Do it yourself, I'm not your mother and this isn't my problem

I'm sitting down to update this thing because, well, frankly I'm procrastinating and I also think that I deserve some me time.

Today has been a day. Not necessarily a bad one, just a long one, filled with the setting up of things that move the needle forward on several different experiments, but nothing truly momentous was achieved today. If I were a chef, today would have been the day where I was prepping the food, getting things ready and prepared for the eventual order. There is, of course, a lot that goes into that, and so too with cooking, a true chef doesn't just have one plate they need prepare. Instead, they must have the ingredients at the ready for the large number of orders that are sure to come at dinner time. They must move quickly, carefully, and strategically to get everything prepared on time, all dishes hot/ready/out to their waiting customers. So too must a good scientist be able to juggle the myriad of projects they have, make reagents when needed, keep the stock of disposable equipment in high supply, and deal with whatever catastrophe may befall the lab (as almost assuredly, there is one to be had each and every day).

I've been abroad these past few weeks (doing science in another state) and I've come back for (oh, less than 14 days in total... several of which include the Thanksgiving holiday, so really much less than that) and I must squeeze, in that time, a great deal of work in. I am the least senior grad student in the lab and I am acting lab manager, I have roughly 5 of my own projects, a side project and am helping another grad student optimize a protocol. In these 14 days, I need to do at least 2 major experiments (1 for my project, 1 for my side project), make a reagent for the lab (essentially a protein that we all use as a cell labeling tool [a protocol with which I am having a great deal of difficulty]) and work on that optimization i just mentioned. While this may not sound like a difficult series of tasks, I can promise that it is. On my first day back, I walk in to find a puddle of liquid between our refrigerator and our sink. Having rained recently, I check the ceiling for water damage (...nothing). I clean up the mess and soon after, the fridge starts having liquid emanating from the base of it. I notify the lab of the problem and let them know that we may have to move supplies rapidly and soon...so be at the ready. I keep monitoring it, over the 2 days span, it seems to be holding temperature, there is no more liquid, and all is well. It is simply the  number of questions about the thing that I find so infuriating.

I wouldn't say that I'm stupid or lack technical skill, but I sure as shit don't know much about refrigerators. Basically, I know where the plug goes, I know what the condenser looks like and I have a rough (and by which I mean sandpaper grit P12) understanding of how the condenser works. The incessant questions about why it is producing water (from goodness knows where) and what we're going to do about it are annoying at best. I've informed everyone of the problem (including my boss) and after that... I don't know anymore. There are 3 people in my lab aside from myself. I don't know how many ways, to how many different people, and how many times I've conveyed this same message. While this seems petty, I know even as I type this it sounds incredibly so, the questions don't just stop there. When things go missing, test subjects have issues, or any question of any kind arises, I seem to be the person to ask. This is of course flattering but also exhausting and impeding. I have my own work to do and stopping to answer questions every 10 minutes puts a damper on my ability to push forward in a given day.

There are times where I just want to look at the other members of my lab and shake them. To yell "I'm not your mother, I'm not here to clean up after you", "I don't know all the answers, make a phone call, do something yourself", and "Not my project, not my problem!" I know that is a harsh but earnestly, it just takes up so much time on any given day. Today was a day full of questions, full of interruptions and full of frustrations.

*Deep breath*

I know I should take it as a sign of my understanding, my knowledge, and my level of involvement in my work, but there are just days where I want to do my work in peace and be left alone.


In other happier news, I have my first First author publication that was accepted (from my master's university) and should be available online soon. While this doesn't help me graduate any faster, it is still a mark of completion and a wonderful conclusion to the work I had done. I'm excited to see that come to fruition and add it to my CV.


I believe this has been sufficiently distracting for one evening, High-ho-high-ho back to work I go.

How Did I get here?

