Kiwi was out of the country all last week at a conference. Today was his first day back and we met to go over my presentation for my defense Thursday. The reality of the whole thing started to get to me today. I was actually sick to my stomach this morning. No matter what everyone around here tells me, I know it isn't a "formality" with my committee. They have been so unpredictable thus far I'm not sure what's going to happen. I feel like I'm starting to accept the fact that I might not pass.
When we sat down today, the first thing I asked him was if he looked at my dissertation at all. Nope, of course not - but to be honest I wasn't that surprised. He gave his usual list of excuses, but this time he actually said he wanted to finish working on LB's manuscript to have it submitted by the end of the week. That really pissed me off. What about my manuscript! I'm the one with no publications, I'm the one with the dissertation defense coming up with a committee that's demanding a publication, I'm the one who's no longer working in the lab. He's such an ass. It just shows how low I am on his list of job priorities. Well, he's going to have to explain to my committee why it hasn't been submitted yet. He's had it for a couple months now and we told the committee it would be submitted by the end of April or early May. It's out of my hands.
Anyway, I digress. I went through the presentation. He actually had some useful comments that I'll incorporate into the presentation. He felt I needed more background information. I already have 47 slides and now I'll be adding several more. After this advice, he proceeds to tell me my presentation will have a lot of background but is weak/light on data so I should add some things that aren't in the dissertation write-up. Then he left the meeting say how good the presentation was looking and it should be good. Talk about mixed messages.
So will he get a chance to read the dissertation before my defense? Probably not. He told me he probably already knows most of what's in it. (This after he saw data in the presentation, was surprised, and said how good that would be to add to the manuscript that he's never looked at.) I reminded him I made changes based on early suggestions, and he's never actually looked at an entire chapter. So I asked him to look over that one, short chapter and the overall discussion and let me know if there is anything I shouldn't have said, or misstated, or anything that might come up that I should be prepared for my committee to target. He said OK. That means no.
I can't wait to get this done. Whether I pass or not, it will be over and I can move on with my life.
Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts
Monday, July 28, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
I called my boss irrational
After much deliberation (which including talking to mom, Geeka, and fiance) I finally faced the reality that there was no way in heck I was going to have my dissertation written by Monday. I felt much better. However, I still had to talk to my boss. The first thing I did was call the person in the department in charge of the students. He was completely supportive, said it was no big deal. It happens more often than not. Don't rush it if I need more time to write. If anyone gives me problems, have them talk to him. I shot an email out to Kiwi telling him I had to meet with him Friday and we decided 8:45 before his day started. He had a meeting at 9:30. I spent all evening and morning thinking about what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. After interacting with his craziness for 6 years I thought I knew how he was going to react. He'd be pissed, complain and whine, insult me, but ultimately say it was my decision and it's between me and my committee, he wouldn't want a part in it.
I thought wrong. He is much crazier than I thought he was - and that's saying a lot.
This was the rational that I would use:
1 - I have been working non-stop but the reality is that 1 1/2 months is not enough time to write a dissertation from scratch. Without a manuscript to start from.
2 - I understand I will not get a stipend after May. He won't pay me. I'll deal with it because it's my decision.
3 - The committee won't care, all they want is a manuscript which had to at least be submitted by the time I defend, which it isn't. It's been on Kiwi's desk for weeks.
4 - It serves no one to turn in something that isn't done; it is a waste of every one's time.
5 - It will not affect him at all since he won't be paying me. I just have to write and schedule a meeting.
It's hard to even describe how the meeting went. He asked how it was going. I said not that great. And told him I finally faced the reality that it wouldn't be done by Monday. We argued for the next 20 minutes. Through the course of the argument I reiterated several times what I mentioned above. Here are some of his comments.
"I will not even entertain the idea."
"I recommend you don't pursue it."
"As far as I'm concerned your dissertation is on the 19th."
And the best one "I'll be there on the 19th for your defense whether you are there or not."
He had the look of a petulant child throwing a tantrum, like he's going to do it whether I like it or not.
Then he proceeded to compare me to a student who had rescheduled several times and was there 9-10 years. I just interrupted him, told him that isn't even a fair comparison. The difference is my work is done, all I'm doing is writing, and I'm pushing to leave. She wasn't.
