Bits and tids.
Warning: things aren't too cheery right now, so this isn't going to be sunshine and rainbows here.
I thought life in Berkeley would be better than life in Davis. I was pretty miserable before I moved and things are in fact better in a lot of ways, but worse in others. The ways in which it's worse, however, have less to do with the move and more to do with employment, and the inertia that comes with having entire days with nothing to do. Before you say something to the effect of "at least you have free time", remember that that kind of thing occurs differently for some people, and I do much better mentally if there's some degree of structure to my time, and I'm not too great at producing it myself. Anyway, this is what's going on:
1. Job. I'm half employed, maybe 60% now, moving slowly towards 100% between the lab job I'm commuting to in Davis and the tutoring job I'm commuting to in Lafayette. Honestly if I could just tutor all day long I would but the recession dammed up the flow of business that usually accompanies the new school year. In the meantime, I'm miserable at my lab job, for a set of reasons that I could help if I really put my mind to it, but my motivation has run dry and there's the inertia working against me again. I worked pretty diligently before my lab presentation last week, but my colleagues shot down my work so hardcore that I just can't see the point in working on it any more. The job is like a relationship gone south - you can put effort into getting it moving again, but after a while there's no more wind in your sails, and you end up just sitting in the painful mediocrity with neither party willing to admit how inadequate things are. It's easier to just let it drift until something else comes along. There's only a few options available: you either end it or you get dumped, and either way you just have to hope you can either do without or find something else in time.
2. I applied to 8 jobs so far, got rejected from 3, spoke with the employer at the most promising remaining option, and am currently procrastinating re-writing my resume to be better fitting to administrative positions instead of academic ones. For some reason I can't get myself moving on it. Maybe caffeine will help?
3. My current academic plan is to apply to graduate programs that will start next fall, and I've ditched the architecture idea in favor of math. It's widely applicable, I could easily get back into Neuroscience with it, and it's a language I've always wanted to learn. I intend to take the GRE before the end of the year, and the application deadline for the state schools in the vicinity is March 1st. I'll probably have to take an additional course at some university in the spring. Who knows how that will work if I have a full-time job.
4. One of my favorite UCD professors emailed me today. He and I always got along really well and he's always been super supportive of me. He just came back from a yearlong sabbatical spent sailing around the world and I ran into him at the old office this week, but we didn't get to chat long. Anyway his email said that he wanted to catch up more, and discuss science and life choices over coffee/beer. He said he wanted to help support my future success however he could. I'm really excited for us to chat but I don't know what I would say to him - I feel like I'm a complete basketcase these days with few ambitions for neuroscience remaining after several months of feeling like an utter failure. I'll add him to the list of professors I'm sure I've disappointed. Shit that makes me sound so miserably depressed and negative, but I haven't felt like a scientist in months, and I don't feel I have much to go off of when that rug's pulled out from under me.
5. I went to San Francisco yesterday, and I think I should make a point of doing that more often. I was so blown away by the sheer number of people there, it was a huge reminder that there are a ton of people in the same circumstances as mine, tons of people doing better and tons doing worse. There didn't seem like any right way to do it, just the way you handle it at any point in time, and then when you look back on it all it has this illusion of direction. It made me a bit motivated, made me remember there's an infinite set of things I can learn and take in over my lifetime. I need to get out of the house more is all. Quite an obvious statement from someone who has been sitting in the same chair for 5 hours.
6. Here are some things remaining in my life that I feel I can look forward to: gardening, books, a new season of House and Numb3rs, tutoring, and Michael. The good news about right now is that I have some time to look for community gardens where I can volunteer, I'm reading again for the first time in a LOOONG time, teaching math again really lights me up, and I'm spending a lot of time (okay, almost all my time) with my beloved. He's so caring and wonderful to me, I can hardly believe it. I feel like he anchors me in the best of ways - he keeps me optimistic and reminds me of the things I can't see when I'm down, and there is never any shortage of laugher between us. The only drawbacks are that I'm hogging his time (a sentiment I'm sure some of his friends would echo), I'm never at my own house anymore (which hasn't bothered me since I caught a psuedo-roommate standing around with a boner), and I rarely have evenings to myself. I'll probably have tonight to myself but I really don't want it.
