The devil is in the details

So THAT'S what's wrong with me...

(Before I start out and you discover the lameness that inherent in the above title, please realize that my alternate title was A-TAC, which would have been funny to three other people, at most, and likely only me. So deal with it.)

Have I told you about my friend Iceland? I think that I have, but if not: Iceland is one of the other graduate students in my lab. He is the most senior grad student that we have (well, not counting the one who has graduated recently and is moving on the 15th) and is a good friend. Iceland is actually an MD/PhD student, meaning that he has studied medicine before starting in graduate school (technically he is the same year in grad school that I am) and is kinda sorta doctor-ish. He constantly claims to have no medical knowledge (particularly when we are having some sort of grad studenty discussion in the lab and someone asks ME a question that results in the answer "How should I know? Ask Iceland. He's the doctor.") and he looks terrified if I actually ask him a medical question, whether I am joking or serious. Today, however, he offered me an unsolicited diagnosis.

According to Iceland, I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

You see, I have recently been preparing for a meeting with my thesis committee (or in Harvard-speak: my TAC), as mentioned previously. My meeting is set for the afternoon of the 14th. At said meeting, I shall regale my TAC with the lovely data that I have generated over the course of the past year...or something. The TAC is composed of three faculty members plus my advisor. These three faculty members were the same three that administered my qualifying exam a year ago. At that meeting, I had to defend a 10-page proposal of what I was planning to do my thesis research on that I had turned in to them a week before. It would be an extreme understatement to say that my qualifying exam went badly. Yes, I passed, but it was pretty much the worst experience that I've ever had.

My TAC meeting will be somewhat similar to the quals...the same three faculty members will be there to examine my progress over the past year. I will be giving a presentation on this data to supplement a written document given to the faculty members before the meeting. The major difference is that my advisor will be present, which is good because I am certain that my advisor will ensure that nothing TOO bad happens. In the past year, I have given a number of talks on my research to much larger and more intimidating groups and they have all gone well: in fact the process of putting together my talk was really easy, since I just had to update and slightly change a talk that I gave in April. Graduate students have TAC meetings all the time. So...what's the big deal? (Well, besides the fact that all of the work that I have done thus far was on the part of the project that the committee HATED and advised me to drop)

Apparently I look like hell, which caused Iceland to come talk to me (and diagnose me with either "amagdyla issues" about the whole thing, or Post-traumatic stress disorder. (Please note, I am not making light of PTSD, I just think it is funny that he decided that was my problem) because it went so badly. What's my problem? It's this written document that I have to turn in before the meeting. I have no earthly idea what I am supposed to be doing.

If you would have asked me before I actually was on the clock with a TAC meeting scheduled, I would have said that I needed to write a report of what I've done over the past year and turn it in a week before the exam (which astute readers will note, would be today) I've asked other students and my advisor what I was expected to do and their replies included:

"A page"
"My last one was 60 pages"
"I think that Karen just printed off her slides once"
"Basically, you're writing the paper for all this data" (This was the opinion of both my advisor and Iceland)
"Just a quick summary-I mean, they aren't going to read a lot and they are going to see your slides."

As for when it is due?
"Before the meeting"
"With enough time for them to read it before the meeting"

According to the two "official" publications of our program...here's the deal:
1. "The student should present a brief written summary of his/her research activities during the time period since the last TAC meeting to each of the TAC members, and to the program office."

2. "Prior to each meeting with their review committee the student must prepare a written progress report summarizing the status of his/her research project."

The person in charge of the program has been out of town when I've gone to see her. This is a very odd situation for me: I am used to pretty constant (often too constant) guidance. My advisor is extremely hands on, but he is currently in the midst of working on a large grant (his assistant has put a countdown till the duedate on his office door so he has to look at it all the time. A few months ago he wrote a grant that was worth more than 10 times the previous largest grant I'd ever heard of. I can't even imagine what the deal is with this one). He will not have time to read my report thing-y, which is somewhat stressful in that it will go off into the void with no oversight, but also somewhat nice in that it can go out in perhaps a form that is acceptible to others but not up to his perhaps unreasonable standards.

Anyway....I'm totally freaked out about it. Obviously, it's not done yet. This may be the first time in my life that I have not turned something in by its due date (if there ever actually was a hard due date) I've pretty much decided that it will get handed in on Monday (which fits all criteria that I can see). I've worked on it sparingly for a while now, but I really only started putting in the someone-lit-a-fire-under-my-ass/research and write a huge paper during an all-nighter type of effort that I'm used to today. I've made a lot of progress and it will definitely be done then and then my life will be relatively better. I'm really, really frustrated with myself, though. I mean, it's a PROGRESS REPORT for goodness sake. Not a stressful event. Probably not in the top 5 most important things that I will write in grad school. Yet, I fell apart a little over it. Fuck. I'm just hoping that this will be like all of the talks that I've given...once I do it the first time, all of the subsequent ones are modifications of the first one until the whole process becomes old hat. So.....that's what's up here. Sorry to be such a downer...but I thought I'd at least assure you that I hadn't fallen off the face of the Earth.

posted by Immunegirl @ 5:44 PM