I must say it was wonderful to call him irrational to his face, and ridiculous. I'm just glad I've developed self-control over the past few years with him. There was A LOT worse running through my head.
Finally, he said turn it in next Friday instead of Monday - which I should be able to do. But I never actually verbally agreed to it. Then I asked him why in the last email he sent me he said the manuscript had to be completely reworked. We went through it, he's only scanned it so far. I asked him if he looked at the part of the dissertation discussion I sent him a couple days ago. He hadn't. I made him open it and go over it with me. I made him 1/2 hour late for his meeting. I don't care. If he was going to be such an ass, he was going to give me CONSTRUCTIVE feedback on what I sent him.
Grrrrr.... I went and vented to Geeka. We calm each other and prevent the other from harming people.
Of all the scenarios I ran through my head that was not one of them. And at the end of the meeting he had to sign the GSR letter stating I will get paid the month of May. He looked at it - "What's this," "What does it say?" and proceeded to read it. It is the same letter he has signed for every student since before I was there - every semester. Like I was hiding something in it!
He's gone next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday so I scheduled a meeting with him Thursday morning.
I can't wait to get the hell out of here. Oh - I told him that too. If he thought I was making the decision lightly about rescheduling I wasn't, I want to be out of here and get this done more than anyone. I want to move on with my life.
I thought wrong. He is much crazier than I thought he was - and that's saying a lot.
This was the rational that I would use:
1 - I have been working non-stop but the reality is that 1 1/2 months is not enough time to write a dissertation from scratch. Without a manuscript to start from.
2 - I understand I will not get a stipend after May. He won't pay me. I'll deal with it because it's my decision.
3 - The committee won't care, all they want is a manuscript which had to at least be submitted by the time I defend, which it isn't. It's been on Kiwi's desk for weeks.
4 - It serves no one to turn in something that isn't done; it is a waste of every one's time.
5 - It will not affect him at all since he won't be paying me. I just have to write and schedule a meeting.
It's hard to even describe how the meeting went. He asked how it was going. I said not that great. And told him I finally faced the reality that it wouldn't be done by Monday. We argued for the next 20 minutes. Through the course of the argument I reiterated several times what I mentioned above. Here are some of his comments.
"I will not even entertain the idea."
"I recommend you don't pursue it."
"As far as I'm concerned your dissertation is on the 19th."
And the best one "I'll be there on the 19th for your defense whether you are there or not."
He had the look of a petulant child throwing a tantrum, like he's going to do it whether I like it or not.
Then he proceeded to compare me to a student who had rescheduled several times and was there 9-10 years. I just interrupted him, told him that isn't even a fair comparison. The difference is my work is done, all I'm doing is writing, and I'm pushing to leave. She wasn't.
I must say it was wonderful to call him irrational to his face, and ridiculous. I'm just glad I've developed self-control over the past few years with him. There was A LOT worse running through my head.
Finally, he said turn it in next Friday instead of Monday - which I should be able to do. But I never actually verbally agreed to it. Then I asked him why in the last email he sent me he said the manuscript had to be completely reworked. We went through it, he's only scanned it so far. I asked him if he looked at the part of the dissertation discussion I sent him a couple days ago. He hadn't. I made him open it and go over it with me. I made him 1/2 hour late for his meeting. I don't care. If he was going to be such an ass, he was going to give me CONSTRUCTIVE feedback on what I sent him.
Grrrrr.... I went and vented to Geeka. We calm each other and prevent the other from harming people.
Of all the scenarios I ran through my head that was not one of them. And at the end of the meeting he had to sign the GSR letter stating I will get paid the month of May. He looked at it - "What's this," "What does it say?" and proceeded to read it. It is the same letter he has signed for every student since before I was there - every semester. Like I was hiding something in it!
He's gone next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday so I scheduled a meeting with him Thursday morning.
I can't wait to get the hell out of here. Oh - I told him that too. If he thought I was making the decision lightly about rescheduling I wasn't, I want to be out of here and get this done more than anyone. I want to move on with my life.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Dissertation RBOC
I am officially at the I-don't-think-I-can-do-this stage.
I still have 50 pages to write minimum, and finalize this by the end of the weekend.
