It is over.

I just got home from a 3 day trip to a conference where I was to present a talk about my proposed research to industry professionals....and my entire research group.
Before listening to the 6 presenters before me, I felt okay about going up in front of 70 people (all but 5 of them men) who have worked in industry for longer than I've been alive. But after listening to the 6 previous presentations, I felt a little overwhelmed and started to feel my heart start beating faster, my mouth getting dry, and fidgeting in my seat.

When I began walking towards the front of the lecture room, I could feel the stares as if they were boring into the back of my head, increasing my nerves. I set up my presentation and launched into my introduction... hoping to feel a little more comfortable, but caught the eyes of many of the men sitting in the front row. I felt like I was 5 years old and hiding behind my dad (in this case, the podium) so that I didn't have to see the scary men looking at me. Because, as we all know, if you can't see it, it is not real.
Immediately I lost my thought process and began stumbling a little bit. I did recover eventually, but not before repeating myself a few times... while wondering if I had already said that.... and then realizing I had. This prompted me begin avoiding eye-contact with everyone in the room and thinking 'just get through it, just get through it'. And I did.

Conveniently, I was the last presentation before lunch, and as soon as I finished talking people began getting up and moving to the buffet line. Something though, didn't seem right. Every presenter before me was drilled by the audience about experimental methods, data interpretation and conclusions. But for my presentation? Not one question. I remember awkwardly asking if anyone had any questions, and thinking to myself 'of course they don't.... they probably think that you will start to cry if they ask you anything'. I am not going to lie.... I probably would have. My God was it intimidating.

Anyway, while most of the men deemed it appropriate to leave me alone while in front of the entire audience.... they also thought it appropriate to approach me during the 45 minute lunch and say patronizing things to me like 'oh, you did well', 'that must have been tough...you just started!', and 'Good presentation' while giving me sympathetic smiles. I felt like I was in kindergarten and had spelt my name wrong on my finger painting, but my teacher didn't want to make me feel bad, so she just said 'ohhhh pretty picture....way to go'. I almost wish that someone had said to me 'Well.... it wasn't the best presentation, but the information was there'. Or, 'You know, we all suck at presentations when we start.... you will get better'. At least ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that the presentation was a good 10 minutes of speed talking, intermittent with rapid eye contact (avoidance). I would seriously be surprised if ANYONE knew what I was talking about....

Anyway, to make matters worse, my entire research group seem to have a knack for speaking in front of large groups of middle-aged men who are intimidating as all hell, while looking laid-back and relaxed.... and cracking jokes that just 'came to them' while up there. So afterwards, I was constantly hearing 'wow, you guys did such a good job' and 'what a good research team' and 'geez, way to stack the deck *boss', while thinking 'obviously, they are not talking about me... why are they saying these things? Please stop talking about it..... it never happened.' I seriously considered finding a bathroom stall to curl up in the corner and begin rocking back and forth while in the fetal position.

It is entirely possible that I am exaggerating the extent of my suckage.... but I doubt it.

A little pep talk.

Boss just poked his head in my office to ask me if I was okay in this office. hmmm.
To me, this means one of two things.
1) Someone approached him because they think that OM#1 is insane and she is driving me insane. While this is true, I am quite good at tuning her out regularly and therefore, she does not bother me nearly as much as she once did.
2) Someone approached him because they think that I am really annoying and asked boss to ask me if I was okay with the office situation, hoping that I wasn't and then I would be moved without feeling like someone was booting me out.

I am going to go with number 1.

Boss- 'Hey. Are you okay in here?'
Me- 'Like right now? yes.'
Boss- 'No... like are you okay in this office?'
Me- 'Uhhhh yeh. Why?'
Boss- shifty eyes 'no reason'
Me-......
Boss- 'You are doing really good work. Good initiative. Keep it up.'
Me- 'Ummm. Thanks.'
Boss- 'Are you ready for the conference?'
Me- 'I've got a few things to finish up...but mostly, I think I am ready'.
Boss- 'It is going to be a tough crowd.... I could lie and say no one will hammer you... but that would be a lie'
Me-*nervous giggle* 'Okay, well thanks for the pep talk'.

