A Lady Scientist- Blog

In my quest to get not just data but actual results, I’m spending some quality time with my enzyme today. (I usually only work Sundays as part of my new-resolution to make my work week bearable. But that’s another blog post.) Anyhow, I crept out of bed this morning while Dr. Man slumbered away and went to the lab. I’ve been here ever since. I received a phone call around 11:30 asking about lunch. I told him that I was stuck here until at least 1pm (sigh, a watched column never produces any flow through). We talked for a little bit longer and he asked me about lunch. I told him not to wait and we hung up. About an hour later, I receive a text message. I see that it’s from him and I smile thinking that it’ll be some nice, sweet message expressing his undying love and affection or expressing sympathy that I’m working. But, no, I get “Can u buy beer?”

At least my working today wasn’t for naught. I can bring home the bacon… er… beer.

It seems that I have blank screen anxiety with everything right now. I’ve been thinking about writing a blog post, but I haven’t been able to write anything that seems (1) profound or (2) even just a bit entertaining. Or (3) I’ve been consumed with anxiety about writing something that I think is somewhat entertaining, but really isn’t to anyone else who doesn’t live inside my head (which, frankly, is a valid concern). Another idea that has been running through my mind is that I have been edging towards whining a lot here and I should stop that.* Whining isn’t really going to help anyone– unless it’s funny, but that puts me back to some-what-valid-concern #3. To make matters even more convoluted is that the busier I am, the more I want to whine and the more I want to whine the more I want to blog and so it goes (apparently in run-on sentence form). To break the cycle, I figured I should just post something– anything really– and just write.

This blank screen anxiety seems to have been brought on by the dreaded, twice-yearly committee meeting and the progress report that it entails. The committee meeting itself isn’t really all that too terribly traumatizing. It’s just that I don’t think I have enough data to make one necessary. Since my last committee meeting (in February) I have done:
– Submitted abstract to Major European Meeting
– Shown poster at Major European Meeting (this shows only a moderate amount of progress on Damned Yeast Project)
– Made approximately two major design mistakes (one of which I will share the blame with Advisor and, luckily, he admits to some blame)
– Made hardly any progress on Interesting Technique Project That Requires Fancy Piece of Equipment
And that’s about that. I have some great data for troubleshooting, but nothing new and exciting. Mostly just along the lines of “Yep, tried this. But I found out it didn’t work because of X. So, I tried Y next and that isn’t going to work because of Z.”

I have a clear plan on where to go from here (basically, I was able to design a new plan to surmount problems X and Z and I’m getting better at multi-tasking). It’s just that implementing this plan since I’ve gotten back has been rather slow going because workaround L took a good long amount of time and that yeast just grow slower than bacteria (seriously, much slower– it’s driving me up a wall). And my ability to multi-task on projects recently has been rather abysmal. I tend to focus a lot on one particular project and I follow it through until I’m done. The only problem with that is all the other projects I need to do at the same time suffer. Especially since my Interesting Technique project has fallen off Advisor’s radar and it’s easier for me to focus on what he considers urgent.

Ultimately, though, my lack of progress over the past six months really is my fault. More should have gotten done and it’s my fault that it hasn’t. The mistakes that I made are my fault. What, I suppose, it comes down to is that I already feel badly about screwing things up and I’m working twice as hard to fix them. So, I’m dreading more people telling me that I’ve failed. I can make myself feel that way enough on my own. I guess I should just hope that I don’t screw things up as much in the next six months, huh?

* This post is still me whining. But I’d liken it more to verbal diarrhea. A fine distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.

Disclaimer: I did not follow all of these things all of the time, but I try to most of the time. I’ve also added in somethings that I’ve learned about recently. Oh, and additional ideas/tips are welcome in the comments.

