A Cat Nap

Lately I’ve been really struggling with my sleep and awake schedule and with managing my health and exercise. A brief web search on sleep habits and cycles turned up a lot of hits about how to get more sleep, but what I’m struggling with is how to be more alert, awake, and energetic for a productive portion of the day. I feel sleepy, groggy, and tired a good portion of the time that I am awake. This isn’t really new - I’ve often struggled with fatigue - yawning repeatedly throughout the days even when I’m working or really paying attention to something.

I know some good tips that I can try to help feel more energetic and alert, but I am also struggling to make myself actually do these things. Lately, I would guess I’ve been sleeping about 8-10 hours a night. At least in the last week I’ve managed to keep myself from sleeping any stretches of over 10 hours. This is an above average amount of sleep to get, but it’s not clear whether it’s unhealthy. What I’m most concerned with is getting to a place where I have energy and feel alert during my awake time.

The national sleep foundation recommends waking at the same time each day, weekdays and weekends, to help establish your circadian rhythms. Additionally, they recommend regular exercise, and I have always found that to be helpful in being able to sleep when I want to. My current lifestyle could really use a lot more exercise, and so I’m slowly working on trying to get more of that. For now, I’m doing simple things like 10-30 minutes of yoga and walking around the neighborhood. It’s really hard, being able to do most of my work wherever and whenever I want, to work some routines into my day that allow me good opportunity for exercise.

I was able to find this information about sleeping too long on the national sleep foundation’s site:

On the other hand, some research has found that long sleep durations (nine hours or more) are also associated with increased morbidity (illness, accidents) and mortality (death). Researchers describe this relationship as a “U-shaped” curve where both sleeping too little and sleeping too much may put you at risk. This research found that variables such as low socioeconomic status and depression were significantly associated with long sleep. Some researchers argue that these other variables might be the cause of the longer sleep: the fact that individuals with low socioeconomic status are more likely to have undiagnosed illnesses because of poor medical care explains the relationship between low socioeconomic status, long sleep and morbidity/mortality. Researchers caution that there is not a definitive conclusion that getting more than nine hours of sleep per night is consistently linked with health problems and/or mortality in adults, while short sleep has been linked to both these consequences in numerous studies.

The link between sleeping a lot and depression is fairly clear, and I do tend to sleep more often and longer when I’m feeling depressed. But right now, I’m not sure if it’s depression related or just that I need to establish some new routines and patterns as my lifestyle and work have been changing. Mostly, I feel surprised by how challenging I am finding it to manage my own health and wellness.

The last few weeks have seen an interesting hodgepodge of demands on my time, but I think I’ve managed to secure enough babysitting hours to stabilize the financial situation a little bit until we get our next cash influx, which should be a few weeks away now. Financially we’re in what Husband is calling a “famine cycle,” but I think I’ve succeeded in keeping it from getting as bad as it has been in the past. I pulled in all the cash from any savings account we had, enough to bring our bank account in the black again, and now I can put enough cash from babysitting into the account to keep from bank fees and bounced payments when some of our unavoidable bills are processed. This feels a little better, although it’s still really stressful as a significant portion of our bills are going unpaid, and thus our debt is just growing further.

I found a new occasional baby sitting gig, watching a 2 month old. I’m happy to be around a baby again, as the toddlers at my other gig are now 20 months and 3 1/4 yrs old. And so far, the baby seems to be a pretty easy baby, although I haven’t spent too much time with him yet. His parents are both musicians, and I’m going to be helping out while his momma gets some practice time in. So I get to listen to some great classical piano while I’m working, too! It’s pretty soothing. So far the baby and I seem to interact well - he likes my smile and my laugh.

So this is what my weekly schedule is shaping up to look like: 5-10 hours with the 2 month old, 10-15 hours with the toddlers, unknown number of hours in the lab (I’m a “part-time staff associate” for the summer), and 10-20 hours on the startup company. I’ve been taking time off from lab work the past few weeks to focus on helping to get the business pitch ready for our next attempts to secure funding, but I begin lab stuff again this week. We have some new summer undergrads who I will be meeting on Thursday and begin training on Friday. I’m looking forward to new potential mentees!

