sotto voce

today i received a fat package from the dean’s office, detailing senior matters: requirement to graduate, credit analysis form, transcript, etc.

freaks the hell outta me.

it just confirmed the fact that i am graduating. real soon.
as much as i’d like to think i’m not a senior, i actually am, and that there are lots of things for me to settle.

btw, my interview with the ad firm is on thursday.
freaking nervous and…. freaking nervous.

b thinks it’s a bad idea for me to graduate early if i’m only gonna be doing this advertising work. he has some good points regarding my thesis stuff, grad sch apps, etc., but right now i just don’t have time to assess that. just need to do really well in the interview and think of the other stuff later.
personally i think i’ve had enough of college and won’t miss it. but yes, i wish i had more time to finish up my thesis, to study for GRE and enjoy another relaxing semester here. i guess i’m pretty neutral on the subject. whether or not i end up leaving early, i’ll be okay.

regardless though, i’m feeling nervous about senior year.
:(

it’s – once again – the end of summer, and i can barely remember what i did for the past three months, or how i’ve failed to notice the passing of time.
if you’re still in school like me, summer is like this vast zone where time stands still. everything comes to a halt when it comes to summer: be it studying, relationship, your thought of the future, everything…
and then it’s time to come back to reality, and you’re like… "shit… i’ve been wasting the past three months doing nothing"

i’d like to say that i’ve worked hard this summer, especially if i compare it to last summer. it’s so much more fulfilling and i learnt so many new things.
i’ve clocked more than 30 hours diving, i swam with a reef shark, i now know how to operate underwater vibracore, i’m now quite the expert in finalcutpro, i’m best friend with SEM machine, i can extract diatom like nobody’s business, and i’ve met so many great people this summer.

however, now i’m pretty nervous about the future. i still haven’t made the decision if i do want to ditch my theses and graduate early. i haven’t talked to any of my advisors about it yet (eeks) and no mention of it to either parents / siblings.
also, now that i actually know what my theses/essays/projects are gonna be about (one on diatom taphonomy and the other on female pirates,) i feel like it’ll be a shame if they don’t get materialized into theses. the materials i have are so awesome that for sure they have the potential to be so much more than just senior essays.
aaaarggggggg
add to that confusion, my new-found realization that i’m ready for grad sch (my peers here are a little bit, urm.. let’s say, dumb and collegeish). so i can just go straight to grad sch and do research.
faaaaaakkk…. too many roads to choose from.

i guess i’ll see how my interview with OM goes and decide from there, while hinting left and right about my intention to my advisors…

am totally depressed.

ok. not really… but close to it. the fact that it’s been raining the whole morning doesn’t help either. but anyway… i’m just pissed at the profs here, my prof, my friends, and most of all, myself.
i know i shouldn’t care too much about where this is going… i mean, i’m not even gonna make a thesis out of it. i just have to slap some data and cute graphs on a poster, and that’s it.
but man… it’s just so hard having to be uncaring about stuff i actually care about. i want to make this research a good one, but i feel like everyone is against me doing it.

the geochem lab here is a shame to any geochem lab on earth (they don’t even have fucking kimwipes or any pipettes or any squeeze bottle with ethanol in it). and i hate asking for stuff that i need for my research because obviously it’ll be another dent to the budget and they end up supplying me with some ersatz equipments that they know and i know, aren’t gonna cut it.
earlier i ask for a microscope and slides to see if there’s any diatoms worth looking at. just a simple request. give me my fucking scope with 80x mag and  the prof just gave me a 4x dissecting scope and told me, "...maybe you can see some stuff there."

yeah right… even you know that i won’t be able to see anything there.

i know things will probably be better once i get back on campus and have my glorious lab all to myself, but it’ll be on my advisor’s dime, and i understand that he doesn’t have any fucking responsibility towards me or my project, at least not financially.
and that just sucks.

even though he told me that if i gave me a good enough proposal that he’d be interested in it and would be willing to spend his grant money on it, we both know that from the way all my cores have been butchered, mangled, and destroyed beyond belief, there’s no way a good outcome is going to materialize out of it.

face it, i’m doomed.

and the only reason why everyone else is so oblivious to it is because they trust the profs here with blind faith that i believe is waning slowly but surely.
they think every little detail of their projects have been thought of carefully by the profs before they even prepare the logistics for the trip.
i’m sorry mate, but i think you guys have been led down the same treacherous path.

the only people who’re getting the best supervision and guidance are the ones who’re practically doing the dirty work for the profs research. yeah… of course, of course.
i mean wth am i complaining about right. such things can only be expected from the beginning, i was just foolish to think that i’d be able to go on my own.

this sucks