For Labor Day weekend I set out to finish revisions for a paper I submitted months ago, cut Joelle's hair all off, do all of the dishes, and unpack boxes that have been sitting in my bedroom since I got here in April. I also intended to get a fairly good chunk of work done in the lab.
At the end of the weekend, what I had in fact done was...play the Sims 2 for a good 12 hours, chill with friends on Saturday and Sunday nights and all afternoon Monday, have ice cream and coffee with coworkers, wash half of the dishes, cut about a quarter of Joelle's hair so that she looks rather insane, write about one sentence for the paper and take out about ten sentences, and rearrange all of the furniture in my apartment.
Hm.
The good news is that somewhere in the midst of the half-hearted haircut and the major change in layout, Joelle seems to be making it into her litter box much better. It is also possible that my presence in the apartment (as opposed to the lab) for much of the weekend contributed to her success. I have also been slipping in some raisins and outstanding grapes when she gets treats for good behavior. In any case, something seems to be working.
Back at work, another mystery exists. In the history of my lab's working with my bacterium, there has only been one or two instances where there has been successful growing of the bacteria on what we call agar plates. They're sort of like Jell-o in a Petri dish. My bacteria only grow when there is no oxygen, and they like very specific growth conditions (a.k.a. what's in the Jell-o). Apparently I am not providing them with what they want, because they are not growing. And that is not good.
The question is WHY. There are several possibilities. One is that there is oxygen in the place where I'm trying to grow the bacteria, and that would make the bacteria die. Another is that the agar plates have not been prepared correctly, which could mean that the ingredients are slightly wrong, they got burned in the process of being made, THEY have oxygen in them, or something else. And it is also possible that there is both a problem with oxygen in the growth chamber and issues with the agar plates.
Slowly but surely clues are coming in. First, the chamber that I thought had no oxygen in it seems to in fact have oxygen. It depends on whether I look at the electronic oxygen sensor (which says there isn't any) or at the low-tech oxygen sensing paper strip (which says there IS). I tend to believe the paper strip since when I put excess non-oxygen gas into the growth chamber and overpressure it so that the rubber gloves that are part of the contraption blow up like balloons and stick out, the gloves deflate back to normal pressure within a few hours. This indicates a leak. Not Joe, being a mechanical engineer and rather handy, stopped by the lab and helped me in this investigation and agrees with me that there's a leak. He's funny: he wanted to figure out in which part of the multi-part chamber the leak existed, and he asked if I had a stethoscope so he could listen for leaks. Why in the world would I just randomly have a stethoscope!? Apparently a screwdriver works just as well, because he used that instead and achieved his diagnosis.
Another clue is that agar plates stored in a separate non-oxygen chamber have a high pH. This is bad since the bacteria don't like high pH and will die if exposed to it. What is kind of annoying is that the chamber in which the pH is wrong actually has no oxygen, which is what I want. But since it has nitrogen gas and not the carbon dioxide that would make the agar plates be at a normal pH, it's useless.
I also realized that the previous work done with the bacteria in our lab was performed in a chamber that detected oxygen using the same oxygen detector that seems to be giving erroneous readings in the leaky chamber. That old chamber also had some odd glove pressurization issues, so it's quite possible that it, too, was leaking and had oxygen inside and was killing the bacteria.
So, at least things are starting to make some sense. The long and short of it all is that there are probably multiple issues going on. Now all I need is one simple way to fix all of those issues. ...Getting that simple way is probably not going to be very easy, though!
Thank goodness I took a class in forensic science in college, eh? I'll get to the bottom of this, and hopefully within a couple weeks I'll have bacteria growing AND all of Joelle's bathroom habits contained in one location. Hopefully I will not need to rearrange all of the furniture in the lab in order to do so...!
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
introducing...dr. ruth!
Woo hoo! I did it!!
Friday was my dissertation defense and "final examination." I don't know why they call it a final exam, because it's not really an exam. It just has the feeling of a final exam because it's such a big thing, it's the last thing before you're officially a recipient of your PhD, it's the last thing that happens before the committee signs the forms that magically transform you from being a bachelor or master to a doctor. The final exam is a question and answer session, an "oral exam" of sorts, but the questions (at least for me) were much more of a "what's your opinion" sort than a "what's the absolutely correct answer." Probably because in reality science has very few absolutes, so best-guesses are as good as it gets.
