I probably should not blog in the evening after a long day. I'm likely to be grumpy. Then again, since I woke up too early this morning to a poor, miserable little girl, coughing and crying about how icky sick she felt - mornings have their issues for me lately, as well. (Poor baby - she's doing much better tonight).

I believe that the paraventricular nucleus of my hypothalamus is secreting large amounts of cortisol and fos protein (through a complex mechanism that involves transcription, translation, and binding of the newly expressed protein to the DNA in the nucleus of the cells), and if you took a coronal section of my brain, and immunohistologically stained the sample for a particular peptide product that the cell bodies produce in response to stress, you could see the gene expression for these substances change in a matter of minutes due to my entrapment in an environment of mental anguish for two and a half hours every Wednesday. Of course, you all have run into this before, so you don't need me to review the basics, right? AARGH.

In plain speech: I'm stressed out.

Not only that, I'm angry. I'm angry that I am spending time away from my children every Wednesday evening in a class that requires a glossary for every other word, and that as yet has NOT captured my imagination in any way. I hate that I am the only person with children attempting to get a doctorate (let alone two doctorates) in this class. I hate that I can't be excellent at BOTH roles - mother and scholar - without a lot of grief and explaining of priorities. I've missed a bunch of research talks recently because I've needed (and WANTED!) to be at home with my children as much as possible. I try not to think about the possibility that I'm missing out on anything at home because I spend time working and learning, too.

So where are the people doing any REAL good in this class? Does the discovery of the gene expression of hormones help end world hunger? Is my understanding of phosphorylation going to help my children learn to be good, kind citizens of the planet? I spent two and a half hours asking myself what in the world I was doing wasting my time listening to people smugly recount the basics of biochemistry as it relates to neuroscience, as if their stars in heaven were already in the bag because they could use big words with confidence and finesse. I thought about the amount of time these people spend in labs, like the rats they experiment on. I wondered if they knew what they were missing in their family lives. Or even cared.

So why am I even bothering with going to the university at all? Hopefully, I will be able to find that job where I'm making a real, positive difference in the world. But mostly, it's because no way am I ever going to rely on some idiot man to support me and my daughters. (Note: my husband is not an idiot man at all. He is an incredibly wonderful partner, and I am the luckiest woman on the planet to be married to him. However, he is mortal as far as I know, and seems to be an exception to the idiot man rule - who knows if I'd ever be so lucky again if I ever lost him somehow.) So hopefully, if I become over-edumacated enough, I can always be sure of being able to support my daughters myself, and might even be able to donate money and help to the babies who are hungry and not currently benefiting from Wednesday neuroscience lectures in the slightest.

But tonight - I'm just really tired. And I want to go get my daughter. Now would be good.