Boring Friday

My Friday was incredibly boring. I had one class this morning (Chemistry) and unintentionally spent the rest of the day in lab. I had a meeting to test the electronic properties of one of my compounds from 1-3, and I was planning to take the rest of the afternoon off, get to the gym and relax a little. Instead, I spent the rest of the afternoon (till 6) in lab... fun fun! On the plus side I was pretty productive, which was a good thing. I'm also going into lab tomorrow to take things out of the furnace :(.

Tomorrow also needs to be a super duper productive for thesis writing. Fingers crossed for that too (I want to get a chapter written tomorrow :S).

[I think this might have been the most boring blog post in the world. Sorry about that!]

Lab

So, I realised that I talk about lab on my blog a lot and I've never put up any pictures of it. So, I thought I'd put up a few pictures so you guys know where I spend half my life! I was there this afternoon and super late tonight (till past midnight :( ). I have a super annoying 10 hour reaction that I have to run, so I end up going in late and night and then early again the next morning.

Anyway, onto pictures!

X Ray machine with my compound x-raying. We use x ray diffraction to work out what we've just made!

Furnace room. (We make all our samples by cooking them...shake and bake chemistry!)

The furnace I'm using! (We do have some fun in lab with naming the furnaces!)

Photograph of lab as a whole

My super messy lab bench (complete with the huge white column down the middle and cupboard below that won't close)

Lab coats. So attractive! Blue/grey is such an unattractive colour on me.

My "fake" notebook. I have a proper (red) lab book, but I also have this one for some unknown reason.

The desk I work at (complete with computer, phone, tea!)

The BANE of my life. I don't use this blowtorch any more, but it was the thing that made me dread going into lab last year.

In other news I got my economics grade - A-. I'm pleased with it (I would have loved an A), but I'm pleased that I got an A range grade (instead of the B+ I was worried about).

PS I have my meeting my my lab professor tomorrow (at 3). I'm super nervous about it, so wish me luck!

Internet-less Adventures

I know the title to this post sounds strange but...the internet at my college stopped working from 11am - ~8pm tonight. At first I was a little freaked out...how am I meant to survive without twitter/facebook/wikipedia/email/Friends episodes??, but after a few hours I realised that it was actually wonderful!

It's so rare that I get to be "disconnected" from the world. It happens a little at home (mostly because my UK phone doesn't receive emails), but now that I have internet in my room there it's so easy to just go on my computer.

It was relaxing not constantly getting bombarded with emails and feeling like I needed to be online working on things (but actually most likely procrastinating). And, one of the best parts of it was that no-one else had internet, so the rest of the world wasn't expecting me to be emailing them back etc. I certainly wouldn't like to never have internet/email, but it was sort of nice to be free from it for a few hours today.

In other news:

My first day of classes was fine (although there was a bit of upset when I realised that I'd started my last ever Chemistry class. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but the entire focus of my academic life for the last 12ish years has been science/Chemistry and it's sad and a bit scary to be coming to the end of that). I still haven't decided what my second class is going to be (I have to take a Chemistry class and my thesis counts as two classes, so I just need one more). I went to one today on Words and Song Lyrics that seems interesting but I'm worried that it might end up being a lot of poetry/lyrical analysis, which isn't really my thing.

I emailed my thesis advisor and set up a meeting for Thursday. I also started going through my introduction and added a new section to it (which is important, it's about how and why magnetism even exists).

My thesis is due in:

71 days (giving myself 5 days for binding at the end)

=~10 weeks = 1704 hours = 102,240 minutes = 6,134,400 seconds

I drunk a lot a lot of tea today. Which is a good thing. But also possibly a bad thing. I felt exhausted after my two hours of class today so took a looong nap (not good...I think I might be anaemic. I barely eat red meat at school and my multivitamin doesn't contain iron. Anyway, I've changed (temporarily) to one that does and I'm making a conscious effort to eat iron-rich foods - eggs, chickpeas, spinach etc). When I woke up from that I had a killer headache, which the boyfriend suggested might be from an electrolyte imbalance from drinking so much tea. Anyway, I put salt on my dinner (which I rarely do) and I'm going to stay aware of that and try to increase my salt intake, which should hopefully help.

