Oral exam or Anal Rape? I'll Take Anal Rape Please I haven't been writing because I'm so stressed out about these damn orals. It's just four weeks away. At the end of every day I inwardly moan that another day has passed so quickly with what seems such little progress. I know I'm making progress, but it's of that variety in which you accumulate and accumulate information until, one day, it all fits together. Until that day, though, you flounder, feel a bit lost, and just have to have faith that your brain is putting it all together somehow. Then, you have to be able to convey what you've figured out to four different professors and make some sense. Then again, four weeks seem an interminable length of time to be under this much stress. My complexion looks like I'm a teenager or pregnant again, blah. This all reminds me of sexyatheist's description about her chemistry final. This is chemistry, after all. Magnetic core-shell nanoparticles incorporated into polymeric beads used for adsorption of environmental contaminants in wastewater to be exact. At least I have a topic. That was a big relief. Now I just have to figure out which synthesis. There are several different possibilities. I think I may just do all of them. Magnetite in water, conversion of shell to FeOOH, or solid state synthesis. Then incorporation can include maybe two different methods. We'll see what my advisor thinks. With any luck I will be able to bring it all to him today and get signed off. Then I have to start working on my presentation. The first one is a practice talk to members of my group in which I will fantasize about getting anally raped because I'd deal with that brutalization better than what my coworkers are bound to throw my way. To put it all in perspective, people in my group say that the real exam is a cake walk next to my coworkers. After all of this my husband and I are going to take our kids to Joshua Tree. I'm very much looking forward to this. I'm listening to The The right now, and oh, how I've missed it. |