Reignited

2003-03-14 - 2:52 p.m.

So I think I have finally been reignited at work.

I talked with my boss yesterday. I mentioned the internship, and while he gave me permission to go, he does not advise it at this point. He's right, it's really not time to take 12 weeks off to play in another lab doing work totally unrelated to my thesis. I need to get a proposal out first. Plus, there are other things going on down here, such as getting an exchange student, getting fancy new equipment, etc. that I would really benefit from.

So I continued to talk to him about how I'm just not as motivated as I used to be, not as passionate. I used to COOK! I have tons and tons of data from this summer through mid-September. Then things in my personal life got crazy and work slowed down some, but were still rolling right along. Then the combo of moving buildings and losing the funding on my major project just derailed me, and I haven't recovered yet. I needed help, so I decided to go right to the source, my boss.

His first statement was a reminder that there's always the option to write up what I have and get a (EEK!) Master's Degree. In fact, if I didn't get motivated soon, he would recommend that path. I mean, why make only $20,000 a year somewhere I'm unhappy when I could be making $60,000 doing something I'm passionate about? Whoa, holy reality check! My boss is good with people - he knows the best way to light a fire under my butt is to tell me that I'm not going to reach my goals.

So at that point he had my attention. We chatted about the experiments I ran the previous week. We talked about where I could go from there and how things could develop. He talked about putting me on another project with a chemist and help her with the more engineering-y aspect of it. We have filled up my cookie jar!

I spent today developing a game plan for next week. I (well, okay, Ross, since we're both using the same technology for different things) made a plan with said Chemist to start doing that work.

My ball is rolling, once again. This time, however, I need to keep up the momentum.

So I'm nervous and anxious, and am constantly questioning my ability to be a successful Ph.D. But my being a basket case is really nothing new. At least now I'm a basket case with a plan ;-).

Unrelated to that, I'm going to see Cirque de Soliel today. Actually, I leave for that in a few minutes! I'm super psyched about that :-).

There's other stuff that I've also been meaning to write about, but I haven't had the time to sit down and write it out. Maybe I'll get a chance this weekend, while it's all rainy, so I can't play outside but I don't have a TV to watch, so I'll probably just come to work. Holy bad grammar, batman! I think that's my cue to blow this popsicle stand!

Oh, and another side note, my e-mail has been down since Wednesday afternoon. The ChemE server is just out, so I have no way of getting my e-mail. I suppose I could have my stevens e-mail reforwarded to a different account, but that's a hell of a lot of effort, especially since very few people actually write me to that account. So if you need to reach me, step into the stone age and call me :-P