just like a little vacation!

FINALLY!!!
Semester has started again, I've passed all exams, and it looks like all the courses I take have something to do with my favourite subject (MFS) which I can now finally rename: My FUTURE Subject (MFS)!!! Isn't this brilliant?
There's just one more immediate task I'll have to fulfill for AwesomeCrazyStuff next week and then I'll be a real student again with real studentlife!!! (well, till april, maybe... oh, it's almost march... oh, shit...)
Whatever.

So, I've just "moved in" to a friend's place that I'll be sitting for the next 2 weeks, and it's really a little bit like vacation... I've been here before a lot, but now it's really like ... I can just sit here, take a deep breath, and think about the last couple of months (ok, this might be due to a certain, very good bottle of wine that I've recently purchased). I'm not at the point of reflecting over the last two years yet (eventhough that would be what I expect of a REAL vacation), but at least I feel at ease, and a little confident, and just like that: happy.

scary stuff

If you're a student: read with caution.
If you're one of my special students: READ!!!

For the rest of the universe these are probably just great fun.

A Gentleman's C
Playing School, Irreverently
Learning Curves

And here comes the place professors meet to hate us:
Rate Your Students

Have fun or run,
yet another snowflake

totally overwhelmed

So many decisions to be made, so much studying to do, so much sleep to catch up.
Can't someone just organize me an extra week?
At least funky music keeps me awake today/night/whatever.
Didn't I say I didn't want to complain? Yeah, I did.

Also, I'm constantly thinking about retaking this exam. I wasn't as well prepared as I wanted to be a couple of days before it, but then in the end I felt ok about the stuff. The first minutes went well until I became really nervous and couldn't answer the easiest questions (as in questions I could have answered even before taking the course). I'm still really embarrassed (even though I not "only" passed). Especially because I want to take part II. I don't really want extras like another exam, and I don't even have time for anything like that, I'm just scared that they'll start laughing when they see me again next semester. It's not that they didn't notice that I was nervous, they were even really nice about it...
Uh, what the fuck is wrong with me?

Also, one really nice professor of mine agreed to do something for me, but then apparently forgot for a couple of weeks. I was too scared to ask him again. In the end he noticed and did it, but how do I look in this? I just don't want to disturb professors more than I have to, but then they also might think I lack commitment...
And there's a couple of other things I'll have to take care of - just: everytime I stand in front of that office I turn around again and leave. And I was even asked to stop by! (right now learning a lot though nights is a good excuse, but then again: writing selfabsorbed bullshit like this isn't really productive...)

AGAIN: What the fuck is wrong with me?!?

So, I've decided to publish the following linklist. I'd put them on a blogroll, but as I said I'm scared of professors...
Still, these are some of the blogs I read. During semester when I do the lab teaching I love it, but sometimes they all give me the creeps

study habits

After working through the night I'm finally drinking a glass of wine before going to bed. Sun's already up and my neighbours who are just having breakfast are watching me. Weird, one could think they'd be used to it by now.

sitting in the lab

Finally I'm back in a lab. This might be the very last time I do something like this, so I'm really trying to enjoy, but...

once again: a little story.

Yesterday I hand a coax cable to one of my peers telling him where to plug it in, when my assistant says:
How bout you do that yourself? Then you can see how it feels to plug in such a cable.
? AGAIN??? First of all I have seen and plugged in more than one of these in my life, I can even differ between different sorts of cables! Secondly I've had an electronics course, accompanied by a soldering and "plugging" lab, so I even know how different cables are supposed to work.
Last but not least, when I worked at VBA I'm pretty sure that I plugged more of those coax cables than he ever will in his sorry little life.

