The Finite

My library hopping has been generally successful. Of course Lilly also has a ghost janitor haunting the second floor. (I keep hearing jingling keys even though I no one has come up in the elevator.) And Hicks has been taken over and divided into turfs between the international students, the zombie grad students, and the Jets.

Hicks smells like rice though and that’s nice.

The trick to it, though is that I just need to have a little inertia in my studying, I can’t just sit down and study for five minutes. I must go through a painful withdrawal process, wherein my brain must be forced to realize that it has to go into a study mode and pummels “fun Tommy” into whimpering compliance. and then focuses all its energies on making me super productive. (SUPERAZN POWERS ACTIVATE!) After a excruciatingly painful methadone-esque transition, I’m ready to learn.

JY is yelling at me through Skype to blog so I can’t put it off to tomorrow any longer. I’m sorry for my absence from the interblogs, but I’ve been out getting beatings from various subjects. First there was the Chem test which I spent so much time studying for that I missed three lectures. Then newcomer Microbiology’s first exam which was familiar and nostalgic like a shattered sternum.

I just thought microbiology would be like biology, just smaller. Ironically, there are more lectures per week, more quizzes, the tests have more questions and a short answer portion and there’s a lot more material to learn. Other than that, it’s like a more boring, yet soul-lacerating BIOL 111. The test hasn’t been graded yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s bad for my GPA/health/survival.

On the other hand, my microbiology professor looks like a skinny Leonidas because of his beard and my lab TA sounds like Seth Rogan and sort of looks like him too.

My organic chem teacher doesn’t look like a celebrity (but he sounds like Ron Popeil). He’s teaching out of the same book a continuation of the same material as last semester. “Here’s a reaction, here’s a mechanism. Memorize both or we will destroy your future.” This is where it gets a bit disturbing. When I skipped three lectures, I had to do the work on my own, taking notes from the book to play catch-up. And I enjoyed it. And it scared the living crap out of me. I usually have to fight kicking and procrastinating to get myself near a library. But I was moved by Wittig reactions and Schiff bases and Clemmensen…uh, damn. It’s something with carboxylic hydrogenation of the carbonyl group. And I couldn’t get enough. I walked out of the library depressed and mortified. I had finished two chapters.

I guess after being around all this stuff, it starts to become… appealing after a while. (Aww, I feel so dirty typing those words.) *shudder* This must be what prison is like, except… wait, never mind.