The Mono

I'm doing pretty well (beyond having a cough because, surprise, my tonsils are swollen again). I've hit a few snags this week -- namely that the pack of yeast I used for the root beer last weekend was dead (the sarsaparilla is doing a little better), and apparently Yahoo!IM has changed its protocols yet again, so that I can't log on this morning. I'll deal with the root beer next week, and try to carve out a little time to look at IM clients (I have my eye on Freehoo for my text-based client, which is the hardest thing to find... no idea whether Gaim will still work this time).

In the meantime, I've collected a few ( observations on this quarter's classes. )

I will never have to deal with that rather pathetic history teacher ever again.

I will not have to do another idiotic in-class essay.

I will no longer have a class where they treat us like naughty cheating sixth-graders.

I won't have to wrestle with the TA of plant biotech over how a journal abstract should be written.

I won't have to read that really horrible Crop Ecology book again. (I sold it today.)

I (presumably) won't have to deal with calculating root and soil water potentials after this. Hallelujah!

I won't have to struggle through that painfully disorganized book about Canudos anymore.


Here's to next quarter being a little more interesting (in a good way).

It's flu.

It's been so long since I've had a lingering bout of it that I couldn't tell for sure... besides, I didn't get the usual signs of onset. Given that my tonsils sat it out until yesterday, then turned into raw meat again, I suspect the lack of warning was a sign of my currently dysfunctional immune system. Sigh. I also don't remember hurting this badly.

( My day wasn't entirely wasted )


Whether I'll make it to class tomorrow is anyone's guess. I'm almost tempted to say "in for a penny" and write off the rest of the week, since I need to catch up anyway. Biotech's final review is Monday, and I need to do my own in the other two classes... and I need to rest in so many ways. Not sure I could justify going out to the Exploratorium for Pi day on Friday if I skive off, though. :)

I'll be going up Tuesday afternoon, I think, to catch the history TA's office hours and talk to a prospective advisor. No classes that day.

This morning I attempted to get ready for school, and crashed right after my shower. Whoops.

Wednesday is my long day, with the (in one case mandatory) discussion sections, getting me home at five or so after leaving at 6:45ish. I had initially figured on going for the morning only, but that wasn't going to happen when I was so foggy and exhausted I wasn't safe to drive. So I stayed home and slept.

Since I woke up after noon (!) I guess that was a good idea. I puttered around for a bit, then fixed myself a gigantic lunch; I should feel stuffed, after eating a half a loaf of bread, almost a pound of fish, and a huge bowl of kale... but I don't. I'm comfortable. That was the best meal I've had in weeks.

I wrote email to my Crop Ecology TA with the question I had about this week's homework (I should get that done tonight). I also received my results for the English Comp exam: pass. I'll log in to the school system after 8 tonight to drop my Writing Program class for next quarter -- that'll take me down to a comfortable three classes. Yay serendipity.

knaveofhearts is busy tonight, which means I have time to get some homework and relaxation in before school tomorrow. I am not cold, exhausted, or hungry right now, which is a huge improvement over the last several weeks. Climbing stairs is a bit of a challenge, which tells me I'm still crashy, but I'm almost entirely functional other than that. Another good night's sleep should help more.

Bad timing for it... but a pretty good day.

I decided to postpone my tonsillectomy until July. It seemed prudent.

I've dumped my social calendar again -- it's gotten to the point that there isn't much left to dump. I have the English Composition exam tomorrow (pass that and I have one less class next quarter), then I get to whip up a class schedule for registration (Monday 6-10am) and study for my plant biotech midterm later Monday morning. Not sure whether I'm going to go to seminar that afternoon; I may be too tired. That leaves me the rest of Monday and the next two days to get my Crop Ecology homework done and study for my History midterm on Thursday. I have to remember to vote somewhere in there (maybe Monday on my way back home, as I drive right past the County Clerk's office). Then it's quiet until my Crop Ecology midterm the following Thursday, which I'll have to cram madly for. That week I should start talking to Plant Path professors and touring labs.

School has turned into my equivalent of The Job I Hate. It eats far too much of my time, makes me unhappy and stressed, and compensates me far too little. I end up crying at the start of the week because I don't want to go back again, distressingly often. I have one more quarter to go, and I'm trying as hard as I can to make sure it sucks as little as possible, but at this point it's bordering on emotional torture. Ready To Be Done Now.

The rest of my life is fine ("How was the play, Mr. Lincoln?") This too shall pass. I've gotten all my ducks in a row, to my knowledge -- and trust me, I've left none of this to chance -- so that by June I will finally have that little piece of paper.