And by the way: just because I have boobs doesn't mean that I can't handle a scope.

no title

Once again. Long night. I'm working hard here to make AwesomeCrazyStuff happen in the end but there's always new small stuff I have to take care of.
Major Step Number One has been completed last week. But I'm not satisfied at all - well, no chance to change that now anyway.
This whole procedure will consist of three more steps taking loads of time. I really hope that my studies can sustain that without too much damage. My personal life doesn't.
(note to self: don't ever complain! (I'm not))

passed

- After total embarrassment over half an hour my professors let me pass and leave, I'm so relieved
- Usually a couple of days before the exam I get this feeling, everything totally makes sense and I also feel where details belong in that bigger picture. This time I only felt that the morning of the same day. Bad for sleep, and it also doesn't really help with my exam issues. So, apparantly I was not that unprepared after all, but I hope this is better next time.
- some people failed. Everytime I hear someone's failed, I get totally scared and feel like an impostor.
- I'm really exhausted, still. And I have to work on AwesomeCrazyStuff, and study for the other exams. But at least it's labweek, yay! I know this sounds weird because most people hate it, but I just can't live without some real stuff from time to time.
- Still didn't take a course on proper female behaviour, just have no time. Does anyone know any online resources?

totally useless

I've just recieved the scores of the most useless test I've ever taken. The Test of English as a foreign language thingy. I absolutely understand that it's very important for an institute to know if their students will be able to communicate at all. Really. I do. But for me this was just a complete waste of time, money, and energy. I'm not criticizing institute policies here, I've just spent around 250 U.S. Dollars, around 100 hours - in tiny little bits for the sake of REALLY losing time, of course - and at least 300 neurons - due to a lot of banging-my-head-against-various-walls...

All this to get the confirmation that my English is alright.

crisis

The exam is soon. I was never ever so badly prepared, well at least not since I'm out of school.
The last two weeks were horrible - spiked with nice intermezzos, but overall really not cool at all. I couldn't really study, eventough I'm very interested in the field - thought about doing that for the rest of my life a while ago - I just can't concentrate. At all. It's not that I couldn't set my priorities, there were and are just so many other things I have to take care of. And now I've run out of time. Guess this will be the first failed exam.
Ok, that sounds fucking desperate. But that's exactly what I am.

Plus the typical pre-exam clumsiness has set in. I keep on running into doorframes, spilling coffee over myself, hitting my head on whatever comes close enough, being so distracted that I forget why I call someone, walk to the bookshelf, or stand in the kitchen. Best example today: I threw away a pair of socks instead of putting them on.

For half an hour I've been sitting over this plot. There's apparently about 30 interesting things you could deduce from it, and I just can't get myself to figure out one.

I need the Tardis, or the Enterprise, or just like that: more time.

happy f***ing new year!

So, NC, happy new year!! I had such a great night!! What did you do yesterday?
Hmmm. Let's see. What I'm doing (with my life)
- study
- notice that VeryImportantStuff I had sent the 21st (!!!) had still not arrived
- make phone calls
- panic
- get mail that stuff arrived
- be relieved
- study
- 0:00 drink last bit of wine left in fridge
- study
- got to bed at 9 am
- stood up 2 pm
- study
- get mails that AwesomeCrazyStuff needs some more immediate attention
- try not to panic
- get back to studying
- get mail that LittleLessImportantStuff next week is not going to work out as I thought
- be pissed off
- get back to studying
- notice that still pissed off
- panic because not able to concentrate
- study
- make tea, listen to very loud music on ipod to not wake anyone, and post

Yeah. Happy new year.


UPDATE
It's half past three and still I don't seem to be able to concentrate. I constantly have to think about the stuff I have to do after the exam, as in: learning for the other exams. And all that other crap. I need a secretary. ASAP.

yucky

...really!!
If I had thought last week was crazy, this one is even worse. And today (which is not even halfway over)... today:
Today's actually supposed to be last day of school, last fun before hard core studying. Last courses, last seminar, last slide, coffee, run to station to get some food, run to catch train, eat lunch on train, run to some office, get official documentation, run on bus, drive home to get other documents, get phone call from flatmate searching for keys, change from fancy skirt and pullover into good ol' baggy pants and hoodie, take ladder, go to waste container, climb in waste container to search for keys, search for keys (delta t: 30 min, Temperature: 269 K, NC: disgusted), climb out of container, panic about keys, take ladder, go back into appartment, get rid of clothes, turn on World'sBestCoffeeMashine, take coffee and laptop, and post.
Still to do:
go to postal office, send documents, go back to university, have beer with peers, and meet some other people for drinks.

