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Dude. This week has been... particularly stressful. So much for the good mood I was in last week; grad school seems to take those good moods and pound them into the ground. I've felt ridiculously stupid and lazy for the last three days. Maybe I should be working harder, but I think I'm about on par.... Except for the fact that Susan wants me to qualify this fall, and also gave me a look yesterday that indicated I was the least intelligent person in the lab, especially because the other first year in the lab had read the paper on my gene and I hadn't. And our undergrad is ridiculously intelligent, and every interaction with him makes me look like some sort of underdeveloped fourth-grader.
Our second year grad student, whom I adore and admire, insists that I have imposter's syndrome and that I'm much more intelligent than I think I am, and that I'll be fine, and that Susan was just having a weird day.

Anyway, life has also been difficult socially. And emotionally. I mean, I keep waking up in the middle of the night having NO CLUE where I am, and the cat sleeps right next to my head, so that's freakin weird too (although sleeping with Kayla's cat in Utah actually seems to have mostly acclimated me to waking up to a face full of cat fur). And I seem to have been particularly stupid lately, and trusted a few people that I probably shouldn't have, so the end result is that I went from having a secret lover to a non-secret lover to a non-secret non-lover, passing through various stages of unnecessary drama and trauma involving way too many extraneous people, such as labmates and housemates. Things seem to have settled now; all parties involved have gotten over the issue entirely and I'm pretty sure that the only residual feelings are a little bit of anger on my part, and no sadness on anyone's part, so whatever. Anyway, it all happened in the last couple of days and blah. Unnecessary. The main problem is the stupid dreams I keep having, about a certain person back on the west coast, that make me insane. If it wasn't for the dreams I wouldn't be insane. None of this would have happened if I hadn't been trying to distract myself from the dreams. And the thoughts that go with/cause the dreams.

My new housemate gave me a list of references. I'm gonna go see a shrink. Soon. Really. I need to. I'm becoming more and more convinced that my brain chemistry is completely out of whack. Or maybe I just need more sunlight. I was fine on the drive across the country; maybe it was because I was getting so much sun? Damnit, I don't want skin cancer....

I don't even know what to write about, or how to make this post coherent. So I think I'm gonna go make some sort of private entry that will be completely incomprehensible but will allow me to vent without worrying about sounding like an idiot.

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What does it mean to "qualify" for a lab?

That sucks that you had drama and bullshit associated with what was *supposed* to be just a playful and fun fling. People should mind their own business and not act like high schoolers about things (the people you trusted).

So...you still have dreams about Mr. West Coast, huh? I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you that I didn't still dream of Miss East Coast (funny how both our angsty feelings are tied up on opposite coasts). I was actually thinking about 'Celis today at work and I realized that this next February will be two years since we broke up. Crazy. Time has gone by and I do pretty well. I have learned that 'Celis is a can of worms for me emotionally that I would do well to let sit and not disturb. A sort of corpse in my past that shouldn't be exhumed and hung up in my closet to frighten me away from committment or to remind me of a loss that hurt me deeply. Still, though...I wonder about her sometimes and I seriously wonder if I will ever be that in love with anyone else again (hence...the dreams).

So yeah...the point of this long winded explanation about what I'm going through is that I can sympathize with your situation (as I have told you before) and the more I think about the unique particulars of my own craziness related to my bad breakup...the more I realize that 'Celis is like a lens that distorts light and life that passes through it and cripples objectivity in a unique sort of way. As a result, as anti-shrink as I am most times...I think that might be one of the few ways to approach such a traumatic fixation.

I hope that makes sense and you don't think I sound retarded here.

I hope your venting has helped you. I'm always here if I can offer anything (even if it is just a sympathetic ear).

peeeeace

-E

Thanks for this. You're right, said person does seem to have some sort of weird power that distorts reality when I think about him. I'm much better about it than I have been, and I think I'm doing pretty well at not letting it take over my life, but I'm carrying so much regret around these days.... I dunno. I know we've talked about this before, but I'll say it again--in some ways I'm jealous that you at least get to be angry at 'Celis, because the only person I'm allowed to be angry at is myself, and that really doesn't help matters.

Venting helped a little bit; mostly I just wrote until I couldn't stay awake any longer, and then fell into a blessedly dreamless sleep. I feel a little better this morning.

Thanks again for the perspective. It's good for me to be told to step away from the situation and leave it alone.