As for my mental and physical health, I’m struggling, but fighting hard. I’ve been a revolving door of various infections, viruses, and other stress-related sickness. I feel the pull of the bed, with the comfy covers and the promise of sleep and dreams, but I’m managing somewhat to get myself to do work. Last week I felt myself wanting to sleep an awful lot, but on Thursday I fought hard against the desire to stay in bed, and it was a good step. I went out and ran some errands in the neighborhood and then went to Starbucks and did some work there, and by the time I returned home I felt somewhat rejuvenated. When I get stressed out too much, I try to meditate and relax. When I feel like sleeping but know that I’ve had enough sleep, I try to get out and just do little things to get myself going. It’s these small skills that I’ve been cultivating to fight depression, and I’m definitely getting better at it. These struggles with depression and anxiety haven’t been easy, but I am definitely able to see progress in my ability to deal with everything and to fight my way out of the depressed state. I know that I’m dealing with everything that’s going on now in a much, much stronger way than I would have even two years ago, and for that I’m proud.

I failed the quals again, on my second try, and now I must leave the program. I learned this on Friday, May 2nd, (it started with an ominous e-mail late Thursday night, leaving me unable to sleep or relax or frankly function well at all until I met with the committee chair on Friday) and was sort of reeling from the information for a while. I originally began this post the weekend after that, but I was busy dealing with the actual life decisions and the immediate need for fun and relaxation, and I forgot to come back to it until now.

I’m still pretty shocked and fairly pissed at the faculty of my department. The other person who had failed the first time and been encouraged to stay and take it again also failed this time around too; I ran into him on my way home from meeting with the committee chair and he was on his way to meet with him. Perhaps I had misinterpreted, but I had thought when they asked me to stay and try again that I just needed to show a good faith effort to do better this time around. After all, I had to stick around for an entire year in order to take the exam again, including a semester after receiving my Master’s degree. And for that year they funded me on a departmental NSF grant. They had invested in me and they had been the only ones to educate me (I stayed at the same school as I did my undergrad). They had accepted me into the graduate program even after my struggles with depression throughout my undergrad years, and they had encouraged me to stay and try again when I failed the first time. I really thought that I’d be fine as long as I studied hard. And I did study hard - but I still failed.

So, you may be wondering, what happened?

Things I don’t know:

• Whether they deemed my performance better or worse than last time (i.e. what they were looking for). I took a different approach to studying this time around. I started studying before anyone else who took the exam this year, and it was my second time taking it so I had a better idea of what the experience would be like (but apparently no better of an idea of what they were looking for me to do). After I failed the first time, I was left with very little feedback. I asked to see my exam, but it wasn’t allowed. While he offered me some details about which subjects I had performed better and worse on, I had no idea if I had actually gotten things wrong, if they were unhappy with the place(s?) where I had to write “This is what I would do if I had the equation to start,” or if it was just that I hadn’t finished enough of it. This time, I felt more prepared and knew more material going into the exam, but there were still gaps in my knowledge. I felt (and still feel) like it was somewhat of a crapshoot, and all I could do was hope they’d either keep it to the most essential topics or that I’d be lucky enough to have recently reviewed the more obscure topics.
• Whether I got things wrong on the exam or merely didn’t finish enough of it. This time, I’ve been somewhat unable to think about and exam my exam performance too much. It’s just too painful. So I didn’t ask any questions when I met with the committee chair.
• What kind of departmental politics are going on and how they may have impacted the faculty’s decision to fail myself and my peer. Earlier this year, the faculty considered getting rid of the qualifying exam. Apparently some of the faculty think that we should still have it, but that it should be extremely strict, with no room for “Well he did better than last time” or “She’s a great researcher.” Those faculty think that in the past they had sometimes been too lenient. They cite departments at other schools (Princeton and MIT) where 1/3rd or more of the class is cut after the quals. On the other end of the spectrum, some of the faculty advocate completely getting rid of the quals. Some of these arguments and views may have been formed after last year, when 11 people took the exam and 3 of us failed. One person was taking it for the second time and passed, but I heard their performance was only marginally better. Of the three of us that failed, 2 of us were encouraged to stay and try again and the third was just told to leave. Later, there were complaints of politics playing a role in who got to stay and who didn’t, and I think this may have led to the viewpoints that it should be stricter. Meanwhile other professors saw that those of us that had failed were excellent researchers and had of course passed (and done fairly well in, I’m sure) the courses on which the exam was based. My understanding is that it is still possible they will get rid of the exam next year, or at least change its format.

