How do you get yourself to just finish something?

I know what I need to do to finish my PhD. I have some experiments working; I need to get one new technique up and running (but it has been done before in similar labs so it should work, in theory); I need to write a paper; I need to find a job; I need to write my dissertation and defend it. My "class" consists of three women and two men. The other two women will definitely finish by next spring and I REALLY want to. One of them told me that they are both going to push me so we three women can finish together. They both have field seasons, so I told her to give me deadlines of something to have finished by the time they get back.

But right now, the only thing I NEED to do is to make a darn poster of my research for a conference next weekend. I leave one week from tomorrow and gave myself a deadline of tomorrow night to email a draft to my advisor. She has not mentioned the poster at all to me, but then again she never really wanted me to go to this conference anyway. She did inquire about new data Thursday when I was busy trying to get data, but that is as far as her apparent interest in what I have been doing goes.

What have I done today? Went for a run, ran errands, went to lab for 4 hours, played lots of games on Facebook, found some old pictures of my sister's wedding from nine years ago. See, this is me with my hair all teased!I also need to "study" and look up all the scientists who will be at this meeting (two of my old bosses will be!). I know a lot of names because it is an area of research I worked in when I was a technician. I need to work on making my poster relevant to them because I am used to catering to a different crowd. Oiy.

I know I can do it. I just need to DO IT. K. Off to make tiramisu for a barbecue tomorrow.

Out to Eat

Margarita Fridays are great.

Here is my rant for the day though. [I really need to use this outlet for something other than rants!!!]

We go to the same place for lunch ever couple of weeks, usually when we get paid, and get tex-mex and margaritas. The way the day is going determines the number of margaritas we have. A couple of weeks ago, when my advisor nearly gave me a panic attack, it was a two or three margarita lunch, I do not remember. Today, my friend had a meeting with her advisor, and we really only went out because none of us wanted to eat what we had brought for lunch, so it was only a one margarita lunch.

We always just add the tax and tip together and split that among everyone. Then we add whatever we actually consumed to that and the money always works out. Today the person who did the math for tax and tip and shot a little high, but that was fine with me for two reasons. One, we always have the same waitress and she totally knows us. Two, I split a dish with my friend, and two people got appetizers for their meals today, so I totally intended to leave some extra money for tip because the total on the bill did not reflect the number of people served.

One of the many things I have learned from my parents is to be generous, especially when you are a regular somewhere! Sure, we are only grad students, but if just this one week we leave 22% instead of 15% for tip, is that a problem? People kept adding it up and saying there was too much but no one expected to get any back because they had all added the (high) tax/tip amount to their meal. I said about a gazillion times that if everyone was comfortable with what they put in than it did not matter what the total was, if someone wanted change to take change, and that I had put in a little extra because I had shared a meal and the total did not reflect how many people there were. I really only said it 3 times, but people would not stop trying to figure out who should be getting money back, and I was getting irritated. Really irritated.

Then the one who had done the math for tax and tip made a comment about the tension. Smooth. I did not really care! We may all be hard up for money, but if you do not think you put too much in, let it go and be happy we gave our regular waitress a big tip. Geesh. This was one of those times I felt older than all my grad school friends.

Becoming a PhD "Candidate"

I think ever since I joined my program, I have put "PhD Candidate" on my CV. Many people will not put that until after they pass their qualifying exam/comprehensive exam/whatever you know it as. Although our department does have a Thesis Masters Program (M.S. versus M.A.), the PhD students have different expectations of them from Day 1, so I feel like I was always a PhD Candidate.

Anyhoo. Even though you come in as a PhD Student, to truly "qualify", at the end of our second year, there is a one-day five-essay exam. You are given a topic list and some of the questions are required and some you are given a choice between two questions to answer. Usually, people say that it was not so bad in retrospect, and they wish they had listened to the upper-level students who said so.

Then in the fall of your third year, you write a grant proposal on what you think you will do for your dissertation. This is helpful to put your whole project in perspective and plan out the next three years. I actually enjoyed this part and rather enjoy writing grants in general (sick, I know). I am lucky, because I have stuck to my proposal relatively closely, but not everyone does, then you have to rewrite. Bleh.

The strange thing is, after that proposal defense, you have no more hard deadlines. You are floating in limbo (or purgatory as I sometimes think of it) until you have enough data, the correct amount of published work, and become pushy enough to get out.

Both myself and the grad student who is a year ahead of me in my lab had a REALLY rough spring after that proposal defense. That was when she most seriously thought about leaving with a master's. That was also right after I had my thyroid removed and I was determined to be healthy. I ate pretty well, got plenty of sleep, took vitamins most days, exercised regularly, and yet was tired alllllll the time. When I found out my thyroid hormone levels were perfect with the replacement hormone and I told my doctor all the healthy stuff I had been doing, she paused, turned her chair around, looked me in the eye, and said, "You know, sometimes depression creeps up on people."

That's it. No follow up. No, "Would you like me to refer you to a therapist to talk things out?" or, "Would you like to talk to me about anything that has been bothering you?" Nope. Nothing.

Now there is a student who is a year behind me in our lab. She finished her proposal late, and I think is now going through that post-proposal slump. She is an international student and had a friend in her home country just pass away. She has not been taking care of herself. She thinks all these aches, pains, indigestion, head congestion, and anything else on any given day are due to allergies. I told her that the spring after the proposal seems to do weird things to people and do not just assume that she can not get out of bed because her allergies are really bad that day.

