Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

You know when you reach that point when all the bitching and hate and shit you spew on a regular basis starts to sound old even to you?

Well, despite having an amazing capacity to bitch and hate and spew shit and moan and listen to myself and still think it all sounds ridiculously justified and SO TRUE, I think I'm tired of it.

So, instead of the usual "MD Sucks Major Sweaty Balls" rant, I've decided to write a little ditty. And by "little ditty," I mean a tuneless, dirge-like, whiny chant. I still haven't decided on a title, but that will come with time, I feel. Anyway, here are the first few versus.

Maryland really sucks,

Maryland really sucks.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit,

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

It's flat and ugly

Like Janet Reno.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit,

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

No mass transit

But lots of traffic.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit,

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

Grad school is shit,

And I hate everything.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit,

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

It's obviously a work in progress, and where it says "bullshit," you actually say it. I didn't just write it because I hadn't thought of a good refrain. That is the refrain. You say bullshit because it's true. What's that? You don't believe me? Well, all I have to say is it took FOUR WHOLE DAYS for the state of Maryland to remove enough snow so that traffic could flow as normally as possible in this wretched place. Bullshit bullshit bullshit, bullshit bullshit bullshit.

I'm writing a PAPER

...AND MY NAME WILL BE **FIRST** IN THE AUTHORS.

Hells yes. I have endured over the last week some very subtly nasty commentary from an unsuspected source that has rankled. Basically, the questions came down to "I really don't think you know anything at all about anything you've done, and you're a total idiot, so I'm going to treat you like an underling even though I have nothing on you." So I've been mad. But you know what they say? That whole living well is the best revenge? It is. It SO is.

I started writing today, and after 4 hours, I'm on the second page (single spaced) which for science writing is very good. No idea how it compares to other kinds of writing, but I'm feeling smug. When asked how/what I was doing and I shared and displayed my handiwork, the look I got was priceless. Priceless, I say! Shock and awe. It was along the lines of "[Advisor] thinks you have enough data to begin writing?" "Yes." "When did you start?" "Oh, about an hour ago." Silence, eyes wide, walked away. That is a lesson in how to give a bitch slap without lifting a finger.

Fuck the lot of them.

Huh.

Every so often I come up with a really good idea, like the title of this blog which is a reference to the immortal comic duo Laurel and Hardy.  Another fine mess, indeed.  

Speaking of fine messes, in my infinite wisdom, I picked an awesome topic to write my independent proposal on, but I have to give an open-to-the-public seminar on it (omg omg I'm gonna die), a closed-to-everyone-but-the-collection-of-oddities-that-is-my-PhD-committee oral defense of  the proposal, as well as a 3 page progress report on my actual experiments that I'm doing now.  I am resisting the urge to slit my wrists and claim disability or get my tonsils removed so I can't talk for several weeks.  

I am very unhappy right now, although while wallowing around in my pit of despair, I remembered a 5 lb block of white chocolate that my aunt pressed upon Danny and me.  It is SO GOOD.  I don't know why it's so good; it isn't even chocolate.  But if you have to pick something to take down into a pit of despair, white chocolate isn't so bad... at least it won't talk back to you.

The last of the (____________).

So, I got an email addressed to everyone who started in the biochem department with me in regards to our upcoming Independent Proposals.  All the bullshit about scheduling the proposals aside (and trust me, there was a lot of it), I read that list and realized 40% of my class had dropped out.  

24 hours later, I still can't decide whether it means that I'm really smart (as in "woohoo, I'm making it where all these people failed!") or really, really stupid (as in why didn't I say "who the hell needs this shit??!?!" and peaced out 6.34 quarts of cortisol and stomach acid ago).

Creative drain

Last night I went to fencing. In and of itself, that was a great way to spend an evening, other than the now-undeniable fact that I need to wash my gear. Febreze will only take you so far, kiddies. There comes a point when everything is so sweat-drenched and revolting when you actually need to wash yo bidness. My gear is at that point.

Anyway, I fenced some (literally!) world-class fencers and lost to them, which was ok because I'm not that good. Yet. I was able to go down with a fight, at any rate. But I was talking with my coach after, just trying to think how I can fix my game so I don't make all the same mistakes next time. He said a couple interesting things, some good, some to think about.

