Things Are Slowly Picking Back Up

All the teaching assistants had their meeting the other day and I got assigned to teach the ecology and evolution biology core course. The lab portion teaches about the diversity of life, and I'm happy to say that I'm co-TAing with my friend Virginia. I know the other TAs for the course as well, and I am confident that we'll all work together well and that there won't be any problems. Felisa is teaching a portion of the course, I don't know the other professor.

The meeting was very long, about 3 hours. Every time a new semester begins there are a few new TAs so we have to go over everything which is a little tedious. Not to mention that sitting around that long without food or drink is a little rough for me. We got a short break, but nothing that would allow me to go recharge with a snack or something other than water. There was no indication that the meeting was going to be that long, which irked me a bit, but it is what it is. In a way, it's good that we went over everything again because there were some details that I had forgotten from the beginning of last semester. However, by about the 3rd or 4th time I teach I'm probably going to have everything down and I'll be really bored at these meetings.

I think I have my final schedule solidified. I am excited to take the GIS course, but it overlaps with my lab group's weekly meeting. I hope this isn't too big of an issue, I know Felisa will be annoyed that I won't be there, but I think we all agreed that I should acquire this tool and I signed up for the class that was recommended to me. There is another one, but it meets longer during the week and I was told it wasn't as good as the one I'm signed up for. I'm also expecting to work on a project next fall that will involve using GIS, so it is really important that I get this under my belt now rather than later. If I can learn GIS, I should be able to do some really cool stuff, research wise. This means when I get back to going to the lab group meetings, I'll have something interesting to talk about.

I have a three day weekend because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. It's a nice day today, so I'm going to get out this afternoon to enjoy it. I'm also going to use this extra time to do some reading and getting ready for classes.