the trick is to keep breathing

Somewhere in the back of my brain I've got a big 2013 New Year's Resolutions post brewing, but this is not that post. This is just a public announcement, because I figure it's fitting that one of my first actual actions of the new year has been registering for my remaining 4 credits of graduate research at the University of Akron.

I figure that since the general desire to finish my thesis and get all gradumitated and get this over and done with hasn't been enough motivation for me to actually do it, maybe the $1800 I just shelled out in tuition credits will be. :/

I mean it this year, folks. I know I've been saying it for a while, but I actually mean it this year. I'm done with this shit. I need to finish. I'm so tired of having the shadow of this hanging over my head and getting in the way of my actual life.

I will get my masters in 2013. Fuck it.

1. I have figured out, through some intense reflection during a boring meeting I wasn't involved in but had no chance to escape, that the answers I actually need to manage my project are an entire layer underneath the questions that I have been asking. (WORKCEPTION????) I've been asking for targets; what I actually need is a more clear fundamental understanding of the way work is supposed to flow from conception into production, and the role my project plays in the entire process, where communication goes and where priorities are. There isn't a process, by the way, and that's why I always feel so goddamn lost, and why even asking for clear targets isn't going to fix the mess I'm wading through. I actually need to go deeper.

I've set an appointment with the visiting Overlords on Monday and I plan to basically bang heads against a table with my newfound understanding of the situation I am in until someone cries uncle and gives me what I want.

2. I just emailed my advisor. I am back in the game. Thesis complete and Masters Degree by spring semester 2013.

Because fuck everything.

3. I am super stressed at the moment. :(

4. Icon (DW) has never been more relevant.

so that I don't get super overwhelmed here.

I got an A in lab. I'm pretty proud of that.

My final overall GPA is 3.775 (since I don't think research credits count towards GPA, I think they are just credits), over four years with a challenging and relevant full-time job. I'm pretty proud of that too. \o/

When my prof emailed me about my grade she also said she wanted to keep in touch about my thoughts on the MS/part-time program. She said she thought it would be appropriate to present it to the department, which is my eventual goal anyway. So that made me pretty happy.

The two kittens who were taken last night are coming back to me so that they can spend the next 2-3 weeks with Mama, but B+J have agreed to take 2 of them!!! once they are old enough. So not only do I have a home for 2, but they get to be adopted together -- and B+J get 2 weeks to prepare which is better for them too. I am really relieved about that.

Yesterday I seriously thought I was getting sick, but I think the fever was just some aftermath from my hypoglycemic shock, because today I feel okay. Tired, but okay. So I'm happy about that.

And I have cake.

So the lab report I just completed was like an introduction to polymeric manipulation and finishing methods. It was a lot more qualitative than the other lab reports - we watched demonstrations and did small experiments, and we had to answer questions rather than produce analysis and calculations.

For a lot of the questions asked, we weren't given the material to answer them in class (big surprise) and thus had to look them up. And I won't lie: out of my 20 or so citations in this report, probably 12 of them are different Wikipedia pages.

It makes me feel very funny. I'm from an age where I grew up not having the internet at my fingertips for answers -- and even when I was in university, citing a website was a fringe-y sort of no-no, or "not unless you have to" type thing. (Yup: surprise, Dear Readers, I am old.)

Now, on this report, a lot of that is just not caring - I actually emailed the professor to ask where I could find some information I was having trouble googling, and her response was "Most, if not all, of the grad students here use Wikipedia. If you want better information you can try [books X and Y] in our science library." My first response was "Oh good, Wikipedia wasn't very informative"... and that was quickly followed by "Um, it's Monday; when the hell am I going to get to the science library to look this stuff up before Friday."

No wonder online sources - Wikipedia or others; I happen to love the Macrogalleria for polymer stuff; don't laugh, it's very informative - are so common nowadays. Who wants to trudge down to a library - or even into their (really messy) study and pile of used textbooks - and flip through pages of indexes and tables of contents and chapters to find the structure of cellulose acetate? When I can type it into Google and find it in seconds? And it counts -- they don't seem to care as long as you cite it properly, and I've got ACS format all over this guy. I am a citation and reference badass.

