My schedule is getting a little out of control. One quick glance at Google Calendar, and my weekends look like this, starting with this weekend as Weekend 0:
Right Now: (okay, in 15 minutes) research competition to which my PI informed he would be extremely disappointed if I didn't win. No pressure or anything.
Weekend 0: Bachelorette Party Part I
Weekend 1: Harrisburg for dress fitting and very small bridal shower (my family)
Weekend 2: Philly for tasting, meet with the band, pick up wedding rings, hair trial, another meeting with the Rabbi, and a very large (groan) bridal shower (his family)
Weekend 3: Central PA for bridal shower for friend J (I am a bridesmaid in her wedding)
Weekend 4: Blast in Baltimore with my PI (what does it say about me that I'm spending a weekend doing something social with my PI?)
Weekend 5: Fiance's graduation party
Weekend 6: Bachelorette Party Part II/ Fiance's Bachelor Party
Weekend 7: Fiance's medical school graduation (Dr. Fiance)
Weekend 8: Ms. Disgruntled Julie becomes Mrs. Disgruntled Julie (how long until Dr. Disgruntled Julie??)
Weekend 9: honeymoon
Weekend 10: honeymoon
Weekend 11: return from honeymoon in time for aunt's husband's daughter's wedding
Weekend 12: Bachelorette Party for J
Weekend 13: Friend from CA flies out to visit
Weekend 14: J's wedding in Michigan
And that takes us straight through 4th of July. I wonder means when I feel not excitement from upcoming activities or exhaustion from schedule, but sheer and utter guilt from the fact that this is 14 weekends in a row in which my time in the lab will be minimal. Not relief from having a Saturday or two off from the lab -- just guilt.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Match Day
The next person to ask me some variation of the following three questions will find themselves with my 3" pointy stiletto heel of my Kenneth Cole New York pumps implanted in their skull:
1) Wow, you guys are going to be living several hours apart for several years. Don't you have any concept of how hard that will be?
2) Why isn't he staying in DC? If he really loved you, he would have stayed where you are. Are you sure you should be getting married?
3) What do you mean you're not dropping out of graduate school to move with him? A good wife would put her husband first and move with him.
In case you were wondering, my answers to the above questions:
1) Really? Seriously? I had NO IDEA. I thought it was going to be fantastic! I thought having a husband live in a different geographical region from me was going to be SO amazing that all my friends would be jealous and decide to live apart from their significant others! NO SHIT I'M AWARE THAT IT'S GOING TO BE HARD, YOU MORON. But thanks for reminding me and making sure I can't temporarily stick it in the back of my head and try to be happy that he matched at a program he really liked.
2) Or, maybe rather than not loving me enough, he just wasn't competitive enough. Maybe his board scores weren't good enough, and that Pass in surgery wasn't good enough, and his letters of recommendation weren't strong enough. Maybe if he had picked a less competitive field than radiology, he would have been able to stay here. But he was only offered one interview in radiology in the area and when he met with the program director, she encouraged him to rank other schools higher in his list. Which is why he did. Which is why he matched at his top choice, which would not be here. Or, maybe you're right and he totally doesn't love me enough. That could absolutely be it too.
3) No comment, just a middle finger extension.
1) Wow, you guys are going to be living several hours apart for several years. Don't you have any concept of how hard that will be?
2) Why isn't he staying in DC? If he really loved you, he would have stayed where you are. Are you sure you should be getting married?
3) What do you mean you're not dropping out of graduate school to move with him? A good wife would put her husband first and move with him.
In case you were wondering, my answers to the above questions:
1) Really? Seriously? I had NO IDEA. I thought it was going to be fantastic! I thought having a husband live in a different geographical region from me was going to be SO amazing that all my friends would be jealous and decide to live apart from their significant others! NO SHIT I'M AWARE THAT IT'S GOING TO BE HARD, YOU MORON. But thanks for reminding me and making sure I can't temporarily stick it in the back of my head and try to be happy that he matched at a program he really liked.
2) Or, maybe rather than not loving me enough, he just wasn't competitive enough. Maybe his board scores weren't good enough, and that Pass in surgery wasn't good enough, and his letters of recommendation weren't strong enough. Maybe if he had picked a less competitive field than radiology, he would have been able to stay here. But he was only offered one interview in radiology in the area and when he met with the program director, she encouraged him to rank other schools higher in his list. Which is why he did. Which is why he matched at his top choice, which would not be here. Or, maybe you're right and he totally doesn't love me enough. That could absolutely be it too.