Dr. Man and I got married after his second year of med school and before my first year of grad school. This meant for the first two years of our marriage I was the only one with any positive income (by positive, I mean opposed to negative– as in loans). In order to minimize the number of loans we had to pull out (med school is expensive!), we learned to live frugally and I learned some extreme frugality tips. So, I figured that I’d share with everyone else. The key to maintaining this is not to try to adopt all the frugality tips at once, but to ease yourself into it. Also, pick the ones that work for you. So, on to the guide.

In this part I’ll focus on Food:

-Do NOT pick frozen dinners just because they are cheap. They will end up costing more than if you just made the dinner yourself and froze the leftovers for lunch.
-Repeat after me, Sales Are Your Friend. This means that whenever pasta and pasta sauce goes on sale– stock up. Pasta/Pasta Sauce was a main staple for Dr. Man and I because we both liked it and could jazz it up in a variety of ways.
-Additionally, whenever ground meat (if you are carnivorous) goes on sale buy a lot. Then, split the packages into ~1/2 lbs packs and freeze. This is about right for making a meal for yourself with enough leftover for lunch or dinner.
-A second part to this is to take advantage of the internet. A lot of grocery stores post their weekly fliers online. So, take a look there to figure out where the best deals are at for the week.
-I went so far as to make a “grocery log” where I charted the prices of our staple food (flour, milk, butter, etc.). Pretty soon you’ll notice that the grocery store price things in cycles.
-Make your own bread. It’s much cheaper and delicious.
-Powdered milk. I don’t like to drink it on its own, but as far as baking, cooking, or making instant pudding it’s delicious.
-Beans, beans, the musical fruit… well it may make you more musically-inclined, but beans are an excellent food source. A large bag of Fifteen Bean Soup (I’m talking serving size of approx. 14 here) is around $2 at Grocery Store here. And it comes with everything you need to make said soup. That works out to be about 15 cents a serving!
-Now the trickiest part of food shopping: Fruits and Vegetables. To this I say, “Get thee to thy Local Farmer’s Market.” Seriously, this is how Dr. Man and I afforded fresh fruits and veggies. Go towards the end of the scheduled time (I’d say somewhere between 15-30 mins before the market is scheduled to end) and haggle with the sellers. Don’t try to haggle with anyone who has their own trailer in sight (unless you like to do things the hard way or you like an exercise in futility), but try those that have a limited amount of produce left or that are parked far away from their stand. A lot of the time you can get their produce for anywhere between 25%- 50% off just so they don’t have to cart it back to their car/truck/etc. Plus if you live in a college town and plead poor grad student, sometimes you’ll get extra stuff thrown in. And (at least at our Farmer’s Market) the produce is already just a little bit cheaper than at Grocery Store.
-Booze. As any graduate student knows, alcohol is a very important food group. So, these are the things that I’ve found to help lower the cost of such things. Sam’s Club (or any whole-sale club) usually has a discount liquor store– with cut-rate beer and wine. Make friends with your local, independent liquor store clerk. They’ll point you towards good deals and cheap, but tasty wine (ok, I like wine). Or if you have a clearance liquor store (our Chain Liquor Store has one a few miles from Public U.), go there and find stuff you like on the cheap.

Stay tuned for the next installment…

My cousin is at university now. My university. It’s definitely a little strange that someone I remember being born is now old enough to go to college. As someone who has been at Public U. for approximate 65 million years (it was just me and the dinosaurs– no bureaucrats and it was bliss), I decided to show her around. I took her to the various buildings her classes would be in and answered her questions about what to bring to class, where to buy textbooks, and where to buy beer (Answers: pen and paper and no books, half.com or Independent Cheap Bookstore, and no where, you’re underage young lady). Then, we passed by a group of Young Political Party registering people to vote. I am a procrastinator and I have yet to change my voter’s registration address. So, I seized the opportunity to change my address. Cousin decided to change her address as well. As we were leaving she asked me who I liked for the election. I told her Obama. She said that she did, too, but that she was an idiot and registered Republican and that meant she had to vote for McCain.

Sigh.