This is apparently how it works

Wendy told me the other day that "if you haven't gone insane yet, you haven't been in grad school long enough". After the general up-spike in panic the past few days (how is it that the PIs managed to do that, long after I'm convinced that I just don't have the energy to panic anymore, I'll never know) I'm beginning to gain a new appreciation of that sentiment.

On that cheering note, my defense's next Tuesday. It was scheduled for next Tuesday (confirmation of rooms and everything) by Wednesday, because due to the schedule of the professors and the rooms (which we do need to schedule ahead of time) the only weeks that are available are either next week or, it seems, the last week before Thanksgiving (which is also my deadline for this). Then of course it's juggling the times until the PIs said, okay, this time will work. (In between all this I've gone through my slides twice already and found a photo where people are monitoring the circadian rhythm of lobsters, of all things, by putting a wheel in their aquarium that's hooked up to the computer and seeing when they'd run. On wheels. The photo was titled "Lobster In Wheel". ) Then yesterday one of my PIs emailed me and said that she had an eye appointment at the time of my defense, and could I reschedule, please. Of course, the person who is in charge of scheduling the meeting room for my building was gone for the day, so I ended up frantically looking up room schedules for other school of med buildings and discovering that, within the next few weeks, there is apparently only one hour when all the PIs will have time for me. (The qual is designed to be 90 minutes long, with 40 minutes for my presentation and 50 minutes for questioning afterwards.)

At which point I might have said, "Oh my God" and banged my head against my desk a few times. My labmates seemed concerned.

But the problem (sort of) resolved itself. One of the PIs is still going to leave early, but the other two will make it. (Or at least, after I scheduled the new room I sent out an email which said "IF YOU CAN'T MAKE IT, LET ME KNOW ASAP!" and no one has replied yet.) It is still on Tuesday. I still need to figure out what food to get for the PIs. ("Cookies," suggested Wendy, "And bottled water. Because even if they don't like water, if they're thirsty enough, they'll still drink it!") In between all this I need to figure out how to explain the math model behind my comp bio stuff (yep, I ended up doing that for my third aim, after all) without confusing the people even more. My PI is of the opinion that I should put in the math equation so at least even if the other PIs are still confused, they can at least see that I know what I'm talking about. I'm of the opinion that as soon as I say "For the function, rho, of X and Y at residue position i" their eyes will glaze over. But that may be my inherent cynicism speaking. (Or possibly what I know from my time explaining my written qual to my committee, but I'm trying hard not to think about that right now. A healthy dose of denial seems to be how most of my upperclassmen handled it, after all.)

(I seem to spend a lot of time lately thinking "this, too, shall pass". Did you know that in order to schedule a meeting with the thesis committee, which contains more people than the qual committee, my upperclassmen have to start the scheduling process two months ahead of time?)

Thank you, everyone, for your comments. I will probably take up the offers (practice is good; practice is always good), though it'll be a little sad since the movie of my mice will only play in the slides if it's .odt. (The original movie file is .mov and it converted weird, but since it's a mac thing I guess Kate, at least, should still be able to see my twitchy mice if I mail it as a separate file.)

Christ, it's Saturday. I need to find the time to wash my car sometime this weekend. The amount of dirt on it is approaching critical mass. Or at least, approaching the level where I might consider starting a roof-top garden.

Cheers guys. Happy Halloween. Eat some candy for me. Or something.