You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2008.
at the end of each year, i browse through my personal journal, the chronicles of my life for the last year. 2008 has set some kind of record as the most trying year of my adult life. i have handled some of the hardest challenges in my marriage, in my work life, in my totally chaotic and screwed up family life, that i have ever seen.
it’s a wonder i didn’t once end up being the one in the hospital this year, with the stress i was under. for me, it was everyone else. especially my husband, poor guy.
but looking back, i always found myself at my best when the challenges were the greatest. i seem to thrive under shitty conditions. i become efficient, a machine. i’d argue that i didn’t know why this was, but i know. i spent 16 years in deplorable conditions, and succeeded in spite of it.
in spite of. i think that’s half the definition of who i am…
i’m still coping with not being busy at all hours. it was not a very good christmas this year, and now i’m alone again for the rest of the year. so i’m stealing this movies-watched list from juniorprof and killing some time.
for 5 or 6 years i was involved in the entertainment industry. when i first started, dvd was just breaking into the market. now, videotapes are all but obsolete!
so i have watched quite a few movies in my time. i think the list is lacking in some areas, but long enough already.
while we’re making our own fun here 1200 miles from home, facebook just kills me this time of year. my sister is awesome at putting up pictures of her life, it helps me to keep up with her and other close family. and tonight i looked through pictures from the annual gathering on our shared side of the family.
i feel… kinda empty. after seeing the pics of everyone enjoying time together, the kids (all born after i started grad school) growing so quickly. i should be happy that they had fun, but i’m selfish, ok? i hate being stuck here, away from (almost) everyone i love. i hate being so far away. and i swear this will not happen next year.
but damnit, my husband is home. and we made 7 batches of different kinds of cookies! and tomorrow we frost them and mail out some big boxes to our already-salivating friends serving overseas. and tonight we- ok, he who spoils me- is even tackling a homemade yule log! we’re having fun! no tree, the money all went to our christmas dinner. but we’re enjoying real time together for the first time in 5 months! i should be very happy right now. and yet, it’s never enough.
it never is enough for me. never enough until i’ve reached the highest level, until i’ve got everything the way i want it. i chose to put us here, and the sacrifices, they are great. but this is the last time we miss out. i’m almost done here, and this is just more motivation to kick some serious ass when i go back to work.
kitchen stuff reminds me of chemistry, so when i’m not at work i resist the compulsive urge to GO to work by baking, cooking, whatever. i really enjoy tinkering in the kitchen, it’s methodical and soothing to the nerves. (i like making stock solutions in the lab, too, if and only if i’m not in a hurry and it’s not a giant pain in the ass to dissolve.) if i bring an overabundance of home baked goods to work or to a gathering, something is very wrong and i needed kitchen therapy.
two days away from work and i’m climbing the walls at home. i’m not used to spending this much time here. the money was not present to make the cross-country trip to see the family this year, so we’re stuck. and if i’m within the same city as the lab, i’m feeling like i should be there at all hours.
i feel that something has gone horribly, desperately wrong with me in recent years to feel this way on a supposed vacation.
so tomorrow i bake, with the same intensity that i work. i’m making 5 batches of sugar cookies. and i’ll probably make some other kinds of cookies too. i’m making so many because i’m distributing a lot of them, don’t get me wrong, i like sugar cookies but i can’t eat THAT MANY of them.
as usual, a big box of cookies is getting packed and sent out to my dearly missed soldiers in afghanistan. there is no more grateful recipient of home baked gifts than a soldier, and they need a reminder that we’re thinking of them at home this time of year. last box of cookies i sent yielded thanks several times over (via facebook, of course, which seems to be the most convenient way to talk to them), and what kind of baker doesn’t respond positively to that?
a reminder: if you’d like to send something to a soldier and you don’t know anyone personally, please visit AnySoldier, where you can get care package ideas and an address to send to a very deserving, very hardworking serviceperson.
what i will do for the rest of my break, i don’t know. trying to break myself of the caffeine dependence, and i may work on going farther off the deep end if i can’t learn to relax. [sigh]
that’s right, i am officially forced to be idle by other people’s time off and by deliveries that are taking their sweet time. i am not quite sure how to handle myself if i don’t have a bunch of things all in the air at once.
this morning, i allowed myself to experience the totally-out-of-fuel condition rather than ignoring what my body is telling me and pushing on. all of a sudden it washed over me in waves, what i’m doing to myself. and i dozed for a good chunk of the day.
