11pm: "went to sleep"
3am: after tossing and turning for 4 hours, actually fell asleep
6am: grudgingly woke up when my alarm went off... usual morning routine and leisurely breakfast
8am-10am: studied in my office for 2 hours and tried to make myself feel awake
10:20am: on time for my exam, me and two of the profs sat around the conference room table waiting for my advisor and the 4th prof to arrive
10:25am: my advisor arrived for my 10:20 exam but prof #4 was nowhere to be found
10:25-11:35am: my advisor was in and out of the room looking for prof #4 (who never showed) and got permission for me to still pass/fail based on 3 people instead of the required 4... when i knew what they were asking i did well... when pushed to answer things that were related but i didn't know off the top of my head on my minor topic, i completely froze... nonetheless,
11:40am: after 5 minutes of discussion behind closed doors, my 3/4ths of a committee told me i passed... technically i've passed when i track down the missing prof tomorrow and get his signiature.
noon-1:30pm: class
1:30-4:30pm: students were attached to me asking lots of maple questions about the lab they have due on tuesday... my blood sugar was low (hadn't had opportunity to eat since my 7am breakfast), i was tired, and getting a headache, but i survived
4:30-5pm: wandered to the student center and bought myself orange juice, saltines, and ibuprofen for a late lunch :P
5-6pm: experimental math seminar
6:30-8pm: dinner with the seminar speaker, my advisor, and eric, and aek
8-9pm: ice cream with eric
9-9:45pm: had a completely wonderful time cleaning off the floor of my room and making a stack of 20 books i can now return to the library since my test is done
9:45-10:15pm: caught up on this month's bills, which i'd been ignoring for a few weeks
10:15pm: went through email and began this post.
in the next 24 hours:
* sleep
* read 100ish REU applications and rank them all
* meet with my directed reading program mentee and hopefully be somewhat coherent
* answer a lot of maple email questions from my students
* celebratory dinner with my friends... i've got a feeling that although i generally dislike drinking beer, for once i'll be in a fantastic mood for downing a couple tomorrow night.
people not in the math world don't seem to quite understand why math graduate students actually feel really irritated after passing an exam... of course it's a good thing to pass, and it would be a different kind of irritated if i had failed, but it's not just pure joy... it takes some getting used to, and it is actually a cause of irritation to survive a qual... it's hard to explain unless you understand the math grad student mindset. :P people here get it, so it's fine that i needed a 36 hour break before celebrating.
one thing i do appreciate though is well wishes.
in the past 24 hours:
* yesterday, i got a package... it was an overflowing shoebox stuffed with homemade cookies and lots of candy from my memphis church... i'm not even a member there anymore, or an actual college student, and i've not got anything from them like that in years, so it was a pleasant surprise and extremely well timed.
* Sara, one of the first year students around here, bought me a really cool notebook as a congratulations present for passing my exam. that made me smile.
* Dr. G., an analysis professor who i've been helping with maple a lot this semester, bought me a box of really good chocolates and left them in my math dept. mailbox today with a note "congratulations and thanks for all your help!" on it... from him, this is huge.
* when i returned to my office, post qual, not knowing the outcome yet, the view from my 6th floor window into the math courtyard was this courtesy of scott and eric:
(can you read the 'YAY LARA'? :) )
here's one more just for fun... me, after just finding out i passed, still not quite being able to decide how i felt about the whole ordeal... along with the "lara weather forecast" that accumulated on our office wall today.
i think that's it.
i'll have more to say when i've had more than 3 hours of sleep.
right now, i'm still debating how i feel about the whole matter. it's not quite as cut and dry as you'd think. but at least it's DONE.
night y'all.
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