Finals week is coming to town!
Posted 09:59 PM, December 07, 2006, by saerniThis has been an extremely stressful week. I turned old on Wednesday (23) but definitely did not have a break. I had two presentations on Thursday, one for BMI210 and one for Algorithms in Biology. Fortunately (or unfortunately) we had the BMI holiday party which was TOTALLY fun.
I'm suffering from a major lack of sleep. If it weren't for the free coffee in the lobby of my apartment, and the amazing coffee machine we have in our kitchen (courtesy of Atul Butte) I think I wouldn't be walking very much longer.
The holiday party was loads of fun, mostly because Russ Altman was the emcee! We had a secret santa gift exchange. I, delirious from lack of sleep, and thought it was on Friday. That means I also forgot the bring the drinks I signed up to provide. Carol, in her never-ending generosity and general awesomeness for setting up these events told me I should go ahead and eat (she even went through and made decorations for everyone, including personalized stockings with candy canes). That was a good idea since otherwise I might have keeled over. I'm not taking good care of myself as a grad student, I pretty much only eat free food or cheap food, which usually not healthy).
There were some really awesome gifts, but the best was how Russ decided to write them on the board. Basically all that happens is numbers are pulled from a bag, and people go up and select gifts in numerical order. The person can opt to keep the gift, or trade it with any person's previous gift.
Russ kept a running count of every gift that was frequently requested for a trade. The very first set was a set of preserves, which Russ decided were a risk for botulism. He named the preserves "Botulinum Preserves". There were also an array of other hillariously-named gifts. The "15K calories of chocolate" (which Russ calculated based on the massive box of chocolates Sam got), and the one gift everyone wanted to trade, or at least some of us, the "Signed PhD Thesis"! When Ray took his turn at the gifts, he brought it along, and Russ promptly signed it. I really needed the laugh to loosen up.
The room was packed! I'm pretty sure people were there for the gifts AND Russ.
Sam as santa's little helper! (he got the 15,000 Calories of chocolate)
Russ giving the best gift, and it was NOT tradeable...
even though it made the list!
David, Marina and I relaxed for a few minutes while eating and enjoying the entertainment! Russ could definitely become a wedding singer-type of person if he so desired! Although we later determined that some of the jokes may not be as funny to people outside of the BMI community! (I have definitely lost my status as a non-nerd, although I'm not sure I ever had one).
I am super concerned about my grades. I'm by far most concerned about BMI210! I've made decisions about what I could possibly do if I (a) get kicked out or (b) don't get to academia. I figured I can always become a high school teacher, and then move up to be a principal, which isn't half bad! Otherwise I could work for the CIA! Wouldn't that be fun? I don't know exactly what that would entail, but I think I could figure something fun out with codes in DNA and such. My final alternative is just to move to London and try to emulate the life of Bridget Jones from her films...this is how I relieve my stress (chick flicks)! Noah's backup is to move to Sweden, and David has not yet revealed his backup, but he is certainly participating in this conversation!
For the presentation in BMI I was pretty confident. Aside from the fact that I had some hard-working geniuses on my team, I also only had to present a few slides. I wasn't too happy that they were recorded but other than that was fine. For "Algorithms in Biology" I had to give a 50 minute lecture! I was a nervous wreck before the course, even though I knew all the material and I had pretty good slides, I was just totally freaked out I would run out of time or say something stupid. I had 64 slides and I presented them in THIRTY-FIVE minutes!!!!! Terrible I know! I was devistated and totally unhappy, but at least I was done! I even had a funny slide in there with Serafim Batzoglou (the professor) in it. He basically runs through an alignment matrix. It's online but it's pretty far in to the slides. Very close to the end.
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