About those posts that I've totally been making...

Dear readers:

Grad school is hard. It is very hard to think about actually writing the posts that I think up during my commute. This is my current to do list:

1. Clean up shitty mechanism on my hw for tomorrow.
2. Read papers for class tomorrow.
3. Finish transformation tonight (on a side note, Mol Bio, you and I have a little talking to do *shakes fist in rage*).
4. Work on fellowship stuff.
5. Email the 400000 people that I need to. I have become awful at emailing back anything that would take me longer than a sentence to answer.
6. Determine my feelings about Rotation 2. That will probably be the subject of this weekend's post.
7. Get groceries.
8. Go for run with running buddy.
9. Not keel over.

Rotations are rather brutal in that while everyone tells you that "you don't have to work hard because you aren't expected to get anything done," you want to: a) learn everything you possibly can and b) want the PI to *want* to take you in case they only have a few spots. My rotation in this lab...is almost done. I leave this lab on Nov. 5th. I feel very lucky that I don't have to TA right now. This, of course, will be changing next quarter.

Anyways, I am sorry for not updating more. I really like updating. But I also really like taking my few free moments and crashing in front of a movie with my friends. And lately, since I've been falling asleep in front of those movies, I think that's ok.

Love,
BotR

Rotation 2, week 1.

Summary of my week in one sentence: This is going to be a tricky decision between Group 1 and Group 2.

It's gone pretty well in the new rotation so far. I like the people, I love the metalloprotein, and the project is super cool. I miss the people from Group 1, but Group 2 people seem to be awesome in a different way.

I'm not saying that my third rotation lab won't be a possibility at all, but it's pretty unlikely just based on the research.

The thing that I've learned the most in this new lab? Rotations sorta suck in that the first week in a new lab is hell work-wise. I have all of my normal work + a 50 fold increase in papers/books I need to read on the metalloprotein, the techniques, etc.

Anyways, the parental units are here for the weekend, so I must be off to entertain them.

First month is officially over.

First month of real grad school (not just me researchin') is over. The classes and research balancing has been...fun. Yeah, fun. That's definitely the word I'm looking for.

Tomorrow's plans:
Wake up super early (I define "super early" as before 6. Don't judge). Clean room more. Get into lab. Pour gels/concentrate not purified protein. Go for run. Meet with adviser for next rotation. Check gel. Purify protein. Meet with current adviser. Purify protein more. Concentrate down proteins. Do first experiments to *hopefully* see super cool thing that I thought I'd try on the last week because I wanted to. Go for a beer with labmates that are sad to see me go. Probably do homework stuff for awhile. Go pick up former roommate at airport. Go home and clean up the stuff that I no doubt forgot. Make food for potluck for wedding reception that former roommate and I are going to on Saturday. Collapse, drool on self, and not get enough work done.

I am pumped to see former roommate. She's in her second year of grad school and therefore has the "dude, I know what you're going through and it'll be ok" attitude. And she's very excited to meet the cat.

Well, the making friends part has gone surprisingly well for me. Way less difficult than the beginning of college.

And running's been really nice---I get outside, I hangout with Running Buddy, and we just did an 8K.

Grad school's good, just tiring. I'm not sure how fellowships are supposed to fit into this mess of work. We have so much classwork/rotation based work as compared to the people in other chem divisions. They have to TA now instead though, so I can't complain. They just don't have as much classwork and aren't currently in labs (they pick next week).

Sorry, apparently too tired for a coherent, logical post today.

Last week of rotation one.

Well, it's a sad/happy/AHHHHHH sort of week. I'm excited to:
a) Not work under Fred anymore.
b) Go and work on the metalloprotein that made me fall in love with metalloproteins.
c) Meet new people.

I'm bummed to:
a) Leave the cool people in current lab.
b) Leave the cool metalloprotein I currently work on.
c) Leave the office that I work in. (I had my desk organized and everything.)
d) Not see our awesome collaborators in the physics department anymore.

I'm flipping out about:
a) The fact that I have been hardcore failing on getting work done on the Hertz/NSF apps.
b) The fact that I have to get used to new people again.
c) The fact that I'll have wombat status, but only vague wombat status because I've worked on this metalloprotein before.
d) That they haven't told us if our rotation choices were confirmed (my next lab was verbally agreed to).

Well, that's about it---and since I've had arguments with Fred about feminism all this past week, here's a piece that I really enjoyed.

Dealing with a frustrating mentor.

Lots of work, lots of lab, lots of fellowship stuff.

Running has helped with stress. But apparently, not enough.

I flipped out at my mentor on Friday. Like screaming at him. Essentially, I'm tired of him never taking responsibility for *his* actions and pinning it on me. Usually, it's never anything big. But it was sort of a straw that broke the camel's back moment. I yelled that I wasn't his mother or secretary at the top of my lungs, added a few curse words, and left the room to cool down. The really bad part was that it was in front of a few lab mates.

Luckily for me, my lab mates thought that it was a) deserved and b) funny (I got a few high fives). So even if I exploded, they don't think I'm psycho. Unfortunately for me, Fred thought it was also funny. He explained later that it was funny because I'm not a particularly intimidating woman (5'3" and 125 lbs doesn't really cut it) and that it would have not been ok if I was "a tall, muscle bound man." I did apologize, because I NEVER yell at anyone. EVER. But I'm still so angry with him because he makes these sexist comments just to needle me because I do react. And to be honest, I know that he's trolling me and just thinks it's funny when I get upset.

But I can't stop getting upset. Of the things that irritate me, sexist/racist/homophobic/etc. comments win. (Then it's inefficiency. But that's another blog post and a half.) And even though I know he's doing it *just* to piss me off, I can't control my horror/disgust/anger.

The biggest problem is that I both like him and hate him at the same time. I know he's actually a pretty good guy at heart, but he can't stop the bulls**t and I can't stop getting pissy. And he has been a good mentor in general. (In fact, I may be getting onto another paper. And I will admit, that while 75% of that is my own hard work, probably a good 25% is because of the fact that he's been setting me up for projects that might work/have a payoff rapidly and then fighting for me to be on the paper.)

Anyone have advice other than the pretty obvious "stop reacting to his trolling"? I'm really losing it here.