A lot of the reason for that is because the grad student part of my life (i.e. about 85% of life) has been sneaking up on me lately. However, I think I may be the only grad student EVER to wish that The Advisor was more structured and slightly more demanding. It may be because I'm her first grad student ever, so she hasn't learned yet that half her job is to, in a sense, abuse her students and make them cry. This seems like a fantastic situation, and sometimes it actually is. But, despite a certain sense of intrinsic motivation toward achievement, there are times when I need someone to kick my ass and tell me to get it in gear because I'm not good at doing that to myself.
Right now, I should be working on my Master's Thesis - all the data are collected, all the statistics are done (I hope), and I just need to write my little heart out. Write, write, write. But - with no hard and fast deadline, or real expectations from The Advisor to have it finished yesterday, I'm having a hard time actually sticking to self-imposed deadlines. Bah. Bad grad student.
Things are going fairly well in the lab, even with certain experiments still not working after 9 months. I could have had a baby in this span of time and I still can't get in situ hybridization to work for freaking leptin receptors to work. That's ok - I have 3 (4th is starting soon) other projects to simultaneously keep me busy. Oh, and, cleaning up after The Incompetent One.
:Warning: Here comes the venting part...
I have slides with tissue samples sitting in my office. They are not mine. They have been here since last Sunday (8/31) after I found them under a heavy pile of lab debris. They are not mine, but they are from an experiment that should have been mine but was given to The Incompetent One because my other projects (i.e. the ones not working but that no one else knew enough biology to handle) didn't leave me any time for it. These slides will be on a poster I'll be presenting at a conference in November. I'm seeing how long it takes her to realize they are gone. Before 8/31, the last time anything was done to them was 8/18 when they were set out to dry. I know that I will have to give them back and say that she screwed up, yet again, but I'm waiting on the off chance there is some tiny shred of competence in there... or minor concern for experiments. The Advisor knows (not that I have them, but that I find them under a pile of heavy crap). When I mention things like this to her, she says "I'll talk to her." Nothing changes.
(A little background on The Incompetent One. The fact that she's a grad student is scary enough sometimes, but she used to be a lab tech. The lab made it through her time as a lab tech and, for some reason despite the fact that The Advisor recognized that there were things seriously lacking in her tech capabilities, she offered her a spot as a grad student. It makes no sense to me, after contemplating the firing of an employee to turn around, offer them a spot in your lab for the next 5-6 years, and have a good chunk of your research depend on this person. The Incompetent One accepted because she had nothing better to do, so why not go to grad school. This is almost offensive to me, someone who worked her ass off to get into grad school in the first place and takes this seriously (most of the time).)
:End venting:
Ooh look.... knitting. Knitting will make me feel better.
No comments:
Post a Comment