Eureka!

I am excited! Today I have finished a patent disclosure on a really-really cool idea. I thought of it all by myself. And when I shared it with senior scientists, they liked it. Liked it so much, that they came to me with other applications for the idea which we can file as separate disclosures. This is a true testament that my idea is good - others want in on it.

Who knows, maybe in 10 years from now there will be patients whose life is better because of my invention. They will feel better, sleep better, and live longer. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I (naturally?) think that this idea is huge and has a ton of potential. But simply the fact that it is mine, is enough. All this time I've been watching others saying smart things, doing interesting experiments, proposing new ideas. And all of a sudden I am a member of the club! Now others ask my opinion and listen to (and agree with) what I have to say.

Thanks be to Lord, who granted me an insight into how He intended things to be and a joy of discovery which will continue as I study this idea further!

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As the work day is wrapping up and the dissertation shift begins, my excitement is quickly fading away and the little girl inside of me is wailing "I don't want to work! I've been such a good girl today! Please let me go home!" It's almost 7pm. My goodness, how can I make my workday end at 5pm, so I actually have time for dissertation?!

And where do I find motivation? Oy. Well, let's start with something easy, like opening the file with the draft. Sigh. SIGH.

Saturday - 1, School - 0

This Saturday has been a total waste. Although it's quite a regular occurrence, I still fail to prepare for it. Absence of must-do things like drive to work usually throw me for a loop and I end up wasting my whole day regretting every wasted minute at the same time.

I did some stuff around the house: did five loads of laundry, cleaned our bathtub and shower curtains (long overdue project!), cleaned up our kitchen, vacuumed and that's about it.

Even though I've done a lot of house chores, I still feel like a total failure because I did not do anything school-wise, watched way too much TV and ate too much too often.

I kept thinking to myself to just take it easy, take the day as it comes, without planning out every single step. Just do something that makes you happy, I told myself. But you know what, I just couldn't think of anything that would make me happy! I think grad school has killed my ability to be happy...

It's not really about smoking

After being hit by an invisible ton of bricks around 6pm, I once again found myself unable to start studying tonight. Oh well, at least I'll get a blogpost out.

Work was busy today in all sorts of ways. Meetings and deadlines is nothing new. I also had a lot of draining social (work-related :)) interactions, where several people were pulling my attention in three different directions. I had made some new exciting hypotheses for my grant proposal (which will hopefully be approved in the next few days!) and spent time discussing them with co-workers.

Although I love interacting with people at work, I also find it very tiring. Yet somehow I still complain about not having enough of it (see my previous post). Go figure.

But I digress.

What I really wanted to post about is a strange mental image I've been getting recently after a stressful and tiring day. As I'm thinking of ways to relax and switch gears, I persistently get an image of me sitting on the stair steps and... smoking! Smoking! I never smoked! Never wanted to. Plus smoking actually excites sympathetic system, not soothes it, so why, why would my subconsciousness offer me this image?

Just for fun, I tried to look for reasons why I get such a strong association for smoking relieving high stress. Lo and behold, it is from my childhood!

My Dad had a very-very stressful job, which became even more so during post-Soviet-Union-collapse times, when many were losing jobs, salaries were low or not paid for months on end, and there was not much food to buy whether you had money or not. My Dad used to come home after 12-13 hour workday and simply collapse on the couch and sleep for an hour. He slept no matter the noise. Then he'd get up and help me with my physics homework... I never knew how hard it must have been for him until a couple of years ago when he confessed that his lowest time of all was when his (and Mom's) monthly pay was worth about 4 pounds of strawberries. Try feed a family of four with that! They never once mentioned it back then. I never knew!

I digress again... So my Dad never smoked inside of our apartment and especially in my presence. Over many years I have glimpsed him smoking only a few times. And in all of those memories he sat on a step in our garden, looking serene, relaxed, happy. I'm sure it wasn't so much smoking (which he does a lot more at work) but being in our garden, surrounded by home-grown fruits and vegetables which could support us through the winter, away from work worries and confinement of an apartment.

