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.

My laptop went into a coma

The past few weeks my laptop has been doing strange things. At random, it wouldn't detect the network or wireless card, it detected unknown new hardware, the USB drive worked only with a few things, and sometimes the power button had to be pushed two or three times before it would come on. All this happened randomly, sometimes together, sometimes alone, but it was always something.

The IT person here at the Center is fabulous. He actually is very knowledgeable and helpful, unlike most IT people I have experienced. I was hoping he could fix it but when we realized he couldn't (which was a couple weeks ago) we decided it was time for me to call Dell technical support because my laptop is under a full warranty. I could even drop it and they will replace it.

I have never had a problem with Dell support, I always got what I needed handled by the appropriate person. I've been procrastinating because I wasn't looking forward to going through all the steps in the support persons "script" because they "have to." (The quotes are from a support person I spoke to a few years ago.) I needed a block of time to deal with it at work (I wasn't wasting time at home, I'm usually too tired anyway) and that time was today. I checked my email this morning, walked away to set-up an experiment, and when I came back my computer was off. And wouldn't turn back on. Looking on the bright side, I thought "at least I won't be on with tech support for long, there is only so much to try when the computer won't even turn on." I should have known better. I really should have.

Here is an abbreviated version of what occurred.

Tech#1: Hello, this is tech support, may I have your service tag?"
Me: Don't you want the express service code?
Tech#1: No, I need your service tag.
Me: 12A34
Tech#1: Okay, you have a model A, correct?
Me: No, I have a model B.
Tech#1: Do you still own this computer?
Me: Yes, it's sitting right in front of me, that's why I'm calling. (Duh.)
Tech#1: Has it always been yours?
Me: Yes, why?
Tech#1: Well, according to our records, you have a model A, the ownership has been transferred to someone else, and the warranty is expired.
Me: No, it isn't.
Tech#1: What is your service tag again?

I repeat it, he still gets the same thing. We argue for a while, with me becoming progressively pissed, and him getting more rude. Finally . . .

Me: Well, your information is wrong.
Tech#1: Let me talk to my manager.

After several minutes . . . .

Tech#1: You need to talk to customer service.
Me: You're kidding me.
Tech#1: (in a snotty voice) No, you need to talk to customer service and verify that the computer belongs to you.
Me: (fuming) Can you transfer me?

Rude Tech#1 proceeds to transfer me and disconnects me in the process. I then go online using the work computer and get the customer service number. I call customer service which has an automated voice telling me there is a wait due to high call volume. In the meantime, I have to get work done so I put the call on speaker phone, I take my cells out of the fridge, then someone picks up. I flag down Ding to put my stuff back in the fridge for me. I immediately start loudly complaining to customer service (CS) about what Tech#1 told me then apologized for being rude to him, I know it wasn't his fault, but I'm pissed.

CS: Can I have your service tag please.?
Me: 12A34
CS: Can you tell me the model please?
Me: Model B.
CS: Ah, are you sure?
Me: Yes, I'm sure. (Of course I'm sure! It's sitting right here in front of me. If I get one more stupid question I'm going to scream!)
CS: That's not what I'm seeing in your account.

I then go into a tirade about how I'm looking at my Dell account online, on the Dell website, and it's telling me that it's the correct computer, it's mine, and the warranty is good until 2008. How can he possible be looking at something different! He then repeats the service tag, which is wrong. He types it in properly and all of my information comes up correctly. He is extremely amused that all the confusion was due to a phonetic misunderstand. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! Rude, and now Stupid, Tech#1 got the service tag wrong three times. What a colossal waste of my time. CS now transfer me to tech support. Again, I am on hold, so I try to do work, take my cells out of the fridge, only to have someone answer the phone. This time I flag down Apple to put my cells back.

Tech#2: Can I have your express service code?
Me: Everyone else wanted the service tag.
Tech#2: No, I need your express service code please.

I give him the number and all of my account information appears correctly. The express service code is all numbers, unlike the service tag (where a letter caused all the confusion), but that shouldn't have mattered because I speak clearly.

Verdict - I need to get a new motherboard. Since the hard drive doesn't need to be replaced, just the motherboard, my computer is in a temporary coma. Not usable, but all the information in it is not lost, so it's not dead.

The new postdoc

Over the past couple weeks I have been subjected to the new Postdoc (PD). After very little deliberation I have decided that if someone like that can have a Ph.D., give me mine right now. Seriously, I've lost my patience with him and I usually enjoy helping and teaching people. The only two people I've ever had a problem with is LB and Kiwi because they bring out the worst in me. I'm trying to be nice, I really am.

And something completely random - PD has this grin on his face every time he talks. No matter what he says. It annoys me. Don't smile when you're telling me you're going to be late. Don't smile when you're telling me you think something didn't work. It's kinda creepy.