She has a plan to get to the gym three days a week. Hopefully she will start doing other things to take care of herself too.

Apparently, post-proposal depression is a right of passage. Good times.

Beads

I have these seed-bead bracelets that my friend sent me when I lived in China and she was in Africa. [She and I have been friends since middle school when we would braid each others' hair in science class.] When she sent me a couple while we were both abroad, I wore them all the time and told my students where they were from and who had sent them. Then I went and visited her in Africa and bought a few more. Here are the bracelets:The blue and white ones are those which my friend sent to me and are the colors of the Senegalese flag. When I went to Africa, I got the other three. I think I bought two of them and then was given one, or traded for a couple. I forget. My favorite part about these bracelets is how it is okay for them not to match!

I wore these bracelets for a looooong time and then took them off for some reason.

I saw my old roommate (the owner to the two black kitties from yesterday's post) over the weekend. She noticed that I am wearing the bracelets again. Then she asked if I had "the others" on too, in a conspiratory manner. "The others" are waist beads. She said how she always thought they were so sexy and she was jealous that she did not have a reason to wear them, but I did. She says she can not wear them because she has not been to Africa. Like I earned them, I suppose. Here they are:
The pink ones I got in Africa and have been broken and remade; I just redid the orange one with the same stretchy thread I have used to remake all of them so that I can take them off and put them on (rather than just leave them on all the time); and the wood one with the blue bead I made at my friend's house in Vermont after she returned from Africa. I like the wood one the best.

I have, in fact, put these waist beads back on too. Just a day before I saw my old roommate actually. They make me stand up a little straighter, I suppose because maybe they do make me feel a little sexy. All part of my attempts to stay happy and think of things outside of grad school. :-)

Mix music

The undergrad who just left the lab at the end of the semester made a mix CD for each of the grad students. She picked out songs just for us, so each one is different.

Mine is "Jenski's superawesome mix!"

When I listen to a new CD, slowly the lyrics come to me. A line here or a line there will stand out; I will pay closer attention to that song; eventually I will just know the lyrics. These are some that stand out at me right now from the CD.

See the world
Find an old fashioned girl
And when all's been said and done
It's the things that are given, not won
Are the things that you earned

I am the Fourth of July
I'm throwing you a fire in the sky
You could go blind in my light
But you were looking for an orchid
And I will always be
You were looking for a tea light
And I will always be a forest fire
A dandelion...

it's her hair and her eyes today
that just simply take me away
and the feeling that i'm falling further in love
makes me shiver but in a good way

I could keep going, but I think she thought out these mixes too well - I love something about every song. I would also be impressed if anyone knows these songs. This undergrad LOVES music and knows lots of random people.

I love pictures!

I saw a couple of friends yesterday who asked when I would be going somewhere because they love looking at my pictures on Facebook. I was touched! I am not sure if I have my pictures from Africa on CD anywhere, but I do have a few on my computer. (The discs are probably packed away.) I did start going through the discs on my desk and found some favorites though. I posted the few I have from China before. Here are a couple from Africa. This is me attempting to draw water. Too bad I don't have a picture of me trying to carry a giant bucket of water on my head?!My friend's "niece" and "nephew" (from her Peace Corps host family).Another "nephew".
Me cutting some stuff up for dinner and goofing around with the kids. A village in the country that we hiked up to.And some more favorites I found as I went through the discs. This is a candid of my niece at the beach when she was about 15 months old.And kitty pictures when I lived with my friends with the two cats! This one is fuzzy, unfortunately, but it's my friends' cats watching the water drizzle in the sink.Watching the squirrels...I wish I had taken a picture of them on that rack once a month. If they were to both try to share a space that size now, it soooo wouldn't work.

Sometimes it hits me.

I am usually the single friend in the groups I hang out with.

Susie homemaker

My roommate's parents have been here for a week and will be gone for about a week before they come back. Today, I cleaned the whole apartment (minus my room) from top to bottom. It looks so clean! With four to five people in our apartment for a week, it got pretty gross. I love going barefoot, and I couldn't because of the floors. Ick.

Anyway, now the apartment is super clean.

Tomorrow I am going to see them at a party and I cooked. I made this banana bread that is egg-free.To make up for not using eggs in the bread, I made deviled eggs AND put them in my handy-dandy tote.
I also looked at the little flowers on a succulent plant I have that is in the window over the kitchen sink. The flowers are so tiny, but it has about twenty of them on two long branches. More than I have ever seen on it!Now I am off to finish my toenails and make beeramisu, only with Baileys, not beer.

A delayed response to Idol

I watched the first several weeks of picking the people who would be on American Idol. I also watched a bit when they were first splitting it men and women. Then I stopped.

But I still sorta kept up with it.

I went to visit my old lab and was having lunch the day after an episode. One of my friends commented, early in the season, that David Archuleta was "so sweet he's giving me diabetes." I think she must have been pleased with the outcome.

I asked my roommate, who still works in that lab, if they had all been talking about the finale at lunch and David Cook winning.

Jenski: I don't really remember which one he was. He was more rock-y than pop-y, right?
Roommate: You said you'd do him if that helps.
Jenski: Oh, so he was one of the doable ones? That helps.

I did just watch his song at the end of the finale. I would totally do him.

I am a SEWING MACHINE!

I posted recently about the produce bags I was making (and still have the supplies to make lots more!) and the baby clothes.

