This year I only had to buy one Christmas gift. I went in with some of my sibs for gifts for my mom and dad, we all go in together for gifts for the nieces and nephews*, I don't exchange with any friends, and EGM and I are getting a new t.v., so we decided not to get each other any presents. If we were together on Christmas, I think there'd be temptation to get some small things for each other, but since he'll still be away it's not an issue. So the only present I had to get was for my secret santa sibling who lives in another state. I ordered something online, so I didn't even really have to shop for that. It feels weird, like I'm forgetting something.
I also feel a little out of control with my paper. The corrections Research Advisor suggested are taking way longer than I thought they would. Most of them were changes to the text, but some of them required going back to the data. I've kind of been going back and forth from text to data, and that has made me feel a little confused about what is still left to do. Also, I discovered some small errors in my spreadsheet, which had me kind of heart broken. How could I possibly have mistakes after all the times I've combed through those spreadsheets? What other mistakes might be lurking? How can I ever be a Good Scientist if I have errors in data that I am this close to submitting? I think the problems arose from having multiple versions of the same files, i.e. one saved on my work desktop, one on my usb stick, and on my laptop, plus ones where I played around with different analyses and stuff. Boo.
I had a snow day yesterday, which I spent trying very hard to stay focused on work. Though I wasted plenty of time looking at blogs and such, I don't think I worked any less than if I had sat in traffic trying to get to work in the ice and snow. Not really a net gain. But I went to the lab today because I needed to use some software that I don't have on my laptop and I got tons done with hardly any goofing off (there were certain things I really wanted to finish while there, and I wanted to get out of there before weather got bad again). At this point, I think I'm very close to finishing RA's revisions. Hopefully I can send the manuscript to all three coauthors sometime tomorrow. With any luck, they'll be able to look over it quickly, tell me it's fine, and then I'll still be able to submit it before break. I'm not holding my breath that things will move that quickly, though.
*I wrote about our system for niece/nephew presents last year, but it's worth sharing again. There are 14 children in that generation of my family. They all have way too much stuff, and it would be really expensive and time consuming for each of us to buy a separate gift for each one of them. So, we all put in $10/per kid (not much, really) and get one item for all the kids in each family. For example, last year S2's kids got a basketball hoop. This year, their other grandparents are getting them a wii, so we are buying them games for it. Most of the other kids will get family memberships to museums, the zoo, nature center, etc. It works out great for everyone.
4 comments:
Hey we did the same thing with the new TV- the weird thing is that we have not spent more than a couple of hundred bucks on a TV in the last 15 years... so this seemed like a big weird kind of splurge!
E-Boy and I do the shared big gift thing a lot too. Although this year I did get some fancy shoes - and he got some rare book.
I so completely commiserate with you about the getting and making revisions from your RA. I am in a waiting period to get back what I anticipate to be at least 20 pages of revisions, and for some reason I'm anxious to see the feedback and get to work all the while being a bit "meh" about it all.
I also found a million typos/small errors once I turned it in that made me slightly nutty - I couldn't believe I made those type of mistakes when I had been wedded to the document for a month.
In short... I hear ya.
Just now as you post it I remember your gift distribution system, and that I wanted to suggest it to my siblings. Hmm. Next year.
I understand the forgetting someone feeling. I did about 90% of my shopping online this year and haven't gone to the stores yet. This makes me feel like I'm definitely forgetting something.
As for the errors you've found, keep in mind that you found the errors and you're correcting them. You can still be a Good Scientist and find small errors in your spreadsheets.
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