Payback

Things were sailing a bit too smoothly there. I had 6 weeks of 1 experiment left to run and was going to be home for the majority of the summer (a first for me). Met and got the a-ok from most of my committee members (I only met with 4 of 5). That unfinished experiment already has some exciting data that is the first of its kind. And now, completely due to crap beyond my, or anyones', control- I might not be able to finish the experiment. There is a chance it could be completed, but it is going to be pushed back later in the summer and if it doesn't happen I am screwed. Now I have to come up with something else.
The loss of cool data sucks. The fact that I have to come up with a replacement chapter sucks even more. It isn't going to gel very well with the rest of what I have done and won't be nearly as cool. Uhhhh, yeah, then there is the whole issue of coming up with an idea, experimental design and getting it executed.
I had gotten to the point where I was done and convinced that I would not start anything else. Of course, I start talking about postdocs, started to answer the 'when will you finish' questions with a little bit of confidence.

Damn.


Not a good day. At least Deadliest Catch is on...

Starting something new

Today found me starting a task that is vital to my dissertation, huge, and tedious. I have put off this data collection for a while but it is now time to buckle down. I had a lot of excuses for putting it off and they were all pretty much crap: organizing, teaching, other projects, trying to finish writing things up first. As I finished a couple samples, I mentioned to V that I should have done this a long time ago. Even as I was totally prepared this afternoon, it was hard to just start. I was so worried about messing it up or not doing it just right. Of course, it turns out that it is easy. And if I mess something up, I can redo it or fix it. All the procrastination and fear was just so worthless...

Well, V is also buckling down because he takes quals/comps whatever you call them the BIG exams starting the first week of May. I was not yet a blogger at the time of my exams so will have to re-cap my experiences with them sometime in the next month or so.
My own data related task at hand is looming as committee meetings are scheduled and my return to my research site is imminent. I am staying here through V's exams so that he has more support and less house/pet stress. Then it is out West for one final season in which I will finish my dissertation research in a blaze of glory.
Or, more realistically, I will finish with a whimper and a sigh followed by an evening of drinking good tequila.

But we aren't there yet- all the candy around here has been eaten so I must get back to it...

I've been waiting

One of the most frustrating aspects of my research life lately has been waiting for data. When I left the desert, I left a lot of samples for the lab tech there to run (the process of leaving the samples could be a post of its own!). These samples make up the most exciting, sexy parts of my dissertation. I was very confident that my work would get done quickly, with few problems. We agreed on a deadline of Jan 2008.
Hehe.
Right.
Well, equipment broke and then other equipment broke and then this and that and the other. Now, 6 months later, I am still waiting for data*. There seems to be an 'out of sight, out of mind' mentality about my samples despite my persistant calls, setting of deadlines and general bitchiness towards folks I like and don't enjoy being bitchy to. One one hand, I will end up doing it all myself when I return to the desert, which will decrease my guilt about having a tech do a portion of my dissertation benchwork. On the other hand, the analyses might not work. Which will leave me with very little time to change direction let alone come up with new experiments or, you know- do them.
So, how do I get my samples? My new strategy is to ask for only small number of the samples completed. I can figure out my analyses on a small scale before finishing the bulk of them myself. But I have to get the small number of samples still**. I will see the tech at a conference in April. The head of the desert lab is aware of the issue although has not resulted in much progress. My advisor has no relationship with the lab so can't help me. Besides calling frequently and emails I am not sure what else to do. Any suggestions?

*Not just waiting, of course. There was the teaching and I am getting data on other experiments and even other aspects of that experiment.
**I with they could just send them to me but it is impossible to get them at my home university.

Bullet style!

• My students got their 3rd exam back today. They had looks of panic in their eyes when asked if I was going to be curving the course I replied a simple "No." I really see no reason to. My exam averages have been between 78 and 89. There are anywhere from 4-9 As on each exam and less than a handful of Ds and Fs. They still have the final to pull those Bs up to med-school-approved As anyway!
• V and I are running a 5k on Saturday. Today I did 3.25 miles on the treadmill in about 29 minutes. The cold should slow me down quite a bit but I think I will be able to finish with little trouble.
• Lookey! 21% completed on my second InaDWriMo project. After the Big Deal paper (which I haven't gone back to) and the Big Grant, this interesting little paper is a piece of cake to write. No word limits! No page limits! Methods! Results! There will be some tricky theoretical stuff to write in the intro but it is stuff I get excited about so even that should be...fun?!?
• As of today, I am back in the lab! Between teaching and needing a specific set-up that was being used by a more senior student, I have been doing next to nothing in the lab. Experiments will be run on Wednesday! Data will be collected! This is very good as it is going to be added to that ZF Manuscript that is currently being written....
• We have been married for 6 months as of today! Pizza to celebrate!

Expectations

I am a bit overcommited to my in-progress experiments right now and it is starting to affect the rest of my work. I had a feel-good article about my research due that didn't get the attention it needed (luckily the co-author is a GENIUS and it still turned out really, really well). I am worried that my conference presentation will suffer and am torn between running experiments or stopping and taking full days off of lab work to focus on my conference stuff.
It is hard to decide what to do because it would just be really, really, really great to finish my experiments during my time here this summer. I know I can come back next summer and work more but that shorter time frame introduces other variables and it just isn't ideal. I will happily come back to DO to do more experiments that are necessary to clarify the results I've already got but I don't want to continue the same experiments a year apart. Essentially, I am trying to do all the experiments (not including data collection and analysis) for my dissertation in 8 months (this is the length of time of my RA and time at DO).
I know, I know....




Have you stopped laughing yet?




