I've worked 56 hours in the past 4 days alone (Weds-Sat...well, now Sun am). Probably for nothing.
That ridiculous talk situation? It got even more ridiculous, but I'll spare you the details and just say that I finally got "official" notice Friday that I am indeed presenting. I'd been thinking all along that this presentation is next Friday afternoon. Wrong. I realized Friday evening that it's actually Thursday.
The whole "go for broke" idea and lack of currently working instruments means I've been running mostly overnight to get as much instrument time as possible. This wouldn't be so bad if I didn't also have stuff to do during the day. I'd actually been considering trying to switch over "night shift," in order to get as much instrument time as I wanted, but hadn't due to all the daytime meetings and such, ignoring the fact that I'm so not a night owl, and think 10 pm is a perfectly reasonable time to go to bed on a regular basis.
I went into lab when it was dark out, came out to discover it was light out.
I ate breakfast in my office (well, in the lab...shhh). From stuff I had in my office. We're not talking about a day where I had to be at school early, and grabbed breakfast on my way in. We're talking worked all night, was hungry at 5:30 am, went into office, found oatmeal and tea in a drawer and called it breakfast.
Unfortunately a lot more has to go into this than collecting an enormous amount of data for one week. The data has to be analyzed, literature searched, figures made, calculations done, presentation assembled. I can do stuff like lit searches and outline/gather/make the trivial stuff for the actual presentation while collecting data. Between the nature of the data, what I need to do with it, and the way my brain processes this data, I can't really get much analysis done while collecting more data. The best I can really do is quick checks here and there to try to catch problems and decide the next best step on the fly.
I have a bad habit of blogging (and pursuing other internet-driven-time-sucks) more just when I have less time to do so. We're going to call it mental health preservation. If it makes it sound like a slightly less terrible waste of my time, I have had a spectrum acquiring the entire time I've been writing this.
The better experiments are going, the harder it is to leave. Which is the trap I'm currently stuck in. I'm really hoping that my labmate who signed up for the instrument today shows up a whole lot earlier than I think he's likely to.
At this point you must think I've completely lost my mind, and maybe I have. Any normal person probably would have said f@&# that days ago. (Normal people are smarter than people who go to graduate school.) The seminar announcement has already gone out to the entire department, so there's definitely no backing out of presenting. I'd really like to win this stupid thing, especially because part of me feels like I got jipped last year. And I'd really, really like that prize money. There are plane tickets to be bought and student loans to pay down. Even though at this point I'm not remotely sure that it's even possible to get this done for Thursday, I'm too stubborn to give up and tell my advisor I just can't do this. It would be so humiliating.
Whatever happens it'll be over in 5 days, then I can sleep for a couple of days before getting back to the (less crazy) grind for ASMS. Maybe if I get lucky the data I'm killing myself for this week will be useful for that talk... Pretty sure a PhD isn't worth it.
I used to be a grad student. And now I'm not (thank goodness). I spent a year as a post doc in industry in Baltimore before starting a "real" job with the same company. These are my tales of science, food, travel, and life.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Mini Me
Apparently Facebook thinks my sister and I are the same person. Facebook has this relatively new tool that tries to identify faces automatically when you upload pictures. When I upload photos, it'll usually pick out almost all of the faces as faces, and correctly identify maybe half of them. For me at least, it's never misidentified somebody, but rather didn't propose any ID at all.
When my sister uploaded pictures from prom this morning, Facebook went through it's little face-recognition program, and tagged the people in the photos. However, it did not recognize my sister as my sister, but as me!
When my sister uploaded pictures from prom this morning, Facebook went through it's little face-recognition program, and tagged the people in the photos. However, it did not recognize my sister as my sister, but as me!
Little Sister: guess what the computer just did
that makes usofficially relatedand alike in appearance
Me: facebook just tagged you as me!!
Considering my sister is way cooler and way less awkward than I was in high school, I'm sort of jealous of how awesome she looks in her prom pictures. Maybe I could convince her to go along with Facebook's identification. I mean, it wouldn't be weird to be showing up in prom pictures at age 26 right?
Anyways, apparently we look alike. I mean, Facebook thinks we're indistinguishable. It's like I have a twin - one who's ten years younger, skinny with blue eyes, and hates chemistry.
Nah, Facebook is on crack, there's no resemblance at all.
Anyways, apparently we look alike. I mean, Facebook thinks we're indistinguishable. It's like I have a twin - one who's ten years younger, skinny with blue eyes, and hates chemistry.
Nah, Facebook is on crack, there's no resemblance at all.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Fascinating
Since I'm still sitting here in lab collecting spectra, I started watching the live streaming of the pre-royal-wedding shenanigans.
