You walk into what you expected to be a thread only to be surrounded by the smell of the forest carried on a crisp playful breeze. You find yourself drawn to the center of a clearing covered in soft grass and surrounded by trees which if you sit quietly for long enough begin to come alive with creatures comfortable enough with your presence to come out to play. This is a place of imagination where given enough time anything can come alive. Out of the forest crawls a bewildering creature with a feathered tail a lizardlike gait and small tufts of bright orange hair coming out of its ears. It licks it's paw a few times before running off to the edge of the meadow and curling up in a girl's lap. She looks up at you and smiles, "welcome to Starlit's meadow" she giggles. I'm Starlit. I see you've already met Zim. Make yourself comfortable. It's funny how almost all things seem to drift through here occasionally. It will also be interesting to see what sticks around.

Or more realistically you walk into a thread and find someone crying about grad school. or being delighted by grad school. it is an emotional roller coaster here. But I'm definitely talking about grad school because it is my life. Remind me that there's things outside of it occasionally It's for my own good.

Good morning Starlit, how are you doing today?

I'm procrastinating!!! How are you?

I'm doing really well, although quite a bit bored. LOL

I was actually able to do 1/4 of my homework today so I feel like I'm not dumb. I know I'm not dumb but grad school gives me a bit of a warped perspective on what is "average" so that's been a process. This class is awful. I actually "finished" 3/4 of it but I consider blindly copying from the solutions manual and or copying something I partially understand not really finishing it. I'm so glad that a few of us have formed a little gang of confusion. Usually between the three of us we can figure out enough of the homework to get it done in office hours (provided the time period during office hours stretches from about 5pm (their actual start) to 9pm when we go home and then finish.

I'm glad you were able to get some of it done. College is so hard, I can't even imagine how hard grad school is. And you most certainly are not dumb!

I have to recreate my costumed wizard guy at some point too. But I love this outfit more so I remade it first . And grad school is interesting because it's simultaneously harder and easier. idk if that makes sense but the classes are way harder like it went from 0-60 in a few seconds and also you're on fire and in a lava pit. But also the classes are kind of one of the least important things your doing and (I've been told) that the grades will be fine in the end. I hope this is true because if my grades on the midterms (somewhere between a 59 and 68%) were a little painful. The one class where he's told us how that will translate to grades though that's a b so I think I'm okay.

I don't remember seeing any rules about double posting, if so let me know and I won't do it again Anyways, today I am just really really tired. I'm trying to find like small manageable tasks that I can actually accomplish. I thought I could deposit this check quickly but it's a weird shape so my bank's app hates it and I can't just take it to the bank because my bank is literally across the country so I'd have to find a credit union that can play nicely with them it's a whole thing. The only thing I've managed to do today is get to class and sort of pick a presentation topic which is great, I'm glad I accomplished those two things but I really needed to do more and I barely managed to make myself go home now cooking dinner seems like a herculean task and I still haven't folded my laundry I did a few days ago, I haven't showered I just don't have enough spoons today. and I may or may not even have fibro I just use that analogy because it's helpful. I hurt and I'm tired and when I don't have enough spoons my emotional regulation goes down the toilet so I'm taking some things personally which really aren't about me (they are hurtful but they really aren't about me). And this stupid app when i try to take the picture of the back of the check tells me to flip it over because it hates me. (okay it did actualy work this time but I'm still very ehgh about the whole thing)

Wow Star you're having a tough day! I get it about the spoons, I have fibro and rheumatoid arthritis and some days I don't want to get out of bed.
I hope tomorrow is better for you!!

I have a presentation tomorrow. I have practiced it once. I should really practice it again a few times but I have way too much faith in my own ability to make things up

Confidence is good!

Presentation went great (or as well as it possibly could have gone with a professor who likes to interrupt people's presentations and totally derail your flow lol).
Also you might be a researcher if without even noticing you end up with 20 something tabs worth of background research on things which you came up with in about an hour before abandoning your task going to make an appointment with the librarian to help sort it out only to somehow in the middle of making the appointment find a textbook that had at least a starting point for what you were trying to figure out in the first place (in my case which enzyme should I study). At least I've actually gotten enough sleep for the second half of this week. Managed to sneak in 12 hours on wednesday night and started feeling like a person again after an entire weekend/beginning of the week of not.

Star I'm so glad you got some sleep and feel like a human again!! Also glad your presentation went well!!

Actual footage of me trying to be an adult. *Puts thing in oven forgetting entirely about the topping I need to make for it* *walks away* “oh wait the dinner thing requires the cooking thing!!!”

*Tries to find a spice mix.* *stared at shelf* “I need the....this! I need the this.”

*proceeds to open freezer door to retrieve sausage dumping milk all over my floor*

Oh noes, I hope your day gets better! *hugs*

Hey at least the milk in my freezer is now frozen and no longer at risk of pouring onto the floor . I know I haven't been super active this week. School is a lot right now. I need a time turner (I am literally supposed to be in multiple places at once on Friday... We have to proctor exams for a prof, the prof just now told us (me and a classmate) we're supposed to be proctoring his exam during a class that we both have. So now he's ditching class Friday to proctor this exam and I'm taking a few hours out of the time we have to do the final exam (it's like a 48 hour problem set take home thing) to proctor the other exam. *rolls eyes at the ridiculousness of the entire situation* (next time my boss wants a favor with the TAing/proctoring schedules the answer is no. It's not worth the insanity. (except of course I can't say no and I like doing favors for people and I love my boss but still this has been much more trouble than I avoided). Maybe. There is still something to be said for having a pile of 14 exams instead of a pile of 100+. Maybe it's all good. Regardless it is what it is. And since Aleah is currently the only one who reads this thread enjoy the latest diary entry in the chaotic adventures of a grad student I guess . I think I understand this homework problem but it also involves solving differential equations which I don't and never have known how to do so while I think I follow the solution somewhat it's a tenuous understanding at best. I just need to make it through a presentation, 1 more problem set, the giant take home final, and another final. I only need Bs. It will all be fine.

Omg star I don't know how you manage to do it all!! I would be insane! *hugs*

I'm fairly certain I am insane. Only an insane person would willingly do this. And enjoy it most of the time. my lovely TAing supervisor who is about to retire told me that years of doing a job like this would make me completely unable to focus on any one task for more than an hour because I would be so used to doing multiple things at once and just making slow steady progress on them that I wouldn't be able to do just one thing because after 30-40 of this that's just how you are. I told him it was already too late for me

I can believe that!

I won Hamilton tickets!!!!!!!!!!! *nonverbal excited squeaking noises* *flaps arms around because I don’t know what else to do* squeeeee!