3) No comment, just a middle finger extension.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
My Hat, It Has Three Corners...
When I'm stressed, I bake. There's just something about pulling out the rolling pin and taking the time to slow down and concentrate only on rolling out a perfect circle of dough that I find so relaxing and calming.
That said, it's quite convenient that Match Day also coincides with Purim.
There are currently six dozen hamentashen (cherry and apricot) sitting in my kitchen, should anyone want to drop by. Because if you don't eat them, the next thing I do when I'm stressed is eat. And I'm already nervous enough about not fitting in my dress when I go for my first fitting. And really, while I do enjoy good hamentashen (and mine are quite good, if I can be not-so-humble for a moment) and look forward to Purim for just that reason, nobody needs to eat six dozen.
Oh, and if you happen to be matching tomorrow, good luck! And if you happen to be the significant other of someone matching and you have either a) been dating less than 6 months, or b) will automatically be moving wherever your significant other goes, please look elsewhere for sympathy tonight. I've already had people in each category both tell me "You have no idea how nervous I am for tomorrow." Yep, you're right. I've been with my fiance 5.5 years. We're getting married in 2 months. And if he matches elsewhere, we'll be living apart. Not for a couple months or a year... until I finish my Ph.D. Which would be 3.5 to 4 years. Married. Living apart. 4 years.
Nope, I totally have no idea what you mean about being nervous.
Kindly look elsewhere for your sympathy, because you sure aren't getting any from me. But I can offer you a hamentash.
That said, it's quite convenient that Match Day also coincides with Purim.
There are currently six dozen hamentashen (cherry and apricot) sitting in my kitchen, should anyone want to drop by. Because if you don't eat them, the next thing I do when I'm stressed is eat. And I'm already nervous enough about not fitting in my dress when I go for my first fitting. And really, while I do enjoy good hamentashen (and mine are quite good, if I can be not-so-humble for a moment) and look forward to Purim for just that reason, nobody needs to eat six dozen.
Oh, and if you happen to be matching tomorrow, good luck! And if you happen to be the significant other of someone matching and you have either a) been dating less than 6 months, or b) will automatically be moving wherever your significant other goes, please look elsewhere for sympathy tonight. I've already had people in each category both tell me "You have no idea how nervous I am for tomorrow." Yep, you're right. I've been with my fiance 5.5 years. We're getting married in 2 months. And if he matches elsewhere, we'll be living apart. Not for a couple months or a year... until I finish my Ph.D. Which would be 3.5 to 4 years. Married. Living apart. 4 years.
Nope, I totally have no idea what you mean about being nervous.
Kindly look elsewhere for your sympathy, because you sure aren't getting any from me. But I can offer you a hamentash.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Need Pillow, STAT
Today's post is brought to you by the letter S.
As in, Shit, Science Seriously Sucks.
I've been doing the time course experiment from hell, and have gotten a whopping total of less than 6 hours of sleep over the past 4 nights, all of which has come through dozing off on the couch in spurts of less than 30 minutes. I haven't seen my bed since Sunday, and I am grumpy, miserable, and have a raging headache because my schedule is so screwed up that I can't take my anti-migraine meds at the appropriate times in my sleep schedule -- wait, what sleep schedule?
Three valuable lessons I have discovered:
1) Calories consumed in the laboratory between the hours of 10pm and 6am don't count. Eating around the clock keeps you awake, but it totally doesn't count against your daily calorie quotia. That entire mega bag of peanut m&ms I ate yesterday morning/last night/whatever the hell day that was? Zero calories!
2) If you don't actually make it into your bed, it doesn't count as a day/night cycle. Society dictates that you should shower once per day/night cycle, but if five days have extended into one, you are not obligated to shower, as you never actually made it into bed. And I managed to shower twice in my very extended single day, so it's like I'm squeaky clean!
3) If, after 3 nights of sleep deprivation and misery, your PI discovers that you have been in the lab since 3am and asks why on earth you would do that because he FORGOT that just 3 days previously he assigned you the time course experiment from hell, it is justifiable homicide.
Last night, while I was walking home from lab at 10:45pm, I passed a big group of first year medical students (or maybe undergrads?) walking down the street in the direction of the bars. This morning at 3:15am while I was walking back to lab, I passed the same group retuning home from their night out.
My life officially sucks .
As in, Shit, Science Seriously Sucks.