Well, I just finished a third sewing project and my friend is on her way over to pick it up. She is Jewish and her husband is Catholic and they had some of each tradition at their wedding. Their high school friends had made quilt squares that one of them sewed to make their chuppah. The intent was to turn it into a quilt to have in their home. When I was making the bags, my friend found out that I sew and mentioned it. She had been quoted a few hundred dollars to finish the chuppah into a quilt. I told her that I could easily do it, but it would probably be simple. No fancy quilting for me! She had all the fill and backing, so I just had to sew. They gave me money to have my sewing machine cleaned and the timing adjusted. Last weekend she wrote me a check and that was the push I needed to actually sew it.

The best part of these sewing projects is that I inherited my grandmother's sewing desk with all the notions (thread, buttons, zippers, etc.) in it! I can just sit down and find thread to match what I am going to work on. This is what the drawer looked like:
But then I thought my grandmother probably kept it looking more like this (all that color grouping and boxes were hers):
And I straightened it up.

Shoes!

If I had a large disposable income, I would probably go crazy buying a few things. Whenever I have a need for several of an item, I feel the addiction. Just this month I bought three new, good pairs of shoes. This type of spending is generally unheard of for me. I am a grad student after all. :-)
I got these great navy sandals to wear with my navy bridesmaid's dress for the end of June. They came with a felt bag.

In addition to having done something to my left shoulder, my left foot has been bothering me. It started when I was doing some walking in NYC, I think, in my old sneakers. Even though they were new sneakers from Christmas, I have been wearing them a LOT for the gym. I figured I should get a new pair and dedicate them to walking and running. [Technically I should probably have a pair for the gym, for walking, and for running. That would would be the shopping addiction creeping in that I try to keep at bay!] I bough new sneakers Sunday. I have had the same style, Brooks Adrenaline, for about 4 years now, but the new upgrades in their design felt funny and led me to these Asics.
THEN, I invested in some good close-toed summer shoes I could wear to lab. These are the ones I felt guilty about buying for the winter, but I wore them ALL THE TIME, so I figured investing in the summer equivalent was worth it.
My Crocs are getting a little worn, so I thought maybe I should replace those as my summer shoes. Lest you think all Crocs must be big and ugly like this (although I admit I loved these too),that is not the case. I have two pairs of Crocs ballet flats, for example. Brown and black. A Wild Oats grocery store was going out of business near me and they were only $10. Turns out they are too narrow for my sister, so I got to keep both pairs.
And my new Crocs just came in the mail yesterday! I wore them today and they definitely rubbed some places on my feet raw. Too bad, because I love them (the way they look) and will continue to subject my feet to the rubbing until they callus up a bit.
Aren't they great? :-)

The box was waiting for me last night, and I had to open them before I headed to the Red Sox game with my roommate and company. I love Fenway. As one of the radio stations here puts it, Fenway is the best bar in Boston.

A happy place.

In Boston, when people offer you Red Sox tickets, you take them.

That's what I did tonight.

Photos to come when my own computer is on.

Good times.

Green is a nice color

Your Mind is Green

Of all the mind types, yours has the most balance. You are able to see all sides to most problems and are a good problem solver. You need time to work out your thoughts, but you don't get stuck in bad thinking patterns. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, philosophy, and relationships (both personal and intellectual).

What Color Is Your Mind?

The part about needing time is pretty true. And I don't get stuck in bad thinking because after a week, I am "good" again.

Do people need to keep giving me reasons??

As in, reasons to hate them??? [I don't know why I feel like I need to keep strongly negative words out of my post titles.]

I hate bad people.

I just ran out to do errands and my car's rear bumber has a serious scratch and the tail light plastic is broken. I can only figure it happened while I was at a friend's party last night because it was light when I went to the party, and dark when I got back to my car so I probably would not have noticed it.

GRRRRR. I had already decided to just take out a stupid student loan so that I can just buy a laptop and not play around with credit cards all summer like usual. NOW, I get to get my stupid car fixed because of a bad person.

But it is absolutely gorgeous outside today.

It's been one week

I was going to post some lyrics for the post title, but the song I was thinking of does not have a line that fits the meaning. The same group sings another song with this great line though. Makes me laugh EVERY time I hear it:

I could hide out under there
I just made you say "underwear"

Anyway, it has been one week since my advisor nearly ruined my life. That may be a bit excessive, and much like parents, it is probably an advisor's "job" to make grad school difficult, but still. I find her ridiculous, and am sad to say that I really do not respect her. I do not know what she would need to do to regain some respect. In general, I trust and respect people until they do something ridiculous and then it is all over.

After the fateful email she sent, I almost had an anxiety attack. I cried at school. I was ANGRY. I do not get that angry very often. I told people about it. I said how I was just going to not be around when she thought I should because that would show her. I said that I do not think the whole animal facility should be a grad student's lab job (and I still think this). I was prepared to explode at her.

Luckily, she is not around regularly or I probably would have. I had a week to talk through it with some friends who are removed from the situation. I gained some perspective. They helped me come up with more diplomatic ways of approaching the topic that do not involve a string of profanities.

I was wondering if I should just keep something like that inside to let myself cool down instead of blabbering about how I feel about it to everyone? If I wait a week, will I gain perspective on my own? I almost feel like I am backing down from how I really feel about it, but in reality, I have only my friends with whom to work these things out. This is one of the parts of a relationship I miss. Not that my past relationships have always provided perspective on difficult situations, but they did prevent me from venting so vehemently at work.

Really?

My ex and I were exchanging messages on Facebook*. He started it by saying he was thinking about seeing a "shrink" (his word, my quotation marks) and wondered if I would be willing to talk to said "shrink" to give him insight on the ex. Really?