Right now I can't decide if I:
- will ever stand up again
- have time to take a shower
- smell
- only feel smelly
- can ever eat mango again (you haven't seen what I've seen today)


Don't you also have this funny feeling that my real name is Guybrush Threepwood?

staying awake

so, after listening to alot of other stuff, I've started with Powderfinger. If anyone's interested, I'll tell you which album. Keeps me awake.
Tried to do some stuff for ACS today, took loads of time. Gotta get vacation (how bout tomorrow in five years) or at least sleep.
Saw a good old friend today. He's fine, which makes me really happy.
Life's good, just need more time...

crazy weeks

Wow. Week's over. I'm still working hard to make AwesomeCrazyStuff happen, but exam days are near and I really want to start exclusively focusing on that. And I know already that some of the ACS preparation is severely going to interfere then. So, to summarize: I'm constantly drawn between doing as much as I can to speed up preparation, but more and more small but timeconsuming tasks are accumulating, and trying to keep up with my courses. I'm not doing well on that. Especially ReallyCoolFarFromMyField class has suffered alot, because, ya know, physics comes first. Problem is just, that I'll have an exam there as well, I don't even have a date for that yet, and no time to learn for it anyway.

I had actually written a post about regrets but it was so not me - I couldn't put it here. I don't regret anything yet. I'm just so scared that I might. Why can't my future self appear and tell me how it's going to work out, so I can see if all the trouble's really worth it?

Whatif, blah, blah, whatif, blah, maybe, blah, blah, some more pathetic crap, blah, blah, blah.

arrrrrgh.

Little bonus:
I was invited to a bit of wine and when I arrived someone greeted me with: what the f*** are you doing here?
In my current state the only thing I could answer was: I don't know. I have absolutely no idea.
Then I walked on.

and once again...

I'm in for a long night. ReallyCoolTheoryClass is really good for endless Monday nights.
I was at the opera yesterday evening. I couldn't help it and wept for at least two thirds of the entire performance. There's no explanation - I'm just touched by certain kinds of music and ambiance and this was absolutely beautiful.
Back to work

nucleation...

looks funny but sucks.
and what does it have to do with vortices?
ok, that's still clearer to me than why it's got a volume energy term and why exactly this should be dependent on an external force when I can't even see what this energy is supposed to be doing...
oh, well it sounds reasonable but it's just waaaay tooooo hiiiiiiigh for me.

UPDATE
maybe it doesn't suck but I've answered most of the question and now feel braindead. I wanted to write this without consonants to emphasize, but noone could have read it. So now you'll just have to imagine that my brain's actually dead but that my fingers still know how to write. Makes sense, eh?
It's 1:40. Gotta sleep

I've answered a question!!!
Must be the coffee!

random

- I drive too fast. Seriously.
- ReallyCoolFarFromMyField class turns out to be more work than I thought
- Friday I missed the one seminar talk I was most interested in,
- had a student in the lab who didn't know how to turn on a computer (push the big round and LABELED button in the front),
- had great breakfast and conversation at CoolParticleTheoryGirl's place, because
- we had a party on Thursday night, where I
- put too much gin in one of my professors' drink, but at least I
- didn't totally ruin everything with the other professor
- and met really great people!!!
- Right now I'm in a DifferentCountry at MyMum'sBestFriend's place and should do some work. There's a great coffee machine here and the sun is shining and I'm really tempted to just sit outside and do nothing for a while instead of NotWorkingButBlogging inside.

special treatment? after all your PDA???