As I prepared for my qualifying exam, my P.I. (principal investigator, AKA my boss) told me that he wanted me to begin some experiments with a lab that was on the opposite coast. I was not too keen on the idea as this would mean traveling a great deal prior to my exam and I wanted as much time as possible to prepare. Prior to my exam I had 2 trips planned, each a total of 3 days at a time, taking roughly 9 hours for travel (including layovers and whatnot) each direction. While the turnaround time was short, it left me exhausted and in a perpetual state of panic trying to make a good impression but also trying to get as much knowledge crammed into my brain.
My exam came and went, leaving me with this semi anticlimactic feeling, and I began working on even more projects in the lab than I had before. It was soon time for me to travel again to the other coast but this time for 10 days. As of right now, I'm 7 days in. It has been, a whirlwind of events and I feel almost like I live here now, which is odd. It is surprising how rapidly we adjust to our situations, we adapt much quicker and things become much more commonplace than what I would expect. Everyone from the lab that I am visiting has been both kind and supportive. All of the students, the post-docs, the faculty, all amazing. I feel very at home with them all, they've made me feel incredibly welcome. That doesn't detract from my longing for my home though, regardless of the efforts made by them, I still pining for my fiance, I miss my friends, my family, and my pets. I miss my bed. I miss the freedom of my own kitchen. There are so many things we don't think about and take for granted, and they are as simple as just transporting yourself too and from work....shit I miss my car.
Longing aside, I do find it strange that I find myself on the opposite side of the continent, doing science in a different lab and learning things I never thought I would be doing. In my head, I still see myself as a kid, when I look in the mirror, I see a scared teenager who isn't quite sure what they're doing, but here I am 28 (almost 29 in a few months) and I'm being paid to learn new techniques, to travel, to meet people, and to see the world.
Science has given me a lot and I don't know how I got here. I know I work hard, but so many people do, and don't get the same opportunities. Maybe it is luck, maybe it is something I did or didn't do. I'm not trying to humble brag but it is a weird thing that I'm still coming to terms with. I know that this isn't celebrity, most people in science won't achieve fame or world wide recognition. That being said there are times where I think it is important to take a step back and look at your life and appreciate the opportunities that have been gifted to us. Life is weird, it isn't fair, and it isn't a game that we should let ourselves be observers of. It is a full contact sport and if you don't play hard, you'll get body-checked and be out for a long time. I like taking a timeout to see what the score is, grab some water, catch my breath, and get back in the game. This is one of those moments where I'm looking at the time on the clock, looking at the score, and wondering how things worked out this way. I'm not leading by much, but I have to say, I'm not doing poorly either. There are a lot of teammates to thank (my parents, my fiance, my teachers, my friends) but we aren't even at half time yet. So it is time to dig in and push this thing up another notch.
All in all, it is really cool that I get to be here, doing these things, and I kind of feel like a kid who watched sports from the sidelines...only to have the pros call me onto the field and tell me to play with them. I feel like any second now I'm either going to get hit hard by one of the pros or wake up and find this is all a dream. I guess I'll just have to wait and see...in the meantime, I guess it's time to play ball.

More Work?

I've been back in the lab, post Qualifying Exam now, and the steam is starting to pick back up. The 3 weeks I took away from the lab to study for it weren't really 3 weeks away, but the main focus of my work had stopped. I've begun setting up experiments and getting plans together but since then, I've been added to another 2.5 projects bringing the total up to 5.5. On the one hand, I don't know that I mind that much because it should result in the publications I need to graduate, however, the boss still seems to expect that everything is being moved forward every week and while I've only been back in the lab for 4 weeks, I don't have too much data to show because my experiments take ~45 days to set up and execute. When I'm not working on my main projects, I'm also managing the lab for him (this includes: attending safety meetings, making sure others are trained and follow the safety standards, maintaining lab supplies, managing the lab "chore duty" schedule, making the reagents that we all use) with no additional pay bump (not that I've asked for one). I do see he is a bit more "lenient" with me than the other members, but I still can see the surprise on his face when I don't have "more data" for him from week to week in this past month. I'm not really sure what he is expecting or where else I can improve. It never seems to be good enough. I always get the fatherly disappointed face when I can't remember a paper we discussed over a year ago (journal, authors, year published, main factoid of the paper) which is...exhausting and exasperating. I feel like he has forgotten what it was to be a grad student, or maybe just that his expectations are too high, or maybe a combination of factors but I do know that he pushes us pretty hard with little to no acknowledgement of the times we do perform or do succeed and it gets old.
I'm just starting my 3rd year and I feel like the next 2yrs that I have left are going to be nothing short of brutal. Buckle up and let's get down to business.

I meant to keep updating, I really did.

I've meant to keep updating this thing, I swear I did. I promised myself that I would spend 1 hour a week updating this blog, I mean that isn't that much time, right? I also swore to keep running, at least 5 days a week for 30 minutes - 1 hour. Not that much of a time commitment to myself, after all, I deserve some me time, right? I was wrong. I was gravely mistaken.