The thinking first. It wasn't out-and-out criticism, and I definitely wasn't smacking my head into the steering wheel the whole way home going, "IIIIIIdiot!!" He said I wasn't creative enough with my actions on the strip. Now... that was the body, mind, and soul of my game when I started out with epee at NYU. I learned how to parry, I did point control, and then they let me loose on a strip and said, "Hit the other girl. Beat her. Feel free to make her cry." Check, check, and check. The good bits about that (lack of) strategy:

- I was a total wildcard. No one knew what the hell to do with me.

- My timing and footwork were brilliant because I couldn't do anything else. My counter-time stop hits were like lightening. I learned how to flinch and simultaneously extend my arm and usually score. At the very least, a double touch. Super-aware of where every part of my body was.

- When I got angry, I LET myself get that way, then I just beat the shit out of whoever got on the strip in front of me. I was unstoppable. And kind of crazy. But I won a lot of bouts pissed off.

The bad aspects of my old game:

- To be unstoppable, I had to get furious. This is hard to just do unless I'm having a really bad month PMS-wise. I had to lose to really bad people and feel like shit about myself before I could get angry enough. This is neither a healthy nor a sound reliable strategy.

- If someone could read my bullshit, I didn't have anything underneath it.

I decided I was going to revamp my game from the bottom up, which I've been doing. For instance, I was going to stop frenetically bouncing around because ultimately it's a waste of energy, and I'd also stop leaning forward. So, I tried keeping my back heel down a little more and sitting more upright in my en guarde. Leaning/frenetic bouncing = gone. I did find a middle ground, because if you sit too upright and don't bounce at all, you lose a lot of mobility. Paired with lots of rope jumping, it's becoming very effective in keeping me grounded - literally - but mobile.

Generally, I think it's going well, because the good bit of the convo was about how I don't have any compulsive tendencies on the strip in a bout situation, save for relaxing a little too much when I retreat. Some people have a tendency start with their blade high and then cut over and finish low. So you nail them over their shoulder. Others compulsively take a given parry when offered the blade. So you know they're going to do it; you disengage and score. Another great thing about last night was I angled my blade the tiniest bit, and all of a sudden, I was landing wrist touches again. Wrist touches over the blade, under it, on the side... it was awesome.

But that thing about needing to be more creative on the strip. I was talking to Danny, and the truth of it is that at the end of the day (and even the end of weeks) I just feel so drained and beaten down mentally, that summoning the effort to be in any way creative is so Herculean, I just can't. To try to think anymore than absolutely necessary, to try to be more than just a functioning body is nearly impossible. Day in day out, I'm working on the same problem in lab. I've been running these wretched experiments for going on 4 years now. It's very hard to describe the incredible lack of desire to do anything at all. The most incredible boredom and laziness combined with feeling like the world owes me huge for the trouble I'm going to. I'm not saying these feelings have anything to do with fairness or logic, they're just there, and it sucks when I want to do well at fencing because they're quite a hindrance. It's one thing to not like what you're doing and feel beaten down at work, but why does it have to bleed over into my general well-being and infect the things that I really love?

Oh well. Try harder, I guess... because that's about all I can do.

Wack.

I had to work on Sunday.  This means rolling out of bed, grumbling, donning various stretchy spandexy items of workout clothing, and trying to pretend I'm driving into the glorified truck stop of a college town for a workout, and oh yeah, by the way, I'm also going to drop into lab and do some work.  Me, working on the fucking weekend for the equivalent of minimum wage 4 years ago, Pushing The Boundaries Of Humankind's Knowledge.  

What utter bullshit.  

This fall, I'll be starting my fourth year of graduate school.  After a particularly impassioned rant to my advisor, he is 100% on board with my need to publish something, anything at all really, so I can start to gain some science cred.  We had a weird discussion Friday.  He said I should shoot for a publication in JBC, the Journal of Biological Chemistry (full disclosure: I had to look up the acronym when he said "JBC" because I'm useless remembering shit like that).  He described JBC as "reputable, but crappy."  After trying 4 possible definitions of "crappy" in a bid to figure out just how fucked I am, it turns out he meant conservative, un-groundbreaking science, and I had a moment.  

A moment, when I almost did a double-take to his face, because people, NO ONE outside of maybe 20-something people in the whole world give a rat's fart about what comes out of this lab.  Like, hello, you are the principle investigator of this lab, are you not?  You dictate the direction of all of our research, am I right?  Have you NOTICED how completely arcane the subject matter is that you are studying?  Let me put it this way; we are not curing cancer here.  But a publication is a publication.  I don't care, but to describe JBC as crappy because it publishes conservative science?  Whaaaat.

