Cutting Up Plants, Meh

My DYLAN #10 post was a Friday morning rant, and I felt like I should explain the rest of my day.

After going to my second lecture and a quick lunch, I went to my Marine Plant Diversity lab. I went in without a lab manual, because even though the other Plant Diversity class' lab manual said "LAB MANUAL" on its front cover in the bookshop, ours didn't, and apparently we DID have our lab manuals in stock. Therefore, everyone else had theirs which was a real bother. Our lab manual says "lab notes" on the front cover, which to me meant notes from the lab because there's a separate notebook we can buy that says "lecture notes" on it. AND, since the lab manual was encased in thick shrink wrap, I couldn't open it to see if it was the one I needed.

My lab professor, who is extremely nice, made me a copy (which happened to be from his notebook with all the answers in it) to use for the lab. I would have rather have had my manual before lab so I could have known what I was supposed to be doing, and I felt completely stupid for 2+ hours. It was an introductory lab, and since our lab is laid back, I ended up doing okay. We cut up plants and looked at them under the microscope. Very exciting. I skipped out a bit early because I didn't NEED to be there and I was in an annoyed mood. I was able to pick up the lab manual in the bookshop however, so I'll be all set for next week.

I think after this week I'll be more comfortable with things. I have a lot to catch up on though and a lot to get started on, so we'll see how it goes. Since I have an 8:30 lecture Thursday and Friday, I might work on getting up at similar hours the rest of the week and getting 2-3+ hours of studying in before my lectures start. Because I have all of Thursday late morning and afternoon off, I might make that my beach day. I hope I can get some studying done before lunch time then head over after. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time reading, studying notes and lectures, and preparing for labs and such. I think I'm going to have a big load this semester, and since our first study break is the first full week in March (which is coming right up) I'm getting nervous about exams after my first week of classes, which isn't fair.

The first study break I'll be going on the North West trip, which is a 2,500 mile tour of Western Australia, which should be a lot of fun. I'm going to be gone for a week and have too many pictures to post once I get back. It'll be ridiculous. Unfortunately, I need to drop about 100 AUD on stuff for the trip (like a sleeping bag) which is really lame. The roughly 850 AUD trip is already paid for by my student group (CIEE) so that helps a lot. I'd like to go to Bali or Queensland on one of last 2 breaks, but we'll see how that pans out. If I'm working, I'd like to work one week to save money and maybe try to go snorkeling around Perth, and then travel the other week. I should be able to do a fair amount of snorkeling on the NW trip though, and I'm STOKED for that.

The job search sucks right now, but I think I'm going to do a new round of applications on Monday in Freo. I'll take almost anything I can get right now. We'll have to see. :-\

Jesse and I watched the first episode of Lost, season 6 and were confused like everyone else. We then decided to watch a 3 hour movie about blue aliens on a planet being mined by humans because we're both huge fans of said (unnamed) movie. The soundtrack and everything is absolutely gorgeous. Makes me fall in love with it all love again!


Friday: 4.5