Saturday, January 29, 2011

Nausea

Maybe TMI, but I just threw up my lunch. Why didn't I know that birth control makes you nauseated? I have never experienced this before, but I haven't been on the pill for over 2 years. Now all of a sudden I'm back on it, and I have felt queasy for days. I guess it makes sense, because the pill just tricks your body into thinking it's pregnant. So, basically I'm getting morning sickness. I keep thinking that if this is what morning sickness feels like, then I don't want to get pregnant ever! I hate nausea. It's the worst. Why does contraception have to be so difficult? The IUD I had for 2 years was extremely painful for the first day, and made me break out. Or at least that's my assumption. So I got rid of it hoping that would make my skin clear up. I didn't think it was a big deal. So I have to take a pill every day. I did not realize it would make me throw up! I missed class on Thursday because I was queasy, and now today. There were so many things I wanted to do on my Saturday, but now all I want to do is lay on the couch. Which actually makes it worse because all I'm thinking about is my stomach. I wonder how many more days I have to feel like this? You'd think with modern medicine we could come up with birth control that doesn't make you feel sick! I'm a little irritated. Obviously.

Homework

My test went AWESOME! 89 percent, which in a science class is almost certainly an A! It's been a while since I've scored that high on a test, in a science class at least. I didn't even study all that much for it. Yay!

But my other classes aren't going quite so well. Of course it's that same old chemistry class. I have to start writing my paper this weekend. I hate writing. Hate hate HATE writing! I guess scientific writing isn't quite as bad as English writing, but it's still writing. And I have about a hundred journal articles to sift through and cite. That's probably going to be the hard part. The formatting of this paper is extremely specific. We have to write it as if we were submitting it to the Journal of Biochemistry. Every margin, every font size, the title and authors, every reference has a specific rule. As my professor kindly informed us, "if one period is out of place, it's going in the garbage!" Thanks, Dr. Verl. That's really encouraging and motivating. Ha.

Well I'm going to attempt to start on this. It's due on Tuesday, so I'm going to work on it a little bit at a time. And in between, maybe a walk with Jackson since it's absolutely gorgeous outside (over 60 degrees yesterday, and 55 today!) and I think a trip to the mall might help too.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Studying for my first Biochem Midterm

I just memorized the structures of D-glucose, D-galactose, D-fructose, D-glyceraldehyde, D-ribose, and D-arabinose in less than 30 minutes thanks to my amazing genius husband-to-be! He has a real gift for coming up with memorization tricks. I can't tell you how many tests I have come to a question and I remember some crazy trick Daniel taught me while he was helping me study. What's really touching to me is that memorizing the structures of sugars is just about the most boring thing you could do and he voluntarily helps me when he can barely pronounce them. What a sweetie :-)

This weekend was everything I needed it to be. I did my homework and still had plenty of time to sleep in, bake some cupcakes, make a delicious dinner of Spanish tapas, and play with my puppy. And of course I did some chores and cleaning. But the point is that it was relaxing and refreshing. I even got around to calling my grandparents, finally. I don't think I've ever gone over 3 weeks without talking to them. I felt so bad about it, but at least I finally called. I really needed a dose of Grandpa's encouragement. Especially because my Dad has been really difficult lately. I just don't have enough energy left at the end of the day to care about anybody else's feelings. That may sound selfish, but it's the truth. My classes are so difficult that I am physically, emotionally, cognitively drained. And I can't have one more thing to worry about. So if my Dad wants to be mad at me, he can go on being mad. Luckily my sister and my mom (and my grandparents) understand that this term is very difficult and they have all told me that I shouldn't worry about it, and just focus on school. That's such a relief because right now it's hard enough to keep up with me and Daniel's relationship.

Work was particularly exciting last week because I did my first live surgery! I anesthetized a mouse, cut open its neck, and inserted a cannula. The mouse completely survived and the surgery was absolutely successful. It was just practice, so I sacrificed it right after. But if it was a real experiment, I would have done everything perfectly. It was so exciting. When I was doing it, I was thinking that this is the closest I have ever come to doing surgery. I even learned how to tie a suture! So cool.