I've been doing the time course experiment from hell, and have gotten a whopping total of less than 6 hours of sleep over the past 4 nights, all of which has come through dozing off on the couch in spurts of less than 30 minutes. I haven't seen my bed since Sunday, and I am grumpy, miserable, and have a raging headache because my schedule is so screwed up that I can't take my anti-migraine meds at the appropriate times in my sleep schedule -- wait, what sleep schedule?
Three valuable lessons I have discovered:
1) Calories consumed in the laboratory between the hours of 10pm and 6am don't count. Eating around the clock keeps you awake, but it totally doesn't count against your daily calorie quotia. That entire mega bag of peanut m&ms I ate yesterday morning/last night/whatever the hell day that was? Zero calories!
2) If you don't actually make it into your bed, it doesn't count as a day/night cycle. Society dictates that you should shower once per day/night cycle, but if five days have extended into one, you are not obligated to shower, as you never actually made it into bed. And I managed to shower twice in my very extended single day, so it's like I'm squeaky clean!
3) If, after 3 nights of sleep deprivation and misery, your PI discovers that you have been in the lab since 3am and asks why on earth you would do that because he FORGOT that just 3 days previously he assigned you the time course experiment from hell, it is justifiable homicide.
Last night, while I was walking home from lab at 10:45pm, I passed a big group of first year medical students (or maybe undergrads?) walking down the street in the direction of the bars. This morning at 3:15am while I was walking back to lab, I passed the same group retuning home from their night out.
My life officially sucks .
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
"Anonymous" Donor
Last month, I randomly received in the mail an issue of Working Mother magazine. As I am neither "working" by the literal definition of the word (apparently my bazillion hours in the lab don't count) nor a mother of any sort, I thought this was odd. I just assumed, however, that it was one of those free trial issues. The magazine gurus saw my subscription to Martha Stewart's Weddings was going to expire, so they figured this was the logical next step -- you know the rhyme, first comes love, then comes marriage, etc. No big deal. We, coincidentally, happened to have a pregnant friend visiting the day I received the magazine in the mail, and she happily took it off my hands.
Then, earlier this week, another issue came. With a notice that I had received a gift for a one-year subscription to the magazine.
Let me make this clear: I will not be a mother anytime in the near future. No way, no how. I have said for a long time that I do not want to even think about children within my first 5 years of marriage, and considering that a week from tomorrow is Match Day and I'll find out exactly how many hundred(s) of miles I'll be living apart from my soon-to-be husband, I especially have no desire to basically be a single mother working a bazillion hours per week in lab for a $24,000/year stipend while my husband is living several hundred miles away working a bazillion hours per week as a resident. Someday, I hope to have children. Someday, in the distant future, when I am residing in the same city as my husband and our hours are reduce to only half a bazillion hours a week and we're making a bit more money. Someday would not be now.
This is a point of contention with my future mother-in-law. She absolutely, positively cannot wait for grandchildren. Cannot wait. As in, she would be THRILLED if I announced today, unmarried, that I was pregnant. She made the offer that if we wanted to have children ASAP, she would take the grandchild and raise it in Philly and I could come visit on occasional weekends when I can get out of the lab. My fiance sat down and talked with her about her incessant nagging last summer when it reached the point where we both felt like I was only welcome into his family on account of my uterus (which in and of itself isn't a great thing, since my ovaries tend to be rather dysfunctional to begin with, so there's no guarantee that I can even have children, which will clearly make me the biggest failure ever in the eyes of his mother). Since the big argument, things have toned down -- we thankfully no longer get the "When I have grandchildren..." speech every time we visit, though it is obvious that she is still bitter about the subject.
That said, I finally got around to contacting Working Mother today to find out why on earth I am receiving the magazine. Apparently, an "anonymous donor" from Pennsylvania bought me a year long subscription. Hmm. I wonder who that could be.
I think my uterus is now officially closed for business after this stunt.
Then, earlier this week, another issue came. With a notice that I had received a gift for a one-year subscription to the magazine.
Let me make this clear: I will not be a mother anytime in the near future. No way, no how. I have said for a long time that I do not want to even think about children within my first 5 years of marriage, and considering that a week from tomorrow is Match Day and I'll find out exactly how many hundred(s) of miles I'll be living apart from my soon-to-be husband, I especially have no desire to basically be a single mother working a bazillion hours per week in lab for a $24,000/year stipend while my husband is living several hundred miles away working a bazillion hours per week as a resident. Someday, I hope to have children. Someday, in the distant future, when I am residing in the same city as my husband and our hours are reduce to only half a bazillion hours a week and we're making a bit more money. Someday would not be now.