My boss is being an ass, decided he wants to look at the dissertation today, but I'm not done. So let's see if I can write those 50 pages by tomorrow morning.
The manuscript won't be done by the time I defend, all of a sudden the entire thing needs to be reworked and rewritten. And Kiwi doesn't have time to do it before then. We told my committee it would be submitted. I just think he doesn't want to take time to look at it now.
I still haven't looked for a job.
I find myself thinking of sleep more and more.
Realized today that the student before me got away with using very large font and double spacing the reference section.
This whole process isn't worth it, there's more to life than this. Feel like I wasted 6 years of my life.
Recipe: Mix a pinch of sleep, some anxiety, and a lot stress. Bake in front of a committee for 2 hours. Get one serving of fried me.
I still have 50 pages to write minimum, and finalize this by the end of the weekend.
My boss is being an ass, decided he wants to look at the dissertation today, but I'm not done. So let's see if I can write those 50 pages by tomorrow morning.
The manuscript won't be done by the time I defend, all of a sudden the entire thing needs to be reworked and rewritten. And Kiwi doesn't have time to do it before then. We told my committee it would be submitted. I just think he doesn't want to take time to look at it now.
I still haven't looked for a job.
I find myself thinking of sleep more and more.
Realized today that the student before me got away with using very large font and double spacing the reference section.
This whole process isn't worth it, there's more to life than this. Feel like I wasted 6 years of my life.
Recipe: Mix a pinch of sleep, some anxiety, and a lot stress. Bake in front of a committee for 2 hours. Get one serving of fried me.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Dante's Update
I want to thank everyone for their well wishes. I really appreciate them!
I would have posted yesterday but wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Don't worry, Dante is home and running around like a crazy cat. But he still has his bad tooth. The vet didn't want to do the surgery.
It was a combination of a couple things. Dante wouldn't calm down in the cage, he was panting and breathing hard all day. They didn't want to anesthetize a cat breathing like that. But that wasn't the main reason. He had an EKG before the surgery to check his heart, and it wasn't good. In fact, it was the worst that it's ever looked. The vet described to me what he thought Dante's heart was doing, simply, it was trying to expel blood from the heart when new blood hadn't yet been pumped into it. He showed me the EKG and the irregularities. He said he hasn't seen this kind of abnormality in a cat before and that it was more than just a murmur. No one there (there is more than one vet) felt comfortable putting Dante under with his heart like that. A tooth wasn't worth him dying on the table. So even though I feel that he would have been fine, they didn't want to take the risk since he was so worked up. In fact, they were so concerned about the EKG they didn't even really care about the tooth anymore.
So what are my options now? Well, not much. Here are my choices.
1) Do nothing.
2) Tell them to go ahead with the surgery no matter what.
3) They can bring in a vet specializing in tooth removal so it can done as fast as possible
4) Go back to see the internist that Dante sees about his heart once a year and get him checked out again.
5) Send him to a feline cardiac specialist to determine what specific heart disease he has because there may be a treatment that could help. And the specialist could determine the best way to handle putting him under.
Of course the best option is number 5. And the vet would recommend number 5, because as he put it, he would hate to have Dante develop problems in the future, only to learn later that they could have been prevented, or at least delayed. But of course, the list is in order of least cost to highest cost. A visit to the cardiologist would start between $500 and $1000 and that just isn't something I can afford right now. So as he put it, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. He is going to get an opinion from the cardiologist for me for free. The cardiologist visits his office about once a week and he'll show her the EKG to see what she thinks. Then he'll call me.
When I think about it, cats never used to have teeth removed when there was a problem, and they did just fine. It would just come out when it rotted out. I know that sounds horrible. And the tooth eventually will become painful to him, but it will come out on its own. I don't think getting the tooth pulled is worth losing him. But I also know that I can't avoid anesthetizing him forever. Sooner or later, he will have to be put under.
My last cat died of feline leukemia virus. He lived a long life for a cat with that disease, over 10 years, but at the end he wasn't good at all. It was hard knowing that he could have passed away at anytime, with no warning.