Anyhow...that is over, and it was very amazing to wake up on Saturday and realize...hey...I don't have to work on polishing my dissertation or practice my defense presentation or review the literature to have potential final-exam answers fresh in my mind...EVER AGAIN!!!!!! That was really the best part: it's over.
Just so you know, the correct abbreviation for Doctor of Philosophy is Ph.D. (or just PhD). Big P, little H, big D. The cake decorator did indeed write big and little letters as instructed. However, the end result wasn't quite what we had anticipated.
Just goes to show how underwhelming it probably is to most of the general public that I have earned my PhD: they don't even know what it means!! Oh well.
Friday was my dissertation defense and "final examination." I don't know why they call it a final exam, because it's not really an exam. It just has the feeling of a final exam because it's such a big thing, it's the last thing before you're officially a recipient of your PhD, it's the last thing that happens before the committee signs the forms that magically transform you from being a bachelor or master to a doctor. The final exam is a question and answer session, an "oral exam" of sorts, but the questions (at least for me) were much more of a "what's your opinion" sort than a "what's the absolutely correct answer." Probably because in reality science has very few absolutes, so best-guesses are as good as it gets.
Anyhow...that is over, and it was very amazing to wake up on Saturday and realize...hey...I don't have to work on polishing my dissertation or practice my defense presentation or review the literature to have potential final-exam answers fresh in my mind...EVER AGAIN!!!!!! That was really the best part: it's over.
Just so you know, the correct abbreviation for Doctor of Philosophy is Ph.D. (or just PhD). Big P, little H, big D. The cake decorator did indeed write big and little letters as instructed. However, the end result wasn't quite what we had anticipated.
Just goes to show how underwhelming it probably is to most of the general public that I have earned my PhD: they don't even know what it means!! Oh well.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
countdown
I am in the final stages of preparation for my PhD dissertation defense on Friday. My main concerns are that
- I won't be able to come up with decent answers to questions people, especially my committee members, ask
- My committee will not pass me and will make me do more work
- There will not be enough room in the room in which I'll be presenting for everyone to fit. A lot of people have been saying they'll come, and I couldn't get the larger room that I had hoped for. But at least it's bigger than the one that the one administrative assistant kept telling me would be fine -- it seats about 30 people and contains a seating area with comfortable couches as well as a kitchen area. Apparently she's never been to a dissertation defense, because at least twice that many people generally seem to show and it's entirely unprofessional to give the biggest talk of my life in a room that looks like a living room and includes a food-preparation station!
Thursday, December 06, 2007
the sounds of the holidays
Last week I completed the last "experiment" I need to do for my dissertation (unless some thesis committee members unexpectedly bust out some new demands, but I'm going to assume the chances of that are slim). I need to do some data analysis and potentially run a few more samples if I can possibly get that particular assay to start working again in our lab...but other than that life needs to stop being about doing experiments and start being about writing a dissertation and finding a new job. Just simple tasks, really...
Anyhow, that is why I have been absent for a while. Since I last posted, Thanksgiving has come and gone. For Thanksgiving I went to a cabin in Lake Hope State Park in Ohio, where my mom, dad, and brother gathered for a lovely time of turkey and all the fixings (and 4 pies). I try very hard to not "start" Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but let me tell you...as soon as I was "out of the woods" on my drive back to Pittsburgh on Black Friday...I opened up the newly released Relient K Christmas album and put it into the CD player!
If you like Christmas; if you hate Christmas and feel especially lonely and sad during this time; if you get sick of the snowy, cold weather of winter; if you have ever wondered what a partridge is and what it's doing in a pear tree...then you should run - not walk, run! - to the store (or website) and buy Let It Snow Baby...Let It Reindeer. This newest release from my favorite rockin' guys has several songs that were on their previous Christmas album (which...I do not have), one from an older release, and a few new ones - both originals and traditional Christmas songs. I'm rather sorry that I never picked up the old Christmas album, because it (and the new one) contains what is my current favorite song: "I Celebrate the Day". And...I hate to admit it, but my second favorite is the kind of farcical rendition of a traditional carol that is the "hidden track."
