So, highlights of today!

DJ's first class of the day was canceled so I did not have to drive in to school until an hour later. In this extra hour, instead of sleeping more or eating breakfast, I sat in bed and played Bejeweled. I set my weekly high score, so I guess the time was well-spent. It was a nice recess from the constant stress, anyway.

Then I bumped into Jeremy coming out of the spec problem from the organic qualifier. He was not particularly pleased about the problem, but was surprisingly pleasant in spite of it.

I ate some Teddy Grahams - finished the box, actually - before biochem started. Adam came in and was actually EARLY, and he informed me that not only was the spec problem ridiculously easy, but it had also been right out of chapter 8 of FX's book and also the same problem given in the fall. I found this funny. I guess FX is predictable. He also informed me that he had not bothered to study... hahahahahahaha oh Adam.

I had lunch and sat around solving modeling problems in the Gallery with Justine. I actually solved them - which was nice.

Inorganic eventually made sense to me as I realigned my axes three or four times. Then, after drawing the picture of the molecule, it all made perfect sense. Go diborane.

Went and found Tony Perkins - we had communicated by email - in Archbold. Even though I actually remembered how to get to his office (how cute is it that Archbold has its door labeled "Math TAs"? hahahaa also that area is WAY more spacious than it looks from the outside. Surprises me every time), I didn't have to actually find it because I found him first. Our talk was helpful and just like old times... if I had actually gone to his office hours in old times... but you know. It was nice.

I came back and FX was gone, as Ed had said he would be. I texted Christina, who came up immediately, and went to see Dr. D about picking up the graded homework. We wound up giggling in her office for ten minutes or so, until she worried that FX would hear and I informed her that FX was not around to hear.

We went back and I sat myself in the windowsill to do some inorganic. I cleaned that windowsill off just so that I could sit in it, because it's such an excellent place to sit and now that Nomura's got a couple of grad students at the other desk, I can't really sit in that one.

Ed sat at one desk in one chair doing calculus, Christina sat at the other in the other doing something else. At one point I was distractedly telling her about how Mom was thinking about sending DJ and me to Aruba over spring break but then realized I can't rent a car because I'm not 21 yet - I think this had to do with a discussion of my birthday - and she said "Well, you should tell your mother that I'll be 21, and I can drive."

... to which I replied, "Um, Christina, you can't DRIVE to ARUBA."

Not my brightest moment, but we definitely got some more laughs out of it.

Then when FX finally arrived, he was slightly intrigued by the random homework party happening in the lab. Christina saw him first and said, "Shanny!" which he probably thought was funny. When he inquired as to what was going on (in his curious way, not an accusatory way), Ed said, "She's playing with pipecleaners." I use them to model for symmetry operations. Dr. D gave them to me.

So he looked at the pipecleaners and said, "Oh, making bad tetrahedrons, huh?"

I was quite taken aback because he doesn't usually joke and he certainly doesn't usually make fun of me. I don't think he's ever done that before. I think it's a good sign. I started to laugh and said, "Hey! That's not even a tetrahedron, it's trigonal planar." Good times.

Then I needed to eat before tutoring so I headed to the vending machine... which made me pay 95 cents for peanut M&Ms instead of 85 because it ATE MY DIME. LAME.

Then I tutored and I didn't really feel all that on-point tonight, probably because I'm tired and stressed, but the ones I usually had were willing to forgive me for it and I don't know about the others because I don't see them twice a week every week.

Well those are quick highlights and I probably forgot some but I just wanted to get the Aruba thing and the tetrahedron thing down so I guess I'll go now and take a shower and look over some diff eq BRIEFLY before bed and try not to panic.

After all, first exam of the semester!

Here I am, sitting in the new no-classes computer lab at a computer with a ridiculously huge screen and today I have just been thinking a lot about how I just belong here. I belong here at ESF. I was meant to be here and I am and when I can slow myself down enough to take a deep breath and push the stress away for just a moment, I'm ridiculously thankful for everything I have here. RIDICULOUSLY.

Hahahaha someone just sneezed funny. I have always loved sneezes.

I'm sure a big part of the reason that I have been thinking about how I belong here is that I went from my differential equations class at SU - which is a good class and taught well but just sort of impersonal and foreign because it's pretty much completely engineers of various types and then me, a random chemistry major - to my lab, to drop off my bag, and then up one more floor to see our very own the-man-himself.

