studymustelid

[studymustelid]

May 12th, 2025

Sorry for disappearing and getting got i was essentially tweaking until fairly recently. I'm about to graduate w/ my masters. Got all As this semester. Got a job as a NASA contractor that I'm being onboarded onto. Mentally I'm doing a lot better. Things kinda sucked at the time of the last post but I'm happy rn. I guess this will likely maybe be my last post for the time being, considering that I'm no longer a student

[studymustelid]

October 1st, 2024 at 11:17 a.m.

The internship is kind of like work, the real work is coming soon. I unfortunately feel far more focused on work than school at this point, lol. I'm working on some big stuff that's being sent to stakeholders very soon which is kind of crazy. I feel like I'm not doing too much but I am! I wish my contributions felt more substantive to me but I guess we can't win 'em all :/

I'm thinking about applying for a fellowship but it's two years! Two years!!! Whether I'll apply depends on where it'll take me really. I think I'll apply regardless but meh, government bureaucracy, ew.

In the mean time I want to apply for this thing that has a stipend so I can get my data science skills up and hopefully increase my knowledge to the point I can uhh, pivot at some point I guess

Personal news is basically just weird interpersonal stuff. I think it will work out in the end but it is a little messy right now. I'm tired. I'm really tired.

[studymustelid]

Friday, August 9th at 7:01 p.m.

I have a meeting w/ a student in 29 minutes so let's see if I can summarize.

So! What a summer. It started off pretty fun! I went and did a bunch of stuff (baseball, hanging out, generally having a good time) with a few friends, then they left and I left for Nigeria shortly after.

Nigeria was really nice! The beginning was hard because I was doing coursework (Statistics and Scientific Writing) and the wifi was bad, but apparently T-Mobile will just cover service literally everywhere depending on your plan so that was kind of awesome to learn. I took a lot of pictures of birds and creatures, saw a hornbill, and visited with a bunch of family members :)

When I got back I kept applying to random things for my practicum and they kept replying! I applied to probably 5 total, and I got about 3, it seems? I was expecting to have to take one but due to a silly little panicked moment it turns out I will be doing two of them at once lol. I'm also a fellow! Got a fellowship! It's kind of crazy how much stuff I have to do nowadays. TAing, practicum, internship, and a fellowship. Wild!

In essence, I'll be making dashboards relating to disease correlations for the entire state lol, crazy crazy. They said there's a lot of freedom so I'm very excited :)

Next week I'm going to hang out with some friends and go tubing for a few days and take my final so it's been very good. What a summer

[studymustelid]

August 9th, 2024 at 4:13 p.m. I'm finally back!

Proper post when I get back home but this summer (and the past two weeks) has been absolutely insane

[studymustelid]

Alright one more time. Insane summer, past two weeks have been especially insane! Gonna post for real when I get back home.

[studymustelid]

May 13th, 2024 at 11:10 a.m.

Hello all! My semester ended about two weeks ago although I was grading until last Monday. All As babyyy!!! This is a great contrast with my last semester that had 2 As and a W :/. Retaking that class this summer so hopefully I'll be able to knock it out and feel the relief. If I get an A in it that'd be even better. 4.0! 4.0!!! I applied for my practicum and my scholarships and I really hope I'll get both :)

I got my reviews back from my semester as a TA. Seems like folks liked me! I did have two folks who said I was unresponsive and I did notice at the end of the semester I was a bit flightier, so I think going forth I will add a little "If I haven't responded in 24 hours, please email again" to the end of all of my emails.

I'm also going to be working on my studying techniques, I want to increase the rate at which I retain information. Relearn how to learn!

Personal life is kind of unhinged. My life is going relatively well aside from the fear but both of my siblings are having issues and I'm really worried about them. I think I've stated that I live at home rn so I see the youngest on the daily. The youngest (over a decade younger) was doing some fishy stuff online, I caught 'em while I was installing some parental monitoring software on their iPad. They were talking to folks and lying about things, it was bad. It's the kind of thing where if they were like, 15 - 16 and not lying about their age I would've closed it out and let it slide but they're a child. It was bad. I think my immediate sibling is gonna have to drop outta school which sucks. I've been trying to help but I can only do so much, and they weren't super responsive. I gave them a real long hug today.

