Stretched Thin

This hankering for a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's means only one thing - I'm extremely stressed out.

Is it the fact that I've gotten very little sleep in the last few days? Maybe, but I doubt that; I only give up sleep for things I truly love.

Is it the fact that I've had some experiments, including a big (and expensive) animal experiment, fail recently? Potentially, but like 90% of all experiments fail anyway, so it's hard to get attached to the notion that they work properly the first time.

Is it the fact that I've got mucho responsibilities with IV now? Doubt it - I love that stuff ... it's like crack to me.

Is it the fact that I'm trying to teach my undergrad to do stuff that I don't even know how to do or troubleshoot? Maybe, but there's something exciting about teaching on the fly. And I do have a great group of people around me to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

Is it the fact that my already lengthy to do list keeps growing longer daily? I don't know about that one; there's something hopeful about a long list of things to do - it means you have somewhere to go and some idea of how to get there.

Is it the fact that I've set myself up for this lofty goal of running the dish, and truly believe that my delusions of grandeur will come true? Again, I doubt it. The delusions of grandeur give me hope.

Is it the fact that I have too many things that I love doing on my plate? That's the answer. I care so much about each thing I'm invested in that I stress about doing things right and getting things done. I pour 120% of myself into things. You try the math - 120% of myself times a flobbity-gillion commitments makes no sense. I wish I had more than two settings - I wish I could pour 80% of myself into something, even 35% sometimes. I may not know much about myself, but I do know this - I'm either 120% in something, or I'm not in it at all.

I know a lot of other people feel this way too, so I feel kind of bad for complaining. But in a way, complaining is incredibly cathartic. When I started writing this post, I was convinced that everything was stressing me out. But when I spelled out every activity on my plate, I realized how much I enjoy each of them. Two and a half more weeks with the undergrad. Then maybe things will calm down.

A Day In The Life

Hike Time: 1 hour, 15
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: mid 60s

It may be a little to early in this journey to share with you what a typical day in my life is like. But I'm going to anyway, because this is my blog and I'll post what I want to (post what I want to, post what I want to ... you would post too if you had a blog too! [to the tune of It's My Party by Lesley Gore] ... I am a nerd)!

6:03 amere on the floor and the day had begun - I'd shower, get ready, have breakfast, and - Alarm goes off; hit snooze
If you've been paying any attention, you might have noticed that I changed my wake-up time so it would be daddy-approved.

6:12 am - Hit snooze (again)
I used to never be a snooze girl; in fact, the old me would scoff at the dependence I now have on that tiny button. When I first started college, I would set my alarm to 6 am (I was always stuck with an 8 am class). As soon as that alarm went off, my feet w be totally awake and ready for the day by the time I got to class.

Then, my lovely, spectacular, amazing blessing of a single room mysteriously started to flood. As a result, I moved in with my friend Megan, who loved the snooze button. At first, it was annoying, but I was usually awake before her anyway. In fact, I think that she missed more class the semester I lived with her than any other time in college; I would encourage her to keep on sleeping because she always sounded so sick when she woke up!

The summer after my freshman year at DePauw, I lived with (and worked with ... and socialized with ...) my best friend Kristin. Kristin was another snooze-a-holic. Since we had to be at work at the same time anyway, I didn't bother setting my own alarm and instead relied on hers to wake me up. Little did I know the damage that was to be done on my sleeping habits. Every morning was a concert of alarms, in nine minute intervals. Once the alarms began, Kristin chimed in with a groan, closely followed by a slap on the alarm clock. While Megan may have broke me into snoozing, Kristin made it a habit of mine. Before I knew it, my own groans were joining in the concert each morning.

I hit the peak of my dependence on the snooze sometime last year. I had the goal of getting up and working out each morning, so I would set my alarm for two hours earlier than when I had to be at work. Instead of waking up and working out, however, I'd hit the snooze for two hours and, as a result, feel exnhausted the rest of the day. So I guess another upside of this whole endeavor of mine is that I'll have to break my addiction to the snooze button; there's no way I'll set my alarm two hours earlier than the already God-forsaken time of 6:03 am.
Wow. I can talk a lot about something as small as a snooze button.

6:21 am - Haul butt out of bed & get ready

6:30 am - Drive off to The Dish

6:45 am - Meet up with Kathy and Kristyn
I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to do this hike alone ... friends always make the hike go faster.

6:50 am - Begin hike
P-a-i-n-f-u-l. Two 3.5 mile hikes to do, less than 18 hour apart? My body is seriously confused. I still manage to make it up the killer hills without pausing (except on the plateaus of course). And it's the small victories that count.

7:25 am - The 'do or die' alarm goes off
Ah, the 'do or die' alarm. First introduced on July 30, 2007, the 'do or die' alarm's sole purpose is simple: alert the hiker when it is 7:25 am. Depending on pace and location, the hiker then decides whether or not to finish the entire loop or to turn back from current position. Today, the 'do or die' alarm went off after we had already passed the halfway point of the hike - the big dish. There was no turning back today; we'd either finish the loop (99.9% likelihood) or die trying (0.1% likelihood).

8:05 am - Finish hike
The hike is an interesting place to people watch. Today, a group of four older women passed us (going the other direction of course, lest we be shamed by 60-70 year old women). They were chatting with each other, full of life and laughter. I hope that it was a little peak into my own future; I can only hope to blessed with such good health and strong friendships in my later stages of life.

Also, I know it's unlucky for a black cat to cross your path, but what about a jackrabbit?

8:25 am - Shower & Breakfast

8:50 am - Drive to Work

8:59 am - Parked
Just like on Friday ... interesting ...

