I'm going to grad school! Woo! After a 3-year stint in the real world, I'm going back to academia for my MS/PhD in environmental engineering. I'm really looking forward to it. I have a nice advisor and I'll be working on a really interesting research project.

I knew it was going to feel good to go back to grad school, but I didn't know how good it would feel to quit my job. My one (mostly off-site) boss has been getting pretty tyrannical lately, so it seems like a very good time to leave.

My co-workers are mostly being very supportive. However, I did come across one who was a bit less so. It's bring your kid to work day here, and so there are lots of kids and the elevators are much more crowded than usual. I step into the rather full elevator and my co-worker starts speaking to me:
"Hey, I heard you're leaving us."
"yeah"
"Well, just remember, a PhD is no guarantee of future employment. I saw more PhDs flipping burgers when I was in my master's program."
"Yeah, well, I'm not in it for the money"
"You say that now, but once you have a family, you'll be talking different..."

At that point, the elevator reached my floor, and I stepped out. I think I heard him say something about a boyfriend, such as "if you have a boyfriend," which is very strange, as he knows I'm married. It's sad, really. It seems he feels his life turned out differently than he expected/wanted, and so he needs to bring others down to feel better about himself. What do they call that? Crabs in a bucket? If there are a bunch of crabs at the bottom of a bucket and one crab tries to crawl out of the bucket, the rest of the crabs in the bucket pull the crab down, so they can all be miserable together. Or something like that. Why can't we all just get along?

Anyways, I'm really looking forward to going back to school and spending loads of time studying and living off a paltry stipend. W00T!

Sleep whenever possible. All the time. Force yourself. When you're asleep, you can only be nervous/anxious/stressed in your dreams. Which is better than being such in waking life.

Wow, I haven't posted here in a long time. Since my last post, I've finished all my grad school apps. I actually finished them back before the Xmas season. I didn't quite reach the Dec 1st deadline I had set for myself, but I easily finished them all at least a month before their due dates. Of all the schools I applied to, I've only heard back from one school to tell me they received my application. Coincidentally, that was the school that was probably the least, erm, "reknowned" of all the schools I applied to. Anyways, most of the schools said they're not going to be sending out recognition of receipt emails or postcards or anything. Now, I just have to wait for 3+ months until I hear back from all the schools and fellowships. *crosses fingers*

Now, I'm looking forward to playing my first show with my band, in a little over a month (feb 17th, IIRC. It's in my palm.). I play violin and keyboards, and besides me, there's a cellist, a drummer, a guitarist and a bassist. We have a really nice, indie/post-rock sound, kind of along the lines of Belle and Sebastian and Interpol. The guitarist does most of the singing, but I've been meaning to write songs that I can sing on too. If we had a website up & running, I'd direct you to it, but it's still in the planning stage.

Anywoo, I'm feeling mighty feverish, and I think I need a little more cowbell. I took my temp twice since I've gotten home, and it was higher each time. I'd take it right now, and post the result, but I just had some tea a little while ago, so the value would likely be off. Depending on how I am in a little while, I might send mr. mystereys (the good soul that he is) off to get me some tylenol pm or something. We have advil, but it's a little rough on the stomach, and I'm feeling a touch on the queasy side.

Anyways, I'm sure you've enjoyed reading these tales from a total stranger. I'm going now. Really. Before my brain fries. Later!

Grad apps: One down, 7 more to go. If I can do two a week or so, I'll be in good shape.

I'm currently applying for grad school. I've had friends who've applied & such, so I knew it was going to be a lot of work.

But DAMN, it's a lot of work. I'm applying to 6 schools and 2 fellowships. For one of the fellowships, I'm asked to write 4 essays. Now, I can write okay, but I haven't written an essay since I graduated from college, about 2.5 years ago. So even a one-page essay is a lot of work for me. My plan is to write one essay a day for the next 2-3 weeks until I'm done with them all. I guess I won't be having much of a life lately.

Oh, and since this is slashdot, I should say no, it's not for computers.

Which is better when you're sick and at work:
-be medicated and deal with any side-effects from the drugs
-be sick and deal with, well, being sick.

When I got to work, I was leaning toward the former, so I took some over the counter cold medicine. Now, I'm leaning towards the latter... I'm so spaced out right now.

The ideal solution? Have employers change the rules so that any time off for being sick isn't deducted from so-called "personal leave time." That way, if I'm out sick for two days, I won't have to cut two days off any vacations I may be planning. Also, I won't be at work sick and expose my co-workers to my germs.

*sniffle* *cough* *sniffle*

Do you ever get the feeling that, you could do something great? Something incredible, something that means something, something that will help lots of people, or put your name in lights or make you rich, or at the very least give you some sort of intense feeling of satisfaction at what you've done?

Do you ever feel that you could do something really great, but you don't know what it is?

I'm at that point.

Right now, I'm about 2 years out of college, and although I have a good job in a field I like, something is lacking. I'm planning on applying to grad schools this year, but I don't know if that's what I want to do. You see, I have an urge to do something big. Like, drop everything and start my own business, or try and become respected and be able to put a roof over my head as a professional singer. But, I also want to go to grad school. I want to learn what I can in my field (btw--oceanography/environmental engineering), and then use that to go out and contribute to what we know about the world, or help people get better access to clean water, or help companies figure out good environmental strategies.

I feel like I'm capable of doing a lot of things. But I can't figure out what the best thing would be.

Call it the quarter-century crisis. Who knows, maybe I'll just do it all. =)

I just want to say, sometimes I really don't like my mother.

