I am free

After I graduated last August I found myself in a situation that I've never been in before. When I graduated high school I went on to college, when I earned my BS I went on to graduate school. Throughout all that time I was employed, ready to move on to the next job when one was over. All of my life I have known what I was going to do next before I finished what I was doing. When people ask how I felt after I successfully defended, finished the revisions, and completed all the paperwork, the first word that comes to me is "free." I feel free, in more ways than one. So much runs through my mind when I say that word. It is more than a word.

I am free from the enslavement, degrading treatment, and humiliation of the past several years working for the Kiwi.

I am free to choose whatever path I want to take.

I am free to leave a job if I don't like it, I am no longer stuck.

I am free to move on with my life and find happiness again.

I am free to move forward in my relationship with Fiance.

I am free to enjoy my new close relationship with my sister.

I am free to enjoy life, my life.

I am free.

Those several other things

In the last post I mentioned there were several other things I have to do along with preparing my defense presentation. They have to do with the other job I took. (in addition for looking for a permanent job after that!). I currently have a new partial GSR in a different Center. It is a place I'm extremely interested in for a future job. I met with the Director to show him my work and what kind of things I was interested in, and to talk about a postdoc position they might have in the fall. He's also a person in a position to hear about jobs in the field I'm interested in, which I probably wouldn't find out about on my own. Well, in the course of the meeting he made the comment that it was too bad I was on another GSR because he could really use some help on an Institute he was working on. I told him that actually, my funding had ended in my PI's lab at the end of May so I actually was available. He hired me on the spot. And I love it there!! The people are wonderful and he's great. I actually was describing the position to my Mom and became choked up. I know the situation I've been in for the past several years has been horrible, but on the other hand I kind of got used to it. Now that I'm being treated like an actual human being it really shines the light on how horrible the past several years have been. I can't even describe how this new job makes me feel.

But along with it came more work, hence the other things I have to work on. It kind of increased in magnitude over the past couple weeks. First I was helping with the curriculum. Then I was helping with the lectures, then he wanted me to teach a lecture. Now he has decided that the entire Institute class will be web cast and recorded. So I have several things I need to finish for next week before class starts and my lecture on Wednesday. Teaching for him and working for him is a big deal and I don't want to mess it up. He knows a lot of people and is an amazing person to have on my resume as a recommendation, especially in the field I want to go into.

I just need to balance my time. I'm probably going to focus completely on the Institute until after Wednesday then shift over to my dissertation. It's too bad I'm only working for him until the end of July. I really love it there. It makes me want to not settle for just anything now that I'm going to be done, but get something that I enjoy, even though right now all I need is a job, any job to bring in money.

Turned in at last

I just turned in my written dissertation to all my committee members. Boy, does it feel good. And not that I'm complaining, but Kiwi never even looked at it. I gave him another copy Monday after I received a snarky comment from him about "no feedback for two weeks." Excuse me?! I do believe you were supposed to be giving me feedback! He asked me if I thought it was okay. Of course I think it is okay, well, at least good enough. He actually asked me if I had any questions for him or if I needed anything from him. Gee, it's a little late for that considering I had to give it to my committee members within the next 2 hours. I told him if he could at least read the entire thing before my defense and let me know if there is anything he thinks I should be prepared to defend or even modify that I would appreciate it.

At least it's turned it!! Now I can focus on the presentation (among several other things).

I know I've said this before

But really this time, back to blogging. I lost the spirit for a while. So many frustrations that I just didn't want to talk about it. But I feel that it's time again. I miss my blogging friends!

The changes a couple months can make. First some updates. Kiwi decided if I needed more time that I could (should) turn my dissertation write-up to my committee one week before the defense, even though they were required to have two weeks. Needless to say, it didn't happen and due to a committee member complaining he didn't have two weeks Kiwi gave in. Really, there wasn't much he could say. The rest of the committee members didn't care. They could care in the least. Kiwi wasn't happy but oh well, he isn't paying me.

So how does it stand right now? Essentially, my dissertation write-up is finished, and has been for at least a month. I gave it to Kiwi a few weeks ago but he hasn't had time to look at it OR my manuscript. In fact, he doesn't have time for my defense until the end of July. He can't manage to fit 2 hrs into his oh-so-busy schedule. He sucks. It was just a bunch of stupid excuses. Everything on his schedule is waayyy more important than my defense.

However, all is not bad. I managed to convince the appropriate people from my department that since my boss doesn't have time for me until the end of July, which is not my fault, that they need to cover my health insurance until then. They agreed. The good thing about this is that in order to qualify for health insurance they need to give me 1/4 GSR. So I get a small paycheck. Very small, but it's something. In addition, in a position which I'm going to dedicate an entire post, I have a new GSR in a different department. So I'm getting health insurance and 1/4 paycheck from my degree department and the rest of a GSR paycheck from another. Since Kiwi and the Center won't pay me, I just found someone who would. And it's something I enjoy.