Things I know:

• I struggle with this exam format. I’ve written about this before. It was a closed book exam, 4 hours long. There were 6 questions, giving us about 45 minutes per question. Most of the questions were very detailed, and I just couldn’t work through them fast enough. I left some serious chunks undone because I ran out of time. Also, my subject uses math heavily, and while I’m good at and enjoy math, I’ve never been good at memorizing equations (or memorizing anything). For most of my undergraduate education (at the same institution with many of the same professors who wrote the qualifying exam), exams were open book. That worked for me because I’m very good at using the available tools and information to solve problems, but I don’t see the point in memorizing anything that isn’t used so often that I memorize it without trying. This time around, I had written out about 100 flashcards of equations I thought I needed to memorize to be prepared. While many of the questions on the exam were fairly central to their subject matter, about three of the six were what I’d consider to be detailed specific cases which ended up requiring the use of equations that hadn’t even made it into my flashcard pack. One of the questions began with and required an equation for a special case that I had not memorized, and I was left completely crippled on that question.
• I succumbed to the pressure during the exam. I had been studying for months, and I knew this was my last chance at the exam, and there was a lot of pressure. As I was working through the exam and finding it challenging, I began to get increasingly flustered to the point where I did shed some tears and I considered handing it in unfinished and walking away. I was distracted by how upset I was and unable to focus on trying to solve the problems in front of me.
• I’m a great researcher. I’m organized and self-driven. Because I began researching in my advisor’s lab as an undergrad, I’d made significant progress on my projects and we had thought I might be able do the degree in a shorter time than average. As a member of a small lab group, I’d managed as many as 4 projects at once, while most of my peers were only in charge of one. I’d voluntarily taken on managing and mentoring the undergrads in my lab. And I’m first author on a paper with my advisor that was published in the main journal for the subject area last fall. Many of my peers were struggling to come up with a project and to write their thesis proposal, and I already have a draft from a year ago when I used a class project to write it. And my first poster drew compliments not only on the science but on the easy organization of information and appealing visuals.
• Some of the faculty are sad to see me go. I know this because they’ve either told me directly or they’ve told my advisor.
• I contributed significantly to the department. I’m the founding president of the department’s graduate student association; in fact I was the ONLY grad student to even respond when the committee chair was looking for students to get a GSA started, and I went and recruited others to work with me. I’ve interacted directly with the graduate committee chair and the department chair, and I’ve often contributed my ideas and insights when they were looking for feedback or evaluation. Also, whenever prospective students visited I gave them tours and made them feel welcome.
• There are lots of places I can go from here. The graduate committee chair who gave me the news reminded me that I could still apply to other programs and that it wouldn’t go on my record or anything so it will just look like I just left with my MS degree. If I ever want to, I can return to grad school in the future, and I will be better able to choose a department that fits me.
• I am looking forward to trying out other directions. I wrote about this before the exam in my post on my career path, but I am excited about exploring other research areas (perhaps some women in science research?), popular science writing, teaching and tutoring, or maybe research or project management in industry. I’m also considering working full-time for Husband’s company in the fall, doing a combination of marketing, project management, financial management, and online community building.

Overall, this was a pretty bad experience, but certainly one that I’ve learned from. Some days I am happy and excited about exploring other opportunities. Other days I get a bit down from the shock and emotions of it all. Always, I have my husband, family, and friends supporting me, and for that I am both happy and thankful.

