Still here!

Dear blog/blogging friends,

I have not forgotten you.

However, I have been super busy. Bossman is....on a wee bit of a crazed boss cycle lately. I work loads. He scolds. I work more. He scolds. I am aware that this is directed at everyone in the lab.

Crazed Bossman is due to several things:
1. One of my labmates who has done AWESOME things got rejected from Science on a paper they'd been working on for months. Bossman really wants a Science paper.
2. Another labmate is now in the "running up against the departmental finishing time" zone. He is not ready to graduate. Bossman will not pay him after December but will not fire him. This is gonna be awkward.
3. We should hear back about the NIH grant for my project soon. We were right on the edge of "safe" with our score. This is making everyone nervous. (I will be fine on funding either way, but yeah, totally have already spent the pretty pretty money in my head.)
4. My mentor/the only other grad student on my project is supposed to graduate soon (aka by March)/is looking for jobs. She is fantastic, and he is cranky that I am not as fantastic.
5. The other second year has pretty much stopped working. Bossman has only barely given him crap.


I have also just recently obtained an undergrad!!! She is awesome. And is one of my former students that I really wanted. And it is so much fun/work having her.

I have three large projects. And yeah, they are eating away at me. We desperately need another grad student on my project. We will probably get at least two grad students---neither on my project.

I have been busy. And stressed. And I haven't been able to run recently due to injury/laziness/how damn tired I am in the morning and evening.

I am in lab trying to sort through papers that will get me least yelled at for when I give a short lit talk for group meeting.

Still loving the lab, the research, and even Bossman (despite his crazed tendencies), but I need a breather that I will not get for awhile.

And damn, do I want to be able to get a paper soon.

And I miss my friends and profs from undergrad. I miss Lab Mom tons. My personal life has been awesome, but yeah, nostalgia hit hard recently.

So yeah, please excuse me for the lack of posts recently. I'm busy pre-panicking about quals this winter.

Love,
BotR

Publication the second!

Hooray! Lab Mom emailed a paper out today that has me in a prime position. Very, very small journal. But still! My undergrad thesis is *almost all published.* And according to Lab Mom, she's still trying to publish more of my thesis/undergrad work.

And it gave me an excuse to give Lab Mom a call. :)

Now I have two publications! One high impact journal where I'm in the middle of the author list (from my summer rotation here) and one low impact journal where I'm second (after Lab Mom). Perhaps I should try and apply for NSF GRFP again? I got pretty good marks last time, and my project proposal would be even better this time since I actually have had a decent amount of time to think about it (also, a lot more people care about my project as compared to the other project---the broader impacts are definitely not so hand wavy as before).

Hrmm....

August updates.

For whatever reason, I've been stupidly busy.

My two projects have now expanded into three projects. My bench is a mess. In order to remember all of the things that I have to do every day, I have detailed EVERYTHING in my planner (even stuff like "autoclave more LB"). The pile of plates in my personal mini incubator has grown to a ridiculous level. My desk is piled with papers that I have yet to read. And my monthly goals list that I keep posted above my desk never seems to get shorter, despite the number of things I cross off.

I guess this is what it's like when your project is kind of sort of working?

My hours lately have been...well, for me, I think it's kind of brutal. I get in at 7 and if I'm really lucky, leave at 7:30. Usually I'm not lucky. Usually I'm in here until at least 8:30. More like 9:30.

But you know what? I'm still enjoying it. I definitely get tired. And cranky. And hungry (like I am RIGHT NOW). My (main) project is still really cool. And I am very, very excited to potentially get an undergrad in about a month! (Bossman still has to do the final interview.)

And I get to go home for Fri-Sun! Three straight days without lab? I'll take it. :)

Summer is too busy.

Ummm, yeah. Haven't posted in awhile because...

my project is vaguely sorta working!!!

Also, I had a week long vacation. It was awesome. And then I moved. And then my parents came and visited.

Things are good: busy, but good. There's been some lab drama (a second year quit) but past that, not much.

How's everyone else's summer?

FINISHED. 1 year down...

