Window Cleaner

Today I taught my second lab (yay!). I have the afternoon lab on Tuesdays and the morning lab on Thursdays, which is torture for everyone involved. 8:30 on a Thursday morning, what were they thinking? Anyway, it was pretty short because we were just getting to know each other and going over rules and such. I made them all make animal noises and I think they now love me--well, maybe not, but at least they can join together and talk about their crazy lab instructor who made them make animal noises at 8:30 in the morning. So anyway, I decided to go home and take a nap afterwards. I got into bed and then started hearing strange noises at my window. I looked over, and there was this weird man hanging from a rope! Needless to say I was surprised because I live on the 16th floor and the last thing I expect to see is a human being outside my window. And because this is the last thing I expect to see, I leave my window open all the time, and often wander around my apartment naked. No more!! He closed my window and cleaned efficiently--I think he was also embarrassed by the awkward meeting (I pretended to be asleep). I guess I will have to start wearing clothes in my apartment now, but that takes away all the fun of living alone...

I have now been to most of my classes. I have Benthic Biological Oceanography on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. I was excited by it on the first day. We are going to be learning a lot about deep sea mud and benthic boundary layers and flows. But yesterday--the second day of class--I was already completely lost!! We are talking about velocity of flows and viscous layers and there are these strange equations with variables I have never seen before! I think I had a furrowed brow for the entire class. He kept asking if there were any questions, but I didn't even know where to begin. How do you ask him to start over? How do I tell him I'm already lost? I have a few articles that I am going to read and see if I can figure anything out. Ugh.

My animal behavior class is promising to be fun. We have to design an experiment pertaining to animal behavior as well as read a variety of articles. I just have to make sure I find time to do everything that needs to be done. I'm feeling very responsible for my lab students and I want to make sure they learn so I need to make sure that I know the material forwards and backwards, but I also need to learn for my classes. So it will be a delicate balance. I am also going to be doing some independent research on deep sea coral for my adviser.

I had a moment in my animal behavior class yesterday where I realized that by coming to graduate school, I have closed the door on acting. I won't have time for acting, for ceramics, for learning languages, for extracurricular activities...I started to feel a little trapped and suffocated. I love science and I've made a decision to study science for the rest of my life, but I won't know if it is the right decision until I realize if it makes me happy enough to give up everything else. I'm not sure that makes sense, but I have trouble making decisions. I always need a way out. That might be a product of my upbringing. Maybe because I knew I was always going to move somewhere else where I could start over, I never had to make a serious commitment to anything. Now that I've made a commitment, I'm already looking for a way out. I feel better knowing that if worse comes to worse I could just leave with a master's degree. But what a terrible attitude to start graduate school!!! I think I am feeling this way because I am feeling anxious about my research since my adviser is focused on deep sea and I don't want to pigeon-hole myself into deep-sea research. I think my interests are too broad to confine them to one specific area other than "marine-biology." I talked to another girl on the program who feels similarly, so I don't feel so bad. Well, this is a lot of run-on sentences and tangents and not very interesting thoughts, so I will end this entry. I need to read some cryptic benthic oceanography articles anyway.