PRELIMS ARE OVER
So, as you may know, I haven't been posting on here for a few weeks since I've been studying and studying for my prelims. I had to write a 16-page research proposal, due May 15. Then a week later (yesterday) I had to defend the proposal in front of four faculty members. I spent so many nights cramming and trying to memorize stuff and whining to my friends and telling my parents I wanted to quit grad school and move back home. Well, I passed, and it's finally over. I'm not satisfied with the paper, and I could have done much better on the oral portion, but these are things I can work on, and at least the faculty reviewers can see that I have potential to be a good scientist. So I'm going to keep working hard and get this Ph.D. thing done.
After the oral portion was over, I headed to the nearby Mexican restaurant with Brenda (the other student in the lab, who defended her proposal right before I did) and Alex (the postdoc who supervises the two of us). Then some of my Internet friends showed up and other classmates. It was great. I ended up staying at the restaurant from about 4:30 PM till 12:15 AM. I also had a lot more alcohol than I'm used to, but I was happy to discover that when I get drunk I get less inhibited and laugh at stuff, unlike some people who get mopey or obnoxious.
I didn't have a headache or whatever this morning, but I did get up late and my stomach just didn't feel good. I don't really know what to do after a night of drinking, so I forced myself to eat a Pop-Tart, drank a little water, and had a shot of Pepto Bismol. I feel much better now and I'm glad I could skip the throwing up thing. And of course in the shower, where I find I get a lot of thinking done, I finally came up with what I should have said for some of the questions I got asked yesterday.
One last note is that Mickey (my boss) told Brenda and me a month ago that his first grad student, Shaheen, brought a bottle of whiskey to lab and had a shot before she did her prelim. He still had the bottle and offered to let us have a shot before we did ours. I decided to take him up on the offer, which he thought was hilarious. So he brings down the bottle and the shot glass...and the glass is still sticky from last time...years ago. So I washed it out in the bathroom and came back and took the shot, about 20 minutes before I had the oral defense. :) I found out later that Brenda had one after hers was over.
What's even better is that I have fun things planned for the rest of the week: a get-together for my subgroup today, the Lost season finale on Wednesday, fondue with the Internet friends on Thursday, and a post-prelim celebration for the whole class on Friday. Of course, I also need to start my experiments up again since I put them off to study for prelims.
WHICH I PASSED!!
After the oral portion was over, I headed to the nearby Mexican restaurant with Brenda (the other student in the lab, who defended her proposal right before I did) and Alex (the postdoc who supervises the two of us). Then some of my Internet friends showed up and other classmates. It was great. I ended up staying at the restaurant from about 4:30 PM till 12:15 AM. I also had a lot more alcohol than I'm used to, but I was happy to discover that when I get drunk I get less inhibited and laugh at stuff, unlike some people who get mopey or obnoxious.
I didn't have a headache or whatever this morning, but I did get up late and my stomach just didn't feel good. I don't really know what to do after a night of drinking, so I forced myself to eat a Pop-Tart, drank a little water, and had a shot of Pepto Bismol. I feel much better now and I'm glad I could skip the throwing up thing. And of course in the shower, where I find I get a lot of thinking done, I finally came up with what I should have said for some of the questions I got asked yesterday.
One last note is that Mickey (my boss) told Brenda and me a month ago that his first grad student, Shaheen, brought a bottle of whiskey to lab and had a shot before she did her prelim. He still had the bottle and offered to let us have a shot before we did ours. I decided to take him up on the offer, which he thought was hilarious. So he brings down the bottle and the shot glass...and the glass is still sticky from last time...years ago. So I washed it out in the bathroom and came back and took the shot, about 20 minutes before I had the oral defense. :) I found out later that Brenda had one after hers was over.
What's even better is that I have fun things planned for the rest of the week: a get-together for my subgroup today, the Lost season finale on Wednesday, fondue with the Internet friends on Thursday, and a post-prelim celebration for the whole class on Friday. Of course, I also need to start my experiments up again since I put them off to study for prelims.
WHICH I PASSED!!