• I am having a very negative day inside my head.  It is one of those days where the tasks of being an adult and taking care of oneself and a small household of two adults seem overwhelming.  One of those days in which I think, godD*MN, there are just too many things to be done!
• It goes something like this.  Flicka Mawa lists off stressors in her head, and then feels tense and irritated.  Flicka Mawa thinks of Husband, and how he would tell her not to give in to those feelings, and wills her brain to busy itself with other topics, mostly through meditation.  Thoughts turn to stuff like: “It will get better. It will not always be like this.  Focus on your breathing. Let the calm flow through you…” you get the idea, right?
• Shortly, Flicka Mawa’s brain distracts itself with thoughts of impending doom and lists of things to do or things to be upset about.  Flicka Mawa either 1)gives in and sheds a few tears while she cuddles in a blanket and tries not to disturb Husband who is very busy prepping for his first business pitch to his older brother tonight, or 2)manages to be strong for some period of time, meditating and willing self not to dwell on the negative thoughts.  Switching between 1 and 2 ensues for the remainder of the day.
• Primary reason for today’s stressing? The sudden realization that in the past 2 days our bank account went from low to -$500, and all of a sudden that $1k check that Husband FINALLY got his freelance boss to send is going to be cut in half before we even see it.  This is the bank accounts first dip into negativity since, oh, February of this year.  It has probably spent more than 30 days in the past 6 months in such a state.
• I am getting kind of sick of it.  But I know it’s almost over, Husband and I have agreed and things really ARE going stellar for him right now, but it’s just, well…I just DON’T want to deal with this right now.  I have $5 in my purse, he might have up to $10 in his, and among things like having to pack something for lunch and dinner tomorrow from the limited food we have here, this also means that I can’t even afford to buy your basic over the counter medication for the d*mn yeast infection I seem to have gotten…
• The yeast infection is probably from all that sex I’ve been having.  At least this is a positive point in my list of random bullets.
• This morning’s realization led to another one - tax day is less than a week away, and now we don’t even have enough funds to pay someone to help us file, let alone to pay anything that we might owe.  And they’re going to be uber-complicated this year, because neither of us got W-2’s, I got paid via outside stipend for part of the year and internal university stipend for part of the year, and of course cash for my babysitting, but then husband, his is more complicated, as he had no full-time job all year - just a few of those MISC forms for some freelance work, and some cash investments in the company that went towards paying for Husband’s time as he worked on it.  Then there were some company expenses paid for out of our own accounts, and he works at home so we have can factor in home office costs.  All this leads to the taxes being much more complicated than last year and likely taking 10 times more time to do than either of us has to give in the next 3 weeks.
• And my Dad is about to drive past our corner of the world as he moves from my childhood homestate of MA to Myrtle Beach, SC.  He wishes to visit and take us to dinner and see us before he moves further away (SC) than he is now (MA).  But the best part is he’s planning to pass by in 2 weeks and my quals are in 2.5 weeks which means he should be planning to move a few days before the quals.  Now, if visits with my dad were all fun and no stress, I’d definitely say I’d make a way for it to work, but it’s not like that.
• I think that’s enough random bullets of consciousness (Is that what RBOC stands for when I see it on blogs?). I’m going to go watch some CSI:NY.
• Speaking of CSI:NY, at times like these, I find myself thinking of all the myriad of things I could go and do with the training I have up to this point at time.  One of the things I think about sometimes is forensic science.  I love solving mysteries, and chemistry, and if it weren’t for the danger and the crime involved, this would be an ideal endeavor for me, I think.
• Other things I think about doing instead of or after finishing grad school: science writing, like trying to go get a job at a science magazine or working as a freelance science writer.  Working in a paid position in a lab somewhere.  Being a professor who specializes in the interaction of science and the public, and maybe writes popular science books.  Finding some way to be a full-time mentor to aspiring women in science (mentoring the undergrads is my FAVORITE part of my current job).
• Or I could just wait for Husband’s company to sell for 10 million (not a completely unreasonable amount for an innovative website company such as the one he’s creating) and then play computer games all the time. And have a second home in Amsterdam.
• And have kids.
• Really cute kids.
• Like the ones I watch part-time, who love me so much it totally warms my heart.  The mama told me the other day that older toddler asks her if I’m coming over on days that I’m not, and that he’s even said “Mommy, I love you…and I love Flicka Mawa” when I wasn’t even there.  Kid, I love you too.
• Seriously, I’m off now.  Hope you all are having a better day than I am!