I responded with a 'Seriously?' I think. At one point he asked if I was mad at him (a typical question from him when I question him about something), to which I responded that I was not, in fact, mad at him, but I thought it was a therapists job to talk to their patient and work through whatever with the patient. I had never heard of a therapist consulting a patient's exes to get insight.

He claims it was the "shrink's" idea.

Huh.

I finally told him, still via messages on Facebook*, that I would meet with his therapist if he thought it would help and this would not change the fact that we are NOT getting back together. I also asked if maybe from what he had told this therapist if the therapist thinks I am crazy and wants to see ME as a patient. I never heard back.

My roommate suggested that the ex was just making this up to see if I would say yes. So I asked him. He said he just met with the therapist for the first time**, thinks it will be good because he did not have the happiest childhood, and that his sister is bulimic. I could probably do the therapist's job of articulating what the ex's problems are for the therapist could give me a couple of months to write a novel about it.

This is the randomness I still get after breaking up nearly a year and a half ago.

*I really dislike that interactions are so electronic. I hate when the ex sends me a text message, because I have to pay for it! I have tried explaining this before, to no avail. Even when we were together, I did not understand why he would not just call me to say he was on his way over. If you seriously want a friend's help while you figure your shit out, why are you asking the friend over Facebook??

**This is suspicious because he said it was the therapist's suggestion, yet he had not yet met with the therapist at the time.

What fun!

I just got back from Jesus Christ Superstar. My parents surprised me with two tickets for my birthday and I took my labmate. We did not have our weekly Friday afternoon seminar, so we took off at 3:30 and got our nails done. Her fiancee gave her money for dinner, so I got a dinner out of it. I'm tired. It was great.

My roommate's parents also arrived today from Germany for three weeks. They are staying in her room; she is in the office; my computer is in the office. This is going to make evening computer time tricky.

My first challenge for Blog365.

An updated history of BFFs

A while back, I took Spark's lead and wrote a brief history of BFFs. I wrote how this high school friend and I lost track of each other, but my Dad had run into her. WELL, thanks to Facebook, she tracked me down! I feel a little bad that I had not yet. It was actually on my life list to do just that.

Turns out she had a little girl who is so freakin' cute and recently had a tumor removed from her back. Ick. I guess the doctors kept telling her it was pregnancy pain and then when it did not go away after the pregnancy, they investigated further. So we are back in touch. She is a good person.

There are lots of things we shared that make me wonder why we did not stay close. We were teenagers. That is what I blame it on. We were mischievous and drank together (just the two of us, kinda lame). We would sneak alcohol from her parents' second house (her father was an alcoholic, so no one ever noticed). When her Mom found out, she was mad...because we had not told her and she bought us fancy premixed pina coladas and stuff! I went on a family vacation with them. It was rough because there were lots of not good moments between her parents on that trip. Well, really, it was one big disaster between her parents on that trip, they have since divorced and her Mom is happily remarried. In the end and in retrospect, I am glad I was there as a stable person for she and her two sisters. Her Mom loved me. Her sister loved me. Now we can reconnect.

************************
I am listening to a mix an undergrad made for me. She was working in the lab, and is now off in France for a summer program. It did not end well between she and my advisor. She'll have a happier senior year not being in lab though. I am a little envious. As a good-bye, she made each of us grad students a special mix CD with music tailored to us. SO THOUGHTFUL. I like the whole CD, but this song always jumps out at me. Anyone know it?

You've got a chance to put things right
So how's it going to be?
Lay down your arms now
And put us beyond doubt
So reach out it's not too far away
Don't mess around now, don't delay

Randomness

If you want even more randomness outside of this actual post, just click on the links. :-)

Molly still has mice even though the super was going to send someone Monday to take care of it. ICK.

My experiments are SOOOOO working. I ran some of the experimental PCRs. Now I just have to analyze the data.

How many labels should a blog post have? What is the point? If one has 6, is that excessive? Maybe it is just indicative of the fact that the post is random? Like today. And this one.

I made cupcakes for a fellow grad student's birthday tomorrow. He's taking the first part of his qualifying exam Friday (8 hours, 5 essay questions, got about 6 topics a couple of months ago to study) and his birthday the day before. That stinks. He is the one who may have previously (or currently, who knows) had a crush on me. Holiday party at work:

Labmate: Did fellow grad student just come all the way across the room to ask you that?
Jenski: Maybe he just wanted to talk to me.
Labmate: Maybe he did...or maybe he likes you.
[pause]
Jenski: Maybe he does.

Do you ever find you have innocent crushes on friends of the gender to which you are attracted? The following is one of the reasons I like being around Male Grad Student #1. He comes up with random compliments.

Jenski: [entering office with Male Grad student #1 & #2 talking] What? Why did you just look at me an laugh?
Male Grad Student #1: Because you're amusing and lovely.
[Note: Dreamt about him here.]

How do you start a blog? I did not do a very good job. I tried to explain myself though. I often think I have nothing to post. I have tried to look for certain situations or experiences posted previously while writing this randomness and have been unsuccessful. Maybe I am not an effective labeler?

I also have not posted lyrics in a while. Any guesses on these that I like?

You can drag out the heartache
Baby you can make it quick
Really get it over with
And just let me move on

Don't concern yourself
With this mess you've left for me
I can clean it up, you see
Just as long as you're gone

K. Off to put those cupcakes in my special container! I think it is too short to frost them and put them in, so frosting them will have to happen on site.

