finally an update

Everyone seems too busy to post, so I thought I'd pick up the slack (being the biggest slacker in our group).

I've been lab-ing it up for the last could of months. I've developing some molecular markers so I can determine when a female (salamander) is promiscuous who the father will likely be and how the female's reproductive tract could determine this. Being in the lab hasn't been as dreadful as I thought it would be because I bring in music and play it loudly. You can shake your samples really well when you are dancing around.

I've also been spending a lot of time on my teaching (as per usual). This term I've really been obsessing about it because I post my powerpoints for other TAs to use. This means that I have to make sure every detail is as close to perfect as I can make it. The other day, I spent an hour on a single slide. Ridiculous! And least it's fun though!

My advisor actually came in and evaluated my teaching one day this term. Of course it was the day that one of my group activities failed completely and utterly! The funny thing was that she said she didn't even realize it hadn't gone the way I wanted. Evidently, I had good recovery. So, this experience was cool 'cause my advisor said she thought I had my teaching skill set down (score!), but that meant that she wants me to concentrate on my research now instead =(. So, next year I'm only going to teach one term instead of 3. This is good, of course, but sort of sad.

In other news, I have signed up for counseling. I've had one too many moments of anxiety in social settings, so I'm going to get a counselor to suggest some exercises for me to do to stay calm. My biggest worry is that she is going to unearth some dark horrible personality trait that will give me new anxiety once I know I have it. Note how I'm more than capable of working myself up about counseling. This is going to go really well, I think.

Yay for fun!