The vomit paper endeth?

Well, I re-submitted the vomit paper. I've been obsessively checking recent publications to see if Fuctardio scooped me - but nothing has come up yet. So it looks like I just might have beat that group of assholes. I am not sure, of course, but I'm trying to stay optimistic. For once.

Submitting a paper is shitty. I really don't understand why it should take so long to do, and why there are always problems uploading documents. Wrong format. Session timed out. Randomly omitting a figure file. It's fucking horrible! For some reason, I couldn't upload my shit at work - so I had to go home to submit my paper. This is the kind of shit that makes people crazy. My PI said that it was actually easier to submit when you had to physically mail in the draft and figures. Man, I love irony.

So here I am, finally at peace for the first time since about January. It's been a crazy year. I mean, I'm not really done yet - I have to give a lecture in a few weeks that I have not started preparing yet. But hey, at least it's better than writing a paper, addressing and writing a paper revision, written comps and oral comp exams.

I got the feeling earlier this year that the stress will never end. There will always be something that I have to do, things I have to put off until the last minute, and things that will keep me up at night. It's for real now, man. There's no stopping it. I am a scientist.

Fuck me. I thought I was doing this to avoid a real job for the rest of my life. It reminds me of a little poem I wrote a few years back:

As it turns out, I was mistaken.
The unifying theory to all I've said and done is this:
I am learned, but I will never learn.

The scoop

Fuck, man. I could get scooped. Seriously.

I've been working on my project for almost three years. Since I thought I was going to submit it last fall, I presented my findings at a poster session. I went to a conference this week, and a huge name in my field essentially presented my data. I went cold and clammy. I thought my liver was going to rupture with fury.

This project has been crazy from the start. I had a really unique finding, but no one believed me. My boss tried to get me working on something else several times. I've documented pretty well how I was met with resistance by my lab mates. At the conference where I first presented the data, I saw people pointing at my poster and laughing. I got laughed at again this week.

I was really doubting myself for a while, and honestly I was a little scared to publish the data. Part of me felt so vindicated seeing him present what are essentially my findings. His conclusions were the same as mine. The mechanism was the same. I wish that I hadn't been so scared. I've said before that data don't lie, but like most things I didn't follow my own advice. And I could pay for it.

Of course, now that this titan is trying to publish almost the exact same research I have done, it means I have more weight behind my findings. But still - the dude is so well known and so successful that I am amazed he is trying to scoop me. Isn't his success enough? Apparently not. To make the matter worse, I really idolized this guy. Talk about some bitter disappointment.

Now they don't know my paper is already submitted and in revision. I'm hoping to have it in by the end of next week. I don't think I will get rejected, because it it a very mild review. I just hope to fuck they don't have theirs submitted too. It's an arms race - and I only have two arms. He has an army.

But I have to say, it will be the best feeling in the world to scoop a big lab like that. It might be petty, but that is what keeps me even more motivated to publish than I already was. Because fuck them. They fucked with the wrong person.

Failure Haiku

Kan resistant, but
Plated bacteria on
Amp-filled agar. Fuck.

My first venture in to comics

Gettin' my defense on

So the defense of my research proposal is over, and I fucking passed it. Awesome.

I was worried going in, because I was absolutely certain that one of my committee members hates me and another gets bored easily and lashes out with impossible questions. Dr. Impossible Questions did not disappoint - I spent the first twenty minutes of the defense explaining to him why my research is important. He just kept saying "Who cares?" Finally, another committee member came to my rescue, said word-for-word what I had said, and Dr. Impossible was satisfied.

Now my presentation differed in that I had data. I turned in my proposal three months before I defended it - and I wasn't just sitting on my arse the whole time. Halfway through my presentation of my first specific aim, they stopped me and said they didn't want to see any more data. In fact, they told me to forget about the presentation and just started firing away with questions. I tried not to look crushed that they were dismissing a presentation that took me two weeks of hard work to put together.

Now since I am a person who writes things like this little blog for fun, I try to make what I write sound good. One thing I do not like is repeatedly using the same word over and over (and over!). As a result, my committee spent ten minutes making fun of me for using "I believe" instead of "I hypothesize." I totally get why they harped on me for it, but the ten minutes were maybe a tad overboard.