So right now, everything is okay, not great, but okay. I'm just looking for job, and preparing myself for my defense, on July 31st!! Oh, and I haven't seen the Kiwi for weeks, just email correspondence. And that's not for lack of trying, he just ignores every single email in which I ask for a meeting.

It finally feels real

After 5 meetings with individual committee members, countless emails and phone calls, and lots of paperwork . . . . . . ready?? . . . . . tah-dah!! . . . a defense date!! May 19th, 3pm.

I can finally move on with my life. Woooo-hooooo!!!!
It comes with excitement and a wonderful sense of peace.

The week was worth it

This week may have been hard but for me, yesterday made all that work worth it. I met Ding in front of her apartment and we left for work to pick up PostDoc then headed out for the retreat. Registration started at 7:30 and talks started at 8:30 but we decided to leave around 9am. Kiwi was inoculating animals in the morning so he wouldn't be there until maybe 11am. We saw no need to get there early. It was in a building located near downtown so we didn't have far to go.

The retreat consisted of various faculty members giving 1/2 hour presentations with 10 more minutes allotted for questions. Unfortunately, the moderator didn't moderate. All he did was bring up the next person's presentation when the current person was finished. As a result, almost everyone talked too long. Some people talked twice as long as they were supposed to but no one said anything. By lunch time we were over an hour behind schedule.

Lunch was at a famous, fabulous Italian restaurant. The entire retreat was worth it because I got to eat there. I always wanted to but never actually got around to it. I'll have to come back with Fiance sometime. But they only scheduled lunch for 1 1/2 hours. Lunch was a few block away from the building where the presentations were located. So over 50 people had to walk to the restaurant, get seated, and be served a multi-course meal. An Italian meal. I've rarely been to a good Italian restaurant that serves food like that and been completely done in that amount of time. So we were running even later after lunch. However, there was a guest speaker who was supposed to speak after lunch and he never showed up. Since he wasn't there talks were moved up but at the end of the day we still ended over an hour late.

But dinner wasn't the reason yesterday was so good. In the morning Scope Man gave his presentation and he mentioned working with Kiwi and me, doing good stuff and that people would get to hear about it in the afternoon. He is very well known and regarded so it is really nice to have him mention not just my boss, but me! Then Kiwi gave his presentation on my work in the afternoon. He did pretty good. Every now and then he would look at me when he wasn't sure about something and I would nod my head yes. He got a couple things wrong but they were minor and no one knew but me. There were several good questions afterwards and some good suggestions. In the acknowledgements he put my picture up and said that all the work was done by me. And since everyone knew what I looked like I had several people come up to me afterwards during the coffee break, then during the reception to tell me how nice the data looked. Kiwi thanked me several times for putting his presentation together. He made a comment that it was short compared to the others, but I reminded him that we made his presentation to fit the time allotted. He didn't run over like everyone else. The reception was nice, it was on the river with drinks and appetizers.

The only not so great part of the day was that I had to go to work after it was all over. I had to finish processing my PBMCs.

Than the day ended with the bus driver leaving me off in front of my apartment. The stop is actually several blocks away but since I was the last person on the bus he dropped me off on my doorstep!

I'm being treated like a human being.

An interesting thing happened today. It's been happening more and more lately. The Kiwi is talking to me like I'm a human being. Not only that, but a human being that knows what it's doing. He actually wants me to do something not related to directly to my project. This is the first time all the years I've been here. Yes, it will benefit him (it's something for a new grant he's writing), but it's still amazing. And he's been talking to people about my work. Good stuff. He's even presenting all of my data at the Departmental Retreat of the other department he's a faculty member in. I just found that out today while he was bragging to the new rotation student about what I do. He told her I'm "dangerously close" to finishing up.

I'm not really sure how to act when he's like this. The best thing to do when he's like this is just to go along with it, because it can change from day to day. It's happened before. It's a calm before the storm. FD seems to think, he says he has a feeling, that Kiwi is trying to be a better boss. I don't know. I think it's a phase. This has happened too many times before. He's only in a good mood because he likes what my project is doing right now. And he's using my cells and my assay to get data for his grant.

But it does make me feel good that he likes what I'm doing right now. That doesn't happen often.

I can take good images

I took some microscope images for Geeka yesterday and she looked at them today. She liked them, they were what she wanted.

It's nice to have someone say that my images are "awesome," instead of, "those are nice, but we want you to do XXX instead." Too bad she's not on my committee.