THE HATS. The hats are incredible. I haven't yet seen a single woman with a bare head. They're fascinating. I mean, of course they're fascinating, many of them are technically fascinators! The hats are so much fun that I almost think it's a shame I'm not British. I would be all in favor of my guests wearing ridiculously awesome hats to my wedding. Hell, I would be in favor of ridiculous hat wearing all the time.
The trees. When I heard they had put 20 ft tall trees along the aisle of Westminster Abbey my first thought was wtf. Upon seeing them, I still think it's really strange, but they actually look kind of nice. The bit of color they add is definitely a good thing.
A guest with a broken leg just arrived - a younger woman. She's being pushed in a wheelchair. How crappy to go to something like a royal wedding with a gigantic cast on your leg? I will say this though, the cast is a medium gray color, totally coordinating with her outfit.
BARE HEAD ALERT. And scandal! The bareheaded woman is the wife of the prime minister! She's got a beaded little clip in her hair, but it's hardly big enough to qualify as a fascinator.
It's so odd to see the big boulevards of London completely empty of cars. And everything looks so clean. London definitely was not that clean when I was there. However the beautiful tree lined streets are making me miss spring even more.
Oh boy. Princes William and Harry are on their way to Westminster. The crowd goes wild! Completely inappropriate, but I wonder what kind of underwear princes wear under very sharp looking military dress uniforms?? Regular old boxers or whatnot just seem insufficient.
Besides the hats, I'm also highly entertained by the number of women wearing gloves. Some are wrist-length gloves, like I picture little girls wearing to a tea party. Some are full blown elbow-or-higher-length gloves...like something I'd associate with an evening gown. Weird.
Oh my goodness. They couldn't let William sneak in some side entrance to hide and have a few minutes peace before the wedding? I can't believe he went in the main entrance and walked alllllll the way up the aisle for everybody to gawk at him. I guess it's kind of nice that he's milling around chatting with family and such though.
So Kate's mother and brother just arrived. Upon realizing that I knew who they were (the stream I'm watching doesn't really have any commentary or identification of people or what's going on), I was quite embarrassed. What does that say about me that I recognize Kate Middleton's mother and brother on sight??
And with only a couple minutes left on the last spectra I planned to collect tonight, I'll be heading home before actually seeing Kate's dress. What a shame. I guess I'll just have to look it up tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be hard to avoid finding.
Time to head home to bed!
THE HATS. The hats are incredible. I haven't yet seen a single woman with a bare head. They're fascinating. I mean, of course they're fascinating, many of them are technically fascinators! The hats are so much fun that I almost think it's a shame I'm not British. I would be all in favor of my guests wearing ridiculously awesome hats to my wedding. Hell, I would be in favor of ridiculous hat wearing all the time.
The trees. When I heard they had put 20 ft tall trees along the aisle of Westminster Abbey my first thought was wtf. Upon seeing them, I still think it's really strange, but they actually look kind of nice. The bit of color they add is definitely a good thing.
A guest with a broken leg just arrived - a younger woman. She's being pushed in a wheelchair. How crappy to go to something like a royal wedding with a gigantic cast on your leg? I will say this though, the cast is a medium gray color, totally coordinating with her outfit.
BARE HEAD ALERT. And scandal! The bareheaded woman is the wife of the prime minister! She's got a beaded little clip in her hair, but it's hardly big enough to qualify as a fascinator.
It's so odd to see the big boulevards of London completely empty of cars. And everything looks so clean. London definitely was not that clean when I was there. However the beautiful tree lined streets are making me miss spring even more.
Oh boy. Princes William and Harry are on their way to Westminster. The crowd goes wild! Completely inappropriate, but I wonder what kind of underwear princes wear under very sharp looking military dress uniforms?? Regular old boxers or whatnot just seem insufficient.
Besides the hats, I'm also highly entertained by the number of women wearing gloves. Some are wrist-length gloves, like I picture little girls wearing to a tea party. Some are full blown elbow-or-higher-length gloves...like something I'd associate with an evening gown. Weird.
Oh my goodness. They couldn't let William sneak in some side entrance to hide and have a few minutes peace before the wedding? I can't believe he went in the main entrance and walked alllllll the way up the aisle for everybody to gawk at him. I guess it's kind of nice that he's milling around chatting with family and such though.
So Kate's mother and brother just arrived. Upon realizing that I knew who they were (the stream I'm watching doesn't really have any commentary or identification of people or what's going on), I was quite embarrassed. What does that say about me that I recognize Kate Middleton's mother and brother on sight??