Once all was over, they told me that I passed and that I did a good job - but I need to work on my writing. I knew going in that my proposal was a festering turd of a writing exercise and I thought I could get away with it. So uh, so far I am 0 - 1000 in trying to get away with subpar shit. You'd think I might have learned something by now, but no. I fucking hate scientific writing. As a lover of writing it pains me to say that, but I really do. Fuck passive tense!

It feels so fucking good to be an official PhD candidate - to know that there is just one more major hurdle to getting my PhD. It felt good immediately, and I still feel good about it. Several times, I've mistakenly thought that a milestone would give me some validation. For example, I thought that successfully passing all of my classes would make me feel different somehow. It didn't. This totally did, and it's fucking great.

The Proposal Returns

I submitted my research proposal on June 9th. I had these grand plans for its total awesomeness, but in the end I'm kinda ashamed of it. It's embarrassing for me to read. However, this is mostly due to the constricting format and page limits. I mean, how am I supposed to talk in-depth about several large research projects - with an introduction - in fifteen double-spaced pages? I can't without sounding like a moron.

So flash forward to last week, when I was on vacation. I get the email saying that my proposal was approved to move to the next stage: oral defense. Man, I am not looking forward to this.

As is typical of my university, I've spent the last week trying to wrangle together my oral defense committee (ODC). This is not easy. Apparently, this is never easy. A week after my initial emails went out, I still have yet to hear from one member. My defense is in one week.

It's good that this came along, because I was starting to feel like things were actually running smoothly.

So I'm working on my presentation. Or, rather, I'm looking that the screen intently while I slouch in my chair with my hands in my pockets. This is the phase where I try (unsuccessfully) to make everything come together with the power of my mind. It never works, but I have to do it. This also means that I will have to move in to the next phase some time this afternoon, where I curse and hate my life a little more than I do right now.

Here is what I like to call, My Exact Response to Everything I Have to Do, or The Five Stages of Lab Grief:

1. Denial. "Oh I have to do that? No problem. That's fucking easy."
   
2. Forgetfulness. "Wasn't there this big thing I was suppose to do?"
   
3. Aviodance. "Oh yeah, that thing. Uh, I have this experiment I better do first."
   
4. Desked. "I'm working on this! Really hard, like right now! Wait, I have some email to check. Oh yeah, and what was that thing I wanted to buy? I better go to Amazon to browse until I can remember it. Who was that chick who was in that movie last night? Better go to IMDB. Hey, I have a intro slide that just says "Introduction". Man, I need to take a break. But I'm working hard when I get back. For REALS."
   
5. Mania/Depression. "Oh fuck I only have the rest of the day to finish this. I'm going to work my ass off! I have to! I work better under pressure, man! Yay!". Then: "I hate science. I hate my life. This presentation is embarrassing and shitty. I'm going to look stupid like I always do. Why do I always leave things until the last minute? I swear I will never, ever do it again."
   

Rinse with beer. Repeat ad nauseam.

So I am scurrying to finish my presentation today for a practice run in front of the lab tomorrow. At least the whole affair will be over soon. I think.

I swear, I have spent nearly the entire time as grad student - now at the beginning of the third year - totally shitting myself. So really, grad school is a long, drawn out process of tempering homicidal and/or suicidal instincts mixed with the constant feeling of shitting yourself, feeling lousy and retarded, and being poor.

Sign me the fuck up!

Vomit Paper: Endless Shittiness

So The Vomit Paper was not rejected. Holy fucking shitballs. I sincerely thought that the motherfucker (and his minions) who made me look like an asshole during a plenary session at our field's major conference would have shredded it. I mean, the dude stood up on the stage and - before he started his talk - specifically stated that my results were not possible. Who does that shit? A motherfucker.

Alas, the reviewers had just a few simple revisions. Awesome.

The problem is that I have to do more experiments. These experiments are not working. Fuck Murphy and his fucking law. Fuck my damn cells for not behaving. Fuck Invitrogen for backordering essential materials to finish my shit. Fuck the lack of good antibodies. Fuck. FUCK!

I am taking a few days off for vacation. No matter when they are scheduled, or how short they are, vacations always fuck up everything. Like now, for instance, as I hover around in revision limbo.

My plan is to drown out the guilt and pressure with beer and Mexican food. My life would be so much easier if there were decent Mexican food around here.

This fucking kid...

Holy shit, let me tell you about This Fucking Kid (TFK).

TFK is in high school, and received some funding from the high skool to come and work in a lab. TFK chose our lab for some reason. Hooray for free slave labor, right?

Wrong. WRONG!