Anyway, that's why I was working on Sunday in a foul mood.  I slouched in wearing my nubbly Adidas slide-on sandals (they are truly magical; it's like having a foot massage as you walk), and I noticed this professor as I walked down the hall towards my lab.  He is always sitting in his concrete cube looking ancient, and if he's not in there, he's shuffling around the building staring at the floor/walls avoiding any and all eye contact, still looking ancient.  One time I spoke to him because his -80 C freezer was beeping in a way that signaled its imminent failure.  Mainly I was glad it was his freezer and not him.  I see him literally ALL THE TIME, and try as I might to just make eye contact and smile, nary a word passes between us.  

So he's sitting there, on his office door is an NYU sticker, and I thought to myself, "Hey, we share an alma mater, maybe I should start a conversation," because I was wearing an old pair of NYU standard-issue shorts, and, you know, we could bond over the purple or something...  And then I thought, why bother him?  Obviously he's here, sitting in a concrete bunker sans even a window on an uncharacteristically gorgeous, cloudless, warm, dry Sunday in late July, for a reason.  As I plated my cells, I mused on why the hell he'd opt for a weekend like this.  Maybe he's henpecked.  Maybe his plumbing is getting fixed.  Maybe this is a form of mental illness.  

That's when it struck me.  The academic ideal IS a form of mental illness.  What joy can someone get, closeting themselves away from the rest of the world WITHOUT EVEN A WINDOW every single day for the rest of their life?  What kind of person does it take to do that?  Who do you have to be to be willing to obsess over one problem literally for the rest of your life?  Because that's what you're SUPPOSED to do if you're a good academic.  

Granted, the stereotypical tweed is lovely, but that's quite a price to pay to wear tweed.  And no one does, at least not here.  It's bad sneakers, even worse khakis, and polo shirts.  Unless, of course, you opt for socks and sandals and ill-fitting jeans and the odd Hawaiian top.

I did make it to the gym after doing the plating and prep for Monday.  Hopefully soon, I'll be writing a paper.  Hopefully not too long after that, it'll be thesis + graduation time, and I'll be done with this idiosyncratic hodgepodge of questionably sane people before I start looking as antique as my fellow NYU alum down the hall...

Someone keeps cranking up the resistance...

Seriously. I'm on a treadmill, and as I adjust to each setting, someone cranks it up even higher. I had the WORST problem set EVER that was due today, and I had to give a 10 minute presentation on light scattering as it was used in a scientific article today. Before 9 AM.

And I was told - after the fact, of course - that my topic wasn't so great. I ran the topic and the article by the prof weeks ago. I can't go into the math and craziness in 10 minutes, AND teach everyone light scattering, AND explain the article, AND talk about how light scattering works in the article. WTF. Grad school is such bullshit.

It's been ~90 F for the last few days which has been really nasty because the apartment is on the top floor of the building with 3 large windows with southern exposure. The inside temp hasn't fallen below 85 F, even at night. We haven't been cooking much, which makes me kind of sad.

In other news, I'll be going up to NY to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday in the form of a BBQ this weekend. I am looking forward to that. I also just rocked a sushi buffet for lunch, a small celebration because I finished my HW and that stupid presentation today. Now I want a nap. I will not get one, though. Instead, I'm going to make myself more plates so I can do more experiments this week. Yay. Then - to the gym with me!

I am living in HELL.

There is a grant proposal due. It is a sizeable one. $2 million. My adviser left it to the last minute, it seems, in true academic fashion. So, I shall backtrack on my lovely evenings.

Last night, I stopped looking at the clock in lab when it hit 10:30 PM. It was too depressing and sad. Why was I there so late? Because I had to proofread 25 single spaced pages. But it wasn't just for grammatical and spelling errors, oh no. It was to also improve the flow, so I couldn't bang through it. I had to read, reread, and figure things out. To say it was not one of my better evenings would be a bit of an understatement. I've been proofreading this damn stupid thing since last week in pieces. A paragraph here, a section there, a 6-page chunk...