And with only a couple minutes left on the last spectra I planned to collect tonight, I'll be heading home before actually seeing Kate's dress. What a shame. I guess I'll just have to look it up tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be hard to avoid finding.
Time to head home to bed!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Academia is Dumb
A few weeks ago I submitted my CV for a departmental scholarship competition - it's very similar to the one I gave a presentation for last year, but this one is meant for 4th year students (while last year's was meant for 3rd years, logically) and it's worth more money. The presentations are scheduled for May 5th.
Unlike last year, when I had over 2 weeks notice, I'm looking at having less than a week's (official) notice. That's right, the presentations are scheduled for 9 days away now, and I haven't heard a peep about whether I'll be presenting or not. Since I made it to presentations last year, it's a reasonable assumption that I'll make it through the initial selection round to the group of students that give 30 minute talks, but it would still be really freaking nice to know. If I'm not presenting, fine, it would still be really nice to know. It really drives me crazy that the chair of the graduate program committee doesn't seem to think students would like more than a few days notice before presenting to the entire department. I'm sorry, at this stage of my "career," the idea of giving a talk to the entire department still freaks me out big time. More so than the talk I'm scheduled to give at a national meeting the first week of June.
At subgroup today I asked the Queen what the hell the deal was. She said the deadline had been extended, so they hadn't decided who was presenting yet, but that they would Friday. Assuming whoever is presenting is actually notified Friday, that leaves them a week. Personally, I'd really like a little more notice than that. My labmate presented in this competition last year, and she said she definitely had more than a week's notice. Extending the deadline to submit your CV sounds to me like not enough people applied. I'd assume my classmate who won last year's competition submitted - it seems traditional for the 3rd year competition winner at least to present in the 4th year competition. My entering class was unusually small - only 25 students, as opposed to the 35ish that is more typical, and we had a couple people drop out, a couple people take masters degrees, a couple people transferred when a professor left, and one just defended last week. So there aren't that any of us who would be eligible, and when you consider that the current chair of the graduate program committee will insist that people have publications at least submitted, there is really only a small handful of us who already have stuff out the door. This unspoken stipulation is pretty well-known, so I know a number of my very talented classmates who have done really good work but haven't yet submitted any manuscripts (for a huge variety of reasons) didn't bother applying at all. Talking to my friends, none of us even knew one other person who had definitely applied, which is completely ridiculous.
While the rumored/inferred numbers may sound like they're in my favor, I can't help but think this is a huge waste of my time. There are an awful lot of departmental politics that goes into deciding these things. For example, a student from E's group has never been selected to present in either of these competitions, despite in some cases clearly being more qualified than other applicants. I know that I gave the best presentation last year. It may sound super arrogant, but I'm really not exaggerating. I'm a pretty decent public speaker, and I know I gave a strong presentation. My classmate who won (and whom I like very much)? She mumbled, didn't look up, used really casual, bordering on inappropriate language, and spoke negatively about some of her data. What probably hurts my odds most however, is the fact that my labmate won this competition last year, and another of my labmates won the 3rd year competition the year before last (i.e. also the year before I presented). I would put a substantial amount of money on them not giving it to yet another student from my group. The idea of spending an obscene amount of time and numerous late nights preparing for this thing when I'm really quite sure I have no chance of winning is incredibly frustrating.
Since this talk that I may or may not be giving (ok, probably giving) is not very far away at all, I went ahead and talked to the Queen about what material would be best to present. Last year there was a pretty obvious answer, but this year it's not so obvious. It really drives me crazy that her response was, "I think you should go for broke. Try to get 16.9 to work." It would be really, really cool if I could manage to collect the spectra that prove this protein behaves as we think it should, but it will also be really, really, really difficult to get those spectra.
As if these experiments themselves weren't already difficult enough, further hindering my odds of getting the data I want is the currently very high demand on the relevant instrument. The instrument that I did most of my earlier research on has been down for a few months. I've been working on it since the problem developed, but there always seems to be a new problem to address, and because I absolutely have to be still getting results, I can't work on this instrument all that much. There are 3 of us heavily using the instrument in preparation for the conference, plus about another 5 people who have less, but regular and significant need of the instrument as well.
Who's excited about lots of late nights, lots of caffeine, and lots of bad food????! Speaking of which, I'm starving, and at quarter past 12, there obviously isn't anything open. Time for a trip to the vending machine I guess. I've already eaten the dinner I grabbed out of the fridge before coming back to campus after softball.
As nice as it would be to have more time to prepare, I suppose I should be glad I'm only looking at a week or so of this...
