Thursday, March 06, 2003

 

Stress day is over. Now I have to decide what to do, now.

To "qualify" as a doctoral candidate, in my department, you take some bitchin' core-course exams in lieu of more traditional "quals". I have one coming up, one week from now - a midterm in my CBB Proseminar. Thursday 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, Friday 9:00 am to 9:00 pm. 24 hours, in two 12 hour chunks. Four essay questions each day. Go.

The reading for the course so far is 67 papers/chapters, in six weeks. A three-inch binder, full, double-sided. Ayah.

I ran into two old friends from MIT, last night. Nathan said "hey, you look like a grad student, now, all weary and frazzled." Yeah.

So, then, anyway, the most stressful thing about today was meeting with my advisor, and having to say "I'm sorry, I don't have anything new to tell you - I haven't made any progress at all on my first year project (3-5 y.o. kids representation of large approximate number) since we last talked, because I've been spending all my time on classwork, and my MIT fMRI work." I was dreading going into that meeting. It went alright - she didn't rip me apart or anything. But I feel like I'm letting too much time slip away from me. Like my time spent working isn't spent working productively enough.

(cough) blog (cough)

On the plus side, Travis Waddington, a bud from Dabney (Caltech) is in town this weekend, and might be coming here permanently next year - he's a prospective student in my department at MIT, I think in Sebastian Seung's lab.

posted by Miles 5:43 PM