July 27, 2003

  • I sometimes wonder if it's a mistake. Well, I wonder if lots of things that I do are mistakes...but especially this whole grad school thing.


    I guess I find it harder in the science world than I thought. It's still very much a man's world, especially in the "harder" portions of biology. The few women in the area...they themselves are hard women. They have to be so much bitchier than their male counterparts to get even close to the same respect, pay and positions.


    It is so different than I thought it would be. The ambiguity, the "deductions" and the logic...all the assumptions that you have to make just to exist in this scientific world...they all make me so tired. Seems like so many times, they just ignore those questions they don't answer. Whether this is a conscious choice to make life easier or an unconscious one to keep them sane, I just don't know. I also don't understand how people in the field of ecology can be conservative republicans - pro-Bush and pro-big business at that.


    I wonder what will happen somedays. After the M.S. will I be able to put up with the...the hoops and bullshit of big schools, the beauracracy is painful....and even if I do, and get my PhD and my postdoc work...then what? Be a professor and deal with universities and other phds for the rest of my life? Deal with their overweening pride and hubris and arrogance...I just am not like that - I can't draw a conclusion and say, because I looked at these facts and I am the scientist, the conclusion that I draw must be the right one...my deductions are the most logical, most probable, most RIGHT.


    But if not PhD...then what? Molecular biology for big business? Biochemical weapons for the government? *shrug* I guess I can work for non-profit companies, make drugs or fiddle with the genetics of humans to save them.


    What I really like, what I really want...is what I do now I guess...am I condemned to be a lab tech then? I like to read the papers, I don't mind writing them too much. But grant writing and proposal writing - they blow. I don't want to be the boss, I don't like to be the boss...the research is what I enjoy. I like to look at a question and try to find one possible answer. I like to answer an ecology question with molecular biology...where else can I ask those sorts of questions though?


    I really wish I was more sure of myself.


    ***


    My roommate is impending, ETA less than 2 weeks...


    I know nothing about her, except her name, the species she works with and the university that she attends. She could be insane for all I know...and yet, I still anticipate her arrival.


    I like living alone. I like the solitude. Having company quickly drives me up the wall. I had my younger sister with me for a week and by day 5...I was ready to be alone. But at the same time. I hate it. Everyday. No one to ever know if I'm alive or dead until I stink up the whole apartment complex (or perhaps if the guys above me notice that I haven't wandered on my patio in my underpants)...my cats will eat my eyeballs and I'll leave a big black dead stain on my apartment's carpet...


    So perhaps a roommate for a while, a small while will be nice. The money will be good...perhaps I can afford a new bike? Retire my poor old 13 year old bike and get a "grown-Up" bike. Well, as grownup as you can get when you are my size I guess...


    ****


    I'm tired of griping. I'll go cross-stitch my future niece/nephew's new bib. This time it's a bluebird instead of a duckie...such a domestic chore...I wish I could learn to knit though...

Comments (2)

  • about the job, stay with what you like.  there have to be openings somewhere for the chump job, doing all the bitch research work that no one else wants to do.  you're still dealing with all of the issues you want to, and all teh arrogance of the people around you, but at least you're possibly enjoying what it is that you're doing.

    ***

    bout the roomie - i know what you mean.  believe me... you want someone around to care if you're alive, and yet, do you want to deal with another person and all their baggage (in every sense of the word)?  but the money issue is important, and it's better to have someone around, despite how annoying they might be, just to know there's someone.  it'll be ok, and she's not insane!  probably.

    ***

    i learned how to knit!  it's actually pretty easy, i learned off a website.  i'll try to send it to you.  just got get some knitting needles and a LOT of yarn.  soft yarn, too.  although the foofier and softer it is, the harder it is to not snag it when working with it.  but that's a problem to encounter later.

  • There is going to be a part of every job that you don't like. I don't think you should second guess yourself.

    I didn't know you were getting a roomie. Did I miss that blog?

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