Digging out
Ever feel buried under your work? Like you’ll never see the light of day? It’s odd to think that there are other countries who do it differently, but here in the states, we tend to do that a lot. Or at least that’s what I’m told, I try not to overload myself, but lately it seems there’s no way to avoid it. The problem stems from me, not the stuff around me though. I didn’t have to do so much and I certainly didn’t have to want to do it so quickly, but I have the strong sense that I need to in some ways, because I feel like I’m just plain late. I know it’s just a me thing, but I’m behind some cosmic deadline, or at least that’s the way it feels. And for the past few weeks there was an avalanche of work that I didn’t see coming, then again you never do.
(more…)The second deadline
Well we’re roughly 36 hours away from the second deadline of the month. There’s still two more deadlines I need to hit to survive the month, but so far we’re on a shaky, but manageable track to make it to deadline number two. Four deadlines in one month! It’s a lot, but I guess it is the spooky season. I just didn’t realize I would be dealing with man-made horrors beyond my comprehension. Seriously though with the second deadline so close, I am just a bit stressed at the moment.
(more…)The dissertation foundation work
Everything needs to have a good foundation, from homes to education, if the foundation is awful, it’s all going to collapse on itself. Science is no different. Especially when we’re working with data that you can’t make sense of at a glance. Without the proper checks, you can rapidly set yourself up for failure. So today is all about building that foundation. And with DARPA and my next presentation coming up, we need to at least get the foundation done.
(more…)Dissertation late nights
It’s another long day, but progress is progress. I want to graduate on time and I’m going to give it my best shot in making it happen. My dissertation is complicated and my proposal was a lot of work, more work than I wanted, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do in order to graduate. Since collecting all the data for aim 1 is finished, the rest, at this stage anyway, is up to me. It’s another late night, but the end is so very, very close!
(more…)The race against time
Well tonight’s post is coming ultra late. Mostly because I’m busy working on the data and am hoping to see some sort of result soon (if I’m lucky). There’s still a lot of work to do and I was hoping to get a proper post in today, but alas it was not in the cards. That said, it’s back to work I go, maybe I’ll get a glimpse of something good tonight, or maybe it will all be for naught, but hey at least I’m trying.
Long experiment aftermath
Well yesterday happened and I can feel it. Everything hurts at the moment, but I knew I was going to be sore today so there is absolutely nothing serious planned today besides maybe cooking something for dinner, maybe. Leftovers are a way of life in research, leftovers and protein bars. I wish I were joking, both hospital-PI and I brought protein bars as a “lunch” yesterday, which may or may not have been eaten as we ran from one part of the hospital to the next.
(more…)The week ahead
It’s been busy around here. Between data collections, experiments, papers, and making things, I don’t know how I manage to find time to sleep. This week promises to be slightly slower than the few previous, but that can always change and it looks like it may be changing as I’m writing this. Because of course it is, so let’s just dive in and talk about what’s coming before it all changes around again.
(more…)A few new skills
Not working on anything serious today. Nope, not doing it. I took yesterday for myself and I’m taking today for myself. So instead of working on something strictly productive, I’m going to spend some of the day, maybe just a few hours, looking over some of the skills I’ve been meaning to pick up that I haven’t had time to learn/read about. Will this help my work? Yeah, of course, but it’s also something fun I wanted to learn. I’m a sucker for learning something new and that’s exactly what the plan is for the day.
(more…)Time management with a work and school balance
How can someone work and go to school at the same time? It was a question I asked myself anytime I came across someone doing it. I imagined it was hard, there’s a lot going on with being in school alone. It’s literally a full-time job and while the pay is crap, the workload is every bit as real as any other job you would get. So for a long time I considered myself lucky that I was in a position where I could focus on school alone. I didn’t think I could do both. Then last year all that changed.
(more…)The wait of it all
See what I did there? As we are now at the end of the month, I’m starting to stress, yet again, about my dissertation experiments. Because life isn’t stressful enough after the past few days, my brain has decided to focus on yet another thing outside my control. But as with everything my brain does, writing it out helps, which is why we’re going to talk about what I have left to get my degree and how I’m anxious to get started.
