I Think

Today, I have considered.

I used to think I had to have a reason, or a theme. I used to think I was saying too much, or too little. I started to get embarrassed about what I was writing, self-conscious about what I was saying, thought it wasn't helping me or anyone else. My sentences are too short, my content is too trite, my choice of words is too limited, the structure felt too forced. I used to think I included too many I's in each entry. I often felt like I was just repeating myself, someone else. I used to think that mattered. 

I used to like blogging a lot. Daily, sometimes twice or thrice within the same 24 hours.

Now, I like looking back on my online past. I sort of want that again, but you can't go back. Most of my favourite blogs have moved on. And so have I. 

January is tough. February is hopeful. 

I think too much, you know.

Flitterbox: David Bowie ~ As The World Falls Down 

My Self

Today, I have felt accomplished. 

I started the day with a bowl of porridge and aching buttocks. First cardio & tone class of the year yesterday and I felt it in my legs, bum and tum afterwards. Then a yoga session to restore my torn and tired muscles today. Why yes, January, the year is barely beginning and I'm already winning. Take that.

The sixth of January is the Epiphany. I am not totally down with the spiritual side of yoga, but I think I prefer that slant to the fit-focus side of it. It is needed sometimes. Sort of like therapy, you lie in a room, stretch out, and someone tells you to stop stressing. Relax. Breathe. All that matters is that you look after yourself and your body, don't worry about the others. Do what feels right for you. Just let all tension and the worry go, if you can. It made me feel better, anyway.  I wouldn't say it's an epiphany, as such, but it's like I got this music in my mind saying "it's gonna be alright."

It is the last day of Christmas. Lights go off, decorations come down. For all intents and purposes, that means that new year starts tomorrow. 

A new dawn, a new day, a new life. And I'm feeling good. 

Flitterbox: Taylor Swift ~ Shake It Off - Mmm-mmm. 

Bleak Midwinter

It has been over six months since I discovered my degree result. 

I am looking at the graduate opportunities in New Scientist and I can’t convince myself that I am capable of any of the proposed careers. I narrowly escaped failing my Masters project. I mean, actually failing, not just scraping by on less than a second class degree. So how could I possibly believe that I could achieve in a scientific-based job, or anything else, for that matter? I honestly do not consider myself good enough and so the thought of merely applying chills me to the bones and increases my heart rate to an alarming level.

So, I stick my head in the sand.

Anxiety Diet

Today, I have new clothes.

As a means of losing weight, I fully recommend the Master Plan. It costs upward of £3,000 for the course, but could lose you a dress size (or two!) with little to no conscious strive to reach the end result.  Firstly, there is a preparative part, lasting around six months, involving increasing stress levels and perpetual anxiety. This ensures that your heart speed is racing way above a normal level, consequently you burn energy more readily, as you find that you are in a heightened state of fear most of the time. Nerves shed pounds, don't forget! There is likely to be unpleasant emotional side effects, but it's totally worth it to shift that weight, right?! Combine the above with two brisk half hour walks each day, as well as keeping on your feet for most time in between, and you'll end up with inches disappearing all over the body (including boobs, unfortunately, but you can't have it all...)

The last part of the diet lasts around a month and consists of a daily dollop of stress and not much else. You are so focussed on other activities that you don't have time to cook and you just kind of forget that eating is sort of necessary to survive, or simply have lost your appetite, meaning that the mere idea of food makes you feel a little bit sick. Of course, this may be confused with the churning feeling in the pit of your gut due to concern about how little time you have and how much you have to do, but either way, the eventual aim is achieved - you consume fewer calories. If you're lucky, you may also have the stress affect your bowels, a quick and effective way to remove nutrition from your body with minimal effort. This may result in you feeling constantly drained and generally not very well in yourself, but have you noticed how flat your stomach looks when it's not bloated?

And remember, slimmer is winner!

Scatter Brained

Today, I have had my last ever written academic examination.

I want to be positive. I want to believe that I have done enough thus far to enable me to attain the degree class of which I am more than capable. I want to know that I made the right choice, that I am a chemistry student, that  there's not something to which I would have been better suited. 

I want this to be the case. However, the last of my confidence in my ability is rapidly trickling away as the clock ticks on. I know, it won't be the worst thing in the world if I drop an entire grade. I know, that it's okay that I'm not anywhere near the top, because I am not your typical scientist, really. I know, it's okay and life is not a competition and I excel in other areas that can't be measured by putting pen to paper. 

However, I also know that I haven't put the effort in. I know that I could do better. I am disappointed in myself for not trying harder. I am annoyed that I didn't achieve my potential. 

I really hate being the thick one. 

Perpetually Petrified

Today, I have felt like a failure.

I'm so near the end. So close. Two weeks, in terms of time. Three assessments, in terms of work. So you can tell me that it'll be fine and it'll all be over soon and that's great, thanks, but it's not much of a comfort, not really.