So, not to make excuses, but let me just review the goings on of the last year.
I took the remaining classes necessary for me to be able to sit for my qualifying exam. I bumped up production of my own project dramatically, took on a back up project and when our lab manager left, I began to assume her duties. Those duties are not trivial ones either and do place a high demand on my time. So when I wasn't in the lab, I was at home studying or reading for class.
In this last year, I also presented a poster in NOLA which was great, my first real poster session since my masters with all the people in the new field I've chosen. As the spring quarter began, I knew that the QE season was upon us. I began trying to get the members of my cohort together to study on a weekly basis, which started out well but quickly petered out. Also, I was asked to take on a collaboration with a lab located on the opposite coast, which meant that I would have to fly to and from on a semi-regular basis to actually do the experiments myself in their facility. While I saw this as an awesome opportunity, I also saw the time commitment it was going to take and I was already concerned about my QE. I voiced my concerns to my boss but he seemed little interested and pushed on. I made 2 trips out to the other coast, each trip lasting a total of 3 days (including travel time) and all requiring layovers. These 2 trips ended up being 8 and 4 weeks before my QE. Needless to say, while I was flying I was also reading and reviewing. In the end, my boss also gave me 3 weeks off to study for the exam and review, I feel like I could have used more time but, it was sufficient.

I would also like to paint a picture of my QE since everyone's is different, and the format itself depends upon the university as well as the department. Mine was a 3 hour exam, split into 2 parts. Part 1 being focused solely on my project, I was supposed to get 20 minutes of uninterrupted time to explain my project's hypothesis, aims, and hypothetical outcomes. After which 5 professors try to poke holes in the project and see how well you can come up with answers based on your knowledge and your background. We then get a 10 minute break, followed by Part 2, which is focused on examining general knowledge of the topic, 2 inside areas, 1 outside area and a designated emphasis (equivalent to a minor as an undergrad). Each of these areas are represented by a professor on your committee and they get to ask you questions until they are satisfied of your knowledge. At the end, they kick you out of the room and deliberate if you demonstrated the knowledge base required to advance towards candidacy. If you don't, you can retake the exam 1 time, if you should not pass, there is no option to "Master out", the university requires removal from the program. So no pressure not pass, right?
From my own experience, I did not feel prepared going into the exam. I knew how much I didn't know and that was terrifying. I knew my project well, but you never know the kinds of questions that will be brought up and what kind of perspective people will bring to the table. I walked out of my exam with my head hanging low, expecting that I had failed. Given how hard the questions were, how persistent they hammered on some topics, I was sure I would have to retake the exam. I began to ask myself what I was doing, why I was even in the program. Was it all a mistake?
Luckily, and I'm sure by the skin of my teeth, I passed. My 10 minute existential crises was for nothing, but it is surprising what those 10 minutes can do to you.
I spent the weekend relaxing and taking time to just...exist without feeling rushed to do something. It was a great 3 day weekend.

My preparation for the QE was exhaustive, the number of papers I read for my topic insane. I also chose to do my outside area on a topic that I actually hadn't taken as a course, so I had 10 weeks of material to learn on my own in a few days worth of time really. The review group that I had set up only made it through a little more than half of the textbook and there were still other areas that needed to be studied. I could feel knowledge oozing from my brain and I felt like my retention rate was diminishing. I'm sure that in the process, in order to make more room, I had to delete memories of my childhood or important information linked to something somewhere...though what it may be, eludes me... as I would expect it would.

As I began back in the lab, I was excited to get started. During all of this QE nonsense, I agreed to take on an undergraduate trainee, take on another collaboration with our department chair's lab, and write a mini review for a journal. I met with my boss yesterday and he put me on another project. So all told, I have about 4 projects to work on and 1 paper to write. Oh, and I had a recent methods paper accepted where I am second author. So...the stress level comes back up to 11 and we're off to the races again.

I have friends visiting this weekend, I fly out on Monday to visit the collaborators, fly back Tuesday afternoon. I have a massive experiment that will span Thursday-Friday and then I catch a flight to go visit my family for the weekend to celebrate my dad's birthday. The pressure won't stop. So much to get done in so little time on so little sleep.

Also, some happy news, I also got engaged last February, marking 5 years together, and I'm sure we'll begin planning the actual wedding soon enough.