Conjured Activism

conquering the world one oxymoron at a time

motherf- stuff to do in my motherf- life

August 22, 2006 at 2:43 am · Filed under grad life/MIT

Taking inspiration from Samuel L. Jackson, I thought perhaps a few expletives would help to save me from my journey to overcommitment and eventual, inevitable failure. Can I make a list of things I need to do? Can I cry out about how absolutely swamped I am? Just once?? I know I HATE it when other people do this, and I can’t believe I’m going to be one of THOSE people, but please just indulge me for a second here; I think it may actually make me feel better.

My to do list (a subset):
- organize f-ing career fair banquet
- magically convince grad students that they should care enough to serve on the institute committee on radioactivity
- update uva club of boston calendar (which btw is 2 months out of date, with no one to blame but me)
- go put on a happy face and meet & greet freshmen who arrived a week early
- go put on a happy face and meet & greet the parents of freshmen who either love me or hate me or love to hate me
- go put on a happy face and meet & greet returning upperclassmen who arrived early planning to talk to the freshmen when they eventually get here only to find that the freshmen are already here
- damage control damage control damage control
- write a speech to deliver to ogle-eyed new DMSE grad students to welcome them to the institute because obviously, i’m the expert on why one should love this place. obviously.
- take on the world of the GSC because all the other officers skipped town
- redo campus tour path, not to mention twisting arms & legs of friends to get them to be tour guides
- write an article for the GSN about my identity crisis of being american, chinese, 23, near-sighted, not deaf, not mute, not ovulating, and not accepting booty calls
- somehow actually spend some time in lab so I can perform a miracle, bring my stupid finicky dead cells back to life, prepare a thesis proposal, convince my committee that I am a worthwhile student to have around, and then actually try to graduate before I turn 93

It is also 1 am, and I am still in lab, waiting for my 500,000 mls of FBS to thaw. Maybe my problem #1 is that I should stop blogging and actually do some work. My problem #2 is that I should cut off all contact with the outside world while I write and prepare my thesis proposal. My problem #3 is not having enough time for myself, which I would argue precedes all the other problems.

On top of all of this, I wish I would stop getting emails asking if I want to “come over and watch a movie” … more on this later maybe after I sleep on it.

*EDIT/ADDITION*: it is now 2:30am; i am getting ready to leave lab, but not without incident:
1) I broke the pipet in our lab hood. I can’t fix it because i can’t find the needed part, so people will be greeted with a “sorry, it’s broken” note tomorrow morning. go me.
2) I think I just sent an email to a list that contains all grad students at MIT. I unintentionally used my own personal email account instead of the GSC’s. I may have done this multiple times. I’m not entirely sure, which makes the situation even stickier.
3) I am a mess, and I need to stop blogging, go home, and go to bed.

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3 Comments »

Pandax wrote @ August 22nd, 2006 at 12:24 pm

Wow, are you a busy woman!

I know how you feel about being busy but needing me time. I’m planning to pick a weekend, tell anyone who asks that I’m busy, turn off the cell phone, go to a library or cafe where people won’t find me, and make myself think about me. It’s not the month I need, but it’s a start.

Observing my grad school friends (who all survived and have now joined the working ranks), I understand how easy it can be to get distracted from research. Unlike a job, it’s all about motvating and disciplining yourself. It’s not easy, but you’ll get there. And if a little humor will help reassure you that you’re not alone, I recommend reading this - http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php

Liang wrote @ August 22nd, 2006 at 8:32 pm

I sympathize completely with your situation, dear friend, but I also know that this is not the first time you’ve had to cope with gut-wrenching overload (wasn’t August 05 also like this?). I have this feeling that, despite overwhelming hurdles, you will tap your hidden sources of energy (of which I know you have many) to get through somehow.

Of course this doesn’t mean you can’t have friends to help you along! I’ll be back in Boston in 24 hours, so just let me know. See you on Friday, if not sooner.

Shan wrote @ August 23rd, 2006 at 12:59 am

pandax: those phd comics are so real yet so pathetically funny, it’s creepy. thanks for passing them along!

liang: man, you know me too well. you’re so right about august 05. if i made it through that, i can make it through anything, right? i’ll be glad to have you back in boston.