Things are moving along with the house. Our mortgage company is working on giving us the Final Approval. All we’re waiting on is the underwriter for the student loans and the appraisal report. Until then I have plenty of things to keep me busy.
-Brother-in-law 1 (BIL-1) graduates from law school this weekend. So, the in-laws are coming up.
-Then, my parents are coming up just to visit and for mother’s day (not for me, for my mom… she wants to see me and I can’t make it down to HomeTown).
-Marie and her boyfriend are coming up for three days on their way North for vacation.
-I’m hosting Girls NightTM next week after Marie and her boyfriend leave.
In the midst of this I need to pack, get homeowner’s insurance, pick out paint colors (fun!), schedule the roofers to come out and start after closing, figure out the fence issue (find a fence/get someone to come out and put it up– there’s a lot of roots around the property line), and work in the lab.
The last point is the sticky one. I discovered yesterday that I was working with immature protein for my yeast stuff and need to change this to the mature one. Ergo, that means that I’m going to have to redo everything from the past few months and get it done before June– so I can do growth studies in time for Major European Conference.
I’m pretty ticked at myself for making a stupid mistake. So, last night I had this whole melodramatic pseudo-breakdown on the phone with Dr. Man. As in the I’m not good enough to do science. If I can’t remember to look for a localization sequence in a eukaryotic protein, I don’t deserve a PhD. I’m not smart enough and I’ll never have my own lab/do anything right/graduate. He did his best to calm me down and remind me that I work with prokaryotes (until the past two months), am not a total moron, and my favorite saying If you only had to do it once it would just be called ‘search.’
We all make mistakes and all have to redo stuff sometimes… it’s never nice or easy, but being good at what you do also means you get up and carry on when something goes wrong…
Good luck!
All that house stuff sounds fun and exciting!
And don’t feel bad about your mistake. I said I didn’t deserve a phd since I couldn’t work a speak phone…I think you’re doing better than that!
I meant speaker phone. see what I mean? 🙂
You’ve got a lot of balls in the air. As long as you keep picking up the ones you drop, it will all work out in the end. I remember being incredibly stressed out and feeling like I couldn’t possibly get everything done when we were buying our condo, all the way to the closing. But it all worked out. Not perfectly – only half of the rooms got painted, and simple replacement of light fixtures turned into an electrical emergency – but worked out in its own way.
I’m going to remember the it would just be called ‘search’ comment. That’s brilliant!
Whoa…if that mistake means you don’t deserve a PhD, I’m gonna have to give mine back if people ever find out about all of my stupid mistakes!
Stepwise Girl: Yeah, it’s not that big of a deal. I just… go a little melodramatic at times. I’m keeping on, keeping on today at least 🙂
EGF: The house stuff is fun, but a little stressful. I think the speaker phone is definitely not a non-phding offense 🙂
Acme Girl: Thanks for the reassurance on the house front. It’s a bit overwhelming. There’s so many things to think about and do! I can’t remember where I got the search comment from, but it’s one of my favorites.
Mad Hatter: You’ve given me hope. That someone that has made “stupid mistakes” can graduate (however, my “stupid mistakes” may redefine the term) 🙂
Oh, I’ve made many stupid mistakes and false conjectures. We have a saying in mathematics that the measure of a good mathematician is how few wrong conjectures she makes. And I look at my false conjectures and just groan.
I prefer what one of my professors said – it’s all about hanging on. If you stay in the field long enough, and take initiative whenever you can, then you can make a difference.
I’m looking at buying a house in a couple of months. At least paint colors sound like fun!
Aw, enjoy the paint colors! Hubby and I are likely to move after we graduate, so not to have to paint twice, we stuck to the boring whites and beiges (“clean colors help sell the house”).