i have no words. i have no thoughts. just rest, and the comfort of my cozy little apartment. and the feeling of my own existence trying to come back into bloom.
one thing that doesn’t really come up in discussions about grad school is the support staff. we are really specialized in what we do, if you think about it. we’re so busy cramming every possible experiment into every last second of our day, that we rely quite heavily upon others to make our world continue spinning. this post is for those people.
from the financial coordinators, to the vivarium staff, to housekeeping and facilities, to the office staff that keep the place running and everyone else, you can NOT survive grad school by being an asshole to any of these folks. their jobs involve keeping your life on track whether you’re aware of it or not, and you’d damn well better respect and appreciate them for it. a couple of kind words go a lot farther than you might think, if you’re sincere.
being nice to the people that surround you and keep your daily life running is not going to backfire on you at nearly the same rate that being a jerk will. i’m not saying that there is no backfire rate at all, because that would be a lie. it happens, it’s human nature. also, i am not saying that all support staff are good at their jobs or carry their own weight. i’ve seen plenty of that too. but for the people who genuinely make your life easier, damnit, don’t make their lives harder. they will return the favor, which you don’t want. i have heard of battles between housekeeping and grad students resulting in bad news for the grad students… now why these battles needed to exist in the first place, when we’re past kindergarten, is beyond me.
let’s face it. as a grad student, you are not really above many of these basic types of jobs. if the staff were not present to take care of them, it would probably be up to you anyway. i could handle washing my daily reusable supplies, but someone takes care of that for me. same with feeding and watering my rats, cleaning cages, all that. that would add several hours to my already long days, and i’m worn out enough lately as it is, so i’m grateful i don’t have to deal with it. some of the more advanced stuff, you’re not capable of doing, like entering grant abstracts into the university system. if you want to write a grant, you’d better keep it in line with the grants person. they might be a lot of help to you.
so to these people who help me, i let them know i appreciate it. and you know, sometimes a few kind words are enough to begin a really good footing with someone. some people are just looking for a way to connect somehow. once you make that connection, people start to recognize you when you encounter them again. and they smile and say hi. maybe tell you really cool stories about their lives, even. i rather like feeling like a part of the community- and all it takes is, for example, 2 minutes to talk to the folks who are cleaning cages in the vivarium.
this takes a lot more social skill than i once had. one day, some years ago, i was too shy to go introduce myself to our financial coordinator. she is an incredibly nice person, but i couldn’t bring myself to talk to someone new. now, she’s pretty much my lifeline and i couldn’t imagine working without her. it took several years of personal growth for me to be reach the point where i stand now. i’m glad i’ve reached this point, because shyness can be perceived as being stuck up. that is something that can make your life harder.
that’s the message i continually receive from the world of science lately. the more i push myself, the more the world expects of me. the more i work to meet my own self expectations and those of others, the more disappointed the world seems in me. sometimes i wonder when this is all going to come crashing down on me. there are no more hours for me to work, i lived the no-sleep life for long enough and started to fail at daily life as a result.
currently, i am in the data analysis stage of one massive experiment. there are a ton of statistics that need to be done, but the data is together and graphed in all the ways that we wanted to see. this took me well over a week because… i am also setting up for the next gigantic batch of work that i am about to accomplish.
apparently, my rate of analysis output for experiment 1 is insufficient to certain influential people who consequently seem to think i’m lazy.
[set lasers to white-hot rage, high energy, with purpose to kill, for the mere mention of the word lazy- ELEVENTY!!!!]
i have not in actuality lasered anyone, but i have apparently exacerbated an already growing interpersonal communications problem by expressing my irritation at this sentiment. i was the one who had to apologize, and kissing ass to people who piss me off makes me physically ill. leigh was unhappy at being unable to tell the other end of the communications problem to hike up his skirt.
i forget that not everyone is like our collegial little group who may have very wide differences in perception but easily gets together to work for the purpose of science. so now i need to instill the idea in this other person that we may not like each other, but let’s work together well enough to get this shit done and never have to look at each other again.
my stress level is showing. fortunately, i am done with rats for the time being because last weekend i apparently tried to scratch the nose off my face in my sleep. i am still itchy all over, it takes a couple of days for that to go away. my hair isn’t as shiny and my pants are a little looser than usual too.