4 more to go? 4.5? (Please no more than 5???)

I am so tired. But I can FINALLY start reading all the papers I've set aside for classwork/TAing. And FINALLY at least have enough time to sit down and try and synthesize some sort of research plan. And FINALLY troubleshoot some of the various things that have gone wrong. I've been doing just lameo preliminary handwavy solutions to fix this particular problem. Unsurprisingly, doing this has not completely fixed my current problem.

But done! Now no one mention quals until the summer's over.

Just keep swimming...

In times like these, two different child-oriented stories always come to me:

"Just keep swimming!"-Finding Nemo
"I think I can I think I can I think I can..."- The Little Engine That Could


Oh goodness. On Wednesday, I will be completely done with my first year of grad school. Yay!!!!!! I am proctoring one final on Monday and taking two finals on Tuesday. I will be done with grading by Wednesday if it kills me.

But oh, the lack of sleep for the past two weeks. When it rains, it pours!

Awkward sauce.

Um, so Friday was fun. Golden Boy gave a beauuuuuutiful thesis defense. Man, do I hope I kick ass like that hopefully 4 years from now. And then we had a party.

I had a lovely time. This was the boyfriend's first official lab event, so it was nice that he's gotten to meet the coworkers. And celebrating instead of working is awesome. :)

But...so Bossman got tipsy and then proceeded to tell me to not get preggo because then I "wouldn't be able to spend more time in the lab." AWKWARD. First of all, I'm not discussing my reproductive choices with you. Second of all, this is a party. Lay off the lectures. I'm absolutely sure this was a bad joke that went worse (Bossman tends to have those moments), but please---no. This is not something I'm comfortable discussing with my boss.

I reacted as any person who is deeply uncomfortable would: I told him to quit staring at me. He continued on, realized it was inappropriate and he should shut up, and started making fun of me for something else (thank goodness).

But man, AWKWARD. I'm still grumpy over the inappropriate nature of the comment/setting.

When Bossman's not happy...

...everybody's unhappy.

Grumpy Monday around here today. Bossman's mood defines the mood of the lab usually. Today was not a cheerful Monday. Pretty much everyone got the "you're not working hard enough/thinking enough about your project" speech today. I think he's upset because Golden Boy's defending on Friday and he probably didn't get enough sleep.

Oh well. Tomorrow's a better day?

Reminder: I am still alive. Hooray!

I haven't posted in a really long time. Sorry. Life gets busy!

Since I last posted: my parents have visited, I ran my second half marathon with my dad, I've graded a midterm and written/graded two quizzes, turned in a bunch of hw, had a midterm and spent a ton of time with my labwork.

I am really, really looking forward to summer. CLASSES WILL BE DONE. NO TA-ING!

I still like TAing. As compared to 75% of the other people who came in wanting to be a teacher, I've retained the "man I wish I had more time to devote to EVERYTHING" spirit. Despite the fact that the weather is too nice for most of my students to show up for section, I love talking to my students. But man, trying to remember 115 student names---impossible. I've settled for remembering the students who actually show up to my discussion.

I wish I had more time to devote to lab, but meh. Classes will be done (forever? Unless someone makes me take more?) and I'll have two more quarters of TAing. And glorious summer is only a little over a month away.

And then I get to go on VACATION for a full WEEK. yayyyyyyyy

Spring break! Hooray!

Spring break is coming up! Therefore, I only have a third of a million things to do instead of a million things!

In this upcoming week, things I have to look forward to:
1. Monday morning meeting where I present my first-completely-by-myself crazy idea experiment to Bossman. Hopefully it goes well so I can get him to buy the stuff for this experiment.
2. I make myself do the experiment I hate twice.
3. Science demos with wee children!
4. Meeting the parental units of boy (nervous nervous nervous).
5. Figuring out schedule for classes/TAing. Currently there's potential conflict. One of the lecture days for the class I might be TAing is the same time as a class. But the prof I'm TAing for might not care about me missing one lecture a week?
6. Lab, lab, more lab?
7. Anniversary blog post!

