You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February, 2009.
i don’t really want to, but i’m going to blow my TA income on a new laptop. mine is getting increasingly frustrating as i expect it to handle a very quickly growing word document, as well as formatting graphs for inclusion in said document, and some other pretty processing-intensive stuff.
because i guess (?) i’m in the putting-it-all-together phase now. though i can’t say i’ve had a good couple of days with the boss, i think that was where we ended up today. and i so can’t handle a 10-second wait to change the x-axis title on one of the 12 associated graphs for my recent experiment. seriously.
so that brings me down to what i should buy. i don’t have the money for anything fancy, like a macbook or anything. and i like my laptops to be small and efficient (which is how i like everything)! i’m currently operating off a 14″ widescreen pc, and i adore it. i’m thinking of moving to a 13″, which would be considerably lighter. and the one i’ve constructed has twice the memory and hard drive space as the price-matched 14″ i’m considering.
i think overall that’s a good move for me. i don’t think a 1″ screen difference will matter much. and i am on a tight budget. i’m gonna think it over for a couple more nights.
i’m rarely burned out enough to justify getting something like one of the crazy concoctions they make at cold stone, but today was just one of those days. i ordered up a mud pie mojo- coffee ice cream (WIN!) with peanut butter, oreos, nuts, and chocolate syrup. and i got it in a chocolate-dipped bowl with colorful sprinkles. because if you’re gonna do it, you might as well just go for it.
then i went to the grocery store next door and picked up a cup of sliced fruit, because the fruit smoothies had me drooling.
however, it will take me several days to finish this ice cream off. it’s huge! no complaints.
since i came about 2 steps away from utter disaster thanks to the giant overload i placed on my own shoulders the other day, i’ve decided to take a short* day and spend an afternoon doing things i like to do. somewhere on the agenda is an ice cream run, because morale is at an extremely low level right now. ice cream is a good fix for that.
what it comes down to is that i’m trying to do too much at once. i have a ton of things i’m trying to keep going all at the same time, and one giant misstep damn near threw everything out the window on me. i’m exhausted, i was on track to put in over 90 hours this week (i hit 40 on tuesday and then proceeded to work until the wee hours of wednesday) and i think this major shutdown was just my brain’s way of protecting me from myself. i probably need that more often, i have never been able to consciously save myself from myself.
so now i’m sitting here, brain specifically out of production mode, but reflecting on the experiences i’ve had. especially the recent ones.
and while i’m tempted to write this giant rant about how i wish i had known what i was getting my dumb ass into, and how i feel like this can’t end soon enough, but i’m rushing toward the end without solid ground to stand on when i finish [the reasons for that are many and varied, and some are currently out of my hands]…
i’m not gonna do that. i could have walked away from this at any point i wanted to. i chose not to. maybe i was stupid for making that choice, but there it is and it’s mine to handle.
instead i’m going to focus on the one thing that always lights a fire under me and puts me back in the place i need to be- the fact that i’m the underdog. and i love to see the underdog win. yeah, those movies about the one little hometown football team pulling together and winning the big championship? i love those. because i’m the underdog too. people knew i was smart, but nobody expected me to go from where i was in my previous life to someone who’s survived this long at mega u, and presumably [hopefully] will graduate soon with a phd. i’ve spent my entire life taking an axe to the statistics that framed me in like a faceless number and this is just the final wall that i’m busting down. the general environment at mega u is extremely toxic. this place is like a culture dish for varying forms of insanity. the grads are tough because only the strong make it all the way through. and i’m so damned tenacious that i have refused to let it get to me enough to make me walk away even in the shittiest of circumstances. not because of my undying love for mega u, mind you- quite the opposite- but because i put myself here and i’ll be damned if i let them win.
i’m approaching 1700 days in grad school. that seems painfully long, and i have been restless for ages. i’m tired, i’m frustrated, i have days where i just hate everything. today i nearly decided to miss that left turn off the main drag and hit the highway to somewhere [anywhere] else. but i’m so determined to make it to the finish line. i just need a couple days off first, because i’ve come near to damaging myself in my determination. that’s not a sacrifice i’m willing to make.
