A lot of changes!

Well if there was any doubt that I write these daily I’m sure yesterday’s brief post explaining my panic helped answer that question. It really was a busy day and that’s not a bad thing. Things are… changing and I can’t tell how they will turn out now, but I’m anxious to see the outcome. How very mysterious! Let’s talk about it.

First up, if you are a avid reader of my daily little blog you know that I’ve had my laptop for a good six or so years now and it’s still a great piece of tech! Unfortunately it’s showing its age, there’s a big spot on my mouse pad where the coating rubbed off, the d and c keys have warn away, the c is blank and the d looks like the i key. Most of the plastic has dried, fallen off, or has been reglued back into place. Also I just realized, the d key rubbing off is apparently new, I looked at the photo from the linked blog post where I did some repairs to it and it was still there! I take good care of my things, but no matter how well you take care of something, age gets to it. * gestures vaguely at my body * (okay, so I beat the crap out of my body, but that’s not the point!)

Thankfully my fellowship just happens to include money for a new laptop. As in it is specifically designated for a new, personal, laptop so I can do my research. I’m getting a new one and it should be here tomorrow! It’s a beast too, which is awesome since I didn’t have to pay for it and with how fast technology progresses I try (when I can afford it) to get the higher end electronics so I don’t have to replace them as often. Like my current laptop, which is still in my opinion faster than some of the base computers that are available today. Hint: get more ram than you think you’ll need!!

That’s just one part of the things changing for me. I’ve also got some new results from the experiment that I did! While my Co-PI is cautiously optimistic and is helping me temper my excitement, we’ve designed some new experiments to eliminate some of the confounding factors and better isolate what we’re looking for. It’s going to be very, VERY, exciting to get started!!!! I cannot wait and the best part is I was given the green light to start. Now I just need to run it by my main PI and see what he thinks.

Unfortunately my main PI and I aren’t on the best of terms at the moment, that’s a story for another day though. The short of it is he’s now sort of been ignoring me and by sort of, I mean he won’t respond to any of my (at this point, many) emails. Oops. I’m thinking it will work out based on the little I’ve heard from others who are involved in my situation, but it’s definitely a source of anxiety for me at the moment. So yet another thing I need to juggle.

I’m apparently working on two different grants, one for funding and another for equipment for my project. My main-PI isn’t as skeptical as my Co-PI about my results and is trying to push full speed ahead with it. Now I’ve got a weird situation where I’m being pulled in two different directions. I feel like I’m in one of those TV shows where the parents are pulling the kids to do two completely opposing things. It really feels like I have both of them grabbing an arm and yanking. As I articulated the only way I know how to my Co-PI, I don’t want to publish garbage so I would prefer his cautiousness to my main-PI’s enthusiasm for now until I know for sure I have something.

I also am the lead researcher on a completely different, but somewhat similar experiment (I’ll let you my dear readers figure out what that means). We did the first one yesterday, it ran long so instead of getting a break I had to rush to set up the next experiment skipping lunch and any moment I wanted to set aside to blog. We should finish with the first of five subjects sometime next week… which reminds me the experiments haven’t been scheduled yet so I need to follow up and make sure that happens.

That’s just a small sampling of things that are changing for me at the moment, I’ve found myself preverbally stuck at the top of a steep hill, I could fall down either side, one will work out in my favor and the other… well let’s not think about that for now. Ironically enough I’m so used to a whirlwind of change hitting me that this hasn’t even really fazed me. I’ve been doing this kind of rapid entire earth shifting changes type thing since I was a child, so bring it on.

Or for all you fellow geeks, I guess I should say, I’m a leaf on the wind watch how I soar.