Since I’ve Been Gone

Life in academia-land has gone on mostly as usual in the past month and a half. My last two days of classes required me to complete two presentations (polymers and transport), two reports (kinetics and polymers), and a problem set (transport), but I did it without losing too much sleep. The transport final passed without excessive trouble, then I spent the next month preparing for the candidacy exam. Spoiler alert: I passed, earning myself the right to spend four more years at the University of Michigan working toward my PhD.

In the meantime, there was also:
World Penguin Day (April 25)
National Star Wars Day (May the Fourth)
National Eat What You Want Day (May 11, but basically every day for me)
Mother’s Day (May 14) (Happy Mother’s Day. Better late than never?)
National Bike to Work Day (May 19)
Towel Day (May 25)

On the research front, the main news is that I passed the candidacy exam. I’ve also read more about CTAB, CTAC, CAPB, SLES, SANS, SDS, DPD, MD, the CMC, and related topics than I ever wanted to.

Since the weather’s gotten mostly nice, I’ve been biking to work, as well as to band, the grocery store, and the library (with stops at the farmers market). I’m at 84.5 miles for the year, and I’ve ridden at least once in every month of the year so far. It’s not a huge amount of mileage, but that’s 84.5 miles of not driving, not that I have a car. Also, I’m really good at just barely missing buses, so I’d rather bike than set up camp at the bus stop for an hour. Because if I left to go somewhere else, I’d get back to the bus stop just in time to see the next bus pulling away. Because that’s how my life works.

Ann Arbor Farmers Market

I had my last concert of the season with the Ann Arbor Concert Band. The concert included a march (“Paladin”), a slow piece (“Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon”), a trumpet feature (“The Three Trumpeters”), a trombone feature (“Shoutin’ Liza Trombone”), a bassoon feature (second movement of “Hungarian Rondo,” with the soloist being the winner of the AACB Young Artist competition), a whole band feature (“The Band Played On,” narrated by the mayor of Ann Arbor), and “Slava!” The first time I heard “Slava!” I was in ninth or tenth grade, and the wind ensemble played it before I was in wind ensemble. It’s a fun piece; the whole concert was a fun way to end the season.

I also baked a batch of snickerdoodles to use up eggs and butter, completed a jigsaw puzzle of the space shuttle launching, watched several movies (still working through the library's musical selection), read half a dozen books (nothing that great), cooked, cleaned, ate, slept, and did all the other necessary grad school-y things.

PS: The title is a play on the song “Since U Been Gone” which was in Pitch Perfect which was one of the movies I saw since I last posted.