Not sure what it means...

When you live in reaction, you give your power away. Then you get to experience what you gave your power to. -N. Smith

So I get a thought of the day from the magazine Real Simple. With a name like that, these thoughts should be, well, simple, and this was not that simple. This one was very apropos given my attempt to deal with negativity at work. Just goes to show I should keep fighting the battles I choose!

My friend and I just went for a TWO HOUR walk. She and I never run out of things to talk about! She was three years ahead of my in my program, I think, is now a post-doc, and are fairly recent friends. We live within 1/2 mile of each other. She is a very open and honest person, and that makes it really easy to be friends with her. A lot of how I deal with graduate school I attribute to bits of wisdom she has shared with me. She wants to write a book and has a million book ideas. Tonight, we decided we will start writing a book. About grad school. We have to email ideas to each other tonight and will meet about it over lunch on Saturday. This will be great! I don't think we should try to do much but write it until my advisor lets me graduate though...

P.S. Thanks for all your comments recently! I swear I will respond...eventually. I have homework to do!

A long productive day

I mentioned yesterday that I could not remember all the tidbits I learned during my weekend. Molly told me how to keep curly hair straightened overnight (bobby pin it in a spiral around your head and cover with a scarf), but I do not have curly hair.

I did realize some things though that helped me get back some positive feelings about life in general.

There is a better life out there, for instance. I know when you visit friends it is a warped sense of life where they are. It was relatively quiet on the NYC streets, sunny, clear, not that much traffic. But still. It was a nice reminder that it is possible to escape my little black hole that is graduate school. My fellow grad student and I often lament that when you are this unhappy in a job, there is always the option to look for a new job. As much as I love the Boston area, it did also make me more seriously consider moving on. My best friend from growing up told me I need to leave this place. Oregon would be nice, as my brother is there and I do not feel the necessity of completely starting over again.

It also occurred to me that I can not recall being truly disappointed in any of my friends from college. I miss them a LOT. That is not to say that I have been disappointed in every friend since, but as I get older, there are things friends do that make me wonder how I can mesh my beliefs and morals with the choices my close friends make. If you are a friend from college and reading and remember a time I was disappointed in you, keep it to yourself 'cuz I don't remember. This may also go along with me idealizing college. Whatev.

I also probably do not need a couple of drinks every night. My ex joked that I drink too much. I do not think that is the case. I can also hold my liquor and he could not, so he was probably jealous. I go through phases of wine, beer or tea in the evening. If I truly want to lose 5 pounds in the next 6 weeks, I bet cutting back from 2 to 1 or no drinks a night would help a lot! Besides I really enjoy a good cup of chamomile!

I also learned that I can run. I have also gone through phases of going on runs, but I do not like it. I have been going to the gym very regularly since January, so there is no reason I can not go for a run. Molly and I ran a total of 30 minutes and stopped every 7 or 8 minutes so I could shake my legs out. It felt good to know I could do it. My legs are exercise-sore today, so that is nice too.

I also realized how much you learn from your friends. Molly and I shared a bunch of random facts, insights, and attitude whipping (well, I tried, but she'll have to let me know if it helped at all). One of the reasons I go to the gym so faithfully is because KHC pointed out that the more you use something you pay for, the less it costs per use. This appeals to my (extreme) frugal side. I figure I only pay about $3 per trip to the gym in a good month and some of those trips are classes so that is a deal! My bridesmaid's dress for the end of June? I already have another wedding I am attending to which I can wear it! Carolyn has passed on the never-ending gift of laughter. Yes she has, bunny, yes she has.

All of this helped me to refocus on what is important right now. Collecting data and finishing grad school. I will continue to fight my battles and win whenever possible, such as for others who are stuck in a crappy TA/course situation. [I would link back to all the ranting posts I have written about various situations among the grad students right now, but it really is not worth revisiting.] In the end, if it disrupts my research, that will only cause me to be there longer. So today I worked 10 hours and took about 30 minutes for lunch and only checked Facebook once. I was ridiculously productive and hope I can keep it up. This will help for the conference to which I am going and getting a solid mass of data by the end of the summer. Counting down to April 11th 2009 when I have to submit my final dissertation to the graduate school office to graduate in May. AHHHHH!!!!

My cell phone challenged Mom

I did not spend Mother's Day with my Mom or Gramma. They were in a car back from my cousin's wedding. I spent the weekend in New York City, as may be evident from the previous disjointed post. Here is proof I was there.Molly and I actually went for a run this morning (?!) and sadly our other friend was being "jerked around" by work (his words, not mine) and could not meet up for brunch. So we walked around for a long time then found this big rock in Central Park to just sit on. It was sunny, a cool breeze, and lots to watch.

I called my Mom when I was waiting for the bus. I supposedly had one bar of reception, but I think it was a fake bar. My reception kept cutting out. When I finally did get on the phone with her, she was all apologetic that the bluetooth in her car did not work and she was turning up the volume and then just deconnected the bluetooth and called and it worked and my Dad was picking on her for being cell phone challenged. I explained that it was partially my fault too but I don't think he bought it.

That's really all I have to say about that. There were a couple of moments this weekend when I thought, "Huh, maybe I'll write a 'Things I learned in NYC' post." I have since forgotten whatever tidbits I thought were so great. Oops.

I slept 3 hours on the bus back but could easily get in bed right now. So I think I will. I hope other people had some nice weather this weekend and remembered to call their Mom(s) for Mother's Day!

Always look on the bright side of life!