Grad school will be different; time management will be much more in my own hands, and with fewer formal classes (and more hands-on work) I expect to have a bit more of my weekends and evenings free, with no PhD thesis to be a slave to. Let's hope I actually do get in. *crossed fingers*

The reason I was panicking last night was that I was operating under the mistaken impression that this homework assignment required verifiable sources. Or real sources at all. Or facts.

Apparently, what I gather from the TA is that so long as you can make an argument to justify your claims -- no matter how wrong they may be -- you get a large chunk of the possible credit on any assignment or exam. That's the way I expect a philosophy class to work... this, however, is crop ecology.

I seem to have a science class that rewards bullshit artists.

So I took the GRE yesterday afternoon. It was an experience, but overall not bad.

( The GRE, then a nice dinner )

( This morning )

So now I'm done for a while... TV with knaveofhearts tonight, then nothing concrete. Oh, a possible party, or flexible engagements with friends... but no appointments as such. I can relax at last.

( For this week: )

I'm signed up for four classes next quarter.

( GE madness )

Looks like it'll be Plant Biotechnology, Ecology of Crop Systems, History of Latin America (1700-1900), and Greek/Roman/Near East Mythology starting in January. I'll post a schedule once I've spoken to Women's Studies today or tomorrow to see about the last GE requirement, and checked with College of Biosci to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. There may be a little shuffling.

I'm feeling the urge to hunt down the biggest proponents of artistic and literary criticism and bludgeon them with the collected analyses of Caravaggio's "The Calling of Saint Michael". Assuming I could lift a stack that heavy.

We're doing structuralism in Russian Folklore, analyzing the parts of a folktale. Gay Cuban Nation has forced me to read analyses of midcentury Cuban literature and poetry. I think the only thing that comes close to the nauseating frustration of being required to pick apart great works of Art and Literachure is having to watch someone else dissect it in exhausting detail and cherry-pick the tiniest bits in order to prove a pet theory. (I respect the professor, but his book has a revolting level of mental masturbation at its heart.)

I complained to my Russian teacher at the end of class, because (though it isn't her fault) I'm getting heartily sick of literary analysis. Russian isn't the worst class I've had for that, but between the literally stomach-turning quantity I had to read for Gay Cuban Nation over the last 24 hours, and the fact that we're taking folktales down to their component atoms now, I'm really losing patience with all of it.

( Ranty McCrankypants here, up on my soapbox again )

Prof. Stuchebrukhov said that perhaps I should try writing my assigned fairy tale off the cuff, if I feel like I can get the essential characteristics of it in an organic way (as opposed to using the structuralist approach). At least she's flexible about it.

I'll get through the rest of the quarter, hopefully without succumbing to my urge to break something, or say anything uncharitable in one of the essays. If the graduation requirements say that I have to spend four hours a week stripping the wings off of gorgeous butterfly collections and pulverizing them to analyze their components, I'll do it. Just don't expect me to be grateful or enthusiastic.

I logged into the registration system this morning to drop the lab class, and out of curiosity I looked at the unit total. 17 units.

17 units? Christ.

Full time is 13-15. I wasn't sure last year that I could even manage 13. And I was carrying 17 this quarter? No wonder I'm half-dead.

I'm down to 15 now, which is still three more than I attempted last year. Cuba is my hardest class; if I can stay on top of that, I'll do okay. At least now I have the ability to nap in the afternoons if I need to.

I'm not going to the study session today -- I'm beyond having trouble focusing, I'm having trouble just grasping reality. I'll take the 2:25 home, and until then I'll veg a bit in the lab (assuming no one catches me diddling around on LJ and boots me off so someone can write their midterm essay).

I'm dumping Entomology lab. Nothing requires it now or later, and while it's one of the more fun (and undemanding homework-wise) classes I have, it's also the most time-intensive at three hours twice a week. I'll drop down to 13 units -- still full time -- and start doing five half-days a week.

I think I can handle either this classload, or a five-day schedule, but not both. This should ease up my time constraints and give me breathing room (I'm already feeling burnout, after two weeks... gah). It will also make it less necessary to buy lunch up there, easing my budget as well. Drawbacks... well, I like collecting insects.

Tomorrow I'll stay up there a little late just because I have a study session scheduled for the later part of lab, but otherwise my MW schedule will start to look exactly like my F schedule. I'll modify my LJ class schedule post once I successfully drop, probably tomorrow.

Less frantic today; I don't feel nearly so swamped. I spent the weekend catching up on both homework and housework, and I seem to have my head above water, if only just. Now to see whether that feeling holds.

( The weekend, today, and tomorrow )

Rain tomorrow? gotta make sure I'm set up for that.