(more…)Another surprise class and the week ahead
I don’t even know what to say at this point except… oops. I was asked to teach yet another class and once again I’m giving my PSA, stop being good at stuff or others will ask you to do something with the stuff you’re good at. To be fair I don’t even think I’m “good” at what I’m being asked to teach either, so it’s more a matter of no one else in the lab knows how to do what I did so it’s up to me to teach it.. yet again.
(more…)The headache of scheduling conflicts
It had to happen, we’ve hit a scheduling conflict. Or at least, I think we have. The problem is we don’t know for sure yet and that is definitely a problem because I need to give somewhat advanced notice or there will be issues for other things. So what do I do when things clash?
(more…)The week ahead
It’s time once again to take a look forward and discuss the next week of stuff I get to look forward to as a researcher/student. There’s a lot going on, so I figured we could just condense it all into one post and touch on each thing a little bit. It’s exciting, but it will be an exhausting week. Fingers crossed that things go smoothly, but I’ll let you be the judge about how likely that will be based on the limited information I can share.
(more…)Time management and a busy day
As usual, it’s a busy day. This one however is particularly busy and there’s not a lot I can do about it except pull out the magical powers of time management, set some goals and limits on how long I can work on things, keep my head down, and hope for the best. The day will end, eventually, but the amount of work I finish is, in part, up to me. How do I manage to be productive? Well a pseudo-structure method helps.
(more…)Overwork and the consequences
Yesterday’s post came late in the day, but it wasn’t because I was busy or even because I was hard at work. The truth is I was hard at rest. After two weeks of rushing, working, prepping, and basically all the -ing you could think of, it was bound to happen. I needed a break and I was forced to take one, my only saving grace was that it was the weekend so it could happen, but it’s a good reminder that we all have limits.
(more…)Work and School
Let’s face it, if you’ve ever gotten any sort of degree, you know it’s a job all its own. You can even say you’re a student on almost all things that ask for employment, so it’s not a new idea. When you start a PhD or in some cases, even your Masters, you even get paid for your work, albeit not great. So I was always impressed, and surprised, by people who work while pursuing a degree because I knew I could never do something like that, then I did.
(more…)Whatever it takes
Well, yesterday happened. If you’ve been following around for awhile the last time I didn’t write a post we were dealing with apocalyptic weather (as in no power bad). So I think after years of being consistent, I wouldn’t blame you if you thought something bad had happened. In reality, there was just a mountain of work and no time to relax. I don’t like pushing myself like I had to yesterday, but it was for a good cause or at least I think so, or I wouldn’t have done it.
(more…)Calm before the storm
It’s going to be a busy week and while I feel like I need to say that every week, this week in particular is going to be challenging. There are several experiments scheduled that I’ll be in charge of, or at least have a big role in, on top of papers (multiple), and other work. So instead of getting a head start, I’ve been trying to take a break. Because if you’re going to have to push yourself, there’s no point in starting the race exhausted.
(more…)Another year of lazy goals
It looks like today is officially the end of the school term for me. It’s somewhat artificial since I was never taking any real classes anyway, but we need to mark time somehow and the school term works as well as anything I guess. But with the end of the semester, we have the start of academic summer, which means it’s time for me to plan out my goals. My lazy goals that is, or how I make sure I take some much needed rest.
(more…)Another deadline rush
Why is it always a rush?! I wish I had answers, maybe as scientists we just like to procrastinate, but whatever the reason, we have a huge deadline just five days away and it feels almost insurmountable. As hospital-PI puts it, I have 12 hour nights I can get it done, he’s kidding… I hope. It’s time to break out the hard stuff, caffeine that is, and get ready for the week ahead.
(more…)3 aims, 2 experiments, 1 year
It’s now official, I have a rough timeline for everything I want to do and I’ve got the greenlight from my committee that the work I propose to do will be enough to earn my PhD. I’ve spent the past day trying to plan out the rough outline of what the next year will look like in context with all the other work I will be doing and it will be busy!
(more…)Slides, robots, and figures. Oh no!