*less than 9 hours
i hit my breaking point with the long hours today. just couldn’t do it anymore. lost track of something important, got off my A game.
[sigh]
and i’m so damn close. i just want closure. i want to move forward.
but i’m so tired.
i fucking hate excel.
i hate it hate it hate it hate it.
but then the stupid thing saves me a bunch of time. it costs me a bunch of time to save me a bunch of time, but it saves me a bunch of time.
especially when everything goes right and i don’t have to adjust for anything.
that just makes me feel like i shouldn’t hate it, which strangely makes me hate it even more.
i know, that is completely counter to logic. i don’t care.
tonight is going to be another long night. i’ve already put in 34 hours this week and it’s only tuesday. i was kinda hoping for a day off before the end of the month. or at the very least, a day that’s only 9 hours long. so far it’s not looking promising. that makes me cranky.
cue the loud music and caffeine… i’m out.
experimental:
i’m now completely done with my experiment list, fuck yeah!
need to talk to boss about final committee meeting… eek.
data:
recently finished experiment with a zillion pieces of data to analyze. (i’m convinced that “billion” and “trillion” won’t suffice for long, and we will invent a real definition for “zillion” soon. i’m jumping the gun by using it now.) not particularly looking forward to the analysis, but really excited for the result. preliminary data had me doing a little dance down the long hall.
teaching:
a handful of make-up exams to grade
some stuff from last week to rock through real quick tomorrow
writing:
i should be starting chapter 1. i’m procrastinating pretty hardcore on that…
job applications:
oh fuck. that was my goal for february.
i need to sort out my research statement. really.
cross-country move impending:
moving quotes- pricey.
considering places to live in two potential new cities.
spousal student life:
i mentioned that in a previous post, it’s time consuming for me.
collaborating on resume-writing for him, i think we’ve got something good there.
handling long-distance marriage is grinding on me lately.
family at home:
total chaos that i am supposed to do what about from this far away?
mending a longtime-estranged relationship- awkward.
saying “goodbye, fucker!”
time for myself:
what’s that?
man, if i could only tell you guys how beautiful my data looks so far. but i’m paying a heavy personal price for it right now. i feel like i haven’t slept in ages, and like i’ve been beaten with a blunt object. really, really not cool. mercifully, tomorrow is Teh Last Day!1!!!! of data collection… then on to analysis at my leisure (ie, after i finish some TA duties i’ve sorta been neglecting).
i did have something to write about tonight, i promise.
so i’ve got this spouse who is a wonderful, intelligent, thoughtful guy. and he has some pretty severe adhd going on. the way he thinks was actually a serious advantage to him at his former job, and it will be in his new field as soon as he gets through school. it’s the school that is just an achilles’ heel for him- it’s such a cruel irony. he can’t get into the new field without this degree, so he’s trying SO hard to get himself through this. but i see how incredibly difficult things are for him.
back before he went to college, i never really gave his mannerisms and thought patterns a second thought- it was just the way he was, and part of the reason i love him. it worked well for him, or maybe he just made it work well for him, but either way he totally kicked ass at his job. i never met someone who could hammer away at a really complicated multi-system problem and make that sucker go away as well as he did. his clients adored him, asked for him by name. i still don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with the way he thinks, just that it’s not well suited for the educational environment. and that’s where it started to hit me, he probably has adhd. the message was driven home in a big way by a close friend, who was talking about her adhd spouse. i saw us in every description she gave me of them. so clearly. so, so clearly. i carefully opened up the subject at home a while later, and he told me he pretty much knew but never saw a doctor about it. after all, it never presented him with a burden until he went to college. (well, he did barely squeak through high school as far as i’m told, but i can’t really be too critical on that issue myself- they nearly kicked me out for truancy. and i don’t have adhd.)
we got him on some meds, and they helped tremendously. but the cost! student health insurance blows. (and you’d think that they would be more accommodating for a learning related issue.) i couldn’t come up with the money for the monthly doctor visit. he felt ok about going off the meds because he was taking hands-on classes that were perfectly aligned with his learning style and interests. there were no more focus problems like algebra and physics that really challenged his learning style. but now we have the one english class.