But now, off to a brunch at labmate's apartment!

Apparently my PI is as ridiculous as I am.

At group meeting after scolding us for spending too much money on things we are forced to spend to much money on, Bossman grabbed some cheezits, passed some to me and:

"BotR! Cheezit toast!"

Leans over and bumps his Cheezit against the one I'm holding.

Later he spent a good 5 minutes coming up with celebrity couple-esque names (ex: Brangelina) for the different sets of people working on similar projects.

Then he scolded us for our low batting average (number of reactions that worked over the number we sent for sequencing).

What??!?

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.

Happy two days from half priced chocolate day!

I hope that you all celebrate in your own way. My way of celebrating Valentine's Day (making pancakes for a bunch of friends, whether I'm single or not...which is a good time to bring up that I have been seeing a fellow biochem first year) will have to be postponed until later this week, as I have a midterm Wednesday and an ongoing take home midterm for my inorganic NMR course.

Boo. Thanks, grad school.

And now, back to my massive pile 'o grading.

Favorite wombat fail of the week: When doing distillations, I had 3 flooded hoods due to wombat antics.

When the adviser's away...

...the grad students will work the same hours anyways.

In undergrad, when I went in on Sunday, there would maybe be one other person in there. Today when I went in (I usually work M-Sat as compared to Sun-Fri), 80% of my lab was in.

The boss-man is out all week, so looking forward to a less tense week that is *not* filled with grant writing. My project is still stuck on mol bio related stuff (ick---perhaps the most frustrating stuff to be stuck on as a chemist), but hopefully will move into the more exciting stages of growing/characterizing mutants within the next week. I am itching to no longer follow my grad student mentor around, but due to inherent trickiness in my protein, not a possibility. Sigh.

Though I must not be driving her nutso yet. We're going to a free yoga class together later this week with one of her friends from another lab.

Also, I seem to have collected a fan group out of some of my ochem wombats. A lot of them wish me good weekends in their emails/when they leave lab, a few found out about my half and ask me questions about that, and one of them hangs around until after lab and then she'll follow me back to my lab building asking for ochem advice/questions about my research and whatnot. It's all very cute. Though if they're hoping for points, my wombats have been severely disappointed. And with that, I'll leave you with one of my favorite wombat quotes from a lab report graded earlier this week, in which a major point of the lab was to learn about bumping and boiling chips:

Q: Why do we use boiling chips?
A: To make liquid boil.

It's true, wombat. That's why when making spaghetti I always include a boiling chip.

I'm not dead!

Guess what guys? I'm only *slightly* dead!

Just kidding. Sorta.

These past few weeks have been...ridiculous. Here's the lowdown:
1. The prof I'm TAing ochem lab for is a total jerk who is very good at wasting my time.
2. I got super sick with a major cold for the first week of school.
3. I'm working 6 days a week in lab, with a 7:30 am start time. My classes are at night so I don't leave campus until 8 or 9 pm. This is rather brutal.
4. I am in a love/hate relationship with TAing.
5. I have not read a research paper for weeks and I'm falling farther behind.
6. Ran my first half marathon with a time of 2:10!
7. My PI is submitting a grant on my project that is due at the end of this week. Since the other grad student on this project has been fulfilling all of his figure and rewrite related requests, I've been doing her labwork and mine. I am very glad for this week to end soon.
8. My first midterm of my x-ray crystallography class is tomorrow.

Unsurprisingly, I feel as if I'm doing a shitty job at all 4 categories of my life: lab, school, TAing, and running.

Even though I am stressed out, I still am vaguely enjoying all of this. For some reason.

Happy 2011!

Things that are mindboggling to me:
1. I have now joined a group. Whaaaaaaaaaaaa
2. Classes start tomorrow.
3. I'm TAing again for the first time since my two year stint of TAing in undergrad.
4. I already have too many things to do tomorrow.
5. My half is in 21 days!
6. How is it that people always want to meet at the exact same time as things that I have scheduled?
7. Visiting/interviewing potential grad students start up in a month and a half. Whoa.

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?

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...