1) To make a long story really, really short, a Dell repair technician came out yesterday to fix my computer, and he broke it. As in, the computer won't turn on now. Which means that I have no choice but to send it to the repair depot (which I was desperately hoping to avoid) to be fixed. This blog will be much quieter for the next week or two while my laptop is away, so I apologize in advance for the lack of content. I will miss you! And if my commenting on your blog is sparse, well, now you know why.
2) Perhaps you recall that my boss and I had a grant out for review? This week he got the score back, and the news, dear readers, is not good. The grant probably won't be funded, and that means that in a few months, I will no longer be working in my current position. I'm pretty sad about the news. I'm not going to lie: I thought we would get funded. For many reasons, I thought we'd get it this time. And, well...I was wrong. So it goes in science.
Today's been a hard day--I'm kind of a mess right now. But bad news deserves to be shared, and everyone has been so kind to me. I'm grateful for that. I'm not really mad about the news. Instead, I just feel really, really tired. Like go home and go to sleep tired. What a day, right? I have plans to go out for beer and mushroom burgers tonight, and it would be such a shame to pass up beer and mushroom burgers that I'm not canceling my plans. Hopefully my date will amuse me with funny anecdotes to distract me from the day's dreadful news!
At least today is Friday! I plan to spend a good chunk of tomorrow curled up under a blanket, reading a book and eating cookies. On Sunday, I'm going to run 13.1 miles really, really fast and then curl up under blanket to read a book and eat cookies. Clearly I have an excellent weekend ahead of me.
I hope your weekend is a good one too. xo
5 comments:
Gahhh! Both those bits of news suck. So sorry to hear about your grant -- I know you put so much work into that. Here's hoping that great new opportunities arise for you! And that the computer problem is a simple fix. (Good grief, with the repair tech breaking it?! GAAAH).
Have a good night out, drink a couple of beers, and I'm sure tomorrow will be better.
I'm so sorry about the laptop and the grant - insult to injury, that one. Grants are so unpredictable, and it's terrible that so many jobs depend on them. I know you'll bounce back from it though - you are so smart and you have the best attitude.
In the meantime, good luck at the race and enjoy those cookies!
*Insert epithet of your choice here*
Two things for you:
1) We've had the same sort of customer service from Dell. By that I mean extremely frustrating customer service (I'm assuming that having the tech break your computer was frustrating for you.), but that initial experience was followed by super-amazing-stellar customer service. Let's hope that's
you've now moved into phase two of the Dell tech experience.
2) You have a great talent for explaining science-y stuff to us non-science-y people. Keep that in mind as things shift and change for you. You are a woman of many skills, and not all of them require a lab or grant funding.
Hope your run is satisfying, your beer cold, your cookies delicious and your couch comfy.
oh man, i sure hope that the beer and mushroom burgers and really fast 13.1 means that things are turning around for you <3 perhaps this is a chance to make that leap from straight science to one where you get to write more about it to non-sciencey folks, have you checked out the communications departments at universities? let me know if you need to chat!
Thanks, everyone! I have the very best readers and blog friends on all the interwebs :-)
Shannon, I may take you up on your offer! I need to make a list of possible job opportunities to investigate. To be really honest, I'm feeling disillusioned about the academic world, but I'm not sure how much of that is the stress of postdoc life and how much is born out of a sense that the work we do in universities is just not appreciated by the outside world. I'm wondering if I need some time away from university life to figure out what I really want to do, and if a college or university is the right setting in which to do it.
Have a good week, y'all!
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