#studyingmotivation

An incomplete list of various events of the past week or so...

- Graded many exams last week on top of usual classwork and TA work made the week feel eternal, but I made it through somehow.

- I have a badge to enter the cleanroom!!! I had a one-on-one training session with one staff on dressing correctly and all the essential safety procedures.

- Whenever the postdoc in my research group goes to fabricate devices in the cleanroom, I get to shadow her!!! Yay!!!

- I spoke to the director of my graduate program about some of my concerns with my TA requirements for one of the professors I am assigned to work under. I was nervous, and it was difficult to get past the idea of "well, the other TAs are handling it okay, and everyone else handled it fine their first year, so you need to be fine as well.

- I also brought up an unusual comment this same professor made during a conversation with myself and another TA, which felt weird and unfair. Again, a stressful situation, but I'm doing my best to speak up when I witness casual comments or microaggressions which are even remotely sexist or discriminatory in any way.

- I'm trying to hype myself up to tell that professor that I found his comment unprofessional

- My birthday happened, and I was unfortunately unsurprised by the minimal attention or concern by any of my family members. Trying to practice caring for myself emotionally and reminding myself that their approval won't make me happy and will only come at the cost of my mental health.

- Started crocheting a new sweater this weekend and made a lot of progress on it!

- Midterms are coming up next week, and I'm trying to prepare... I need to figure out what I need to do to prepare...

- Attended the first-ever Condensed Matter journal club for my department. There aren't many students in Condensed Matter, so it was nice to get to know some other graduate students and postdocs from other groups.

- I'm struggling to feel like I belong here or deserve to be here. I'm hyper-aware of all of the ways my insecurities hold me back and warp my perception of the reality of how I'm actually doing. I'm trying to navigate getting my vision out of that frame of reference

- I miss my best friend (he is finishing his degree in psychology at my undergrad institution). I have a tough time feeling like I'm making friends with the other 1st year students. I have to recover from a week of overstimulation by spending lots of alone time on the weekends, usually when everyone else goes out to eat or go drinking.

Today's topics (02.11.21)

Spanish: It is very important to learn your vocabulary! It doesn't matter if you learn English, French, German, Spanish or something. The point is, that you have to focus on the language and the grammar. There was much of new vocabularys today, but I guess I learned it fast and good.

Chemistry: In this subject we had laboratory equipment that you have to use very often in class (I will have an exam at this topic in a week). Some of them are a little bit tricky to use like some gas burner for example. But don't be shy - just try it out! As well I learned about chemicalians and hazardous substances. There is much you have to notice if you work with chemicalians, but in the end you will see, that it is really funny.

Physics: I will be honest - Physics isn't my best subject. But I know, that is okay, as long as I focus on it and try to learn more and more with every day. In the last class, our topic was the reflection of light and the law of reflection. Therefor, we had to make hyphotheses. Sometimes that is complicated and not logical, but when you try to understand it and want to understand it, you will.

So keep studying and learn more with every day!

I know you will do great!

whew i managed to finish one set of chinese paper 1&2 and an english mindmap on AI in the afternoon. then woah i actually managed to find time to go play some badminton with my buddies and some DUMB part of me thought it would be fine to skip rope for 20mins (no it isn't fine) but at least i managed to do it :D