I got out to NYC for the weekend and Molly informed me I needed to post before we go out for dinner and a show! We already went for a nice long walk and had a great salad for lunch. Now we are going to hang her pot rack and leave the apartment for the two mice who have been visiting us throughout the morning. I am VERY glad I had planned to come for the weekend.

I promise at some point I will be able to let my feelings for my advisor go or accept them enough to stop posting about her, but yesterday she ruined my day. I actually almost had the second anxiety attack of my life as I walked to campus and started getting worked up about everything bad thing I could remember from the past four years. This is an excerpt of what got me going.

Luckily, I happen to be around this weekend. However, I need to point out that since the animal room is your lab job - in the future - during times when there are animal room issues - like during a scheduled power-outage - you need to prearrange with me (or someone trained on how to deal with that room) if you are not able to check on the animals for a period of time to make sure the room duties are covered. Please don't misunderstand.... You do a wonderful job with that room and I DO appreciate your efforts. I am also not saying that you are "tied" to that room and can never go away. If the room is becoming a problem for you, perhaps it might make sense that all of the grad students get fully trained on the room/equipment - and instead of you doing the room all the time, you three take turns being in charge of the room - maybe on a monthly basis? I will leave it up to you three to sort out. Let me know what you decide. I am sure you understand that it is very important for everyone's research that the animals are kept healthy. I will track down the folks at facilities today when I am on campus to find out the status of the room's water system.

My favorite lines are "If the room is becoming a problem for you..." and "Please don't misunderstand." I am beginning to think that this room should not be a grad student's lab job period. Isn't that what the university animal facilities are for? If something actually goes wrong with the room, I am not trained to fix those things, so it does no good to make me responsible for fixing them. There are just a lot of "buts" in the undertone of the email and passive aggressive accusations about me not being responsible. Being irresponsible would have been not bringing the issues to her attention and losing the animals. Being responsible for her would be giving me the information necessary to take care of this, like, oh, the field technician's names or the credit card number or cc'ing me on emails to the head of facilities.

Anyhoo. Now I am away. She can deal with any potential issues for the weekend and I can have fun with my friends...and figure out what to do for Memorial Day Weekend when the heinous...my advisor will apparently be out of town again and it is MY responsibility to ensure the room is okay after a scheduled power shut down. Shouldn't that be the University's job? I wonder if SHE realizes that it is important to everyone's research that the animals are healthy?

K. I'm done. I swear. Time to hang a pot rack. Molly just found a stud.

More color

These tulips were pretty much in full color the other day. They've opened up more now, though, and you can see the two colors that are in some of them better now.

Let me introduce you to my neighbors.

When we moved into our apartment, the backyard was all fenced in and there was a tree between our back porch and the porch of the older women who live next door. Nice and private, right?

The tree fell down in a storm and one side of the fence was taken down that first fall when a different tree needed to be taken down. The fence has never been put back up. We have been forced to communicate with our neighbors.

After the tree came down in the storm and our landlord had someone come take it away, I was out on our porch. The daughter next door (I'm guessing she is in her 60s and her mom in her 80s) said they had never liked that tree anyway because it grew onto their land and dropped leaves over there. That was only the beginning of her chatting on the back porch while I tried to enjoy my beer and some quiet time at the end of the day. Last summer I got a gorgeous hanging flower of some kind. Here is my friend's cat trying to eat it.I bought some more flowers of the same kind at Home Dee-pot yesterday. This year they are peachy and red. I have not taken a picture of those, but I did take a picture of the pretty pansies that are in a shorter hanging pot next to them. My intent is to build an insulating wall of flowers on that side of the porch. How neighborly, huh?So aside from the Neighborhood Watch ladies next door, there is Mercedes lady. Guess what she drives? But she lives in a condo in a not expensive town so I am not sure why she drives a Mercedes. She also has a truck and a boat in the back driveway, neither of which are registered. Strange huh? You know what else is strange? Every morning there is a manila envelop dropped off at her house. Sometimes there is also one taped to her front door.

A few houses down from Mercedes lady lives the drug people on the street. I am assuming they actually deal, as there was a big drug bust there a couple of months ago. My upstairs neighbor told me all about how unmarked cars were there, marked cars were keeping an eye on the outside, and officers were in the house for hours, only to emerge carrying large quantities of things in bags. The next day the house had a new mattress delivered. That house is now up for sale, with an open house every weekend. I am hoping they sell it soon and move. The boyfriend of Mercedes lady talks to the young guys in the drug house and was apparently very attentive during the whole drug bust thing.

Then there is the old couple across the street. I always shovel the snow out from around the fire hydrant on their property. They barely shovel a walkway to the road.

Then there is their neighbor with a scary looking cat who I tried to pet once while saying in a nice voice, "you look a lot meaner than I bet you are." The not so cultured woman at the house yelled at me out the window to leave her cat alone.

Downstairs are two big time geeks who have not said more than two words to me, my roommate, or the couple who lives upstairs in two years. The first thing they said to the guy upstairs about a week ago? "Can we borrow your grill?" Upstairs is a couple. The woman went to the same college I did, only graduated five years later (which means we marched together because I was there for reunion!). Her boyfriend is finishing up his PhD at that school. They met at the bar on campus. She is also very involved with the graduate student council with me, as was someone who lives next door to Mercedes lady. It is a little grad student-druggie neighborhood.

Good times.

Yay (and the same old)!