I've been trying to do a dopamine/scroling detox. I am on my phone way too much, it's bad. So I'm trying to stay off of it more, cut down on my screen time, keep my room/area clean and engage in my non-phone hobbies more!

A month until I'm outta the country! I'm planning a trip w/ my immediate sib also. Hopefully I'll be able to share some pictures when the time comes. Trying to figure out the cost of everything has been a trip.

[studymustelid]

The doctor called me and said it may be a little broken actually

Bonus babble! I hurt my finger at the gym. Def not broken but pretty swollen and painful, it's been getting better as the days pass (and the splint has really helped)

[studymustelid]

April 28th, 2024 at 4:56 p.m.

Hello all, insanely enough I only have one final, which I'm going to take some time in the next couple hours (it's online! mildly annoying proctoring). The rest of my classes had projects that were varying levels of tediousness. It's been chill. Really excited to put my knowledge to use during the practicum. One of the major research hospitals I'd like to work for is one of the partners for the internship I'm trying for so hopefully I can get with them, that'd be SO COOL.

anyways locking in, see you guys on the flipside (in a few hours)

[studymustelid]

Bonus babble! I hurt my finger at the gym. Def not broken but pretty swollen and painful, it's been getting better as the days pass (and the splint has really helped)

[studymustelid]

April 25th at 10:27 p.m. Hello all!

It is I, everyone's favorite health data studying mustelid (or something of that sort)

My classes are coming to a close soon which is really great for my brain! All As this semester!

I feel kind of full in there sometimes, like I'm at capacity and deviating from routine or exploring will kind of blow up the remaining shred of brain-power I have left. It's like that meme with the ball

I'll have a little more capacity for thought in about a year which is nice though. Last semester and the beginning of this one, my father chastised me a bit for not taking 4 classes (which requires dean approval) but

1) I had to drop a class last semester (my first semester)

2) 4 classes would have honestly rendered me nonfunctional

I think *part of it* is that I'm honestly a much better student (in the studious sense of the word, I study better and more actively absorb information) when I'm controlling more facets of my life -- when the pandemic happened I insisted on moving back to my apartment and despite the general lack of social interaction being kind of insane for my head I was significantly better for it.

But the other part of it is very obviously that I am in grad school, in a technical field, learning a lot of new things! My dad has a masters but it is not in a super technical field (a masters is a masters) and he mentioned that it should be easy to take 4 classes because I took 5 - 6 at times in undergrad and grad school is "mostly writing and talking"

which...eh, I guess. Reasonable amount of programming too though, at the very least sub-par technical skills. Anyways, basically AHHHHHH!!

I still have to finish off grading which is tiring, but apparently! Apparently! Both my professor and the administration are chill will me leaving the country for a couple weeks lol. So that's nice. I'll be a TA until I graduate it seems!

I do sometimes feel rather self-conscious about not having a real job or not doing anything (despite the fact that I am in fact, in graduate school and doing things as we speak!).

Especially since all but two of my friends are working (some in a professional capacity, some while waiting for grad school). I think if I were at a more traditional program and not living at home this feeling would be lessened a smidge, but as of now it kind of remains and likely will until I'm gainfully employed.

On the bright side, I'll have my practicum in the fall semester and it'll likely be a paid internship!

I do feel like being a little overachiever would probably leave me falling apart but I am really tired of having no brain power while feeling bored with nothing to do, so ideally I'll have no brain power AND feel busy lol

[studymustelid]

April 20th, 2024 at 3:39 p.m.

I have a project proposal due for my research design class tomorrow hehe. I've kind of procrastinated so I'm working on it right now. I'm glad the livestreaming option on tumblr is gone but I kind of wish I could throw one on and use it as a way to hold myself accountable lol, even if no one was watching.

