is there life after grad school?
Long time no post. I've been getting much more done in the lab since the election ended. Of course, in the few days I worked this week I managed to break everything, but I've almost fixed it all again, so oh well. It just sucks because I want to submit to CLEO next Thurs and I really needed to be getting more done, not taking 1 step forward and 10 steps back. Oh well, I'm really starting to get used to the fact that this is the nature of research and you just have to go with it.
I'm thinking I should really try to have a more positive attitude. What really inspired me today is I heard this woman on NPR being interviewed. She had lost both legs and maybe an arm (I only caught the end of the interview) in Iraq. Yet she had a more positive outlook on life than anyone I know. Wow, I want to be like that. I want to have an obnoxiously good attitude again. I used to have a copy of a poem that I kept around....let me find it, oh here it is:
Attitude
The longer I live, the more I realize
the impact of attitude in life
Attitude, to me, is more important
than the past, than education,
than money, than circumstances,
than failures, than successes,
than what other people think
or say or do. It is more important than
appearance, giftedness or skill. It will
make or break a company, a church, a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice
every day regarding the attitude
we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past.
We cannot change the fact that people
will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the
One string we have-and that is our attitude.
I am convinced that life is 10% what
Happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you.
We are in charge of our attitudes.
Author Unknown
Another of my favorite quotes from a book I read:
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down. ~ Mary Pickford
I remember back in undergrad when my prof wrote in my narrative eval that I was "not at all jaded" and I was kind of confused. Like, why would I be jaded? Now I know why. I want to go back to being all positive and just loving science again. Just take what I've learned from my experiences as good lessons for life and go back to just loving science and doing it because it's so darn cool. How do I go back to that? Maybe I need hypnosis. Or what? You know how people sometimes say "you need an attitude adjustment" well, I do need one. Stupid being bitter. I think if I could just go back to being a somewhat normal sleeper, it would really help. But my experiences have not just shaped my attitude, they have screwed me up in what, so far, appears to be a semi-permanent fashion and I just want to go back to being how I used to be in that aspect. So far nothing has really worked to make my sleep normal again. When you're tired all the time it's really hard to be positive, especially for me.
Sooooo, I decided this week that I should make a regenerator for humans. If any of you have seen Star Trek Voyager, 7 of 9 had a machine that she would plug into for her regeneration cycle. I want one of those. So, I would just get in, it would put me to sleep and run me through a set cycle to regenerate my body and mind. In fact, it could possibly (maybe I'm crazy, I don't really know enough to say this, but let's just have an active imagination) save time, so that, in 3 or 4 hours you could get up and feel as if you just got 8 hours sleep. That would be cool.
Ohhhhhhh, I think I just thought of an idea for my novel. Yes! Now I can make lots of money selling novels and not have to apply for grants! I can dream right?
Ok, now I just have to tweak my beat signal back up 6 dB and I'll be back to where I was on Monday morning.
I'm thinking I should really try to have a more positive attitude. What really inspired me today is I heard this woman on NPR being interviewed. She had lost both legs and maybe an arm (I only caught the end of the interview) in Iraq. Yet she had a more positive outlook on life than anyone I know. Wow, I want to be like that. I want to have an obnoxiously good attitude again. I used to have a copy of a poem that I kept around....let me find it, oh here it is:
Attitude
The longer I live, the more I realize
the impact of attitude in life
Attitude, to me, is more important
than the past, than education,
than money, than circumstances,
than failures, than successes,
than what other people think
or say or do. It is more important than
appearance, giftedness or skill. It will
make or break a company, a church, a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice
every day regarding the attitude
we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past.
We cannot change the fact that people
will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the
One string we have-and that is our attitude.
I am convinced that life is 10% what
Happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you.
We are in charge of our attitudes.
Author Unknown
Another of my favorite quotes from a book I read:
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down. ~ Mary Pickford
I remember back in undergrad when my prof wrote in my narrative eval that I was "not at all jaded" and I was kind of confused. Like, why would I be jaded? Now I know why. I want to go back to being all positive and just loving science again. Just take what I've learned from my experiences as good lessons for life and go back to just loving science and doing it because it's so darn cool. How do I go back to that? Maybe I need hypnosis. Or what? You know how people sometimes say "you need an attitude adjustment" well, I do need one. Stupid being bitter. I think if I could just go back to being a somewhat normal sleeper, it would really help. But my experiences have not just shaped my attitude, they have screwed me up in what, so far, appears to be a semi-permanent fashion and I just want to go back to being how I used to be in that aspect. So far nothing has really worked to make my sleep normal again. When you're tired all the time it's really hard to be positive, especially for me.
Sooooo, I decided this week that I should make a regenerator for humans. If any of you have seen Star Trek Voyager, 7 of 9 had a machine that she would plug into for her regeneration cycle. I want one of those. So, I would just get in, it would put me to sleep and run me through a set cycle to regenerate my body and mind. In fact, it could possibly (maybe I'm crazy, I don't really know enough to say this, but let's just have an active imagination) save time, so that, in 3 or 4 hours you could get up and feel as if you just got 8 hours sleep. That would be cool.
Ohhhhhhh, I think I just thought of an idea for my novel. Yes! Now I can make lots of money selling novels and not have to apply for grants! I can dream right?
Ok, now I just have to tweak my beat signal back up 6 dB and I'll be back to where I was on Monday morning.