You see, I got married a year ago, to a guy I love and whom she doesn't. When I told her we were getting married, she started crying. And not in the good way. She then proceeded to say things like, "you're going to ruin your life" "he's going to just mooch off you" etc.

Since then, she has never tried to like him. Indeed, she puts him down every chance she gets. Like just now, she called me up, and she asked how he was doing. I mentioned he had a cold, and she said something about how "weak" my husband is, as if it's his fault he caught a cold. She also refuses to tell anyone she runs into (former teachers, parents of friends from grammar school, etc) that I am married. She has actually told me before that if I run into any of her friends while I am visiting her, I am not to tell them I'm married.

She thinks if she constantly puts the guy down in front of me, and ignores the whole issue, the marriage will get annulled or dissappear somehow and that then she can set me up with a guy she likes.

Mother - daughter relationships are complex, intense and frightening. And incredibly sad. *sigh* Right now, I wish I had a penis.

I want to go home and cry.

Two days ago, I started to get this constant, nagging pain in and around my top front right tooth. It wasn't that bad in the morning, then it got really bad at night (I woke up at 3 am to take an aleve--I had taken some advil earlier, but it must have worn off). So I wake up yesterday, and although I'm not in as much pain as the night before, I make a dentist appointment anways.

I get to the dentist's office, and the dentist feels around the tooth and gum, and I tell him what hurts. It's never comforting when the dentist says "that's not good." So then his assistant goes and brings this electrical device, which measures the nerve endings of the tooth. The metal tip of the device touches your tooth, then a small electrical current is slowly rampled up through the tip and you grunt to let the dentist know when you're in pain, at which point the dentist turns off the current.

He tests my ailing tooth, along with the two healthier teeth next to it. For the healthy teeth I grunted for him to turn off the device at around 15 (I forgot to ask what units the device measures in). For the problem tooth, the device just kept going all the way to the end, which was in the 60s .

My dentist sat me up and told me that instead of having a healthy tooth root, I have soupy mass of former nerves, and that I need a root canal. Furthermore, he mentioned I might want to also consider getting a crown for that tooth, to help strenthen it. I've had problems with that tooth for a long time--it almost got knocked out when I was 12, I ate too many lollipops during high school and had to get a filling in the back of the tooth, then a few months ago, that filling had to be taken out and replaced because the filling had gone bad and begun to ooze or something, and made corner of the tooth turn a grey color. Now, I have to get a root canal and possily a crown.

He sent me home with a prescription for penicillin and a couple vicodin pills (which may or may not be enough) and an appointment to go back in a few weeks for an hour and a half love session. He told me I can take up to 4 advils every 6 hours for the pain.

And just to add to my sob story, a few months back, another front tooth was chipped when I was grabbing a frying pan which fell from the cupboard and hit me. All things considered, I suppose a chipped tooth was better than a broken nose.

I hate having to see the dentist.

So, like many people, I work in a cube farm, a la Innitech, but not nearly that bad. The "walls" are about 5'5" high and, not being true walls, sound, smell, etc travels.

Well, most things in the office, I don't mind: lunch smells wafting, people conversing, etc. What drives me batty is when there are people talking in the next cube over, and I hear a snippet that makes me think they're talking about me or the work I do, but they're whispereing and I can't make out anything. I get so freaking nervous that I'm screwing up my job, or they're saying bad things about me behind my back (like, "that girl is always playing on the internet" or something). Now, my co-workers are all really nice, and I know if there was any problem with my work, they would let me know about it. But for some reason, I still can't shake the bad feeling... It's probably my nervous sensibilities kicking in, combined with my need to over-achieve. *Plleeeaaasee looveee meeee!* :-P

And for something completely different:
I got my iBook today! My first laptop, and my first computer since my Quantex (remember them?) with the P3 500 processor, 128 RAM and a whopping 10 gigs of memory...I think that was, oh, 5 years ago? I actually haven't touched it in a while. Anyways, I'm itching to get on home and play with it. Wheeee! =)

Does anyone else find it annoying that "what's going on?" or "how are you doing?" have become synonymous with "hello"? For example, when I'm walking down the hall at work, and I pass someone I know, I'll say hi and the person might say "how are you?" Sometimes, I repsond with "okay, and yourself?" But, sometimes, I get the feeling that they don't really want to hear an answer or start a conversation. So then, why ask the question?

Bleh.

Can I leave yet?
Can I leave yet?
Can I leave yet?
Fine. If I can't leave, can I at least take a nap?

Some people complain about Mondays. For me, Wednesdays are always the worst. The weekend was/is far away, and the lack of sleep from the two nights before combined with knowing that I'm not going to get a good night's sleep for 2 more days gets pretty grating.

Down with Wednesdays. :-P

Man, that reason magazine thing is pretty neat, albeit in a big-brotherly kind of way. How sweet would it be to have a poster up on your wall, with a satellite view of your neighborhood and your house/apartment building/residence at the center?
Reason should start selling these as wall art. It would beat out the National Geographic map with the pushpins in all the places you've ever been.

Wow, someone actually read this! Whoa! It's probably one more than the number reading my blog, eh? But then again, I suppose if I updated the thing more, I might have more readers...

Then again again, blogs are a bit overplayed. On to the newer and brighter. Or maybe it's a cyclical thing, like in fashion--the next cool thing to do is set up a pirate radio station, and say all the swear words that all the "real" radio stations are getting busted for. Sure beats the "flared" jeans that were the hip new update of bell-bottoms.

So, if I write in this thing, will anyone read it?