I have a clear day tomorrow, which really means a whole day to work on my thesis. My plan is to spend the morning in my room, plowing on with the introduction (I also need to read the full thesis guide and come up with an outline/list of compounds before my Thursday meeting, so if I finish the first run through with the intro I'll move onto that). I'm planning to spend the afternoon in lab doing whatever I need to do there (and if there's not much to do there I'll go back to what I was doing in the morning! Or start writing my chapter for this week...)

How would you spend a few hours if your internet temporarily stopped working?

Tuesday

Good news! I think I might have finally worked out why I'm so tired! This morning the boyfriend told me that I'd woken him up numerous times during the night trying to get him to scoot over in bed. I realised at the beginning of this semester that I sleep much much better when I'm sleeping with him. But...for some unknown reason recently the bed keeps sliding away from the wall, so I've basically ended up sleeping in a crack, not super comfy! Anyway, we're going to see what we can do to keep the bed next to the wall/me not sleeping in a crack.

I also spent a bunch of time in lab today, which was somewhat productive. I'm getting nervous about getting my thesis done on time, so I'm going to set a goal of getting a first draft of my "Background and Significance" section done by the end of this week (Sunday). According to the guide we've been given, the background and significance section needs to include:

"Why is your work important? Briefly sketch the background to your thesis work; critically evaluate relevant existing knowledge; explain the problems and challenges in the field; and identify gaps in our present understanding that can be addressed by the thesis work. Conclude with a statement of what the thesis is about and why you believe it represents an advancement of the field. This exposition is intended to place your work into a broader scientific context, and to provide clear and logical motivation for both the general approach and the specific aims (below) of the thesis. This section may need to occupy as much as 5-6 pages, but not significantly more. "

It's going to be super general and I'm going to discuss some of the basics of magnetism.

My second goal for this week is to read at least 30 pages on the topic from the textbooks I've borrowed.

In other (food) news I found a place in town that sells bitter lemon! It's a lemonade-like drink but more bitter. I love it and they sell it at home, but I haven't managed to find any in the US.

Tonight for dinner the boyfriend and I made prawns sauteed in white wine and garlic on pasta.

It was delicious (I tried to take pictures but my camera was out of battery)!

I'm headed off to Connecticut tomorrow to visit my grandmother which I can't wait for. I should have lots of great food when I'm visiting her!

(Also, I have no idea what's happening to the font here).

Good Start to the Week

Today was a fun and somewhat productive day. I slept until 10:30 (so hard to get up when the boyfriend is still asleep!). I'm still finding that I'm oddly tired during the day, especially given how much I've been sleeping (maybe I'm sleeping too much?).

I went to lab for most of the day. I'm still stressed about the lab bench situation, but I'm just trying to make the most of it. I also started working on my thesis properly today - I realised that I'm going to have to average a page a day for the next 90ish days (until it's due - April 23rd!).

For lunch I had hummus on rye bread with sprouts (which was surprisingly good).

I've also watched loads of Friends today...I only started watching it at the beginning of January and I'm already half way through season 5 (argh! Talk about too much TV!). We also went out for chinese for dinner - not the healthiest, but it tasted good!

I also got one other piece of good news...my art grade: I got an A-!! (Which I really wasn't expecting, so I'm really pleased with that!). I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, but if I get an A in Econ (fingers crossed crossed crossed) I'll be at my year goal of getting my GPA up to 3.4. If I get an A-, I'll be at 3.39, which I will still be happy with. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, especially as I'm not sure how well the final went. An A- would also mean that I'd have one semester where I got all A's and A-'s. Anyway, that's enough on grades, I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever I get.

I'm going to spend the rest of the evening...

watching Friends

doing a few small tasks (getting off some emails mostly)

going back to lab and setting up a reaction that needs to run over night (not looking forward to that one so much!)

Anyway, that's all from me!

Last three weeks!

