The high today was somewhere in the 60s with grey, cloudy skies and a nice, wet, coolish breeze. I could almost pretend that I was back home. This is the sort of weather I absolutely love. It's warm enough to go without a coat, but cool enough that you need a jacket. Unfortunately, these two nice days in a row (Tuesday was sunny and warmer due to less of a breeze) were but a brief, teasing prelude to spring; it's set to get down to the 30s again through the weekend, and it won't start warming back up until late next week.
I've been quite busy with school lately, hence the lack of posting. Quite busy, by the way, is an understatement. I took on a giant load this semester, and it's been a struggle to attempt to keep up with everything (I say attempt because I don't really keep up with everything; thankfully, I have some understanding professors, so an essay a day late isn't too much of an issue). I'm taking three official classes -- statistics [linear regression and analysis of variance, which is actually a wonderful class], community ecology [hearts! this is a great class, and I'm learning a lot], and advanced evolution [again, learning a lot, but it's a huge challenge since I did not take evolution nor genetics in undergrad. I'm muddling along in here].
Additionally, I'm teaching an intro bio lab/discussion section again; it's not as much work as last semester, since I'm familiar with the material, but it still takes time to prepare homework assignments, grade papers, and have office hours with students. I also make teaching hard for myself due to my perfectionist nature; I have reworked every homework assignment from last semester before giving out to this semester's students.
Finally, I'm also doing an independent study reading course. It's interesting reading, but it tends to get pushed to the back burner due to my other commitments.
I'm convinced that once I make it through this semester, I can't possibly face anything worse. Here's to hoping my preliminary exams next fall are no more stressing than now (and hopefully less so -- while I'm teaching again next fall, I will only be taking one credit worth of class. The rest of my time will be dedicated to research).
I should get back to my reading -- it's midnight, and I still have quite a bit to do for classes tomorrow. One last thought:
Someday, I think it'd be a lot of fun to spend a week living up in the canopy of a tree and not coming down. Kind of like a wacky camping trip, I'm thinking. Of course, the best place to do this would be in the tropics, where I would have no shortage of viewing material. I wonder if it's possible to do this without being a research who works on canopy issues?