Playing hookey...

Yes, as the last day of spring break winds down across Major Research U, I have decided that in an attempt to keep my sanity and prevent myself from totally loosing my junk in the upcoming days when my undergrad minions come back, I would take today off. Coincidentally, there is an all day long Battlestar Galactica marathon on SciFi today (right now I am watching Gata grow some bals- I never really liked him anyways- Mr DrZeek and I always thought he was a cylon), finishing with the 2 hr series finale, and my fav NCAA basketball team is playing right now (Go...never mind, that may give away too much of my secret identity but its 26-18 at the half- whooo-hooo). I do have my fellowship to work on and some papers to digest before going back to the lab tomorrow (seems backwards, taking off Friday to go in Saturday-but Saturday's are nice, NO ONE, but the PI ever comes in), but I tell you getting up at noon-- something I don't do on the weekends since that's when I and Mr DrZeek run our errands-- drinking some coffee and perusing my fav blogs at my own pace has been refreshing. I think this mental health day is exactly what I needed...

EDIT: oh yeah, went with the hubby to the dentist this morning (woke up at 6:30--got back home at 8:00 and promptly crawled back into bed till noon-anyways, I digress)-they yanked his tooth. Poor babes. At least they gave him some of the "good stuff," too bad he couldn't take off of work (too many deliveries today).

make the writing stop

I just want to get back to some bench work. Seriously. All this writing has put a damper on my mood (and motivation). This silly fellowship is due in two weeks and I have roughly two pages (since that puts me at the limit) to write. Two silly pages. Although, I should mention that I am proposing some crazy science never done with my favorite protein (MFP) that I only have a minimal background on-and of course this is the research design and methods part that I am putting off right now. I even purified some of MFP this week, just* to get my "hands dirty." Former post-doc now PI and I were talking today and he mentioned how this was great training for when/if I get a TT faculty position. Maybe, but I want to still stay in the trenches and just work on some really cool science.

*Not that I didn't/don't always need more of MFP- probably won't touch it for a few weeks, though....

Mission accomplished...

Paper submitted.

Now just waiting for the reviews.

The fact that it is my first first-author paper (my PI in grad school would always put himself as first author) is awesome. The fact that my name is followed by 5 PI's (for a total of 5 universities, none of them within 90 miles of each other- in fact three of them are on different continents) makes me laugh in a sad sort of way.

So, what's on tap for the next 6 months??
Paper 1: submitted
Paper 2: chemicals on back order for very important experiments (VIE), but writing everything else --two months ETA till first round of back and forth corrections
Fellowship Resubmit: due in 20-some odd days. I have opened a word.doc file and named it fellowhipresub.doc, but that is about as far as I am right now
Paper 3: bugs are grown and in the freezer, need to go on a purification spree- ETA of data to send around- 4-5 months (if I put this on the back burner to finish paper 2).

I need to get back to the bench today, if for no other reason than to save my sanity....