I'm starting to realize that the reason so many people I spoke with were terrified of Plant Physio is that they have never taken physics. Or standard chem. Or maybe even higher math.

Having taken all of those, and thus not being scared of a) Greek letters, b) natural logarithms, and c) equations which consist solely of symbols, I find that I'm actually kind of bored. This is nowhere near as interesting as Plant Devel. Sure, the course is graded on only seven questions -- but that's because I don't think you could come up with a full four-page midterm based on water potential and simple transpiration. Three questions sounds about right for what we've covered so far. I could pack the entirety of the last four lectures into the first half of one of Abel's Metabolism classes.

If it weren't for the fact that it gets one more class out of my impacted scheduling mess, I'd resent paying $700 for this. I could take it alongside three other classes and (so long as I went to lecture) yawn my way to at least a B. It's more effort just to get up, go to class, and come back than actually learn the material.

Am I grousing about a class being too easy? Yeah, I guess I am.

If any plan where you end up with Rice Krispie treats is a good plan, and any plan where you lose your hat is a bad plan, what is it if there's a plan which involves exchanging your hat for Rice Krispie treats?

( The rest of my day )

I like this "afternoons and evenings free" thing. I have to go back tomorrow morning, but that's then. Right now I've eaten, and I think I may go to the supermarket to pick up some marshmallows and Rice Krispies. That sounds like a Good Plan.

Well, the "turn around and find a smiling serial killer at your elbow" nightmare isn't how I would have chosen to wake up, but there it is. At least it happened only fifteen minutes before my alarm was set to go off.

I find that I really couldn't give a flying one about the last final today, despite it being the toughest of the three. I'll run over my notes and give it a shot out of a sense of duty, but it's barely on the radar.

Then it's Thursday night again, and we have a lovely creepy two-part Doctor Who to watch. Yay!

I just signed up for Russian Folklore for fall quarter. The teacher is highly recommended, it fits my schedule (as long as I'm resigned to going fourfive days a week), it satisfies all sorts of GenEd requirements, and I've always had an interest in Russian culture. It's been a really long time since I took conversational Russian (and my accent was atrocious), but I haven't lost all of it.

It even bumps me up to 13 units for fall, which puts me in *gasp* good academic standing for that quarter. Imagine that. Now, as long as I can handle the courseload...

It's a writing class, but I'm good at that, and I hope the teacher will give me enough to run with that it won't be a big burden.

Well, I have more faith in my own ability to hit the ground running...

( Startled pride couched in lots of generally incomprehensible genetics jargon )

Nothing says "green professor" like the fact that the TA's (and prof) spend the whole exam period running from raised hand to raised hand. The exam was, shall we say, lacking clarity.

He's a nice guy... but he needs to learn that textbook questions are written as they are for a reason. Getting inventive, or not putting in the exhaustingly nitpicky level of detail that you find in such problems, results in a lot of confusion. Confusion in a subject like biochemistry is bad.

I did pretty well, assuming I understood what was being asked for. I'm rarely in as much doubt as I am this time.

I missed registration for fall quarter.

As in, I can't register for classes.

This is bad.

No warning, no indication that we were even in the timeframe for fall reg. No email, no bulletins, no casual mention of it by anyone in charge. Zip. So I had no idea that my pass time was yesterday morning (or evening, if I missed that). The only way I would have known was if I happened to hit MyUCDavis yesterday on a lark.

I've mailed the registrar pleading for options. I'd really like to have something more than the scrapings left over for Pass 2 in late August.

Edit: Oh, look, there in the huge list of "important dates". Appointments run from the 14th through the 25th. Open reg starts the 26th. I guess I get to hope that the classes I want are still open by then.

Fuckers.

Edit the second: The registrar does this thing where they let you log in at 8pm on your pass date, in case you missed your morning appointment. (This is information that is not available unless you call them and ask, as I did last quarter.) I missed that yesterday, as I didn't know my pass date. I skipped the biochem midterm review tonight because I was falling apart, and came home.

On the way home, I thought hey... what if they do the 8pm thing for more than one day? Not bloody likely, but as I'll be getting home around 8, I might as well try to log in. Can't hurt.

Nick jumped when I suddenly swore and dove for my bookbag, where I had (thank heaven) already worked out a fall schedule, with reg numbers and everything. Two minutes later I was registered for everything I had planned. I may drop one of those classes later, but I wanted to know that I could be in it if I wanted it...

I think I may take a little time to write a scorching letter to the registrar, about the fact that the mechanism of registration is shrouded in far too much mystery. None of this information is in any well-known or accessible place, and it needs to be. It's not the sort of thing where it's acceptable to keep students in the dark.