It's been a year
So this have been brewing in my head for about a week now and might take me quite a while to work on. It’s been about a year since I did any serious posting here. Also, it’s been about a year since I left Smith. I still have very mixed feelings. Overall I am happy to be done. I don’t regret going to Smith, but I regret some of the choices I did while I was there. Or rather I regret some of the things I didn’t do. I put too much weight in some meaningless friendships that didn’t matter in the end and too little weight in some that would have. But it is all past now. When I left Smith it was with happiness, I was glad to be done. The last month or so was filled with.. well interesting events and annoyances that I’d rather have been without and I was glad to leave.
This summer I first spent a good chunk of time at Claire’s. It was really nice. We both knew that was the last we were going to spend a large amount of time together for at least two years. Then in June I went back home to Norway and Claire went to England. I didn’t do much in the summer. I got my visa all together and I spent a lot of time training with the dogs. I got certified as a helper at water rescue shows. Specifically the person who is out in the water being rescued by the dog. And I trained with a great group of dogs, some were stubborn, some figured I wasn’t actually drowning and would rather swim in circles around me and some (specifically the two Rotties) would get so excited by bubbles that they forgot about me. But each dog was a personality and each dog needed something from me to get them to behave the best they could. I also worked a dog show which was quite different. Though that day there was plenty of burning jelly fish around and my wet suit only goes to the knees/elbows (I prefer that usually). I also went to see Claire and we had a great time in London.
Middle of August I was back here, meeting my two roommates for the first time and getting to know a whole new school. Let’s just say the change from Libral Arts Women’s College to Techschool was a lot. I looked around at the various research groups and I found an interesting one that deals with Virtual Reality. R, my advisor, pretty much gave me spot in the lab right away and a project he wanted me to work on. Living in a bigger city have been quite an adjustment, as have cooking for myself and everything. I miss the community I had at Smith, and I think in my case it comes from lack of meals together. Oh I have great friends in my lab, I really do. But it is not the same, the people I miss are the ones I know I could just knock on their door late at night and they’d give me a hug and tea and a talk when I was stressed. I was stressed a lot last fall, I had no idea what the expectations were in relation to classes and how much work was expected. I worked my butt off to say the least.
I also had a class with one of the worst teachers I’ve ever had. He was rude, expected us to know everything already, was very inconsistent with deadlines and stuff. I also had another class that was hard as fuck, but at least the teacher was considerate.
Christmas was amazingly nice. I went home and relaxed with the dogs and my family. I also had fun leveling Adi to 85 and starting to run heroics. I did a little bit of work with my research, mainly figuring out what I wanted to do and that was about it. Anna and I really connected, we’d started over the summer, mainly due to her chasing me around with a water hose ( small child + water + get to chase you around = friend for life). I also read the Shattering, hung out with my grandmother and just overall had a good time.
When I came back to the US I went to visit Claire for a bit, we had a good time hanging out. On her recommendation I joined a online forum rp that ended up not going to well. It was the mod’s first time running a political game and she was not prepared for it. Eventually it tanked. Research has been very mixed. Having a much clearer goal was good. I’ve been a bit frustrated with R, but things usually work out. My proposal will be up on the agenda next week on the faculty meeting, hopefully it will be accepted and I will get a reader.
Tonight is a meeting of the most unorganised class I’ve ever been in. As a semester long project we are writing a version of stratego that can be played over a network. The teacher has been very very unorganized, there has been no schedule up all semester, he’s been saying he’ll give us our take home final for a week now and everything is just a big mess.
I have less than a week left and break will be good. Not sure what I’ll do, but it will be good anyway.
This summer I first spent a good chunk of time at Claire’s. It was really nice. We both knew that was the last we were going to spend a large amount of time together for at least two years. Then in June I went back home to Norway and Claire went to England. I didn’t do much in the summer. I got my visa all together and I spent a lot of time training with the dogs. I got certified as a helper at water rescue shows. Specifically the person who is out in the water being rescued by the dog. And I trained with a great group of dogs, some were stubborn, some figured I wasn’t actually drowning and would rather swim in circles around me and some (specifically the two Rotties) would get so excited by bubbles that they forgot about me. But each dog was a personality and each dog needed something from me to get them to behave the best they could. I also worked a dog show which was quite different. Though that day there was plenty of burning jelly fish around and my wet suit only goes to the knees/elbows (I prefer that usually). I also went to see Claire and we had a great time in London.
Middle of August I was back here, meeting my two roommates for the first time and getting to know a whole new school. Let’s just say the change from Libral Arts Women’s College to Techschool was a lot. I looked around at the various research groups and I found an interesting one that deals with Virtual Reality. R, my advisor, pretty much gave me spot in the lab right away and a project he wanted me to work on. Living in a bigger city have been quite an adjustment, as have cooking for myself and everything. I miss the community I had at Smith, and I think in my case it comes from lack of meals together. Oh I have great friends in my lab, I really do. But it is not the same, the people I miss are the ones I know I could just knock on their door late at night and they’d give me a hug and tea and a talk when I was stressed. I was stressed a lot last fall, I had no idea what the expectations were in relation to classes and how much work was expected. I worked my butt off to say the least.
I also had a class with one of the worst teachers I’ve ever had. He was rude, expected us to know everything already, was very inconsistent with deadlines and stuff. I also had another class that was hard as fuck, but at least the teacher was considerate.
Christmas was amazingly nice. I went home and relaxed with the dogs and my family. I also had fun leveling Adi to 85 and starting to run heroics. I did a little bit of work with my research, mainly figuring out what I wanted to do and that was about it. Anna and I really connected, we’d started over the summer, mainly due to her chasing me around with a water hose ( small child + water + get to chase you around = friend for life). I also read the Shattering, hung out with my grandmother and just overall had a good time.
When I came back to the US I went to visit Claire for a bit, we had a good time hanging out. On her recommendation I joined a online forum rp that ended up not going to well. It was the mod’s first time running a political game and she was not prepared for it. Eventually it tanked. Research has been very mixed. Having a much clearer goal was good. I’ve been a bit frustrated with R, but things usually work out. My proposal will be up on the agenda next week on the faculty meeting, hopefully it will be accepted and I will get a reader.
Tonight is a meeting of the most unorganised class I’ve ever been in. As a semester long project we are writing a version of stratego that can be played over a network. The teacher has been very very unorganized, there has been no schedule up all semester, he’s been saying he’ll give us our take home final for a week now and everything is just a big mess.
I have less than a week left and break will be good. Not sure what I’ll do, but it will be good anyway.