Drifting Away

Today, I have gone past the point of caring.

Reasons why I will definitely not be doing a PhD:

• I like routine and structure and I like when things work. Research offers none of those.
• Four more years in the same city with the same people, stuck in a lab all day? No way. 
• Too many men, too few females. I miss having girls around, you know?

Reasons why I could possibly consider doing a PhD:

• Flexible working hours and the freedom to do whatever you want, within reason.
• A 42 month contract, secured without interview and funded, tax free, £14k p.a.?! Where do I sign?
• Being around boys most of the time. You know, it's not as bad as they say. 

Okay, so I'm completely contrary but I'm sure that's no real surprise. This isn't a genuine contemplation of options by the way, I've already firmly decided that no way on earth will I be doing a postgraduate degree next year. Not after my experiences of the last few months, no thank you. In fact, on more than one occasion, I have wondered why I didn't just stick with the bachelor's when there was the choice...

However, science stress aside, I have had a great time, socially speaking and I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on that. And it's not over yet. I just have to slog through four more weeks of agony and then I am free from studying...forever. A prospect that both delights and terrifies me. Don't ask me what my plans are; I don't have them.

sugar & spice & all things nice

On the jukebox: Arctic Monkeys ~ Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor - don't know what you're looking for

Tick Tock

Today, I have started the final stretch.

It's odd, you know. I've got to know so many people in the last six months that it's strange that in three weeks time I will have nothing more to do with them. Friends? Sure, I guess you'd call them that. But how much of a friend is a person that you've known for such a short while and won't keep up with after that time? I'm really quite sad at the moment. I'm trying to block everything out and not think about it too much and at the same time treasure each little pretty moment, even when it's not going to plan, there are still smiles to be spread, somehow. It's so hard because underneath I feel the clock is tick-tocking and it all be over in a heartbeat.

Have you ever played those video games where you work your way through the area and different parts of the map become revealed to you as you achieve particular goals or find secret passageways or whatever? Well, sometimes I feel it's a bit like that. As an undergraduate, you know the lecture theatres, you know the teaching labs and you know a handful of professors, namely the ones that teach the modules or take the tutorials, and you don't see much outside of that box and you go home and play with your actual friends who doss about as students are wont to do. Standard behaviour.

Once you get to the point when you're working in a real research lab, all day, every day, you begin to discover faces and places you never realised existed, or at least not in the same way you might have imagined it and the strangest part is that you're a legitimate feature of  the whole scenario. This has been somewhat like being a fresher, in respect of finding your feet, getting to know new people and working your way around the area. It's only now that I'm beginning to appreciate the inner workings of the department.

For three years, the postgraduates were our superiors. Now, they are not quite equals, but somehow we've moulded into their routine, become a part of their exclusive group. We socialise together and all of a sudden these previously untouchable boys are joking with me and acting as if I am one of them, albeit of the opposite gender. I am still patronised, I am still near enough the bottom of the academic pile and if there's a dirty job to be done, or an experiment gone wrong, it's bound to be me who's responsible. But I'm not talked about as a third party, or seen as an inconvenient nuisance all of the time. I am a person who has conversation and opinions of value, who has something to offer beyond chemistry. I am a colleague, a companion, a friend. 

In three weeks this will all end. I don't want to do a PhD. But nor do I want to leave university.

I'm really quite sad at the moment.

On the jukebox: Donora ~ Shout

Mascara Tears

Today, I have been blue.

Where to start?

Blue Monday is the last Monday is January, hyped up by the media as the most depressing day of the year, for a variety of reasons. I can see the sentiment, my first Monday back at work is monotonous and dull, I feel like I am getting nowhere and I am directly asked why exactly I have chosen to be here? Honestly, I wonder that myself, every single day.

Tuesday followed, in which the fact that I despise my daily occupation is reinforced. Next comes the day that shall henceforth be known as Acid Wednesday, in which I manage to burn my forehead with concentrated sulfuric acid and again, reaffirm the fact that I am a complete incompetent idiot. I have a restless night due to kneeache and a drunk dialler. Then Thursday, well, it's an oral assessment, in which I fail to demonstrate my knowledge of even the most simple concepts and compounds that I have been studying for the past three months. Friday arrives, at last, and the dip improves when I am asked to aid a person in a senior position as my experiments have succeeded where his have failed, so how about I try to explain to him what I'm doing right? That would be fine, if I knew how or why what I was doing does actually work, and if it was consistent in doing so.

This has not been a good week. I haven't slept well, I haven't performed well, and I feel awful about well, a lot of things. It's been a bad month, January often is. But come Monday, both a new week and a new month begins and I can sweep the time and trials that have passed under the carpet and start afresh.

