Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Lazy days of summer &c.

It's been particularly pleasant around my life for the past couple of days, as the office has really gone into suspended animation--I can't do anything on this big important report until we get more edits from the higher-ups, one of the new people has gone off on a planned vacation for two weeks, and the other new person is still getting her sea legs, so it's quite educational for her to be doing all of the things that I could ostensibly helping with. Besides, there's not much to be done in general, so, you know, it's good for her to get in all the acclimation that she can, with me just doing troubleshooting. Heh. Nice work if you can get it...

In any case, it's finally given me more time during the day to do this research that I'm supposed to have been doing. I've been plugging away for the past three days, especially because I've a meeting with the supervising prof tomorrow. Unfortunately it's not going as fast as I'd hope, though it has become significantly more fun for me, for whatever mysterious reason. Perhaps due to my starting to take the anti-anxiety meds again. Who knows.

Anyhoo, I'm quite pleased because it appears that my original slacking intentions for the summer are finally coming to fruition, and I'll get to use my 9-to-5 hours to do a good bit more academicky things. Although, it's going to land me with no real time off, no real summer between now and the start of grad school, if I do the RA gig all the way through. I was thinking I'd ask my adviser for a one-week vacation, officially sanctioned, starting tomorrow. I want to do some Nothing for the tiniest while, you know?

But I'm having second thoughts about that request, especially since I got a slow start on the research. I feel a responsibility to my adviser and I'm disappointed in said slow start, to be sure, but I'm also thinking that having a real initiation into a lifestyle of "get up, work for a long time on research, crap out, go home" on a regular schedule, rather than just the frantic preparation I'm used to doing immediately before deadlines, will be a necessary kick in the ass for me. Plus, I tend to get antsy when I do "nothing" for too long of a time, anyway. So I might not ask for time off until about a month of intensive researching has gone by. Maybe it'll teach me something.

Anyway. Back to summarizing articles. I'm a bit scared of this meeting tomorrow, but I'm usually scared of meetings with authority figures, which then subsequently turn out to be not as horrible as I expected, so I'm hoping things will go relatively smoothly. I know I got some 'splaining to do, but I'm ready to do it and to grovel but good. I also have some interesting new stuff, so I'm hoping that will serve as a successful offering while I bow and scrape, as a cat offers a dead bird to its caretaker.

Okay, I've had either too much or not enough caffeine, off with me now...

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Reductionism who in the what now?