That's what I've been listening to as I've been driving to and fro in the snow and sitting for long, long hours in the lab! If I could just figure out what I did with my camera, I'll share some sights of the holidays in the next couple of days...
Have a cuppa cheer!
Anyhow, that is why I have been absent for a while. Since I last posted, Thanksgiving has come and gone. For Thanksgiving I went to a cabin in Lake Hope State Park in Ohio, where my mom, dad, and brother gathered for a lovely time of turkey and all the fixings (and 4 pies). I try very hard to not "start" Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but let me tell you...as soon as I was "out of the woods" on my drive back to Pittsburgh on Black Friday...I opened up the newly released Relient K Christmas album and put it into the CD player!
If you like Christmas; if you hate Christmas and feel especially lonely and sad during this time; if you get sick of the snowy, cold weather of winter; if you have ever wondered what a partridge is and what it's doing in a pear tree...then you should run - not walk, run! - to the store (or website) and buy Let It Snow Baby...Let It Reindeer. This newest release from my favorite rockin' guys has several songs that were on their previous Christmas album (which...I do not have), one from an older release, and a few new ones - both originals and traditional Christmas songs. I'm rather sorry that I never picked up the old Christmas album, because it (and the new one) contains what is my current favorite song: "I Celebrate the Day". And...I hate to admit it, but my second favorite is the kind of farcical rendition of a traditional carol that is the "hidden track."
That's what I've been listening to as I've been driving to and fro in the snow and sitting for long, long hours in the lab! If I could just figure out what I did with my camera, I'll share some sights of the holidays in the next couple of days...
Have a cuppa cheer!
Monday, November 12, 2007
i can write
The day has finally arrived...!
Last week Thursday I had my sixth thesis committee meeting. These meetings occur approximately every six months and involve me meeting with the five professors who oversee my research, telling them about what I've been doing, and hearing what they think I ought to do next. For this meeting I pulled together all the data I've accrued from the past five years, sorted through it to put it in the most honest and yet favorable light, and presented my case. And lo and behold, the response I've been longing for arrived:
Stop doing more lab work and write that thesis.
Woo hoo! Know what that means? I get to graduate!! (Soon. Well, in a relative sense. Probably March-ish of next year, which is only a few months away.)
Thus, as I embark on the fun last stage of this journey with the companionship of my trusty computer, I think I'm going to need one major item that I currently lack: a workstation that does not contribute to the massive pain in my shoulders that I am currently feeling. If anyone has some thoughts, please do let me know.
Yay, thesis! ...Oh yeah - this also means I'm supposed to find a new job...! Starbucks a few miles from my apartment is hiring.... ;-)
Last week Thursday I had my sixth thesis committee meeting. These meetings occur approximately every six months and involve me meeting with the five professors who oversee my research, telling them about what I've been doing, and hearing what they think I ought to do next. For this meeting I pulled together all the data I've accrued from the past five years, sorted through it to put it in the most honest and yet favorable light, and presented my case. And lo and behold, the response I've been longing for arrived:
Stop doing more lab work and write that thesis.
Woo hoo! Know what that means? I get to graduate!! (Soon. Well, in a relative sense. Probably March-ish of next year, which is only a few months away.)
Thus, as I embark on the fun last stage of this journey with the companionship of my trusty computer, I think I'm going to need one major item that I currently lack: a workstation that does not contribute to the massive pain in my shoulders that I am currently feeling. If anyone has some thoughts, please do let me know.
Yay, thesis! ...Oh yeah - this also means I'm supposed to find a new job...! Starbucks a few miles from my apartment is hiring.... ;-)
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
musings on age
Labor Day weekend had me thinking about "me" as a 26-year old. I spent the majority of the weekend tent camping with some other women around my age who are residents at a hospital. In many senses, we are so young! It's sort of amazing for me to think that they're doctors, I almost have my doctorate, and we're not 30 yet! We (assuming we survive) have a long, long life ahead of us! Wow! We've come so far in such a short amount of time. A camping neighbor visited us and exclaimed about how neat it is to see young people like us spending time in the great outdoors.