So, the last three weeks have been incredibly busy for me (which is also why my blog has been so neglected :( ). My college has exams after Christmas, which is a bit unusual. At first I wasn't sure about it, but it's (mostly) grown on me. It still feels a bit tough coming back from Christmas and feeling like you've forgotten everything, but I also think it's worth it not to have exams before Christmas!

Anyway, my first week and a half back was studying/writing my one super short (1000 word) optional paper. After that I had exams - I had two take homes (for psych and politics) and two in class exams (art and econ). I used to really like take homes, but now I just find them annoying (Professors really only assign a take home final if they want you to spend more than three hours on it). Regardless, my two take homes went fine and my two in class ones went okay, but not great.

I've also gotten back two of my grades (in psych and politics) and I'm really pleased with them: I got 2 A's :D. My first two years were academically and socially challenging, so my GPA hasn't been too happy since then. I'd love to graduate with a 3.4, which means that I need a 3.7 average this year, so I'm now well on my way to that!

In other grade news, the boyfriend got an A- in politics (his major!). He's struggled much much more than I have with grades, and has only ever got 1 A and 1A-, so this is a big deal for him! I'm so proud :D.

We have a week off between semesters, but I'm staying at school to work on my thesis (as is the boyfriend, which is nice). I went into lab yesterday and apparently my lab bench is no longer mine. In my lab there are good benches and bad benches, and after having a bad one for 6 months I got a good one over the summer, which I've had since then. However, we have a new grad student in lab ( who is technically senior to me) and apparently my boss (Professor) just decided to move all my stuff and give him my bench. It does sort of make sense (he is more senior than me, and I'll only be in lab for another 3 months), but still! I was really hurt that no-one told me and it made me feel very undervalued. After talking to my best friend about it yesterday I've decided that I'm just going to work really really hard on the thesis and hope it all turns out okay.

In better news, having a week with the boyfriend is bliss! For the last two evenings we've cooked - we made chili con carne and rice on Friday and a asian chicken stir fry last night, both of which have been very yummy! We also made it to the gym yesterday, and I did his biceps/triceps workout with him, which was seriously tough! (And I'm feeling it today!). Anyway, hopefully the rest of the week will be filled with those kinds of things instead of lab bench stealing type things!

Driving Test!

I know I haven't blogged in a while :S. I need to get back on that!

Anyway, I've had a UK driving license for over three years. I found out that all I need to do to get a US driving license is to do my states written test, so no road test! I've been putting it off for ages. For some reason my state has a really tough written test - you need to know things like the penalty if you're caught drink driving for the second time, how snow and ice affect trucks vs cars, the driving restrictions you're under if you get your licenses at various ages. Basically, its actually pretty tough. Anyway, the really good news is that I passed! And I now have an American driving license, in addition to my UK one!

This is my last week in lab. I'm not sure how I feel about it. In one way, I can't wait to finish and see my family and be on holiday again. On the other hand, I have sort of enjoyed my summer in lab, and I've enjoyed getting to spend time at school not working all the time.

I'm going to see The Help tonight, I'm excited! I'll let you know how it is!

Nickel Oxide

So, in lab yesterday I had to work with a particular type of Nickel Oxide, NiO2. Across the bottle it says: "Warning: May Cause Nose and Lung Cancer". I looked the stuff up, because I needed to find out some of its other properties and came across the fact that in addition to this it can suppress your immune system. Anyway, me being me, I got out my mask when I was handling it (the mask goes over your mouth and nose and is meant to keep some of the chemical out of your airways. I got it when I was handling the lead). A couple of other people in my lab asked what I was working with (people are always interested when you're wearing a mask), so I of course told them and this whole big discussion about it started. Most people thought I was being ridiculous and overly sensitive, but I kind of figured, Why not wear the mask? What harm is it doing?. Someone told me that if I was so worried about the Nickel Oxide I should take a look at the contents of my shampoo.

Anyway, that got me thinking about what a stupid idea that was. If there is bad stuff in my shampoo, that should make me even less enthusiastic to be exposed to it from other sources. It's like saying, I'm on a diet, I had a piece of cake at a friends birthday party so now I'm just going to scrap the whole diet idea.

