Am trying out LJ for the next month. All posts are friends-locked but otherwise things should be the same.

Something something patience

So while I'm sick, it seems like the PI has decided that rather than publishing what we have now, he'd want the interaction data after all. This is extremely frustrating and not a little confusing. I am baffled and so are the collaborators. My appointment with the office of grad studies for my exiting paperwork is on the 22nd so I'm going to have to explain this situation as that I doubt my PI will let me go until we get the manuscript accepted for publication. The manuscript that hasn't even been sent out yet.  Augh.

Caught something last Sunday and spent this week taking meds and trying to fight it off before finally succumbing to it sometime Thursday night and arrived at work Friday morning only to be ordered by the PI to take care of my cell culture  (which no one else could do except me) and go home. Which probably says something since he's the one who's been pushing me for new data on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday this week while knowing I'm running five day long experiments. Still feeling kind of achy and gross this morning, but mostly crushingly disappointed since this is the first October in YEARS where I've arrived at a place where I can enjoy myself and now I'm spending my first weekend nursing a cold. I had PLANS dammit.

And in this week...

Collaborator still working on draft, I ran some experiments, the cold room is still leaking so I probably will need to wipe up the water come Monday. Also my cultures a redeveloping a fungal problem. No idea how much of that is an effect of the fact that our new eco-friendly building is both warmer and damper than our previous building. No idea if the fact that for the first time in ever our lab is doing some fungal work (yeast for Y2H assay) played a part. Either way it kind of sucks as I have to repeat a bunch of stuff again and also re-make a bunch of media.

It autumn here yet

Went to Del Mar Fairground last week and spent two hours at the Home and Garden show rather than the ...horse racing that people generally go see (because as one of my high school teacher said: I am an 80 year old in disguise and have zero interest in horse racing). It's basically a convention with booths of construction company, architecture firms, renewable power companies &c, and I mentioned to Lucy, I basically gave people there massive headaches because I insisted on Asking Questions. A lot of which aren't necessarily the sort that a sales person is equipped to answer. (Like for instance: this one guy was trying to sell me this new paint that's supposed to be permanent, or at least he claims it lasts "forever" and it's also insulating as well and doesn't chip -- I wanted to know what kind of chemical / technology's involved so that one layer of paint can be insulating -- whether it's some kind of polymer or clay -- you get the idea.) I ended up collecting a lot of flyers and pamphlets, and got some good research info for a story of mine -- though I do have to figure out what having an architect on site will be like and the logistics of getting a construction crew somewhere remote. Ah well, I do know someone who works for a construction company, so I might ask her at some point.

Badly organized post, you have been warned

Since I sort of have more time on the weekends now, I've decided to go around the city and visit all the famous landmarks that I haven't yet seen before I leave. I've started last Sunday and am currently aiming at one site per week, which should carry me hopefully past the submission & review stage of my manuscript.

Yay it's September

Moving a 15 year old lab and its assorted equipment, samples, and detritus when the lab is down to 2 grad students, 1 lab tech, and 1 undergrad had been most exciting. Of the variety that I shall add to the let's never do that again, ever, list.

Well that was...let's never do that again

So after weeks of not updating I'm starting again with the blog posts. In the weeks of semi-radio-silence, I've gone and successfully defended my dissertation. To the many, many people who have asked me "what's next": a cupcake, a lab migration, and a wedding.

PI still not reading dissertation. Am being pushed even more because we have a competitor but he refuses to consider anything except proof of that particular protein interaction. Because I do have a sense of self-preservation, I refrained from pointing out that this is science and we can't really PROVE anything, only fail to disprove it. I did point out that protein interactions change depending on the pH, the time of day, the salt concentration, the detergent concentration, the cell type, the way the samples are prepared, to which he replied that he knows and it ends, as it tends to end these days, with the two of us staring at each other for a long moment before he tells me "Get it done." and leaving.

It'd be more tolerable if there's less follow up of the "why isn't it done yet. I wanted it done YESTERDAY. I wanted it done TEN YEARS AGO" variety. (I wish I was joking. He literally said the ten years ago thing to which I replied that THAT is a bit beyond my powers. My sense of self-preservation is not perfect.) Then there's the thinly veiled hint that perhaps I should be working harder and I am experiencing guilt at taking the time to practice some kind of self-care.

Basically I'm not sure if I can even meet my August deadline and have spend my hours not working convincing myself that I don't care, because it's the only way I can deal with it. That and murdering fictional people.

