Monday, November 24, 2008

Stress

I'm the kind of person that is very prone to stress. I think too much. I anticipate trouble, so if I have a deadline, or really any kind of upcoming event (travel, exam, dentist appointment) I tend to get stressed out.

The thing is I know that I'll be doing that, but so far I haven't figured out a way to neutralize the stress. The stress often makes me feel trapped and I end up not preparing as well as I could, because I waste a good amount of time being paralyzed by stress. Why is this relevant? Next week I have a meeting with my thesis advisory committee. Basically it is a group of three faculty members that I meet with periodically and they advise me on how to proceed in my research. This is really for my benefit, but I always get stressed out thinking that I should have done more, and that now is really not a good time to have this meeting. However, afterwards, I always find these meetings helpful. I just wish I didn't stress out as much before hand and prepared better. I find that when I feel stress, I suddenly realize all the things I'm interested in/rather be doing other than the work that is causing the stress. In addition, I have a midterm in the Japanese class I'm taking on the same day! I don't think I'll have a very relaxing Thanksgiving, but on the plus side, it will all be over with in just over a week :)

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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Rest in Peace, Michael Crichton

This morning starts with sad news. Author Michael Crichton has died of cancer at age 66. (link)

Michael Crichton is the author of one of my favorite books, Jurassic Park. Although obviously fiction, this book showed me the potential of science and is one of the reasons I became interested in genetics.

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