There Are Causes To Die For!
While cleaning out my waterlogged satchel today, I came across an old piece of paper I had used to jot down random notes for the winery murder mystery (still not quite completed, I'm afraid) while I was bored at work. One of the lines reads: "new biological weapon [prunes?]". I have since concluded that perhaps my life would be more fulfilling if I made a habit of bringing homework with me to that job.
Speaking of my job, we turn in the first round of timecards tomorrow, and should be paid shortly thereafter. Since I have put in quite a few hours, I am expecting a very generous check. This is cause for celebration. Thanks to the UCSB Faculty Women's Club, which recently saw fit to give me 1,500, the money I'm earning from my jobs will now go straight into my bank account rather than be immediately redirected to the UC.
I am actually quite enjoying my jobs. Technically, it's just one job, but the two halves of it are different enough that I consider them separate forms of employment. The so-so part is the writing lab tutoring: I sit in a cubicle and wait for students to drop in and have me rip their essays apart for them. Sometimes this is entertaining, sometimes it is painful; yesterday, I had a horrible time when a graduate student came in asking me to critique a paper he was trying to publish on some new chemistry application for silicon dioxide. I didn't understand more than an eighth of the paper; when I first saw it, I rather desperately prayed it was a practical joke. But I survived, and I now have yet another reason to hate the sciences. The other aspect of my job is much pleasanter; I have been assigned 14 students to tutor individually at our mutual convenience; the classes include world history C, western civ C, classics- Greek civ, Spanish 3, and one lone music class I had the misfortune of acing. I have discovered that I am uniquely suited to this work: it pleases my ego, I love the scheduling freedom, and I'm actually quite good at it.
Life got much easier two days ago when I accepted that failure was the inevitable conclusion of the course I had set and quite grudgingly dropped Spanish. I am now down to a quite manageable 17 units (two of my classes are for honors), 10-15 hrs/week work, IM soccer, horseback riding, and misc. social functions. My honors senior thesis is finally on track, and I succeeded in meeting with my advisor. I am also studying for the GRE, which I will sit a week from this Saturday. Predictably, I am having no trouble whatsoever with the verbal/writing sections; the math, however, is wholesale slaughter. Think French Revolution. Mmm, actually, that also applies to my first IM soccer game. The last time I played soccer for a league was my freshman year of high school; I was the top scorer and also earned the most yellow cards (I have never gotten a red, though). It turns out my playing style has not altered much: I am still painfully aggressive, and I do mean painfully. The game was on Monday and I am still sore, thanks to physics. Tractionless tennis shoes, slick astroturf, and an attempt to change direction at full speed to avoid a collision and all that rot. But what a rush!
Speaking of my job, we turn in the first round of timecards tomorrow, and should be paid shortly thereafter. Since I have put in quite a few hours, I am expecting a very generous check. This is cause for celebration. Thanks to the UCSB Faculty Women's Club, which recently saw fit to give me 1,500, the money I'm earning from my jobs will now go straight into my bank account rather than be immediately redirected to the UC.
I am actually quite enjoying my jobs. Technically, it's just one job, but the two halves of it are different enough that I consider them separate forms of employment. The so-so part is the writing lab tutoring: I sit in a cubicle and wait for students to drop in and have me rip their essays apart for them. Sometimes this is entertaining, sometimes it is painful; yesterday, I had a horrible time when a graduate student came in asking me to critique a paper he was trying to publish on some new chemistry application for silicon dioxide. I didn't understand more than an eighth of the paper; when I first saw it, I rather desperately prayed it was a practical joke. But I survived, and I now have yet another reason to hate the sciences. The other aspect of my job is much pleasanter; I have been assigned 14 students to tutor individually at our mutual convenience; the classes include world history C, western civ C, classics- Greek civ, Spanish 3, and one lone music class I had the misfortune of acing. I have discovered that I am uniquely suited to this work: it pleases my ego, I love the scheduling freedom, and I'm actually quite good at it.
Life got much easier two days ago when I accepted that failure was the inevitable conclusion of the course I had set and quite grudgingly dropped Spanish. I am now down to a quite manageable 17 units (two of my classes are for honors), 10-15 hrs/week work, IM soccer, horseback riding, and misc. social functions. My honors senior thesis is finally on track, and I succeeded in meeting with my advisor. I am also studying for the GRE, which I will sit a week from this Saturday. Predictably, I am having no trouble whatsoever with the verbal/writing sections; the math, however, is wholesale slaughter. Think French Revolution. Mmm, actually, that also applies to my first IM soccer game. The last time I played soccer for a league was my freshman year of high school; I was the top scorer and also earned the most yellow cards (I have never gotten a red, though). It turns out my playing style has not altered much: I am still painfully aggressive, and I do mean painfully. The game was on Monday and I am still sore, thanks to physics. Tractionless tennis shoes, slick astroturf, and an attempt to change direction at full speed to avoid a collision and all that rot. But what a rush!