I really have no excuse...
It's been a ridiculously long time since I've posted here, and I have no real good reason for that. Laziness is the biggest factor. But now I'm sitting in my office (I have an office, how cool is that? Even if I technically share it with 4 or so other grad students.) pretending to study for my statistics test tomorrow, so I figured I'd write and update of my life as a grad student. First, my statistics test is open note and open book, so I have 0 motivation to actually study for it, so I don't think this qualifies as procrastination.
I have been up here in Blacksburg for a little over a month now, not really doing a whole lot. We have to wait on some data before I can start any research, so I've mostly just been taking classes and TAing. I'm only taking 2 classes, statistics and a online series about breeding and genetics. So that doesn't actually take up too much of my time. I TA Equine Behavior & Training every MWF all day, which has actually been a lot of fun. It's been so long since I've spent that much time around horses and I've never spent that much time with foals. VT breeds Oldenburg's and they have a big inspection process for foals to be registered. That happened a few weekends ago and involved me being there at 5AM and not getting home until 9PM. And I got to hold babies to be branded which was exciting. I even bathed the baby that just won the Oldenburg class at Dressage at Devon, which is a pretty big deal. My students range from really good to so freakin annoying I want to smack them. The ones that actually understand horses are the best, but the ones that know they are unexperienced and are willing to learn are ok. It's the ones that think they know more than they do that are the worst. And they have one simple assignment, to keep a journal of what they do with their horses every week. You would not believe how many of them do them late or haven't done them at all. It's ridiculous. I even sent out a few e-mail reminders but last week I had to go around individually and tell people that they haven't done it yet just to see if there was a technical problem (which there was in a few cases). A few just admitted that they hadn't done it yet and didn't have a good reason, but this one chick was like, "I was going to do it after the inpection but I was there all day and then I had a quiz so I didn't do it Sunday." This should seriously only take about 10 minutes to complete, I find it highly unlikely that you couldn't fit that in your schedule, since I managed to listen to two online lectures and take a test that same weekend. And then she still didn't update it until much later. What really is amazing is that these students are seniors for the most part and it's like half of them can't think for themselves. If you give them specific instructions, they can do it, but otherwise they're kinda clueless. And a few of them seem to be blatantly ignoring what the instructor is telling them to do. I think the problem is I've always been really self motivated and it's hard for me to understand people who aren't. But whatever.
So that's pretty much my life so far. I'm heading back to Raleigh for the next couple of weekends for football games/state fair. And hopefully I'll have some research to start soon.
I have been up here in Blacksburg for a little over a month now, not really doing a whole lot. We have to wait on some data before I can start any research, so I've mostly just been taking classes and TAing. I'm only taking 2 classes, statistics and a online series about breeding and genetics. So that doesn't actually take up too much of my time. I TA Equine Behavior & Training every MWF all day, which has actually been a lot of fun. It's been so long since I've spent that much time around horses and I've never spent that much time with foals. VT breeds Oldenburg's and they have a big inspection process for foals to be registered. That happened a few weekends ago and involved me being there at 5AM and not getting home until 9PM. And I got to hold babies to be branded which was exciting. I even bathed the baby that just won the Oldenburg class at Dressage at Devon, which is a pretty big deal. My students range from really good to so freakin annoying I want to smack them. The ones that actually understand horses are the best, but the ones that know they are unexperienced and are willing to learn are ok. It's the ones that think they know more than they do that are the worst. And they have one simple assignment, to keep a journal of what they do with their horses every week. You would not believe how many of them do them late or haven't done them at all. It's ridiculous. I even sent out a few e-mail reminders but last week I had to go around individually and tell people that they haven't done it yet just to see if there was a technical problem (which there was in a few cases). A few just admitted that they hadn't done it yet and didn't have a good reason, but this one chick was like, "I was going to do it after the inpection but I was there all day and then I had a quiz so I didn't do it Sunday." This should seriously only take about 10 minutes to complete, I find it highly unlikely that you couldn't fit that in your schedule, since I managed to listen to two online lectures and take a test that same weekend. And then she still didn't update it until much later. What really is amazing is that these students are seniors for the most part and it's like half of them can't think for themselves. If you give them specific instructions, they can do it, but otherwise they're kinda clueless. And a few of them seem to be blatantly ignoring what the instructor is telling them to do. I think the problem is I've always been really self motivated and it's hard for me to understand people who aren't. But whatever.
So that's pretty much my life so far. I'm heading back to Raleigh for the next couple of weekends for football games/state fair. And hopefully I'll have some research to start soon.