Well I'm going to see if I can't memorize a few disaccharides before bed. Good night!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Daydreaming

Well, I was right. This quarter has been a nightmare, and it's only the third week. How are we going to survive? Daniel and I are both so incredibly stressed out we almost strangled each other last night. Well, not literally. But you know what I mean. We were both so exhausted that we turned on each other. It's so easy for us to take out our frustration and exhaustion on each other. I think that will be a constant battle this quarter for us both. Luckily, today we got some unexpected time to spend together. I went into work, and none of my supervisors were there, so I left :-) I knew they wouldn't care and I got the little bit of work done that I needed to. So Daniel picked me up and we ran a bunch of errands together. That may not sound like a happy surprise, but it definitely was for us. We have been going to bed at different times, waking up at different times, and barely seeing each other in between. So for us to get 2 or 3 good hours together was amazing. We had a great time. But now it's back to school, and back to stress. Daniel's classes are really hard and he can barely keep up between work. I try to help him any way I can (making dinner, doing laundry, grocery shopping) but he still can't seem to keep up. I hope it gets better. I am able to keep up with my classes, but just barely. I'm so happy I have only one class with actual tests this quarter. That means I have a lot of classes with papers/projects/group meetings. In some ways, those are worse than tests. I have met with my group for 2 hours 2-3 times a week so far. On the plus side, I'm really getting to know them very well. We have made huge progress, but not enough. Every time we meet with our professor we take two steps forward and one step back. I'm trying to stay optimistic. It helps that my group members are very positive, hard working, and motivated. We work so well together. I've heard complaining from my classmates about group members who don't show up and don't do what they are supposed to. Thank goodness that's not me!

The other big thing on my mind lately is.... the wedding! I told myself I wasn't going to do anymore wedding planning during school, but let's face it. Right now that's just about the only thing I have to look forward to. There's nothing I'd rather daydream about in class. So in between homework and classes I have been shopping! I think I found a really nice set of flower girl baskets and ring pillow for very inexpensive. And I have a loooong list of things I want to get done over spring break. It will be a busy week! Oh, it's March 14-20 for those of you involved ;-) I will be meeting with the florist, getting my first dress fitting, shopping for undergarments shoes and jewelry, approving the bridesmaid dresses, picking the flower girl dresses, ordering Save the Dates, and anything else I can do without Daniel. Daniel can only come for the weekend, so when he gets there we will taste the food, meet with the bakery, meet with the venue, hopefully meet with our officiant, pick a DJ, pick a brass quintet and jazz combo, pick the music for both groups to play, and a million bajillion other things! I have no idea when I will be able to make it back to Phoenix again so I need to get as much done as possible. Which reminds me of a dilemma that maybe some of you readers can help me with. We will be having a wedding shower and receiving wedding gifts. How in the world are we going to get all of those back to Denver? It's going to be quite a problem. A happy problem, of course!

It's snowing outside and I'm in this study hall with huge picture windows. It's so pretty when it's dark and snowing. The snowflakes just light up and the snow on the ground sparkles like diamonds. Too bad it has to be so cold!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Nightmare Chemistry Project

This has been a rough day. This morning I was really busy at work, and then I went to school and it got way worse. My chemistry project is going to be so much harder than I thought. Our professor ended class way early, after only about 40 minutes. So I was thinking I was going to have lots of free time. It didn't really turn out that way. Our group used the time to get together and plan our experiment. We have to present a detailed plan to our professor tomorrow morning at 9:30am. After about 90 minutes, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do, but we had a few holes to fill in. So we went to Dr. Verl's office and asked him a few questions. It turns out we had maybe 20 percent of our project figured out. Between this evening and tomorrow morning, we had to do a ton more research. We found a patent with very clear instructions on how to make the reverse osmosis membrane that is the main part of our project. But our professor wants to know WHY. We have to explain why we are using each reagent, why in that order, what temperature, how much, how long... it goes on and on. He asked us questions today and we all kind of stared into space in silence. We had no idea how much more research we needed to do. So we left about an hour later with our brains completely fried and a long list of questions to research by tomorrow morning. So, it's 9:30pm and I'm still at school. And our group is meeting at 9am tomorrow morning to discuss what we are going to tell our professor at 9:30am. Less than 12 hours away. I will be so ready for this weekend. The good news is that I got incredibly lucky with my group members. Every single one of us is pulling our slack. Everybody is committed, everybody is doing their research, everybody shows up to meetings with information to contribute. I know that's not the case with other groups because I have heard friends complain.

