I have the charlie-brown-missing-the-football cartoon posted on my desk at work. It's there to remind me not to get too comfortable with what I'm doing, because my target will inevitably be moved, at least occasionally. For instance: my first field season flopped, my practice talk got mauled before my comps, etc.
I'm choosing to think of today as the cb/football moment for the summer (or the spring, can't quite make up my mind if I want to be pessimistic about it yet). Oi. Had meeting with Advisor today, to go over our publication and my thesis, and came out of it feeling like my entire last week was wasted. and knowing that I'm not moving fast enough to suit her. Dammit. So I'm taking tonight to recover from the ego-crush, and then will get back into things tomorrow. Eff.
Also not helping is the fact that I keep fighting with my labmate. I just need to remind myself that she will be gone come fall. Thank goodness.
Need a way to cheer up tonight....alright. off to find one.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Goal logging
Today I:
~ faced up to my fear of the telephone and made a call to a collaborator (who was not in, so I'll have to call again later this week. Practice is a good thing?)
~ drafted the methods section of the paper Advisor wanted to have submitted last summer. She did the intro, and we're working out the results section tomorrow. So, way behind schedule, but progressing nicely at the moment.
~ went to a workshop on how to use one of my new software tools. Spiffy.
~ got two new books from the library, which will join the collection of library books that have been kept hostage on my shelf for the last year. Eventually I will read them all, I swear!
Tomorrow, I will:
~ revise and insert details into the methods draft mentioned above.
~ Meet with Advisor to keep her informed of my thesis work (phone calls count!) and talk about her project.
~ Continue my foreign language lessons, so that I'm not completely lost in fieldwork country come September.
~ try again to make contact with a lab-person who is in charge of the equipment I need to use this summer.
My officemates recently got bored and (with minimal suggestions from me), hung a whiteboard up by my desk. This has been good, because I use less paper on to-do lists and because I can keep said lists where they won't get covered with other papers and books. Unfortunately, it also provides space for me to spend time doodling whales and tropical islands. Hmmm. Then again, if I consider that to be stress-relief, maybe it's productive, too.
Oh. This week, I also sent off a draft proposal to another collaborator (whom I telephoned last week. this phone-paranoia has got to go. More practice necessary).
Also: I've recently changed my habits and am no longer drinking a glass of wine with dinner each night. I find that my sleep has improved, and I'm much more likely to get work done after I come home. That didn't happen until a few days after I stopped having wine with dinner... maybe I'll confine my drinking to weekends from now on.
~ faced up to my fear of the telephone and made a call to a collaborator (who was not in, so I'll have to call again later this week. Practice is a good thing?)
~ drafted the methods section of the paper Advisor wanted to have submitted last summer. She did the intro, and we're working out the results section tomorrow. So, way behind schedule, but progressing nicely at the moment.
~ went to a workshop on how to use one of my new software tools. Spiffy.
~ got two new books from the library, which will join the collection of library books that have been kept hostage on my shelf for the last year. Eventually I will read them all, I swear!
Tomorrow, I will:
~ revise and insert details into the methods draft mentioned above.
~ Meet with Advisor to keep her informed of my thesis work (phone calls count!) and talk about her project.
~ Continue my foreign language lessons, so that I'm not completely lost in fieldwork country come September.
~ try again to make contact with a lab-person who is in charge of the equipment I need to use this summer.
My officemates recently got bored and (with minimal suggestions from me), hung a whiteboard up by my desk. This has been good, because I use less paper on to-do lists and because I can keep said lists where they won't get covered with other papers and books. Unfortunately, it also provides space for me to spend time doodling whales and tropical islands. Hmmm. Then again, if I consider that to be stress-relief, maybe it's productive, too.
Oh. This week, I also sent off a draft proposal to another collaborator (whom I telephoned last week. this phone-paranoia has got to go. More practice necessary).
Also: I've recently changed my habits and am no longer drinking a glass of wine with dinner each night. I find that my sleep has improved, and I'm much more likely to get work done after I come home. That didn't happen until a few days after I stopped having wine with dinner... maybe I'll confine my drinking to weekends from now on.
Monday, May 10, 2010
A good and a bad
Good:
I'm still making at least a little progress each day. I may be a bit behind where I wanted to be, but I'm still okay to meet my goals for this month. And my labmate and I came up with an idea for a short-course for our undergrad minions that will help them understand what they need to, and give us a little bit of teaching experience. Awesome.
Also, the pie I baked and thought was inedible? Actually pretty darn good. I didn't take it to the party I made it for because I didn't want to poison anyone, so I've been having some for breakfast the last couple of days. Yum!
~~ And now an unscheduled break from my month of optimism ~~
Bad:
The situation in my office is rapidly deteriorating. Labmate K, who shares the office with me and 8 other people (and whom I've written about here) has gotten on one of my last nerves. And I'm usually pretty patient. K is leaving in August (yay!), but I still have to find some way to deal until then. K throws temper tantrums in the middle of the lab, is insulting to labmates and disrespectful to pretty much everyone, and somehow has no responsibility for any of her problems. Classes? The professor hates her. Research? The people who collected the data screwed up. Classical ecological theory? It's wrong, because she thinks it is. And pickles confuse her, so they must be bad.
I need help finding a way to not blow up in K's face this summer. Her complete refusal to take responsibility for her problems is grinding away at what patience I have left. If she was only nice about it, I could deal. But the next time she has a hissy fit or insults me I think I'm going to snap and take myself down to her level. Any tips for dealing with people like this?
I'm still making at least a little progress each day. I may be a bit behind where I wanted to be, but I'm still okay to meet my goals for this month. And my labmate and I came up with an idea for a short-course for our undergrad minions that will help them understand what they need to, and give us a little bit of teaching experience. Awesome.
Also, the pie I baked and thought was inedible? Actually pretty darn good. I didn't take it to the party I made it for because I didn't want to poison anyone, so I've been having some for breakfast the last couple of days. Yum!
~~ And now an unscheduled break from my month of optimism ~~
Bad:
The situation in my office is rapidly deteriorating. Labmate K, who shares the office with me and 8 other people (and whom I've written about here) has gotten on one of my last nerves. And I'm usually pretty patient. K is leaving in August (yay!), but I still have to find some way to deal until then. K throws temper tantrums in the middle of the lab, is insulting to labmates and disrespectful to pretty much everyone, and somehow has no responsibility for any of her problems. Classes? The professor hates her. Research? The people who collected the data screwed up. Classical ecological theory? It's wrong, because she thinks it is. And pickles confuse her, so they must be bad.
I need help finding a way to not blow up in K's face this summer. Her complete refusal to take responsibility for her problems is grinding away at what patience I have left. If she was only nice about it, I could deal. But the next time she has a hissy fit or insults me I think I'm going to snap and take myself down to her level. Any tips for dealing with people like this?
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