%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
A new journal for a new beginning |
| I'm strangely hopeful. I guess that's nice for a change. |
| Well, it looks like I'll be "starting over" yet again. I just received a letter from my boss that her ability to fund me as a full time employee will end June 2008. She said could fund me part time for an additional 7-8 months after that. She also offered me a reference and said she'd understand if I wanted to find another position. At least I know pretty well in advance, a luxury I haven't had in the past. I made sure to tell her how grateful I was for that. I just have to silence the little voice in my head that keeps telling me I did something wrong and am not valuable as an employee. Truth is, I've been here less than a year (my 1st anniversery is the 25th of this month) and the next junior tech has been here nearly 6 years; the lab manager has been here for 11 years. When funding is tight, the tech with the least seniority goes. End of story. Now the question is: What do I do? The end to my full time status in my current lab will end right around the time my lease does. I know I do NOT what to work in another university lab. The idea about moving to North Carolina to get an industry job seems entirely doable, but then I remember that I don't much enjoy the work I have the most post-college experience with. So that leaves graduate school. I've been looking into the Environmental Science Program at UVA for a couple of weeks now and know the admission requirements. My To Do List for Grad School: *Have some idea who I'd like my faculty mentor to be. *Take GRE's (I'll need a score of 1250 so there'll be much test prep beforehand.) *Collect two letters of reference (One will be from my very well respected boss. Score! Hopefully, it won't matter that she's in a totally different field.) *Have application, letters of reference, GRE scores, and undergraduate transcripts submitted to the admissions office by Dec. 1, 2007 to guarantee consideration for all types of financial aid. *Cut expenses and find second job to save money. That will also mean cutting out sit-down restaurants (I can't afford to tip) and cutting down on fancy coffees. I don't spend much on anything else. I really like my healthclub membership and what to live in a pet friendly apartment next year. Those two things will increase my living expenses. *sigh* Here we go again. |
| Well, things are just as busy in the lab, but better. I had another meltdown on Friday because my surgery went awry. Dr. S. had asked for individual meetings to be scheduled with each of the lab members, but pulled me in early to talk about my schedule. She seemed genuinely concerned about the extra hours and wanted to know how to make it stop. I threw out some ideas and she agreed. Unfortunately, I worked until 7pm last night because I wanted off early today. When she saw me last night she looked a little disgusted and told me to go home. Oops. So there is an end in sight, but now I'm realizing there is another snag. I think I've developed an allergy to the animals I work with. I've been constantly stuffy and tight in the chest for the last few weeks (though this does include weekends when I'm not in the lab). Every time I walk into the animal room I feel like I hold my breath involuntarily. I'm really not excited about having to wear scrubs (to keep the allergens off my cloths) and a mask (which makes my damn glasses fog up) to do my job. I really don't want to take another allergy medicine either. Suck-age! |
| yuck...With the majority of the researchers in California I have a lot of free time to work on all the data entry and scheduling I couldn't get to while I was being pulled in all directions. I guess it would need to be done anyway. At least I can take it home so I don't have to be in the lab. |
| *sigh* The boss, postdocs, and graduate students are all in California until Tuesday. This last minute crunch has been killing me. We have our triannual Federal Lab Animal Care Committee inspection for the next three days so there isn't much we can do experimentally without restricting access to the rooms. We behavioral folks need a very controlled environment, but telling inspectors they can't enter a room makes them think you're guilty of something. No point. Things feel back to normal now. I got to go to my first bellydance class in weeks, and I'm bloody sore (in a good way  ). I also get to go fly fishing this weekend. Yay! |
| It must be the weather but I've been F***ing weepy all day. Granted, I had did have some reason, none of them particularly good. First the lab manager got pissed off at me because I misunderstood when she told me which day she was coming back from vacation. Apparently, my boss harassed her throughout her entire break for reassurance that she would indeed be back today as they had agreed. She basically stormed in fussed at me and stormed out. I know I'm not the one who harassed her, but she was still pissed at me. Cue cry number one. After washing my face and returning to the lab my boss came up to me looking concerned. Apparently, she and the manager had had a talk and she knew I was upset about the exchange. Cue opportunity to ask for decreased research responsibilities during the manager's maternity leave, tell her about my beach vacation in September (during said maternity leave), and ask for new dishes for the animals. My boss said she really needed the research time, but would be willing to par down the animal colonies to ease the pressure. The vacation and dishes got an okay. A small victory. Then I go to mix reagents for my experiments tomorrow, but can't find the bloody powder. I tear the freezer apart with no luck. Cue cry number two. Several hours later I finally find it. I hope I wasn't too foggy to get the dilutions right, since I am repeating this already. I'll just have to say a little prayer that it is okay. And remember that it's not the end of the world if it's not. |