This quarter is going to be really hard, and not just because of that nightmare chemistry project. The way Daniel's schedule is, we hardly ever see each other. He has class in the evenings and works during the day. I have class and work during the day, and most evenings off. So although we have committed to eating dinner together every night, it's usually cook, eat, and run. We never go to bed at the same time, and we never wake up at the same time. In fact, usually one of us is already out the door before the other one is out of bed. So we see each other in passing, during meals, and on the drive home. But we don't get to spend any meaningful time together. Normally the weekend was our time to catch up, but Daniel is working on Saturday. At least we have the Martin Luther King Day holiday to spend together. I thought Daniel was going to go skiing, but it looks like he is going to be teaching a lesson that day. Maybe we'll go out on a date or something. From past experience, I know that as the quarter goes on it will only get more busy. I'm already counting down: 8 weeks until the end of the quarter. And then 10 weeks until I GRADUATE!! And then two more years until we can have a baby! Maybe it's a little early to start counting down for that.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

School Lessons

The weekend was fantastic! But now it's back to life as usual. My classes are getting harder and harder as we go. That's how it always is. I'm trying to learn from my experiences and catch up now while it's not so overwhelming. In the past, I have always thought that the material doesn't make sense right now, but as we go deeper I'll figure it out. And that never ever happens. I just get more stressed out and then I end up spending the last week before the test trying to go back to 3 weeks ago and figure out what I never learned in the first place. So- lesson learned. Today is the second day of week 2. That means in my only lecture course, I have had 4 lectures so far. That's four hours of material. And it took me about an hour to go through the powerpoints, with my textbook open, and figure out the material. Just an hour, and I feel so much less stressed. There are so many things I wish I knew when I started college! Like, you should always ALWAYS read the textbook. Even if it seems like a waste of time because the professor is lecturing on the same material. Even if you would rather go out with friends. Even if you think you know the material already. And you should NEVER cram the night before a test. It doesn't work. You should start at least one week before the test, and go back and study a little bit at a time. I know that personally, I cannot concentrate on one class for more than 2 hours.

I'm getting kicked out of this study hall. So now it's time to go home and cook dinner!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Why I Love Colorado

Today we drove up to the mountains. Daniel's dad and brother are here to ski for the weekend at Breckenridge. Every time I drive to the Rocky Mountains I am reminded why I love living here. On a beautiful clear day like today, the mountains are gorgeous. They're covered in snow from our big storm last weekend. I feel so lucky to live in a city like Denver. The climate is very mild in the city. When it snows, it immediately begins to melt. Even in the middle of winter, we get days of 50 degree weather. And in the summer, most of the time it's in the 70s and 80s. Within 2 hours of our home there are over 5 ski resorts. We have these beautiful mountains that people come to from all over the world. We get to drive a couple of hours and enjoy a day in a mountain town. Even though I don't enjoy skiing, I get to sit by the fire with a hot chocolate and my kindle. There's even places where you can go snow tubing, and a frozen lake with a driving course so you can slide around on purpose! In the summer, these mountains offer beautiful hiking, rock climbing, fishing, white water rafting, and horseback riding. There are so many great places to visit- Silverthorne has a great outlet mall, Boulder is a great hippie town, Golden has the Coors brewery, Vail is an upscale ski resort, Fort Collins is a fun college town, and Colorado Springs has the Garden of the Gods. Any time of year you can get into your car and just drive. In the summer you can see the wildflowers and elk, in the fall you can see the golden aspens and hear the elk bugle, in the spring you can see the bighorn sheep, and in the winter of course is the snow-covered peaks, and the falling snowflakes. I love it here. The whole state is young, active, eco-conscious, and healthy. I want to stay here forever.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Still in Week One

I'm 2/3 through my first week of school, and I'm already lost in one class. My biochemistry class right now is a total mystery. The professor moves through the material so quickly, we got out 10 minutes early. When I try to read the textbook I can't get through one paragraph without my mind wandering because it's so boring! We're learning about all different types of sugars- sucrose, glucose, fructose, galactose, cellulose...... it goes on and on. They all look the same. I have no idea how I'm going to ever memorize the structures. And just as I predicted, the professor mispronouncing words is driving me crazy. It really takes away a lot of your credibility when you pronounce words wrong.

