so many exams, so little time

crazy, crazy week. so glad this one is almost done. it started off so carefree. we were in st. george for brooke's 100 miler bike ride. we got to stay with our friends the stewarts, and it was just a really nice, relaxing weekend. it always feels totally like home at their house, and we're just completely comfortable. brooke was puking the day before her race, so she was a little nervous, but felt great on the big day, and they didn't get rained on until they were about 20 or 30 miles from the finish line. could have been a lot worse, it was supposed to rain all day. anyway, on sunday, we went to our old ward, and it was so fun to see all of our old friends. it made me kind of homesick. that and it was like 75 degrees outside. i miss wearing shorts in the winter time. but the easy times couldn't last long. by the time we got home from church, i was starting to feel gross. we stopped in cedar to see brooke's parents and i threw up and passed out on the couch for a couple of hours. i don't know if i even said hi to anyone. it was so bizarre. but it made me feel a little better. brooke drove on the way home so i could read some literature on the research i'm going to be working on. by the time we got home i felt better but just kind of wiped out. i knew i needed to get some sleep because of the hellish week that lay ahead...

so the week began, i got to start at my new research job, and that was really interesting. the immunology research they do is with zebra fish, so i got my first taste of the fish lab. i got trained on how to sex fish, divide them up into ma

ting pairs and then collect the eggs(embryos) from fish that were mated a few days earlier. then we took the eggs into a microscopy room, where i got to sort through them, under a microscope and find the fertilized embryos and separate them from the unfertilized ones, which would just start decomposing and killing all of the viable ones. so it was pretty interesting and i'm excited to learn more. the only problem i'm having right now, is that i just don't have big open chunks of time to be able to go over there to do the research, so i may just have to spend the rest of this semester training, as i have time, and then just make sure and schedule open times on the days that i need to for research for summer semester. but anyway, that was a highlight.

however, it wasn't all fish embryos and microscopes. i had 3 exams to stress about as well. my biology lab exam was on tuesday. that was crazy, just because it was all basically an exam to see how well we kept our lab notebooks. the whole thing was based on our notes and drawings, so if we didn't draw it, we wouldn't recognize it and if we didn't have good notes, we wouldn't know how to answer the questions. so there were about 100 questions and it took almost three hours to complete. but i feel pretty confident. i took a lot of notes and drew a lot of extra pics and life cycles, and googled extra info. so it was pretty easy, but the preparation was just hours of drawing, so kind of tedious. but it felt good to get that out of the way.

my next worries were calculus and biology which were both on friday. i felt pretty prepared for calculus. his tests are never as hard as the homework, which is kind of his strategy. the homework took me about 25 hours to complete. his questions are just so freaking hard. even the math lab TAs are surprised at how hard they are. here is a sample answer from one of the crazier ones:

but it feels so good to get it done, and it's like running a marathon, you just feel so accomplished when you finish. so i took the test on friday, and got everything right except the last one, where i made the dumbest mistake. i actually did it right at first, using the equation for the area of a circle which is pi(r)squared. but then i got something in the back of my head saying no it's 4pi(r)squared, i remembered seeing it on my homework. so i redid it, and got it wrong. the stupid 4pi(r)squared is the surface area of a sphere, not the area of a circle. but it won't count off too much, because that formula was just a tiny part of a much bigger problem, involving related rates, and implicit differentiation, all of which i got right, but still, it's the dumb mistakes that kill you. i was so frustrated. settle...

then my bio exam. i did fine on it, maybe missed one or two, so i'm excited to just have those done. i felt like i spent so long on the bio lab and the calculus that i was cramming for the bio exam. but i was really calm, and i'm happy with how i did. the calm thing is so important. on my first trig exam, i almost had a heart attack, i was so nervous. so i've learned that if i'm prepared, i don't need to worry. sometimes i'm my biggest problem. but anyway, it feels so good to have those behind me. now i just need to get prepared for wednesdays chemistry exam. then i have a great weekend at lava hot springs with my family to look forward to. i seriously can't wait.

one or two random notes:

#1-we got a free car this week. brooke's former triathlon "coach" asked us if we wanted a car. his mom passed away, i think, and no one wanted to mess around with selling it. so we are the proud owners of a 1997 (?) toyota camry. it's actually in seemingly great shape. a little old lady smell, but that should come right out. i don't know if i mentioned that someone opened their car door into the impala and put a big dent in the side, but that is really bugging me right now. people are so lame. but it would be nice to drive a different car and not rack up the dents and miles on our sweet little impala. plus if something breaks down, it's nice to have a backup, since we're not exactly rolling in the benjamins right now.

#2-why was a guy on my 6 am bus rocking out to chicago and earth wind and fire so early? he had his headphones so loud and was gyrating in his seat. chicago? that was like 1993 prom date music. poor guy.

#3-i seriously saw a guy put his cigarette out on a trash can, and then throw the cigarette on the ground. i wanted to go rub it in his face and then punch him in it. people wonder why i'm antisocial.