Tonight, I am having an early night. Tomorrow, I'm going shopping.

On the jukebox: Ok Go ~ Here It Goes Again

Lab Buds

Today, I have been bored.

Research is dull. It's not all world changing and 90% of the time is spent working out what went wrong in the other ten percent. Reactions rarely go as expected, such is the nature of research: there are no definite answers. And you could end up with a fascinating result. Or you could end up with nine months of nothing.

Last year, labs used to be largely about laughs with your mates, among other benefits. Now, labs are rubbish again. Not particulary difficult or strenuous just downright frustrating and tedious. Most of the time it doesn't work and when it does, it's just annoying that it took so long, it barely even warrants the satisfaction that should come with success.

I feel like a first year. I have colleagues, but colleagues aren't friends. They are people you have to spend your days with. And half the time we spend in silence on adjacent computers. There's a lot of waiting around. Waiting for reactions to run, waiting for analysis to come, waiting to press a button at the right time before the world implodes. Or something less severe. There's a lot of waiting around and not a lot of conversation.

That's the difference, I suppose. Undergraduate labs still involved a lot of waiting around, but there was always people, always conversation. It was okay to ask questions, it was okay to talk to your friends, it was okay not to know exactly what you're supposed to be doing. Now, I am a frequent face in at least three different laboratories and I only know a handful of people who I pass on a daily basis. And while there's people I smile at, or have a corridor chat with from time to time, there's far more that I wouldn't so much as make eye contact with, despite the fact that we both know we see each other around all the time. How are you supposed to talk to strangers without the wonderful aid of alcohol? How do you infiltrate the cliques that have so clearly built up their closed circuits that anyone attempting to break in by striking up a menial conversation would be seen as a freak, a weirdo, someone who has no friends of their own, so tries to befriend anyone. What the hell are you doing here? You don't belong here.

I'm not a buzzing socialite, I prefer to have a few close friends. Sometimes, I do just like to sit and think and not have to make small talk with everyone I meet. But sometimes, it gets tiresome just speaking to the same two or three people. Sometimes, I wouldn't mind being able to just chat with someone I don't know that well about nothing in particular. Or just an acknowledgement of some sort.

As much as I hate to admit it, alcohol tends to be the key to building those bridges. Not that I have to drink it, of course, but if it helps me pretend like I'm less of an oddball for just wanting to say hi, then I'll play along. And it works, for an evening. After that, it goes back to 'normal' because without the atmosphere and the alcohol to mask themselves, everyone's too scared to reach out.

On the jukebox: S Club 7 ~ Bring It All Back

Take Cake

Today, I have had tea.

At the moment, it's a freshly boiled, steaming cup o' chamomile. I've just baked a cake. Cake makes everything better.

Today, I went to tea time with the rest of the people in my lab. For the first time, I didn't order tea to take away because I had no-one to stay with. For the first time, I had tea in a ceramic mug rather than a polystyerene cup. Lots of people are having a bit of a rubbish time at the moment - in work and their personal lives. So we took a break, half an hour out of our day and though it's not as if we're friends, we're colleagues and spending most of your week with people, you're bound to build up some kind of rapport. I feel like I'm almost a part of that now.

I'm still majorly stressed about everything but I haven't cried since this morning and I've spent less time crouched on toilet stall floors than in previous days, so that's a plus point at least. One of my endeavours actually worked today, so that's amazing and worthy of a huge pat on the back and a ginormous sigh of relief that not all I've been working on is in vain.

So, I continue not to have a clue where I'm headed, whether that be about next week, next year or tomorrow. But I've had a long chat with my friend and I feel like my frustration is justified and that I should be getting more help than I am presently being offered. I'm going to talk to my lab buddy tomorrow, and I'm crossing all my fingers that something unexpected may again happen overnight. We shall see.

On balance, today has been okay. I know it's unorthodox to post twice in one day, but well, I am addicted to the internet and sometimes people can be more lovely than you expect so I feel I owe you this much - today has been okay. I've just been making cake with my housemate and neither of us are exactly kitchen whizzes, but we did have an electric hand mixer, so that makes it a bit easier. My tea is now cool enough to sip and the cake is all ready to eat, so I'll leave it here, for now.

On the jukebox: KT Tunstall ~ Minature Disasters

Treading Water

Today, I have felt myself sinking.

It's been a while since I have woken up and physically been unable to drag myself out of bed, not because I'm tired (though that doesn't help) or because I'm hungover (I'm beginning to think I can't even have one drink without it sending me on a downward spiral) but because, mentally, I can't face the day ahead.

It's only 7.55 so I'm doing well on most accounts - I'm not late yet. But I don't know what to do and I feel like a first year again. I know the place, I know the faces but I don't know who to ask and I feel like an idiot for even suggesting that I'm incapable of performing the most simplest of tasks. I know I've done three years of lab work, but I've never done *this* before, but honestly, I learn quickly, so if you just show me, I'm sure I'll pick it up.