Unlike last year, when I had over 2 weeks notice, I'm looking at having less than a week's (official) notice. That's right, the presentations are scheduled for 9 days away now, and I haven't heard a peep about whether I'll be presenting or not. Since I made it to presentations last year, it's a reasonable assumption that I'll make it through the initial selection round to the group of students that give 30 minute talks, but it would still be really freaking nice to know. If I'm not presenting, fine, it would still be really nice to know. It really drives me crazy that the chair of the graduate program committee doesn't seem to think students would like more than a few days notice before presenting to the entire department. I'm sorry, at this stage of my "career," the idea of giving a talk to the entire department still freaks me out big time. More so than the talk I'm scheduled to give at a national meeting the first week of June.
At subgroup today I asked the Queen what the hell the deal was. She said the deadline had been extended, so they hadn't decided who was presenting yet, but that they would Friday. Assuming whoever is presenting is actually notified Friday, that leaves them a week. Personally, I'd really like a little more notice than that. My labmate presented in this competition last year, and she said she definitely had more than a week's notice. Extending the deadline to submit your CV sounds to me like not enough people applied. I'd assume my classmate who won last year's competition submitted - it seems traditional for the 3rd year competition winner at least to present in the 4th year competition. My entering class was unusually small - only 25 students, as opposed to the 35ish that is more typical, and we had a couple people drop out, a couple people take masters degrees, a couple people transferred when a professor left, and one just defended last week. So there aren't that any of us who would be eligible, and when you consider that the current chair of the graduate program committee will insist that people have publications at least submitted, there is really only a small handful of us who already have stuff out the door. This unspoken stipulation is pretty well-known, so I know a number of my very talented classmates who have done really good work but haven't yet submitted any manuscripts (for a huge variety of reasons) didn't bother applying at all. Talking to my friends, none of us even knew one other person who had definitely applied, which is completely ridiculous.
While the rumored/inferred numbers may sound like they're in my favor, I can't help but think this is a huge waste of my time. There are an awful lot of departmental politics that goes into deciding these things. For example, a student from E's group has never been selected to present in either of these competitions, despite in some cases clearly being more qualified than other applicants. I know that I gave the best presentation last year. It may sound super arrogant, but I'm really not exaggerating. I'm a pretty decent public speaker, and I know I gave a strong presentation. My classmate who won (and whom I like very much)? She mumbled, didn't look up, used really casual, bordering on inappropriate language, and spoke negatively about some of her data. What probably hurts my odds most however, is the fact that my labmate won this competition last year, and another of my labmates won the 3rd year competition the year before last (i.e. also the year before I presented). I would put a substantial amount of money on them not giving it to yet another student from my group. The idea of spending an obscene amount of time and numerous late nights preparing for this thing when I'm really quite sure I have no chance of winning is incredibly frustrating.
Since this talk that I may or may not be giving (ok, probably giving) is not very far away at all, I went ahead and talked to the Queen about what material would be best to present. Last year there was a pretty obvious answer, but this year it's not so obvious. It really drives me crazy that her response was, "I think you should go for broke. Try to get 16.9 to work." It would be really, really cool if I could manage to collect the spectra that prove this protein behaves as we think it should, but it will also be really, really, really difficult to get those spectra.
As if these experiments themselves weren't already difficult enough, further hindering my odds of getting the data I want is the currently very high demand on the relevant instrument. The instrument that I did most of my earlier research on has been down for a few months. I've been working on it since the problem developed, but there always seems to be a new problem to address, and because I absolutely have to be still getting results, I can't work on this instrument all that much. There are 3 of us heavily using the instrument in preparation for the conference, plus about another 5 people who have less, but regular and significant need of the instrument as well.
Who's excited about lots of late nights, lots of caffeine, and lots of bad food????! Speaking of which, I'm starving, and at quarter past 12, there obviously isn't anything open. Time for a trip to the vending machine I guess. I've already eaten the dinner I grabbed out of the fridge before coming back to campus after softball.
As nice as it would be to have more time to prepare, I suppose I should be glad I'm only looking at a week or so of this...
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Speechless
The front page of the student newspaper on April 21st (i.e. not April Fool's Day):
http://wildcat.arizona.edu/news/oral-sex-linked-to-cancer-1.2186851
http://wildcat.arizona.edu/news/oral-sex-linked-to-cancer-1.2186851
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Miscellaneous Saturday Thoughts
My mother called this morning. At 5:40 am. By time I managed to answer she wasn't there. Silly me, thinking that only an emergency warrants a 5:40 am phone call, I called her right back. She answered after like 4 or 5 rings.
My sister just got her driver's license this morning. She's really a pretty decent driver, but the thought of my baby sister with a license is super weird. Here's part of the facebook chat I had with her this afternoon, free of editing.
