Back Again

It's been a while since I posted. I had a rough week there, but things are looking up again. I still feel like I'm not getting anywhere with this part of my project, but I've adopted the "one step at a time" mantra. In other news, I had an interview this week with an on-campus recruiter. The Boss encouraged me to apply, and seems genuinely interested in my graduating in the near future.
The Boss and I even had a chance to talk late last week, and he's aware of my situation with Mr. Chemist graduating this spring and looking for jobs. He was actually very supportive and more understanding than I expected.
The interview went really well. I don't think that interviewing is one of my strengths, but this guy just wanted to know about my research and my approach to research. Those questions I can answer...it's the vague, open-ended "tell me about yourself" ones that give me trouble.
Anyway, thanks for the support everyone, I think I'm coming out of my funk again.

Questioning

I’m having a hard time with my science right now. Nothing seems to be working, and it’s taking me forever to accomplish anything. This semester has been a total waste of time. I feel like I’m never going to push this project forward past this plateau. On top of that the reality of life is crashing down on me. Mr. Chemist is applying for jobs now, he’ll graduate in May and I won’t. In all likelihood he’ll be gone next year, and I’ll be here, just me and the cats stuck here working towards what? In the end I’ll go to whatever city he’s in and find a job, so what’s the point of all this? Maybe I should just write a Masters thesis and leave.

Well that was interesting.

Hell week is over, and I officially get some semblance of normalcy back in my life. Since I’m decently certain that nobody I know in real life reads this I’ll not complicate this by being so vague. Mr. Chemist gave his doctoral recital last week, and it went really well. There was a large turnout and I think he was pleased with how it turned out. I put on an entirely homemade reception afterwards, and I think it was a hit (but lots of work!). That’s his last big hurdle – other than writing his dissertation of course. Both of our families came in for the recital, which was super stressful. Our apartment is really small and there’s just not enough room for everyone to sit down, plus their presence upset our skittish cat. Most of the stress came from the fact that Mr. Chemist’s parents have no sense of direction. I can’t tell you how many times they called to get THE SAME directions, or to ask where to park, it was even driving the much less irritable Mr. Chemist crazy. I ended up having to take Friday off to entertain my parents, which was fine. I spent Saturday with my parents and my MIL while Mr. Chemist entertained his father and brother, which was interesting – but at this point I’d had enough. I was done. Sunday his parents left and it was just my parents and Mr. Chemist’s brother. That would have been fine if all of them hadn’t been staying the night in our tiny apartment. All in all, it went okay, although the stress of having both sets of parents here made it harder for me to deal with my mom’s personality quirks. The recital was sandwiched by two day trips out of town (well, really drive a few hours in the evening for an event, then drive back the next morning). We knew this week would be rough, but we made it through it. One more trip next week (but we don’t have to spend the night this time!) and then it’s over. I feel like I haven’t gotten anything done, and all of a sudden we’re heading into the last half of the month.

Radio Silent

We're at the beginning of a stressful 2 weeks around the Chemist household. I doubt I'll be able to post much or comment, but I'll be back hopefully in a week and a half (maybe 2).

Long story short, this week is an important event for Mr. Chemists degree, and both of our parents and his brother are coming in to town (ahhh!). See you all in a while!

Light in the Tunnel?

It's been a really long day, which I don't mind but I've gotten used to people not knowing what's going on that when I actually had time to do my own work today it was (pleasantly) surprising. Anyway, I think I'm losing my mind, but I have a few tidbits to share:

1. A paper that I'm on (but not mine) came out this week - it was good to see that one (finally) in print, even though my contributions were minor.
2. I was invited to speak at a relatively prestigious conference next semester, which is both exciting and terrifying at the same time.
3. My boss suggested that I participate in on campus recruiting activities for (and I quote him) "students that will be graduating within the next year"
4. The best part about #3 is that if I am selected to interview he'll have to give me an expected graduation time!
5. Mr. Chemist is starting to apply for jobs, so that's been interesting and kind of stressful. The reality is that he's applying for academic jobs, that will start in August while I'll still be here, so that's a difficult prospect and something that's looming right now.
6. I managed to get some results today - not what I was hoping for but helpful nonetheless, and now I know where to go from there (the first attempt is always a shot in the dark for me).

Now it's late, and time for me to head home.

Unexpected Compliments

So my last post was about my crappy group meeting. I was generally feeling crappy about it all day yesterday, but trying not to let it get to me and keep plugging away, working on some new & different iterations of my experiments. Then I went to seminar.
I went straight from running errands so I walked in alone, without my group. I was in the refreshment room and one of the faculty members was in there too. She's very nice and always says hi to me - and yesterday she said hi, but looked like she was debating with herself about saying something else. Then out of the blue she said "I really enjoyed your group meeting yesterday". I was floored. This professor can apparently hear everything that goes on in the room where we hold group meeting due to the acoustics of the building. This means she's heard lots of group meetings. Her research is about as far away from what I do as you can get. She didn't have to say anything, and she did. I told her how much I genuinely appreciated her comment, especially since I hadn't felt to good about it. Her response was "you really held your own, and did a good job". The whole conversation just took me aback. I was floored, and am still flattered. I really needed that.

(sorry about all the disjointed sentences, I'm having a hard time conveying just how much this meant to me)

Augh.

I gave group meeting yesterday. Usually we get 2 months or so between presentations, this time I had a little over a month. I didn't feel good about the data I was presenting, it didn't amount to anything much because my experiments hadn't really worked. So, I went in there not feeling confident, and made myself a vulnerable target, which was my own damn fault. It didn't go horribly...although two experiments that I presented - one I had apparently done wrong, and the other one we had abandoned - I showed it simply to show that it didn't work and give the reason behind the new experiment I designed. Well, this turned into a long lecture from the boss (he openly stated he was making an example of me). It was humiliating and even worse, we'd talked about that experiment, and the overall conclusion was "oh well, you tried - let's try experiment B now". Then the Boss got up there and started telling me how it actually meant something and there was a lot of information there, and that I needed to do more controls, etc.
Everyone afterwards kept telling me that I did well, except for one of the first year students considering the group who sat in yesterday - he said "wow, group meeting got a little rough there". I just feel crummy about the whole thing.
Ironically, the comment the Boss made afterwards (in private) is that I'm too openly self deprecating. There may be truth to that, but this time I think it was justified - I didn't feel good about the results and was right to be questioning them (and my experimental procedure).
Augh. At least this one's over and I actually get 2 months before the next one.