AARRRRRRRRR! I'm just too nice. Just hope that this is not getting me into too much trouble.

UPDATE
It's about 12 hours later. I had no normal sleeping intervals since 1.5 weeks.
This couple in my labcourse today - honestly, it left me kind of speechless.
In the end I made the biggest mistake. I gave in. I've reorganized their schedule without having the authority to do so just to get rid of them. Seriously: This cannot happen again!

uh... I have these really weird friday-flashbacks where I start to shudder and feel back there again. I've always had that after exams or when I used to paraglide after flights with awkward situations. But when I fly or during exams that go well, time just flys by eventhough I'm nervous. Now I have the feeling that things start going wrong when I suddenly realize where I am and what I'm doing. I had this moment of consciousness during my talk - it was not in an insecure moment or anything, all of a sudden in midsentence I was looking at my slide's projection on the wall and thought a mixture of the following:
- oh my, what the hell am I doing here
- this is actually really cute physics
- there's an awful lot of people sitting here (there were actually just 30 or so)
- when I've finished this thought will I be nervous and screw up?
- ...
- what was I going to say???
Immediately after this I was nervous and screwed up. Well, not totally - but this must have been the moment my professor talked about, because afterwards I got myself together again and the rest went ok.
So, the next time I'm still capable of making the decision I'll cut off those weird thoughts and just go ahead. I feel that I had thought about this before, maybe that's exactly the thing that ruins about half of my exams - sometimes I think I just get myself out of it somehow or this stuff doesn't even start because I'm in the flow from the beginning on.
Friday didn't go really bad or anything, only when I made the most important (to me) point I probably didn't look too confident.
hmmm. Can someone please come and fish the whatifs out of my head???

me up and running again.

I've slept for almost 12 hours, already went grocery shopping, bought funny woolen gloves without fingers but a cap you can pull over them, then I went for lunch with FunnyMicrobiologist (at 3 pm), and just come home. FunnyMicrobiologist is awesome and really smart. She's just started in this lab where they do these really groundbreaking things and they don't even have time to follow up all the interesting stuff they trip over. I don't know if that's normal in her field or not, but it sounds absolutely exciting.
It started snowing tonight, nothing's white yet, but it's getting cooler everyday. And it's dark early. It's pitch black outside! I really appreciate that we're trying to keep the light pollution down and I've got pretty good night vision, but if I can't do my 5min way home in less than 20 minutes while my tears freeze on my face because I can't see my feet or the ground (my cell's battery was down), that's just too much. I protest! If there was snow we could at least see a little.

My presentation was ok, but I was asked a question I couldn't answer. That itself is not my problem, and I don't think it affected my inexistent credibility too much, only - it was exactly the kind of question I would ask myself first. I'm still pretty upset about that... I'm not too happy with what one of my professors said, though. I hate to think that I can't take criticism. I just have totally different things I didn't like. One thing he said was that I should have had more slides for some of the concepts - well: I had 60 slides when I started. Since the professors that hold the seminar told us to not have more than 15 slides I reduced mine to 21 with 6 of those being the fast intro and goodbye slides. And I had a really hard time doing that. Next time I'll just do what I think is best - wow, would have thought that I was old enough to know that by now...
And then he said I was too nervous (ok, you really can't hear HOW he said it). I really don't know how to react to that, so here come a few options:
Sarcastic: oh really? I didn't notice. But thank you for pointing it out in such a nice way.
Realistic: I didn't know that my evaluation is based on my hormonal state.
Me: How the **** can I not be nervous with 10 professors sitting in front of me when I'm not even able to keep it together when I'm only talking to only one?

I know this sounds like I was another precious little snowflake but I actually wanted comments on my physics and not on the infrared spectrum emitted by my face, thanks.
Again, I hate to think that I can't take criticism, and I'm being childish and a snowflake - I'm just a little frustrated.
gotta grow up, right?