I've made it pretty clear that I like working with students. It means a lot to me, because I want kids to have a good experience in the lab - and not at all like some of the horrors I had to endure as an undergrad. I make sure to explain everything until they appear to understand, always ask if they have questions, and give them a sound foundation of methodological principles. At least I hope I do.

But This Fucking Kid officially wrecked my patience. Day one, I walked over to TFK and said, "OK! Ready to get to work?" TFK looks at me, eyes rolling, and says, "Not really."

Uh...

So I proceed to tell this kid my rules/expectations. They are as follows:

Rule 1: Our time is precious. If someone shows you a technique, he or she is taking time away from a project that needs to get done. Do not waste time. Respect this, and make sure to give thanks for the lesson. Once you have mastered the technique, ask your teacher if you can run any assays for him or her. Remember to give back.

Rule 2: TAKE NOTES. I don't care how kick ass a scientist you are, you are not going to remember a technique simply by observing, and learning by osmosis just isn't going to happen. Write shit down. If I get a reagent out of the fridge, write down which fridge it came from. Write down the shelf or box it was from. Look at the label, and copy down what is says on the label. Do this, and you will never have to ask where something is ever again. Write down when to turn on the heat block, or when to take things out to thaw. Take notes when I give you a little explanation of why I am doing something. If I draw out a figure for you, maybe keep it with your notes. I'm not doing this for fun. Your goal should be to take detailed enough notes that you can successfully complete a protocol with very minimal help the very first time you try it, because of Rule 1.

Rule 3: Don't fuck with anyone's shit. This is a blanket rule, and what I really mean is don't do anything that will compromise the results of a lab mate. Do not use a reagent that belongs to someone else without asking. Do not take something off someone's bench without asking. DO NOT TURN OFF A TIMER IF IT IS BEEPING (unless you write down the time you stopped it). Do not do a shitty job prepping lab stocks of media, autoclaved materials, etc.

TFK worked with me a few days, but never took notes. If I gave a recipe for a buffer, it was not written down (or not written down correctly). Eyes kept rolling. There was no enthusiasm. So finally, one hot afternoon around 4:30, the kid asked me if I could hang around for another two hours to finish an experiment because it was time to go home. This kid fucked around all afternoon, started this experiment too late, and expected me to finish things. I snapped.

Needless to say, TFK stays away from me these days. I heard, though, that the kid now takes excellent notes.

Schrödinger rationalizes some unresolved anger

I recently found, on teh interwebz, a digital copy of a record that I absolutely adored when I was a wee lass. For reals, I nearly wept. I have purchased this record three times in my life. Copy 1 was used as a scratching post by my cat. Copy 2 mysteriously disappeared from my record collection. I tracked down copy 3 in Germany, and let me just say that it was quite an adventure navigating the all-German website to buy the damn thing. Since my turntable is back home in AZ, I wasn't able to play it right away. I discovered, months later, that copy 3 had a fine scratch that causes the damn thing to skip. Fuck me.

So I found this gem online and downloaded it. I love how after 12 years I still know every word. Awesome.

I was (and continue to be) a huge fan of punk rock. In fact, I can always tell how much the lab is sucking my soul by how much punk I listen to at work. It's a directly proportional relationship. More hatred = more punk rock. That being said, I never called myself a "punk." It just felt dirty - the reason being that by the time I started listening to it, punk was very dead.

I've long felt that punk is like Schrödinger's cat. What is Schrödinger's cat, you say? It's my favorite quantum paradox. Since quantum physics is pretty hard to comprehend, this paradox attempts to explain to us chimps the nature of subatomic particles in quantum states. For example, electrons, as they orbit the nucleus, can spin "up" or "down". The electrons in an object such as your body will spin both "up" and "down" at the same time. This is called a superposition of states.

Since this doesn't really make sense to us in the real world, Schrödinger came up with this theoretical scenario in which a cat is put in a totally enclosed box with a radioactive isotope, a geiger counter, and some poisonous acid. If the isotope decays, the geiger counter detects the radiation and releases the acid - which, of course, kills the cat. Equally likely, the isotope may not decay and the cat will remain alive. Since the box is totally enclosed, we will not know what happens until we open the box. Therefore, the cat is both dead and not dead - a superposition - until we "perform a measurement" and open the box. In so doing, we force the superposition in to a particular outcome: the cat will be dead, or it will not be dead. We forced it to adopt a state by measuring it.

