7 days from right now,...

i will hopefully be in bed... because in 7 days and 10 hours, my oral qualifying exam begins.

there are some parts of my syllabus i know exceedingly well... much bigger parts i know so-so, and a few parts i really need to figure out this weekend... we'll see how that goes.

regardless of studying stress, it's good to be reaffirmed that people like me :)

case in point:

this afternoon, i stopped by to see the professor i TA for. he asked me if i could help proctor my students' first midterm, and i told him that i have a graduate class then. so, with my permission, he emailed my advisor (the professor of my class) to ask if i could miss at least the start of lecture to help ensure that in a room of 78 students, there are no people pretending to be other people (apparently at larger schools like this, from time to time students do send a friend instead of themselves to take an exam, and thus profs are supposed to check IDs for tests)... that's boring. nonetheless, i got CCed on the email.

when i returned from dinner at quiznos with eric tonight, i had 3 emails. 2 relating to above situation.

email 1:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear XXX,
Lara is such a good student that she can afford to miss
the beginning of my class.
Good luck with the exam.
Best wishes
XXXXX
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

email 2:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear XXXXX,

Thanks. I'm not surprised! She's such a good TA!

Best,
XXX
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

email 3 was actually directly to me. with so much different stuff going on for calc 3 (quizes, workshops, maple labs all with different due dates), i've been sending my students a weekly mass email with a bulleted list of reminders... they seem to like knowing it's coming to help them... usually responses are questions about assignments or extra office hours, but after those two emails, i had the following from one of the boys in my rowdy section (they all try to make small talk with me before, after, and during my lecture, so they realize full well that the next week is pretty tense for me math-wise):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Subject: Re: weekly reminders!

Lara,

You are way too nice :)

Good luck on your exam.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

all of the above made me smile... hopefully studying for the next week won't make me un-smile too much. :P

summary: affirmation is good.

night y'all.