This is a point of contention with my future mother-in-law. She absolutely, positively cannot wait for grandchildren. Cannot wait. As in, she would be THRILLED if I announced today, unmarried, that I was pregnant. She made the offer that if we wanted to have children ASAP, she would take the grandchild and raise it in Philly and I could come visit on occasional weekends when I can get out of the lab. My fiance sat down and talked with her about her incessant nagging last summer when it reached the point where we both felt like I was only welcome into his family on account of my uterus (which in and of itself isn't a great thing, since my ovaries tend to be rather dysfunctional to begin with, so there's no guarantee that I can even have children, which will clearly make me the biggest failure ever in the eyes of his mother). Since the big argument, things have toned down -- we thankfully no longer get the "When I have grandchildren..." speech every time we visit, though it is obvious that she is still bitter about the subject.
That said, I finally got around to contacting Working Mother today to find out why on earth I am receiving the magazine. Apparently, an "anonymous donor" from Pennsylvania bought me a year long subscription. Hmm. I wonder who that could be.
I think my uterus is now officially closed for business after this stunt.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
So THAT'S why scientist aren't fashionable...
By 9:15am, I have already successfully managed to trip and fall sprawled out, face first in a bucket of ice. It's going to be an awesome day.
(For those wondering how I managed that amazing feat, someone stole the scooper thing from the ice machine. Seriously, who does that? What could anyone possibly NEED a GIANT ice scoop for so badly that they have to STEAL one from the research building? Anyway, I had to dig out ice with my bare hands, and the ice was really packed, so I had to actually kneel down to try and reach all the way in the back of the ice machine to find some non-compacted ice. After filling my ice bucket, I tried to stand up, and my heel caught in the hole of the rubbery honeycomb mat thingie that is under the ice machine to prevent people from slipping on pooled water. And, naturally, as my heel got caught, I went flying foward and managed to land with my chin IN the ice bucket and my shoe stuck in the mat. Thankfully, it was still early enough that nobody was around to witness my extraordinary grace. Oh, and in case you were wondering -- no, I will not learn from this experience to not wear heels to lab. What's the point of a closet full of fabulous shoes if you're never going to wear them?!)
(For those wondering how I managed that amazing feat, someone stole the scooper thing from the ice machine. Seriously, who does that? What could anyone possibly NEED a GIANT ice scoop for so badly that they have to STEAL one from the research building? Anyway, I had to dig out ice with my bare hands, and the ice was really packed, so I had to actually kneel down to try and reach all the way in the back of the ice machine to find some non-compacted ice. After filling my ice bucket, I tried to stand up, and my heel caught in the hole of the rubbery honeycomb mat thingie that is under the ice machine to prevent people from slipping on pooled water. And, naturally, as my heel got caught, I went flying foward and managed to land with my chin IN the ice bucket and my shoe stuck in the mat. Thankfully, it was still early enough that nobody was around to witness my extraordinary grace. Oh, and in case you were wondering -- no, I will not learn from this experience to not wear heels to lab. What's the point of a closet full of fabulous shoes if you're never going to wear them?!)
Monday, March 03, 2008
I need a new calendar...
This conversation during dinner sums up my week thus far:
Disgruntled Julie: Is today Tuesday or Wednesday?
Fiance: Uh, it's Monday.
Disgruntled Julie: Funny.
Fiance: No, really. It's Monday.
Disgruntled Julie: Good grief.
And this would be exactly why I think that spending weekends in the lab is actually extremely counterproductive. By the time Monday rolls around, I'm convinced it's mid-week, and the thought of making it through an entire week is nauseating. Especially when I was in lab at 4am on Saturday and 5am on Sunday morning.
Plus, it looks like this week I get to start a time course experiment in which I will need to lyse cells every 6 hours for 72 hours.
So, is it Friday yet?
Disgruntled Julie: Is today Tuesday or Wednesday?
Fiance: Uh, it's Monday.
Disgruntled Julie: Funny.
Fiance: No, really. It's Monday.
Disgruntled Julie: Good grief.
And this would be exactly why I think that spending weekends in the lab is actually extremely counterproductive. By the time Monday rolls around, I'm convinced it's mid-week, and the thought of making it through an entire week is nauseating. Especially when I was in lab at 4am on Saturday and 5am on Sunday morning.
Plus, it looks like this week I get to start a time course experiment in which I will need to lyse cells every 6 hours for 72 hours.
So, is it Friday yet?
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