Awkward Moment of the Day:

OM carrying on a conversation with me about the upcoming conference before realizing that I did not hear a single word he said because I was wearing earphones. You would think that he would have realized that I was not listening when I didn’t respond for five minutes, but he continued until I may, or may not have started humming….

In his defense, it is possible that I might have made a grunting noise while trying to lift a very heavy book off the floor, unaware that he would take the grunt as confirmation of whatever it was he was talking about. Anyway, he scared the crap out of me when, out of the corner of my eye, I see him peaking around the partition with a grin on his face. This led to me spilling my coffee on my lap, dropping my iPod on the floor, and knocking a pile of paper off the corner of my desk.

It is very difficult to try and process information given to you right after pouring scalding hot coffee on yourself, and trying to pick up everything on the floor while attempting to block out the memory of looking like a complete idiot just minutes before. Anyway, I still have no idea what he was talking about, because during the conversation, I couldn't focus on what he was talking about, but rather all the other embarrassing moments of my life that I could think of.

I am now reliving a nice memory of falling into a creek in front of a dozen people while spending the day hiking during a field school. Nice.

AHEM

Okay, so I got a little dramatic at the end of the last post. But I still stand by what I said.

Moving on….I spent most the day frantically trying to finish my conference presentation (which I thought I was done…but keep finding new things to add), and I am getting a little concerned because I am scheduled to talk for no more than 15 minutes…leaving at least a few minutes for questions. So I had to send in the presentation today because they are making a book out of everyone’s slides…which, I should mention, freaks me out because not only can they come up with really good questions before hand; but also because if they think I did a shitty job, then not only are they going to think that I suck during the talk, but also every time they flip through the book and remember my suckage.

Anyway, as I was saying, I had to send in the slides early…and I haven’t yet timed out everything that I want to say so I don’t know if I am in the time bracket….. hmmmm. That could be a problem later. I finally sent off my final copy, and was about to start an assignment that is due tomorrow (of course)…and I thought to myself that if I have to work tonight, I am going to take a little break.

Cough Etiquette
You have probably noticed that when someone is sick, they cough…. And while I am sure that there are books covering cough etiquette like ‘How to Cough Like a Lady’, or ‘How to Cough Without Disgusting People with the Extra Phlegm that You’ve Developed Overnight’, there should be a book called ‘Required Number of Coughs During each Cough Session’. Yes, it sounds weird and I realize that it makes me sound ridiculous, but hear me out. When someone coughs, you expect to hear a string of coughing…usually 2, 3, 4 or even 5 coughs in one spell. When you hear only one cough, you feel like you are waiting for someone to finish a sentence. It is like me saying ‘so, how do you feel about the new….’ And you are left waiting to hear what the ‘new’ thing is. One of my OM’s is sick and has been coughing sporadically throughout the day one cough at a time. I feel like telling him that maybe he should consider coughing multiple times, instead of just once, because it makes me feel like he is starting a conversation and refusing to finish it. It is really annoying me. Cough twice dammit.

More Snow?!

While the following story is not an exaggeration, it is also not a typical occurrence of where I live. This is not to say that we do not get ridiculous amounts of snow (because we often do), however, I have never seen something like this.

Five days ago, I was waiting up for my sister (as she was arriving home after being on holidays in Punta Cana) and watching television on the main floor of my house. 3 times, I remember muting the television after hearing a strange noise (like someone was jumping on our deck, or dropping a chair). I looked out to see what looked like a snow tornado (granted, it was pretty small) blowing against the glass door. While this is not uncharacteristic of our winters, it is also not very common- especially since it was really nice and sunny for the entire day.

The next morning, I awoke to the sound of gushing wind. Again, this is not uncharacteristic, so I stumbled to the shower, jumped in the shower, and proceeded to get ready for the day. My mom knocked on my door and asked if it was really necessary that I go to work today. Puzzled, I said that I had left my laptop at the school, and would therefore not be able to work from home, and did not give much thought to the weird question. I got ready, as per usual and then looked outside. It was blizzarding so bad that I could not see the house across the street. My father had just left for work (near the school), so I decided to call him and ask how the roads were. While he said they were not great, he said I would be fine.

