troubles

I'm having trouble with myself, and it's affecting everything. Something has to change.

comprehensive exams

they are the bane of my existence right now.

plus, I have a not fun cold.

every little thing's gonna be all right

This last week was insane. I wrote a 10 page paper for Tuesday, wrote a 4 hour essay exam Thursday, had my final presentation on Friday for my seminar, and now I have 1 more 23 page article to read for my systems class before I start studying for my neuroanatomy exam next SATURDAY. Suffice it to say that I was stressed. I went to therapy Tuesday a complete mess. My therapist told me that it was painful to watch me talk. He really wants to put me on drugs, but I don't want to take them, so I went to the gym this morning like he has been trying to get me to do for months. I feel great. Exhausted, but great. Less anxious about everything I have to do. I might go again tomorrow. I'm very happy right now.

In other news, grad school is a weird place because the people you work with are kind of your friends/school-mates and very definitely your colleagues, so maintaining a professional relationship with them is very difficult especially when you're dating one of them and the others want to gossip about it and ask questions. I don't want to share this with all of my colleagues. It's not their place.

SAN DIEGO STESS EATING

I'm stress eating Coconut Bliss Mint Galactica, straight chocolate chips, and chips and salsa. I have to write a 10 page paper, finish my grant proposal, and GO TO SAN DIEGO at 6:30 am for the Society for Neuroscience meeting. AHHHHHHHHHH.

homework and pumpkin bread

Tonight, I'm reading "Molecular Anatomy of the Development of the Human Substantia Nigra", "The pars reticulata of the substantia nigra: a window to the basal ganglia output" and "Differential short-term plasiticity at convergent inhibitory syapses to the substantia nigra pars reticulata". I'm also making pumpkin bread, which came out surprisingly well despite the fact that I only put in about half as much oil and twice as much pumpkin as is required by the original recipe.

Pumpkin Bread (adapted from the PPK)

1/2 cup chopped pecans
1.75 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 can pumpkin pie filling
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup soy milk

1. Preheat oven to 365 degrees F. Grease and flour a 8″ x 4″ loaf pan.
2. Toast the pecans in an ungreased skillet. Set aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, white sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add the pumpkin puree, oil, and soy milk, and mix until all of the flour is absorbed. Fold in toasted walnuts. pour batter into pan.
4. Bake for ~1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven, and cover loaf tightly with foil. Allow to steam for 10 minutes. Remove foil, and turn out onto a cooling rack. Tent loosely with the foil, and allow to cool completely.


I should probably mention that I'm on a "I want to quit graduate school" kick right now. I'm half in love with the idea of working for a food policy NGO and being a freegan. I wish I had more time for cooking and gardening. I'm really really stressed here.

conflicted

I'm in a weird state. My overall level of anxiety is exceedingly high, but my happiness is not so low. I'm still not sleeping much. I'm barely able to focus on my school work. I feel pretty terribly alone. I feel panic about getting all my work done (which is a lot. And I mean, A LOT). My skin is breaking out. I'm convinced that I have a million different diseases (multiple sclerosis or lupus, definitely ADD, possibly cancer of some type), and I'm only sort of kidding. But I don't think I'm sad. Not being sad is a good thing: at least I have one less thing to panic about.

Tonight, I had a special make up session for my seminar in cell fate (self-hate. hahaha) and Brown University generously provided us all with Thai food from our class budget of $700. I had vegan pad thai (it was actually written "VEGAN Pad Thai" on the menu under a special section!!) and mango sticky rice.

detox fail

I have an exam tomorrow for my neuroanatomy class, and I pretty much just finished off a box of kashi autumn wheat. so much for only eating more greens. I did well for my other meals though. Lunch was a kale, watercress and avocado salad with a bit of humus and pita on the side

it'll never happen

I can't wait until my life settles down, I get on top of my shit, and I actually get to volunteer or clean my apartment on weekends.

STRESS II

One of the thousand page papers I have to read for my lab/grant. AHHH grant is due in less than a month.

STRESS

Tomorrow, I have a 2-3 page (single spaced, 1 inch margins all around, so really 5-7 page) paper and a presentation due. I also have 3 papers to read for my seminar at 3 pm, a friend coming into town, no food in my fridge, no clean clothes, a paper due Monday, a paper due Tuesday, a final exam on Tuesday, and a midterm on Nov 2nd. To top it off, I have a 10 page final due shortly, while I'm in San Diego, and a 6 page grant to finish right before Thanksgiving. How am I dealing with it? Writing this and making molasses cookies (adapted from hellyeahitsvegan!).

2/3 c vegetable oil
¼ c blackstrap molasses
2 tbsp ground flax seeds whisked into 3 tbsp warm water
1 c brown sugar
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 c flour
½ tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350. Combine oil, molasses, flax seeds mixed with water, and sugar. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, cinnamon, ginger and salt then add the wet ingredients. If the oven isn't yet at 350, put your dough in the freezer until it's done preheating. When the oven is ready, make 1.5 inch balls and flatten them on your ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 6 minutes. They won't seem done, but I promise they are.