yay :-)

i had a freakin fantastic day :-)

from yesterday, being all moderately irritated with the world, being irritated with the grad student i ranted about last night, being concerned about a student who wrote me sounding frustrated with his project, his mentor, etc., being frustrated that no matter how i schedule the REU presentations, i seem to make some mentor or another mad... all in all feeling tense... but i tried to pull ends together the best i could.

re: the grad student i was frustrated with --
he was much better in person today, and i confronted him about his comment... not yelled at him, but pointed out that i felt like it undermined my position even if that wasn't his intention, which i doubted it was. he apologized and admitted that he doesn't think much about how he comes across before he says things, but he understands my point and will be more respectful in the future. in some ways he can be just a really big kid and doesn't really think much of trying to be an authority figure or anything more than buddies to other people... anyhow i felt good about saying something to him, and about his response.

re: the project mentors --
i'm still smoothing things with some of them, but me realizing there's no way to make everyone happy, and me responding honestly to them seems to work out alright

re: the student who was really frustrated yesterday --
today i got an email from him, that included the following: "As far as your email, I thank you for being so thorough and open as you were in it. Your dedication to being helpful is evident and appreciated. I definitely plan to be here for all of the remaining talks and events, especially since there is only one a week usually. You put a lot of effort into scheduling them and as a result they seem interesting, so I can easily do that much. Thanks." -- that made me feel good :-)

re: the world at large being irritating --
when i introduced the first student giving her presentation this afternoon, she started with "lara, this isn't my project, but before you sit down, word on the street is we all missed your birthday, so to make up for it, this is for you,... i won't be offended if you open it during my talk!" and gave me a belated birthday card signed by all the DIMACS staff and most of the REU students. that made my day :-)

so all in all, sometimes i let the world get to me a little too much. anytime you're trying to make 50 people happy it's hard to completely succeed, and i concern myself a lot with trying to make as many of them as possible happy. it takes a lot of energy, but when i see people happy with how their projects are going (re: students) or happy with how i've made their day a little smoother (re: fellow staff), that's totally my payoff. 99% of the time, i'm fairly sure working with undergrads is THE job for me. they're fantastic people and i LOVE when i can be useful and encouraging to them. :-)

day 2 of presentations tomorrow... tonight it's a 5 mile walk night, to be followed by dinner and a movie :-)

later y'all