Dear Labmates

I blame the current grant writing by our PI for some stress on the lab. But still, PLEASE STOP BLAMING THE REST OF US. If one more labmate tries to cause drama, I may go hide in the library and grade. Lord knows I have enough grading.

Thanksgiving cannot come soon enough. Almost 50% of my labmates are insane right now and we are all in the "we see each other for 12+ hours a day and you are driving me nuts" boat.

Hrumph.


I am tired.

THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Ok, grad school, I get it. I was feeling positive about you and then I realized that I cannot physically do:
a) my research
b) my classes
c) my TAing
d) my running
e) my dealing with my apartment water heater leaking all over
f) keeping up with literature
g) catching up with literature

I cannot. Do. All of these. Well. This week has been TA/apartment/classes heavy and I am getting so little done on research. This is ridiculous.

Also, NSF? I thought I was going to get actual feedback on my proposal. If you tell me that I'm awesome and then don't tell me how to improve so I can attempt to get funding next year, that's not helpful. At all.

Cheezits, while tasty, are not a good dinner.

Stupid SEC column (yes, I'm aware that's like saying ATM machine).

I'm here (again) the last one in lab (again).

Good thing I've started bringing snacks or I'd have to go get ripped off at the student store by lab (again).


WHY AM I STILL HERE??? This is my first year. I'm not supposed to get anything done anyways. I just want to go home. Or have a milkshake. Either would do.

LAME. Grumble grumble grumble more than 12 hours is not acceptable grumble grumble stupid inefficient first year grumble grumble.

Crashing and burning.

I'm feeling burnt out. I can't give 100% to each aspect of grad student life still, and I'm not really even getting any time where I can be less stressed.

I do take at least one day off a week where I do less work. I refuse to go into lab at all on that day, and usually just grade or do homework + one fun thing (yesterday I went to a museum with the boy). I'm falling behind on my running schedule hardcore due to a slight injury/constant working. And lets be honest, it's more due to the constant working.

I'm hoping that it gets better soon. But since this irritating quarter system means that I have a repeating cycle of one week without midterms and then two weeks of midterms, not likely. I'm mostly looking forward to classes being done with (unless a fellowship requires me to take more) at the end of next quarter. TAing continues until this time next year.

Ok, here's hoping for less pointless, time-wasting experiments this week to make me feel better. There's nothing more discouraging than making slides for the weekly meeting with the boss and seeing how few experiments I actually did, let alone how little worked.

Missing my undergrad friends hardcore today. That one's not going to change anytime soon though.

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

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

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

Well, that was not fun.

Warning: If you don't want to hear me bitching, stop reading now.

Anyways, today was my first group presentation. For the past week, I've been hardcore working on figures and slides for my presentation with Fred. The presentation was rescheduled twice before today.

First of all, Fred drove me *nuts.* I spent at least a good 20 hours in total with him coaching me over my shoulder. Despite repeated attempts to get him to back off. He corrected my acknowledgments, for goodness sake. I told him that he was hovering. I told him that my tolerance for it was incredibly low. And he just wouldn't stop. (I don't mind corrections and help---I mind you trying to dictate each word of the presentation.) I got so frustrated that I went and cried in the bathroom twice, which is only something I've done when dealing with the world's most frustrating class.

Secondly, after getting up early to go practice in lab/make some last minute changes, my PI had to reschedule for later today and so texted Fred. Who did not tell me. Until 30 min before I was supposed to give the presentation. Which led to another 3.5 hours of him dictating changes to me.

Third, PI showed up right before the presentation. Explains that family emergency occurred and she'll have to miss the presentation.

I gave the presentation to the lab and our collaborators. Got a rave from Fred about how I did, which is cool. (Though I did make him promise to buy me a beer or let me punch him. He chose to buy me a beer in the future.) Giving the presentation to PI with probably just Fred present tomorrow after orientation stuff ends in the afternoon. (Orientation tomorrow---yay/yikes!)

The only really cool part was that a few of my project ideas were raved about by a collaborator who I talk to a lot (he's on campus and we use his equipment all the time) and he thinks I should totally follow up on these ideas. :)

But ahhhhhhhh. What a day.

Bought car.

Bought car! Emotional state=relieved.

Bank account=sad. Thank goodness I'm a cheapskate who has no real life. And that I have a lot of the cooking supplies and whatnot. Though I still have a bunch of stuff to get/contribute for the purchase of things like a couch. And textbooks. And minor(ish) car repairs. And the full first month's rent. And car insurance.

Sigh. And I don't officially get paid until Sept. Perhaps I will find a loophole in this concept. (I'm sure there is somewhere.)

And maybe I'll start putting up babysitting flyers.

Probably both!

Apartment hunting sucks!

Yesterday was all about the apartment hunting. SO MUCH EMAILING AND CALLING. I'll be going for two days to see the apartments.

I'm looking for a 2bd apartment with two of my friends from PUI. I'm a little nervous about living with a couple, but I think it's going to be ok. I know Roommate 1 as a former roommate of one of my former roommates, and she's really relaxed and mature. Roommate 2 is a friend of a friend that I've gotten to know better over the past year. He's a fun guy who is also going to GSU (but for math).

What makes me think that this should work is the fact that they're very good at being independent while being a couple. I really like both of them, and I think all three of us are blunt enough to voice any problems.

Also, hold music sucks.

And the Freaking Out Begins!

Great parts about being on vacation: seeing family that I never see, sleeping in, being able to read more, feeling less guilty about doing "nothing," and running in new places.

Not-so-good events: family drama, being shut in a car for many hours, less freedom, limited access to internet, but especially way too much time to flip out about my upcoming apt hunt with my roommates and my move to grad school.

Since GSU has entrance exams, my panic has been mostly focused on that. It's the usual deal: ACS written exams in Biochem, Ochem, Inorg, Analytical, and Physical. However, I have now got it stuck in my head that I will flunk all 5 exams and have to take all of the classes over. For the classes that I loved, I really don't want to do that---I want to take more advanced classes in the subject (biochem, inorg, and physical). For the class I hated (analytical), I never ever want to take that again. And for ochem, I would love to TA it instead of gen chem, since I've really enjoyed TAing that class.

Therefore, on the family vacation, my ochem textbook has come with me. Let the freakout begin!

Soooo close.

Thesis is sooo close to being done. I'm handing it in to get bound on Friday.

New check list:
Poster for thesis
Catch up on TA grading
Much better thesis draft
Quantum chem paper
Final thesis edits
Inorganic homework
Grade lab notebooks

There's a presentation on Friday. But after Friday, other than physically walking my thesis to the people who need it, I'm done. Just need to take finals...wow.

If I make it this far through grad school, how much does anyone want to bet that I'll look back on this and laugh at how much I thought that this process rocked/sucked?

Oy.

Thesis has hit hard.

I'm sick and there's too much to be done on my thesis...and it's due in a little over a week.

Plus, there's plenty of other irritating deadlines/tasks in the next week:
Poster for thesis
Catch up on TA grading
Much better thesis draft
Quantum chem paper
Final thesis edits
Inorganic homework
Grade lab notebooks

I mean, I'm well aware that this isn't an impossible task. It just happens to be irritating stuff to either finish or start.

*grump* And boy is coming down for this weekend, along with two of my close friends who graduated a semester early. Laaaaaaaame.