Anyway, PD asked me if I would go through the blood processing with him again. He watched me once, but he wanted me to do what I did with the rotation student, a hands-on go through. We decided to work side-by-side in the 6ft hood so we could work together for awhile, then when the procedure called for the joining of our samples, I would watch him. We planned to start at 8:30 in the morning so I would have time to work in the afternoon and meet with Kiwi at 1:30pm. The day before the scheduled work he looks at me and says he's going out the animal facility with Kiwi and won't be back until sometime after 10am (all with a smile on his face). Great. There goes my entire day. I told Kiwi we needed to reschedule our meeting because PD and I would never be done in time. I made sure Kiwi knew he was messing up my schedule.

The next day they finally showed up around 10:30am. Kiwi came to me and said they were back, PD had to do one thing then he could work with me. It was obvious I was impatient. PD couldn't seem to grasp that as soon as he showed up I wanted to start right away. He was late, which was Kiwi's fault, but I had to track him down twice to tell him it was time to get started. I'm taking an entire day to show him something, he needs to be courteous. He could have waited until we had the procedure started to start his computer and check his email.

I have optimized my procedure for speed because I have other stuff to do. I realize sometimes it's hard for me to slow down because I want to get it done so I told him to let me know if I go too fast. Well, I went extremely slow and he still managed to screw up. Here is a summary of the day:

• I made him throw away four pipettes before I was confident that he was removing them from the wrapper without contaminating the ends.
• It took him 1/2 hour to make a buffer that should take, at the most, 10 minutes to make. He was so dirty that FD tossed the reagents PD used because we weren't confident he didn't contaminate them.
• When he tried to collect the white blood cells from the ficoll gradient with the pipette, he was only sucking up 1 ml at a time. I finally realized he had been trying to pipette with the pipetter turn off.
• Once it was turned on, he proceeded to suck plasma up and through the filter. He didn't clean it properly when I told him exactly what he needed to do. FD graciously cleaned it while PD used my pipetter (okay, actually LB's pipetter; we 'borrowed' it from his bench, it's not like he uses it anyway.)
• He consistently dripped whatever he was pipetting (buffer, plasma, white blood cells, PBS)
• Every time I had to pick up his conical there was fluid on the outside. I couldn't figure out when he touched it so I had no idea if the cells were contaminated.

I understand that it can make people nervous when someone is watching their every move. So I didn't get upset with most of those things, not too upset, and I was patient. However, he has done very similar procedures to this before. He worked with the same cell type we do, just from a different species. Things are very similar. But if I someone asked my opinion I'd say he never worked in a TC hood before. When I started to lose my patience was when I would ask him what the next step was and he couldn't tell me. He says a few things and it would be wrong. He couldn't even tell me what step we were on in the protocol. I had given him a step-by-step written protocol that was right in front of him. He's had it for a few weeks. I was thinking - Don't waste my time, which I'm using to teach you how to process blood, when you can't even follow the protocol.

That's when I lost my patience. He's a postdoc for goodness sakes!! He should know how to follow a protocol which is called "Human Blood Processing for Dummies" (no kidding, I wrote it several years ago.) He should be able to use a pipette

That's is the only and last time I will ever waste a day teaching him anything. I understand there is always an adjustment period when starting in a new place but he should at least have a clue as to what he's doing. This is the person that Kiwi hired when he stopped my funding and said he didn't have enough money to pay for me.

The following Monday morning he looked at me and asked what markers we stain for on the cell type we work with. Here was the conversation:

PD: What markers do you stain for on your cells?

Me: Huh? What do you mean?

PD: I'm comparing immature cells vs mature cells. What do you look at?

Me: (looking a bit incredulous) I'm not telling you.

PD: (smiling, always smiling, looking confused)

Me: We don't give the rotation students answers so I'm not going to give you the answer. Look up what you think you should stain for and why, then I'll tell you if you're right.

PD: (still smiling, still looking confused)

Me: Okay, what do you think you should stain for?

PD: (He lists markers)

Me: Right, that's fine.

Do you know how easy that information is to look up? It's even in a previous paper that came out of our lab. It's basic biology. If he doesn't know, look it up. Show some initiative, he has PhD and should be able to answer his own questions like that. Look things up. I'm not giving him the answer. I have my own stuff to work on, he should look it up, if he can't find it, then come see me. I am not the first stop.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm expecting too much of people. I just want people to do the work they've been hired to do, show some initiative, and don't waste my time if you aren't going to listen to what I tell you when you ask.