Such as it is with punk rock. It existed only as punk rock until it was called punk rock. Then it was, as Schrödinger might say, dead. The very idea and nature of punk rock, arising organically out of the ether and totally anti-mainstream, stopped being punk as soon as someone called it punk and gave it a face and a uniform. I mean, it's an even bigger paradox to be against the mainstream while being a mainstream movement. It still exists as a genre of music, but as a movement? Nope.

Of course I'm sure some people might not like this interpretation, but fuck it. I'm not saying that individuals can't have the spirit of punk rock - far from it. There are tons of vagabonds who could easily be described as such. But to wear the uniform is just plain silly. It's no different than a poodle skirt.

These are the things I think about when I can't sleep. Then I think about my proposal and I'm quickly in dreamy-dream land.

Some good news

I have successfully passed written comps. This is fan-fucking-tastic, because I was pretty sure one of the professors was going to fail me on one section. So, yay! That is the last exam I will ever have to take, which is awesomeness to the power of Avogadro's number.

Even better is the fact that they are giving me 4-6 weeks from today to write my proposal, rather than 4 weeks from the date of the exam - which is what I thought. So I got a ton of stuff done, very early. Now I can take a few days off to relax and celebrate! Woohoo!

Also, I submitted the vomit paper. Finally. I know it's supposed to be bad luck or something to disseminate the actual submission to the zero people that read this, but it has to be said. It took almost a year longer than originally anticipated, but it's fucking gone. For now.

I'm probably getting rejected, but I don't care anymore. I hate the vomit paper. It must die.

The Desk Months

Well, the qualifying exam is over. I think. And by that, I mean I am not too sure how I did on one section. I was essentially told to study a recipe for making bread, and all related bread-making technique and theory, then asked to come up with a cake recipe for the exam. The questions on this particular section had nothing to do with the papers I was given.

Fun.

Anyway, it's been nearly two weeks now and I still don't have my results. I was the only one taking the exam. So, yeah. These professors have never been very good at getting exams back in a timely manner, so I'm not sure why I'm so surprised. But I am! Because I am incredibly naïve!

So now I have two weeks left to do my proposal, which is a load of fun right after finishing my paper. The past few months have really been a nightmare. Paper, quals, proposal, not much bench work, gum-chewer returning to the lab to sit next to me. It's so much fun. All I want to do are experiments - but I can't. I have to write. Shit.

I can't wait until it's all done. I feel ready to leave, but that means I still have a few more years ahead of me. Of course.

Quals

I am on the eve of my qualifying exam. I've spent the last two weeks studying like a crazy person. I chained myself to a desk in the library and poured over the seventeen papers I am to know back and forward. Since I am to have "broad expertise" in these subjects, seventeen papers turned in to something over thirty once I printed out selected reviews from the reference section. If I'm being honest, it's probably the most I've prepared for in exam in the history of me taking exams.

Yesterday I had to give a seminar to my fellow students. I hadn't slept the night before because a) I hate giving seminars, and b) I was thinking about the exam. I sat in the library, bleary-eyed and nodding off, my hand clawed around various coffee delivery systems. I had so much caffeine that I nearly spazzed out during seminar, and I talked so fast that I don't think anyone understood what the hell I was talking about. No one cared, though; we all wanted to go home.

Despite all of this, and the fact that my boss is on my ass about submitting my paper, I felt a sudden calm wash over me. I went to the library again today, only this time I was only there for about thirty minutes before I started nodding off. I decided it was time to come home.

I can't possibly look at these papers anymore. I am sick of looking at them. I've decided to say no to more studying. Tomorrow I will have to sit from 9am-12pm, then 2pm-5pm, and then I get to do it all over again on Friday. No, I am not going to study any more. There is no way that I could keep all of this information straight in my head - there is just too much to know. Something is bound to fall off the bookshelf if I stack any more nugs of information in the ol' brain library.

I am done.

So this afternoon I came home and I watched Amadeus. I think I might take a nap. For I am starting to actually believe, for once, that everything is going to work out ok. This is, after all, the last exam I will ever have to take. I've spent the last five years preparing for it. If I pass, I will deserve it. If I fail, I will deserve it. But right now, I am starting to feel tired - and I will not feel the least bit guilty if all I do for the rest of today is sleep. And you know what? Even the idea of it feels pretty damn good to me.

FML

I am so overwhelmed. I had plans for my birthday this weekend, but I have to cancel them. Fuck. Work.