The other thing that I continue to find stupid about this whole thing is that people will say things like "I've been working with the stuff for 3 years, and I'm fine.". With the vast majority of these chemicals I'm not worried about what it will do to me today, tomorrow, next month or in the next ten years. I'm worried about when I'm 50, 60, 70. Most of these things accumulate in your body and take time to disrupt your cellular functioning, so you wouldn't expect to see problems so quickly.

Anyway, end of rant!

Busy Week

Surprisingly, my week has been super busy.

I've been getting up fairly early (7:30 ish) and trying to get to lab before 8:30. I spend alllll day in lab (apart from a lunch break) and then get back between 5:30 and 6. At 7ish, I go to the gym (I've been surprisingly good about going) and when I get back from that I shower and end up starting cooking dinner at 8:45 or 9. By the time I've eaten it's almost time for bed. I've been trying to get to bed earlier, by 11:30 or 12.

I wrote another post about this, and then ended up never posting it, but I actually really like being awake early. It's good to get to lab before everyone else, because it means its easier to get time on the machines I need to use and it's also just generally less crowded. During the school year I never get up early, so this is a bit of a change for me! (I was an early bird at home though!).

I've managed to get to the gym a fair amount recently, which is really good.

I stopped using the nuvaring over the summer (the boyfriend and I agree that there's no point - it's expensive, it's not great for me and because we only use it for birth control, there's no point in using it if we're not together), so I've been slightly anxiously waiting for my period. (When you stop using birth control you have no idea when you're going to get it. For me it also tends to be a bit weird/different when I do get it.). Anyway, I know that no-one really wants to know this, but I've finally got it and it's not fun. (Which is surprising, because normally on or off bc I don't have any problems). I have really bad tummy cramps, which means that I've had to scale back my gym time this week and I've just generally been feeling a bit rotten. Anyway, I got medicine for it so if they start to get bad again I'll just take that!

I'm back...

[This is a looooong post! Feel free to skip bits]

So, as I said in my last post I've been really busy recently. I got back to the US on Monday evening and started lab work on Tuesday. My (super awesome!) best friend, who is also my roommate this summer, moved all my things into my room, but I still had to arrange/unpack everything when I got back.

The plane flight back to the US was kinda stressful - it was delayed by over an hour because of technical difficulty (not exactly a relaxing thing to hear if you already hate flying!) and pretty much every seat on it was taken, which also ups the stress of flying!

Lab
I started lab work on Tuesday, so didn't have a huge amount of time to relax. It was all going fine until my parents decided they didn't like me working on the project I was working on (and I agreed with them). I know that sounds totally ridiculous and like my parents are being way too interfering with my life, but the reason they stepped in is that my project had me working with lead oxide, which is pretty nasty stuff. Lead is a heavy metal which means that once it gets into your body it stays there and you can't (really) get it out. Excess heavy metals in the body have been linked to things like cancer and dementia, so it's sort of serious. Lead oxide is also worse for you than plain old lead, because lead oxide is a fine powder which "poofs" whenever you touch it or move it. [I was wearing a mask whenever I was using it, but of course none of that stuff is 100% effective]. I'm also especially worried because I like in an old English house, which means that the water in my house probably goes through lead pipes. As lead doesn't leave the body, it's entirely possible that I already have a higher lead concentration in my body than someone my age should have.
I talked to my supervisor about it and to say the least he wasn't overly pleased. To be honest I don't really blame him: he thinks its safe and the rest of the people in my lab all handle the stuff occasionally. I'm also the only undergraduate who has changed projects at all, and now I'm going to be changing my project twice. (He's also grading my thesis and is meant to be writing me a letter of recommendation for law school, so I don't really want to make him dislike me...).
Anyway, that whole thing was a bit tough to deal with - I felt caught between him and my parents. I am probably more health conscious than most people in my lab as well, so a lot of other people in my lab thought I was being ridiculous and paranoid. Regardless, the situation is hopefully somewhat resolved now. I'm going to be getting a new project on Monday and I'm just going to have to try really hard to impress my supervisor!