Oh, I miss my Dad now.

Suddenly I see

"Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
E.L. Doctorow

I am discovering that this might also be true about both dissertation writing and studying for an exam. Remember how I was complaining about not following my advisor's comments on my draft? Well, yesterday I wrote up a brief summary of most of his comments and somehow they made more sense to me! I guess they just sunk in and I'm calm enough now to see how to proceed.

Going even at a painstakingly slow speed through my book is giving me confidence that I will be able to understand harder topics because I'm not jumping to them but preparing the foundation to build upon. Our brains are truly a wonder!

In fact, I'm happy that my "headlights" are not too strong to lit up a whole lot of surface in front of me. I tend to reach for the farthest thing I can see without taking proper care of my steps. So I trip and fall and roll back to where I started. Going step by step has its benefits.

Slooooow progress

Today I spent 3 hours on reading 20 pages from the book my advisor gave me to study for the oral exam. The frustrating part is that these are FIRST 20 pages of the book. It should be an easy read. Alas, I've forgotten a lot of stuff thus I'm moving at a turtle pace here.

In my defense, this is not a novel-type book. It is a dense scientific book with lots of equations and terminology. So, one is not supposed to blow through it.

Nevertheless, 20 pages a day is a minimum I need to read every day for the next 2.5 months in order to cover most of the material for the oral exam. Not to mention other things I need to do... How is it possible to find 3 hours of extra time every day, on top of 8 hours of work?

Well, what a girl to do? Give up? No, I'm not giving this pleasure to my advisor. He will have to fail me first. And I plan on making it as difficult for him as I can.

So, although I am entirely fed up with writing plans I am off to write one again. Many priorities have changes over the past few days, so I have to figure out what is the most urgent thing to do now.

What are YOU complaining about?

To all grad students who have passed their oral exams, have finished (or close to finishing) their dissertation and are now looking for a job: Would you please stop complaining about how busy you are?

You work 20 hours a week. You can sleep for more than 8 hours a night. Your advisor wants you to graduate. Be happy!

Yes, looking for a job is daunting. But it does not take insane amounts of extra time. Your nerves, maybe. Time? Puhleeze.

Ugh, I am cranky. I just realized how much time I spend at work. It amounts to about 70-80 hours a week. This is insane and depressing. Especially given how little I've progressed in my dissertation. Which my advisor reminds me of often. But then, I will never be good enough for him.

I have to admit, reading other people complain makes me feel better somehow. So go on folks, never mind my self-pity party here, keep on complaining!

Another (un)scheduled freakout

I'm freaking out all over again. I met with my advisor to go over his comments on our paper. His comments were ok for the most part. Some were very good indeed. Some were way out of the league for this paper, but good for my research proposal. And some... Well some just freaked me out. Because I should be good at this. This is my major. I should be able to understand what he is saying and what he wants, but I don't! And I'm certain that's the kind of stuff he will be asking about at the oral exam. Plus somehow we ended up mentioning additional stuff for me to get done before my oral exam. Just in case I have some free time, I guess.

By writing his comments on a paper version of the draft he is making a lot of additional work for me. First, I had to leave work early and come to campus to meet with him. With driving (during rush hour) and parking that took me 2 extra hours. Second, his comments were brief, so I must remember the gist of it and write it all up myself. He is a co-author on this paper, so he could potentially actually WRITE a paragraph, you know. Third, I have to somehow communicate his comments to the two other co-authors and this feels very weird. I'm afraid of misinterpreting him. And I feel like telling on him in a way. Oh, and it will also take me a great deal of time to write it up. Maybe this is just an old-school approach.

The rest of the day was good but very busy with meetings, emails, making decisions. I had about 5 or 6 different things started at the same time and requests were just pouring in one after another. Emails, people stopping by, phone calls, reminders... Aaaaaa! Weird day, really. Usually my work is not that crazy.

My stomach hurts. I wonder whether it is the stress of the day or the brownies that I made.