Tuesday, October 12, 2010

I feel like I'm falling apart at the seams.

My days are too long. My semester is flying by and refusing to take me with it.

I've been sick for almost two weeks now. I thought it was going away last weekend, and it was back yesterday morning with a vengeance, closing up my throat until I could barely swallow at all. Closing up my throat until I wondered if it would close further and I wouldn't be able to breathe. And yet this is not something that I can complain about. This is not something that I have the right to be upset about, because my brother has been sick for an entire year.

I have an exam in advanced organic tomorrow. It's on stereochemistry and tacticity and conformational analysis and potential energy diagrams. Oh, the potential energy diagrams, where R, P, and I are all energy minima, and the TS is a maximum in one of the 3N-6 dimensions (is it 3N-5 for linear molecules? I can't remember) and a minimum in all of the rest in order for it to be the lowest energy path from R to P possible.

Stereochemistry frightens me because somehow I often miss the subtleties of the molecules. Oh, there are the unique atoms; are they contained by the symmetry element? Are these hydrogens interconverted by a proper axis of rotation, or are they just interconverted by a mirror plane? Is it chiral? Where are the tetrahedral stereocenters?

And my mind is fuzzy because despite my best intentions and my babysitting of my lab group, I ended up staying up until 2am last night editing and splicing together the lab report. Then today I was very possibly the angriest I have ever been in my entire life, and I was angry from 8am to 5pm, with little aftershocks that are still goosing me when I least expect it.

Being enraged for that long is really exhausting. Really takes it out of you. And so I spent a day and a half that would ordinarily have been devoted to studying for this exam writing up a lab report that should not have taken as long as it did. Sometimes I just wonder about people.

I miss my sister. I want my brother to get better.

What made me smile today...

- getting my brand-new physical organic book in the mail - it's beautiful
- Dr. S telling me he would sign off on me murdering Bob
- FX asking me if I needed a gun, having been informed of the situation

Yeah... no, I think that's pretty much it. It was an exhausting, unrewarding day.

Then when Bob finally communicated with me and all but begged forgiveness, I withheld it from him. Because you know what? I am not going to be typical me and back up and say "oh, no, you know what, haha, it's okay. it's just fine."

It is NOT fine. He took ADVANTAGE of the fact that I was going to pick up the slack because I am the one who has the most to lose when our grades are on the line. He was IRRESPONSIBLE and SELFISH and STUPID. And it is NOT OKAY. I DID pick up the slack, but this does NOT mean that I am going to be walked all over.

I just feel so stupid for even entertaining the possibility that he might do the work. For entertaining the possibility that maybe he actually meant it when he leaned over and reassured me that because I was in his lab group, he was going to make sure that he actually did his part and pulled his own weight and didn't take advantage of me.

Well. GUESS which member of my lab group did EXACTLY that.

I'm still angry, it turns out. Still so angry I could spit. Still unable to concentrate. Still praying that somehow this lack of concentration and adequate sleep does not play out badly at 10:35 tomorrow morning.

I'm so tired of everything lately. I'm frustrated that I paid $260 for that exam last weekend. I'm angry about having had to clean up after Bob, who ended up doing zero of the lab report (ZERO. NONE OF THE REPORT. NONE OF IT.) and would not even send me the raw data because he was GOLFING in PHILADELPHIA.

WELL IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO TAKE CARE OF THE WORK THAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DEPENDING ON YOUR TO TAKE CARE OF BEFORE YOU GO GALLIVANTING OFF TO GO GOLFING BECAUSE LAST I CHECKED, GOLFING HAS NO BEARING ON ACADEMICS. This is ESF. THIS IS NOT A DIVISION I SCHOOL. YOU ARE NOT HERE FOR SPORTS. I don't know what you ARE here for, but it is your RESPONSIBILITY to get your work done early if you know you are not going to be around when it needs to be handed in.

And what I am the most angry about is that last night I heard from him and he didn't have it done (I'm sick I'm sick I'm sick I don't have a computer it died but never I'm in PA golfing) but said he'd have it to me in the morning. Then he didn't have it to me in the morning. THEN HE DID NOT COMMUNICATE WITH ME ALL DAY UNTIL 4:30PM, AT WHICH POINT I HAD WORKED IT OUT FOR MYSELF WITH LOTS OF YELLING AND GENERALLY FRIGHTENING EVERYONE BECAUSE I DO NOT EXPRESS MY ANGER.

Now why would you not communicate with me when you KNOW I am STRESSING THE HECK OUT about this report? Why would you not be checking your phone? WHY WOULD YOU NOT BE COMMUNICATING WITH ME?

So in conclusion, I AM STILL ANGRY. And hopefully I will do okay on this exam tomorrow. Back to PE diagrams, I guess.

One more keysmash, for posterity.


SKDGHLSIFH AS,KHAJKT HGAK,F H,ASG LAKG F,DJGT ,ASGHDk,gasj,hfg ajshf,safh H.KWJAHFKJSGHF ,JAHGFD J,SAH GJSHFG A,SHG AHJSF

IT IS STILL NOT OKAY AND I AM STILL MAD AND I WILL CERTAINLY STILL BE MAD WHEN I SEE HIM AGAIN.