… letting people down.

I have never been good at literary interpretation. I always struggled with the concept of stepping away from the details of a story to synthesize and garner the big picture abstract idea. Likewise, and not surprisingly, it took me until now to realize that I am the epitome of the boy-who-cried-wolf.

This stems from my general laziness and non-motivation to get things done. Thus, when I am asked about my progress, I highlight and exaggerate the challenges that I have been having, in order to show just how hard I have been trying, and how the lack of general progress is due to these great walls that I have not been able to scale. This works the first couple of times, but after a while, I think people catch on. My advisor, post-docs, other students … they come to realize that shan is the perpetual “girl-who-cries-wolf”.

It used to be that when I would mention a challenge, people would flock to my aid. They would help me generate code, think up experimental setup solutions, offer advice, etc. etc. thinking that I generally truly needed the help. However, in typical crying wolf fashion, I exhausted these other people’s goodwills. I think these people have all now realized that I never follow up on their suggestions/advice, and that I am just a lazy individual that does nothing. So they have given up on me and stopped coming to my side to help me.

I am also a very forgetful and absent-minded individual. I finally lost my cell phone today. I am actually quite surprised that it has taken me this long to finally lose my cell phone. Not that I was trying to lose it, but in general, I don’t keep track of things (keys, phones, watches, rings, etc.) very well. And so it happened tonight. And now I am phone-less. So don’t call my cell, and don’t text me, unless you are dying to play sleuth and help me to locate my phone by chewing out whoever happens to answer it when you call. This beg for your help is not coming from the “girl-who-cried-wolf.”