This sneak-attack by my adviser of editorial duties destroyed my plans on Friday night, as well as his perception of me. I had no idea I'd be in lab until 8:30, so I had gone to the gym for an hour in the afternoon, ate lunch at my desk, and waited for him to send me things to review. That was at noon-1 PM. 4:30 rolls around and still nothing. I ate a light lunch because I was planning on meeting some people at this supposedly awesome Mexican place for happy hour - which included half-price appetizers... and nothing attracts this grad student like half price allegedly amazing Mexican tapas, tequila, and mezcal.

So, I asked if I could do the editing at home over the weekend. The answer? Absolutely not. This was bad because I was getting hungry. When I get hungry, I get wild-eyed, irritable, and slightly insane. Not conducive to being intelligent or editing, for that matter. Then I finish, I'm about to pack up and leave, when he walks in and asks me to do a literature search. What???!?!! A literature search? That could take days!

But I did it. And as I was getting ready to pack it in yet again, he asks me to add two words to my search. A mournful hopeless "noooooooooooo....!" resounded in my head, echoing around the inside of my skull and resonating in the very empty pit of my stomach which growled menacingly. I had to drag it out of my adviser, what he wanted from this literature search. I was left to my hunger and evil thoughts for 1 minute, and then he walked back in to lecture me on how I disengage too easily, how he knows I'm very social, "do the emailing" (that is a direct quote), "have a nice boy to care for" (another direct quote), how I'm never going to make it in academia if I don't care about what I'm doing because it's so competitive, and it's very obvious I have no personal emotional involvement in what I'm doing, etc etc etc. I managed to resist the urge to let out a primal scream of rage, leap on the lab bench, and start hurling glassware around.

Instead I decided to pretend I wasn't angry and just pass it off as him throwing a hissy fit at me simple because I was the only one around. This worked for about 4 hours, and then I got a splitting headache. I finally got to eat at a quarter to 10 that night, which was awful. I couldn't form a complete thought. The splitting headache lasted all day Saturday, departing for the 2 hours I spent fencing, but then it came back and lasted into Saturday night, when I finally admitted that I was furious and I hated the state of Maryland and DC and the university and academia and it was a damn good thing my idiot adviser thought I'd never make it in academia because I want to get the fuck out anyway and go back to industry where people are pleasant, social, professional, and I get a bloody great paycheck for all my brains and trouble, and I hate it I hate it I hate it.

The headache promptly evaporated, and I realize now that I am doomed to a life of constant bitching and if I don't bitch, it is hazardous to my health. I gave Danny a chance to dump me now, now that he knew, but he declined. I think he secretly finds it amusing.

But sadly, the editing did not go away. Monday was a snowday (more on this later), Tuesday was me sitting like a huge fucking idiot waiting for the editing to start up again, but nothing hit my desk until the early evening, which sucked because I blew my gym time sitting like a moron at my desk because I didn't want my adviser to walk in and not see me there, and it was (technically) 33 pages of single spaced science shit. I really despise scientific writing. I got to sleep at 12:30 last night, and all I did was walk in the door, grumble, take a shower, and go to sleep.

Thank you, grad school, for doing your best to prevent me from ever having anything roughly resembling a sex life ever again or ever seeing my bf awake or him ever seeing me awake again. YOU BLASTED FUCKERS.

Along with grad school, I think DC is in it too, this whole making me miserable by thwarting my every move thing that's been going on. Because a bunch of my friends, Danny, and I had Monday off, we decided to find a happy hour. The bar that we couldn't get to on Friday because of my editing escapades sounded promising, and we hiked out in the cold and wet to find that IT WAS CLOSED ON MONDAYS. W. T. F. But then, we thought our problems were solved when we saw a big sign for half-priced Blegian beer! Turns out - we realized this after we got our check - it wasn't half-priced on Mondays. Only Stella Artois was half-priced on Mondays, but seriously, who'd pay $8 on a normal night for a lousy fucking Stella? Only in DC, people. Only in DC. So I was thwarted again! I was drunk, but thwarted. It inspired me to canvas yelp for happy hours the city over in my downtime between editing, but I can't find anything worthwhile. It's all the same, specials on shit beer (Budweiser, Miller Light), and the same shit for snacks; nachos, fries, quesadillas, burgers, wings. It has been a sad, sad week.

