New Building Woes

So we moved our lab.... and it was only a month and a half after our original move date. However it did manage to be right before Christmas and therefore caused some issues with my vacation plans (which were resolved by me pointing out to The Boss that I had actually informed him of my vacation plans well before the move date was set, to which he had no response, and let me keep my flight as planned). So we were the 3rd group to move in, which is all well and good, but let me tell you, working is difficult in this building for the following reasons:

1) The cold room doesn't work- so all our cold stuff is still one building over and 4 floors down (anyone seeing a problem here?)

2) DI water is still being cleaned-we work with really small concentrations of metals, so DeIONized water is kinda key

3) No natural gas hook ups-biology=sterile things, hard to do without bunsen burners

Those are the major problems, besides not knowing where we stored anything and general other issues. I would however like to give a shout-out to Midwest Movers, who totally rocked. Didn't break anything, including the boxes full of crappy glassware which we were hoping to break, and are sooooo crazy efficient it took them 1.5 days to move everything (we were afraid our 3 days wouldn't be enough). Also, Steve and the connection guys, who made everything work magically and are still hooking things up for us. You guys rock!

P.S. If you're reading this and choosing a grad school, don't pick one where they're going to make you move the lab to a new building. Just a hint....

I've been remiss

I apologize to anyone who has been waiting for an exciting post from me and really to myself as well. Blogging has just not seemed appealing lately and neither has weight loss or grad school work to be honest. I've been spending a lot of time just trying to get my work done. And you know what I found out... work is hard.

I know this doesn't sound like a revelation, but getting stuff done and trying to really focus is entirely too difficult. I know everyone does it, everyone has to do it (except for the indepandently wealthy), but man, it's such a pain. So as I attempt to do lots of work preceding this looming meeting I have with my boss, I've been discovering things about how I work and how to get myself to work. I've discovered (although haven't mastered) that moderation is key. Get this thing done, take a break, get something else done, take a break etc. If I try to go full out all day, sure I get that done, but then tomorrow and maybe the next day, nothing gets done. So moderation is key.

That said, moderation should really be the theme of all our lives. It works with work, should work with weight loss, probably helps with family and friends and other activities. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, helps us lead a balanced life. Now, don't get me wrong, the fact that I figured this out, doesn't mean I have it down. Not even close, but I'm trying.

Just think balance (goes for blogging too).

Stressssssed

Hi all, sorry I've been missing, but I'm trying to cram in some results before we have to move our lab (more to come on that later). Unfortunately my 3 days of hard work went completely down the drain in about 5 minutes last night, so I get to start over! How exciting.... Needless to say I've been having a bit of a rough time.

Lab is so finnicky, yesterday morning things were going really well. Something that hadn't worked in 3 months, finally worked, the glove box was fixed, life was good. Then it all disappeared. Do other grad students feel like they should never get excited because it will just completely back fire on them? That's how I feel.

Also as a side note, 161.4 on monday and Tracey is gone!! (that's for the Biggest Loser fans).

So sorry for the absence, I'll try to get back to blogging, if just to keep my sanity alive.

Hump Day

Ahhh Wednesdays, that whole middle of the week vibe. I thought I might be due for some grad school blogging. mostly the thing about "hump day" is that it's supposed to be the middle day. I, as most chem grad students do, work on saturday, so the term doesn't entirely apply to us. My particular group has our group meeting on wednesdays, which is always kind of a toss up. Depending on who's presenting and how much group business we have or how much one of our group members need to talk about the group business (he has a tendency to go in circles) it can take an hour or three. Thankfully today was only about an hour and a half. So I realize this is completely random, but I think the point is that Hump day means group meeting and sort of signals the middle of the normal work week. Grad students can take the meaning as they like it.

Undergrads...

The undergrads came back this week...

