the wonders of the interwebs

Just spent an hour and a half reading about the Korean DMZ on wikipedia. Well, I didn't spend the whole time on the DMZ, there was also the articles on Korea, Division of Korea, and Pyongyang, and the Google Earth flyby of the DMZ and all civilization in the vicinity; looking at photos of the area and marveling at the uniformity of the housing. It's pretty incredible that I can sit here, in my bedroom, and see the houses and buildings and roads of one of our worst enemies. (Something tells me Kim Jong-Il had an aneurysm when he found out about Google Earth. Seriously, isn't it time for him to die or something?)

I'm feeling guilty for spending so much time just dicking around on the internet (it was a matter of national security! really!) but I have a hard time working for more than about 8 or 10 hours a day, and I didn't get home from lab until after 7; technically, making and eating dinner and spinning on the rollers* while watching rachel maddow, don't technically count as work, but I still felt like I needed some down time afterward. The guilt stems not from feeling like I haven't gotten enough done today (crunched a bunch of data and made a couple of nice graphs; took a bunch of confocal pictures; answered several student questions; virgined flies); it's more from the fact that I haven't graded the students' lab reports from last week, and they're turning in a new batch tomorrow and will undoubtedly want the old ones back. I mean to quit procrastinating, eventually, I really do. I think I'll start tomorrow... sigh. I'll try to have the lab reports done by lecture on Thursday....

Add to that a first wave of grad student anxiety: OHMYGOD what if my project doesn't work what if everyone in the lab doesn't like me what if the professor is unimpressed with my work what if the students all hate me and don't learn a thing from this class what if i can't ever do molecular biology what if i get depressed and fail out of grad school WHAT IF WHAT IF AAAAUGH.

Deep breath; stop stressing.

We're in week 7 of the quarter now; the easy part is over and everything is in high gear and stress levels are high. On the other hand (and this is the main reason why I *love* quarters and think I'd hate semesters), the end is in sight now: make it through this week and next, and then it's Thanksgiving; after that, there's just one week of classes before finals. And then - sweet, sweet winter break.

It's weird, being a student again, again; being a grad student still feels strange too. I think I like it. I also think that I like teaching, but I'm pretty sure that I hate grading. And really, isn't that why I just spent an hour and a half of precious time studying North Korean economic geography, and now more than half an hour writing a blog post? Shouldn't I be grading? Or sleeping? Hmm, come to think of it... if sleeping is productive, I'm going to go get shit done.

*rollers: extremely precarious contraption which enables one to ride a bicycle indoors. Not to be confused with a stationary trainer, which imprisons the rear wheel and keeps the bike upright; rollers come with the risk of suddenly finding yourself traveling at 20 mph in the living room should your attention lapse for a fraction of a second.