And now I feel that I'm facing a similar situation again. The difference is, Dante's might be treatable. Who knows when his heart will become a serious problem for him. I try not to think about it and enjoy all the time I have with him, but every time I go to the vet for his shots and check-up I'm reminded of his problem. Veterinary medicine has come a long way but sometimes I think it is better not to know. We had barn cats at home all the while I was growing up. They never went to the vet, we never worried about them. And they lived happy lives, some very long lives. Veterinary medicine can help keep a pet healthy and happy for a long time. But there is nothing worse knowing that there is medicine and technology out there that can help - and I can't afford it.
I can't help but think that if I had a real job I'd be able to help him now, and not later when it might be too late.
I would have posted yesterday but wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Don't worry, Dante is home and running around like a crazy cat. But he still has his bad tooth. The vet didn't want to do the surgery.
It was a combination of a couple things. Dante wouldn't calm down in the cage, he was panting and breathing hard all day. They didn't want to anesthetize a cat breathing like that. But that wasn't the main reason. He had an EKG before the surgery to check his heart, and it wasn't good. In fact, it was the worst that it's ever looked. The vet described to me what he thought Dante's heart was doing, simply, it was trying to expel blood from the heart when new blood hadn't yet been pumped into it. He showed me the EKG and the irregularities. He said he hasn't seen this kind of abnormality in a cat before and that it was more than just a murmur. No one there (there is more than one vet) felt comfortable putting Dante under with his heart like that. A tooth wasn't worth him dying on the table. So even though I feel that he would have been fine, they didn't want to take the risk since he was so worked up. In fact, they were so concerned about the EKG they didn't even really care about the tooth anymore.
So what are my options now? Well, not much. Here are my choices.
1) Do nothing.
2) Tell them to go ahead with the surgery no matter what.
3) They can bring in a vet specializing in tooth removal so it can done as fast as possible
4) Go back to see the internist that Dante sees about his heart once a year and get him checked out again.
5) Send him to a feline cardiac specialist to determine what specific heart disease he has because there may be a treatment that could help. And the specialist could determine the best way to handle putting him under.
Of course the best option is number 5. And the vet would recommend number 5, because as he put it, he would hate to have Dante develop problems in the future, only to learn later that they could have been prevented, or at least delayed. But of course, the list is in order of least cost to highest cost. A visit to the cardiologist would start between $500 and $1000 and that just isn't something I can afford right now. So as he put it, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. He is going to get an opinion from the cardiologist for me for free. The cardiologist visits his office about once a week and he'll show her the EKG to see what she thinks. Then he'll call me.
When I think about it, cats never used to have teeth removed when there was a problem, and they did just fine. It would just come out when it rotted out. I know that sounds horrible. And the tooth eventually will become painful to him, but it will come out on its own. I don't think getting the tooth pulled is worth losing him. But I also know that I can't avoid anesthetizing him forever. Sooner or later, he will have to be put under.
My last cat died of feline leukemia virus. He lived a long life for a cat with that disease, over 10 years, but at the end he wasn't good at all. It was hard knowing that he could have passed away at anytime, with no warning.
And now I feel that I'm facing a similar situation again. The difference is, Dante's might be treatable. Who knows when his heart will become a serious problem for him. I try not to think about it and enjoy all the time I have with him, but every time I go to the vet for his shots and check-up I'm reminded of his problem. Veterinary medicine has come a long way but sometimes I think it is better not to know. We had barn cats at home all the while I was growing up. They never went to the vet, we never worried about them. And they lived happy lives, some very long lives. Veterinary medicine can help keep a pet healthy and happy for a long time. But there is nothing worse knowing that there is medicine and technology out there that can help - and I can't afford it.
I can't help but think that if I had a real job I'd be able to help him now, and not later when it might be too late.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
A day of microscopy work, ending with a wet cat
Today was a day full of microscopy work. I spent the first several hours (9am-12pm) in a small dark room, sitting in a chair that was too short for the scope, scanning over several slides that I've looked at before. I had to send some images to Geeka today and I was determined to find what we were looking for. I think I looked at every single cell on those slides. But success!! I sent her the pictures today so hopefully they are what she needs.
