Tuesday 9 November 2010

29 and counting

Officially my last week of being 29, holy crap. I wanted to do something awesome for my birthday (like get out of Guelph, for example) but unfortunately there's no time and money must be saved for my practicum*. Reggie has been hinting that she has something planned, which is awesome because true to form I have not planned a thing. I really wish I could spend the day with people who actually care about me (of which there are exactly zero in Guelph - luckily I'm importing Reggie, who moved to TO) but hopefully I'll have fun anyway and at least will get to see a huge amount of awesome people over Christmas and New Years.

Darn, though... if there was ever an excuse for a massive party or some kind of epic roadtrip... I just wish the timing had worked out! November birthdays are not ideal.

*Doing a practicum at Yale Jan - June, which should be pretty awesome, if perhaps insanely difficult. But exciting! Need I also point out, it's not Guelph...

Monday 8 November 2010

busy!

Handed in my qualifying exam! So relieved. Sadly, I still have to do the oral defense, but I am very happy to be rid of the thing for now. I will have to do the defense sometime before Dec 10, so fingers crossed it goes well...

(The written component was a 10-page, five-year NSERC grant application: five years worth of experiments that are in my field but far enough from both my research and my supervisor's to be considered a unique line of research).

So this semester has been insane. Super intense. I've barely been keeping it together - I agreed to do an extra half-TA to try and save up some money for my practicum, but it's a lot of extra work (it's a stats lab, so lots of prep time and marking, plus the kids are constantly freaking out about something and emailing me). I've also been trying to get the qualifying exam done, of course, and have been auditing a Multiple Regression stats course as well. It's a subject I probably ought to know more about, but I don't need the credit so auditing seemed like a good idea... Also I'm supposed to be learning fMRI analysis, which has been stressful beyond words, and of course collect my data and do some writing to try and get some publications in. It's all important but I'm starting to flag a little.

But anyway, got a birthday next week (not that I've had time to think about it) and it's only five more weeks till I escape for Christmas, so I will just have to step it up and try to get everything done by then.

But! The written exam is handed in, so hooray!