Chemistry Frontiers, however, is going pretty good so far. Our first class was yesterday. I discovered that the 3 hours twice a week that is scheduled is only a small fraction of the class. Those days are lectures given by different members of the Chemistry department. Outside of that we have to meet with our group of 5 and perform experiments and write reports and do research. The professor in charge of this class, Dr. Verl, is a nightmare. He told us multiple times that we better not B.S. because he will know. We better know what we're talking about before we come to him with a question or turn in a report. And not just on the surface- we better know everything in depth. He also told us that protocols are for idiots and we better not come to him saying we read something in a protocol (a protocol is directions- like a recipe you use when you're baking). He says that real scientists use their brains and come up with their own method based on knowledge- not on someone else's work. That is a bunch of crap. I work in a real research lab, and we use protocols every single day. In fact, we have had meetings in which the major topic of discussion is that you better read the protocol and use the protocol because that's how we make sure everything we do is standardized and can be repeated. If every scientist came up with their own method from scratch, we wouldn't make any progress. So I wanted to tell Dr. Verl that what he is telling us is B.S. But I didn't. He assigned our groups and our project. My project involves synthesizing a filter (the kind used in reverse osmosis to purify water) and figuring out how to manipulate the pore size based on reaction conditions. Seems simple enough. I've already started to do research and there's a lot of stuff out there. I've heard from everyone that this class is terribly hard. It's extremely time consuming, the professor is just plain mean and rips your report to pieces, and nobody finishes their project in time. But I don't care. I'll get through it, just like every chemistry and biochemistry major did before me.

I have begun to practice my piano piece and I'm afraid I may be in over my head. Debussy is very difficult to play well. And this piece has a lot of triplets in one hand with eighth notes in the other. It's so hard to play those right. It's nice to have some motivation to play again. I think Daniel enjoys listening to me practice too. What a reversal- Daniel isn't taking any music classes this quarter, and I am! He doesn't have to practice at all, and I do. Weird.

It's my last Week One of Winter Quarter ever. I hope I can push through until the end and stay focused.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Back to School

I'm back on campus today and it feels surprisingly weird. I think this is the point during senior year when you start to transition out of student mode. It happened much earlier in high school, so I was starting to worry it would never happen. I was afraid I would graduate and have to be pulled kicking and screaming off of campus. But being back here after working full time for 3 weeks, and being on vacation for 2 weeks, feels different. I feel just a tiny bit like I don't belong. Like I'm too old. It's a good thing. As long as it doesn't erode my motivation and work ethic.

I've had one class this morning, and it went well. This professor tends to mispronounce things which I'm sure will drive me insane. I heard that this quarter isn't as hard as last quarter. I'm doubting that because the citric acid cycle, and gluconeogenesis, and all that metabolism stuff is on the syllabus. But the good news is that one of our midterms is dropped. That's always encouraging. I'm sure it will be the midterm over metabolism for me.

I also spent this morning running around trying to figure out what I'm going to do about tomorrow. When we got home Friday night, I discovered a jury summons in the giant stack of mail. I'm scheduled to appear tomorrow. I was planning on working in the morning, and then driving to campus for my afternoon class. That class, Chemistry Frontiers, is going to be my hardest class of my college career. The professor is scary, and he gave me my only C so far (notice I wrote "so far"- this could be my second). So I emailed that professor and explained the circumstances. He asked me to come to his office today to discuss our options. In his office, his told me the whole process of being selected and basically told me that the chances of me being selected were very slim. But, I need to be prepared anyways. So if I can't get back to campus by 2pm he will fill me in on Wednesday. It's a very important class since he'll be assigning groups and projects for the entire rest of the quarter. I really don't want to miss it. If I do get selected, he suggested I have a note from the chair of the Chemistry Department. The note would explain that I'm a senior, and I need this class to graduate on time, and it's only offered this time, etc. So I walked over to Dr. Hornback's office and he printed me a note on letterhead and signed it. I also emailed my supervisor at work and told her I couldn't be there tomorrow morning. So I've done everything I can, now I have to leave it up to the government. What a comforting thought.

