Well, I handed in my written comps almost two weeks ago. Don't ask me what I've been doing since then that kept me from blogging, because I have basically been wasting time in a rather unfortunate way. Aside from having 2 wisdom teeth extracted and spending one day cross-country skiing, I have accomplished absolutely nothing lately. Not even work. Not even a little.
The whole wisdom teeth deal really wasn't as terrible as I thought it was going to be. I didn't want to go the whole go to sleep and have all 4 removed route, so I just had the two on the left side of my mouth extracted. While I was awake. With only local anesthesia. It sounds terrible, but it was actually not bad at all. The worst part of the whole thing was when the dentist walked into the room, and I saw that he was about 24 years old. But he was really good. And also cute.
I do have to go back to have the other 2 wisdom teeth pulled at some point. I am definitely going to have it done since my bottom wisdom teeth are/were both partially covered by my gums at the back of my mouth. This led to a GIANT cavity in the bottom wisdom tooth that was already removed, and will probably do the same in the remaining one. Since I actually have great dental coverage right now as E's common-law spouse, it's the time to do it.
By the way, I have had $1700 worth of dental work done in the last couple of months. The last 2 wisdom teeth will be another $600. Dentistry isn't actually covered by Canada's universal health care system, so I'm very lucky that E works for an employer that carries a generous supplemental package. (Plus, we can get free massage therapy!!!)
Last Sunday, E and I took the two German students that are currently visiting our lab to Prince Albert to go cross-country skiing for the day at Little Red River Park. I am going to try to download our pictures and write a little essay about that to post here this weekend.
Currently, I'm not actually sure how I did on my comps. My committee did agree to schedule my oral exams (this is a good sign), but they don't actually have to return my scores until Monday of next week. Since the exam is pass/fail, it's unlikely that I'll ever know exactly how I did, but I do have to score at least a 70% on every question to even qualify for the orals. I guess the committee members were pretty sure I would pass the writtens (hence, orals were scheduled), but it's not a done deal yet!
I did get a little comprehensive-related surprise today though.
One of my committee members was assigned a question with the (fairly broad) topic of mechanism of action. He asked me a question about metals and how they interact with the aquatic environment and with fish. This is NOT my area of study at all, but I figured that it was a fair enough question. Comps are supposed to evaluate your general knowledge of toxicology after all.
So, this prof stopped me in the hallway today and asked whether I thought his question was a little strange. I told him that it wasn't really in my area of expertise, but that it was definitely a mechanistic question so I just went with it. Well, it turns out that he had written that question for a different student that does work with metals, and the administrative assistant that compiled my questions accidentally used that one instead of the one written for me. So, I answered a question from someone else's comprehensive exam!!!
The good news is that I apparently did a good job answering said question. Comparable to the answer of the student that actually studies that stuff. (I'm not sure whether this means I'm smart or he's in trouble.) The even better news is that the prof told me the question he was going to ask me so that I can study up on it and talk about it for my orals. And we're just going to forget about talking about metals.
So, I'll be studying up on sex determination in amphibians for my oral comprehensive exams. By the way, my orals are scheduled for next Thursday. Wish me luck!
Good job so far!
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