am i supposed to be stressed by the first week???
Hi, Sarah, welcome to grad school! Here's a brand-new campus that's much bigger and more complicated than the one you came from, here's a couple of classes for you to take, and while you're at it, here's a lab for you to teach and a grant for a lot of money to write in four weeks!
Sheesh! It was all fine, really, until I had my grant-writing class on Friday... the National Science Foundation (NSF) pre-doctoral fellowship that I'm applying for is due at the beginning of November. It's a 2-page proposal plus some other stuff, and it's for funding for 3 years. That's a LOT of money! And, by 'a LOT of money', I mean like in the range of $100,000. That's like 10 grand per paragraph! Holy crap, no pressure whatsoever! And I've got 4 weeks to do it. And, since it's a class, not only does it have to be good by the time it's due, it has to stand up to peer and professor critique every week until then! >___< And it doesn't help that this week we're working on the 'hook', the rationale, the reason why NSF should give you lots and lots of money to do this project... which means figuring out the project's relevance to things outside your specific field. We pretty much have to find something shiny to put in the first paragraph to make the NSF reviewers actually take the time to read the other page and a half. Well, guess what, NSF? My project is science for its own sake! I'm doing it because I (and other people in the field) wanna know how the system works. It has no relevance to the environment, conservation, global warming, medicine, or anything else that directly affects us humans. I'm having trouble coming up with shiny. >.<
Plus, TAing takes up more time than I thought it would... preparation, writing quizzes, grading... lots of stuff to do!
And let's not forget classes, none of which are in buildings remotely close to each other. There's quite a long way to go, in 10 minutes, and you have to avoid all the crazy bicycles. I seriously need one of those.
I went to the trouble of making tea this morning and putting it in the travel mug... yanno, cuz it was cold and wet this morning, and I thought that a warm beverage would make the Monday not quite so EVIL. Guess where it is right now? That's right. On my counter. At home. NOT in my belly. *SAD FACE* I hate Mondays. I have a feeling it's mutual.
Brain = mush.
Weekends? What are those?
And having internet IN one's apartment? That's just silly!
-_-;;;
Sheesh! It was all fine, really, until I had my grant-writing class on Friday... the National Science Foundation (NSF) pre-doctoral fellowship that I'm applying for is due at the beginning of November. It's a 2-page proposal plus some other stuff, and it's for funding for 3 years. That's a LOT of money! And, by 'a LOT of money', I mean like in the range of $100,000. That's like 10 grand per paragraph! Holy crap, no pressure whatsoever! And I've got 4 weeks to do it. And, since it's a class, not only does it have to be good by the time it's due, it has to stand up to peer and professor critique every week until then! >___< And it doesn't help that this week we're working on the 'hook', the rationale, the reason why NSF should give you lots and lots of money to do this project... which means figuring out the project's relevance to things outside your specific field. We pretty much have to find something shiny to put in the first paragraph to make the NSF reviewers actually take the time to read the other page and a half. Well, guess what, NSF? My project is science for its own sake! I'm doing it because I (and other people in the field) wanna know how the system works. It has no relevance to the environment, conservation, global warming, medicine, or anything else that directly affects us humans. I'm having trouble coming up with shiny. >.<
Plus, TAing takes up more time than I thought it would... preparation, writing quizzes, grading... lots of stuff to do!
And let's not forget classes, none of which are in buildings remotely close to each other. There's quite a long way to go, in 10 minutes, and you have to avoid all the crazy bicycles. I seriously need one of those.
I went to the trouble of making tea this morning and putting it in the travel mug... yanno, cuz it was cold and wet this morning, and I thought that a warm beverage would make the Monday not quite so EVIL. Guess where it is right now? That's right. On my counter. At home. NOT in my belly. *SAD FACE* I hate Mondays. I have a feeling it's mutual.
Brain = mush.
Weekends? What are those?
And having internet IN one's apartment? That's just silly!
-_-;;;