Roomates
My living arrangement for this summer is a three bedroom triple, which means that each of us has our own bedroom. I'm living with my best friend (fingers crossed that that doesn't mess up our friendship, I'm sure it won't) and another girl (Diza), who we're sort of friends with (we needed a third person to fill the triple). Anyway, this other girl is driving me nuts, and I've only lived with her for three days. She's incredibly needy and is an over protected only child. She will literally stand outside my locked bedroom door and talk at me. She insists on doing things like coming into my room and turning on my laptop so that I can hear a song she wants me to hear. She followed me into the bathroom yesterday so she could finish telling me about some inane thing. I don't want to be mean, and I do feel a little sympathetic (I think she's pretty lonely), but seriously! I need some personal space.
The other issue is that she doesn't get me. She's fairly different to me and has no sense of independence. She insists on coming to the gym with me (the gym is kinda my alone space) and she will talk and talk at me when I'm lifting proper weights (so I need to focus). She also refuses to push herself at all - she was lifting 5 lb weights, complaining that they were too light, but refusing to lift more in case she hurts herself. She also complains and complains and complains about how much she's hurting from the gym, which drives me nuts!
She's also working in a lab (not my lab, thank god! Lab is the only time she's not there chattering at me.) and everyone in her lab was sent an online quiz that was meant to determine how empathetic you are and how good you are with other people, reading other people's emotions even when they're hidden etc. She scored 16 or so, if you score below 20 that's a possible sign of autism (because you're that unaware about what other people are thinking/feeling). I scored 72ish (I'm a fairly empathetic person, even if it doesn't seem if from this rant), so clearly it's possible to do "well" on this thing.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, she's just driving me absolutely insane. I know it's not her fault, but she has zilch conception of public space and alone time.

The Boy
I miss him. A lot. It probably doesn't help my mood!

Food/Gym
My food has been okay, but not great. I need to go back to recording my food more. I have been doing okay at the whole high fiber options thing, but I still think I could push it further. Basically, my meals are good and generally very healthy but I eat too much crap and sugar between meals (marshmallows and chocolate), which is really bad (and I just measured my blood sugar - 144 - also really bad).
Tomorrow I am not going to eat chocolate, marshmallows or other candy.
In other food news its really tough to go shopping at school. There are no supermarkets near by. I'm going to try a grocery delivery service, and I've scheduled the delivery for Sunday, so fingers crossed for that!
With regards to exercise, I've been doing okay, but it's a real pain to have to go with this other girl all the time. I find it harder to exercise with her yapping in my ear. I did go swimming (alone) yesterday though, which felt fantastic. I haven't been swimming in ages (despite the fact that I'm meant to go to increase my oxygen transport ability - more on that at some other time).
My heart rate monitor also arrived! I've only used it once so far, but I got a really good workout with it. A few months ago I went to an exercise physiologist who did various tests on me and was able to determine my own max heart rate etc (and that my limitation is the rate at which I can transport oxygen/carbon dioxide from my lungs to my blood). Anyway, what he suggested (for me, this isn't universal) is to get my heart rate to 190+ for two minutes and then come down to 160ish for 2-3 minutes. I tried it on the rotex on Wednesday and it was really good!
I've also decided that I'm going to try to...swim twice a week, do gym-based cardio two or three times a week and lift weights twice a week (and have one rest day!).

Mental Health/Personal Development
I've gotten bad about doing my breathing every night, so I need to get back to doing that. HeartMath, the company I purchased it from, runs various webinars, so I've signed up for one of those on "Better Communication". I'm hoping it'll be interesting.

Resolutions
I'm doing okay with the resolutions. I've been fairly good at wearing sunscreen which is of course a good thing. I've gotten worse about doing my "old" things like taking vitamins and psyllium, so I need to get back to doing those kinds of things.

