Vacation was over this Monday. I am writing a paper so I can get published and be all cool like that. And by cool, I mean totally the opposite. Actually, I got back to lab, and after the niceties of "How was your holiday?" were exchanged between my PI (principle investigator, academic science equivalent of "boss") and I, he asked how I did in the class I took.
I took this class taught by one of my committee members (my second favorite committee member besides my actual boss) who is as bizarre as they come but slightly less bizarre and downright nasty when compared to my other committee members. Towards the end, I got caught up in the insane quantities of grading of the class I TA'd for said boss, and I ended up turning in 6 out of the 10 HW assignments I had to do 1-2 days before the final. Somehow - I don't know how - I managed to hold 'abject terror and anxiety' at bay, only briefly succumbing at times to 'low-grade panic.' That's roughly the difference between a red terror alert (where we're supposed to carry at all times pitchforks and torches, or gasmasks and baseball bats, or garlic and crosses, I forget exactly what) and a green terror alert (which involves subtley eyeballing anyone on the subway carrying a bag of any kind or wearing a coat who isn't an obvious shade of white).
Anyway, my PI asked me about how I did. I told him the truth. "I.... didn't look. ... Yet! I didn't look yet." He starts chuckling. "I was on vacation! I didn't think about it! I was relaxing!" I get a full out laugh, then he suggests I check sometime soon. Turns out I got an A. Haven't told him yet, but yeah. An A!
Seriously, I think he keeps me on as his student for the entertainment value. The way I see it, if I don't get a piece of paper from the university telling me I'm either on academic probation or my career as a grad student is over, that's fine with me, and I don't give a shit. Biochemistry is particularly draconian. If you get below a B in any class, you're on academic probation. There is no averaging your GPA, and if you slip up again, you're out of the program.
So, everything is back to normal. I managed to get myself a parking space for this upcoming semester that's closer than a 10-minute walk to my building, which will hopefully make the 8 AM class I need to take a tiny bit easier. At least there's less of a bleary-eyed stagger between my car and the classroom, which means there's less of a chance of me spilling precious drops of the inevitable mug of coffee. Happily, though, my 8 AM class does not interfere with 50% off bottles of wine night at one of my favorite bars. Hellz to the yeah, people.
Oh! And my insurance goes down by $200 because I've turned 25 this upcoming pay period! Huzzah! And there are Saturday morning fencing practices at the club, followed by lunch and drinking, so really, everything is quite nice.
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