Taking off Tuesday
Yep I said it. I am taking off Tuesday... and I'm not even gonna tell anyone. So there.
I know... I'm 24 years old and yet I still feel like a kid sometimes in the fact that I have to report to someone. I blame it on 12 years of catholic school but that's neither here nor there.
Anyway... my day off is not a typical person's idea of a day off. I did in fact stay at home in the morning and watch... yep you guessed it, The View. I needed a morning to decompress after 8 straight hours of journal club prep in addition to a normal day. I ended up heading toward the city, San Francisco, around 12:30ish. I figured I would catch a coffee shop up there to work on my presentation before I had to pick up Rachel from school. I did my undergrad at SFSU and know the area pretty well.
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I ended up however hanging out with my friend Rosa for 3 hours instead. I know... not that productive, but I spent two years seeing Rosa on an almost daily basis and now she's leaving for UT Austin's grad program in a month. (Very sad Andrea)
But I digress... Rachel. I know your wondering. Her daughter? Nope. Rachel and I have worked together for almost 2 years. She is one of the brightest and most independent 12-year-olds I know.
I started working with her my last year at State and since I stayed in the area, I ended up keeping the tutoring position. It's a nice little set-up. We work 2 days a week together about 4 hours total. In return I have a little extra cash, get to hear the sixth grade gossip, and still get to teach. What more could I ask for?
Now today was in fact rare because normally after working with Rachel I catch dinner in the city with some friends... another perk. But today I had to baby-sit back in Palo Alto. So I headed straight back to PA where I spent the evening making dinner, reading stories, discussing trains, and counting so that each tooth got brushed for one second.
I know what your thinking... I thought grad students had a stipend that was like a salary. Yes we do! And it's a nice one at that especially when you consider they pay tuition and medical. I namely keep these side jobs to keep me grounded and rounded. I think it's really easy to get sucked into one dimension in graduate school.
One thing I promised myself when I decided to come to grad school was to make sure that I had a life that existed outside of school. I'm not gonna lie. It's hard at times balancing it all... especially since not many know that I keep these two positions. But, I mean in graduate school you don't normally get someone asking you to show them a molecule under a microscope. Kids remind me of the curiosity that I want to maintain throughout my life.
How did my day end you ask? Well, after all my extracurricular activities it was once again 9:30 pm and I still had a presentation to finish for manana. So Anabelle and I debated for a good hour... where do we go work since it's so late? After much debate we decided to wreak havoc on some Carl's Jr. and then get down to our presentations.
Posted at 12:16 PM
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