9:05 am - The workday begins
The air conditioning for our floor is broken. On a hot day, this normally wouldn't bother me too much, as I can hide out in the cold room if I get too hot (that's how I survived a hot, humid, and sticky summer in New York City). But today, the air conditioning is broken in a different way - it's stuck on freezing and no one can figure out how to turn it off. As a result, I'm not entirely sure if my desk is located in my normal room, or has been moved into the cold room as a prank.

Despite the near freezing temperatures, work still continues as normal. During the morning, I set up an ELISA, work with my undergrad to do a Midi Prep, and analyze data in preparation for my meeting with my boss (who is also conveniently and confusingly named Olivia). With all this running around in the morning, jumping from experiment to experiment, you'd think I'd warm up. But that's definitely not the case.

12:00 pm - Lunch!
Ah, lunch. It used to be the time where I ate some food. Now it's the time where I eat some food, and blog. Oh how my life has changed ;).

1:00 pm - Meeting with PI
I have a very attentive boss. Not over-attentive, mind you; definitely not to the point of micro-managing. We have weekly meetings with each other, which I find highly useful in keeping me accountable for doing work; I feel like I've got to have something new to show her each week, so I have do to some work in the time between our meetings. Often, I find myself scrambling to analyze data and find some meaning in that data the morning before our meetings. So far, she's been incredibly helpful with troubleshooting and giving me suggestions of next-step experiments that I can do.

We have a whole hour scheduled for our meeting, but we rarely use more than 15 minutes of that time. Today, we managed to talk about all of my experiments from the past week, all of my undergrads experiments from the past week, the plans for my med student who is working with me, and whether or not I should switch my thesis project ... all in 10 minutes. How's that for efficiency?

1:10 pm - Back to work ...
Mmmmm ... lab smells delicious. I mean, CRAP, lab smells delicious. One of my labmates brought in carrot cake, in the shape of stars, with do-it-yourself cream cheese frosting. Could there be anything else more tempting? One of my labmates, Stacie, grabs one and digs in, gushing over how good it is. And I'm sure it is - all food cut into cute shapes is yummy. I immediately start to pout. She asks: "Oh, so it's more than just a hiking thing?" "Yeah, it's more than just a hiking thing", I reply. Apparently, it's the most masochistic thing I can do. And I didn't think it could get much worse - I am a grad student after all.

Thank goodness it's a busy afternoon ... and most of the afternoon was spent in the animal facility (aka the sauna). I think I might need to eat a little bit more before I go down to deal with the mice; I got a little nauseous today. Of course, that also could be because our data is turning out exactly the opposite as what we expected. While I thought that bleeding mice would spoil my appetite, it did just the opposite. And those darn little carrot cake stars are still sitting there. I beg and plead for my labmates to finish them; but to no avail. I wonder if I can make my undegrad eat the rest ... he is supposed to to what I say after all :).

6:45 pm - Ranchin' It Up/Bible Study
There is about a one hour period of the day when it makes no sense for me to go home. In general, this is the hour previous to any engagement I have on campus. For example, today, I was finished with work at 6:30 pm (ugh, was not expecting to stay that long). I have Bible Study at the Ranch at 7:30 pm. I was not about to stay in lab - it was a bad day, and at this point I was hungry and grumpy and just plain unpleasant. Thankfully, Kristyn was headed over to The Ranch early. So I went early too, and crashed on the couch. Otherwise, it would have taken me 10-15 minutes to drive home, and 10-15 minutes to drive back onto campus. Thrity minutes at home is just not worth it that much to me.

10:30 pm - Off to JM's
I don't know why (ok, I do), but somehow I find myself crashing Kristyn's visit with Joel this evening. Jacob & Joel's apartment has become this black hole of time for me; I enter and before I know it, I've been there for hours, and it's sometime early in the morning, and I have to exert insane amounts of energy to leave. Tonight is no exception. I got to the door to head on out, and then ended up talking for another 15 minutes or so. Oh well, at least I get to 'sleep in' tomorrow. (Note: to some people, what I am considering as 'sleeping in' isn't anywhere close to their definition. But to me, getting two extra hours of sleep by waking up at 8 am instead of 6 am is definitely considered sleeping in!)

12:30 am - Home, home again
For some unknown and slightly ridiculous reason, the first thing I do when I get home is turn on the TV. Today, it's to watch the penultimate episode of Hell's Kitchen. I have a DVR, so I'm not entirely sure why I feel the need to watch this episode tonight, when I can just as easily watch it at my leisure. Either way, it gives me time to post.

Also, anyone else think it's kind of crazy that I'm leaving home at 6:30 am, and not really getting back for good until 12:30 am? When did I become such an anti-homebody?

1:30 am - Sleep - FINALLY!

And there you have it, a typical day in the life. Thank goodness I get to 'sleep in' tomorrow!

Holy Hunger, Batman!

Whoa. I feel like I could eat a horse right now. Seriously. I had a fruit smoothie for breakfast, a nice salad with chicken for lunch (like 1.5 hours ago) - what more do you need body? I know that you know that there is a bunch of brownie bites (mmmmmmm) on the other side of lab. And you know that I want them. And you might even know that I know that you know that I want them, if you know what I mean. But NO! They are totally unnecessary! Besides, I'm going out to dinner for a friend's birthday tonight! And there will be beer. And there will be fried items. So at the very least, I need to save my binge until then. In a word, body, would you please SHUT UP!

Also, I'm really tired. Like really, really tired. I've already dropped a whole box of tips on the floor and almost burnt down the building by leaving the dishes in the high temperature dryer too long. I hope this doesn't last long.