After the camping trip, I spent a little over 24 hours in a nearby college town. As I meandered around the campus, I was struck by how young everyone seemed. And when I thought about it, the freshmen starting their university studies really are likely 7 to 9 years younger than I, and that's a significant age difference. No wonder they looked young!
I volunteer as a librarian at my church on Sundays, and it turns out that I'm in the children's library. The most profound thing that I have learned in that position is that while children are children, they are still people. Sometimes I (and others I have observed) tend to treat children like pets. As if they can't understand language or facial expressions (which, incidentally, I believe pets actually do have some capacity for). As if they can't comprehend complex emotions and ideas -- and as if they don't have their own complex emotions and ideas. Working with the kids in the library has taught me that this is entirely untrue, and that really...children are just small adults. The major difference between most children and most adults appears to be that children don't know better than to suppress their inner selves; adults have learned that to be "polite" or "socially acceptable" they must act according to specific rules, even if that is not how they really are inside. Not that this is totally a bad thing, but the point is that children are much more genuine than adults.
Seeing children as people instead of children (or pets...) reminds me that the college freshmen I saw this weekend are also people and not college freshmen. And that the teenagers at the next-door campsite who found it desirable to eat dinner away from their parents by sitting in the middle of the paved street are also people and not teenagers. Plunking these individuals into categories diminishes who they really are and limits who and what others will allow them to be. There is value and worth in the thoughts and feelings that all of these people have, even if they're not as "advanced" as matured adult-thoughts and adult-feelings.
And...to come full circle and apply this to myself... During my visit to the college town, I attended a conference centered around bioenergy (yes, like my beloved microbial fuel cell). In a conversation with two professors I met, I expressed the framework of my increasingly-more-lucid future dreams (which, yes, you may have noticed have not actually been spelled out on this blog; it's sort of like "if I write it...it won't come true"...). The two professors, who have many years of experience and expertise in the fields of which I spoke, both met me with "uh...do you have any idea what you're talking about?" looks. At least that's how I felt. I am increasingly aware that I try very hard to say the things that make people happy with me, but sometimes the ways they respond that make me think I have not impressed them do not in fact necessarily mean I have failed at presenting myself to them in a favorable light; I still feel that way, but I don't think it's always how they feel about me. Not that it should matter so much what others think of me.
Anyway - I felt like my thoughts and feelings were obviously not very "mature adult-thoughts and adult-feelings." Immediately the scale that weights the "goodness" or "badness" of a day began tipping far towards the BAD side. Then another professor, the one in charge of a program I'm interested in (and thus the one I'm most interested in impressing...), spoke with me and further discouraged my idea and encouraged me to try a different approach. To be fair, the approach this professor suggested is the more traditional one and in some senses would be easier. But just because it's easier and is the way everyone else does it doesn't mean it's better. Right? But then you throw into the mix-of-thoughts the fact that this professor and the other two have all been working successfully in their respective fields for a long time and know what they're talking about...and maybe I should listen to them. How do I know if my way won't work, though? But if it doesn't, all those folks who gave me the "you're crazy" looks will just shake their heads and say "I told you so" and remind me of my silliness to even try.
...Once my brain hits this point, the scale tips to the COMPLETELY AWFUL, WASTE OF TIME DAY mark, and I'm sorry I ever came to this conference and want to just move to Switzerland and pursue research on something totally unrelated so I can get away from all possible thoughts and associations with these people who must think I'm a complete idiot for even envisioning the future that I spoke of...
It reminds me of when I wanted to be the place kicker on the high school football team but after practicing and training through the summer, right before the season started the football coach basically told me I couldn't. But that's another story.
So, I suppose what I should learn and do from all of this is take these peoples' suggestions for what they're worth, give myself some credit (after all, I'm 26 and nearly have my PhD in microbiology and molecular virology - I must have some idea of what is going on, right!), and remember that I'm a person, too, regardless of my age and experience, and my thoughts and feelings do have value. I am a person and not a 26-year-old microbiologist. That is far, far too limiting of a definition.
After the camping trip, I spent a little over 24 hours in a nearby college town. As I meandered around the campus, I was struck by how young everyone seemed. And when I thought about it, the freshmen starting their university studies really are likely 7 to 9 years younger than I, and that's a significant age difference. No wonder they looked young!
