Down, down and away
And as usual, when I'm down, I look to writing for answers and some sense of calmness.
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I always assumed my career, or adult life, would start in the academy. Not that like many others I thought of staying here, earning my Lecturer title and starting a lab of my own, no; Quite on the contrary, it was always quite clear to me that I came to the academy to study, to hone some skills, and then I'll go out to the industrial market to unleash said skills and try my luck at the real world out there.
I always assumed it wouldn't be easy, I always assumed I'd have to put some effort into it.
Ah, who am I kidding. I always thought it'd be a piece of cake for me. I thought things would just *work* when I try them and I always secretly assumed - and here it is, everyone, the basic assumption that is the base of all my fuck-ups - I always thought I'd be good at this, and that I'd like it.
Well - I can't say I don't like it. Lab work is fun if somewhat bleak, and generally I like it much better than other menial forms of labor. But, sadly, I'm starting to realize that I'm not really good at this sort of thing. Quite the contrary, even.
While my command of a keyboard and mouse enable me to do rapid and good work on a computer, it seems that my lack of any other motor skills hinders my ability to handle test tubes, gentle appliances and other laboratory apparatuses.
While my people skills and psychological insights enable me to adapt and mingle with all sorts of groups and societies, I find myself failing again and again at interjecting myself into my lab. There's a fine line there, a border - they're older than me. I'm a masters student. And most of all, the hours difference; They have families, children. They wake early every morning (gotta get the kid to the kindergarten) and arrive early to work, only to retire back home early as well (gotta pick up my kid). I can't work early in the morning. I find myself slow, fumbling, stupid. Hardly my usual shiny self that some people got to meet at later times, closer to the evening. They are no longer around at that time, so all they get to see is the lesser me.
This pains me. The lack of appreciation is something that makes this work very difficult for me. I fuel myself with appreciation. I motivate myself with a feeling of capability and ability, and when lacking that I find it even harder to start, to assemble and recruit the energies I'm used to easily commanding.
And worse of all- I feel like the person supposed to be my guide, my mentor, has given up on me. I remember reading phd comics and thinking "well, it'd be good to have a professor who's a father figure." Boy, was I wrong. All that happened was that I put myself into an emotional mess, in which I feel frustration about failing to impress my 'surrogate-father' and in the meanwhile feeling neglected and ignored. And by now these feelings have culminated to simply feeling like crap, feeling like "I can't do this" and feeling helpless.
I had to run a protein gel today. I'll spare you the details, let's just assume some very basic, very routine day-to-day thing we do in the lab. It's the second time I'm doing this, after a very friendly lab-mate (who is quite unfortunately for me currently in army reserve duty) showed me how to do it the first time around, which was about 5 months ago (read: I hardly remember).
Well, I can read a protocol as well as the other guy, and still I had to pour the damn thing 4 times before I got it right. Well, nearly right.
I found myself laying my head on my lab bench and choking back tears.
I hate this. I hate sucking at things. I have other things, things I'm good at. So why am I bothering? Who am I trying to impress, what am I trying to prove? Fuck, I have all these dreams and future visions and stuff but hey, I can hardly pour a frigging gel! How the fuck am I supposed to one day run a company? It's dreams, nothing more. Dreams of the type that does not come true.
I'm tired. I'm spent. And it does not look like it's getting any better; I'll end up with a mediocre MSc and with a mediocre grade, and feel like a mediocre me. I'm not mediocre, and I don't want to be.
And I know that I can do wonders if I went into computers, high-tech, sales, whatever. Ok, maybe not sales. But I'll be damn good as a computer man. I can be a good programmer. I can write code. I can debug even better than most. Perhaps I'm in the wrong niche. So what if I don't like programing. I just want to fit somewhere. For once. I just want to feel like people feel just a little bit brighter when I show up to work, and not feel like I'm lying to myself whenever I say "sure, they like me at the lab". I just want to be somewhere I belong.
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I hope our planned trip abroad will help. I really do. Because what little idea I have of what I'll do if it won't is something I don't like, not one bit.
