This is a test.
It's a test to see if I've really gained any worldly wisdom after two years away from campus. It's a test to see if I've really grown or changed or improved since my last semester at the University of Victoria. It's a test to see if I can take 6 classes, violin lessons, learn Tai Chi, and start a writing career while still living healthily and keeping my friends.
It doesn't help that the 6 classes are: Biochemistry 300A and B (the two hardest classes at UVic, so they say), Molecular Genetics (361), Plant Physiology (366), Techniques in Molecular Biology (362) and first year Physics. Today I took two Physics exams from a correspondance course I started in September with Athasbasca University (it was a way to sneak into first year Physics, where I don't belong, but whose credit I need to graduate). It means that before today I was really taking 7 courses (the maximum allowed is normally 5).
Or maybe I'm just trying to sound impressive and important with all this course information. What does it really mean anyway to be able to sponge all this stuff in and regurgitate it in the right colour and texture for an exam? What really matters is being able to apply what has been learned to research or the job force. Right?
My first few days at UVic were dreadful. I was unimpressed when my very first lecture had maybe 250 students and the lecturer introduced herself as "Professor Venn" (no first name). I had to remember that I am just a student number, just a barcode, a drop in the rain storm that waters this campus. Old acquaintances from labs and lectures didn't seem to recognize me. I felt invisible. It stung.
But luckily UVic isn't very big, and by now I've bumped into almost all of my old friends, and have made a number of new ones. I have people to sit beside in my classes and I feel good strolling around campus.
I DO have too much to juggle, and I feel like I just have to accept that I'm going to lose track and forget things. I've already lost a coursepack, my agenda, and a lab notebook, and I've forgotten one assignment deadline, a violin lesson and my lab coat (twice). And while I'm aware that I have several big midterms next week, I'm not exactly sure when they are.
Oh,
and then there's the work VISA application for Switzerland, which I haven't started (I just got my passport today, and if you're trying to get a Canadian passport right now, I'm sure you can appreciate the stuggle). I need to learn to drive standard before May. I'm volunteering 4 hours a week sorting aquatic inverts for a fellow doing his Masters, and then one day every
month at the Marine Ecology Station in Sidney. And at some point I promised our co-op coordinator I'd write up a side-report...and speaking of co-op I have work leftover from my last co-op term with Agriculture Canada in Agassiz, BC. I was working on a spider identification project (really really neat actually - I found a lot of introduced species that have never been reported in Canada before - but if you get me stared about that I won't shut up), and I have more labwork and writing to do to get that off the ground so that it can go into a journal (and be my very first scientific publication, woo!). Oh! And for any of you U*Uers who know the lingo, I'm leading an LDC for YRUU in Ohio in March, and my C*LDC was more than two years ago and I have to blow dust off ye olde LDC guide and prep for that one. I have my plane tickets and a passport though. And at some point I have to go donate blood, because it's been year(s) since I've been anaemic and I should do that.
So maybe that was more a to-do list for me than it was an interesting thing for you to read, but I'm posting it anyway.
In a way this is a life-style test. It's a test to see if I can la-dee-da through a very difficult semester, if pure curiousity and intrinsic enjoyment of school subjects will carry me through, if I can beat rote memorization with deeper comprehension, if everything will just fall into place if I let it be.
Maybe I should set up a betting pool? Will she drop out of her courses? Will she make it through? Any takers?
I'm living in an apartment in Vic West and I love it. I live with Anna (a wonderful woman I met through Capital U*U - and if you wanna look up U*U I recommend googling or wikiing "Unitarian Universalist") and two cats. I have a big bedroom, I live really close to the ocean on two sides and a nice coffee shop and I LOVE my 45 min direct bus ride because the buses are double-decker and I can sit on the top and get one of three much needed things: (1) time to study, (2) time to sit and think, (3) time to visit with people.
s' by accident when I was trying to load them off the camera.So you get something even better - 
(this is UVic - the circle is Ring Road)
month at the Marine Ecology Station in Sidney. And at some point I promised our co-op coordinator I'd write up a side-report...and speaking of co-op I have work leftover from my last co-op term with Agriculture Canada in Agassiz, BC. I was working on a spider identification project (really really neat actually - I found a lot of introduced species that have never been reported in Canada before - but if you get me stared about that I won't shut up), and I have more labwork and writing to do to get that off the ground so that it can go into a journal (and be my very first scientific publication, woo!). Oh! And for any of you U*Uers who know the lingo, I'm leading an LDC for YRUU in Ohio in March, and my C*LDC was more than two years ago and I have to blow dust off ye olde LDC guide and prep for that one. I have my plane tickets and a passport though. And at some point I have to go donate blood, because it's been year(s) since I've been anaemic and I should do that.