Now I'm sitting here eating a burrito that has too much cheese and not enough beans and salsa. I want a Maker's Mark manhattan (or eight) made by the older bartender with the suspenders who works at Clyde's in VA. I hate everything about that place except that guy and his manhattan. They have heinous "art" on the wall - think a ginormous nude mural, airbrushed to meet today's standards of denying the fact that people have nipples, penises, vaginas, body fat, and the like. It's as if Thomas Kinkade got drunk and started painting nudes. It is SO BAD. Good thing I was drunk when I was there.

Too bad I'm not drunk right now.

The Test(es). Heh heh heh.

I think the exam went well.  And if it didn't, I don't really care as long as I did well enough.  I recently discovered that despite really needing a good grade in this course I'm enrolled in, the name of it is a mystery to me.  Biophysical chemistry or biochemical physics or something like that.  

Really, as long as I do just well enough to not have to take it again, I'll be thrilled.  

Today one of my classmates stopped my instructor and I on our way to my makeup exam to say that he had this idea at 4 AM on Saturday night to describe human relationships in terms of the Gibbs free energy equation.  If you don't know what the Gibbs free energy equation is, look it up on Wikipedia because I've thought about it far too much for one day, and I have no desire to think about it anymore.  Fuck Gibbs and his free energy.  Anyway, his analyses of human relationships as summarized by him in the stairwell were really lame, and the idea was too ridiculous and geeky even for me.  That shit was funny in high school.  This guy looks like a disheveled, vaguely homeless, 11 year old version of Jerry Lewis covered in animal hair of some kind.  And he made sure to let the prof and me know that he has a girlfriend.  How do these people who look like they don't ever wash have significant others?  

Anyway, the prof asked me what I thought after that dude left, and I said that would not be a reason for staying awake at 4 AM on a Saturday morning.  

To totally change the subject, I've been editing my advisor's grant proposal all day, and as much as I love words, I hate reading right now.  In fact, I've had it with typing too.  I'm going to bed.  

Eyeballs

Holy crap, being sick was a bad thing not just because of the actual sickness or the wackiness from the antibiotics, but also because I missed 2 out of the 3 weeks of material that was taught for this exam. Dr. T. was kind enough to let me take it tomorrow instead of yesterday, but I am so not feeling this last-minute studying BS.

The first time I got the notes was Monday. 2 weeks of information in 3 days. Oh man. My eyes hurt. They're totally bloodshot and I look like a crazy person (well, more than usual). I had to run an experiment yesterday which took all day staring at fluorescence traces on the computer followed by staring at my notes all night. Today involved a 1-2 hour edit job for my PI and madd crazy cramming. How programmers and the like stare at things only a couple feet in front of their faces all day every day is beyond me.

So, this whole living in a concrete bunker means that at the very least I won't get skin cancer from being in the sun too much. But then I'll have low levels of vitamin D, so I'll die depressed and miserable. With bloodshot eyes. Good thing they close the eyes of corpses.

One bacterium at a time...

I have been working from 9 AM till 2 PM nonstop. I've grown some E. coli, made 2 sleeves of plates (like petri dishes; what you grow bacteria on), mixed up 2 kinds of buffers, labeled a bazillion tubes, added buffers and E. coli to the tubes, osmotically shocked them (grown in high-salt environment, you plunge them into low-salt environments) at regularly timed intervals, and plated them. So, now I have to make more plates for tomorrow and label more tubes and make more buffers.

I put a skull and crossbones on my plates so no one uses them. I didn't stop for like 5 hours because I am science MACHINE.

Last night was sea chanty night. This means Danny and I went to this pseudo-Scottish pub with some friends, get some beer and food, and listen to weird older men with creative conformations of facial hair sing sea chanties. They even have a songbook. Actually, there's this one dude who occasionally comes with his violin (is it considered a fiddle in this case?), and at some point during the evening, whips it out and proceeds to passionately play the instrument much to the chagrin of anyone within earshot. He closes his eyes, brandishes his bow, and moves with his music. And by moves with his music I mean jerks and thrashes around like a spastic chicken. He may suck it hardcore, and I may feel like a nasty young'un for being as tickled as I am, but it's very entertaining.

