spring break eve

I’ve had my share of late-night despair in the reading room , but yesterday’s rendezvous was one of the worst—there’s nothing quite so horrible as having to churn out a giant paper on galactosidases and agalsidases (primary sources only–no review article citations allowed, ergh) due 11:59PM the Friday night before spring break. While it’s hard to find a seat most evenings in the RR, there was only one other person there when I left bleary-eyed at midnight last night, and he just happened to also be in my seminar.

But then again, that is what college is all about, right? It’s not the formulas and derivations you learn and then promptly forget that makes your degree worth something. The value is in remembering the state of mind it took to drag yourself to the library after a long week of exams and problem sets. It’s cultivating the determination to finish your freaking paper even with the background drone of celebratory “end of exams!” statuses on facebook and your hallmates making blissful plans for the evening you will be spending knee deep in scientific literature from the 1970s.

Or, maybe it’s having the foresight and planning to start a herculean task more than 48 hours before it is due.

At any rate, it’s all done (ha, my turn to be snarky–sorry if there is some poor soul still working on something out there)! I’m off to the Philippines (Manila / Makati / Roxas City / Boracay) in a few hours with some other members of the Moca team to meet with our local partners and prepare for our pilot study there this summer. I think there’s also time penciled for some sight-seeing, (much needed) beach-appreciation, and omg, 80-90 degree weather.

boracay (this seems very pirates of the carribean-esque to me!)

manila port

(photos from the flickr community)

Stay tuned, as I will be trying to blog about this trip religiously (really this time!) , for the benefit of the rest of our group at the very least.