Once again, sorry for the depressing post last time. But I'm pretty sure none of you are strangers to various forms of social anxiety, so I figured it was a good place to post my feelings. The last couple of days have been much better, although I got a migraine today around 2 pm that is making me progressively more nauseated. Bleh.
Since rebuilding one of our garden divider walls, I haven't done much in the yard. Still have to call an electrician; still have finish taking out the 1st floor kitchen ceiling (and floor); still have to get the new heating system squared away; and put up insulation; and put up drywall. This whole house renovation takes much longer than I thought, but a few months ago I decided to be okay with us not really getting much done on this until after I graduate. Since then I've been much happier; but I still wish I'd win the lottery or something, and just be able to hire someone to do all of this (although it's still difficult for me to deal with calling workmen & get them in for estimates).
As far as work is concerned, I'm still running in circles. I am getting closer to being done with Aim 1b of my thesis (only ~250 pictures to go), and will start Aim 2 once I get back from vacation. It would be nice if this would just work right off the bat, but I've been in grad school long enough to know that this will not happen. And in a strange, sarcastic sense, I'm actually looking forward to seeing what weird technical problem comes up this time. Otherwise, I'll continue to try to carry out the dual retrograde tracing (persistent problems with tracer detection, and survival issues), try to get rid of my extranneous bands in my Western blots (ugh, I don't even want to get into it, + communication problems with that PI), resample my dual fluorescence tissue (I didn't save the images from each separate channel for alot of my sampling and only recently realized that this is giving me false positives, but at least I have actually settled on a darn analysis protocol). Still, I had wanted to be done with Aim 1b last year some time, then start work on all this other stuff. I apparently am continuing my trend of not being able to say no to people when they try to make me do things that don't make any sense. But it's hard to contradict someone who has the power to say you don't graduate :)
Still, with any luck, and a tremendous amount of work, I may actually graduate in 2009. We'll see. Also with any luck, we'll have a finished back porch, and upstairs bathroom, & so I will actually be able to throw myself a party (though I may be even more stressed out by this than by my thesis defense!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Sweetheart,
it is hard to say No to people that have influence over you, just as it is hard to say No to a robber with a gun. It is also hard to say Yes to such people when you are raging inside and want to scream out "Get away from me you moron and go back to your crayons and blocks!". I have always found that saying "I understand." is a way of avoiding the issue. You don't say No and you don't say yes. Keep an extra box of crayons around as they do tend to eat the paper off of the brightly colored ones.
Graduation in 2009? What a day that will be! A day of silly hats and music blaring in the backyard! A day of fajitas and ritas! A day of rest in the long journey on the path to Stockholm.
A man was standing at a bus stop waiting for a bus. He noticed another man approaching and the other man had a pig on a leash. The pig was the ugliest, sorriest, beast you could imagine. It was covered with black, oily smears. It had bald scars in several places where there should hair and it had a peg leg.
As the man and pig passed, the first man started laughing at the sight of the two of them. The man with the leash said "What are you laughing at?".
The first man said "I am laughing at that sorry pig. Why don't you at least clean it up a bit. Why is it covered with black smears?".
The pig owner said "Don't you laugh at this pig! This is a good pig. This pig made me rich. He was digging in my back yard and hit oil. That's what the black stuff is and I keep it there to remind me each day what I owe to this pig.".
The first man said "O.K. I understand the smears but why do you keep an animal with such horrendous scarring?".
The man with the leash said "Don't you laugh at this pig! This is a good pig! This pig saved my child's life. Our house caught on fire and we all ran outside. We could not find our child when suddenly the door crashed open and the pig came outside dragging my child in its mouth. This is a good pig!".
The first man said "That is all well and wonderful but what about the ridiculous peg leg?".
The man with the leash said "Hey. this is a good pig! You don't eat him all at once!".
Hi, Sweetie. I read your earlier post yesterday and have been trying ever since to think of something helpful to say. I'm glad you're feeling a little better. You're right - we've all dealt with the social anxiety stuff in some form or another. I have issues, too, with being comfortable around people that have more than me financially/materially. (There are friends of R's that I'm reluctant to invite over to our house because I don't want their mom and dad to see our neighborhood. I have actually planned to purchase lots of plants and hang up artwork in our house before we can have them over. How silly!) Honestly, though, most people just do not care about that stuff - whether your house is as nice as theirs. And, they are probably in awe of something you have (e.g., your intelligence or sense of humor) and feeling inadequate themselves in some way. I know you said that it was more something you felt about yourself. But good lord, woman, you and D bought a house and you're fixing it up yourselves! That's amazing! You should be so proud of that. And, of course it's going to take a long time. You both work full-time and then some. I've seen tons of HGTV shows where they interview a couple with a gorgeous, restored/renovated house and the couple says that it took them 20+ years to do it themselves. Try not to feel bad about that. (Although I know how hard it is to live amongst chaos for a long time.) You and D are doing an incredibly cool thing. I bet that's why your grad school friends wanted to see it.
I have to disagree with Dad's advice about "tellwiddem" and saying you don't need them anyway. You do need someone. For me, I've come to accept that what works is having one or two close friends who know a lot about me, and I try not to beat myself up over not having much more that. I mean, I'm always nice to everyone but I don't feel bad if I don't make a real connection with most people. But telling yourself that you don't need anyone seems like denial and suppresses a very basic human need. I've also found that I've made good friendships with people that I have almost nothing in common with - people of much different backgrounds or with much different interests. So "being similar" doesn't have to be a requirement. If you can keep an open mind about other people, you'll find people who can do the same.
I think what you need is a week with a bunch of people who love you and think you're the tops no matter what - like your family! ;-)
Post a Comment