On Wednesday, which happens to be when I wrote that post about lack of motivation, I had class. I’m only in one class - this one - so you would think I’d be able to handle it, but still it’s not going that smoothly for me. This class is, I would say, very advanced. I am taking it at a different institution in NYC, and so the experience feels more “different” and “other” than usual. On top of that, it uses a fair amount of linear algebra, which I never took but have needed for at least 3 courses now, so it’s got an odd history as a sticking point with me and I always struggle with it. I am convinced that I should have taken it as an undergrad, and I think that it should either be required for my major (it is at some universities) or that at least someone should have advised me that if I wanted to study advanced theories in my discipline, I should take it. Neither happened, and I did not take it, because I did not know that it would be needed, or even that it would be any more useful than any other math course that was not recommended in the department’s advising materials or bulletins.

Enough about linear algebra…

And furthermore, this one class I’m in now marks the first time I have ever been in a class where I am the only female. Now, I recognize I am lucky that I haven’t encountered that yet - I know that things are a lot better than they were 20 years ago, and even some of my peers currently tell me that in their undergrad departments they were in classes that had no women at all. But somehow I find that it is on my mind sometimes, when I’m there. The class has 12 other students, at least half of which are foreign students, and the professor is about 70 years old, and (of course) a white male. He is a big name in the field, and as such it is an excellent course to have the opportunity to experience, to learn this subject from him. But it somehow feels very surreal to me. It’s hard to place; it’s not really outright upsetting, but it just feels…odd. Strange.

When I was leaving class this week, a student said hi to me, and went on to note how I had been absent from class the week before. Aside from wondering where he was going with that, I also thought about how I wouldn’t have noticed if he was missing, but that I’d be hard to miss as the only woman in a room full of men. And that made me wonder, if these sorts of thoughts come up often for members of minority groups.

I’m not saying that this is a big deal, and certainly in this class I have never witnessed any discrimination, but it does make one think about the subtler aspects of …bias. The part where a person’s mental conversation is occupied with thoughts of how they are different. It makes me think of what it might be like to be part of a smaller minority, and thus feel more…alone.

With regards to the class, though, it’s mostly the material that intimidates me. I realized that part of my lack of motivation was a fear that I would encounter too much difficulty and find myself unable to overcome it. But I did manage to get some work done, and then I went to class, walking in embarrassed to both be late and to have missed the last TWO classes (heck, I’m even embarrassed to admit that here). I must look like a horrible student, I think to myself, as I shuffle towards a seat in the back of the small room, as if there were really anywhere to hide.

Distinguished Professor (here I imagine you read his name with a deep, authoritative voice) looks over at me and nods hello, even though he’s already started the lecture. I realize it’s a fairly friendly smile and that maybe I’m not that horrible of a student (I did email him and we talked about what I had missed), and settle into copying the notes and figuring out what’s going on. And do you know what? I understood it very comfortably. As the lecture progressed, some students in the class asked questions, and I realized that I knew the basics of the answers even before they were explained. As he lectured on, I realized that I could handle this class, that even here in week 7 I still knew what he was talking about, at least most of the time.

After class, I called Husband and told him this. It was a good thing I did, too, because the next night when I was a bawling basketcase over how overwhelming the quals are and how I couldn’t really handle a PhD program in my discipline, he was able to remind me that I was just telling him how I had not needed to be so intimidated by the class because I do understand what’s going on. I do usually tell him these things anyhow, but now I have the added incentive that I know if I tell him when I’m feeling confident, that next week or the week after when I am paralyzed with self-doubt about my abilities again, he can remind me, as he did last night, that I was just telling him how I am proceeding alright, getting my work and studying done, and that I can understand the class material and I do understand the core material of my discipline better than I did last year. And it will take me a while, but eventually, I’ll remember that I can do this.

or…a brief story about my experience with bulimia and how much healthier I am now

The very first Cat Wisdom I featured on the sidebar of my page was this quotation from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot:

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

So I just went back and reread the poem, and it had such a calming effect on me. I was thinking about how I’ve loved this poem since I was 18, when I read it in English class in high school. My freshman year of college, I actually posted it (in it’s entirety in 12 pt font - around 4 feet long) to one of my walls. It’s interesting to think back on this, because it is also a reminder of how far I’ve come as far as mental health goes since those days. To continue the poem excerpt will give you an example of the urgency and indecision of my thoughts at 18:

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all” –

If one, settling a pillow by her head

Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

That is not it, at all.”