The sea chanty regulars appear to be primarily older men who look like slightly saggy and swelled up versions of their former Dungeons and Dragons playing selves. I doubt any of them really spent any time at sea, although maybe one or two are scientists who possibly study various aspects of the ocean. Or maybe a couple spent some time in the merchant marines. But the truth of it is, I get the feeling they're indulging their RPG pining in a way that's deemed socially acceptable so their teenage children will continue to talk to them. Some of them have chinstraps (full beards without the moustache), some have moustache straps (full beards without the chin part; I don't think that's what they're called, but men's facial hair coiffure has never been a specialty of mine), there are mutton chops, huge full beards sculpted into a point at the chin, and everything in between. They conjure up fake British/Scottish/Irish accent amalgams to sing. One man brings his own tin flagon from which to quaff his beverages of choice.

It was great.  If I sing along but do it sarcastically, does that make me as insane as they are?  

Nuttier than squirrel poo.

I had class again on Thursday morning. It was much more... normal, I guess. I purchased a recorder for two reasons, first, if this crazy professor of mine comes out with any other gems of psychosis, I want to have it on record, and second, it's good for studying to have the lectures at my fingertips. You know, I need a good nickname for this professor. Toto. Yes. Professor Toto.

Anyway, I recorded lecture (with permission, mind you), and it was disappointingly uneventful. As people got up to go, I switched my machine off. It was only AFTER I switched it off that we were informed the squirrels of the DC metro area were starving this winter because of a dearth of acorns resulting from unfavorable weather. Collectively, the class blinked. Apparently, Dr. Toto's neighbor was leaving food out for the squirrels, Dr. Toto had amassed hundreds of energy bars from the myraid of races completed over the years, and were these energy bars safe for squirrel consumption?

The class blinked again.

I said, "Eh, old Powerbars, methadone, what's the difference?"

Dr. Toto looked askance at me.

"Oh, you know, a few years back people got in trouble for feeding their methadone to the squirrels in the city."

Dr. T. said, "What?!?! ...Oh, you're from NY." Dismissing wave of the hand.

"Yes. And so are you."

"Well. Still. I may put food out for my squirrels. I don't want them to starve to death!"

Dr. T. is indeed, as the phrase goes, nuttier than squirrel poo. Certainly this winter's squirrel poo, at any rate. To quote Sex and the City, squirrels are just rats in cuter outfits. I have this image in my head of the crazies I used to see in the Bronx and Washington Sq. Park in Manhattan proper feeding the local wildlife. (Local wildlife that could in many cases open a shock-cord tied metal garbage can in less time than it'll take you to say "fuggeddaboudit" even though they lack opposable thumbs.) Prof. Toto is 3 showers, 8 secondhand grubby shawls, and one metal shopping cart away from being one of them. I say the DC area squirrels need to *ahem* grow some NUTS. HAHAHAHAH.

And isn't the UK having a problem with too many grey squirrels outcompeting their native red squirrels for food and resources? Why not ship them to Prof. T's backyard?

Urgh.

I am taking The Very Last Class I Ever Have To Take. This would normally be cause for celebration, and truthfully, I try to remember it whenever I'm feeling particularly resentful. But today, the first lecture, reminded me why I hate my department so very, very much and why, if I ever do graduate it will be an accomplishment ten times over because I have stacked my committee against me in an astronomical way. One of my committee members is teaching this class.

First of all, not the worst of personal information, but personal enough information was disclosed by said instructor about a student who was present in front of the whole class. The student respectfully said that it was inappropriate, they did not appreciate it, and they left the room. Then the instructor babbled on for a while after they left justifying their (I don't want to disclose gender) actions. I hope the student files a complaint.

Then they're going on about this textbook that is allegedly "fun to read." Just so much FUN. I'm thinking of what I classify as a fun read, and it ain't a mathematically focused text on statistical thermodynamics, that's for sure. And then they went on about this impossible program we're going to have to use to graph HW problems and how we won't be able to use anything else. Oh, and they won't lend out the cd with the program on it because they feel guilty about sharing it when they only bought 4 copies, and it's only available on the chemistry computer lab computers, which is useless if you have labwork to do during the day. And at night? Well, you're just going to have to stay at school where people get mugged, robbed, and sexually assaulted, assuming the computer lab doesn't just close.

Why not just tell us we have to write all our assignments in ancient Greek to really tie our hands?

But all that aside, we had a mini lecture, too. During that lecture, we saw figures from a paper dealing with a new antibiotic. It showed the antibiotic's activity on wild type bacteria, which have pumps that pump out harmful substances from the cell, which is partially how bacteria can be resistant to various drugs. I noticed they tested bacteria lacking the pumps, and I asked why they even bothered if they were concerned with antibiotic efficacy in wild types, because that's what people would be infected with, anyway. It was made clear that my question was not welcome. The fact that I even had my hand up was obviously a surprise. I got a bullshit answer. The fact that it was obviously bullshit made me very pleased with myself.