This afternoon is my first piano lesson in 3 years. I brought my favorite and probably the most difficult piece I've ever learned- Clair de Lune. It's from the Suite Bergamasque by Debussy. Debussy is one of my favorite composers. I'm hoping to learn something similar to that this quarter. I want to focus on musicality. At this point there's not much else I can learn about notes and rhythms and technique. It's all about expression and phrasing. I'm really excited!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Road trip home

It turns out that last post was incorrect. That wasn't my last day in Phoenix. We were completely packed up, in the car, on our way towards Flagstaff. We took the 101 to I-17 and then my mom called. She said one of her co-workers' husband was stuck on a road up in Flagstaff. She said this storm was going to be pretty intense, and maybe we would want to reconsider driving through it. So we exited the highway and found a local library. We looked up the weather for Flagstaff, Santa Fe, and Denver for the next few days. All three had winter weather advisories. Flagstaff's ended the next afternoon, Thursday. Santa Fe's went until midnight Thursday night. And Denver's warning lasted until 6am Friday morning. So basically we would be driving all 12 hours through a blizzard. No thank you. We turned around and went back to Daniel's parents' house. Thank goodness we checked. It would have been miserable. We probably would have ended up stuck in Flagstaff for 2 nights waiting out the storm. Both I-17 and I-40 were closed.

We spent the rest of that day and the next helping Rennie move into his new home. I went shopping with Julie for all the basics- cleaning supplies, bedding, towels, kitchen supplies, etc. We unpacked and cleaned while the rain poured outside. It even snowed for about 5 minutes at Rennie's house! It had been 12 years since it snowed in Phoenix. I was really glad we stayed because that meant I got to have dinner with my family twice more, and I got to see my grandparents again as well.

We left early Friday morning and drove all day. The roads were still a little icy between Flagstaff and the New Mexico border. The temperature reading in our car hovered around zero, sometimes dipping to negative 3 degrees in places. The ice let up and the roads were clear through New Mexico and most of the way into Colorado. Around Trinidad, about 11 and a half hours in with still 2 or 3 hours to go, Jackson got antsy. He started whining and acting really strange. We pulled over and let him out, but he didn't go. He doesn't really like to relieve himself while on a leash. So we got back in the car and kept driving. Then he promptly pooped in the backseat. Not just poop, but diarrhea. It was disgusting. We pulled over at a rest stop. It was about 6 degrees outside while we tried to clean up the mess. And we didn't pack any winter clothes of course, because it doesn't get cold in Phoenix. Luckily, we put towels down on our seat to keep the dog hair off. So most of it was on the towel. We just threw that out. But the rest of it was on our duffel bag. We rearranged some things and put that duffel in the trunk so the car didn't stink the rest of the way home. Once we got home, we put it right into the washing machine. Problem solved. Poor Jackson must have felt really sick to do that in the car.

Once we got home, it was about 13 and a half hours. That's 90 minutes longer than usual, and it felt much longer. When we got home, we had to unload our car full of Christmas presents and two weeks' worth of clothes. The driveway and walkway were covered in an inch of ice and about 8 inches of snow. So we tracked that through the house while trying to unpack. It took a long time to get everything put away, but it feels so good to be home. Even though it was New Years' Eve we went to bed at 9:30. We woke up early the next morning and took turns shoveling. But now we have a nice path in the backyard to take out the garbage, and our entire driveway and walkway are clear. We also took down our Christmas tree and lights, put away lots of our Christmas presents, and did laundry. It was a productive morning. Today my goal is to get ready for the first day of school tomorrow. I have some homework to do, and other little tings. It is so nice to be back in my own bed in my own home with just me and Daniel. We work so well together. Now it's one week until the in-laws are here for their annual skiing trip. Then another week or two until Nicole comes. It never ends!