Last semester was okay. I enjoyed my one serious class. It was very challenging. For the first time in my life, I got the top scores on the midterms! There were only 5 people in the class, which deflates my feat a bit. The only reason I did so well is because the class basically took various things I learned in Microbial Diversity, Microbial Ecology, Geological Oceanography, Paleoclimatology, and Environmental Water Chemistry and made me apply them in various situations to explain natural phenomena. No one else had my background. This gave me a guilt complex when I was doing well and everyone else was tanking. I tried to talk myself out of it. I worked my butt of in undergrad, I had the background and the skills needed, and I aced that class. When the prof edited the first draft of my 20 page paper on Banded Iron Formations, he said my paper was so interesting and well-written that he forgot he was supposed to be editing it! Apparently, I rock. Thank you Bekah and Dawn for all the guidance!!! I hit the ground running this semester, which is exactly why I did that 5th year at Davis. Mission accomplished.
The geosciences core class was horrible. I don't want to talk about it. Basically, one crazy semi-adjunct(?) lecturer almost ruined my semester. My advisors were very supportive of me. If you really want to know the details, ask Sissy.
My other class consisted of one of my advisors showing us really awesome power point presentations from previous presentations and basically giving us a crash course in microbial mat systems. It was so fun!
And by "us," I mean Lexy and I. My advisors hired another student before I got to UConn, and she's totally now my UConn BFF ("best friend forever," for non-2009 lingo speakers). We had all the same classes, TA-ed the same class at the same time in rooms next door to each other, and journeyed to Avery Point every friday to learn how to culture anaerobes. We regularly studied or did lab prep together. And by study, I mean play with her remote controlled robotic dinosaur. We did do some studying towards the end of the semester. She and her boyfriend are now in NY/Maine for the holidays, so Colin and I are lonely. Lexy and Matt were our only friends for most of the semester. Making friends at UConn is not as easy as it is a UC Davis. I made a couple more friends in the last few weeks, so the social network is growing slowly.
Colin's work authorization is still a few weeks away. We are mega poor, but student loans and late-payment forgiveness at the bank of Sissy and Tom have been very helpful. Hopefully Colin can get a job soon.
There's been drama at student housing. Those of you on facebook know it all. For those of you who aren't, family housing banned all christmas trees, live and fake, but not until the hall director saw me bringing home our freshly cut tree on Dec 12th. We had to hide it at Denise's house (she's my office mate, and she has a house in the woods) until safely inspections were over. At safety inspection, someone took our outdoor frozen pumpkin, named "Pumpky." He's clearly more flammable than the zucchini in the fridge. Clearly. We snuck the tree back in the house the night before last, and all is well. After we sign our lease for next year, Colin is going to carve a bunch of pumpkins and put them all over our windowsill, inside and outside, smiling towards the hall directors apartment across the lawn. Pumpky was the first pumpkin Colin ever carved, and he would have lasted until April if he wasn't kidnaped.
Today we made snowcreatures! I love snow! Colin loves spending hours scooping it into 5 foot piles, and we love sculpting things out of it! For hours and hours! It was a blast. :)
I made the really chubby snowman and the snow-sauropod. Colin made the other two. He says he's going to make 2 baby snowmen tomorrow with the rest of the snow pile.
In summary, life is kinda boring and sucky here in horrible lame-o Connecticut (okay, I know I did not address the suckyness before, but you probably don't want to hear about it), but snow is fun! REALLY fun!
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