Tag: school/life balance

Fall Week 5

I have yet to have a blog post this semester get published on time.  I am endeavoring to correct this.  Perhaps this is the week I get lucky!  This week I had to make some tough decisions and figure out what was going to get cut from my schedule because I am just too busy.  Between working (research), school work, home life (some of my home life is feeling sorely neglected at the moment), traveling, and getting ready for grad applications I have zero time.  It’s getting me sick and I’m super exhausted.  So, something has to give.

I decided to drop the Game Design class, even though it is by far my favorite elective.  I am still going to attend the lectures, but I simply don’t have time for all the homework.  I was spending ten times more of my outside class time working on projects for that class than all my other classes put together.  Not a good balance.

This week started off the first round of exams.  This coming week I have GREs on Monday, Web Data Management on Tuesday, and Algorithms on Thursday.  Luckily, then I’m off to Baltimore for Grace Hopper!  I have finished downloading the conference app on both my phone and tablet.  I’m starting to figure out exactly what I need to pack.  I’m super excited!!

Since dropping the extra class, I’ve actually managed to get some things accomplished.  I’ve finished fixing up my DREU section of the website, so that I can get my last paycheck (which I could really use right now).  That was a huge weight on me.  Now I have to build a new section for my CREU work, which I’ve been putting off.  I think I will actually have enough time this weekend to get that done too.  I’ve also gotten a nice chunk of research work for CREU done as well.  I’ll hopefully get around to updating my website, so I can start sharing snippets of that.

I also attended the club orientation on campus so that our ACM-W Chapter can be official.  I got some good ideas for things I would like to do with the group, so I need to start organizing meetings for that.  I still have to work on the website, but I think some of this will have to wait until after Grace Hopper, unfortunately.  There is just not enough time in the day for everything!

Fall Week 4

This week was kind of a blur, except that the newest member of the family was born Thursday night!  I was able to go visit him in the hospital Friday afternoon.  Here’s a picture of me with Thane:

Auntie Kate and Little Thane, September 14, 2012

School has been very overwhelming.  I feel like I don’t have time to spend on the things I really want to be learning and spending time on, like my research, because everything is just sucking up all of my time.

I did do a quick run (THANKS to Kyle for driving me!!) to Seattle Thursday afternoon to attend the iSchool information session.  I had an opportunity to talk to the PhD advisor and hear a bit about the program.  The biggest thing I realized is that I really need to get on this whole writing to professors, drafting up my essays, and generally getting more serious about grad school applications!

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