And it seems cool in a way, too, that there is so much information out there that can be easily found and I can spend 15 minutes reading up on birefringence and dichroism before I have to answer those sections -- and then I can move right on to poly(methyl methacrylate) without having to get up and find a totally different textbook.

It's just interesting to me, the concept that something like Wikipedia is ok as long as it's cited properly and labeled. I know some of you are librarian-types, so don't laugh at me for using Wikipedia, my prof totes said it was okay and I am a lazy lazy asshole.

WHAT YOU WOULD CHANGE ABOUT ACADEMIA.

Well, okay.

I am going to separate this out into two parts: some big, fundamental things that I think need discussing, and some smaller, within-the-system, more reasonable things I think are relevant.

It's going to become a ramble and I am sure there are a lot of things I am going to miss. I have definitely NOT said everything I have to say about academia; this came out being more about academia as a whole, and I could write another 8000 words on effing grad school. But I don't want to let this eat up 2 hours of my evening. Have a sampling.

( The big picture of academia... needs to change )

( But what can we do NOW? )



I told myself I'd stop writing this at 8:00 and it is already 8:05 so I am going to post but I KNOW I HAVEN'T SAID ALL I WANT TO SAY so uh feel free to give me some leading questions if you are so inclined etc etc seriously, this doesn't even get into the way I would GUT graduate school and START OVER in so many places so.... dammit Cendri way to give me a topic I could cover for a week >.>

This is part of my 30 Days of Posting meme - feel free to check out the schedule of posting! My month is full, but if any of the posts make you want to ask for something else, go ahead and leave a comment anyway! DW || LJ

Well, last night's exam actually went well. I am sure those of you who have been following this journal have been waiting for me to say those words for something like eighteen years now, after semester upon semester of "I fail!" and "School sucks!" and "Wow, Polymer Science makes me want to shoot myself in the foot and the face."

It's amazing to me how much more comfortable I am with Chemical Engineering, even going on 5 years after my undergrad degree (*waves "old" flag*), especially comparing with Polymer Science: the professors are still quirky moronic asshats, but I understand them and the assignments and the material so much better. I feel like I'm learning again; Polymer Science so far has been a few safe islands of actual learning in a sea of memorization and half-assed faking my way through exams (and angry nasty emails to professors and being blacklisted and having to fight my way tooth and claw through their part-timer prejudice). This has just been a single chem.-E class, but it's already better than the 10 PolySci classes I have under my belt.

Although - I do feel like I'm better at my job with more polymer-based knowledge, so I do not think it was a waste.

I think I'm just a natural engineer.

Either that, or one department is just nicer than the other. ;)

It throws the future into an interesting light. Do I cram next semester and actually finish all my classwork by May 2010? I don't think you guys understand how tempting that sentence really is to me. I have been at this since 2007. It would be nice to be done. And after that, what? My (future husband) boss still wants me to go for a Ph.D. I am more tempted now that I've felt the joy of homecoming in the chemical engineering department. Do I go back to Chem-E? Do I go back at all?

It has been an interesting month or so here in SevLand. I feel like – it feels like I've been treading water, running in place, fighting my ass off just to stay where I am and survive. It isn't just school, and it isn't just work – it's life: an overwhelming feeling of drudgery, of being stuck in one place, of stagnation, of is this really what I want? and is this really where I want to be?

But in the past little bit it's like something has… started isn't the right word: changed. Something's moving; the earth is shaking, the water's starting to flow. Analogies fail me, but maybe it's just a realization that things don't ever have to be any particular way; choices are everywhere. Funny how I give this advice to lots of people and yet don't realize it myself: isn't that what life is all about. Clearly I am a professional! AT MY OWN LIFE.

I wrote something a little while ago about dream-chasing, and me, and I didn't post it because it felt too much like a flagging of my own privilege: look at me, with a stable job and income and life, complaining about not having dreams of all things as if that even matters beyond some cosmic bullshittery. But I watch friends of mine talk about their dreams and goals and go after them like fucking champions, and it made me realize that right now I don't have dreams, I don't have goals, all I have is the steady even keel of a stabilized life. Except grad school, yes, but I don't even want this degree for any noble reason, I want it so that I can continue to work in research for the rest of my life, so that I can get myself up to the pay-scale and respect-level that I deserve for the job I do but am not given because of the lack of a single piece of paper; it's not really a dream anymore, not after all of the blood and sweat and tears (I have cried more over school than over anything else in my life, including men and pets) and angst and agony and asshattery. I had lots of things I wanted to do once upon a time but somewhere in the house payments and the grocery shopping and the homework they can get lost.

