One Step Down

I took the written Q (qualifying) exam yesterday afternoon.  On a happy note: it’s over!  I survived; at least, I’m pretty sure I’m still alive.  On a not so happy note: I can’t remember the last time I felt that unprepared for an exam I had put that much effort into studying for.  It was not what I was expecting – much more physics than astronomy and focused on topics I had not reviewed.  In the end, it doesn’t truly matter since, thankfully, the Q is not used as a fail out in my department.

Since taking the Q I haven’t done much over the last day and a half.  We went out drinking yesterday afternoon/evening following the exam.  The night actually ended relatively early – we were tired, physically and mentally.  Today was a day of laziness.  I did some necessary tasks, such as cleaning out my old desk and office, moving all my possessions up several floors to my new office.  I haven’t put those possessions away yet – I don’t want to go overboard here or anything.  I also registered for my classes (which start tomorrow!).  This was actually quite an accomplishment as Cornell’s website for adding and dropping courses has been having extreme difficulties all day with handling the massive amounts of traffic it is receiving.

I left the office early for the CSA pickup; we’re part of a farm share and Wednesday evenings are our pickup time.  There was watermelon this week, which I’m super psyched about.  There is also u-pick flowers, which I always go a little overboard on.  It’s just so nice to have flowers around the house.  I ended up with enough flowers for six vases/beer bottles/wine bottles, which was a bit more than I intended.  I’m actually impressed by how long the flowers last – I still have a couple that are over a week and a half old.  I ended my relaxing day with a nice evening at home; time to just decompress before classes and to cut and dye my hair.  Yay for purple hair dye!  I’ve been telling myself for a couple of weeks that I could dye my hair after the Q, and I’m very happy now.

Life goes on – classes are starting and I have to think about forming my committee and scheduling my oral Q exam.  Hopefully I’ll manage to keep life reasonable this summer.  And perhaps be a bit more productive now that the summer is over and I have classes to help regiment my life.

Busy and Boring

I realize I haven’t been posting much lately.  It may be that no one has noticed, but I thought I’d explain what I’ve been up to, or, rather, what I haven’t been up to.  It’s been a rather boring summer, lacking in adventures, so I haven’t felt that I’ve had much to share.  The big news is that I’ve managed to survive moving across town.  It was a protracted move, spread out amongst some house sitting.  I’m not sure if that made things better or worse – it took longer but I never had as much to deal with at once.  Otherwise, I’ve pretty much been kept busy with work and study, and not fun things like climbing.  I’m going to be especially busy over the next week and a half as I start to study extremely hard for my Q exam – a three hour exam testing my astronomy/physics knowledge.  That’s pretty much it for me – I’ve been busy with work and leading a boring life recently.  Hopefully that’ll change eventually so that I can be busy with work and adventures.

Things I Hate

The abbreviated version

1. Going to the Dentist. It’s never a pleasant experience knowing there’s going to be a drill in your mouth and the waiting doesn’t help.  I wouldn’t mind sitting in the waiting room so much; the rules are clear there and I know I can sit and read a magazine and not have to worry about the dentist coming in any second.  Waiting in the procedure room, though, is not fun.  Especially when you’ve been given the Novacaine shot and then the dentist gets busy.  Mainly, it’s the sense that at any moment the dentist will be back so there’s no point in getting out a magazine or anything.  Ah well, I would probably hate the dentist less if I didn’t avoid going for a  couple of years in a row.
2. Moving. Fairly self explanatory.  I always swear I’ll never do it again but that’s a promise that’s meant to be broken.  Somehow, by the time I’m ready to move again, though, I always manage to forget how much I hated it the last time.  One day I’m going to live somewhere permanently and unpack knowing I’ll never have to repack. That’s going to be an awesome day.