You would think I would have learned.  I guess I’m dumber and more gullible than I thought.

I always think, next semester will be better.  I will be done with *insert miserable course I didn’t want to take* and I will be able to focus on what I want.  I will be more organized.  I will devote more time to studying.  I will find time to be good to myself so I have the mental/physical/intellectual fortitude to kick ass.  I will get straight As because I love the material and really learned everything.

It is only the second week.  So I am trying really hard not to succumb to crippling depression.

But, I tell you what.  I spent 8 hours on Saturday, 9 and half hours Sunday and blew off work yesterday so I could come home straight after class and spend 5 hours on homework in the afternoon.  It would take like another 30-40 hours just to catch up the amount of homework I’m all ready behind on from last week, the first week of the semester, and I haven’t even included the this new week’s homework on my list yet.

I think the only thing keeping me from that crippling depression I mentioned is the anger I feel at paying outrageous amounts of money to take classes that I have no hope of learning half of the material covered because there is so much homework I can’t possibly do it all if I do it well.  The best I can hope for is to maybe learn that half, accept I will be worked to within an inch of my life to complete that half of what I should learn and have the honor of getting shitty grades in the process.

And, you know it stung pretty bad getting C’s in physics, but I didn’t ever profess to be good at math which was 75% of physics.  The prospect of getting C’s, or heaven forbid, worse, in courses I actually want to take is a devastating thought.

So what about getting shitty grades bothers me?  The letter C doesn’t show how much I invest in effort and time, how much I sacrifice of myself and my life and the desire there was in me to really learn and succeed.  People see anything less than a B and they think that person is either dumb or not trying.

The fact that I really do find all the courses I’m taking this semester interesting, and I really, really want to learn but might not be able to get all I want out of a class is almost a worse feeling than just getting a bad grade.  I want to enjoy studying this stuff.  I want to take the time to read or do an assignment and when I’m done feel all like “Wow, that was cool.  I rocked that.”  But there’s just so much.  Being buried in a never ending mountain of homework kills any joy one might have for a subject and the learning process.

Mostly it’s like, “Damn,  I have to hurry and finish this which is due first and then I have to make sure I have time to start this which is due later but will take for ever, and oh, yeah, I have to memorize this all this stuff so I am ready for the test where I can’t use the cheat sheet.  Oh, and then there’s the…”  It’s hard to keep focused when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It’s hard to stay strong when you are tired but know there’s almost no point in going on because you can never truly reach the end.  It’s hopelessness.

I don’t know how other students manage, maybe it’s because, even though I am way far from being old, I’m not as young, healthy and fast as I used to be.  I know– I hope– I’m not too stupid to learn it.  A significant amount of the crippling depression hovering over me is due to feeling sad and frustrated about all the details and readings and assignments I am rushing through and half assing because I only have about 8 hours a day where my brain is actually capable of functioning.  It’s frustrating to feel like you are not on your game.  To feel you brain and your body are traitors to your desires and your needs.  I want to do more.  But it’s like a switch goes off after 8 hours or so and no matter how I try to apply myself to the work at hand nothing sticks.

It’s also frustrating because I know the real world is nothing like college.  I *know* I would make an excellent scientist/researcher.  I know I have the skills.  Because one sucks at jumping through a professor’s arbitrary hoops does not mean one sucks at being a good employee in the real world.  Unfortunately, there’s this dumb bit of having to get through college in order to get your resume on the desk instead of in the trash.

Well, one thing won’t help.  Whining about it here on the blog.  So, unless the storm of homework breaks, you won’t probably hear much from me for the next 14 weeks.  I have to make time and unfortunately, blogging is not absolutely necessary.  Other things that aren’t apparently considered necessary by professors are breathing, sleeping, and thinking about anything not related to their class.

I will miss you bloggy buddies.  Pray for me.  Or send cash.  I may have to quit both my jobs if I want to have any chance in Hell of passing this semester.

It sounds like the opening line of a joke…

How many firemen does it take to catch a skunk?

Apparently three, plus a bystander.

I’m serious.  I drove up to the parking lot at work this morning and a firetruck was blocking the entrance to the lot.  At 6 am there is nary a car in the lot, so naturally I wondered what the heck the firetruck, lights flashing, could possibly be doing.

Upon pulling over I saw behind the truck.  And, then I smelled the skunk.  I don’t know why, but the firemen were attempting to catch the skunk in a small box with a long pole and a tarp.

I drove on to a different lot, as I didn’t want to wait or smell.  I can only imagine it might have been rabid or injured and posed a threat to morning commuters which would be soon arriving.  But still, it’s not a sight you see every day.