Everything is Going to be Alright

I had a bad day yesterday. It started in the morning with a call from my supervisor at school. He was asking about my progress on a computer analysis program I have been writing. I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to vent my school frustrations here (is this equivalent to the Duce thing?), but I will briefly for now, and delete the post if necessary. So some of the people in my lab are a little bit less productive than myself. And that’s the nice way to put it. When it came time to do this analysis program, it was supposed to be a joint effort between four of us. But after a week or so of collaboration, we met to check out what the others had done. My supervisor had come up with some stuff, and the other two had absolutely nothing. I however, had made relatively good progress. It was at this point (two weeks ago) when I was told that since I was making the best progress, that I was being left on my own to finish the program. A good reward right?

Anyways, so I get this phone call in the morning and it throws me off guard a little bit. I wasn’t planning on working on the program yesterday. I was doing some course work because I have a seminar on Monday to present, and several papers due in a week or two. The other student in my lab has had plenty of time to work on her course work, and her research stuff is put on hold (again), so I figure it’s only fair that I can take a few days to get caught up. But it turns out, I have to use all of my free time to do that work, because the other 12 hours in the day has to be committed to research.

OK, so this sounds a lot like complaining, and it is in a sense, but I do love what I am doing in the lab, I just feel overwhelmed sometimes, and overworked. I spend more hours in the lab than the 6 others combined, and I don’t think that’s even an exaggeration. The weight of the publishing stress has been put on me this year, and I’m starting to feel it as the winter ends, and summer approaches.

My supervisor decides that he’s coming in at “lunch time” to sit down with me and catch up on my progress, and I agree. He showed up at 2 PM. Now granted somewhere in the world that is lunchtime, I’m pretty sure that he knew I would assume noon, or maybe 1 pm if he was pushing it. But this again, isn’t unusual. So I figure we have an hour and a half to work before I have to run to a seminar on preparing to publish (that I am attending on my own time, making for another late night at school). But he doesn’t sit down with me. Instead he makes his usual move to the other room to check on the other students, and help them (ie. Do for them) their research. He comes back into my lab room at 3:15, and sais “I have to step out for a few minutes, but I’ll be back by 3:30”, and I say “well I’ll see you tomorrow then, because I have that seminar in a few minutes”. Again, nothing accomplished.

Then I had the only good part of my day. I sat on a bench in a little nook on campus and let the sun shine on my face. The weather was beautiful, and I sat and watched a plane fly from one side of the sky to the other, and then it was time to go to the seminar. This was a waste of two hours of my life. It was more geared towards social science publishing (ie. Publishing a book, where I’ll be publishing in journals). Then I make the commute.

It’s pool night, which starts off OK. But then when it’s my turn to play, I get to play the grumpiest old man in the league. He’s good, and I’m not really good. He doesn’t talk, or even look at you when you are playing him. A good strategy because it’s the most intimidating thing ever. After the first 5 minutes of the game I hadn’t sunk one ball, and I was about ready to cry from frustration. I held back tears for the remaining 55 minutes of the game. The man seriously kicked my ass, and I felt like a complete moron for paying money to have the least fun I could have in one night. But I suppose I learned a good lesson…sometimes people are miserable, and it’s not worth letting them get to you. Let’s see if I can remember that the next time.

So overall, I am choosing to forget that yesterday happened. I’m looking forward to a good (great even?) Friday. I have the weekend off for a change, so I’ll have more time to do school work (funny how that works isn’t it?). Urgh…

If anyone is offering a tight hug today…I could use it