BSL2+ training

We had mandatory training yesterday for BSL2+ work. Forget the fact that we have been working in BSL2+ facilities for over a year. Apparently now we need training. The most interesting thing about the training - the full time biosafety officer teaching the class passed out candy for those who would answer questions or make comments. We were in the BSL2+ tissue culture room. In a safety class, we were encouraged to eat in the same room we were just told that we weren't allowed to eat in.

Ridiculous.

And during the same meeting we learned that the two table top centrifuges are room temp only. They aren't refrigerated. In a common lab space only an idiot would order centrifuges that don't refrigerate. Two of the three labs here use refrigerated centrifuges, however the lab in which the Center lab manager belongs to doesn't. She obviously doesn't think of every one's needs. Kiwi is working with her and the other lab boss to figure out what they are going to do. Absolutely everything our lab does requires equipment to keep it all cold. Kiwi was eyeing the centrifuge next to my bench. He wanted to take the centrifuge from our lab benches but I said no, bad idea. That's the only refrigerated one by the benches. I told him he can't have it. They will need to fix the problem without stealing the equipment the rest of us use. Especially the equipment I use!

More experiments

Sometimes I think it will never end. I have just a few experiments left, so I thought. Then I met with my boss today. Like I mentioned before, overall the departmental retreat went very well. My data was well received. One part I didn't focus on, because I was hoping after a few days if I didn't mention anything my boss would forget. Well, he didn't forget.

At the retreat were two of my committee members, Scope Man and Friend of Scope Man. Scope Man had a long talk with Kiwi before Kiwi even gave his presentation because Kiwi whipped out his computer to show Scope Man what we had. And Friend of Scope Man talked to both Kiwi and I after his presentation. The result - lots of suggestions of experiments I should do next. Easy in theory, and I stress in theory. But aren't all experiments that way. Things are never as easy as they sound and appear on paper. What I can't get my boss to understand is that just because other researchers have used a particular technique I will be using this same technique in a way it's never been used before. It might not work. In fact, I think this whole new series of experiments might lead to a dead end, but I'm afraid to think of that.

The other unfortunate thing, in order to run all these new experiments I have to learn how to use a new cytometer. I'm hoping it won't take too long to get the hang of it. I know flow and how collecting and analyzing events works, I know all the ins-and-outs of flow (I was dubbed Flow Goddess by our old lab manager! And the Goddess thing boosts my spirit.). But the software for this cytometer is completely different. Kiwi wanted me to stay with the machine I use now and didn't like the idea of my using a different cytometer. Then I broke the experiment down into smaller pieces and made him understand that for what my committee wanted to learn, I had to use this new cytometer that uses more colors. I had wanted to defend in December but now, I don't think that will happen. I really, really wanted to be done before Christmas. But it looks like I may not be done until January or February. But neither of us mentioned this during our meeting today.

To be honest, I really don't care too much as long as I'm done by April 2008 graduation and as long as I get paid. That last part is the iffy one, finishing by April 2008 is the easy one. I hate talking about funding with Kiwi, it is such a touchy subject. I think I'll give myself to the end of October to see how much I have done (and the likelihood I'll be finished with all experiments by then is slim, the end of November looks more likely), then I'll talk to Kiwi about an actual completion date and setting more limits to my experiments. I hate having to stress about funding when it's supposed to be his responsibility. He never should have hired a postdoc when he can't even care for his own students.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever get done. I wonder if my committee will ever let me leave, or more importantly, agree to let me leave before my funding is cut.

UPDATE:
Forgot one thing, all those images I made last week, that took the entire week to make, we decided today that they would look better if I did them in a different way. So they all have to be redone. When am I going to do this, on top of all the experiments he just decided that I need to do? Don't ask me. I have no idea.

An hour I will never get back

I just spent an excruciating hour listening, well, sort of listening, to LB's data club. Which of course, contained no real data of value. He spent the entire hour showing other peoples' work, with some his own, and explaining how his vaccination study didn't work.

Since when is it appropriate to give a presentation of your data, while sitting cross-legged on a table, calling your boss the fearless leader? Data club is supposed to be casual but people at least try to act professional about what they are presenting.

He took credit for a lot of work he didn't do. In fact, he talked about how this construct and virus he made was what he was most proud of in his project. He didn't have anything to do with it! He couldn't clone if his life depended on it. Someone in another lab and Ding made all of his stuff. Data club is a place were ideas are tossed around, suggestions made, stuff like that. Several people were trying to figure out why he got the results he did and what it all meant. When it can be interpreted because you can't conclude anything from a study where the administered vaccine wasn't titered and the drug therapy was miscalculated. Geeka and her boss kept asking him questions trying to expose how much of an idiot he is. It was amusing at least. He couldn't even answer the question about what kind of cell types had the receptor for the cytokine he was using.