I must admit I was also a bit selfish because by spending time scanning her slides I put mine off a couple hours. I was afraid to look at them. I have been working on optimizing this experiment for a year now (at least that long). Normally slide staining and microscopy work is straightforward but my experiment has several variables that make it a bit tricky. Some parts of the staining became complicated, as well as the experiment that was to be stained. Several times I've thought "This is the one. This is the last time I will ever have to do this experiment!" But every time something different needs to be worked out. This time I felt that this really was the last one. I had done preliminary staining a couple weeks ago and everything looked beautiful. The images came out so good that the Kiwi asked if he could put them on his new web page. My hopes were very high this time.
All that was left was to run the experiment then stain as I did during the trial run, just with one extra antibody in the mixture. Unfortunately, it is the pain-in-the-ass antibody. It is an anti-egfp conjugated to AlexaFluor 488. For those of you who don't know antibodies, this one is looking for a green fluorescent protein. But the color of the antibody (the 488) is also green. So how do I know the antibody concentration is right and is actually binding to what it is supposed to be binding to, when it is green antibody binding to a green protein? For various reasons my committee wanted me to do this, mainly because we thought some of the egfp was being degraded within the cell so hopefully using the egfp antibody would help detect more. But who knows? That is just one complicated aspect to an experiment that should be straightforward.
So the moment came. I was done with Geeka's and I put on my first slide. A little less egfp expression than I would have like but that's okay, that has nothing to do with the staining, it was 'one of those other variables.' I had three colors to look at. . . . and only one looked good, that was the egfp. The organelle staining didn't work. It was very faint, if I cranked up the setting on the scope I could make out the organelle but the background was too high for publication purposes. And the membrane marked I used was extremely faint on the conditions where I used the anti-egfp antibody. Which makes NO sense.
Once again I am disappointed. I'm starting to wonder if this will ever work at all. It's stressing me out. My project doesn't have enough substance if this doesn't work. There are just so many variables. When to add the inhibitor, what concentration to make the inhibitor, how long to leave the cells together, it goes on and on. I'm just so frustrated. I told the Kiwi I'm dropping the egfp antibody. If that doesn't work, I don't know what else to do. I also have a lot of flow data to analyze which I've been putting off. It is essential to my dissertation and I just don't want to deal with it if it didn't work either.
The problem is I'm running out of time. I know I could work these out if I had more time to optimize all the variables but I need to finish asap before my funding is cut off. So we are trying to do as much as we can, as fast as we can. And my boss really isn't into "optimizing" things, he just wants to jump into it and doesn't understand why I can't get it to work.
But enough of that, it depresses me. On a brighter note, Scope Man, the head of the imaging facility and committee member, requested some live-cell microscopy movies to show at a meeting he's going to in Moscow. He's not talking about my research but the technology that collected the data. I spent the afternoon trying to get the movies the size that he needed them, less than 20MB. Since he gave me only a few hours notice, and it just happened to be the day I wasn't in lab, I couldn't get them to him before he left. Since his talk is on Thursday he said to email them. Well, no matter what, the smallest I could make the movies was 80MB. So one of his employees suggested I put them on their website and he could download them from their server. So that's what I did, hopefully it will work. It's exciting that he wants to share some of the stuff that took so long to perfect. Even if he does forget to mention whose data it actually is that he's showing!
And the wet cat . . . while I was relaxing in the tub, trying to read a magazine, Dante was staring at me, of course because I wasn't paying attention to him. Sophie wanted to see what he was looking at so she jumped up on the rim and slide right into the water. All the way up to her neck. I had wanted to grab her and hold her next to the tub so Fiance could get a towel but she was able to jump out too fast. It was all Dante could do to get out the way and try to stay dry. There was water everywhere! That small cat soaked up a lot of water. Water all over the bathroom, down the hall, in the bedrooms. We managed to get her and together dried her off. She yowled and growled the entire time. Dante wanted to know what all the noise was about so he kept sticking his face up to hers while we were drying her. She was not thrilled. When we got her mostly dry we gave them both treats. They had a rough day, they were locked in rooms because the air conditioning dude was supposed to come then this happens. And he didn't show, so they have to be shut-in tomorrow again.
An exciting end to just another Tuesday. Life is never boring with cats. That's why I love them. No matter what kind of day I'm having, they always make me smile.