Well. That's a more or less complete update. Thanks if you read the whole thing, you're a trooper.
I thought life in Berkeley would be better than life in Davis. I was pretty miserable before I moved and things are in fact better in a lot of ways, but worse in others. The ways in which it's worse, however, have less to do with the move and more to do with employment, and the inertia that comes with having entire days with nothing to do. Before you say something to the effect of "at least you have free time", remember that that kind of thing occurs differently for some people, and I do much better mentally if there's some degree of structure to my time, and I'm not too great at producing it myself. Anyway, this is what's going on:
1. Job. I'm half employed, maybe 60% now, moving slowly towards 100% between the lab job I'm commuting to in Davis and the tutoring job I'm commuting to in Lafayette. Honestly if I could just tutor all day long I would but the recession dammed up the flow of business that usually accompanies the new school year. In the meantime, I'm miserable at my lab job, for a set of reasons that I could help if I really put my mind to it, but my motivation has run dry and there's the inertia working against me again. I worked pretty diligently before my lab presentation last week, but my colleagues shot down my work so hardcore that I just can't see the point in working on it any more. The job is like a relationship gone south - you can put effort into getting it moving again, but after a while there's no more wind in your sails, and you end up just sitting in the painful mediocrity with neither party willing to admit how inadequate things are. It's easier to just let it drift until something else comes along. There's only a few options available: you either end it or you get dumped, and either way you just have to hope you can either do without or find something else in time.
2. I applied to 8 jobs so far, got rejected from 3, spoke with the employer at the most promising remaining option, and am currently procrastinating re-writing my resume to be better fitting to administrative positions instead of academic ones. For some reason I can't get myself moving on it. Maybe caffeine will help?
3. My current academic plan is to apply to graduate programs that will start next fall, and I've ditched the architecture idea in favor of math. It's widely applicable, I could easily get back into Neuroscience with it, and it's a language I've always wanted to learn. I intend to take the GRE before the end of the year, and the application deadline for the state schools in the vicinity is March 1st. I'll probably have to take an additional course at some university in the spring. Who knows how that will work if I have a full-time job.
4. One of my favorite UCD professors emailed me today. He and I always got along really well and he's always been super supportive of me. He just came back from a yearlong sabbatical spent sailing around the world and I ran into him at the old office this week, but we didn't get to chat long. Anyway his email said that he wanted to catch up more, and discuss science and life choices over coffee/beer. He said he wanted to help support my future success however he could. I'm really excited for us to chat but I don't know what I would say to him - I feel like I'm a complete basketcase these days with few ambitions for neuroscience remaining after several months of feeling like an utter failure. I'll add him to the list of professors I'm sure I've disappointed. Shit that makes me sound so miserably depressed and negative, but I haven't felt like a scientist in months, and I don't feel I have much to go off of when that rug's pulled out from under me.
5. I went to San Francisco yesterday, and I think I should make a point of doing that more often. I was so blown away by the sheer number of people there, it was a huge reminder that there are a ton of people in the same circumstances as mine, tons of people doing better and tons doing worse. There didn't seem like any right way to do it, just the way you handle it at any point in time, and then when you look back on it all it has this illusion of direction. It made me a bit motivated, made me remember there's an infinite set of things I can learn and take in over my lifetime. I need to get out of the house more is all. Quite an obvious statement from someone who has been sitting in the same chair for 5 hours.
6. Here are some things remaining in my life that I feel I can look forward to: gardening, books, a new season of House and Numb3rs, tutoring, and Michael. The good news about right now is that I have some time to look for community gardens where I can volunteer, I'm reading again for the first time in a LOOONG time, teaching math again really lights me up, and I'm spending a lot of time (okay, almost all my time) with my beloved. He's so caring and wonderful to me, I can hardly believe it. I feel like he anchors me in the best of ways - he keeps me optimistic and reminds me of the things I can't see when I'm down, and there is never any shortage of laugher between us. The only drawbacks are that I'm hogging his time (a sentiment I'm sure some of his friends would echo), I'm never at my own house anymore (which hasn't bothered me since I caught a psuedo-roommate standing around with a boner), and I rarely have evenings to myself. I'll probably have tonight to myself but I really don't want it.
Well. That's a more or less complete update. Thanks if you read the whole thing, you're a trooper.