TA Assignments!

Quick note: Going on vacation with family to go visit family over the holidays, so updates will be pretty sporadic.

I will be TAing ochem lab twice a week...starting at 8am. Great. This means that I'll have to get to school at 7 am M-F due to classes and TAing. Which is sort of irritating because I was hoping to start running in the morning again.

Eh, oh well. I am excited/nervous about TAing ochem lab again. I did it for three semesters in undergrad somewhat successfully, but this will be different.

Any TAing tips?

Hobbies outside of research.

I've mentioned many times before that I am a runner. Never really did track or cross country, but I've been running off and on for most of my life. About a year and a half ago, I decided to run with the goal of running a half marathon in mind.

Well, I have my first half marathon in a little over a month, and I am so excited. And nervous.

Being grad students that have other things to do other than train non-stop, Running Buddy and I are somewhat prepared. I did 9 miles on Saturday. I've never run 9 miles in my life. And I not only ran 9 miles, I ran 9 miles in the rain and up and down many, many hills. My dad (who has run the NYC marathon three times) thinks that if we both can complete two 10 miles runs before the race, we will be fine.

I am so thrilled that for once, instead of thinking about it, I am actually running a half!!!

And Running Buddy and I both agreed once we're both back in GSU-city, we're going to try and go back to consistent running, since our rotation schedules derailed us consistently running together.

Anyone have some advice on running or on carving out time in grad school for things like hobbies?

Man, if I hear this one more time...

If I hear one more person using "feminist" as an epithet, I may explode.

Home, home on the range.

After my meeting with my PI and my mentor on Friday, I quickly ran as fast as I possibly could to my apartment, bid farewell to my kitty (the roommates are taking care of him), and hopped on a plane back home. On advice from older grad students, I am making it entirely impossible for me to do any lab work by taking a *whole two and a half weeks* off. (All of the first year biochem and chem grad students in my program apparently do the same thing.)

Favorite quote from Friday meeting? My PI to me: "Five years from now, you'll remember this meeting."

Or potentially this quote: "I want us to do not just crystallography, but EPR, ENDOR, *lists some more* but I want us to be spectroscopists as well! I want us to do EVERYTHING!"

Uh ohhhhh.

Just kidding. Sorta. Only slightly nervous from these statements that promise lots and lots and lots of work for me and the 5th year grad student who will be gone in a year.

Therefore, my break so far: sleeping, eating, family, reading and paper reading galore. And some running---a little over a month until my first half marathon!

Joined a lab!

I have now officially joined a lab!

I'm very excited. Last Friday was the last day of my suck rotation, so I used it mostly for meeting with PI A and PI B since we're supposed to have a decision by today. After talking to both PIs, my fears about group B were dealt with, and so after thinking about it the entire weekend, this morning

I popped the "Will you be my adviser?" question to PI B and he said yes!

Apparently he was very nervous about the fact that he hadn't heard from me until this morning (according to the rest of the lab). However, I guess I'm off! I broke the news to PI A, who was very nice and took it pretty well and she still wants to be on my committee. But now I've gotten a lab notebook, made an appointment with PI B for talking about my project to be, and I'll be claiming a desk/bench space tomorrow before going to their "holiday lunch"!

Too bad PI C didn't actually show up for our "you've finished your rotation" talk this morning. Sigh. Oh well, we're talking tomorrow morning and then I'm doing with these rotation hoops! And now just for the finals...

Grad school dating fail.

Quick disclaimer: This is not about me. This is all about my wonderful Lab Soulmate who has had to deal with this for the past few months. I will post my own fun stuff in a few days.

Ok, so imagine you join a group. Yay! Woo! Group! You get along with most to all of the people. Very importantly, you get along with the guy you are sharing equipment and a hood with. Hoorah!

However, things start getting awkward fast. Being an attractive, smart, funny, single female, your coworker is interested. And makes his interest known. Multiple times. Despite you doing everything short of banging him over the head and yelling "WE SHARE A HOOD YOU MORON HOW BAD OF AN IDEA WOULD THAT BE?!?!" This other student is a third year student, who, despite everything else, is a nice guy and you do not want to make things ultra awkward and still would like to get along with this guy.

Unfortunately, he drunkenly asks to kiss you at a holiday party and you explain to him that this is a bad idea because: a) he's drunk and b) you share a hood. This goes over somewhat well in that he doesn't storm away and seems to realize that it's not OK to date you.

But how do you stop the awkward??? Dear readers, got any tips for Lab Soulmate? As we both figured so far, there's no real solution other than what she's done already. But maybe someone else out there who has some good ideas and/or has dealt with coworkers trying to romance you.