Qualifying is a process every graduate student goes through. It's generally at the end of the second year, and it involves a lot of heavy, intensive reading in whatever subject you're in. I'm not sure exactly what the Genetics department requires, but I think I pick three faculty members to be on my qualifying committee, and they help me pick and read pertinent papers for about two months, and then eventually there will be a big oral examination wherein those three faculty members will quiz me on all aspects of genetics and of my proposed thesis project. If I appear to have a sufficient grasp on the field and am an expert in whatever my thesis is going to be on, they'll "pass" me, which will officially advance me to Ph.D. candidacy (I'm not actually a Ph.D. student yet, according to the university, but I think all Ph.D. programs make that distinction). Anyway, it's this big deal and it's super frightening, but people keep telling me I'll be fine, so I'm trying to breathe.

I think most strong people (you and I included) don't let Coasters (let's call 'em that, shall we?) take over our lives or anything. However, they can just kind of linger and drain your energy, your hope for the future, etc. That draining effect isn't healthy and those weights need to be cast off your shoulders however you can.

As for being angry at 'Celis...yeah, I certain had that as well. That anger was a reflection of really really deep pain, though and an equal deep betrayal of something I valued highly. Don't envy me too much, Miss Kara ;).
I would definitely like to note that part of why I can relate to you is the fact that despite getting fucked over to a certain degree by my ex I realize that it takes two to tango and that I had my role in the relationship as well as the breakup. As such, I have spent agonizing hours wondering whether or not our relationship could have ever worked (like maybe if we had met 5 years down the road) or if I could have been a good enough boyfriend to not lose her to another guy, etc. I definitely do have regrets, some of which are mitigated by the way things went down during the breakup, but some that aren't. Does that make sense?

As for the qualifying thing...crazy! Sounds intense. Kind of cool though. :)
I'm sure we will hear more about it over the next school year. :)

-E

You shouldn't let looks bother you. I'm sure people give me bad looks all the time, but I never even noticed. :-)

*laugh* That's quite true, Zach. But I'm sure that Susan would have simply told me I was an idiot if she couldn't have given me the evil withering look.
Hopefully I won't still be an idiot after five more years of grad school!

Deep breath in. Slow breath out.
Disloyalty should be punishable by slow, excruciating pain.
You are dealing with a TON. Ease up on yourself.
MY biggest fear and hardest thing to deal with is being misunderstood.

Loads of love!

I agree, disloyalty should carry heavy consequences. I think this was mainly a case of my trust not being returned, so everything fell apart. Anyway, it IS all resolved...

I can't help but feel like I keep intentionally giving myself a ton to deal with. I seem to seek out situations that overwhelm me. Like you were saying, I think it's a tactic to keep my brain busy, but I've become so accustomed to it that I now have a really hard time setting things down or trying to make things easier for myself. I've spent way too long trying to make things harder.

I've never in my life felt as misunderstood as I have since I got to Connecticut. I feel like I have two selves, and the inner one is the honest, open, awesome California one, and the outer one that everyone here sees is the reserved, clumsy, psychotic one. I perpetually feel like no one here understands me at all, which isn't surprising since I haven't opened up to anyone. *sigh*

Love!!

Thumbs up for seeing a shrink!! Not because you're particularly crazy but just because I think it's a great idea for pretty much anyone.

Sorry about the guy drama though. Bleh. What an annoying way for that to end!

And by the way, whatever is going on with your undergrad, I hope you don't think the undergrad is judging you...because he/she is probably just worried about the impression he/she is making and not interested in judging anybody. Especially if it's the person's first time working in a lab.
Just a situation I happen to be familiar with at the moment. (:

Yeah, I've seen them before and they're occasionally helpful. I think this time I'm not going to go to the school shrink, though. I'm gonna find one of the expensive private practices and see if I can find someone to see on a semi-permanent basis. There's a lot more than just current issues that I need to deal with, and I think that if I started dealing with some of the long-term psychosis it might make my life easier in the present.

Bah, stupid guy drama. The thing that makes me angry is that I knew exactly what I was doing and what the risks were, and a few of my friends freaked out and tried to protect me from myself, which caused the entire situation to cave in on itself. And then the guy started being stupid, and in the end it's probably just better if I drop it.

Our undergrad has actually been here for two years. He's a rising senior and I swear the kid's got more knowledge in his pinky than I do in my whole body. And I KNOW I'm smart, and I know I'm an extremely quick learner, but our undergrad really has things under control and I really don't. He also, like just about all the intelligent people I know, has a short fuse for stupid people, and since I'm a brand-new graduate student and a newcomer to genetics, I'm a stupid person about 90% of the time.
I'm just hoping that after a few months, and especially after qualifying, I'll have picked up enough practical lab knowledge that I'll be able to demonstrate my theoretical intelligence.
Anyway.

Thanks for the encouragement. And hang in there with your lab. What's going on with it (sorry, haven't been keeping up with the friends page lately; have been completely overwhelmed with labwork)?

first off I would like to say I LOVE the fourty two avatar. It makes me laugh. Secondly. Call me back. I don't feel like typing as much as I want to say.

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