I know I know, everyone else has had them for ages, but we have one of those screwed up quarter systems and it wasn't until this week (keep in mind they don't leave until mid June). I forgot how crowded they make everything. I was selling lab goggles and notebooks to freshmen on Tuesday and we got swamped with people asking us where things were in the giant sciences building. We dont' know where most things are, it was entertaining. Blind leading the blind. I'll have to get used to the crowdedness of campus again. It also means summer is officially over and I should really stop slacking off.

But first... of to AZ to the gradparents' place this weekend. Wish me luck on not being bored out of my mind! (also no internet, so expect me back on Monday)

09-09-09

So the title isn't what I actually want to talk about, but it is kind of a cool day. Anyhow, what I want to talk about is construction. Yep, you got it right.

I hate construction.

That's not the whole story, but it does sum it up. Ok so any grad student or undergrad who stayed for a summer or professor knows that summer at a university=construction time. Ok, I get it, the nice little undergrads who pay you lots of money aren't around, so you use this time to convert the place into a disaster area. Plus, where I live you can't do much construction outside in the winter... it just doesn't go well. However, university, you might remember that other people do work here, all summer.

Also, I have had the good fortune to be in a permanent construction zone since I arrived at grad school. They are building us a brand-new, shiny, clean lab building. We're moving at the beginning of November (well, that's when we're supposed to move). Great, that is actually really awesome, except for the actual moving process, which I'm sure you will here much more from me about. But again, construction, allllll the time. It's loud and dusty and occaisionally turns off the power without warning and there are construction workers everywhere (well sometimes that's not so bad).

Anyway, as I said before:

I hate construction.

Budgets

A friend of mine mentioned today that another mutual friend had gone shopping and was not adhering to her budget, and this got me thinking about the word budget and what exactly that means to us.

For a grad student budgeting our money can be well difficult and very important, on the other hand having a calorie budget is important to weight loss, and last, but not least, budgeting our time in grad school and in weight loss is also important. Ok, so now budgeting seems to have taken over my life and I'm sure a lot of yours as well.

I recently decided that a monetary budget was something I really needed. Up until now I don't have so much of a spending problem that I was having trouble making ends meet on my lowly graduate stipend, but I am planning a trip to Italy next fall and I would really like to be able to buy souvenirs and still have a savings account when I get home. I've only officially kept track for a full month so far, but I've managed to stay mostly in bounds. Some not fully expended areas covered a couple that I went over in and so far, so good. It is a big step into adulthood to keep track of everything... I always wondered why my mom had piles and piles of receipts on her desk... well now I know. Welcome to real life

Ok so calorie budgets, we all have them, do we stick to them? Well I know we try, which is a good step in and of itself. Sticking to our calorie budget means we feel good, we (hopefully) lose weight, and everything fits into place.

Budgeting our time, ok grad students unite on this one, if you don't budget time in lab, nothing ever gets done. Turns out this is true with the rest of life. Cooking healthy food takes time, exercising takes time, sleeping takes time, well you get the idea.

Overall point: Budgets are important!

Labor Day

So today is labor day and from what I looked up on labor day, it is supposed to be a day of appreciation for trade and labor workers and their families. Ok so I think that grad students should definitely go in that category since we are basically slave labor. Well I went to lab today, only for a half a day, but still.

The university does sort of give a lot of our department's grad students a way out of going in this weekend. They do maintenance on our buildings, which shuts down things like fume hoods, water, power etc. This, however, depends on which building you work in. My particular building had the power shut down yesterday and the reverse osmosis water shut down all weekend. So part of the weekend I was off the hook, but I needed to get some things done today, so in I go.

The other problem with the building shut down is it says in the notification emails something along the lines of: Since most of the campus will be gone this weekend. Well, of course, most lab oriented grad students are not actually gone, expecting to be able to work. I wonder if the university knows that we usually work holidays and weekends. Maybe someone should write the dean a letter. I think it should say:

Dean, remember when you were in grad school. Did you work on the weekends? Remember that when sending out notices about building shut downs. Love, the graduate population of your university.

Hg...