So I continued getting ready and set out about 30 minutes later. 3 blocks away from my house, the blizzard began getting worse. I considered turning around, then decided against it due to the mass amount of work that I needed to get done, and continued on my way. I got to the freeway without too much trouble and proceeded at 20km/hr to my exit. I was following the headlights of the guy in front of me until he just stopped, right there at the exit. Thinking that someone in front of him had stopped, I waited patiently for a few minutes and then realized no one was in front of him. Thinking that I had to get moving (traffic was piling up) I swerved around him and attempted to navigate through the blizzard completely blind. While I had driven this road 10,000 times in the last 4 years, I could not see 5 feet in front of my car, and also could not see the road or any street lights. I could not tell if I was driving on the road, on the shoulder, or in the ditch. After 5 minutes of clenching my steering wheel and holding my breath, hoping that I didn’t run into someone who was too stupid to put on their lights, or get rear-ended by a jackass who was going way too fast, I made it to a clearing where I could see that I had, indeed been driving on the road and had acted like a beacon of light for the following cars. I patted myself on the back and continued to the school, deciding that I would just pick up my computer and go home after hearing over and over again that the blizzard was going to get worse and worse for the next 8 hours.

2 of my OM’s were happily working away at their respective desks, paying no attention to the weather. I burst in, covered in snow with an anxious look on my face explaining how bad the weather had gotten over the past hour. Even though we have a huge bay window in our office, they were not convinced. I left and got home unscathed (but a little shaken up) and settled at my kitchen table, safe and sound. An hour after I got home, 5 main streets were closed off due to snow drifts and exits from the school were dwindling. Human resources was telling people to leave the school and try to make it home before it got worse (resulting in gridlock surrounding the school and all respective streets). At the worst of it, I could not see the front of my car from my house (which was parked 10 feet from the front door). It was pretty scary.

3 people died. Frozen to death after leaving their car (which got stuck) and attempting to find shelter.

Not only had I never seen something like this, but my parents haven’t either. In 55 years, this was the worst storm they had ever seen. Now, I have no evidence that this storm is somehow linked to the horrendous way that humans have exploited the earth’s resources (as storms worse than this happened frequently before human interference) but people….please. Open your eyes. Stop pretending that everything is going to be okay. Stop convincing yourself that you are not having an effect on the environment. Stop consuming ridiculous amounts of energy. Stop driving ridiculously huge SUV’s that guzzle more gas than a city bus. Stop being ridiculous. While we can’t reverse what we have done to the environment, we CAN stop it from getting worse.

Seriously.

I am irritated. Severely irritated.
I have been trying to schedule a meeting with my committee for the past 2 weeks. By trying, I mean compulsively e-mailing all of them asking for a time frame that everyone is available, and then attempting to schedule a time with the head of the department's secretary. Finally I get everything sent off today, thinking that I've got everything covered. I get an e-mail from boss 'time conflicts with schedule'. Are you serious?! Why the hell didn't you tell me the first 10 e-mails that I've sent?
So why am I so irritated? I have to attend a conference 2 weeks from now and present a 20 minute talk. A similar talk to the one I am defending at the previously mentioned meeting. Hence, the rush to get my committee together.
I spend more time tracking people down, passively-aggressively convincing them to do things, and pretending that I am not annoyed with them when they bail on me at last minute.

An age old question

How early is too early to go home on a regular work day, considering that no one gave you a schedule to stick by…and that no one really cares? And when I say doesn’t really care, I mean don’t ever say anything, but surely think ‘man, this girl is such a slacker’. At the same time, they are thinking about what boss has told them about me, and thinking ‘why is this girl making me look bad?’. I figure that I am a delicate balance between keener and slacker.

Anyway, is 4:30 too early? Because I can’t sit here any longer….I had a good run for about 5 hours doing solid work, and now I am exhausted, my back hurts from sitting, I am starving, and I have the attention span of a 5 year old. While I fully realize that not only should I be working, but taking my work home tonight to finish a few things; I absolutely can not bring myself to even think about doing one more minute today.

Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard.