I met Husband immediately after my sophomore year of college, which makes it nearly 4 years ago. I think I have made a lot of progress in that time. Although I had seen a counselor as soon as I got to college, I had still been struggling with the bulimia on and off up until the day I met Husband. I remember it very well, because I had been having a really bad day as far as the bulimia was concerned. But then I got a call from the exciting man I had met on match.com, and we made plans to meet up. And when I met him, I was so overjoyed at having found this wonderful, amazing, funny, intelligent, creative and adorable human being with whom to share my time, my thoughts. In whom I found understanding, which gave me the ability to be completely frank about the crazy thoughts inside my head. And he was as crazy for me as I was for him! This amazing catch thought I was amazing too, and genuinely found me to be sexy, which helped allow me to be sexy without being ashamed or overly concerned about whether I looked ok. He awakened in me the confidence I had been building but struggling with, and I didn’t need the clutch of the bulimia anymore. I moved on, and over time the thoughts faded, and now I no longer remember with accuracy the calorie content of most of the foods I encounter, nor the location of the nearest prime locations for a bulimic episode.

So as far as mental distress over eating, I have improved vastly. Physically, however, some manifestations remain. While I did successfully rid myself of the purging aspect of bulimia, I still occasionally binge eat. I don’t think I do it as often as I used to, but Husband and I both will sometimes spend time chilling out and eat so many sweets that our tummies ache after. We haven’t done this in a while though - we have both been succeeding at eating a bit healthier and losing some weight. For me, it’s been very slow and gradual, but there is a significant downward trend over the last few months, and that’s good. I get a fair amount of activity running, crawling, jumping, and playing with the kids a few days a week and now I can play DDR at home too, but I need to get to the gym more.

Additionally, I still suffer mental distress over other things. After giving up the bulimia (I say “giving up” because it was an addiction and a crutch), I plunged into a depression, which I have written about more extensively and still deal with. For that too, though, I can report improvement. I think 2008 has been relatively depression-free so far. Sure, there have been some sad and stressful times, and a minor quals freakout, but for the most part I’ve been functioning well - getting good work done, spending time with friends and of course with Husband, and spending time at my part-time nanny job. (Where two small children love me so much that last night, the older one kept something small from my bag that I had let him play with and brought it everywhere, even to bed with him. I feel loved, and warmed to think that the thought of me is so comforting to him.)

So, that’s where I am now, and a bit about how I got here.

Wow, I really really want this shirt:

On the page where it’s for sale it says this:

One time I had a few too many glasses of wine at the restaurant and when I got home it wasn’t fun anymore and I cried and cried. True story. The doctor made it all better though, and I have the prescription to prove it.

I didn’t write that, but I could have.  It’s so perfect for me!

Things are going well, but I’ve been really busy. The past few weeks I’ve babysat around 20 hours a week, managed a graduate class which requires a background in linear algebra, which I am weak in, put significant time into data analysis for one of the projects I am working on in my research, and I’ve also put some time into studying for my quals, take 2, which are on April 25th.

I have mentioned before how I failed my quals once already, so this time if I fail, I’ll be kicked out of the program. The program should have little incentive to kick me out: I’m first author on a paper with only myself and my advisor; I’m on a fellowship through a program the department participates in which is funded by the NSF; and I am now the senior lab member in the group of my advisor, who is up for tenure starting this spring-ish (ish because the tenure process is so very fuzzy and confusing to me). So I don’t think I’ll be graded particularly harshly, but I must do better than last time at least, to show improvement. They said I was “very close to passing” last time, so doing just a little better than last time should be worthy of a passing grade.

Anyhow, I’ve been studying for that, and it is overwhelming in its scope. I feel that I need to know everything I learned as an undergrad, when I was so depressed it was affecting my work and my learning, plus one class from my first semester of grad school, which was a little over a year ago now (and during which time I was busy getting married and taking a week off for my honeymoon). And I need to know all of that so well that I can do any problem they might toss at me within 45 minutes and with no books or resources to assist me…so that I can do 6 problems in 4 hours in a closed book exam with only my brain and my calculator. Is it just me, or does this seem like an archaic way of deciding who is worthy of a doctoral degree and who is not? I mean, in a modern world, with so much information at your finger tips that you can look up the Navier-Stokes equation in Wikipedia, isn’t being given minimal time per problem and not even any books, as inferior as those are to computer programs and internet resources, just completely out of touch with real, applicable situations?

