Hectic April

My God, has it been a long time since I've posted an entry!! The end of April was a very hectic month for me, as it is for just about every college or grad student I know of. It was pure craziness. I honestly don't know what happened to the time. Seriously. Looking back on it, it's all a blur. The only thing I really remember is having to grade this enormous stack of papers, which took me about five days to complete. The problems the students had to do had multiple parts and each subsequent part relied on an answer from at least one previous part. So, being the fair grader that I am, I didn't take off points if the students made an error in a previous part, but used it correctly from then on. That means that as I graded each part, I had to go back and track the source of the error. Talk about a pain in the ass! It would have been so much easier if they all did everything correctly, but alas, that did not happen.

I must say, however, that I really did enjoy the whole TA experience this time around. The class was great, very friendly, and for the most part, incredibly willing to put in some time and effort to learn the material. They must have been in the average on the second mid-term was an 87!! That is just unheard of for any exam, much less in dynamics. So, I feel I had a major part in helping the students do that well. They must have also appreciated it too. A couple of the girls knew how much effort I was putting into this class and brought me a batch of chocolate chip cookies and a six-pack of Pepsi. I thought that was incredibly sweet. It made me feel special, which is a rare thing, indeed.

I do remember one other thing from April. Jay came up to visit for Blue & White weekend, since he was in the blue band. It was nice having a member of the "gang" back for a visit. He, Terry and I went out drinking on that Friday night, which was fun. It was really nice to kick back and relax and get a little tipsy for a bit. (It was especially nice because it was in the middle of the aforementioned grading marathon.) I was especially excited because I was actually around for one of his visits. Usually they occur on holidays (when I try to go home or to a friends) or over coincidental breaks (again, I try to go home for these too). But, that's about all I remember about the last half of April.

Lately, I've been kind of going back to depressive mode. It's weird. I had a nice span of days where I felt good (relatively) about myself and felt like things were going to turn out ok. Now, I just have this sense of doom and gloom. Perhaps it's because of the candidacy exam coming up, and this is how I start to stress out about things. I've never had an exam this big before, so I don't really know the proper way to react. Yet, I'm really not sure if that's the only thing that's leading to this latest battle with depression.

I guess part of it is being lonely. Not in the sense of that there's never anyone around, but more in the sense of I don't have someone to love or that loves me. I know that's not true. There are several people out there that do love me, like my mom and sister. However, while their love is great, sometimes it's hard to feel from 750 miles away. I guess I'm just ready to find the one guy that will, and I hate to go all Jerry Maguire on you, "complete me." I have this picture in my head of having someone to sit with on the porch in summer sipping lemonade (probably with some vodka in it) just chatting and being close to one another. Or in winter sitting and cuddling near a fireplace (to satisfy my slightly pyromaniac urges) drinking wine or munching on popcorn or some other snack. Call me a hopeless romantic, but there you go.

However, I'm not sure I'm going to find this guy in State College. At least not in the ways I've been trying. But, I still want to stick around even if I don't pass the candidacy exam. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe I have this sense that I might find the guy for me if I stick around longer. Who knows? I suppose it could happen.

Well, anyway, I should probably be off for now. I don't think I have much more to say at the moment. Plus, Gilmore Girls is on, and it's distracting me from continuing. Hopefully it won't be as long between entries as it was this time. We'll see how busy I get.