I must admit I was also a bit selfish because by spending time scanning her slides I put mine off a couple hours. I was afraid to look at them. I have been working on optimizing this experiment for a year now (at least that long). Normally slide staining and microscopy work is straightforward but my experiment has several variables that make it a bit tricky. Some parts of the staining became complicated, as well as the experiment that was to be stained. Several times I've thought "This is the one. This is the last time I will ever have to do this experiment!" But every time something different needs to be worked out. This time I felt that this really was the last one. I had done preliminary staining a couple weeks ago and everything looked beautiful. The images came out so good that the Kiwi asked if he could put them on his new web page. My hopes were very high this time.
All that was left was to run the experiment then stain as I did during the trial run, just with one extra antibody in the mixture. Unfortunately, it is the pain-in-the-ass antibody. It is an anti-egfp conjugated to AlexaFluor 488. For those of you who don't know antibodies, this one is looking for a green fluorescent protein. But the color of the antibody (the 488) is also green. So how do I know the antibody concentration is right and is actually binding to what it is supposed to be binding to, when it is green antibody binding to a green protein? For various reasons my committee wanted me to do this, mainly because we thought some of the egfp was being degraded within the cell so hopefully using the egfp antibody would help detect more. But who knows? That is just one complicated aspect to an experiment that should be straightforward.
So the moment came. I was done with Geeka's and I put on my first slide. A little less egfp expression than I would have like but that's okay, that has nothing to do with the staining, it was 'one of those other variables.' I had three colors to look at. . . . and only one looked good, that was the egfp. The organelle staining didn't work. It was very faint, if I cranked up the setting on the scope I could make out the organelle but the background was too high for publication purposes. And the membrane marked I used was extremely faint on the conditions where I used the anti-egfp antibody. Which makes NO sense.
Once again I am disappointed. I'm starting to wonder if this will ever work at all. It's stressing me out. My project doesn't have enough substance if this doesn't work. There are just so many variables. When to add the inhibitor, what concentration to make the inhibitor, how long to leave the cells together, it goes on and on. I'm just so frustrated. I told the Kiwi I'm dropping the egfp antibody. If that doesn't work, I don't know what else to do. I also have a lot of flow data to analyze which I've been putting off. It is essential to my dissertation and I just don't want to deal with it if it didn't work either.
The problem is I'm running out of time. I know I could work these out if I had more time to optimize all the variables but I need to finish asap before my funding is cut off. So we are trying to do as much as we can, as fast as we can. And my boss really isn't into "optimizing" things, he just wants to jump into it and doesn't understand why I can't get it to work.
But enough of that, it depresses me. On a brighter note, Scope Man, the head of the imaging facility and committee member, requested some live-cell microscopy movies to show at a meeting he's going to in Moscow. He's not talking about my research but the technology that collected the data. I spent the afternoon trying to get the movies the size that he needed them, less than 20MB. Since he gave me only a few hours notice, and it just happened to be the day I wasn't in lab, I couldn't get them to him before he left. Since his talk is on Thursday he said to email them. Well, no matter what, the smallest I could make the movies was 80MB. So one of his employees suggested I put them on their website and he could download them from their server. So that's what I did, hopefully it will work. It's exciting that he wants to share some of the stuff that took so long to perfect. Even if he does forget to mention whose data it actually is that he's showing!
And the wet cat . . . while I was relaxing in the tub, trying to read a magazine, Dante was staring at me, of course because I wasn't paying attention to him. Sophie wanted to see what he was looking at so she jumped up on the rim and slide right into the water. All the way up to her neck. I had wanted to grab her and hold her next to the tub so Fiance could get a towel but she was able to jump out too fast. It was all Dante could do to get out the way and try to stay dry. There was water everywhere! That small cat soaked up a lot of water. Water all over the bathroom, down the hall, in the bedrooms. We managed to get her and together dried her off. She yowled and growled the entire time. Dante wanted to know what all the noise was about so he kept sticking his face up to hers while we were drying her. She was not thrilled. When we got her mostly dry we gave them both treats. They had a rough day, they were locked in rooms because the air conditioning dude was supposed to come then this happens. And he didn't show, so they have to be shut-in tomorrow again.
An exciting end to just another Tuesday. Life is never boring with cats. That's why I love them. No matter what kind of day I'm having, they always make me smile.
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