Passion

Wow, what a terrible week. I think everything just converged on me all at the same time--rotation talk, fake grant/term paper, womanly issues and the renewal of the debilitating pain, cold weather. I can't wait for tomorrow to be over, so I'll have this whole awful week behind me.

Yesterday I had to talk my lab into letting me take tomorrow off to work on my grant. I'm getting mixed signals from this lab. It's almost as bad as dating. Some of them are supportive and say that classes should be my top priority, and I should take it easy, and others are telling me that data is needed RIGHT NOW, and I feel guilty for having been late every single Friday for the last three weeks and then asking for this one off. I want this semester to be over. Semesters are stupid. They last way too long. I miss quarters. I'm taking way too many classes, and they should have ended a month ago.

Anyway. I've been working on the grant for a few hours now, and have banged out about six crappy pages. I actually feel a bit happier now that I've got something on paper and now that I've actually accomplished something tangible. It's not gonna be a fantastic grant, but I don't think my grade will suffer too badly. I did so well on the midterm, it hardly matters (thank you, thank you, thank you, parents, for giving me good test-taking genes). Anyway, I like the subject I chose, and there aren't many papers about it, so the background reading has been light and interesting. If only all of science was like this.

I spent most of this morning in pain. I got four hours of sleep last night because my body woke me up at 6 am screaming. I sat in the shower for 40 minutes (sorry, apartment-mates!) and then crawled back into bed and fell into an exhausted sleep. I still hurt when I woke up again at 8, but I went to lab meeting anyway. I stopped at Walgreens afterwards and picked up Percogesic and those muscle-relaxing heating pad things you stick on your skin, then came home and pretended to work on the grant, but really I watched the Disney version of Robin Hood. Then I took some Percogesic, applied a sticky heat thing, and went to biochem. I probably shouldn't have taken the Percogesic; it took the edge off the pain, but I had a really hard time paying attention in class. I came home and took a two-hour nap. After that, I was finally able to start writing, and I've been going strong until now. I think I'm just out of steam for the day. Also, I took some more Percogesic and I think it makes me tired. (Which is so weird, because medicine very very rarely makes me sleepy; sleeping pills have no effect.)
Last spring my doctor recommended acupuncture for the pain, and I never followed up. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm pretty open-minded, but not terribly crazy about lots of tiny needles.

Also, I feel like I've been really mean lately. Maybe it's just the grumpiness from being sleep-deprived and in pain, but still. I think I need to make an effort to be nicer to people. I just feel... icky.

Anyway. I can't wait to get my life back. I want to climb and knit and read and sleep and see my friends and watch TV and listen to NPR and go grocery shopping.
Just four more pages to write!
Okay, coffee is taking effect; back to work.