I've been doing a lot of writing on my bed lately and I moved back to my desk and I feel so much more efficient already, it's a little silly.

I think I'm going to start color-coding my posts. Personal stuff has an orange sentence to start, schools stuff in green.

I went to my school's career day which was nice, I really love talking to people in masters so I can figure out what people are planning on doing. I met a histology tech who is one of my students, and a mechanical engineer I had a class with last semester. There was a lot of AI chatter which is to be expected because it is a very data-heavy program, but a frustrating amount of people talk about AI in a very odd, flippant way. It does make sense to an extent, the presenters were not in the segment of school that deals with machine learning and precision medicine, but I would've rather had them not bring it up at all as opposed to trying to convince us to use Copilot.

After the day ended, I went to an independent bookstore that has a name riffing off another chain bookstore. It was very neat but one of the workers told me no pictures unfortunately. I had a very nice convo about my grad program with the older guys that worked there, and they told me a bit about the milquetoast nature of Nixon - China protests. I'm trying to get out more, living at home has made me borderline agoraphobic at times. I signed up to join a club (for a challenge program I competed in earlier this year, hopefully I make it), signed up to run a 5K, and hopefully will be able to do some planting in May (for the birds!).

People do know me a little bit because I basically show up to every school event that I can, just to get out of the house. It's kind of fun. Hopefully the rest of this year will be cool and good! I have a friend going to UM in the fall so hopefully I can fly over there to see her once she's settled. I'm thinking about taking a few EMT classes and doing that for a minute because I'm a bit nuts I fear. Basically a lot is going on, but I'll be able to pull it all off in the end.

[studymustelid]

I don't know why but I sometimes get people that I don't know messaging me about my program and I'm happy to answer basic questions but this one person has been sending me increasingly more specific questions and I've been blasted by student emails lately and it's a little too much for my brain

Like please contact the school, I don't know how many Sri Lankans go to this school and I don't know how hard it is to find a job (aside from what they say) because I am currently in the program man. First two sets of questions were chill but I don't know man lol 😭😭😭

[studymustelid]

April 13th, 2024 at 5:59 p.m.

Hello all! Had my little bird trip and eclipse weekend. Bird trip went somewhat well, hung out with guy briefly, saw said endangered bird from afar and had a good little time. Finished some applied data management stuff prior to that and some research design stuff afterwards. It was cloudy on the eclipse path which SUCKED, I've been looking forward to this for so long and it just,,,meh. :(

Anyways, this week has been normal I guess, my students have seemingly been having issues because I've been contacted an insane amount this past week and I'm trying to help everyone while also not doing overtime. Professor is still not great at answering questions and I'm just kind of here. I don't think things will pick up in my mind until I'm out of the country (in a month or two). I registered for classes, etc. etc.

The time continues to run by. I don't know what to do. It's like sand slipping through my fingers. I'm tired, wish I had friends in my city and people to chat with. Everyone's gone.

[studymustelid]

Guess who is tired in a sleepy literal sense!

Side Babble:

I really am so tired, not in a literal sleepy sense but in a man, I do not want to be here (in my current location/still not finished with my current program)

Moving back in was necessary but it's slowly boiling my brain

[studymustelid]

Hi! It's been some time since you were active. Are you ok?

Hey (anon)! I have no idea when I got this but I am relatively fine! Brain was a little in the dumps for a hot minute (I'm gonna be real with ya, I think my brain blotted out the entirety of March after maybe the first week) but I'm alright. Running on very low sleep and about to see some endangered birds!

[studymustelid]

Pass the happy! ✨ When you get this, reply with 5 things that make you happy and send this to the last 10 people in your notifications!

Hmmm, what makes me happy.

1. Feeling good enough to make art!

2. Birds probably, kinda crazy

3. Hanging out with my friends when we're able

4. Getting a good night's sleep

5. The idea of finishing my masters ☺️

[studymustelid]

Side Babble:

I really am so tired, not in a literal sleepy sense but in a man, I do not want to be here (in my current location/still not finished with my current program)

Moving back in was necessary but it's slowly boiling my brain