I just visited Danielle and she just planned a vacation! ME TOO! Actually, I feel like I have my whole summer planned out already. June brings the end of my roommate's parents' visit from Germany, a conference in the area, my brother in town for a week (and his new girlfriend for half of that!), a bachelorette party, a beer fest with the entire family (my family is a little crazy), a friend coming in from the West Coast for a week and then a friend's wedding at the end of the week (for which this West Coast friend is coming as well). WOW!

July is pretty quiet, actually. That will apparently be when I do all of the research I need to do this summer.

August brings a week long course in MONTANA. I am a wee-bit excited to see Montana. Not sure why, except that I expect it to be BEAUTIFUL (as long as the forest fires are kept to a minimum with all their smoke). THEN, because I will be half way across the country anyway, I am going to visit my brother on the West Coast and probably the friend mentioned above as well. At the conference in June there are a couple of researchers who are from Oregon near my brother, so if I like what they do, I may even start the job search while I am out there. My brother said if I were to end up out there, he knows a place where I could get a deal on a room (i.e. his house).

PHEW. Then my advisor still sucks. But that's old news and I managed to get rid of the headache (with a few advil halfway through the day) and it has yet to come back {knock on wood}. So we won't talk about the day to day developments about how she sucks. I was ACTUALLY trying to come up with good things about her today to feel better about life in grad school and had a few and then she managed to f*&% it up by telling me it is MY responsibility to figure out who will cover the animal facility over the HOLIDAY weekend when they shut down the power because SHE will be out of town. IT'S NOT MY LAB. I AM NOT LAB MANAGER. Okay...on to better things.

Good news! My experiments that were sucking for the last month are TOTALLY going to work. I have tried two different mixes for the flourescent part of the experiment and it worked. On the first try. With no optimization! Now I have been going back and forth with the company to get a replacement and they keep trying to figure out how to blame their product not working on me. Admittedly, sometimes a user is dumb. I have tried a billion things in the last month and consulted at least 5 people who run similar experiments and NOTHING WORKED. I finally told the woman on the phone that it does not work. That I have tried a million things (I may have exaggerated with the billion things) for a month to no avail and I just wanted her to replace the reagent. Period. I am beginning to take my horoscope to heart.

I am going to use my force to finish grad school now.
...and go pack for a weekend in New York!

P.S. Did anyone else notice that new rating thing at the bottom of each post on blogspot???

Oh, man.

I keep thinking it is Thursday. During the semester, my Thursdays consisted of gym, meeting, set up for the lab I TA'd, TA from noon to 4, tutor, and go home. Somewhere in there I would ALWAYS get a headache.

Today I kept thinking it was Thursday because I felt the headache coming.

This past fall I cracked my neck (in the sense that one cracks their knuckles), and it almost made me pass out. Since then, whenever I get tense, I immediately feel it in my neck and end up getting a headache. I felt it happening today and kept relaxing those muscles, but there is crappy stuff going on at work/school.

Background: We are supported by TA-ships unless our advisor has a grant and decides to put us on a Research Assistantship. Most students have to TA for the introductory biology lab their first year, and often after that. There are complaints by the undergrads that the lab part of the course is not great (to put it gently). As a result, rather than consider revising the labs or working with the graduate students to improve the lab preparation, there is a course being instated that is required of alllllll grad students TAing the intro course.

[I am a reasonable person, generally speaking. To blanket-require a teaching pedagogy course for ONLY those TAing intro bio is ridiculous.]

Many non-first year students have TA'd the course before; many of us have taught our own courses outside of the University on our own. Yet all must take this course. There are other nuances of the whole thing that are difficult to explain. I think it is also ridiculous that information about this mandatory course has been disseminated through the grape vine. When we signed up for TA preferences, no mention of the course. We hear bits and pieces of what the course is supposed to entail, and these details are completely mutually exclusive.

We talk about this mandatory course all the time and how to get out of it. My advisor tried telling me that it would be good for my CV. In my FIFTH year. When I am trying to get out. And I have taught my own class before for a year in China. I don't buy it.

My neck and shoulders are getting tense just thinking about it. I came home and tried to use a couple of glasses of wine to relax and get rid of the headache. I think I'll just hit the sac and go to yoga in the morning.

On not being alone

I always hate it when people ask me what I am thinking about. Whenever someone asks, my mind immediately goes blank and I have no idea what to say. I think a lot though. I even preface statements with things like, "I was thinking this morning at the gym," or, "I was thinking when I was at the grocery store..."

This morning, as I walked to work, I was thinking that I am tooooo used to being alone. I do not mean lonely. I mean alone. I do get lonely, but that is different. I have always had roommates to talk to, friends to email and talk to, family to visit. I have really only had to worry about my own life working since becoming an "adult" though (whatever the word 'adult' means).

I was thinking that the next time I am in a relationship the hardest part will be trying to let go of being alone. I think about my friends and like to do nice things all the time, but as one person, me, not as an 'us'. The ex and I lasted so long because he let me be alone while we were together, even though I did not want to be alone.

I forget what the reading was, but at my friend's wedding recently, her father read something about essentially maintaining your independence while still being together. One line was something to the effect of "The elm and the sycamore do not shadow each other, but rather grow next to each other."

I think that is the type of relationship I need. One in which I can pretend to be independent yet actually be growing with my partner growing next to me. A different ex, from when I was in China, said to me when I was going to visit Molly in Shanghai, that he was going to worry about me a lot traveling alone on the train, but he knew that I was independent and would be fine. I need to find that again. And not be alone.

The sun'll come out, tomorrow!

