Knowing Me, Knowing You…

Wow! It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated this! A lot happens in two weeks…

… which is why I’ve been away. We’ve entered the portion of the semester where things are getting immersive. Couple that with certain side projects I’m juggling (and web hosting issues) and it’s had quite an impact on my time. But I’ve finished my reading for my upcoming seminar (which starts in 90 minutes), so this is as good a time as any to keep you posted.

Today’s biology lecture was brought to us by macromolecules. Which, as we all know, consists of proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates. (And sort of lipids, but also sort of not.) Our professor was explaining glucose to us — a basic, six-carbon sugar. But there are two different kinds of glucose: α-glucose and β-glucose — of which the difference between the two of them shows up in the ring configuration, where α-glucose has the hydroxide ion below the first carbon and β-glucose has the hydroxide ion above. (I don’t even know why I’m explaining this; this is probably old news to you already.)

And then he tells us the way to remember this is that ” α-glucose = below, β-glucose = above.” Or, in acronym form, ABBA.

And that’s when he displays this slide on the screen:

… and explains the reason why they look so goofy: Apparently there was a high tax on clothing in Sweden, and they could claim a tax deduction for their costimes — but only by wearing something outrageous that wouldn’t look anything like every day street wear. (This is true; you can find an interesting NPR piece about it.)

And then he started playing the first few seconds of Dancing Queen.

So that’s how my day’s been going.

Thus far my biology grade is okay. Been getting class participation points, and a 9/10 and 8/10 on our two quizzes. We have exam #1 coming up a week from Thursday, so that will be the big determination of whether or not my study skills are up to par.

Interestingly enough, my psychology exam is that same morning. Fortunately that’s all I have for school next Thursday, but Wednesday will be a major studying day.

Psychology lab is interesting. Handed in my first paper — for which we had to use the very new APA Style 7th Edition, an edition I’m not sure my instructor knows all that well. I was nervous about this research paper — for which we needed to use a minimum of five cited sources. By the end of it my number was up to nine. But I really had no idea how I did when I turned it in.

Last Friday our grad assistant mentioned that the average score was 39.5 out of 50 and the high grade in the class was a 49/50. And she proceeded to display it on the screen as an example of how best to format things.

It was my paper. So that was nice. I handed in paper #2 that same day. I got the score on it yesterday: 50/50. I don’t think I’ve ever had that on a paper in college before.

My campaign ethics seminar is… well, still trying to make heads or tails of it. It’s fun. It’s personal. We just did a mind-mapping exercise last week. Mine was detailed and messy as hell:

Today we’ll be discussing Patricia Roberts-Miller’s Demagoguery and Democracy, which was the book all first year students were required to ead this year. A fast read. And very much relevant to our current campaign culture.

My Biology lab is my 6-9pm class and likely the most annoying simply because we’re just tired and want to get everything done. Two weeks ago we worked with microscopes. Last week it was spectrophotometry. Today it will be Gel Electrophoresis. That’s when you split things on the cellular level and slather them through a slip-and-slide made of gel — because some parts move faster than others I think, but that’s not as important as the fact that my lab group is all freshmen and me, and they all went through fraternity/sorority rush and got bids to houses they had when I was here in the 1990s.

Still working out at the gym on Tuesday afternoons. Last week I decided to splurge for the semester and rent a locker in the locker room for the entire semester for $35. Beats having to find an empty, unlocked on. And today I forgot my lunch at home so I trekked over to Sweetgreen for a big salad. Yum.

As much as I try, I just can’t seem to feel comfortable wearing a backpack on both shoulders. I know I should, and I know it’s the norm nowadays, but I look like an eight year-old boy named Brandon looking for the lunchroom when I have it on both shoulders.

This is partly due to the fact that my backpack does say “Brandon” on it. We bought it at the L.L. Bean Factory store for half-price. Brandon’s loss…

Hope this has caught us up a bit more. Off to fill out surveys before class. You’ll hear about that whole to-do next time…