Since there’s a mile long list of things I need to get done this weekend, let’s just grab the top three time consuming things and cram them together into one post! When I took on the full-time job while (hopefully) wrapping up my PhD, I didn’t expect for things to be so… busy? Okay, things are always busy, that’s a theme of any PhD journey, but it does feel a bit excessive lately!
(more…)A busy weekend ahead
As per usual it feels like there’s a lot going on and I’m getting nowhere. It’s an interesting feeling, but I’m sure we’ve all been there. Since there’s a lot of things, I’m once again grouping them into a single post so I have something of substance instead of several very short posts over the span of the next couple of days. What’s going on this weekend you may ask, well just the (hopefully) final version of my dissertation proposal, some data analysis for an experiment we’ve been working on, and a bunch of prep work for all the things happening next week.
(more…)The dreaded dissertation timeline
Things are slowly moving forward. I’ve got an IRB approval, I’ve got a proposal mostly written, and I’ve passed along the needed equipment list to school-PI for purchase. Once I finish my proposal modifications, I should be ready to start scheduling my proposal defense. At which point, I should have the greenlight to collect my data and, in a perfect world, graduate soon! But…
(more…)Pardon the dust…
Well today I’ve had a major demolition project going on at home (see yesterday’s post for details), which has left precious little time for anything else, much less blogging. Sorry, but for the day this is it. As a reminder, no matter how big your goal, no matter how far you’ve come, it’s okay to take a break if you need it. My goal was 365 days of academic blogging and well sometimes you need time away. It doesn’t reset the clock, it just makes you human. So take a minute for yourself if you need it, I certainly do!
Sanity and the week ahead
The past week has been surprisingly difficult. There are a lot of things right now that are up in the air and without moving forward, nothing will be settled. Still, there are ways to prepare and things that can be done now to take the stress off. We already know how last week went, so let’s take a break from directly talking about my horrible mental health and take a look at the week ahead. Spoiler, this is another way I deal with my horrible mental health. You didn’t think it wasn’t related, right?
(more…)Time management and mental health
We’re all super busy… right? I don’t think it’s just me, we feel like there’s a mountain of things to do. Then you try to get through the list and when you look away just for a second, suddenly you have twice the work left. This is particularly troublesome for someone like me who has serious mental health issues (along with physical health issues). I want to do all the things, but my mind and body have other plans for me. Somehow I still manage my deadlines and since I was specifically asked to share, we’ll talk about how I do it.
(more…)The balancing act
With the weekend here, comes time for some school work. School and work is a tough combination, but I did this to myself. The payout is both in experience and security, but the risks are just as high, failure on either end would mean severe disruption to any plans I’ve made. Then there’s the third and fourth pillars to this equation, physical and mental health. Thus a complex balancing act where if one thing becomes too heavy, the whole thing topples over.
(more…)The week ahead
Well the next two weeks are shaping up to be interesting. I’ve got a lot of the onboarding stuff to get out of the way for my new job (yay!) and I’m still juggling two different papers basically full-time. Considering those two things are really the only stuff on my plate at the moment things feel pretty good, sort of anyway. There’s still a lot of mental health stuff going on and I’m just feeling overwhelmed with the choices I’ve made so far. So what’s the game plan for the week look like? Let’s talk about it.
(more…)Controlled chaos
Life has been pretty messy lately. Not just because of the pandemic, but that is definitely not helping anything right now. I’ve got papers due, I’m making a job change, and the wildest part is that my Co-PI may be leaving so I’m not even sure the job I’m changing to will still be there after the end of the year. That doesn’t include the outside factors, car issues, home issues, health issues. Those are all there too, but mostly right now I’m concerned about work related stuff and I realized that for the past few months it’s just been controlled chaos.
(more…)More competing projects
Were does the time go?! I have no time left to get my projects done and yet there’s still a lot that needs to happen. Today is one of my semi-famous lists of stuff I need to get done in an outrageously short amount of time. Didn’t we just do this a month or so ago? I think so, but here we are counting down yet again to the newest set of deadlines and as with all my deadlines they clumped together and fall at what amounts to the same time. Don’t believe me? Well let’s take a closer look.
