After all the stressing out about my oral exams, I did pass.  It was kind of uneventful. I was very nervous at the beginning and couldn't explain p-values versus q-values.  At least my committee let that go and chalked it up to nerves.

The best part of my day was that right after my exams, my younger little brother called and asked me how to make hamburger helper.  Awesome contrast.

My oral exams are in 9 days. I'm freaking out.

Grant is almost done.  I have to give it to my committee on Wednesday (4/15).

Have I mentioned I'm freaking out?  I don't even know what to do anymore to get ready.  The whole thing is a very NOT FUN experience.  I guess that's the point.

It is painfully slow right now.  Adviser 2 (not my primary adviser, but directs the overall project I'm working on) wants me to have the first page done by tomorrow.  This is the page with the summary of the project and the specific aims of the project, so in many ways it is the most important part.  It is really tough.

I have a draft done and got some feedback from the other Jen in my lab.  I'm going to revise it before my meeting with adviser 2 tomorrow.  I feel better now that I have a start on it and have something done that isn't too horrible.

Turns out this is timely anyway.  The lab is applying for one of the NIH Challenge grants and my work is about half of the grant.  So, I'm writing some of this one.  This is nice because the sections get to be used for both.

The weather is gorgeous here today.  Unfortunately, I am inside working.  I have to write a grant for my oral exams coming up (sometime...maybe?  end of April?  scheduling has been a nightmare).  It's not a lot of fun and I've really been doing everything I can to procrastinate and not work on it.

One of the things I did this morning was try to work on a household budget and look at a debt repayment calculator.  I found a few good spreadsheets online.  I like having numbers for how much we can spend on groceries, gas, stuff, etc. and still be able to make more than the minimum payments.  Now we just have to stick to things.  It's a little scary and overwhelming, which is probably why I've been putting it off so much.