Have a Nice Day

Well. Alot sure has happened.

I didn’t pass my qualifying exams (I have 2 more tries) and I didn’t get that internship.

So…what now?

I’ve been looking around for a new job for the summer. I’m interviewing for a (ugh) sales job this week, but I may end up waiting tables down here at school. I’m sure being a financial analyst has fully prepared me for re-entering the world of waitressing. Sigh. My perfectly good career has failed me.

I’ve been pretty down lately about how things have been turning out for me….or really, how they Haven’t been turning out for me. In an effort to make things turn around me, I’ve been thinking about converting this blog to something…better. Instead of documenting my (lack of) progress in graduate school…I was thinking I might convert this to how I get my groove back. Specifically…a blog on how to have an epic day.

Expect changes sooner or later.

When I’m not banging my head against a wall in grad school, sometimes I paint.

This is my Mom’s Christmas gift. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

It’s actually a recreation of a painting I did when I was 17. I took pictures of the painting and gave it away to a friend, and I am not sure if she kept it because I don’t keep in touch with her anymore.

My mother always comments that she liked that painting, so with my lack of monetary funds this year…I thought this was a decent consolation. It took me much longer than I expected, but hopefully she will be happy with it.

In studying for finals…well, my brain is getting full. This following is about topology.

“Wow. I think my brain is going to explode and fundamental groups will be splattered all over the walls of the Starbucks I’m studying in”
“Will the blood spatter be a covering?”
“Ahhhhh!!!”

In studying/stressing/panicking for finals, a bit of good news has come up.

I’m going for a second interview for that internship So…maybe…Maybe I will get it?

It is pretty much exactly what I want to do with my life when I get out of graduate school, so it would be a big win for me if I got the job.

Back to studying…

I can *almost* say I have survived my first semester of graduate school. In fact, I can almost say I barely survived.

I spent the past few days in Chicago and with my family, which was a much needed break before the finals/qual studying madness begins. Every time I am in the city, it’s like I suddenly remember what its like to be in love again. There is nothing more magnificent than the skyline, and citylife energizes me like nothing else.

But now I am back in Bloomington. We have 2 more weeks of class, and then we take finals. I am balancing this with studying for quals…which is going to be painful.

I applied to an internship, and while I have pretty much decided that I won’t get it, I am still waiting to hear back from them.

So all in all, I don’t have much to report. The life and times of a grad student are apparently far more boring for the blog world than I realized. On the bright side, I’m not dead yet.

I am not good at blogging apparently. Or…keeping this blog updated.

I have been in an academic coma that can only be described as math grad school. This seems to mean that I:
- never want to leave my apartment on Saturday
- feel guilty whenever I am not doing work
- feel more guilty because my homework scores are never good despite my attempt to obsess over every small detail.

Such is the life of a math grad student.

The adjustment from financial analyst to math grad student has been alot more difficult that I orginally anticipated. But I’m getting there now.

I think I’m going to post some of my proofs from analysis soon…since I’m starting to feel pretty good about analysis for the first time ever! I am also in the midst of an exam tornado…provided I survive the next week, I will blog again.

I have been working on an entertaining post for awhile now…but I never have to time to get the rest of the material I need to finish it. Keep your eyes peeled for it in the weeks to come…

I had a post explaining the purpose of this blog, and then I never posted it.

The purpose of this blog is to track my progress, or demise, for the next [insert number less than 10 hopefully] years that I spend in graduate school. I set this blog up with the creation of my website, jenniferannehill.com, as an additional tool to keep in touch with people throughout these years.

Indiana University has a “3 tier” system for getting people out of here.
Tier 1 is comprised of 2 exams, one in abstract algebra and another in analysis. A student has 4 chances to pass these exams, or else they get the boot from grad school. I attempted algebra before the semester exam, but alas I did not pass.

Tier 2 is apparently a review of your work by your professors. Pretty much, if you are going to class and not slacking off, this is a done deal.

Tier 3 is a formal presentation where you present what you want to research. You have a whole committee of professors listening to your presentation. I don’t like thinking about this step in the game, because it sounds fairly painful.

And then…you have your thesis defense. Of course. Then that’s it. You have earned yourself a PhD. Just like that. Easy, right?

My only focus right now is to pass tier 1. It’s my main source of anxiety right now, and I’m going to try to win these exams come January.

Aside from graduate school, I am also looking into internships (already). My former job has already said they’d be interested in taking me back (yayyyy!!!!) however I’m still applying to several other companies juuuust in case they don’t have positions open. So lately I have been undergoing the task of updating my resume and pretending I’m eloquent enough to write a cover letter. (And speaking of which, if you want to help me out with this task…).

So grad school progress + career progress are the two main things I’ll be tracking on this thing. There are a few projects I’m looking into, and those will get blogged about as well.

Keep moving forward….

I have waited a long time for the pleasure of saying what I’m about to say, so please appreciate it:

“Oh the life of a grad student.”

Heh heh heh.

Today marks my first day of graduate school. I had topology. Here are my thoughts:
1. The professor gave 3 definitions of continuous functions. The last one had no epsilons or deltas, and then he made a joke about how topology doesn’t like epsilons or deltas. This both made me giggle and DELIGHTED me.
2. I forgot something in the classroom, so I had to run back in before the next class started. A gaggle of undergrads were already there, and my professor had not erased the notes from the board. There conversation went something like this:
“This looks like greek”
“I don’t even understand what they are defining”
“AND WHAT’S THE UPSIDE DOWN A?”
Without a doubt, that was the best reaction I have ever heard to a chalk board of pure math lecture notes.

Also, it is AWESOME that we get free legal pads. Two big thumbs up to the IU math department!

So. I had this epic post for a first blog post, but I can’t get the latex to work.

So instead I thought it would be really FUN to tease you all and say that I wrote this epic CHALK BUSTIN’ proof but YOU CAN’T SEE IT YET.

Wow. What a bad first post to a blog. FML.