We've had rain for a week now. I know we needed it, but I am not sure we needed a full week of it. [Actually, I just talked to my parents and they reminded me that it was not rainy all week, but when it was not raining, I was at work so it does not totally count.] During a break in the rain this week, I picked these in our backyard.
I left a tutoring session at 6:30 and realized the sun was out! I have been wanting to get a picture of the tulips at the University President's house. They are almost all in bloom and very colorful. And tomorrow it will be 70 degrees and sunny, not 45 and rainy! Also, if you like flower pictures, you should check out Danielle's Blog. :-)

Overheard conversations...

The horoscope I read for myself yesterday:

Your boldness makes you a force to be reckoned with.

I am pretty sure that is horoscope speak for: "You're a bitch". You decide. :-)

If I had been a fly on the wall last night at the museum, homing in on the awkward situations my friend and I got in, this is what we might have heard.

[NOTE: for all situations below, read my and my friend's comments in very sarcastic tone. At no point in the night were we truly, or even remotely, grateful for the members of the opposite sex with whom we interacted. We don't know how to politely remove ourselves from these situations and drunk boys are not all that perceptive. All the good ones refused our come-hither-and-help-us looks. Maybe next time.]

Jenski [exiting bathroom to see friend with man talking to her]: I'm going to grab a drink. Do you want one?
Friend: I'm all set. [pause] But I'll come with you!

She was real smooth accepting my out for that situation, huh?

Man #1 sidling up to us: What are you ladies talking about?
Jenski: Ummmm...Actually, my sweater.
Man: What color is that sweater?
Jenski: Ummmm...brown?

Man#1: What do you both do for fun?
Jenski: I'm in grad school. I don't have fun.
Jenski's friend: I'm a lawyer. I don't have time for fun either.
Jenski: What do you do?
Man #1: Oh, you know, go to bars, restaurants, hang out with friends, the beach.
Jenski: It's a little cold for the beach still.
Man #1: I've been once already! Have to work on my tan, you know.
[To his credit, there was one day when it was 85. Weird New England weather.]
Jenski: Yeah, I don't tan.
Man #1: Let me guess. Are you a little Irish?
Jenski: It's true. I turn bright red, and peel. It's very unnattractive.
Man #1: I bet the tanning salon industry in Ireland doesn't do very well, huh?
Jenski: I am not actually from Ireland. Maybe my ancestors know though.

Then he invited us to hang out with he and his friends at an "in" bar and gracefully [ahem] exited.

Then, my friend and I tried to use our education to deter the next set of boys to come our way. Usually this works. Boys find out your getting a PhD or are a lawyer and get all intimidated. Yeah, so last night, that didn't work.

Man #2: So what do you do?
Jenski: I'm a grad student.
Man #2 a few minutes later in conversation: So what do you study?
Jenski: Biology...[man nods]...developmental biology...[man nods]...Do you want me to keep going or just stop there?
Man #2: Well, is this something that is very important to you?
Jenski: Not right now! But someday people will have to call me doctor, so that's why I stay in it.

Man #2 crouches and does a weird pointing thing at my friend.
Jenski to friend: I'm not sure what that was.
Man #2's friend: I'm not sure what that was either.
Man #2: It's between she and I.
Jenski to Man #2: I'm pretty sure it's between you and you.
Man #2: No, it's between she and I.
Jenski: No, it's between you and you.
[WHY was I having this argument????]
[Man does same weird pointy thing to friend.]
Man #2: Now it's between he and I. I'm going to head to the bathroom.
[Man #2's friend does not take the out and stays for several more minutes of AWKWARD conversation.]

Later at the bar, while my friend got us drinks...

Weird old man listening to his iPod: [While patting friend's arm] How're you?
Friend: Uhhh...Fine.
Weird old man to two other people he doesn't know: I don't think she is happy to meet me!

Go figure.

I'll stop there because it is painful to write these conversations out. I'm leaving out all the men who were our fathers' ages who also tried to hit on us. My friend wondered when the social norms broke down that make these men think it is okay to do this.

Suffice it to say, if my friend and I head back to this meat market of an event, we will be more prepared and proactive about meeting the cute non-creepy boys.

So close

I got home at 1:00am. Posting for a day when I have not gone to bed but it is technically past midnight count for a post a day? I am so not wanting to "fail". I will have to post about my plans to post when I am away this summer!

Judged a high school science fair today. They were great!

I went to the museum. Good stories to tell. It's late and I will recount the SPECTACULAR pick-up lines tomorrow.

Went to dinner. YUM.

Went for a drink. Actually saw a grad student I know who came to say hi. Then my friend and I made up stories about these three guys, two of whom were attractive, and what they were talking about. I had to use the ladies room, so my friend sat on the couch. She figures they thought we left after that. Then when they left, they totally watched us as they walked out. Guess she was right.

G'night!

[My Unofficial] May is Culture Month!

Apparently May really is the National Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month, so maybe I will post about that another time.

For now, I am declaring it Culture Jenski Month! I am going to a museum tomorrow night, next weekend a show, the following weekend a show, the following weekend a good ol' fashioned Memorial Day party. (Is that all of May????) There was an exhibit opening on campus tonight and I totally intended to go. This was the first Thursday since January I did not have to TA though (YAY FOR THE END OF CLASSES), and I totally wasted the day and had to do work and am going to a museum tomorrow! I feel bad for not supporting other grad students.

Oh, well.

Off to get some sleep. If I can get my ass out of bed for yoga, I will have gone to the gym EVERY day this week?! I decided it was time to step it up a little.