the one fucking english class, last semester, last class, last obstacle.
he wants to do well. i see him trying- starting to do the research, getting restless, getting up, finding something else that needs his attention. the insurance won’t pay anything at all for adhd anymore, so if we want to put him back on the meds, the money comes out of pocket. and these doctors, they’re expensive! hundreds of dollars per visit, and prescriptions are single-month only. i’ve already coughed up several hundred dollars i didn’t have for minor surgeries this year. we’re living on the financial edge as it is.
so we went back to the pre-medication strategies. the calendar with due dates for all the assignments. the weekly sit-down homework discussion. we talk about the subject, because he can talk about the stuff very easily. i point out how he just came up with a good line of discussion and he puts them together in his papers. it’s quality time together and accomplishment all in one. but oh man, it’s challenging.
i can tell he’s tired of fighting against it. he’s accomplished SO MUCH in the past year and a half, doing what many people just could not do. i’m so proud of him, but i really hate to see him have to fight this hard. he talks about the future, when we’ll have real-people health insurance and he can get proper medication. and how nice that will be. it makes me feel really bad about the present.
in the meantime, we work so hard. and we laugh when his foot starts involuntarily tapping when we curl up on the couch together.
i have been alerted that it is thursday… i can’t say i was aware of that.
i’m shooting around a loop in the grad school rollercoaster with some serious force. it’s like i want to stop myself, i’m so exhausted i have started to hurt everywhere and so stressed that my gut hates me- i can’t really even eat anything anymore, but i’ve got such momentum that stopping would be a total shame. just a few more days, i promise, and i’ll behave myself and enforce some of these work-life balance concepts.
until then, i’m a machine. an utter machine, and the excitement to find out how this totally experiment turns out is probably the only thing that will carry me through until the end. especially if i can’t eat anything.
in the lab we’re working to convert to a more reusable imaging source- my experiment looks absolutely amazing with this source, and the boss is absolutely tickled by my beautiful images. [the boss has always been a sucker for pretty science pictures, so have i.] so that meant i spent some time with an undergrad over the past couple days to show him how to use the equipment. we went to use the mega-expensive imaging equipment today, and some bastard had set it to run for 10 minutes, half an hour ago. we waited 10 more minutes before i got pissed off and signed him off the computer. and of course, i have totally awesome timing because the second i clicked “log off” the guy comes running in yelling “HEY, I WAS USING THAT!”
actually, you weren’t. you asshole.
he got the evil death stare, combined with “your run ended a half hour ago. we waited 10 minutes, but you’re not the only one juggling experiments today.”
wtf happened to common courtesy? if there’s only one of these mega-expensive pieces of equipment around, you’re probably not the only one who uses it. figure that out.
i’m busting my little ass over all but 2 of my my newly extended waking hours to crank out my last bit of data in time for a late-breaking abstract deadline. (two hours for quality time with a very socially inclined pet and a break after about 10 hours of work.) and i’m grading a whole pile of exams. so in the meantime, here are some things to entertain you.
1. check out the Traumatized by Truth blog and post up your definition of addiction.
2. laugh at my selection of end-of-grad-school ballad: youtube link
4. the stimulus bill provides money to the NIH! the extra few bucks per week also is tremendously helpful to the grad student types.
5. i am now collecting bets as to whether my poor battered laptop will live until i graduate… my bet is “just barely” so i’m grateful for the lab server!
6. summer registration is coming up… and i’m not registering!!!! bwahahahah!
i haven’t been to a big meeting in quite a while, and now i have a giant pile of data that would be awesome to present. we were going to send me to a certain specific-field meeting, but it’s a few months later than anticipated and i won’t be a grad student anymore.
i think i’m going to bring up EB2009- i went a few years ago and it was awesome. i would like to go again.
i have just over a week to meet the late-breaking abstract deadline- if i can crank out these last results by then, i would have the most kickass poster in the place. and that means… i’m going back to work at 9pm to get some more stuff done…
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