All by myself...

You know, it's a funny conception about graduate students, that we work all the time. Reading around the blogosphere it seems that's the case. Graduate students put in long hours, work weekends, etc.

Ok, so then why am I the only one here??? Why was I the only one here yesterday?? Why am I the only one who works past 6pm (who gets in before 2pm)??

Maybe the real question then is, what the hell am I doing here? If nobody else has to work on the weekends, why should I?

Turns out they're all crazy...

I've long been trying to convince my husband that all chemistry profs in my department are the same. Everyone is slightly crazy, plays favorites and generally treats their students like crap. I found further evidence yesterday.

There's a relatively new faculty member who I thought might be the exception to this rule, generally she seems to have it all together and her group looked like the ideal group. Everyone seemed to get along, and she seemed to understand the "plight of the grad student". Apparently that's just not the case. In fact, she seems to be just as bad as my advisor and not only has she badmouthed one of her students to the rest of the faculty - and told the student this - but she's apparently not willing to compromise her management style. I feel badly for the student, he's a good guy.

Anyway, in some respects its nice to know that even with all my boss's crazy, he doesn't seem to be the worst in the department, but on the other hand, I'm really disappointed in this faculty member, I thought she was above this kind of crap.

Thursday Thoughts

I don't have much to say today, things are going pretty well around here (knock on wood). A paper that I'm co-author on looks like it's made it through revisions, and is back out the door. My paper still isn't out, but the boss is taking an interested in my new project, plus it's a lot simpler than my last project so my learning curve wasn't very steep and I feel like we're actually having discussions along the same lines, and I'm coming up with ideas that seem like they might actually be correct! Yay me!

Before I left last week I had an incident with the visiting scientist, but I know I'm in the right, and the boss will back me up on it. I'm proud that I stood my ground with him, as unpleasant as it was. He doesn't talk to me or look at me anymore, which is fine - he was kind of afraid of me anyway so it's not like there was a lot of interaction before. Hopefully he'll only be around for a few more months.

Finally, because I need to share this stupidity with someone, and I've forgotten my phone today so I can't call anyone, here's the stupidest quote I've seen today: "Sometimes we put up walls. Not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to knock them down." Puh-lease, give me a break, that's the most whiny pathetic thing I've ever heard (and I'm known for my whining).

**UPDATE: visiting scientist has gone and gotten himself fired, but not because of me.

Back

I took a much needed relaxing vacation for a few days. I went to my hometown and saw my family and some old friends. I got to meet my newest nephew, which was great. Surprisingly there was very little family drama (I was concerned because of all the drama before I left), and the weather was gorgeous (unlike MRU city).


Anyway, it was good for me to get out of the lab, although a large portion of my conversations resulted in my giving vague answers to the dreaded "when are you going to be done?" question. I think I fielded it well, but it was still annoying.

The best part of this trip though was that my husband and I had it out. That doesn't necessarily sound like a good thing, but we needed it, and things have been better since. We'll see how things go, but right now they're a little better.

The downside is that I'm tired from traveling, but it was worth it.

It's been a day.

Today I feel like Alexander, you know, one with the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day?

It started yesterday with my family being annoying (quite a feat from several thousand miles away). Then this morning some idiot comment got me all pissed off - and every time I think about it I get more angry. I'm also excessively & unnecessarily tired today. I don't know why I'm so tired, but it's made me annoyingly clumsy.

I broke a vial of stinky organics, the contents didn't matter - other than the smell, but I don't have another one of those vials and so now I have to wait to have another one made (that's right, it's a custom made piece of glassware), A+ me. Fine, I found something else to rig up for the day.

Then I'm about to start the last tedious but crucial for tomorrows experiments task for the night - I have an hour before something else is done so I'm hoping to be out the door in an hour (I'm already the last one here at this point, which is annoying in and of itself but that's for another post). I'm feeling better about my day. I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel, then CRASH...down goes another piece of glassware. That's right, you guessed it, another crucial one that I don't have a replacement for. I went and ordered 2 more (I really only need 1), but they won't be here for a week. Damn!

So yeah, my other thing is almost done, and I'm going to hope that I manage to clean up without breaking anything else and drive home very carefully. I think I'm eating pop-tarts for dinner, I don't trust myself in the kitchen today. Crappy crappy day.

Committee

OK, so part of my meeting last week with my advisor was to discuss my committee. I already had an idea in my head of who I wanted to ask, so I figured this was just a formality, he'd give me his opinions, feel involved, then I'd go about my merry way. What I wasn't expecting was for him to give me 3 names of people not to include, one of whom is someone I was planning to ask.

Here's the back story: about a year ago one of the faculty members who I befriended when she came as a new prof asked me if she could be on my committee, because, as she put it, she wanted to write me a letter of recommendation someday, and being on the committee is the easiest way to do that. Fine, no problem. I like her a lot (although I do think of her as peer more than prof, but that's a whole other issue). Anyway, she and my boss don't get along, and he doesn't want me to ask her - rather he didn't forbid me, but he suggested that I not ask. So, my question is this: what do I do? I feel like my life will be better and easier if I listen to my boss and do what he says (my husband so doesn't get this), but I don't want to unnecessarily hurt the other profs feelings or create trouble in the department. It's a crappy situation...

My next, more practical question is this, what's the appropriate way to ask people to be on my committee? Is an email acceptable or is that rude? Should I go talk to them all in person?

This is more complicated than I thought!

Meeting Day

I had a meeting with the boss today, only a couple days postponed...anyway it went well. I was worried he was going to be mad that I'm leaving for a few days, but he's not - he didn't seem to care in the least bit, so that's good. We talked about my committee, although no graduation goal. We talked about the overlying theme for my dissertation, and we talked about the experiments that I'll be doing over the summer. The best part about them is that he wants to present them in August, so I'll be busy but they can't be drawn out forever like my last project - there's an external motivating factor!
But best of all, he set a deadline for submitting my paper!!!!! Of NEXT WEEK!!!!!