I'd gone to bed early last night to wake up near dawn, on account of wanting to see some neuroimaging done on a monkey. It seemed like I woke up 3 or 4 times during the night at hourly increments. Thing is, sometimes, I dream that I'm awake in my bed.

Now I'm not what you'd call accustomed to 6:50am and birds as a wake-up call. I only felt mildly out of it after my night cap of moderate sleep dep. On my way to the lab I'd thought about heading for a caffeine breakfast. My stomach had a very firm 'fuck no' stance on that one.

The drive to the neuro scan itself was calm. We'd driven over in a fleet vehicle wearing white lab coats. I admired the scenery and was surprised to see this big ass cemetery vaguely near where I work. A number of the tombstones had the same sort of wreath up, which seemed odd.

The scan itself took more time than Gabe or Heather expected. Technical issues. I'd already written down the full set of procedures they went through...and I was kinda bored...so I decided to go and get building access stuff. I figured I'd be doing imaging in 7 months and needed a hell of a lot of training, so why not start on it? I filed for getting keys, a keycard pass, and came back down just as the scan was ending. On the way back I got a pop quiz about what to do the day before you take a monkey to get its brain scanned. I was kinda like, "mrr?", but I gave it my best shot. They told me about some stuff I'd never heard of, and I dutifully took notes.

15 minutes after getting back and me checking the news, we did an infant assessment. Basically you gauge if the infant has proper motor and reflex responses for its age. Their vocal nuances are fascinating, if occassionally ear-splitting.

I hadn't had any food this whole time and there was a coup going on in my stomach, so after that I had chinese. They know my usual and like to tease me about it a little. It's cute, I like it. And the food is damn good and under 6 bucks, so yeah.

Around 1pm was the first test in the Primates course my advisor teaches. A grad friend of mine, Eugenia, is the test photocopier and proctor for the thing. We've always gotten along really well, so we spent a good chunk of time talking to each other. According to her, the "females in the psych department" are definetely in approval over the appearance change. They're all practically married, given, but a nice ego boost nonetheless. Mostly we got caught up on what the other person was doing. She reminds me of my mom in a lot of ways (and is about as old, though she doesn't look it). We made plans to have coffee and yak sometime, since we've oddly never done that.

Immediately after was abnormal psych. I nearly fell asleep a few times but finally kicked my mental ass awake. As soon as class ends a few people start asking me questions, asking about make-up exams, all sorts of sound and fury. Around this time, Ben--the prof--was trying to organize a 'viewing session' for students to look at their tests and ask him questions about it. Trouble is, he hadn't secured a room. So we went back and forth for 3 minutes about what to do. We agreed on something, I went to my office to get crap for that, and all the meanwhile scheduled make-up tests with students.

The suckiest was yet to come.

See, I'd misunderstood exactly what he wanted. I thought he might've picked up the student grade sheets. And he hadn't. Actually he'd thought I'd picked them up. Nope, I'd picked something else up. He seemed slightly irritated. It was 5 minutes 'til things started and the testing center was close, so I said I'd run over and get the grade sheets.

So I sprint on pavement, up stairs, and into the T&E office to pick the stuff up. I give the job number. Confusion. I give the job number and a small explanation. More confusion. Apparently, Ben had called the stuff in, but there'd been a misunderstanding about what was to be printed.

So I sat there for 15 minutes while about 400 student grade reports were printed. Considering the prof and 25 students who wanted to see their tests were waiting, I was pretty fucking nervous. So nervous I started biting my nails and getting way too anxious. Ben's kindof a hard ass and he'd already sounded irritated.

Finally the shit printed off and, 5 pounds of paper squished together, I sprinted back to the psych building. I heatedly explained there'd been a technical problem. Ben was confused (since he'd ask them to print stuff off), but he seemed..well...very chill, like there was no problem at all. That didn't stop me from apologizing to the students about 2 or 3 times. Ben said there was no problem, things had resolved themselves, and a lot of the students spontaneously thanked me for the help.

I fired off an email to Ben explaining what went down, then sat around for office hours. No one came. Which was good. I needed to cool down.

But I got a nice highlight when Hill called. We yammered about what the other was doing for dinner, wished each other happy V Day, and she mentioned that generic V day presents either died, made her fat, or got recycled. Good thing I'm going to get a belated gift that's vaguely thoughtful. It's been like old times again, and I feel happy whenever we start talking or rapidly e-mail back and forth. So she helped smooth out the kinks with her being her.

We're hanging out for the first time in forever tomorrow, which'll be great. I always enjoyed making plans and looking forward to things. I'm big on anticipation in general like that.

And that brings us to now. Brian and I were supposed to meet tonight to talk about 2 bedroom apartment plans, but I'm guessing he hasn't had a chance to look yet. I crammed it into 20 minutes today, so I'm not gonna get crabby. I figure that'll happen around thursday or friday.

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