i have lost that crucial lb or 2 on my belly to expose what’s left of my once rippling oblique muscles. man, i used to have such cut abs (and legs, and arms…), and then i went to grad school. i fell out of shape, then i reclaimed it for about a year. then i hurt myself overdoing it, and to top it off i hit that manic phase of living for work to the exclusion of everything else. (thankfully, this at least coincided with the long distance portion of my marriage.) if i could figure my life out, maybe i could get back into shape. maybe when i get out of this vicious loop of experiments i can develop a healthy habit of exercise again.
or maybe i’ll lay on the living room floor, grab my free weights, and do a ton of situps right now to help with the disgust in myself. hmm. no rest for the wicked.
there is one song that sends me back to something incredibly painful and difficult and growth-inspiring in my life. i think we all have that one song, but damnit, i wish mine would quit popping up so frequently lately.
i wanted to discuss the reason that i am so open, even forward about my less-than-perfect past (minus unneeded details, of course) and its role in my march forward down the road that is my education. and in the style i try to maintain, i am going to try to share this in some kind of story format. so here i go:
there is a general internet discussion forum that i belong to, where everything goes. the regulars are all pretty good friends, and for a long time i was pretty active in the discussions. (when you’re doing a lot of western blots, there is web surfing time available.) i was once very shy about disclosing anything about my past, for fear of how i would be perceived in the outside world. this is pretty common- blaming oneself for the actions of others. fear of being perceived as a victim, as lesser-than. but in the heat of a really good argument i let it all fly and i made a hell of a point in the policy discussion we were having.
[we all have to get over our demons somehow. sometimes the best way is to just run them over with your car on your way out. th-thump. they'll follow you less closely next time.]
the next day i get a message from a newish member of this group. he thanks me for my openness and honesty, because he’s got his own past to get over and his own future to discover. finding someone else who managed to get through and managed to find a path toward success was just the inspiration he needed.
“I can see the effects now but … the past will have no bearing on the future I choose for myself.”
“I see what you have accomplished and it pushes me to work harder to get there. It also teaches me that while I may not knowingly impact someone’s life, there may be impacts that I don’t notice because they are viewing my accomplishments from a distance and becoming empowered by them. Thank you for that.”
to say that was humbling is a tremendous understatement. someone else is following in parallel footsteps and thanks me for disclosing that we are on the same kind of journey. my progress has empowered him to accomplish the same. we now root for each other to succeed, it’s a very positive thing.
nobody has the perfect life, there is no arguing. (if someone tells you they do, they are full of shit.) but some of us have more to overcome than others. and if someone can identify with me and see that the group of some of us can still make it through and reach higher- then exposing that side of my life to anyone who stumbles onto this blog has been worth it.
yes, i still fight with the long-standing effects of what i lived through. no, it is not easy to juggle that burden and the daily life of a graduate student. no, i will not let it stop me. ever. in fact, it makes it that much more important that i succeed. i have always been about throwing a wrench into that gearset.
collaborations with groups far and away from your own university can be incredibly, insanely, unbelievably useful- but also exhausting. i like driving, don’t get me wrong, but that many hours on the road in a single day plus putting in hours on two campuses makes for a long day.
thankfully, today was a beautiful day for egregious violations of local speed laws… shhh.
i also had the good fortune today of meeting up with a blogger i have started following recently- Scicurious @ Neurotopia. we had a lovely time over coffee, and probably could have talked for far longer than we did. it was really nice to meet someone whose interests were along similar lines to my own- and whose struggles i could really identify with! we even compared notes on shoes, which would surely please Dr. Isis. (she would, however, disapprove of our shoes.) i am looking forward to next time, whenever that may be.
by the time i arrived home and took care of some urgent non-science business, it was fairly late. i started feeling sick and shaky, and i realized that the only thing i had consumed since lunch was that coffee. i tested my “i need food” hypothesis with an oreo cookie. (hey, every other available food in my kitchen requires actual preparation.) my symptoms lessened immediately. also, i felt kinda happy.
i wish i could design more experiments around oreos.
the nine-day marathon of data crunching at any and all hours, no matter how ridiculously late/early, has ended.
at least, nine days worth of it have ended. (let’s hope it is not extended without damn good reason.) and that’s a masterful feat with all the data that needed crunching.
this is good because i can’t stay up tonight, tomorrow is a very long day. it’s the day i hit the road and go learn from the experts in supercool technique. i’m very much looking forward to learning supercool technique and applying it to my own project. just as i finish the data for the last project, i’m ready to kick off the next. am i a goddess of efficient scheduling or what?
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