Tour Guiding
I have my first tour tomorrow! I'm not an official tour guide yet (the tour tomorrow is a practice tour to see if I'm up to scratch!). I'm a bit nervous about it, but fingers crossed! I'm going to spend part of tonight thinking about what I need/want to say! 

Ahh! This was a realllly long post! Sorry about that. Just had a lot I needed to write about!

Summer Money Issues

I get paid ($450/week) for working in my lab over the summer. As you all know, I was hoping I'd be able to lead some tours as well, mostly for my own personal development. However, I've found out that I'm going to get paid for that as well, and there lies the problem... . I'm already working in my lab for forty hours, so any work I do outside that means that I'd be working overtime. The way it apparently works is that my lab and the tour guide people split the cost of the overtime. The tour guide people are happy with it, but my supervisor isn't and I feel a bit bad about it because he was there first as it were. Also, of course, my first priority this summer is to work in lab.

I'm not hugely concerned about the money/overtime, but still. My professor has offered to reduce my work-week in lab to 38 hours, but I don't really like that idea. Firstly, I think it makes it seem like I'm slacking off a bit (even though I'll actually be working for way more than 38 hours/week). Secondly, each tour is one hour and fifteen minutes, so that actually means that I'd only be able to do one tour and I'd be getting paid less overall (lab pays $11.25/hour apparently). Not a huge difference, but probably $100 or so over the summer.

I'm in touch with the tour guiding people trying to see if it's possible for me to do that on a volunteer basis or not be paid the overtime so fingers crossed for that! I'm just frustrated by this whole thing because it is my thing to sort out, but I feel like I'm hitting dead ends everywhere, I don't really care about getting paid for the tour guiding thing (obviously that would be nice, but that's not why I'm doing it and the pay isn't that incredible) and the whole getting paid aspect is appearing to add a lot of difficulty! Anyway, fingers crossed for being able to do the tour guiding thing on a volunteer basis!

Urgh

Today was...not a good day. Nothing super terrible happened, but a combination of exam stress, housing stress and being sad that the school year is almost over doesn't make for a great day.

Exam stress is pretty self-explanatory. I probably should've started studying earlier, but like usual, I didn't. I do have a good study plan worked out, and should be able to get everything done, but everything's just taking a lot longer than I'd like. I also have the last exam (Friday) out of everyone in my friendship group. It's not the end of the world, but they're all planning end of exams celebrations which I can't go to :(.

Housing stress.... I'm staying at college over the summer and I get a room through the University. I have a really nice room (with my best friend and another girl who I know will drive me crazy :S. We have three connected singles though, so it shouldn't be too bad). Anyway, between the time I leave my current room and move into my new room is the problem (it's about a week, during Reunions). I also have University housing for those 7 days, but...the University tries to keep you either in your school-year room or your summer room, but I'm going to be moved to another random room (not my school year room and not my summer room). This is super annoying for a few reasons - more moving of all my stuff and the fact that the boyfriend (who is going to be staying with me, even though he's technically not meant to be here) is going to cause problems, because I've been put in a double room with another girl, who most likely won't want him also sleeping in there. He probably can stay with some of our other (guy) friends (including the "other guy"), but we were really hoping for some time together, which we're not really going to get so much now. Plus, I now have to move my stuff from my "interim" room to my summer room...when I'm at home. In the UK. For various complicated reasons, the housing office thinks I'm here then (you can't take time off in the middle of your summer contract), so I doubt they're going to be very helpful. At the moment, I think I'm going to have to ask my summer roommates to move my stuff, but I feel really bad about doing that (I have a lot of stuff!).

And about the school year being nearly over - I'm adverse to change. I pretty much don't ever like anything ending. I used to cry every birthday and New Years Eve, because I didn't want that year of my life to end...

Anyway, I'm trying to be positive. I know everything will work out okay, it's just a little bit stressful at the moment! (And I hope that was coherent. I just had to get it out!)

General Life Update

Lab Paper
I'm done with the lab paper! Which is great, I'm pretty nervous about my grade on it though. A large part of the grade comes from how well your professor thinks you do in lab, and mine seems to think I'm never there (because I go at strange times when he's not there - he doesn't actually work in the lab).

