Exam fail.

Today was the first exam.  My first one ever as a graduate student.  As a student seeking a Masters in Public Health with a focus on Environmental Health, taking a class in Human Toxicology seems an obvious requisite for the first semester.  Accordingly, taking a test on the subject matter contained in that course makes sense in theory but much less so in practice.  I used my favorite pencil, an amazing gift from a good friend.

The thing is, barely any lead (graphite) was expended on this exam.  My heart started racing as soon as I started walking to the classroom.  I couldn't remember anything once I sat down.  I cannot remember the last time I had literally no words to write in response to something.

I spent the afternoon looking at blogs where folks talked about how they were worried about failing out of graduate school and other websites about when I would have to start paying back my loans if I had to withdraw.  It's too fast and too much money, so I guess I'll stay here.  

Pop country

Missing Chicago a lot.  A lot. I got into an argument with a fellow Midwesterner today about whether he says 'soda' or 'pop.'  A very well-meaning fellow classmate conjured up way more of a visceral reaction in me than I expected. Despite the misinformation he is trying to spread, it is pop.  I started saying soda a little here and there over the last year or so because I know how pointy the word 'pop' sounds and I started becoming self-conscious about it.  Somehow now for the sake of the Midwest argument I have forced myself to ally with this word I don't even really like.  And despite what the clerk at the Popcorn Counter in the mall said, Chicago style popcorn is caramel and cheddar mixed together.  Atlanta can't just buy a bag in Chicago, change the label a little and call theirs.  Because I am a jerk about being right sometimes, I googled it.  You know what comes up when you plug 'atlanta mix popcorn' into google images?

Oh, that must be the Atlanta Chicago Bulls.

And when you look up some data about the colloquial term for soft drinks?  I highly recommend going to this website.

See all that yellow around Chicago?  That's pop country.

Before I left, I was really drawn to dumb stuff with anything Chicago on it.  Tourist-type products.  Maps?  Yes.  Embroidered towels?  Yes, please.  Belly rings with the skyline on them?  Why not?  Let's get this puppy pierced!  For some of us, there's just more of a sense of pride about the place you're from when the context changes.  It is pretty ridiculous.  Then again, Chicago is awesome.

Today, I'm also catching myself off-guard with this overwhelming, flooding feeling that I wish I had someone to share this experience with.  Or that I were just back there.  I really love my people so much.  This past summer was so incredible.  That's the danger in having an amazing time; it's temporal.

Speaking of time, I've been sitting and trying to figure out how to make a contingency table in SAS for a few hours now.  All of these things here are taking me a whole lot of time to try to figure out.  I feel super behind in all of my classes.  This is so much material that I have never been exposed to before, completely outside of my academic experience so far, which felt somewhat robust until we started really getting into this course material.  I think I finally got it!  Now on to discussions of trace gases and mechanical mixing in layers of the atmosphere (don't worry; we only have to describe and not derive the equations).

Take that, Saturday night!

Introduction

Hi.  I am Tory.  I have no idea what I am doing, but it involves moving from my beloved Chicago to the mysterious city that is called Atlanta, or Hotlanta by some.  My initial understanding about what this place is has very few sources:

1) "Real Housewives of Atlanta," which I definitely watched a lot of long before I could excuse it as research,

2) the Atlanta airport, where I only ever stopped to make connecting flights,

and 3) a recent viewing of the Vice documentary about the ATL twins.  That last one is rough.  Thanks to the sea of folks who have lived there/have family who lives there/have friends of friends who have been there/write things on the internet, I am amassing a conflicting pool of ideas about what Atlanta is.  I am trying to make motions that look like I have a plan for my life at large.  One of those motions included applying for an advanced degree.  The motion that followed that one was getting accepted and then telling them that I also accept them.  We told one another a little more about ourselves.  Over time, we have come to trust each other a little more and have even become facebook friends.  It's one of those standard relationships where one person begs for the other one to pick them and the other one says, "okay, but it is going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars," and you pump your fist and say "score!"  In order to get there, I have to move there.  I hate moving.  Even more than most people, I think.  Car packed FULL to the point where I couldn't even fall asleep if I wanted to because of the lack of space.  And boy do I want to fall asleep as the adventure-mobile is being driven by my parents.  Here we go.