LOL! Right now, I'm too demoralized to admit to you what a fruitless week this has been. Suffice it to say that I Failed. I haven't written my cover letters. I haven't returned several emails and phone calls from friends, including one who's had a very bad time of it lately. I kept thinking, "What if I call now and say something stupid?" I have not jogged this week. I've barely left my room. I've buried said room in dirty laundry. The immunology lab that accepted my application a month ago for a job I'm miraculously qualified to do and desperately want to have with the dorkiest of passions still has me officially "Under Review", and I don't know if that's good or bad. My right eye has turned ruby red. My MacBook's glare has destroyed what remained of my ability to clearly see objects more than two feet away from my face. I fear I'm too incompetent to get my act together to return to school next year. I want to shower before I get bagged and carted out of my house as a Hazardous Material, and I want my irritation over that government scientist's blog that I consulted for career information only to find it politically unpalatable to subside already. And I want an escape plan! NOW! What the fuck am I waiting for? Dude, we're halfway through January already!
I refuse to work on my computer today. Maybe, if I step away, sanity will return this weekend. I'll see you then.
Thanks,
Juniper
P.S. Eppendork, ScientistMother, Biopunk and Candid Engineer-- I love you guys! Coriolis, your question will be easier for me to answer when I post my next Method and Theory
10 comments:
Juniper, I feel your pain as I'm having a shitty week as well. Hang in there. There's always next week.
Re the cover letters: my suggestion is to take a deep breath, sit down and blast them all out in one go and then return to the couch. It'll suck but at least it will all be over quickly :)
This was a horrible week for me, too. I think you are a great writer, and your blog is fabulous. To get my momentum back I usually start by cleaning house - vacuuming and washing the bathrooms are especially therapeutic for me. I get that minor sense of accomplishment that I need to finish what I really have to have done and the satisfaction of having parts of my abode freshened up. I find it's easier to concentrate on unsavory tasks if there is at least a small patch of order in my living space.
To put job searching in its proper context, before I got my current position, I applied to nearly 40 jobs and only got two interviews. Two out of 40 equals five percent. Ergo, 95% of my applications (avec cover letters, of course!) went into someone's recycle bin. The whole process is hella demoralizing, but keep your chin up even though the numbers are stacked against getting a positive response quickly ... eventually, that interview and that job offer will come but you're gonna hafta wait for them. Best of luck!
Oh, we all have weeks like this.
If it makes you feel any better, I was desperately 'productive' this week, working uber long hours and now without any sensible data at the end of it!
I feel your pain. I'm a total spaz when something needs to be done. I have to tell myself, 'self, if you behave and work for an hour, you can play for half an hour.' Then the time required to play reduces exponentially the more I look at said assignment until it's 2 hrs later and elbow deep in ice cream while watching Bad Girl's Club . *cough*
Great, I just realized that I am not too far from being carted off as hazardous waste myself.
Misery loves company and damn, it looks like most of us here have had a shit week. At least yours didn't start out with three days on a fucking train that came in several hours late and missed your connection so that you had a few hours on a bus to cap off the adventure - AARRGGHH!!!
Sorry, hissy fit over.
At least my first week of classes in sixteen years is done and over. And maybe by Tuesday, I'll actually manage to get all the fucking books I'm supposed to have.
I can say that I hope you do get the confidence in you competence to go to school next year. You're so worth it.
PS - I Love Geneticists. If I didn't love psych and the human brain more, and if I didn't totally suck at the math, I would totally go into genetics......
PiT,
Your blogs of your week read like the script for "Assholes: The Musical". I am not fond of your neighbor or any of your colleagues right now. If they keep it up, too, then we're all gonna have to start a PiT emergency fund for all the Doritos, Jameson, Subversive Cross-Stitch Kits, Ritter Sport Bars and shanks that you're gonna need to survive the term. Here's hoping it gets better quickly!
And thanks for the support. It is much appreciated.
Anonymous,
I'm glad you like the blog! I hope I can keep writing things that interest you.
Cleaning everything up first is excellent advice. I will finish doing this, and then tell myself to quit whining and just "sit down and blast them all out" afterwards. I know job searches are hard for everyone and I've just got to hang in there . . .
Candid Engineer!
I have a funny food story to post to your blog later!
Thanks for being kind to me.
Hermitage,
I have to tell myself, 'self, if you behave and work for an hour, you can play for half an hour.'
You know, while I was procrastinating last week, I read Culture Dish's piece on replacing bad habits with good ones. She argues that we're actually supposed to be doing something like this, so that we eventually condition our brains into liking it when we're good:
http://scienceblogs.com/culturedish/2009/01/why_new_years_resolutions_dont.php
But, yeah. You've got to coax yourself to get to the "reward" part before it can work. LOL.
My sister says, "You can change your hair color, but, to keep the new hair color looking good, you really have to keep working at it." That's what I keep telling myself, lately.
Hi DuWayne,
LOL! It's a Shitty Week Convention, and I'm the host. Everyone, welcome. Drinks and ice cream (this last especially for me and Hermitage) will be served.
Welcome to the blog! And congratulations on your return to school. That's a really big deal. I'm glad you made it.
You're also a welcome addition to the DrugMonkey crowd. One of the newcomers there, who shall remain nameless, royally annoys me. It's nice to get another person who writes substantive comments and wants genuine debates with people. (And who doesn't want to tell everyone how "harmless" drugs are.)
Brain science is awesome. Somebody's gotta help fix the crazy. You do know that lots of neuroscience makes use of genetics, right? Or so I'm told.
You do know that lots of neuroscience makes use of genetics, right?
Oh, I know and I'm excited about it. That and chemistry - I love me some chemistry (Just ask my parent's, who really didn't love the five foot crater I blew in the back yard when I was ten).
Genetics and organic chemistry are almost as sexy as the chemical reactions going on inside our skulls...... But the sexy of the human mind is a sexy that's really hard to beat.
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