Alright, so I never thought much about the heat block that's kept on my bench until today. I broke the thermometer, and it turns out it was a mercury thermometer. Yeah... so instead of doing my little assay I was planning to do, I got a crash course in Hg clean up, needless to say, I am now somewhat behind on my plan for today.

So for all you lab slaves out there... check and see if your thermometers are still mercury, and get rid of them if they are. Mercury clean up is no fun!

Graduate Social Structure

So later today we have the first department social of the year to "welcome" the first years, which lead me to thinking about the chemistry department's social structure. In my experience it goes something like this:

First years hang out together- this tends to be obvious due to orientation, classes, TAing, and the lack of a lab to live in. Sometimes this group splinters into Chemistry disciplines (Organic, Inorganic, Pchem), although I assume this depends on how big the department is (ours is rather large).

By about the middle of 2nd year people splinter off into hanging out with their groups- generally you rarely see anyone outside of lab, so this is natural, as long as you actually like your group. There are also groups who tend to hang out with specific other groups depending on the situation.

Ok so those are the basic rules. I happen to meld a few of my first year friends into my hang out circle, not sure how common that is. It also helps that I live with one of them... plus I'll meet the 1st years due to my 1st year roommate.

So at this social this is what normally happens. People show up with their groups, often they will see some long lost year-mate and wander over to talk to them. Creating either little clusters of lab groups or little clusters of year-mates, generally there isn't much mixing besides that. I feel that this is really not optimal to our socializing, but have yet to figure out a way to fix it. So I just try to actually talk to people not in my year or my lab group.

Anyhow, that's my morning thoughts... time to get some lab work done before this lovely social (they do give us free food, which is nice even if it is pizza).

Little bit of background

Alright, as I'm hoping this will stay semi anonymous names and actual locations will be changed for all of this part. And yes, I do understand that having my picture on the blog will make it less anonymous, but that seems essential for the weight-loss portion. The grad school stuff will be more hidden as to not embarrass or get me into trouble with any important people (not that I want to bash anyone, but all information may not be favorable). With that out of the way...

I just became a 3rd year chemistry grad student at a fairly prestigious university, which I will call Univ. for the remainder of this blog. I live with two roommates to cut costs (grad school is not impressively well paid) who will be called RM1 and RM2. So the point being, RM2 just moved in a few weeks ago (RM1 has been my roommate since the beginning of grad school) to start our program as a first year, which began just on the 1st. And of course, when they start, we all move up a year, making me a 3rd year. Upon becoming a 3rd year, I am a little confused. Mostly due to the fact that I in no way feel as if I know enough to be a 3rd year. I remember what it felt like to look at a 3rd year when I started. My opinions of them went something like... wow, look at all the information they know and they have actual research projects and they know how to do grad school. I can now, for certain, say that most of those things were absolutely not true. The amount of knowledge I have seems to decrease with each passing year, and I have no idea how to navigate grad school. I do actually have multiple research projects, but that doesn't seem to help.

Anyway, that's what has been on my mind mostly this week as well as... I wonder if any of the 1st years are cute and are they too young for me to be thinking about dating them?

The Beginning...

Well hi anyone who is actually reading this! I have never done a blog before, so you'll have to bare with me and we'll learn as we go. This blog is going to have two sort of functions.

The first being to hold myself responsible for losing the weight I've been trying on and off to lose since I started Grad school (2 years ago), and to inspire others to get healthy (and happy) along with me.

The second is to share what the life of a chemistry grad student (otherwise known as a scientist) is really like and share my limited insight on that subject.

I expect other subjects will come up considering I'm prone to tangents, and hopefully this will evolve with me. So welcome! and feel free to comment.

So to start off with I'm 5' 2" and well this week my starting weight was 161.8lbs but before I got a stomach virus about a week and a half ago I was about 168 lbs, so that's the official starting weight. My goal is 125lbs and I would like to meet that goal by my 25th birthday (next August 5th). Of course optimistically, I would love to get there earlier, but that's my reasonable goal.