(more…)When you need to say no
Awhile back I wrote a post called “When you don’t want to say no” about some cool experiments that I was going to do and how the heck could I say no to cool experiments?! Well today is the other side of the coin. Sometimes you need to say no. You may not want to say no. You may not feel comfortable saying no. Nevertheless, you need to say no. Today is that story, the story of how I said no.
(more…)Path planning
I’m an anxious person, I acknowledge this. PTSD, anxiety, depression, just a few of the things I live with and try to manage daily. To help keep me sane(ish), I have certain things I do. I like making to-do lists, having a well organized calendar, and I like to keep track of where I’ve been and where I’m going. That last one, that’s the topic for the day. With summer here things have changed. I am done with classes, I’m going to be teaching (here), I set my “lazy goals” (here), and it’s the time where I review my progress and plan for the next year. I figure others may benefit from doing something similar, so let’s go over how I do this.
(more…)Return of the lazy goals
It’s the end of the term and that means two things. The first is that I no longer have to worry about classes. Actually that’s going to be a permanent shift now that I’m done with the required classes for my degree (aww yeah!), so that’s handy. The second is, of course, taking extra time to focus on my mental health. Hence what I like to call my lazy goals, because let’s face it, goal setting just feels like the adult way to make sure you’re relaxing the way you really want to.
(more…)The transition to summer
Well it’s official, my grades are in. Okay not “official” exactly, but they posted to the class website and I passed, obviously. In hindsight it’s funny because I was constantly worried about how well I would do in the class, especially with this project being worth so much, but I managed to get 100% in the class, so there’s that. Now I am statistics and it bends to my will! That would be a super power for sure, even though the class was a pain, I’m glad I took it. Now I make the slow transition to summer. It’s slow because it doesn’t happen all at once, but I’m excited.
(more…)The end of the term
It looks like I survived. Another term down and one step closer to the finish line. It’s not quite the clean victory I was hoping for, but after yesterday I now no longer have any class requirements for my PhD. The only requirements I have now are with my dissertation, so now I can focus on that work exclusively. I’m not going to lie it feels pretty good. Since the end of the term isn’t as clean cut as I was hoping for. I figured today we can look at the leftovers from the past week of panic. We might as well after the week I had!
(more…)Major milestone 3 (of 3)
I’m exhausted. Let’s just get that out of the way. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much work to get done in my life. No, scratch that I know I’ve never had this much work to do in such little time in my life. My eyes feel like they are about to bleed and I’m afraid if I turn my head to the side my brain will leak out my ears. The end of the term is usually an academic marathon, but this is ridiculous. It’s just been deadlines left and right. Anyway today is the end of the next set of major milestones, it’s not the victory I was hoping for, but I’m hoping rest will not be too far behind.
(more…)Time for the big finish
Well call me a wizard because not only did I somehow manage to get everything done yesterday that NEEDED to happen, I also somehow managed to make more work for myself. Yeah, the universe hates it when I’m productive apparently. I’m tipping the balance and that’s never a good thing. But seriously, I now have more work to do and a lot of it is due tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’ll explain. Later I’ll probably cry about it too. (not serious) (super serious)
(more…)Major milestone 2 (of 3)
Can’t stop now. We’re at what I’m calling major milestone 2 of 3. Yep, yet another batch of stuff is due today. I’m not super thrilled with all this and I still have so much to do before Friday I want to scream. As with major milestone 1 (here), we’re going over what I have done (spoiler not enough), what I need to do (a whole lot), and the plan to get it finished (cry for a few hours). Let’s just dive into it since there isn’t a whole lot of time (for me anyway).
(more…)One major milestone down
Yesterday was sort of a cliffhanger. Everything was due, not a lot was fully complete and I had not one, but two things that my main-PI needed to urgently respond to and he was MIA. I swear you couldn’t write something with more drama if you tried (at least for a PhD candidate). Never fear today I’m taking a brief respite from the work I need to get done today to share what happened yesterday. As the usual this week, it was a wild ride all the way to the end.
