Have been running like crazy since the morning.
Figured this is a great time to take a break, since I am meeting A in about an hour. There is nothing that I can do now to show her. Hence....chill.
Sometimes, you don't know what to show at a meeting. There are no new results, no minbending breakthroughs that have occurred. The project has decided to go at a snail's pace, and even the results seem to be the ones that "you should have got one month before". I am also starting a new set up, and there is nothing to really talk about it, except that I spent half of my day yesterday(or more than that) trying to think of a decent set up. By the end of the evening, I was so tired, that I did not even bother to take the garbles results (which mean nothing) that the machine was spitting out. Such are the ordeals of grad student life!!
The only silver lining is that if I can get everything working from here on, it should be sufficient for my proposal. That's what I am eyeing at right now. It is such a painful experience to lag behind lab mates who hae come with you, and are alreasy proposing. I am almost running a race now, trying to build a proposal from scratch. However, this is better than the beginning of the year, when I was absolutely clueless as to where this is going, and was not even sure of getting a PhD.

Meanwhile, these two days have whizzed past me, like a racing car at its top speed. Thanks to C( the professor I TA for). He is such an idiot. He gives me these bunch of papers (about 120) on Monday, and says he wants them graded "latest" by Wednesday. WTF!
and A has also given me a handful of tasks to complete before Wednesday. For God's sake, professors, consult the TA before you dump the grading on them. They have got a whole lot of "other" tasks to attend to also. and yes, they also have a LIFE. There was not an hout yesterday when I was not working, except for the time when I was having my lunch,dinner or coffee. :x

I was also pissed at his grading breakdown. Again, C wants to basically throw around marks to everybody. "Give 'em all good grades, and they will all be happy with you" seems to be his way ot teaching. I just can't stand it. He throws away marks for people writing inane things such as the statement of the problem, or given conditions, and then he will have a miniscule number of marks for the real solution. For somebody who is grading the exam, it becomes so difficult to distinguish between people with different skill levels. In the end, there sometimes seems to be little difference between those who have done half the problem right, and missed the correct answer (because of some math error, say) and those who have absolutely no idea which concept to apply. Inflated grading is a huge problem with many professors, especially those that do not have any confidence on their own teaching.

Anyway, my hands are smelling of rust iron and aluminum. Let me get up and wash my hands.