Today is going only slightly better than yesterday. I am no longer questioning my decision to enter the workforce in a year and a half (which is probably for the best), as I have come to terms with growing up. Also, the fact that I slept (oh so blissfully) last night for more than 8 hours also helped clarify my priorities and overall sanity. It is a sweet, sweet thing, this thing called sleep. Too bad I rarely get to enjoy it, what with the rolling around, waking up constantly and the alarm clock going off much too soon. I am beginning to think that maybe I should make a habit of sleeping only 3 hours one night to get the full 8 hours the next day, due to pure exhaustion.

While I have not accomplished much today at all, I have done some busy work that needed to get done, but that does not require much thinking (ie: ordering equipment, e-mailing, organizing my desk, catching up with some OM’s who decided to show up today). I will soon attempt to get some actual work done this afternoon (after I eat lunch, that is).

I only lasted until 2:30 yesterday… which was pretty pathetic. I justified going home early for the following reasons:

1) I was getting absolutely nothing done;
2) I was totally and completely bored;
3) I was tired, and in desperate need to not be sitting at my desk;
4) I was getting absolutely nothing done.

While these reasons may sound lame today, I thought they were pretty legitimate concerns yesterday...

You can brave decisions before you crumble up and die

The first day back after a vacation is usually not the most enjoyable day... to say the least. I have been back for 2 hours (if that) and I am already on my blog...after spending the previous hour checking my e-mail, reading up on some blogs, flipping through my iPod looking for something interesting to listen to for the next hour or so... you know, the usual. Anyway, I have spent the last week on edge because I hadn't done any work during the holidays and had convinced myself that I must have deleted an e-mail or lost a memo informing me of an extremely important meeting that was to be held promptly at 8:00am today. I didn't lose or delete anything... and I am a little disappointed because maybe, just maybe, if I had a meeting on Friday I would get some work done today.
As per usual, I did not fall asleep until around 4ish last night...and woke at 7:30 this morning. And by woke, I mean fell out of bed trying to turn off my alarm that I 'strategically' placed on my new bookshelf across my room. So far, not so good. I re-set my alarm for 7:50 due to an occupied shower (reason 145 to move out) and stumbled back into bed muttering about how stupid it is to put my alarm clock across my room, and how stupid I was to not check the volume dial after moving it. It had turned up...a lot.
I arrived in my office at around 10, after running into like 10 people walking up the stairs. Why is it that on the day that you feel (and probably look) soooooo shitty, you run into people that you haven't seen in like 2 years? What the hell?
Anyway, my boss doesn't come back until this weekend (news to me), ALL of my officemates have not returned yet (and probably won't until next week) and I am sitting here feeling like a tool because I have 8 hours to get work done and all I can do is think about how I could leave right now and no one would have to know.
Is everyone in the work force this unmotivated? I am doing this research because I think it is interesting and yet... I still can't bring myself to do it! I make my own schedule, make my own goals and objectives, have time to actually read books during down time, get paid to get a second degree, AND get weekends off, yet I am still so unmotivated right now.

How am I going to have a career doing something that I might not necessarily like all the time and manage NOT to get fired for posting blogs about how much I hate it everyday?! Is this what I am to look forward to for the next 30 years?

What to do about nothing...

I had followed through with all of my short-term responsibilities on December 19th. I told myself that I would do some prep for my next term after taking exactly one week off to do absolutely nothing. Well, that was almost one week ago. I now sit here, again at my kitchen table contemplating the consequences of shutting my laptop, crawling into bed, and watching as many Matthew McConaughey movies as my sister owns.
Technically I don't really need to start working again until Wednesday.... however, I have an oral presentation early next week defending the progress of my research (which I haven't started) and another presenation defending my progress to the people funding my project in a conference in late January (which I haven't started).

At the moment, I can't decide if I want to get a head-start on these presentations tonight, or continue watching muchmusics 100 best videos hosted by Carmen Electra. However, the latter is looking a little dissapointing, considering that Kylie Minogue grabbed the #34 spot for 'Can't get you out of my head'. What the hell..... why not give the backstreet boys one of the top 40 spots for one of their video's... oh wait, they did. I digress. The issue at hand looming over me... do I do the responcible thing and start whipping up a powerpoint presentation, or do I continue my lazy holiday for one more night? hmmmm.