Ahem.
I am 100% convinced that my shitty GRE scores were the reason that I didn’t get into any US schools for grad school. BUT LOOK WHO HAS TWO MASTERS DEGREES AND IS SUCCESSFULLY TEACHING MATH/STATS AT A UNIVERSITY NOW, HUH?
Sorry, it’s been a decade and I’m still bitter about the fact that the GRE results outweighed everything else that was stellar about my undergrad performance.
And I’m finally going to say that my undergraduate performance was stellar, ‘cause it fucking was.
Fight me, standardized testing.
Also, for anyone else going into STEM who thinks the GRE belongs in the toilet and should not be used as a factor for deciding admission: check here.
THESIS ROUND II
Guess who successfully defended their thesis this morning?
I DID!
It honestly didn’t feel like as big of a deal as my first defense did back in 2011. Maybe it’s because I knew what to expect since I’d done it before. Maybe it’s because I felt more prepared and confident about the subject matter this time around. Maybe it’s because I’m just older and more mature than I was in 2011 and am less prone to freaking out.*
But it doesn’t matter, ‘cause now I’m DONE! I just have a few minor corrections/additions to make, then send the thesis off to the online Vault so that it’s officially submitted.
YAY!
*Who am I kidding? I’ll always be prone to freaking out.
Whaaaaaaaaaat
Holy crap, I did waaaaay better on that STAT 723 final than I thought I did. He must have curved it.
But anyway, that was the last final I’ll ever have to take for the last class I’ll ever have to take.
…
I say that, but then again, I’ve said that several times since 2008, so…
I’m a cayenne pepper. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU????/???
UGH, that test was brutal. Like, the problems were all very similar to the homework questions, but they were all similar to the six most difficult homework questions. The ones that required weird-ass tricks that were somewhat unrelated to the material we needed to know for the class.
But whatever, you know? Either I make it through this class or I have to stay an extra year and torment those who don’t want me around.
Those who shall not be named.
Yeah.
ZZZ
Had a midterm today.
Feel dead.
Sorry for crappy post.
I WON A THING
I got another TA award! Yay! I got one for fall 2014; this one is for fall 2015 (they just announced it, though, haha).
I think the reason I didn’t get one in Winter 2015 was because I had only like 8 people in my lab the day I ended up handing out the little review forms, and I don’t think it was a big enough sample for them to even count it (their reasoning is that if there are too few people filling it out, those people can be more easily identified, and the survey is supposed to be anonymous).
Anyway. Woo!
I’m a-feared
UGH THE TEST IS OVER. Thank god.
It wasn’t awful, but I know I made at least one—maybe two—stupid little mistakes. I’m hoping Dr. Lu will be merciful and see that I do understand what I’m doing, I just made dumb math errors.
‘Cause that’s what I do.
Now it’s time to do nothing school-related for the rest of the day.
Sorry I keep posting about school. (I’m not sorry at all.)
This video accurately depicts the change in my attitude and approach to grad school, pre- and post-February 2nd.
The day you identify with a HowToBasic video is the day you know that things have gone horribly wrong.
LAJDFLDS
THE RAGE
MAKES IT
HARD TO BLOG
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Rough
I am DONE with the first draft of my thesis introduction. Last time I did this, I thought the introduction was the hardest/most work-intensive part of the whole thing to write. So considering I’ve got all my simulations done and just need to write up the results, I’m guessing it’s the same sort of thing this time around.
So it’s nice to have that first rough draft done, even though it is just a rough draft.
Plus, I don’t think I’d made this much progress until April or so last time.
Yeah.
It Begins!
Okay, so unlike Thesis: Round I in 2011, I’ve actually started my thesis writing now—in January—versus in March. Which is probably a good thing. I also feel like I understand what I’m actually doing WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than I did back then.
I also care a lot more.
So yeah. Hopefully things will go a lot smoother than they did last time, but I guess we’ll see.
WOO!
Winter Semester 2016: COMMENCE!
It’s time for the final semester of the Masters program! I’m excited. Well, excited for it to be over. Excited to (hopefully) get this degree. I’m hoping to be done with the thesis stuff by May so that I can defend then and just not worry about anything over the summer. That would be SO NICE and SUCH A GREAT CONTRAST to last time in 2011.
I just want to teach, man. That’s the end goal of all of this.
I just. Want. To. Teach.
I’M FREE
Had the final for Dr. Chen’s class this morning, which means I’M FREE OF THIS SEMESTER!
(Except not really. I have to invigilate a test on Monday at freaking 7 PM.)
BUT I’M FREE OF ANY CLASS OBLIGATIONS!
Now it’s thesis time for real. My goal is to get it done by May at the latest, but we’ll see.
I’m already ridiculously nervous.
TUANFUKFSD
Man, I just spent about an hour reading all my old emails between my UBC supervisor and myself.
I just logged on to that email to get info about an old account, why the hell did I decide reading all that crap was a good idea? I feel physically sick now.
Seriously. If I were to ever rank all the relationships I’ve ever had on a scale from “unhealthiest” to “healthiest,” that one would probably be the low point on the “unhealthiest” side.
That was not a fun time.
BRB, gonna throw up.
App
My PhD application has been SUBMITTED!
Hopefully there won’t be any issues. I have a supervisor, my grades are good-ish, and I have a bit of a good reputation around the department for being a good TA. So hopefully things will go smoothly!
WOO!
Eigenblogger 