I volunteer as a librarian at my church on Sundays, and it turns out that I'm in the children's library. The most profound thing that I have learned in that position is that while children are children, they are still people. Sometimes I (and others I have observed) tend to treat children like pets. As if they can't understand language or facial expressions (which, incidentally, I believe pets actually do have some capacity for). As if they can't comprehend complex emotions and ideas -- and as if they don't have their own complex emotions and ideas. Working with the kids in the library has taught me that this is entirely untrue, and that really...children are just small adults. The major difference between most children and most adults appears to be that children don't know better than to suppress their inner selves; adults have learned that to be "polite" or "socially acceptable" they must act according to specific rules, even if that is not how they really are inside. Not that this is totally a bad thing, but the point is that children are much more genuine than adults.
Seeing children as people instead of children (or pets...) reminds me that the college freshmen I saw this weekend are also people and not college freshmen. And that the teenagers at the next-door campsite who found it desirable to eat dinner away from their parents by sitting in the middle of the paved street are also people and not teenagers. Plunking these individuals into categories diminishes who they really are and limits who and what others will allow them to be. There is value and worth in the thoughts and feelings that all of these people have, even if they're not as "advanced" as matured adult-thoughts and adult-feelings.
And...to come full circle and apply this to myself... During my visit to the college town, I attended a conference centered around bioenergy (yes, like my beloved microbial fuel cell). In a conversation with two professors I met, I expressed the framework of my increasingly-more-lucid future dreams (which, yes, you may have noticed have not actually been spelled out on this blog; it's sort of like "if I write it...it won't come true"...). The two professors, who have many years of experience and expertise in the fields of which I spoke, both met me with "uh...do you have any idea what you're talking about?" looks. At least that's how I felt. I am increasingly aware that I try very hard to say the things that make people happy with me, but sometimes the ways they respond that make me think I have not impressed them do not in fact necessarily mean I have failed at presenting myself to them in a favorable light; I still feel that way, but I don't think it's always how they feel about me. Not that it should matter so much what others think of me.
Anyway - I felt like my thoughts and feelings were obviously not very "mature adult-thoughts and adult-feelings." Immediately the scale that weights the "goodness" or "badness" of a day began tipping far towards the BAD side. Then another professor, the one in charge of a program I'm interested in (and thus the one I'm most interested in impressing...), spoke with me and further discouraged my idea and encouraged me to try a different approach. To be fair, the approach this professor suggested is the more traditional one and in some senses would be easier. But just because it's easier and is the way everyone else does it doesn't mean it's better. Right? But then you throw into the mix-of-thoughts the fact that this professor and the other two have all been working successfully in their respective fields for a long time and know what they're talking about...and maybe I should listen to them. How do I know if my way won't work, though? But if it doesn't, all those folks who gave me the "you're crazy" looks will just shake their heads and say "I told you so" and remind me of my silliness to even try.
...Once my brain hits this point, the scale tips to the COMPLETELY AWFUL, WASTE OF TIME DAY mark, and I'm sorry I ever came to this conference and want to just move to Switzerland and pursue research on something totally unrelated so I can get away from all possible thoughts and associations with these people who must think I'm a complete idiot for even envisioning the future that I spoke of...
It reminds me of when I wanted to be the place kicker on the high school football team but after practicing and training through the summer, right before the season started the football coach basically told me I couldn't. But that's another story.
So, I suppose what I should learn and do from all of this is take these peoples' suggestions for what they're worth, give myself some credit (after all, I'm 26 and nearly have my PhD in microbiology and molecular virology - I must have some idea of what is going on, right!), and remember that I'm a person, too, regardless of my age and experience, and my thoughts and feelings do have value. I am a person and not a 26-year-old microbiologist. That is far, far too limiting of a definition.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
all a matter of perspective
The old adage is true: I'm my own worst critic.
Last fall I started testing out a new technique to try to suck some more information out of the precious cells I collect in my research. The snazzy technique of intracellular cytokine staining allows me to look at what types of cells are making what molecules that are important for immunity.
