I'm cold.
I like cold. But I like cold because I can generally do something about it, not because I enjoy being able to see my own breath in the air inside my house. I have a fire going, but I'm still cold.
Anyway, surprise post to shock those who may have me on their friends pages but have forgotten because I never post. Surprise! You're not supposed to be excited.
I never post because I rarely have anything good to say and I don't like saying the same depressing crap over and over. e.g. "Nothing I do in the lab ever works." "I will never finish my thesis." "I'm doomed." etc...
I'd like to think there's more to my life than just trying to get my thesis done, but let's face it... there really isn't. Unless you count watching TV/DVDs. I'm in the middle of Angel and Maguyver. What does that say?
I've been planning a post-thesis holiday in the hopes that it will help me motivate myself to actually get it over with. When I get even vaguely motivated it doesn't last very long because I look at my crap data (or lack there of) and remember that there's nothing worth being motivated about. I want to start booking my holiday, but I'm scared that I won't get my thesis finished on time to go on the dates I want to book. The departure date is one month before the absolute last day I can hand in my thesis (and two months after when I plan to) yet I'm still too much of a wimp to actually book it.
My supervisors have started talking about organising a post doc position for next year. That should be really exciting, but instead it just depresses me because I feel like it's just getting my hopes up and it'll never actually happen.
I got the data from my animal experiments last week. It was supposed to work this time. But no, that'd just be too convenient. The non-immune mice cleared the bacteria too fast so the whole thing is crap, I think it was because all the mice were infected with Staph which could/would cause local inflammation and white cell infiltration that would mean they'd all clear faster than they should because the white cells would already be there. Vaccination wouldn't really make that much difference because all that does really is speed things up. That wouldn't explain why it looks like the control for my fusion protein (i.e. totally unrelated antigen) looks like it's the best of the lot - it's not, none of the antigens made any difference.
Then I tried to analyse my growth curve data. I was all excited because I'd realised that I can use a first order rate equation to describe the curves and that should help me a lot. But not I'm annoyed because out of 4 different nutrients tested, 4 are negative and 1 is positive. Sounds good? Well sort of, except that the one positive one has massive variability in the controls. The controls that are exactly the same as the ones with the other nutrients (i.e. no extra nutrient added, just the base media) and they don't have so much variability. It's just bad luck. I guess I should try to repeat those ones again to try and get better data. But I've already tried that and the new data was worse - not terribly motivating to try it again.
On a more positive note: I have a literature review and two half size chapters written. That's nice. They all need a little more work, but at least they're there. I just need at least 2 more proper results chapters (preferably 3 more), a discussion and perhaps a method section. Maybe I'll go back to writing the method section, that shouldn't be too hard.
Anyway, surprise post to shock those who may have me on their friends pages but have forgotten because I never post. Surprise! You're not supposed to be excited.
I never post because I rarely have anything good to say and I don't like saying the same depressing crap over and over. e.g. "Nothing I do in the lab ever works." "I will never finish my thesis." "I'm doomed." etc...
I'd like to think there's more to my life than just trying to get my thesis done, but let's face it... there really isn't. Unless you count watching TV/DVDs. I'm in the middle of Angel and Maguyver. What does that say?
I've been planning a post-thesis holiday in the hopes that it will help me motivate myself to actually get it over with. When I get even vaguely motivated it doesn't last very long because I look at my crap data (or lack there of) and remember that there's nothing worth being motivated about. I want to start booking my holiday, but I'm scared that I won't get my thesis finished on time to go on the dates I want to book. The departure date is one month before the absolute last day I can hand in my thesis (and two months after when I plan to) yet I'm still too much of a wimp to actually book it.
My supervisors have started talking about organising a post doc position for next year. That should be really exciting, but instead it just depresses me because I feel like it's just getting my hopes up and it'll never actually happen.
I got the data from my animal experiments last week. It was supposed to work this time. But no, that'd just be too convenient. The non-immune mice cleared the bacteria too fast so the whole thing is crap, I think it was because all the mice were infected with Staph which could/would cause local inflammation and white cell infiltration that would mean they'd all clear faster than they should because the white cells would already be there. Vaccination wouldn't really make that much difference because all that does really is speed things up. That wouldn't explain why it looks like the control for my fusion protein (i.e. totally unrelated antigen) looks like it's the best of the lot - it's not, none of the antigens made any difference.
Then I tried to analyse my growth curve data. I was all excited because I'd realised that I can use a first order rate equation to describe the curves and that should help me a lot. But not I'm annoyed because out of 4 different nutrients tested, 4 are negative and 1 is positive. Sounds good? Well sort of, except that the one positive one has massive variability in the controls. The controls that are exactly the same as the ones with the other nutrients (i.e. no extra nutrient added, just the base media) and they don't have so much variability. It's just bad luck. I guess I should try to repeat those ones again to try and get better data. But I've already tried that and the new data was worse - not terribly motivating to try it again.
On a more positive note: I have a literature review and two half size chapters written. That's nice. They all need a little more work, but at least they're there. I just need at least 2 more proper results chapters (preferably 3 more), a discussion and perhaps a method section. Maybe I'll go back to writing the method section, that shouldn't be too hard.