| So I talked to the Human Resources liason for our department about my prediciment. Truth is, I would not mind working extra if I actually got paid OT. The university's default compensation for working over 40 hours a week is extra leave time. Unfortunately for my boss, I already have far more leave time than I need and limited time to use it. I'll need my boss' approval to actually get money instead of more time. If she's going to burn me out to the point I can't moonlight then she should be paying more. I'm also hoping this arrangement will act as a deterant and make her think about what she's asking of me. The HR person also said there is a way to temporarily match my salary to my lab manager's when I take over her duties while she's on maternity leave. Basically, the HR person told me to present all of this to my boss. If my boss retaliates then I should go back to HR and they will take action. I do feel a little better, but that won't make it any easier to approach my boss about this. She's pulling her hair out over a grant due on July 11th. I wonder if I can hold out until then. The HR person thinks I should do it now, but I don't want my timing to affect my boss' decision. It's going to be a looong month. |
| This will be short. Basically, I've been downsized from the coffee shop and busting my ASS at the lab. I'm still exhausted even though I only have one job now. Dr. S is killing me, but I'm the only one who seems prone to freakouts. I'm the first one in and the last one out most days (though I am trying to remedy that this week). I'd like to get another second job but don't see an end in sight at the lab. I remember how stoked I was about the raise I got for coming here. Now I feel grossly underpaid. At least I have some extra time for the time being. *sigh* |
| Okay...so I cancelled my evening plans because blob of solvent wouldn't go into solution and I'm still waiting. Actually, I plan to put a cap on it and let it spin overnight at room temperature. I am done. Thank God I only have to make this shit once every 4-5 months. I always forget what I pain in the ass it is. Usually it's against my principles to leave a solution unfinished, but that gelatinous blob has been spin round and round for 10 hours now. What another 10? *sigh* At least I'll get to leave early tomorrow. |
| I don't do these enough. I no longer have internet access at home so now it will be even harder. Right now I'm at work. Things are chugging along. I've just received a new project at work, and am scrambling to get it going. My boss is having surgery next Tuesday which will put her out of commission for at least two weeks. Gotta get all my questions in before she goes. I was at the lab doing surgeries until 10pm last night. I started at 5pm after finishing my 8hr shift at the coffee shop. My plan was to get up at 7am Sunday to be at church for the 8am service. Then I was going to the gym for the Intro to Astanga yoga class, which only frickin meets at 10:35am on Sundays. I was going to play hooky from Sunday school to do it. Once I learn the basics I can move on to the more reasonably scheduled intermediate classes. It pisses me off a little that my gym only has the one intro class. I have to put that into the list of suggestions I'm compiling, which includes more wall mirrors in the dance/yoga studios. Anyway, I was so exhausted when I woke up this morning that I didn't go anywhere. I was also supposed to go to see Grindhouse with carthartes02 but, after reading up on it on Saturday, decided that zombie rape fantasies might actually give me nightmares. I weinied out. Sorry Waltz, hope you and Ed enjoyed it. Oh well, lesson learned. No more working on Saturday nights like a loser! It wrecks my only day of rest. |
| Yeah, I suck at this blog thing. I always say I'm going to be better about updating, but lets just say the odds are better if I don't make any promises. Referring to my last entry, I was able to get out of the workshop b/c there are four more scheduled this year. Unfortunately, they're still in PA, but I don't have to go until May. There are also a couple of post-docs from the lab who want to come so I won't have to be the expert just yet. When the time comes for them to move on I will be, but for the time being we'll be able to put our heads together to hash it out. Assuming they don't weinie out on me again.  In other lab news: The manager is pregnant, about 4 months along. Nobody's sure if she'll stay or not. She goes back and forth, depending on her mood. I've tried to show some forsight by going to my boss and saying that somebody needs to learn the manager's duties for the 6 weeks when she's on maternity leave. It sounds like I get to take most of it, but I kind of expected it and would rather begin preparations now. I was freaked out by the idea at the beginning, but I'm sort of settling into it now. I've been trying to help more with the cleaning and other lab chores, since the morning sickness is still slowing the manager down. I also busted tail to help mail 50 individually housed animals to Oklahoma. Very odd. The manager has been surprisingly grateful and has treated me to two "thank you" lunches in the last week. She also told off the graduate student I've been working with for pawning off experiments on me. It worked; the student has backed off in a big way. It's been an interesting shift in dynamics. It will