Work hard, play hard

Blogging has been light because I've been working my butt off and then I had a hangover. A recap of last week:

My carpool buddy was at a conference so I was driving myself all week. Since he is the one who has to leave by 4pm to let the nanny go home, I took the opportunity to bust ass work long hours. Between Monday morning and Friday night, I worked about 60 hours, which is a whole lot for me in five days. I set a goal of 30 Crummy Tedious samples and decided that if I met that goal by Friday, I didn't have to go in on Saturday. What a carrot! I was in the lab until 12:15 Saturday morning, but I didn't go back until Monday. All 30 samples were completed and my counter ticked up to 88% done!

Saturday morning I slept in a little, then ran errands: I got a bang trim and dropped off sweaters at the dry cleaners. I never have my act together for these little jobs, so I was feeling very smug. So smug that I had momentum to clean the apartment, including a bathroom that I swear hadn't been scrubbed in about a million years. Later, we met some friends at one of this town's best beer gardens (walking distance from our home) where they have giant $9 pitchers of sangria. We got toasted, then went to one of this town's best venues for live jazz. The next day, I had one of this town's biggest hangovers. That didn't stop us from going to breakfast where they have some of this town's best cinnamon rolls and later to this town's best botanical garden.

In all it was a worthy week. Though I hope this next one is a little more relaxed.

Wait... what?

I've been working in the lab a lot lately, which means I've been listening to the radio for hours on end. With all the financial craziness happening, NPR has been pretty enthralling. One of my favorite NPR reporters*, Adam Davidson, the global business guy, has had quite a lot of air time. Yesterday he was on Talk of the Nation, a show that takes listener call-in questions after the initial discussion of an issue. I could totally understand what it was like to be Adam Davidson for part of that hour.

Listeners called in with all manner of slightly strange questions -- nothing dramatically off topic, but stuff that Davidson really wasn't expecting and didn't quite relate to what he had been explaining. He handled it all pretty gracefully, but clearly didn't know what to say to a few people. I have often felt this way when explaining my research to lay people who ask bizarre questions. They obviously have heard of what I do, but don't really understand it and reach back into some bygone science class or they throw out a keyword they read in the newspaper that's not really related. These questions can be difficult to answer because they're just so different from how I think about things but I want to formulate an informative and respective answer because I'm so happy that the person is interested. I have one committee member whose interests are pretty far from mine and he always throws me for a loop with some question that doesn't quite make sense to me. Of course he's the one who doesn't let up, either. It always takes effort to maintain composure at committee meetings with this person.


*I think have a crush on this guy. His reporting is awesome!

On the much brighter side...

With all that whining yesterday, I almost forgot something much more important: as of yesterday EGM and I have been together for four years. Still quite happy. :)

RBOC

Sigh...we're in a funk in the ecogeo household. Not really for any good reason.

• I went to the lab on Saturday to get some samples done. I slept too late, the ceiling leaked*, there was awful traffic, and several other little crappy things made it so I didn't get to work until 2pm. Then there were ants in my office. EGM said, "you should just work really hard and get all of today's samples finished to redeem the crappy day". So I did.
• But I didn't leave work until 11pm. Then we needed to eat and relax. I went to bed late.
• Then I slept really late on Sunday, which was nice but made it so I didn't want to go to bed on time last night. However, my carpool buddy has a conference this week so I could sleep in a little.
• But I was still so tired this morning I could barely function, and I was late to work. Still, I got to meet a very cool potential collaborator who is visiting the lab for a couple of days.
• But that meant I didn't get through many samples today.
• Good news: I found out that our proposal will be endorsed by the subject section. Less-good news: I found out through a third party. The chair of the subject section hasn't responded to any emails. Maybe tomorrow.
• Good news: one of my colleagues made comments on my paper draft. Less-good news: many of them contradict Academic Advisor's earlier suggestions. Even-less-good news: Research Advisor has still not read any iteration of the paper.
• But I made a super cheap, super easy, tasty dinner.
• EGM had a bit of a panic attack today because he feels overwhelmed by the work that he still has to do for his PhD. Yuck.
• This post has me a little bummed too. But then I remember all the great women science bloggers who inspire me in addition to my own fantastic female mentors and I feel a little better.
• Now I'm going to go to bed early so I can reset my brain for a better day tomorrow.

*Our area had record rainfall -- over 10 inches in some places over the duration of the storm. Even though our roof leaked, I'm thankful that our apartment didn't flood like so many others(well, it would have been unlikely since we're on an upper floor but I'm still grateful) and that my route to work is not blocked by standing water. I'm also thankful that the roof is the landlord's problem. There are some benefits to renting.

Vampire tasks

Sometimes the smallest things can hold you up. A task that seems straightforward turns into a huge deal. It can be so aggravating!

EGM and I are both dealing with simple things that are turning out to be huge assholes, but for different reasons. I’m working on the Crummy Tedious samples (have you noticed the counter moving?) and although I’ve got some momentum right now, when I take a step back I get so disheartened that I’m still working on these samples that should have taken only a summer to finish. They are just a lot more difficult than they should be. EGM has reached a step in his work where the technology available isn’t performing as well as he needs it to. Now he’s struggling to find something better. With his obsessive personality type, solving this problem is a big time suck.

The insidious part of these small jobs that take more time than you plan for them – vampire tasks – is not the time you actually spend working on them, but the time you spend fretting and procrastinating. It’s the procrastination that turns them into big scary beasts that block the path to project completion.

Ultimate Twix Challenge

I've probably mentioned before that Awesome Technician and I frequently issue Twix Challenges for each other. If one of us is having a blah day and needs some motivation, the other will define some milestone that needs to be reached by a certain time (e.g. finish half of your samples by 2 pm) and if the goal is achieved, the person gets a Twix from the vending machine. Sometimes the challenges are small, like something that can be accomplished in a few hours, while other times they are big, like a data analysis project that might take days or weeks. The trick is that the challenges are difficult but attainable and we follow through. If you don't meet the goal, you don't get the Twix.


Recently Awesome Technician said that when I graduate, she will try to get me a Twix cake. We're not sure what that might be like, exactly, but the idea of it certainly has motivated me to work!

Midwest ScienceBlogs Event

For their millionth comment shindig, ScienceBlogs is expanding the party to the Midwest with an event hosted by Alice Pawley and Steve Higgins, probably in Champaign, IL, probably on September 27. I'm interested, but on the fence. Is anybody else going? Do any of you who know where I live want to carpool? Email me if you want to talk about it, especially if you think we live in the same place.