I had a mini-meltdown this week. Not a full-blown panic attack, but definitely a meltdown where I nearly curled up in the fetal position in the corner of the lab, wishing I could be swallowed up by the few cracks in the floor. It was a shit week with shit results and shitty people draining all my emotional energy.
I was/am toast at this point. It was one of those weeks where, excited to be back in the lab after my week long vacation, I started some new cool experiments, did some housekeeping on other experiments (i.e. made new cells for a protein prep for next week) and all in all tried to get back on track.
Well, peeps, it is Friday and it seemed that everything I touched this week either blew-up (not literally, of course) in my face, showed the exact opposite trends from previous experiments, didn't dissolve, didn't behave, didn't survive, didn't like the conditions I was running, didn't keep the pH (goddamn phosphate buffer) and all in all conspired to send me to the brink of despair.
I know. I know. It was only a week- but shit, a year from now I will be applying for TT-positions. 1 year. That's 12 months. 365 days. 8760 hrs. 525,600 minutes.... In fact, I lost about ten of those minutes just sitting here writing this post.
Things need to start working again. Or at least work as well as they did two months ago. My to do list is way way way to fucking long for routine things like this not to work. I cannot afford this right now. Maybe I shouldn't have taken vacation. The biochemistry gods are looking down in disapproval, and hence have sent their evil minions to come and terrorize my experiments this week. That must be it.
2 comments:
If I may suggest something I've learned... Clearing the mind, coming back fresh and undertaking steady, planned effort seems the best way forward. The rest is not under our control, so why worry!
You just have to hang in there and get the juju back!
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