What? Four months gone?

Science has gotten in the way of blogging and for awhile, life had gotten in the way of science, so of course, blogging was the first to go.  Still alive.  Still breathing.  Still trying to do really cool science.  More to follow....

Put a fork in me....

I'm done.

One of the things I have learned from my husband is adaptability and the ability to handle whatever life throws at me without having major meltdowns.  But this morning-everything just seems to be too much. 

It could be that I am stressed out and Mr. Dr. Zeek is stressed out making my main support network/cheerleader obsolete at the moment. 

It could also be that I was in work mode all weekend since we hosted the speaker giving the colloquium seminar today which meant being in lab all day yesterday talking about my data and his data and how we can collaborate and the what not.  This also included going to a nice dinner on Saturday night with him, big boss man and collaborator from not so far away.  And today, more of the same.  Hosting the "student" lunch, going to the seminar, going to dinner with him and a few other PIs.  While I feel fantastic about our conversations and the fact that I have quite possibly forged a new alliance, I did not decompress at all this weekend.  Being a slight introvert, I do need some time away from people to figure out what is going on.

It could also that I still have these two manuscripts sitting on my desk right now, needing to be written.  It is not the writing that's hard, it is the analysis.Or maybe that I have three undergrads this semester--one of which I cannot trust to make media.  Or that big boss man may add another undergrad this summer, but to do that he needs a scholarship which means I have to write a detailed training plan for him by Thursday.  It could also be that I agreed to take on a side project on something I have never worked with before using equipment I have only read about in books.  It could really be that I have not learned to say no.

Or it could be that I have decided to write the K99 (thanks CPP for the advice) even though I am still waiting to hear from my F32 PO.

It could also be that my little POS car, which had been in the shop twice now in the past two weeks for a gas inlet valve replacement and then for a major gas leak, is now leaking oil like a sieve and is undriveable.  And that Mr. Dr. Zeek yelled at me yesterday about it, wondering why things only go wrong with the car when I drive it.  Like it was my fault.

It could be to that Mr. Dr. Zeek has a Dr. appointment this morning (which he is not going to be pleased with when he finds out what time I made it for) and is worried that he may need to go back in for major surgery. 

It could also be that my sister just had a fairly hard break-up and my mom is calling extremely concerned about her well-being, which means I have to take the concerned, empathetic role.  Even though, honestly, it is just not in me today.  It could be a lot of things.  Normally, I just put on the big girl panties, suck it up, and keep going.  Things could be so much worse than they are right now.  I just do better when it is one or the other-work or home--not when both the major components in my life seem to be sucking at my soul.

Maybe things will look brighter after another cup of coffee.

To K99 or to not K99....

So, here is the question, write and submit the damn thing or focus on getting out papers etc. in the next 6 months.

• A little added info-- I was planning on starting to apply this coming fall/January to start in summer of  2012.  
• Applying to/shooting for a mid-tier research institute (ok, so MIT and Harvard are not in my cards, but I don't want to end up at small tiny university in Podunk, USA if I don't have to- big boss man agrees that I can hack a second tier research institute and is fully supportive of this career move.  God knows he has seen enough of us coming through to know if you have the shit needed to be successful or not).  
• As of September 2012, I will am 5 years our from my defense, so no longer eligible for the K99
• I currently and in the second year (started year two in Dec 2010) of a three year F32 (YAY!)
• I have 4 first author papers out, two that I am writing now and three more that need to be written up in the next six months (minor experiments need to be finished)-I am also middle author on three papers right now from our collaborator's.  That number may increase
• I don't do "Glamor Mag" science--I mean the science, technical merit, caliber of the actual work is worthy of Glamor Mag status but the topic- not so much.  I am a basic science research sort of person.  While what I do is important and there is a HUGE interest in it, it is not generally thought of as Scieney paper stuff-which is common in my subset of the broad sweeping category of Chemical Biology.  I am OK with that, though.  
• Sometimes, when you look at my CV, I look like the jack of all trades (and I feel like the mistress of none sometimes)--I switched fields (big switch) coming into my post-doc, but I can apply some of the techniques I used in grad school which is useful
• Recommendations will be great.  And right now, I am working for one of the biggest names in the field at a highly ranked research university-so I have that going for me.