Lent
I guess I never explained what I gave up for lent - I'm not really religious, but in the UK (or at least where I'm from in the UK) Lent is a pretty big cultural thing. For the last last three years (2009, 2010, 2011), the boyfriend and I have given up desserts and juice. This year we also gave up alcohol (not that we drink that much anyway). Anyway, Lent obviously ended a few weeks ago, and I've had a tough time not binging on sweets and licorice and dessert. The sad thing is that I don't really even enjoy them all that much, just because I never feel great after I've eaten a lot of sugar. Anyway, over the next few days I'm going to make a big effort with making more conscious, aware food choices. I'm hoping that that will help mindless eating of crummy food.


Exercise
Guess who still hasn't been to the gym this month? Or last month? Or probably the month before? Argh. I really need to get onto that and stop making excuses!


Nuvaring
Seems to be okay - I was feeling a little depressed over the weekend, and I don't know if that was because of the whole "other guy" thing or if it was the new hormones or if it was a combination of the new hormones and not taking my B6 (vitamin). The stupid thing is that its making me scared to engage physically with the boy, just because he was poking around a bit a few days ago and it hurt :(


Other Guy
So, during formals weekend one of my friends announced, in front of a few of our female friends and my boyfriend, "[Other guy] is especially nice to Jinx because he wants to f**k her". It was in the context of a conversation about how he's drifting out of our friendship group a bit, so it wasn't at all meant to be taken as "that's the only reason he's nice to you", more just that he had a huge thing for me, so he was nice to me and not other people. Anyway, the whole thing was just really awkward and threw me a lot. I am feeling a bit better after talking to one of my close friends at home though - other guy is wonderful, but we aren't compatible in the long term, unlike the current boyfriend and me!

Lab Paper

I'm not sure if it was clear, but the reason I spend so much time in lab is that I have a huge paper (due tomorrow!) on what I'm doing in lab. I'm going to be writing a thesis next year, so I have to do a "practice" thesis this year. It's much shorter than my actual thesis - at the moment my paper's looking like it'll be about 30 pages, including all my graphs and other data.

I went into lab for a little bit today to collect some final data. To be honest, it all seemed like a bit of a crisis, because my supervisor had promised to do something for me and hadn't, so I still don't have all the data I really need. I tried to stay calm - for the most part this kind of stuff ends up working out okay. And it did! Kind of...I can justify everything in my report (and not in my report), and I'm feeling a little better about it...tonight might be a long night though! I'll keep you updated on how it goes!

Busy Day!

Today was...an interesting day.

Lab this morning was...urgh (I told you you'd be hearing about it!). I just keep messing something up again and again, which is getting a bit annoying at this point. I also felt pretty tired for some reason :S.

I also weighed 129.8 lbs this morning, which is also not good. The boyfriend is having his 21st birthday party in June, and it'll be the first time I'll meet all his friends - so I want to look good! I know 129.8 isn't bad, but I'm kinda short (5'5"), and its an increase since I started college (when I was 122 lbs). Ideally, I'd like my weight to be between 123 and 126. You'd think after being bummed about my weight I'd watch what I ate, but that didn't happen at all. I dread to think what's going to happen on the scale tomorrow :S. I snacked and snacked, and had a high cal dinner out at a restaurant (some distant family came for a surprise visit - their son is looking at colleges now, hence the visit). Maybe tomorrow will be better, every day is a new day I guess.  That said, tomorrow is my friend (ex's) birthday, so we're all going out to dinner. I did, however, manage to take my vitamins and psyllium today (psyllium husks/powder are basically pure fiber, so they help with gut health. I eat such a low fiber diet at college, so seems like a good idea to take them!).

I also have a kinda bad tendency to always try to help people. Both my best friend at home and the boyfriend have been trying to get me to help them with various things (boyfriend/depression issues and homework respectively). I love them both and love helping them, but it does meant that I've barely got any of my own work done, and that I'm not going to get a proper night sleep, which isn't great!

Anyway, on that note, bed time!