Thursday, October 13, 2011

Mid-October

Wow, it's the middle of October already. It seems like this month is going by pretty quickly. I guess that's a good thing because I want to get to November so I can visit home. Time passing this fast is kind of weird though.
I guess things are going okay. The next three weeks will be really stressful though. I have a quiz, two exams, and a final project in the next two weeks. Then the experiment I was supposed to do at lab got changed today, so I have to revamp my plans about how the end of my rotation will go. I think it will be okay but I hate it when things get changed abruptly. Of course, then I have to give an end of rotation presentation at lab meeting. I hope it will go alright. I know I'm a good public speaker, but I feel like I just don't really know what I'm doing or what I'm talking about. So I worry that I'll sound like a complete idiot when I talk.
On a better note, I started biofeedback today. It's really cool. At the Student Counseling Center, you check in and get a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Then you go to the room, which is nice and dark. You get to sit in a little cubicle in a recliner that massages if you want, and you plug the headphones in so it's all quiet. Then you put the sensors on your fingers-two measure your skin conductance and one measures your heart rate. Then you use the computer programs, which guide you through a bunch of different exercises and help your practice the techniques. It's pretty cool; today I did some breathing and mindfulness exercises. It was really neat and there's a graph you can watch whenever you want which shows how your heart rate and skin conductance change based on what you do. I felt so relaxed after I was done. It was awesome and I wish I had that kind of set-up in my apartment.
Speaking of apartments, I'm sick of living with so many people crammed around me, and I'm definitely sick of living with undergraduates surrounding me. So I'm going to try and find a house to rent for next year, so when my lease is up in July I can move somewhere else. I want a house ideally, because then I would share zero walls with other people and I could have a yard and things like that. But if I find a duplex or townhouse where no undergrads are allowed, I would look into that too. I really just want quiet and more stable neighbors.

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