It's amazing how my anxiety physically increases when I hear him talk. I mean, I can feel my pulse go up. And an hour was almost intolerable. I wouldn't have been there except I had to escort the new postdoc and I wasn't going to leave early because Geeka came to keep me company. However, it would have been amusing if both her and I and her boss all left at the same time.

FD has some good suggestions for LB to do for his project. The problem is, it actually involves work and LB doesn't do work. In the past 3-4 weeks he's only been lab 3 times, and not to actually do work.

Kiwi wasn't even there, he had a biosafety meeting to attend. But apparently that pissed of some faculty who were there. It looks really bad when the PI isn't present for his own student's presentation.

Geeka and I said in our next data club we should show the mounds of data we have of stuff that hasn't worked, and title it "Can I get a Ph.D. with this?" A professor I talked to with a great sense of humor said "At last, an honest presentaion title."

Heat Advisory

This came to my email. Of course, this would happen when the AC goes out:

Issued at: 10:18 AM EDT 8/8/07, expires at: 8:00 PM EDT 8/8/07

heat advisory in effect until 8 pm edt this evening

The NWS in pittsburgh has issued a heat advisory, which is in effect until 8 pm edt this evening. Temperatures will rise to the lower 90s this afternoon. With very humid conditions in place, heat index values will rise to around 100 degrees this afternoon across most of southwest pennsylvania, northern west virginia, and east central ohio.

A heat advisory means that a period of hot temperatures is expected. The combination of hot temperatures and high humidity will combine to create a situation in which heat illnesses are possible. Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors.

They're baaaack

LB is back. Now I know why. The Kiwi just showed up. He's in his office.

Words can't really express what I feel right now. Hell begins again.

It's hot

Okay, it's not often I complain about the heat. I love hot weather. I'm happy in the 80's, even the 90's. As long as the humidity level is relatively low. I've always been 'cold blooded' as some people who know me love to say. I'm almost always cold. It can be 70 and I'm cold. So when I complain that it's hot and uncomfortable. It is really hot and uncomfortable. The weatherman dude said it actually felt worse here than Las Vegas. Too bad I'm not in Las Vegas, then I wouldn't mind so much.

At work it's freezing. It's a relative new building but they seem to have a problem controlling the air. Everyone walks around in sweaters, coats, and hats. The longer you're there, the colder you get. It gets so bad that it is detrimental to working.

I have central air at home, which we use when it's uncomfortable and humid. Which it has been lately. But it's a temperature I can control so it's not too cold.

But now the AC is broke. So I went from way too cold, to way too hot. The humidity is ridiculous. The cats were melting when we got home with the windows shut. My cat sheds bad enough as it is, now if it's possible, he's shedding more.

One bright light in this weather conundrum - we have a window AC we put in the bedroom window that we bought before central air was installed. The bedroom is now our haven. The only problem with that - the little cat Sophie, likes to ambush my cat Dante from behind the curtain. There will be hissing and screaming all through the night. It's started already.

I hate summer colds

So I've been sick. The symptoms started last Wednesday. I was going home Friday for the 4th of July (since it was on a Wednesday we celebrated on the weekend, it was easier for everyone). I know when a bad cold is coming on and I just knew. So I called my doctor on Thursday for a prescription, yes, I know, antibiotics don't help when it's a virus. But the past few times I haven't had any luck in getting rid of it without help, so I wanted to hit it before it came on hard. Well, I didn't get the prescription until Saturday morning, actually two, amoxicillen and hydrocodone for the cough but it was too late. It already hit me hard. I had no voice, was exhausted, and coughed a lot. It was bothering my asthma.

Unfortunately, I'm still sick. The only thing I could keep down yesterday was some broth and that wasn't until late in the evening. As a result, I've missed a lot of work, the end of last week and ALL of this week. What compounds it is that the week prior I didn't get anything done because the cytometer was broken and I had to toss my cells because of an unwanted virus infection. I've lost half a month. I wanted a break but not this way. This isn't rejuvenating. Pardon my language, but this just sucks. The amoxicillin is useless and the hydrocodone works to stop the coughing but it makes me feel 'funny.' Now that I'm pressured to get a lot done to graduate I can't afford to take this much time off. I was only able to drag myself to work to process blood so I have cells to do experiments.

I'm starting to feel extremely discouraged, more than usual. I remember two months ago I was telling my parents that I should be done with experiments by the end of June. Before that we were hoping I'd graduate in June, then it was moved to the end of summer, now it is moved to early fall. I feel like I'm running out of time. What if I can't get done by December? I have no choice because Kiwi isn't paying for me anymore, the department is. The reality didn't hit until I received confirmation of my registration for the fall.

I'm not even to the point where I can write yet. My boss doesn't even want me to work on a publication yet. I'm starting to, as geeka puts it "falling into a deep pit of despair."