Also between stress-induced insomnia and Independence Day (my neighborhood is close to the beach and noisy until well-past midnight) and lab stuff (had to go in yesterday) am very tired.

This week I made the PI so frustrated he threw a pencil. Not at me, but nevertheless. The worst part is that the feeling is mutual but I've been drilled from a young age about propriety and to not make a scene and show respect and what have you, and so I can't throw something too. My self control won't let me.

In other news my parents are apparently dealing with a squirrel problem this week, my main experiment is still not working, and it may be time to murder someone else in my story.

The first time I sent my dissertation to my PI he told me he didn't really read it because it was too short (and I had uncharitable thoughts about the cause behind the academia being too full of people who love the sound of their own voices too much). The second time I sent my dissertation, having now written a lot more speculations and peripherally related information than I am strictly comfortable with I got back nothing and...nothing. Finally I ran out of patience and asked him if he's read it yet. He said no, very matter of fact, and informed me that he would not read it until I finish my experiments. I pointed out to him that my defense date is scheduled for August. He smiled at me and told me I "better get cracking".

Also blogger for reasons unexplained put the old Lunatics blog on top first and I was out of it enough last week that I didn't check which blog my post went to so now I had to go back and delete last week's post and transfer this week's post into this blog that is actually being updated.

Currently: disagreeing with PI on experimental protocol, on data interpretation, on dissertation, on manuscript, and on presentation. Had a minor melt down and contemplated the fact that although I like it when people tell me "you're going to be fine", being told to "relax" actually makes me more and more tense because my mind heads into "yes I know I'm supposed to relax and I am trying to relax but I also know that I'm not but I'm trying why am I not relaxing I'm supposed to relax asdf still not relaxing WHY I NEED TO RELAX alsdhjgoweebngo I'M EVEN MORE TENSE NOW BREATHE" and then, you know, melt down.

Also my shoulder hurts because being on the computer all the time combined with drawing on tablet combined with loading a bunch of experiment plates that have 96 wells that are about 5mm across without touching more than one side of the wells without passing my hand, wrist, or arm over the plate, combined with drills with a wooden practice sword is apparently the limit. There is spasming. I resent it immensely and am reduced to whining on the internet and consoling myself with tea and ice cream.

Still tired, still hanging in there. The dojo instructor's tapped me as being ready to mentor someone (sort of one-on-one tutoring to get someone ready for the exams) so there's now a bit of internal flailing about that as well. I spend a truly disconcerting amount of time feeling under-prepared for everything these days. It's possible I just need to relax and go with it. Though that's kind of anathema to my nature.

PI still operating on the "I want everything done, yesterday" notion, while the collaborators and I side-eye him because we are not sure if he's aware that he's spent 3 hours talking about additional experiments to do in the 10 days left of May and  that, in research, things...usually don't work on the first try.

Other than that, still hanging in there. Parents are coming to visit today, which will be some combination of awesome and exhausting and right now means I need to clean up the worst of the mess before they get here. Also: CA voting -- who on EARTH in Gary Wesley?? I tried to google that name briefly but it turns out it's a fairly common name and I'm...just confused how there's no proper opposition to props this time around.

This week the second heat wave peaked and at one point I was told there were 9 places on fire in the north part of our county, but thankfully it was still pretty far north that we didn't have to deal with evacuation. Thursday ended up being so hot that I, being in a top floor apartment without AC, took to sleeping on the floor with both windows open because the bed (and my clothes, and my bag, and anything that is any good at all at retaining heat) was still radiating heat. The weather's going to be dropping around 30F within the next few days, which is the good news. The bad news is the cycle of temperature and being closeted indoors against the heat means that nearly half of our lab building (or so it sounds like) is sick. The tech in our lab came down the day after I returned to work.

Even worse news this week is that I got partially scooped. For those not in the academia, being "scooped" is sort of like the journalism version -- someone reported what you were about to report before you did. The paper came out in NEURON, which is reassuring in a way since it meant that we were not completely off of our heads when we aimed for NEURON as the place to publish my work. I couldn't help but think that if I had managed to convince my PI to submit my work back in January, as I'd originally proposed, my paper and that paper might've came out back-to-back and I'd be DONE by now ---but trying to win an argument against my PI is.... Well no one in lab has managed to date, including the golden boy a few years back, even though the PI admitted after HIS paper was scooped that the students was right. (Basically it's impossible to convince him he's wrong unless you can prove it, which in this case is too late for me.) Mostly it means that I can't publish my work as it is right now and has to add MORE stuff, which my PI wants done (yesterday but even he can acknowledge that's not going to happen) by the end of May. Though it took him an hour to cover all the things he wants done and we're half way through May already, so I'm not sure his plan is entirely plausible either.