I'd said, I'm not sure if this is a good thing, because it means I have realized all my dreams already; or a bad thing, because my dreams were so little and pithy as to be easily attainable; or a very bad thing, because I didn't really have any dreams at all.

In conclusion:

1. Apparently one good test makes you introspective, insightful, and hella whiny/emo


2. I bit my tongue really badly on Tuesday while eating a carrot and now there is a numb nub on the tip of my tongue that tastes like mint. Did I fuck up a taste bud or something? We're talking bad, like there was blood everywhere and I had to go hide in the bathroom bad (I am such a hobo)


3. I've already skipped a day of Daily Photo. Name something I have to take a photo of as punishment!

So guess who actually got sunburnt this weekend?! If you guess me, you are correct.

( Grad school, bike rides, beer making and scientific nerditude thereof, birthday parties, and more sunshine than you can shake a stick at )

Things I did not do this weekend:

• Write any words at all.


• lunaticdiscord. I didn't even check my email (thx for 250+ unreads this morning guyz)


• FFEX documents WHICH I AM GOING TO DO TODAY, I SWEAR

Anyway. It's beautiful here, again. I love this.

Hey, guys, just in case any of you were wondering, or thinking about it, or if you are ever in the future thinking about it, or if you have a friend who might be thinking about it, I have two pieces of advice for you.

(1) Go back to school right away. Get a graduate degree directly after your Bachelor degree.

(2) Don't ever give the University of Akron Department of Polymer Science any of your fucking tuition money.



(1) has a disclaimer, because of course you learn so much about the world and the way it works once you have an actual job out in industry, and you really bring a lot to your classes with your experience. That being said, eight fucking years without calculus is just too much to be expected to suddenly be able to summon it all into your head. Just sayin'. In the end, I would have done something different.

(2) has no disclaimers. Unfortunately I cannot follow my own advice here, but, y'know.

( This was supposed to be me venting about a horrible test and it has somehow turned into a rant on higher education and why I hate that professors are often such fucking assholes who refuse to take responsibility for their own goddam jobs. An actual rant, with a point and all. )

So, yes, I am going to go drown my sorrows in the Trick or Treat Meme and in Pirate AUs. Be alert, because Pirates may be appearing in your LJs in the future.

[ETA] - I actually didn't realize I'd made a "studying sucks a nut" tag before trying to tag this entry. Sometimes I make myself laugh.

[ETA #2] THIS IS IMPORTANT, GUYS! This week's cockeyed_art challenge is FF characters in Halloween costumes. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO DO IT, DON'T LIE.

It's snowing today - really snowing - for the first time in Akron. Part of me is secretly pleased: I'm a Buffalo girl, I believe that winter goes with snow, period, and if it's going to be that damn cold outside we all deserve a little gorgeous whiteness. The other part of me forgot to grab gloves as I went out the door and thus is fucking freezing and angry at having to brush the snow off of my car 9,000 times today. Plus driving in the snow can be a little nerve-wracking (not for me, exactly - again, I grew up in it - but for me watching all the other morons on the road). Also, I need windshield-washer fluid and some de-icer. Must make mental note to hit Auto Zone this weekend.

I am soon up to meet with my boss, my co-worker, and everybody's boss about my plans to go back to school part-time and how to fit it in with work. Am a little nervous. Am also hoping that I get my raise notification today, as it's that time of the year and I feel I am due one.

I am still exhausted from the funeral: emotionally, physically, mentally. It was probably my worst travelling experience of all time, and that didn't help the stress and sadness of the occasion at all. I can't wait for the weekend when I can curl up with my kitty and unpack the suitcase and do my damn dishes.

Le sigh. Perhaps I will put up my Christmas tree this weekend - that's guaranteed to cheer one up for the holidays. Plus, Rydia likes to chew on it.