It's not working and I don't know why, and I'm wasting days away by pressing a button every 15 mins like I'm in Lost or something and I know that nothing will change if I don't press that button and nothing will change if I do. And so everyone's getting at me for being a slacker when I want to do something, honestly, I do! I want to have work to do, but it's not my fault that I'm all alone and you all have handy right-hand men to whom you can defer all your problems.

So I've been to see the Supervisor, but it hasn't helped and I feel like I'm wasting their time because I'm vermin, bottom of the academic food chain, not quite an amoeba but not far off. And my lab is silent (apart from all the juddering machines that give me a headache whenever I spend more than quarter of an hour in there) so the people don't talk to me and there's only four others anyway and half the time it's only one or two of them in there. They don't know what I'm supposed to be doing any more than I do, so how am I supposed to approach them for help? I can't, is the answer, and plus, they would most likely just consider me to be thoroughly incompetent because they forget that, hey, they were new once too.

If I could, I'd go to that first year self, seek her out and say, hey, things get better, okay? Second and third years of uni are hard work, but you won't feel like you want to die every time you wake up in the morning, which is a significant improvement. But I don't have my five years ahead retrospective self to come in and tell me that it'll be okay, and you'll get your degree and you'll attain the necessary experience and hey, maybe you'll even be in a Real Job by that time (and I will laugh if it's a teacher, I will laugh long and hard) so don't worry, kid, chin up, because you have your friends and you have your health and you have a wonderfully supportive family and don't forget it - you are bloody clever also, so who could ask for more? So, no, I don't have that sense of hindsight to look back and see that everything turns out alright, despite the tears and the frustration and the lack of support from higher powers, so I somehow have to muster up that reassurance for myself. And I think that's enough for now, so don't even get me started on the other worries.

I'm really struggling at the moment.

On the jukebox: Nick Drake ~ Hazey Jane

New Scientist

Today, I have played with liquid nitrogen.

The panic has subsided somewhat and I'm now kind of excited about what lies ahead. It should be good, I could get published! But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Anyway, just because I was recently offered an opportunity to do a PhD at the second best research institution for chemistry in the country, doesn't mean I will choose to take them up on it.

Meanwhile, life is flowing as expected. After solidifying the nanoparticles using liquid nitrogen, the vessel was put in the freezer to defrost. Yes, that's right. I put it into the freezer in order to defrost it a little so that it would 'warm up' enough to take the stopper off without cracking the glass. Nitrogen boils at 77 Kelvin. In Celcius terms, that's -196 degrees. Pretty darn cold. It's best not to stick your limb in liquid nitrogen, because then it freezes the blood vessels in your hand so the blood can't flow and your finger falls off, that is, you become a victim of frostbite. Also, try not to breathe too much of the vapour in, as you may unknowingly asphyxiate yourself. But let's not concern ourselves too much. Nitrogen is one of the more harmless chemicals we use - an inert, odourless, colourless substance that makes up 78% of the earth's atmosphere.

I am working in a Real Research Laboratory, with Real Research Scientists. These are the people who may well change the way the world works, and guess what? I'm a part of that.

I am investigating something that has never been done before. By the end of my project, I will know more about the area I'm researching than my supervisors themselves. It's kind of terrifying, and kind of thrilling at the same time. I'm quite looking forward to it all and although, I've no doubt, spinning flasks in liquid nitrogen will get old at some point, I'm going to relish the novelty while it lasts...

On the jukebox: Newton Faulkner ~ If This Is It

Lab Rat

Today, I have been in a persistant state of panic.

Last week, I spent every morning attending a High Pressure Safety Course, which amounted to the sole conclusion “thou shalt aim not to blow up thyself or thy neighbour.” This week, there was a general safety lecture, which could be summed up as “use common sense, and for goodness’ sake, WEAR SAFETY SPECS.”

Yesterday afternoon, I met with my supervisors to discuss how best to go about my lab research, and how it will involve EPR, XPS, NMR, SEM and a variety of other acronyms, which all sounds marvellously complicated but I’m sure it’ll be alright in the end. Even though the difference between my previous experimental experiments and my current exploits is like the difference between following Delia’s tried-and-tested recipe to create a Victoria Sponge and being told to go away and make a three course meal from scratch with ingredients and methods that haven’t been used ever before, aiming to find a way to make it taste nice at the end, despite not knowing what you’re cooking.

I'm terrified, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, yes, I have been through all the academic rigmarole to prepare me for the next few months. And today, on my morning off, I superglued my fingers together. So don’t hold much hope for the future of science, 'cause I’m supposed to be one of the clever ones.

On the jukebox: Queen & David Bowie ~ Under Pressure