Unflagging speed

The start of the semester is beginning with unflagging speed, and I find myself dazed from the extreme acceleration. I’m desperately trying to prevent further acceleration and maintain a steady pace so I can catch up and organize my plan of attack on these beastly final few months.

I have tons to be worried about this semester too, which is just fantastic:

• I should hear back from grad schools within the next few weeks
• I need to correct and tweak my lab experiments as soon as possible so I can collect data worthy of a Master’s thesis
• I need to then find time to conduct those experiments and collect that data
• Following that, I need to write my thesis and prepare a lengthy presentation
• I should probably also defend my thesis in front of a treacherous jury (complete with torches and spears)
• Aside from my Master’s work, I’m going to be helping out with a research seminar in my lab, which has the potential to eat up a lot of my time, especially in the second semester
• And it would also be great if I could make some money

Slaving away at the bookstore.

All of this to me seems incredibly daunting, especially since I haven’t had much spare time after I got back from my trip to Florida thanks to a lot of time at the bookstore. But there is a glimmer of hope at the end of this dark, damp tunnel that is the beginning of the semester.

Things are the bookstore have looked like this recently: were does the work start and where does it end?

I hope to essentially eliminate all of my commitment to the bookstore after next week, freeing up a lot of my time, which I can devote to lab work. I also hope to get my project on track really soon, and have a set of goals by the end of the month. If I can get my project on track by then, I can grind out a lot of lab work over the month on February (thankfully we have that extra leap year day).

Then I could have the month of March (which includes a week of spring break) to collect my thoughts and write my paper and put together a presentation.

I can’t decide whether I’m tricking myself into thinking this is feasible, but I guess that’s the only option I have right now. The only option I have is to tear this semester apart and make it mine.

The remainder of this week is already completely full of plans to start my project back up again and working at the bookstore. While I’ll miss the extra income from working at the bookstore, I can’t wait to devote all of my spare time into my project so I can get comfortable with it’s progress and outcome once again. Once things slow down with the beginning of the semester at the end of next week, I’ll be taken off the schedule and I can devote entire days to lab and do a lot more with my blog and do more blog projects, which is something else I’m looking forward to. More science with my next post, which I'll post soon!