Monday, June 30, 2008

I don't write a lot because I have no more angst...

Things are going so well recently that I really have nothing to complain about, reflect on (negatively) or pout at. Usually negative feelings are a lot easier to write about, since writing purges some, if not all, of the negative feelings. Only positives, here, though!

Job:
Going as well as I could have hoped. Hansis, my PI (principal investigator, for all you non-lab types) is the type of person no one could ever feel intimidated by, which is good because I can be easily intimidated. And I don't mean this in a bad way. He is goofy and smart and laughs at my jokes, which makes sitting in a little room by myself all day much more pleasant. His boss, on the other hand, is the intimidating type - the type who doesn't look at you even when they're (rarely) talking to you, who has a very cold demeanor and just is very business-like and not fun to talk to. I'm glad I'm not working with him.
I do experiments all day long, take care of the cell cultures, run PCRs and gels. It sounds like it would get boring, but it really hasn't so far because the results are always different and you always can learn something from it. A clinical lab would be much more boring because it is actually the same thing over and over - say, if you're testing for a certain rare disease marker, something like 95-99% of your samples are going to spit back negative results. THAT is boring.
The people are all nice, although mostly much older than me, which makes for sort of an age gap. There are some funny andrology lab girls, but when I say "girls", some of them are married and the youngest is most definitely at least 5 years older than me. Is it weird to want to eat lunch by myself reading a book rather than sit in the lounge and kind of stare/awkwardly talk with people who are all friends with each other already? I guess that's new kid syndrome. I don't know, never had it.

Living:
It's working out better than I could have hoped! Definitely not getting sick of Adam all the time, and it's pretty much a perfect balance of me and him time. We make food when we want (kielbasa, scalloped potatoes and salad last night), we go out when we want (Subway in Madison Park for lunch), and we run errands when we can (Bed, Bath & Beyond for laundry detergent, a knife sharpener, shampoo, toothbrush and tylenol). We're capable of doing separate things, but don't mind if the other person is there. We hang out all weekend long, and if he gets back early or late during the week doesn't matter - although we'd both rather he get back early. Jared is funny, glad he's around, and Miles is nonexistant and will be even more nonexistant now that he's done with his job and is going on vacation to the buttcrack of Eastern Europe - somewhere crazy like kosovo - so it doesn't really matter. It's been a whole month already (wow!) and it's going so good that I have no qualms about moving to the new apartment we just signed the lease for down by South Street Seaport. I'm so excited!

School:
Going to the orientation two Fridays from now. We get our registration code and some other things that they are being vague about. I hope that for now, at least, I can just take the one required class so I can sort of ease into it and not have to pay that much - after 6 months NYU will pay full tuition for me. I need to balance the timing, too. The first two required classes are Tuesday, Thursday from 4:55-7:35pm, so it looks like that should be fine. I hope other classes don't interfere with my work schedule too much...!

Step-Up Women's Network:
Stacey got me to sign up for the Open House for this club/networking organization for professional women. She said it's really fun, lots of volunteer opportunities, networking and good freebies. I've always ended up liking volunteering and clubs and things like that, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Downside: you have to pay to become a member - the first rung is $50, and it gets more expensive from then on. I don't even know if I need to do this, because it's mostly for people who are sort of lost in their career paths and need mentoring to try to figure out/find out when they want to do and where they want to go in their lives. I'm kind of set regarding that right now, so we'll see if this can offer anything else. Also, not completely sure I want to volunteer tutoring people stuff... that's my white suburbia self talking, but if I'm not too put off by this open house I'll do my best to see if it's worth it. Again, have to make sure to balance this, school and work - the latter two are definitely more important and I can't risk jeopardizing either of them for this.

Update:
Went to the Step Up Open House thing, and even though it looks really cool - in a crazy volunteer, scary mentoring kind of way - it's $50/year minimum and even though spread out that's only $4/month, I would much rather spend that on, say, a textbook that I will need anyway. Especially since I'm only really interested in the Health+Fitness programs, things like rockclimbing and yoga and self-defense workshops, so I probably wouldn't be involved in the other stuff as much. And... shh, I'm not good with kids... at all. Which is basically what this entire thing is about anyway. Get a little middle school girlie and teach them stuff, go with them to workshops and be a role model. Me? A role model? HA! I just wouldn't know what to say. Plus the fact that NO ONE in the room at the Open House was younger than 27, most were in their early 30s and at least some had gray hair. Weird! I want to be in a club with... *gulp*... less diversity? Age-wise, I mean. I still feel threatened when there are a lot of older people, because then I feel like a little child and it's not fun.
Whatever, I went, and it's over, and if I do end up doing it, it won't be for a while at least.
I'll look for college clubs at NYU. I'll get my volunteer fix in doing that!

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great work.