I obtained a protocol, tried it out a few times, and it appeared to work on my test cells. Then I tried it out on cells that actually mattered - experimental cells. And that was not so good. I went back and looked at my original data on the test cells...and it kind of looked like the stuff I thought was good wasn't really so good after all. I compared my "good" to what others said was "good" in their systems, and mine was decidedly BAD.
So...thus began much fretting and fussing. I tried everything I could think of to get my little cells to be good. Was I doing the technique wrong? Were the cells just misbehaving? Was I going crazy?
I finally broke down and Asked For Help. Guys dread the Ask For Directions horror; I don't mind asking for directions, but asking for help with an experiment...admitting that I can't for the life of me figure out what's going on and the only remaining possibility is that I myself am the problem - that I don't like. But I did, and I asked the person who I knew would be able to give me a clear and accurate answer but who is also one of the harshest scientific critics I know. That is to say...if your stuff isn't 100% perfect, she'll tell you. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how low or high your self-esteem is and how fragile or solid your ego is.
I don't have much to say about my self-esteem or ego qualities, but after meeting with Said Scary Person (actually she's a real sweet person, not scary) yesterday, I can say one thing definitively: there is nothing wrong with my technique nor my cells nor my results! I can do the technique, the cells have little bits of what I'm searching for, and those little bits are all I should expect.
Fancy that. All that worrying and thinking I was wrong, and through it all...everything was okay. Hm.
It is good.
Last fall I started testing out a new technique to try to suck some more information out of the precious cells I collect in my research. The snazzy technique of intracellular cytokine staining allows me to look at what types of cells are making what molecules that are important for immunity.
I obtained a protocol, tried it out a few times, and it appeared to work on my test cells. Then I tried it out on cells that actually mattered - experimental cells. And that was not so good. I went back and looked at my original data on the test cells...and it kind of looked like the stuff I thought was good wasn't really so good after all. I compared my "good" to what others said was "good" in their systems, and mine was decidedly BAD.
So...thus began much fretting and fussing. I tried everything I could think of to get my little cells to be good. Was I doing the technique wrong? Were the cells just misbehaving? Was I going crazy?
I finally broke down and Asked For Help. Guys dread the Ask For Directions horror; I don't mind asking for directions, but asking for help with an experiment...admitting that I can't for the life of me figure out what's going on and the only remaining possibility is that I myself am the problem - that I don't like. But I did, and I asked the person who I knew would be able to give me a clear and accurate answer but who is also one of the harshest scientific critics I know. That is to say...if your stuff isn't 100% perfect, she'll tell you. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how low or high your self-esteem is and how fragile or solid your ego is.
I don't have much to say about my self-esteem or ego qualities, but after meeting with Said Scary Person (actually she's a real sweet person, not scary) yesterday, I can say one thing definitively: there is nothing wrong with my technique nor my cells nor my results! I can do the technique, the cells have little bits of what I'm searching for, and those little bits are all I should expect.
Fancy that. All that worrying and thinking I was wrong, and through it all...everything was okay. Hm.
It is good.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
let down gone wrong
I must laugh at how life throws us curves, and sometimes good curves.
Yesterday was the day I've been waiting for - the recipients of the training fellowship for which I applied in September were going to be announced. My boss, after leaving the meeting where the recipients were selected, informed me that I had not been selected.
Boo. I had really wanted to get that grant, and I know I was up against good competition, but I still thought I had a pretty good application. I played it down, saying I hadn't gotten my hopes up very much, but in reality I still DID want to get the funding and, more importantly (is this bad?) the honor of receiving such an award.
It's funny how I revert back to the thinking patterns of my younger years. It was not a fortnight ago that I sat with my high school gals at the youth group I volunteer with and shared in a discussion about how girls tend to act like they can't be hurt. We say to the pretty girl, "Well, I don't want to be all obsessed with looks like you are," when in reality we know the girl ISN'T into looks, she's just naturally beautiful. Or we say "You don't like me? Well fine, I don't care, anyhow. You're not worth caring about." But we really are dying inside, thinking, "I'm not going to let anyone hurt me...I'm not going to let anyone see how I really feel." We build up these walls, we become emotionless, and that goes against the very nature of our being!