It isn't THAT funny....
Ok, so when I told Advisor and V that I might not actually finish as planned because I added an extra treatment, they both laughed at me, having assumed I was never really serious about it in the first place. Of course, this makes me want to get it all done even more. Which might actually happen, with the help of some lab assistants. I am cashing in all my house/pet sitting favors and having people experiment-sit in return. Ha!
Anyways, it has got me thinking a lot about what types of expectations are placed upon us and by whom. Is it good or bad to have had these really high expectations of myself in the first place? My advisor isn't really clear on where he stands. He doesn't want me to be too hard on myself but also tells us all that to be competitive and get jobs, we should have 10 publications from our time in his lab. Sounds crazy, I know- but then 2 students actually got those 10 papers and Advisor had to adjust his ridiculous, unreachable goal to 10 pubs not including your dissertation research. Someone in the future will reach that one too I bet (not me though). I think he tries to use that as a tool so that we are always trying to achieve more in our research, get more out of our projects and stay focused on the endpoint of publications. But why is that tool useful for pubs but laughable when I use the same lofty, idealistic goal setting tool for my research? You just can't win. You need to motivate yourself to get your work done but not too much!
It always cracks me up to hear professors go on about their expectations for students. How their students should work 28 hour days because when THEY were a grad student, that is what THEY did. Unfortunately, these expectations are touted over beers at happy hour and never actually talked about, implemented or even made clear come Monday morning. I think as a professor I will have documents that clearly state my expectations of students including hours, research progress and timelines for graduating. With the nature of research you can't have hard and fast rules but some gentle guidelines for what I want out of my lab will be clearly put out there. My MS advisor did this and it was very informative. Especially in the early stages of figuring out what being a grad student is all about (free food and CuteOverload).

In the meantime, I will keep plugging away at my experiments and pick a color scheme for the conference thing already. I'd love some feedback on this topic- who sets more ambitious goals for your work- you or your advisor/lab/program? When you set your own goals or deadlines, how reachable are they really?

Parades Go By

I am taking the afternoon off to do something fun!!!! * Ok, not really the WHOLE afternoon, but at least 4-5 hours. Somewhat close to me is this big festival thing. It starts today with a VW Beetle car show. Although mine is in IL with my mom, I have loved V-Dubs since I was about 7 and have driven one (red) since I was 19.

Yay!*

Next Saturday, I am taking the WHOLE. DAY. OFF. Can you believe it? Well, you probably can... But I haven't really been posting because I have been working my tail off. I have never put in as many consecutive 12-13 hour days before. And they are all grab-a-handful-of-peanuts-for-lunch, don't-get-to-finish-your-coffee busy days. The type of research I do is usually pretty limited by the schedule of the animals. You can't run experiments on them when they are sleeping. But you sure can do molecular work and analyze data at any hour of the day! I have been thinking about all this work and about getting burnt out. When you get burnt out do you know it is happening? Could it be happening to me? Will committing to other time consuming endeavors when I leave DO help combat it or make it worse?

Eh, I don't even care right now- I'm off to a parade!*



*Doing a little happy dance

A mystery

All of a sudden, my molecular work is not, well, working. My primers won't amplify. They were working great 2 months ago! I thought maybe my new samples wouldn't work but in half of my reactions, even my controls didn't work.
I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse about the situation.

Looks like I have a pre-Derby PCR re-do tomorrow....

Um, yeah. This doesn't help my conference decision making!

As promised

Don't think I'd leave you hanging, promising bunnies and never delivering!
I am back at the DO and am running experiments after a day of technical difficulties. The folks here replaced a plug that last week was shooting flames at me (not just sparks!) but in doing so, had the power turned. My timers controlling the light cycle for my animals got messed up because of this power outage. Sigh. A one day set back is not the end of the world. It IS annoying though.

So far I have been running only Experiment 1 but I am on the verge of also starting Experiment 3. Experiment 2 is a field study that will wait till I have a field assistant in June. And by 'field assistant' I mean V. Anyways, Experiment 3 is my big-time-super-cool-awesome experiment. I am pretty psyched to finally be starting it but I think all my tinkering with Experiment 1 will allow it to get off the ground pretty quickly.

I know this blog has sort of just been a record of highs and lows as far as research and life goes lately and hopefully that will change a bit. There will be a big productivity push from now till I leave for the wedding. I am actively fighting the usual depression of returning to DO and really can't afford the laziness in work that has been associated with it the last couple of times. I am knitting (turning the heel of my Jaywalker this evening!), running (as soon as I finish this post) and trying not to virtually disappear for about 10 days. Of course, the bunnies help too.

I think I smell a rat

I'm back! The field research portion of my trip was less than successful. While there are lots of fish (which is good as the main goal of my research job is to increase the number of fish), we only caught 2 of them for sampling. We need about 50. It is early and I have till August to get the other 48. I also got up close and personal with some mice and/or pack rats and a roadrunner, a sunburn, a good steak dinner during my trip. The rodents were the worst. Rodents alone are one thing but this is a part of the country where the rodents bring the plague and hantavirus. I kept the light on at night and relied on sleeping pills to get any sleep at all. My tired bones were very happy to crash in my trailer at Desert Outpost last night.

It seems like a lot of people behind the blogs I read are getting organized and getting down to business lately. I feel as thought this should be something I should be doing as well (although this is a constant feeling for me over the past 5 grad school years). I have recently started using tools like prioritized lists and writing exercises but need to be more accountable for my productivity. I am going to be adding status bars of each of my projects on my sidebar and putting my goals not only on this here blog but also in visible places around my workspace to stay focused. Expect more on this soon, but first I must do the following completely non-work related things...
Buy plane tickets for my bridal shower
Pay bills
Restock all my Body Shop products
Go for a run
Finish at least one armwarmer (the AC is on the the office and I am FREEZING)