The devil is in the details

Smells like Teen Spirit

The first thing to notice is that I am again on pace for less than five hours of sleep, which is not cool since I only got 2.5 last night. Today was a kind of blucky day, though I guess I survived. Tomorrow I have some more technically challenging experimental stuff to do, so lots of problems certainly could ensue. Great....

I am still in a pensive/angst-y mood, which is certainly exacerbated by spending the night time hours awake. Aren't I too old for this? Shouldn't I have figured more stuff out by now?

I'm spending a lot of time wondering if all of my precious and soon to be written up data is, in fact, complete crap. I have to present on it in two weeks, and the pressure of needing to generate certain data and to format the rest of the data is getting to me. I'm afraid that once I plot some findings the way I am told that I ought to, the effect will go away. What if it does? Where does that leave me? I am certain of every other part of the story, but there is one thing that I have never re-graphed. I know that it is true deep down, because I always see it, but what if the numbers don't convey the effect that I definitely see in the wells. Also on the lab topic-does my boss think that I am working hard enough? I know he was really happy with me before, and I don't think things have changed in the way he is acting, but is he okay with my progress? My rotation student seems unenthusiastic. Will the boss think that it is my fault if she doesn't come back? There are a couple of meetings to discuss my progress that I am avoiding. When will that come back to bite me in the ass? What kind of problems will I face for my avoidance? Exactly how late am I going to need to stay in the lab tomorrow to get things done? Doing science would be so much easier if I could just do/plan/analyze the experiments and not have so many nagging doubts. I think that is one of the biggest things that I don't enjoy about the process during the times when I am anti-science-in the end, you can never be sure exactly what is happening to your cells, because you can't actually SEE them and observe everything about them...you only see what you look for. Sometimes I really with that I could be SURE about something. It's not like I need to be sure about what's going on all the time, but a little while of certainty would be really comforting.

I've got a similar list of nagging questions about my personal life too, as usual. Same old same old problems, and same ultimate conclusion as above: it's not like I need to be sure about what's going on all the time, but a little while of certainty would really be comforting.

I guess I am going to work on reading for a while, and hope that I can fall asleep. As with everything else, I'm not too optimistic about it. Wish me luck...

posted by Immunegirl @ 1:41 AM