Well well well...Fall 2008 has past and I'm now in the midst of the Spring 2009 semester. I can't believe how much material was covered last semester and how much of it I understood by the end of the semester! That was a miracle.
I really enjoyed working in the biomedical engineering (BME) lab last semester. Definitely picked up some useful skills for my research including polymer synthesis, reading journal articles critically, hydrogel (polymers that absorb water) degradation studies, presenting research for lab meetings and a ton of other things! I also had the "wonderful" experience of applying for a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. It will only have been a wonderful experience if I am awarded the fellowship because boy was preparing that application a project in itself! I almost missed the announcement of the elected president on Nov. 4, 2008 because I was up late working on my application. I'll find out in March if I am awarded one. If I am, I will be sure to put up a new post giving advice on how to successfully prepare an application for that fellowship!!
To help maintain my sanity, during the middle of last semester I decided to join a young adult choir at the church I attend. That really helped, since I was able to fellowship with other people my age, some who are in graduate school as well. In any case, I love to sing and it really helps to relieve my stress!!
So I'm taking two classes this semester, but my time spent in the lab has increased exponentially this semester! I don't think I've quite found the right balance between study time for classes and research time yet. I need to find it soon though with exams coming up starting next week! This semester, all of us 1st year grad students have our lovely qualifying exams looming over our heads. The qualifying exams take place this summer and basically consist of each of us defending our proposed research topics to a panel of faculty members that are ready to grill us with a plethora of questions!! My heart beat literally increases twofold everytime I start thinking about that!
Well, no more venting for tonight...have an exam to study for!! Kinetics of phase transformations...woohoo!!! : )
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