Boss told me to get the ball on the road a month ago. We can compromise the thesis, especially if I have nothing by march. Its july. My first off site poster has been presented. My first abstract is submitted to a real conference.
He told me this at a mini conference that only he and I went to. previous to that we had been pretty quiet around one another. I have to projects that seem like they have little to report on. Im trying to make the prep better. Looks like this. We need it better. Then he says why cant you do this. Some new idea. Im broken, so I cant take them. The ruins of experiment lay everywhere. I was speding tons of time hating him. Summer came on and was really joyus for a moment. Then back to hard times, and an undergrad to watch. The undergrad was an investment last summer. A win of sorts in that I was permitted to work with him, but the experiment never got to prime time despite many attempts. We work in the lab often on really hard things I think. Which is nice, but risky, and unfortunately we end up making sort of weak or vague arguments in the press.
So Im supposed to find a job with no paper in hand. So Im supposed to get the damn data. Things improve on the assay, but prime time means doing more technical things with my sample, and needed help from several more people. Which is a bet. Another lab tried to capitalize on my technique, but I dropped the ball in some respect. I am not in a position to do the whole experiment on their samples, but I could train them. Nice for the ego though.
The mini conference was great for the ego. Seems like something real I am talking about. But people seem not to care. People do not all study a biological question using obscure measures of gene expression. I do, its a bet. Since it wasnt really a conference conference, people were not that interested in looking at it. Thats what I will tell myself. I need to learn to sell better. thats the scary part of thinking about contacting people. To work for. And no I do not have three references. I guess its my comittee to the rescue. Better be. I guess I will have to talk to them.
I have a favorite gene and a favorite technique. Only few people in the lab now play favorite gene. Most everyone is genome wide. I believe in some classical job where you look genome wide, get favorite genes, and portray their function. Thats not what people are doing anymore. Its gene expression for its own sake. I dunno. So the committee said do the gene. The committee was very quiet and my boss basically pissed his panties that I didnt thank him after giving my yearly talk. I was plaining on it, contra the previous year where I didnt explicitly mention him. Fucking guy. So anyway the committe is pretty quiet. "if we were in my lab we would do X" says one of them. I guess meaning I could start doing that. Clone favorite gene, test it. In retrospect I should have jumped more on that but I cant jump on anything because there is too much disorganization. Im constantly reinventing protocals. Worst student ever. Anyway the other guy says blah blah Harry Truman changed his mind all the time you have to do what the boss says. True, sorta. Ive seem other students quit the lab with relative success, but I do not have a parachute lab to make that landing soft.
Bingo, boss changes his mind, we go genome wide and I burn mad time with the undie. Doing an assay I have done a couple times, but my girlfriend does daily. Strain on the relationship I think, but I consider my hands tied at the moment. So twice a week, bang out six samples until I get 12 good enough to move forward on. Then I join the team, the lab that I have ignored most of the time because Im too much of a hardcase to talk to. I dont believe in their methods and it drives me up the wall.
Im basically a well trained psychotic by july. I see that I am thinking things that I should not, and that I should keep my mouth shut more. And I should rest. But Im not resting. Becuase I am not 100% invested in this job right now. I do stupid hobbies. I waste time. I am going to try to hit the books. Im going to give that a try. Work hard, play hard, sleep more. I sleep little now because I feel so constrained that when I get time to myself I want to prolong it. Dont stay up late. Its much easier on your constitution.
Here goes
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