(more…)Major milestone 1 (of 3)
The good news, like it or not today I will have less work to do! The bad news is that I’m sort of up against the wire here. As promised, it’s all deadlines all the time for the next week. While this may not be the most useful or exciting read, it certainly is going to be a dramatic finish (see: train wreak). Today for simplicity since there’s so much to do and literally only days to do it, let’s go over what I have to do today and exactly where I am in all of that work. Spoiler, it’s not looking pretty.
(more…)The first major deadline
Well tomorrow is the deadline for several of the things I’m working on, including but not limited to things I still need to get done today! Fun times for sure (not really). As promised yesterday we’re pretty much just watching the super slow train wreck that is occurring. To be fair it’s either going to be an extremely close call or a complete disaster, but that’s just how these things go sometimes. Let’s dive into what’s due tomorrow and where I am exactly in the process.
(more…)On the importance of milestones
We’re counting down the days and there’s still so much to do. It’s probably going to be updates from here to the finish line because let’s face it, there’s not much time for anything else! Since yesterday I talked about the importance of planning and why it’s good to lay things out, I figure today I’ll talk about the importance of milestones since I have about a dozen or so I need to hit! For the sake of time, let’s just dive right in.
(more…)The game plan
Well I’ve got two days (not counting today) to get so much stuff done I don’t even know where to start. The good news is I’m feeling slightly better about my odds. The bad news is nothing is done so there’s nothing to celebrate just yet. I have a plan though and I feel good about the way I laid out my work, if I’m careful (and lucky) I’ll be able to get it all done. We’ll see, it’s going to be tough, but today let’s cover why I plan my work when I get swamped like this and how you can do it too.
(more…)The thing about deadlines
It’s no secret I’m running around trying to finish everything I need to do lately. Deadlines for just about everything all fall within a few days of each other. I literally have a about a dozen things all due next week plus or minus two days. I’ve been trying to remain calm and remind myself that I’ve been in this situation before and it always works out in the end. That doesn’t stop me from stressing out and yesterday I got an email that could derail a lot of the planning I’ve been doing to make certain that all the work gets taken care of. Yep, I got another job to do.
(more…)An end in sight
Well I had an awkward conversation with my main-PI yesterday about some of the progress I had made and while he seemed generally supportive, it unfortunately wasn’t particularly helpful. All that work I had hoped to finish over the weekend? Still going, but there’s other things going on too so we’re counting down to the end of the term now and there’s an end to a lot of this, but it’s going to be (as always) a race to finish.
(more…)Mental health and time management
I don’t make the rules. As much as I like to think I’m in charge of my body and that I can will it to do what I want, I’m more of a passenger here. Sure I can make plans, that doesn’t mean my body will agree or that my brain will let me do all the things. It’s a very tense arrangement, I have life stuff to do because I have basic human needs and my body/brain tells me exactly where I can shove all that. Somehow I’ve managed and I figure why not share how I’ve developed work arounds for some of this, maybe it will help someone else in the same boat.
(more…)Time management as a student
AHHHHH! There’s so much going on right now my head feels like it’s going to explode. Still, I am hopeful that today is the day that I check a few of those things off my list. Let me just say, the more I have to remember the more stressed out I get, mostly because I’m afraid I’ll forget something. The solution is simple, don’t try to remember anything, but that is problematic… right?
(more…)End of the month crunch
It’s the end of the month and that means there are a lot of loose ends I need to tie up before the new month begins. Deadlines I need to hit, plots to make, projects due, heck I even have a book chapter due. There’s just a lot going on and not a lot of time to finish it all. It seems to be a common theme that things are “due” at the end of the month for me. This month is no different, but with school having started, it gets a little more hectic than normal.
(more…)A day of meetings and emails
It’s a new day with a new and long list of things I need to get done. I’ve already got a ton of bad news about my car issues and the rather large bill that is coming with that, but I’ve also got meeting after meeting scheduled for today on top of a long, long list of emails that need responses from me. Basically today is going to be exhausting and all I will have done is sit in front of a computer, how the hell does that even work?!
(more…)
Lunatic Laboratories 