And, I became semi-bitter. I went through the list of people I was pretty sure must have gotten the fellowship spots. Yep, he's really smart, he should get one. She had good data; he's a good worker; she's got some good ideas. And one of the people I thought must have received the fellowship was one of those who's perfect. You know the kind - great in class, socialable, looks wonderful, has the wonderful significant other. The person I always try to beat out, not to satisfy some animal-like urge, but to make myself work hard enough to do better than that person who I think is the best. As I heard recently, "He/she literally made me a better person." Not that I'm the more stellar student or employee, but that without that competition, I wouldn't try so hard to do my best.
So I griped about how that particular person always got everything...I don't even know if the person actually got the fellowship, but...you know...
And then a funny thing happened.
I checked my voice mail this morning on the bus - I'd turned the phone off before Bible study last night around 7p.m. My boss, who is in Puerto Rico for work, had left a message and said that there had been a mix up and I actually HAD received one of the fellowship positions. I was pretty sure I had heard incorrectly since I was on the bus and couldn't hear so well. But when I called the voice mail again at quiter work, it was confirmed, and it's now official.
That's what I was so let down about yesterday...and now I'm not, so that's good. But the period of thinking I was let down sure brought up some serious issues I have, wouldn't you agree? ...All occurs for a reason. Now I must get to working on how to deal with those issues. Perhaps the real let down is that, despite my ability to achieve such awards, I'm still a pretty imperfect person.
P.S. My sweet friend Su-Lin prayed last night that a great guy would become a reality in my life. Isn't she timely? *smile*
Yesterday was the day I've been waiting for - the recipients of the training fellowship for which I applied in September were going to be announced. My boss, after leaving the meeting where the recipients were selected, informed me that I had not been selected.
Boo. I had really wanted to get that grant, and I know I was up against good competition, but I still thought I had a pretty good application. I played it down, saying I hadn't gotten my hopes up very much, but in reality I still DID want to get the funding and, more importantly (is this bad?) the honor of receiving such an award.
It's funny how I revert back to the thinking patterns of my younger years. It was not a fortnight ago that I sat with my high school gals at the youth group I volunteer with and shared in a discussion about how girls tend to act like they can't be hurt. We say to the pretty girl, "Well, I don't want to be all obsessed with looks like you are," when in reality we know the girl ISN'T into looks, she's just naturally beautiful. Or we say "You don't like me? Well fine, I don't care, anyhow. You're not worth caring about." But we really are dying inside, thinking, "I'm not going to let anyone hurt me...I'm not going to let anyone see how I really feel." We build up these walls, we become emotionless, and that goes against the very nature of our being!
And, I became semi-bitter. I went through the list of people I was pretty sure must have gotten the fellowship spots. Yep, he's really smart, he should get one. She had good data; he's a good worker; she's got some good ideas. And one of the people I thought must have received the fellowship was one of those who's perfect. You know the kind - great in class, socialable, looks wonderful, has the wonderful significant other. The person I always try to beat out, not to satisfy some animal-like urge, but to make myself work hard enough to do better than that person who I think is the best. As I heard recently, "He/she literally made me a better person." Not that I'm the more stellar student or employee, but that without that competition, I wouldn't try so hard to do my best.
So I griped about how that particular person always got everything...I don't even know if the person actually got the fellowship, but...you know...
And then a funny thing happened.
I checked my voice mail this morning on the bus - I'd turned the phone off before Bible study last night around 7p.m. My boss, who is in Puerto Rico for work, had left a message and said that there had been a mix up and I actually HAD received one of the fellowship positions. I was pretty sure I had heard incorrectly since I was on the bus and couldn't hear so well. But when I called the voice mail again at quiter work, it was confirmed, and it's now official.
That's what I was so let down about yesterday...and now I'm not, so that's good. But the period of thinking I was let down sure brought up some serious issues I have, wouldn't you agree? ...All occurs for a reason. Now I must get to working on how to deal with those issues. Perhaps the real let down is that, despite my ability to achieve such awards, I'm still a pretty imperfect person.
P.S. My sweet friend Su-Lin prayed last night that a great guy would become a reality in my life. Isn't she timely? *smile*
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