My $2200 federal tax refund (thank you incorrect 1098-T!!) and that little scholarship I got made it to my account this week. Too bad I instantly wrote a check for nearly as much to my student loans... Bye bye refund and scholarship...
I went for a run this morning. I had to talk myself into it, because it was already 80 degrees at 10:30 am. I figured it's time to suck it up and get used to it. Pretty soon the overnight low isn't going to be any cooler than 80, so it will be at least that hot out no matter how early I get up to run. 3-4 miles is a lot less fun in 80-85 degrees than 60-65 degrees. Sigh.
I also mopped the kitchen floor this morning, and in doing so, moved all the chairs, and my roommate's sneakers were that were on the floor. I'm really, really glad that I didn't find out until afterward that last night she had a patient puke all over the floor when they went to intubate him. Ick.
And with that, a friend just texted, it's time to hit the pool. Happy Saturday! :)
Mom: Oh hi honey, what's up?
Me: Hi Mom, is everything ok?
Mom: Of course, why do you ask?
Me: Because you just called me at 5:40 in the morning. [In head: !@#$%@#^$*]
Mom: Oh. Well you know I don't know how to use my phone. I didn't mean to call. [@#*%(@#^!] Your father says hello. He thinks this is a perfectly normal time of morning. [!@$^%!^]
Me: Whatever. I'm going back to bed.
My sister just got her driver's license this morning. She's really a pretty decent driver, but the thought of my baby sister with a license is super weird. Here's part of the facebook chat I had with her this afternoon, free of editing.
Little Sister: omgim about to take my FIRSTlone driving tripyayaya license
My $2200 federal tax refund (thank you incorrect 1098-T!!) and that little scholarship I got made it to my account this week. Too bad I instantly wrote a check for nearly as much to my student loans... Bye bye refund and scholarship...
I went for a run this morning. I had to talk myself into it, because it was already 80 degrees at 10:30 am. I figured it's time to suck it up and get used to it. Pretty soon the overnight low isn't going to be any cooler than 80, so it will be at least that hot out no matter how early I get up to run. 3-4 miles is a lot less fun in 80-85 degrees than 60-65 degrees. Sigh.
I also mopped the kitchen floor this morning, and in doing so, moved all the chairs, and my roommate's sneakers were that were on the floor. I'm really, really glad that I didn't find out until afterward that last night she had a patient puke all over the floor when they went to intubate him. Ick.
And with that, a friend just texted, it's time to hit the pool. Happy Saturday! :)
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Watch what you say.
Yesterday I was standing in the doorway to some friends' office, and a couple other friends were there, too. They all work in another analytical group downstairs from mine. One guy's wife is about 6 months pregnant with their 2nd, while another girl in there is about 3 months pregnant with her 1st. We had a conversation that went something like this:
Here we all have a general conversation about how the idea of having your parents, in-laws, siblings, grandparents, etc IN the delivery room is soooooo weird. And that the people who videotape deliveries are even weirder. Because really, who on earth would EVER want to watch that afterward?!
I whipped around totally panicked and turned BRIGHT red, and was VERY thankful to discover that she was just messing with me and that their advisor (and my committee member) was not standing there.
I probably shouldn't make fun of my sister's gullibility anymore.
Father-to-be: Oh Anne, [wife] had a dream last night that she went into labor, and that she called me here and was screaming at me to call you or [other friend] to go get [first child, now not quite 2].
Me: Haha, I was actually wondering what you were going to do with [first child] when [wife] went into labor. If you decide you want me to watch her that's fine with me, feel free to call whenever you need me.
Father-to-be: Ok, we'll have to see when family and stuff are coming to town, but [wife] doesn't really want them there until after, so we'll see.
Here we all have a general conversation about how the idea of having your parents, in-laws, siblings, grandparents, etc IN the delivery room is soooooo weird. And that the people who videotape deliveries are even weirder. Because really, who on earth would EVER want to watch that afterward?!
Father-to-be: I figure this time will be like the last time. She'll face that way [gesturing], I'll sit up by her head and face this way [gesturing], I'll just stroke her head or do whatever she tells me to do, but I'm NOT looking at the business end.
Mother-to-be: No kidding. I already told [husband] that he is NOT allowed to look.
Me: I totally agree. If I ever have kids I don't want my husband to see anything because I'd like him to want to have sex with me again someday.
Other grad student [looking over my shoulder into the hall]: Oh hi, [advisor].
I whipped around totally panicked and turned BRIGHT red, and was VERY thankful to discover that she was just messing with me and that their advisor (and my committee member) was not standing there.
I probably shouldn't make fun of my sister's gullibility anymore.
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