------------
I always assumed my career, or adult life, would start in the academy. Not that like many others I thought of staying here, earning my Lecturer title and starting a lab of my own, no; Quite on the contrary, it was always quite clear to me that I came to the academy to study, to hone some skills, and then I'll go out to the industrial market to unleash said skills and try my luck at the real world out there.
I always assumed it wouldn't be easy, I always assumed I'd have to put some effort into it.
Ah, who am I kidding. I always thought it'd be a piece of cake for me. I thought things would just *work* when I try them and I always secretly assumed - and here it is, everyone, the basic assumption that is the base of all my fuck-ups - I always thought I'd be good at this, and that I'd like it.
Well - I can't say I don't like it. Lab work is fun if somewhat bleak, and generally I like it much better than other menial forms of labor. But, sadly, I'm starting to realize that I'm not really good at this sort of thing. Quite the contrary, even.
While my command of a keyboard and mouse enable me to do rapid and good work on a computer, it seems that my lack of any other motor skills hinders my ability to handle test tubes, gentle appliances and other laboratory apparatuses.
While my people skills and psychological insights enable me to adapt and mingle with all sorts of groups and societies, I find myself failing again and again at interjecting myself into my lab. There's a fine line there, a border - they're older than me. I'm a masters student. And most of all, the hours difference; They have families, children. They wake early every morning (gotta get the kid to the kindergarten) and arrive early to work, only to retire back home early as well (gotta pick up my kid). I can't work early in the morning. I find myself slow, fumbling, stupid. Hardly my usual shiny self that some people got to meet at later times, closer to the evening. They are no longer around at that time, so all they get to see is the lesser me.
This pains me. The lack of appreciation is something that makes this work very difficult for me. I fuel myself with appreciation. I motivate myself with a feeling of capability and ability, and when lacking that I find it even harder to start, to assemble and recruit the energies I'm used to easily commanding.
And worse of all- I feel like the person supposed to be my guide, my mentor, has given up on me. I remember reading phd comics and thinking "well, it'd be good to have a professor who's a father figure." Boy, was I wrong. All that happened was that I put myself into an emotional mess, in which I feel frustration about failing to impress my 'surrogate-father' and in the meanwhile feeling neglected and ignored. And by now these feelings have culminated to simply feeling like crap, feeling like "I can't do this" and feeling helpless.
I had to run a protein gel today. I'll spare you the details, let's just assume some very basic, very routine day-to-day thing we do in the lab. It's the second time I'm doing this, after a very friendly lab-mate (who is quite unfortunately for me currently in army reserve duty) showed me how to do it the first time around, which was about 5 months ago (read: I hardly remember).
Well, I can read a protocol as well as the other guy, and still I had to pour the damn thing 4 times before I got it right. Well, nearly right.
I found myself laying my head on my lab bench and choking back tears.
I hate this. I hate sucking at things. I have other things, things I'm good at. So why am I bothering? Who am I trying to impress, what am I trying to prove? Fuck, I have all these dreams and future visions and stuff but hey, I can hardly pour a frigging gel! How the fuck am I supposed to one day run a company? It's dreams, nothing more. Dreams of the type that does not come true.
I'm tired. I'm spent. And it does not look like it's getting any better; I'll end up with a mediocre MSc and with a mediocre grade, and feel like a mediocre me. I'm not mediocre, and I don't want to be.
And I know that I can do wonders if I went into computers, high-tech, sales, whatever. Ok, maybe not sales. But I'll be damn good as a computer man. I can be a good programmer. I can write code. I can debug even better than most. Perhaps I'm in the wrong niche. So what if I don't like programing. I just want to fit somewhere. For once. I just want to feel like people feel just a little bit brighter when I show up to work, and not feel like I'm lying to myself whenever I say "sure, they like me at the lab". I just want to be somewhere I belong.
---------------
I hope our planned trip abroad will help. I really do. Because what little idea I have of what I'll do if it won't is something I don't like, not one bit.