So, do I take the chance and "waste" my time writing one of these (especially knowing I heave a bit of a deadline for a resubmission etc. to stay qualified) or should I just pound out the papers and hope I look good enough on paper to the search committees.  Any clues/help/advice would help at this point.  My boss looks at the K99 as an "meh-no biggy- let me see the papers" sort of thing but I worry he might be a tad old school.  So, feel free to discuss below.  I'll tell you later in the comments which way I am leaning......

*sigh*

And collaborator is late.  No surprise there.  This should be interesting, folks.

On a side note, I saw a moped getting towed from our parking lot this morning.  Wait, read that sentence again.  A moped.  On a tow truck.  A big tow truck.  Weird.

Survived

So we all survived the conference.  And a great one it was at that.  Mr. Dr. Zeek of course enjoyed the locale (who wouldn't-leaving places snowy and cold for warm sandy beaches?) as did I (or at least the little bit that I could enjoy of it).  I even had someone ask me to send them my CV and preliminary info since their university is starting a job search soon.

Big Boss Man commented to me yesterday how I was hitting everyone up to find out if they were hiring or not.  Really, it wasn't exactly like that, but people do know that I will be officially entering the market this fall.  Which, according to Big Boss Man, sounds like great timing.  That is, of course, if I sit my ass in the chair and write these two manuscripts.

There seems to be another rumble looming on the horizon, this time with close working collaborator.  I have said it before and I will say it again, it sucks when you have to treat you collaborator as a competitor.  We have a mini-meeting coming up to "discuss" the three manuscripts (two are "mine", one "his") that are so closely related it would be silly not to put them in the same journal or try for a back-to-back submission to "Great Journal Everyone Reads But Has Low Impact Factor".  Or at least that was my assumption.  While I understand as a PI you need to look out for number one (namely yourself as the tenure clock is ticking) throwing every post-doc, graduate student and member of the community who is trying to help under the bus is NOT a good way to get to where you are going.  After talking to a few people at the conference, the general unsolicited opinion of said collaborator is not so hot (mind you, I kept my mouth shut and took it all in).  Maybe I need to distance myself as soon as possible?

So, in spirit of our mini-meeting next week, I have been listening to my favorite Social Distortion song which seems to sum things up quite nicely.

And the weeks marched on...

Alright-it has been awhile since I posted.  Rest assure it has been a busy month in the Dr, Zeek household. In the last four weeks:

• my laptop melt-down resulted in a complete wipe and reinstall (thank the gods we had carbonite installed)
• all the experiments I needed for the poster for the upcoming conference worked about two weeks before I needed to start putting everything together--so there was a massive push to analyze the data
• then, a really bad cold knocked me on my ass for a few days a week before christmas
• which resulted in my stressing
• which resulted in stress-induced muscle spasms in my lower back--no relief except laying flat on my back in bed.  It is hard to work on a poster when laying in bed.
• resulting in more stress--and the viscous cycle continued until I finally went to the doctor for some muscle relaxers
• which resulted in family Christmas festivities in a somewhat drug-induced haze and still no poster (which needed to be printed by today at the latest)
• which resulted in a marathon illustrator/photoshop session (12 hrs on the 26th and 12 hrs on the 27th) and a beautiful poster to print yesterday
• and a corrupted illustrator poster file
• which resulted in few panicky tears.  4 hrs later the amazing IT/media center people printed my poster

It has been a rough few weeks, but the poster is printed, the holidays are almost over and we fly out to places warmer for the conference on Sunday.  I almost cannot wait to get back from the conference so I can put my life back to some semblance of normalcy.  Oh, wait, the weekend after we get back is Mr. Dr. Zeek's surprise birthday party.  Then maybe some normalcy?

Bad planning....

Shit.  The two key things I need to run the short experiments this week will not get here in time (even though I ordered them early last week).  One will show up late today and one late tomorrow.  I realized while walking to the bus stop this morning that I am out of both of the key things needed-basically screwing up the routine/schedule I had formulated in my brain before I finally fell asleep last night.  I hate when the things I plan to do don't get done.   Damn. damn. damn.

While during a "normal" work-week, this would pose little problems since I would have multiple, multi-day experiments starting/running.  Alas, the shortened work-week though has put a huge monkey-wrench in the plans.  (and while this may make me a horrible scientist-I am not working on Thanksgiving--Mr. Dr. Zeek and I have plans to visit family and goddammit I want to watch me some football-St. Kern will be pissed....) 

With only a month before I have to have my poster printed for the conference in Jan, I am freaking out a tad.  I suppose I should go over those damn papers again and start doing some of the figures/general things for the poster.  Damn.  Damn. damn.