be interesting to see how it develops. Elsewhere: I've been attending a couple of bellydance classes a week, but am still struggling with the basics. I'm a little dejected but plan to stay with it. I'm debating how much to spend on videos to practice with at home. I'd hate to think I'm a hopeless case. I've also been keeping up with Yoga and strength training which should help with the moves that require more flexibility/endurance than I can muster. We'll see. In a moment of weakness I allowed myself to be talked into going to the high school Lock-in at my church. Fortunately, I get to go home around 1 or 2 am to sleep. The real drag is I have to get up at 7:30ish to go to the coffee shop for an 8hr shift. The I'm going to a bellydance show (as a audience member) Saturday night. I think I'm going to drop before Monday gets here. At least my boss is out of town next week so the Monday drag should go unnoticed. I guess that's for now. Until next time... |
| About a month ago my boss sent me a flyer from the software company that produced one of our imaging programs offering a two day class, Mar 12-13th. Since everyone in the lab, myself included, has been fighting with it since the day my boss plunked down $2000 to have it installed, I thought it was a great idea and quickly agreed. I should have been paying closer attention to the flyer. For the last month I've thought the class was local, but it's actually in Downingtown, PA, just outside Philadelphia. I found out Monday. Now I'm scrambling with travel arrangements and coming to the sad realization that I'm going to be spending my birthday alone in my hotel room. I WAS supposed to be accompanied by one of the post-docs whose family lives nearby, but he weinied out because he's got some sort of deadline. I'm now trying to think of ways to bail myself. I think the knowledge would be good to have though and would certainly cement my position as a valuable employee. My boss is happy to pay for me to take the train up and back, hotel, cabs, etc. Dilemma, dilemma. I wonder how close Dawn lives to Downingtown. I missed her at convention. |
| Why am I just famous for this? Yesterday, I go to see my friend who happens to be a chiropractor because I'm desperate to fix my knee. She's as helpful as ever; taking off my shoes to adjust my ankles as well. Due the impending winter storm the Wed night clients are also being cycled through so there's someone already waiting to take my place. As I hustle to put on my shoes I blurt out, "Sorry, she had to partially undress me this time." Not what you want to hear in a doctor's office, everyone sort gasped a little. Oops. I was only kidding. I hope I didn't make trouble. |
| Alright, so it's not like it's right around the corner, but thinking about the end of my boss' current grant as an endpoint does make me feel better. I was doing rodent surgery all day today and 3 of my 7 patients died. I think I must really suck at this job. Nobody's really told me me that and I have no basis for comparison except for the grad student I work with. She's lost like two of the 50 or so animals she's operated on. I'm orbiting around a 30% loss for my 50 animals. A part of me hopes that I'll learn to love my job in the next 2 years. I'm just tired of feeling like I'm on the bottom of the learning curve. I'm finally settling into C'ville after 6 years. I've got a church, regular activities (mostly through the gym), and friends. It would be sad to pick up and move, which is most certainly what would happen if I changed careers. I simply can't afford to live in C'ville while starting over. *sigh* How can I still be in my quarter life crisis when I'm turning 29 next month? |
| I hate days like today. Nobody's really responsible for my feeling this way but me. In short, I hate my job. Moreover, I've decided I hate research in general, but I've never done anything else. What else could I do? What am I good at? I'm young with no strings on me. Why am I trapped in a profession I hate? One that's been so cruel to me. Because I don't know what else to do. My boss seems to like me well enough. She's even dropped hints that she'd like to have me on long term (i.e. sending me to a 2-day software training class so I can be the "lab expert" in such matters). But I feel like I have to bust my tail constantly just to keep par. Granted I've only been here for 6 months I've learned so much and my skills are improving by the day. If not for this one torturous never-ending project I might feel good about the situation. I don't know. I'm so used to being judged by my failures and blamed for everything that goes wrong that I repeatedly work myself into a tizzy over what is one of many responsibilities I have. It is, of course, the responsibility that has taken up the bulk of my days since mid-December. I've worked so hard, but am not the slightest bit confident in my approach/technique/results. This has the potential to blow up. I guess I'm stuck here for another two years at least. The grant runs out in Feb 2009, but the lab is well-established so there will likely be another one waiting in the wings. I need to find out what I can do so I can escape this profession. Say a prayer for me that I'll make it through this project. Maybe I won't feel so despairing then. |
| We had a "wintery mix" decend upon us today. The roads leading up to my apartment are officially a deathtrap because the city only salts the main ones. I was fine on my way home from church until I reached the sloping parking lot for my apartment complex. One of my neighbors had already lost control of his car and taken out my front steps. I managed to fishtail into my assigned space. I then went inside to pout about my almost-certain-to-be-canceled Yoga class. I've been trying to go for weeks but was never able to swing it. I checked the gym's website a couple of hours before the class and was excited to find it was still on. I fishtailed my way up the hill somehow, while leaving a nasty voice mail to my landlord. Now I'm home all warm and snug, freshly stretched. Ahhh. |