To have at an instant thought all of the many equations I have learned in these classes is overwhelming to me. I enjoy and am maybe even good at research, but that is largely because I love solving problems and am very good at using the resources available to me. I am not, however, a memory bank of equations, nor do I have such a deep understanding of my subject that I can just draw up all of the equations out of the most basic of principles and relationships. Last time I tried to focus on the concepts, figuring that understanding well the meaning of each equation would help me to remember them, but sometimes I was left without the details of a needed equation. So this year, I’m not only going through practice problems, but I’m also being sure to memorize all of the equations, as mundane as I feel that to be.

As always, I am still spending time relaxing, chilling with my husband or meeting some friends downtown. I didn’t quite get so much sleep though, but I got a bunch this weekend, so I’m feeling more rested now. But I better go to bed, because I have to get up at 6:30!

Yawn. Husband is asleep - he’s been sleeping so poorly lately I’m just glad he’s asleep at all, even though he fell asleep at like 7 pm. I’m feeling stressed and down again. Things are a little better; there’s not so much going on, but I just feel meh. I have a cold - Husband and I got the same one but of course he’s all better and I’m still coughing so much it gives me a headache. I’m tired but I don’t feel like going to sleep - because I feel discontent and I wish to right that before bed. You know what I mean? I just feel so….eh.

I only have one more week of classes, so that’s great. And just one final. So I should be ok, really. But I’m nervous - I just want to take a break and play video games. I want the new game, Rockband, really strongly. I played it over Thanksgiving and then again last week at a friend’s house, and I really want our own copy, so that I can practice different things and spend time making my character look the way I want, and read the flavor text and just take my time with it and with trying to get better at the drums and vocals. I really like the drums, it’s very fun to play them, and that is one of the bigger additions over the already existing and quite popular Guitar Hero games. Husband wants Guitar Hero III as well. We don’t own any Guitar Hero games, and Rockband is expensive. But I think we will get it for Christmas - if not from someone else than we will buy it for ourselves as a treat. Husband is supposed to get two checks this week which will help us out a lot this month, and then he should be turning in another bill soon. So I think we can afford to treat ourselves to a new toy - we’ve just been so rundown and tired of the same food and things and no opportunities to go out, it will be really nice to be able to play Rockband together and have our own band go on a tour and try to gain new fans and make money.

Well, I’ve had a chance to catch my breath. Last week after meeting with my advisor, the assistant dean of student affairs, the class professor, and my therapist, we all decided it was best for me to drop the class down to audit status. This puts me at less than full-time, but the dean checked and assured me that since it’s so late in the semester, I won’t lose my very important health insurance. This was somewhat finalized on Thursday evening, and I was able to relax a little bit after that. I went out with a good friend on Thursday night, and then slept in til 11 on Friday (not babysitting because I had a bad cold).

On Saturday I ran a lab for 6th to 8th grade girls in an event the women in science club on my campus held. The labs were short and it was challenging to make anything in my discipline very accessible to 6th graders, but I had a lot of fun and I think I got the basic idea across. I wasn’t really able to get feedback from the students, but I hope they had a good time. There were no major messes or accidents or misbehaving girls, so I think that went well enough.

I took the rest of the weekend to just relax and catch a breather, and now I can say my cold is nearly gone, and I feel a lot better. But then this evening I heard from my other professor, whom I had emailed to check in on about the class I am still in, and he wrote back that at this stage I am passing but probably in the D range. Great. So when all you wonderful readers reiterate that grades don’t matter, do you mean even D’s? Will no one see my transcript and ask me “how did that happen?” I think my semester GPA will be ok, because my other 6 credits are research and I should get two A’s for that. Should I really not be concerned about getting a D, or should I ask for extra work to bring my grade up to the C range? I don’t think I turned in all of the homeworks, so I could perhaps just do the one(s) I missed. What do you think, oh ye blogosphere science brains?