Excuse me, I mean The-Man-Himself. The capitalization is, I think, pretty necessary.

So I slipped into his office and I asked him if there was any way I could have my old exam back, the first exam of the Spring 2008 semester and he looked at me, smiling knowingly, and informed me that he really had no idea where it was (which is understandable because he has exams dating back to '98 in that office). And then we talked. And talked and talked and talked. For an hour and a half we talked and it ran the gamut from how he began teaching organic and why he teaches it the way he does to how the preliminary qualifier is written and organized and when it's given to why the Heck reaction is a big deal but there is no Caluwe reaction (we devolved into inorganic, not that that's exactly a devolution, so to speak) to how I am organic-chemistry-brainwashed...

Basically, the man is the bomb. He's fascinating and he's sharp and he tells good stories and the fact that his accent is awesome doesn't hurt. Also he does not wear glasses anymore because he has had laser eye surgery, I believe, and it becomes less and less jarring every time I see him. After all, his eyes are still blue. Gotta love the man.

I have too many exams this week. I'm pretty tired, too, but I'll make it. I just have to budget my time... which I am unfortunately clearly not doing right now by blogging, but I think that even - and maybe especially - when things are crazy it's important to take a breather every once in a while. Plus I'm finally not house-sitting anymore tonight so I can sleep in my own bed in my own house with my own Schubaby.

I dunno, lately I've just had a hard time feeling bad for ESF employees over this no-more-free-tuition-to-SU-for-offspring thing. And that's probably bad because, after all, I am an ESF student and I should probably want to protect my own. Thing is, I don't see why that was ever fair to begin with. We don't give SU anything. Honestly, we don't. We don't give our own employees free tuition to our institution.

I guess I feel like the ESF employees who are making a big deal out of this need to calm the heck down. Look here. If your kids are in sixth grade and third grade, then they are much too young to have you setting their hearts on SU. They have time to grow into different people, who do not necessarily need to go to SU. You probably didn't take the job ONLY BECAUSE your kids could go to SU for free.

The way I see it - and in general, I see SU as an overbearing dictator most of the time, when I can't take more than one of their courses even though the credit quota is per department rather than per student and we're not using all of our allotted credits. Why not? When they don't take me for an REU when I am obviously, far-and-away more qualified than someone that I know who they took - because what the heck, SU?

But this is within their realm of reason. We're not giving anything back to them. I don't see that it saves them THAT MUCH money in the grand scheme of things, but it's perfectly fair for them to rescind the offer. I mean, what wouldn't be fair would be for the students who are already committed as freshmen next year and counting on that tuition to have it ripped from them, or for current students with the free tuition to have it yanked from under them. THAT would be unfair, but SU is not doing that, because they are already committed.

Your nine-year-old? Not committed. Come on, you WORK at ESF, whose tuition is about 1/7 of SU's tuition. You've been trying to convince your kid that SU would be great. Okay, so convince your kid that science is awesome (not hard, by the way). Suck it up. You're not going to die because now you have to pay some tuition. Hey, convince your kid to work for really good grades and nab some scholarships. But STOP COMPLAINING. Your nine-year-old is not devastated by this news. YOU are devastated by this news. Don't make it out like SU is crushing the dreams of your kids.

In other news, I am going to have to run the whole synthesis scheme that I have been following again. I don't know how much HMPA we have left. Hopefully enough. It is going to be not very much fun, but at least I know what I have to do.

My back is starting to act up again, which is pretty miserable, actually. I'm hoping that it kind of goes away, because sometimes it accompanies that time of the month, if you know what I mean. I don't want to go through another excruciating week of back pain.

I wish I had my diff eq book with me today. It would be nice to be able to work on the homework, because I understand what's going on but we have a quiz on Thursday. Which, if all goes according to plan, I will be attending. Mmmm I'm so tired. I really just want to nap. Maybe I'll go back upstairs to lab and wait for a negligible amount of my diol to crystallize and do some inorganic. In a comfortable chair that hopefully does not hurt my back. And soon Christina will come up to visit and she'll be around about until I have to TA.

And then after I TA we will move cars and I will get some dinner and then maybe go to Carnegie and if I'm lucky, I will still be able to take out a diff eq book and do some of my homework! Oh boy. I just have a lot of stuff to do. Unfortunately.