| Well...there's no shortage of proof that I worry to much. I went to dinner with friends on Friday night. In my haste I parked in the pay lot for my gyms nearby location. Members get two and a half hours free so I thought I was good. I then come back an hour and a half later to find the gate locked with my lonely car on the other side. Apparently the gym (and lot) close early on Friday evenings. It was going to be a $50 charge to call the attendant to open the gates. My friends to the rescue. Not only did I get a ride home from Kirsten and Eliot, but Meghan picked me up at 7:45am on Saturday morning so that I could pick up my car and be to work at the coffee shop by 8:30am. The lot attendants let me off without penalty. I was also pleased to find my car had not been broken into even though the gym lot is in a really bad part of town. I'm most thankful for my friends and the kindness of strangers. |
| The update your blog notice has been in my mailbox daily for almost a week now. I guess I should write something. Well...the holidays have come and gone. Dr. S. and my partner are back. Was supposed to do measurements of the brain regions over the break, but didn't get much done. It's a painfully slow process that makes me vascilate between calm surrender and hysterics. I don't think my lack of progress on this will get me fired per se (one of the benefits of having multiple duties), but I'll probably be yelled at before the month is out. I pull some extra hours and hope for the best. Neither my boss nor the post-doc I'm assisting (it's his project technically) seem that concerned about time...yet. The post-doc's a decent guy and seems more worried that I'm getting too worked up about it. He even called me anal-retentive as a compliment, and wants to brainstorm on ways to move things along. I don't know, I'd really like to be done. I hope the end on the month isn't an unreasonable goal. I will have an easier time dealing with work stress because...ta da... I have other things going on. After wanting and waiting forever I have finally joined ACAC, the gym Robert Waltz   and his wife belong to. I really wanted to join because they have so many yoga and bellydance classes, not to mention one location within walking distance of my home and another close to my work. So far I love it. I've finally gotten brave enough to use the time flexibility of my job to leave for a class and come back. It's nice to be all stretched out after so much time on the microscope. It's pretty pricey though so I'll still be giving up my Saturdays to the coffee shop to pay for it.I also have started taking the new member class at the church I've been attending since October. They got a pretty large young adult program, which has been nice. Trying to remember that God is in control isn't always easy but it is a tremendous comfort. My present state of mind says everything will be okay, though I still worry more than the average bear. But that's how it goes for me. Hope everyone is well. I'll make the blog rounds as always. It's so much easier to read than to write. -AER |
| I'm still running on lower levels. I wake up every morning feeling nauseous because of the Zoloft. Afer taking it for two days I had to call my doctor to say I felt sick and my insomnia was worse than before. She told me to halve the dose for the rest of the week and bring it back up to the original. I'm still on the half dose. Now I'm waking up at 5am instead of 4am. Bully for me. I'm still in a fog and am scatterbrained at work. Factor in the upset stomach and my period and you've got a royal clusterfuck. I went in both days his weekend to make up work I couldn't complete during the week. Then Dr. S. asks me today about a project we had agreed to put on the back burner while I sorted out the first project. I'm beginning to think she's just as crazy as I am. The sad thing is, that I honestly can't tell if I'm not meeting the mark or her requests are just unreasonable. I'll try my best, and pray this depression lifts so that I can rise to the challenge. |
| I guess my appointment psychiatrist went well yesterday. They've determined that I'm severely depressed with an anxiety kicker, but no real mania. I took my first Zoloft yesterday. I was warned that it could cause queasiness and headache in the first week. I felt it all in waves throughout the day, but I also felt a since of calm and clarity that I've been missing these past couple of months. I don't know. I was told that it is possible to feel positive effects with in the first few days but I wonder how much of it is the placebo effect. The side effects are certainly real enough. |
| Not the first time I've thought this. On one hand, I love the challenge. On the other, everything seems so arbitrary. I'm doing computer measurements of stained tissue. All I have to do is trace a particular region, and the program calculates the area. Should be easy right? Wrong. The boundaries aren't very succinct, so even when I measure the same image over and over I get different numbers. Also, I used the wrong ratio of buffers when making a solution. I was flustered and just screwed it up. Not the first time I've done that. Such a waste! Maybe time and happy pills will help with this.  |
 Log in to Leave Feedback |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