I plan on asking every question I can think of in the same spirit of how this individual treated me during my candidacy exam (which was miserably, bordering on inhuman).

In 1.25 hours, I have accumulated so much stress. I see this person standing up there, lecturing us, obviously smart, but so wacked out of their mind. Where do they come from, the people like this? How do they manage to have relationships with other individuals and procreate? Why aren't they weeded out of the gene pool simply because no one can stand them long enough to have sex with them? (Apparently they can stand them long enough to have sex with them... at least once, at any rate.)

No wonder I gained 15 pounds in this shit hole. But the upshot is I really value my boss in light of who I could be working for. I'm aware enough to recognize that even though my second favorite committee member is occasionally brusque and rude, this person ultimately means well and I've earned their respect by being bright, questioning the right things, and performing well. So, no matter hwo much I hate my current instructor and wish they'd just disappear into the ether, I know they won't. I will have to deal with this twice a week at 8 AM. It will suck like nothing else, but it's the only way out.

Knees and toes, knees and toes

I'm sitting at the table in the part of my lab where we have a microwave, a fridge/freezer for harmless buffers and lunches, and not one but two coffee machines on a counter where we unofficially take turns leaving cookies and other treats for everyone in the lab.  Why am I sitting here and not at my desk?  Because my desk is less than 3 feet from the wall, the labbench is practically behind my head, and I can't sit there for long comfortably.  

I can't stretch out my legs at my desk.  I didn't realize how much stretching my legs out plays into my ability to think properly.  This is another good reason for me to not wear skirts.  I hate having to keep my legs crossed/together when I'm preoccupied with something other than sparkling conversation, drink, and food.  

Actually, when I took the electronic GRE's (entrance exams for graduate school), I stretched out my legs and kicked the surge protector plug out of the wall.  The computer promptly shut off, so did my heart, and I had an internal silent meltdown/panic attack/stroke/apoplectic fit.  A long story short, everything worked out; they were able to get my exam back, I was able to finish it, and the rest, as they say, is history but I had a few really terrifying minutes there.  

All because I had to stretch out my legs.  

If I was really good, I'd figure out a way to sue the school for non-ergonomically correct practices...

Concrete Bunkers

I work in one.  A concrete bunker, that is.  My lab, along with being located in a really shitty part of Maryland, has no windows.  Initially, it seemed like a good thing; not being able to see out into the shit, but I've decided it sucks.  Part of it is that my desk is too small for me.  I can't stretch my legs out.  If I back my chair up so I can, I'm in everyone's way because then I have my back against the lab bench.  Usually it doesn't matter, but if I'm sitting there writing which is what I've been doing for the last two days, I can't even look up and see out the window, or down the hall, or even across the lab.  I stare at concrete barely 3 feet in front of my face.  

Like I said, it sucks.  

So I took myself to the student union in hopes of scoring a nice cup of hot tea and installing myself in the coffee shop, which has huge windows and good-sized tables.  No dice.  Why?  Because in typical fashion, the university has closed its most useful parts (like the coffee shop), leaving the shittiest bits open (like McDonald's, Chik-Fil-A (or whatever that revolting place calls itself), Steak-Escape, etc.).  But I managed to find a chair, table, and I'm pretty comfortable.  

Now, I have a question for any writer types who read this rag.  What do you do when you get all installed in a coffee shop or whatever, you've got your tea/coffee beverage of choice, the computer is open, you're ready to go, and all of a sudden, you have to go to the bathroom?  Seriously, do you gather your accoutrements, put your coat back on, shove your hat, scarf, and gloves into your bag, take your drink, and awkwardly lurch into the bathroom, dropping something that you'd rather never touch the floor of anywhere but your apartment?  Or do you just develop an oversized bladder/colon?  Or do you turn to the least skeezy looking person in a 4 foot radius and ask them to watch your stuff, hastily stuffing your wallet into your pocket in case their respectable appearance is a front for robbing broke student types in coffee shops?  

Questions for the ages, people...

Back to school, back to school...