In conclusion: it can get worse. PI's still pushing for more data, all the data, done yesterday to the point where this week I flat out told him that I'm ALREADY doing my best. Because I don't think I can spend any more hours on this without completely destroying my mental and physical health and no, just NO. It's not worth it.

Huh

Just ran into apartment manager-type person (who replaced our landlady) regarding the sink issue (the one I mentioned in April) as I was staggering back in with fresh laundry and groceries. She THINKS, after inspection, that she might be able to get someone here to fix it by next week, and that she can't find my phone number (it's the same number I've been using for the past few years) but I think the sink might finally get fixed. Which means one fewer item to quietly simmer in irritation in the back of my mind, which brings to the obvious-in-hindsight realization that all my stress this past year hasn't been --no that's inaccurate. It's more accurate to say that the majority of my stress is actually from things being out of my control. I mean the work load is intense, but if I take into account the hours I put into studying / working in lab / classes during the last year I had as an undergrad, my hours is only worse because it takes me 2hrs to commute each day and also I do martial arts 4hrs a week. I have experienced nothing this past year that's more harmful than anything I've survived before and I really do think a lot of stress is born out of frustration at being told all the things I can't do -- be given all the thousand and one wrong answers while told there's no one right answer. I'm told directly and indirectly that so much of what happens to me is out of my control -- and even that sentence -- "what happens to me" instead of "what I do next" is a reflex resulting from some kind of passive brain washing. It's a kind of learned helplessness.

Well screw that.

The economy is awful and there's no funding for basic research and I am female and Asian and not-straight and currently getting over a flu. I cannot change any of these things. Some of them, however, will pass on their own, and I am well-read, intelligent, and even more stubborn than I am smart. I am about to graduate from a top-tier program in one of the top countries for research and I will find a way to get what I want out of life, even if it's not via the most direct route.

There is, as "they" have said, no one right answer, after all.

Ugh

Came down with the flu on Thursday (to be accurate I started feeling off Wednesday evening but at first I thought it was just exhaustion or something and I could just sleep it off...but then it kept getting WORSE since Thursday morning) and had to sort of pause three different experiments so I can go home and be feverish and nauseated with saltines and Nyquil. Fever broke on Friday though and I graduated to jello, and then when that stayed down, soup. Had to drag my exhausted self to store for more saltine though and nearly had a melt-down out of exhaustion when I couldn't find them (seriously WHY do stores insist on switching things around?). Still a bit sniffly and slight coughing today despite of being dosed with the cough-suppressant version of Nyquil and Dayquil (am experience enough to know that when I get sick there's over 75% chance I'll end up hacking for months unless I do something early on about it) but otherwise functional, so am going to go and be an functional adult with chores and stuff (and move back to my normal diet! Exciting!) so I can go into lab tomorrow and start catching up on experiments, which will be stressful on so many levels that I'm actually trying not to think about it too much because, well, I've had enough nausea for this month, thanks.

Just checked the weather and realized that after bouncing from 90F to 60F the past week we're heading for 88F on Monday. And then it starts to drop again but I'm not sure how FAR it will drop so ...am just going to hold on to my thicker jackets for now and eat a lot of oranges.

Had to email my committee to push back my defense date today (not sure if it's approved yet or not) because despite of my best effort I haven't submitted my manuscript yet. I feel a little ashamed because there're a bunch of people cheering me on and telling me "you can do it!" and now I feel like I've let them down. I'm also upset because I hate it when I can't meet my own deadline, even when it's for reasons beyond my control because I usually have enough backup plans that even when things get a bit out of control it still gets done, and so the rare instances when it doesn't come through feels even worse.

On one hand, I really am not ready to face down my committee at the original deadline. On the other hand I just asked to drag this out for another two months (at least) and I feel a lot like I'm failing at life.

Let's not do that ever again

For lo and behold I have finished my hellish two weeks and I am still here, with one tentative job offer (provided that I can secure funding for my project prior to joining the lab) and a blue belt. But really, LET US NEVER DO THAT AGAIN because the whole 6 hour+ interview then fly back for a full work day + 2hour of martial arts combination is awful and I doubt I have the stamina to last another week. (I might need to work on stamina, but I am considering this the idle way that I contemplate about working on my pain tolerance -- yes it would be useful, but do I REALLY want to go through the experience?)