Spring Quarter

I guess it's time to give an update for my quarter and all, beyond the status (or lack there of) of my grad school potential. I think I'm going to enjoy this quarter alot, but it'll be hard in that it's going to take alot of time. I don't think any of my classes are all that awful, but they have events that will take time outside of regular "class" time. The biggest one is the labs for 2 of my classes: Ecology and Plant Taxonomy. Both classes are interesting so far, but the labs are a bit in depth.

For ecology all the labs are off campus (whcih is actually a good thing, because they're up by my house!). It was nice to be outside; it made it feel like I was doing more "real" science than in a lab with things "pre-scripted". The down-side is that it's on Friday afternoons until 5pm, so it puts the weekend off much farther than I'd like.

The plant tax. lab is a 4 hour lab (usualy labs are 3 hours) on Mondays, so that makes my Mondays long. This past Monday I didn't get all the stuff done that I needed to during the lab time and ended up spending another half hour to fourty five minutes working after the official lab was over. That was frustrating, and I was getting hungry, which didn't help my attitude any.

The big time committment this quarter comes in the field trips. I have one weekend-long field trip in both of my lab science classes: plant tax. camping in Eastern Washington the first weekend in May, and down my Mt. Ranier for ecology the second weekend in May. That's right, that means I'll have 3 strait weeks fo school with NO WEEKENDS IN BETWEEN. Needless to say, I'll be a bit tired by the end of those three weeks I'm sure.

Add to that working the M's games (which was off to a slow start yesterday), and I'm one busy guy this quarter. I'm sure I'll survive, and knowing that graduation awaits me at the end helps. : )

Well, I'm off to read some Ecology, and then to dissect a fetal pig for the lab I'm TAing for (fun!!).