Vacation was over this Monday. I am writing a paper so I can get published and be all cool like that. And by cool, I mean totally the opposite. Actually, I got back to lab, and after the niceties of "How was your holiday?" were exchanged between my PI (principle investigator, academic science equivalent of "boss") and I, he asked how I did in the class I took.

I took this class taught by one of my committee members (my second favorite committee member besides my actual boss) who is as bizarre as they come but slightly less bizarre and downright nasty when compared to my other committee members. Towards the end, I got caught up in the insane quantities of grading of the class I TA'd for said boss, and I ended up turning in 6 out of the 10 HW assignments I had to do 1-2 days before the final. Somehow - I don't know how - I managed to hold 'abject terror and anxiety' at bay, only briefly succumbing at times to 'low-grade panic.' That's roughly the difference between a red terror alert (where we're supposed to carry at all times pitchforks and torches, or gasmasks and baseball bats, or garlic and crosses, I forget exactly what) and a green terror alert (which involves subtley eyeballing anyone on the subway carrying a bag of any kind or wearing a coat who isn't an obvious shade of white).

Anyway, my PI asked me about how I did. I told him the truth. "I.... didn't look. ... Yet! I didn't look yet." He starts chuckling. "I was on vacation! I didn't think about it! I was relaxing!" I get a full out laugh, then he suggests I check sometime soon. Turns out I got an A. Haven't told him yet, but yeah. An A!

Seriously, I think he keeps me on as his student for the entertainment value. The way I see it, if I don't get a piece of paper from the university telling me I'm either on academic probation or my career as a grad student is over, that's fine with me, and I don't give a shit. Biochemistry is particularly draconian. If you get below a B in any class, you're on academic probation. There is no averaging your GPA, and if you slip up again, you're out of the program.

So, everything is back to normal. I managed to get myself a parking space for this upcoming semester that's closer than a 10-minute walk to my building, which will hopefully make the 8 AM class I need to take a tiny bit easier. At least there's less of a bleary-eyed stagger between my car and the classroom, which means there's less of a chance of me spilling precious drops of the inevitable mug of coffee. Happily, though, my 8 AM class does not interfere with 50% off bottles of wine night at one of my favorite bars. Hellz to the yeah, people.

Oh! And my insurance goes down by $200 because I've turned 25 this upcoming pay period! Huzzah! And there are Saturday morning fencing practices at the club, followed by lunch and drinking, so really, everything is quite nice.

Organization! Organization! Sis-boom-bah!

In yet another hopeless attempt to become more organized, I am going to bring all rants that apply to graduate school, personal angst, my lack of anger management skills, and pretty much anything else besides food .... here.  

Despite this unnatural attempt at cyberspacial cleanliness, I assure any and all readers that the humongous pile of dirty, semidirty, and clean clothes remains to the side of my bed, and the bag stuffed full of junk mail with my personal information that I intend to shred/burn at some later date will continue to become more stuffed.  The bed of crumpled receipts, folded papers, emergency pads, and gum wrappers will remain in the bottom of all my bags.

Also, the clutter on my desk at work will likely not shift until I graduate, which is pretty funny considering I always had the second messiest desk in grade school.  It was a balancing act of supreme precision, achieving a relaxing level of crumpled papers without crossing the line into the dangerous territory of having the contents of your desk dumped out onto the floor in front of all your classmates by your teacher.  Old habits die hard.  

Actually, I was always kind of jealous of those girls who had the coordinated pencil cases, binders, folders, pens, pencils, scissors, etc.  We always had salvaged remains from the office buildings where my dad fixed elevators, and let me tell you, corporate America does NOT indulge in Lisa Frank or Hello Kitty office supplies, the heartless bastards.  And my brother and I weren't allowed to use permanent markers because of the fumes, and we were forbidden from doodling on the binders anyway, because if we messed them up, we wouldn't have any new things for the following year.  ...Not that they were new when we got them, or would they be any newer the next year, but ours was not to wonder why...

So, a long story short, I've always been terrible at organization.  I don't have a calender book, yet I somehow manage to remember everything despite terrible forgetfulness.  Imagine how smart I'd be if I actually wrote the stupid things down and freed up all that brainiacal hard drive.  Instead of starting there and doing something concrete that might actually change my life for the better, I'm starting here!  In cyberspace!  Doing something that neither benefits my current research nor my future!  

But it makes me happy, and it's better than nothing, no?