happy

I'm happy today. I think I may have actually decided on the project I want to run and can move forward. My PI agreed to let me try out this crazy idea I had and is willing to let me move forward. I don't feel as stressed because at least now I can start making my stimuli and working towards something. I hate being in limbo, and planning 4-5 possible experiments but being told NO, NO, NO, was very frustrating and made me feel very insecure about being here and starting over.

Hopefully I can start to DO stuff now and then I won't feel like I'm going to get fired!

If I can get my experiment to work I can do 3-4 follow up experiments. I won't know for a couple of months if it is even feasible due to training, set up etc so fingers crossed, I'm just glad I get to try!

Feeling a little lost

I'm trying to decide on my experimental design. After meeting w/ my PI I feel a little bit lost. I present an idea of what I would like to do, and then hear about how that seems a bit difficult and maybe we shouldn't try that. So I modify it or come up w/ a different approach and then I hear the same thing. Sometimes the critique is really good and helps to point out a flaw. Other times I feel like because it is different she doesn't want to try that....

I guess I need to work on my communication skills, and work on pushing forward ideas I believe in. In my old lab, my PI and I would discuss ideas and then if I said I want to do X and then X she would say great! lets do it! (of course sometimes she would have suggestions to change things and we would talk out, do x first, then y because of... etc) but I got to do experiments and she was willing to try different things. Here, I'm told, "lets hear about other task designs" but when I suggest one I hear "Lets, not do it that way, lets modify it to be like how we do our other tasks"

Which in this case won't work that way. I feel pressure to decide and get this process started, but I also feel like everything I come up with isn't what she wants.

New city, new job

I've moved and started my new job. I alternate from feeling like I have some things under control and am making progress, to feeling alienated and immobilized with fear. Afraid to design a bad experiment, feeling bad about not knowing anything about this new field of research, not knowing how the day to day operations of the lab work etc.

I've been reading the literature and coming up w/ some ideas. I've been running them by one of the graduate students, which has been helpful but I still haven't settled on a new behavioral experiment. I feel like my boss wants me to design one quickly but I want to have all the parameters in place so that when I do my behavioral and neural correlate analyses I really have all the necessary conditions to to answer my questions of interest. It is exciting but I mostly feel nervous.


My husband is looking for work but is restless and HATES our new state. Mostly because it is more expensive and is inconvenient in some ways. I figure that will ease with time, but feel bad about him being out of work. I know he is lonely too.

transition

I'm in the middle. I don't officially move until the 28th. I'm trying to pack, clean up my lab area (I have so many papers, binders it is crazy), plan for my new lab, and write up a paper. My boss is pushing me to submit it before I leave. We have to load all of our stuff July 22, clean the place. I'm running out of time.

I keep thinking why did I push myself for 7 years for this? I finished this degree to go work for someone else, to make little money, to work long hours for what? I gave myself a health problem in the process. So that maybe, MAYBE 3 years from now I can find a job and move again? I'm dragging my husband half way across the country, away from my family. He won't have a job... 1 in 6 Americans are unemployed and he is leaving his job for me....


I'm just tired, worried, stressed and SICK of my data. I feel like I can't focus or think. I should be thankful I have a job, and I am, but I'm terrified I won't know what I'm supposed to when I get there. New techniques, new animals, new literature. ack. I finally figured out what I was doing here and now I'll be starting all over again. I feel scattered. Did anyone else feel like this when they moved on?

summer....

Well since I'm officially done I guess it is summer for me. I'm trying to get my dissertation chapters converted so I can submit them to a journal. That involves a lot of condensing of material and making different figures etc. It isn't too bad though and I've been working far fewer hours too! yay! It is so nice cooking, eating dinner at home and seeing my husband. I better be careful and not get too used to it, I know when I move I'll have to put in some long hours again.

I think we found an apartment but they didn't respond to my last email so even though I have a move in date, I didn't sign a lease yet. I hope we still have the place. We still need to schedule the moving company to drop of our pod like boxes. I also need to do some major purging. We have so much crap!

I may not continue blogging once I move. I still enjoy reading several blogs but I started this in the middle of grad school when I felt isolated and alone. I needed to connect with other students/ post-docs experience similar things. Who knows what the new lab will be like.... I'll guess I'll just wait and see.

feeling weird

We applied for a townhouse in our new city. We move at the end of July but E wanted to lock something down as soon as possible. I hope it is as nice as the pictures show. It is weird to be done w/ my dissertation. I was working like mad for so long that now I can work throughout the day but not be stressed out. I can leave and eat dinner at a normal time. It feels so crazy. Did other people not want to do anything related to the same data set after they finished? Even though I'm here for two more months I hear about once a day about how when I'm gone the lab will....(expand, do x, etc)

and that feels weird too. I know that they will move on and do different projects but I've been ordering supplies, organizing stuff, and working in this lab for 7 + years! I'm the first one to get a PhD and it is strange to see everyone else so ready for me to go. I'm ready to leave too, to start my post-doc and do new projects, but I didn't disappear yet!

Dr. Neurosciencegirl

Well I officially defended last Thursday and have made all my minor revisions (accept for from the one member who is out of state and hasn't sent them yet). My defense went smoothly and only took 1 1/2 hours including my short talk.

It feels good to be done, but today I had a meeting about all that needs to get done before I leave.

1) Write up last chapter for publication
2) Help new graduate student and work on affiliated data
3) Write a lab manual


I knew I would have to work on my paper for publication, pack move, organize my desk space and clean out my office, but writing a lab manual with a step by step explanation of everything I did from data collection onward is not going to be fun. I am really unmotivated to do that.