More of the same. . .

And so I've not had much to say.

Sorry this space hasn't changed much for several days. I have a ton of work to do and I haven't been doing it. Well, now I am. . . so livejournalling hasn't been much of a priority. I've been reading and commenting, but not composing.

I'm finishing up my poster for the meeting this weekend.

I have to pull something together for lab meeting this week. I was informed this morning that I'm up for Thursday night. Talk about mixed messages, in one breath I was told that powerpoint wasn't necessary but that I could share some of my micrographs. I'm not to spend much time on preparing for lab meeting because I'm expecting to be doing a whole lot of other things.

Oh.

Yeah. So my motivation meter better kick it up several notches.

That and I really need to stop making the dumbass mistakes I've been making. Last week I twice ran the right experiment on the wrong sample. Twice. After I finished smacking myself in the forehead, I ran two experiments at the same time, didn't mix them up and got the results I needed. But damn! I wish I knew where my brain was hiding the other two days.

Still no word from Denmark on the software that will get me going on cranking out statistical data on those 27 GB. I just spent 4 hours making pretty pictures from about 300 of my image files, but pretty pictures do not a convincing argument make. *shrug* They do, on the other hand, a pretty poster make, so that's what I'm going to have to settle for today.

I did my exercise vid on Saturday night. Not very well, I might add. All this microscopy and data crunching and winterizing has turned me into a little ragdoll. I haven't gained any weight, but I'm definitely a little ragdoll.

Dave and I went shopping this weekend, too. Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! I spent money, yes I did, but I spent money on things that I like a great deal and will enjoy for a good while. A little guilt, yes, but tempered because I enjoyed it and I didn't overdo.

So there.

Speaking of money, time to pay the mortgage, phone and electric bills - and finish lunch. For those of you who may be wondering, Lean Cuisine chicken carbonara (Now! with Real Bacon!) is tasteless and I swear I can't find the bacon. Blah.

*smack*

Nothing like a big fucking ah-hah moment.

Clay's been trying to get me to consider this possibility since before my committee meeting, but I've been buried in the quagmire of my own data. So buried that I kept dismissing his idea as unlikely.

Today, I finally opened myself up to the idea.

Ah-fucking-ha!

Of course, it means I have a lot more work to do, but that's ok. If it gets my motivation meter going, that's all right.

Clay reassured me that somebody has to be buried in the quagmire of my data (he certainly can't be) so it's ok, but I need to stop selling myself short and climb out every once in a while to look at the big picture.

He also gave me a pep talk on the paper. I keep looking at what I have written and grimacing at it. He reminded me that I'm the first studen he's had who's written her own paper, so I can't expect it or try to make it perfect. He wants to start working on it again very soon. Yay! I'm actually happy with parts of it and I hate other parts of it. *shrug* It'll all be great eventually.

Ok, back to finishing up the poster. One last modification, then off to the printer.

Edit: Nothing like telling the boss that his big idea (that ah-hah thing) really truly can't work because of x, y, and z. . . and having him agree with you! We just had a pow-wow - a much needed one, at that - during which we tried very hard to figure out what the heck could be going in this system I'm working on. You know, hypothesizing. It was great. I was clueless for some of the time, until I realized that part of why I was clueless was because what he was trying to go for really truly would not work in this case. The rest of the stuff we started to flesh out and we hope to get some help with on Friday when Trish Kiley comes to visit (she's an expert on similar sorta stuff). I'll let you know how that goes.

Anywho. . . My brain feels a little like a pretzel and I have to rework a part of my poster AGAIN. I think I'll do that tomorrow though, first thing in the morning. I'm missing Shepard Smith!! Damn Daylight Savings Time.