Monday, April 28, 2003

 

got so much things to say
I'n'I nah come to fight flesh and blood

We hosted a party, Saturday night. It was a kickin' affair - thanks to everyone who came out and made it be. :-) I, in fact, had such a good time that I was in bed by about 12:30. Yee-ah.

I woke up at about 10:00 with an only mildly raging hangover, and was on a softball field by 11:00. Runnin' around and stuff. It was So Fun. It's definitely a far cry from real baseball, but we git old, we takes what we can gits, I guess. This was a try-out thing for a competitive fast-pitch league, and in a full scrimmage I went 5-6, with four singles and a HR. I was joking, before the Jack (n of t.v. [3]) that I was going to try to hit it into the soccer goal down the right field line. I hit the post.

I will light the match this mornin', so I won't be alone
Watch as she lies silent, for soon light will be gone . . .
How much difference does it make
How much difference does it make, yeah...

So, I fucked up last Thursday, in a bad way, work-wise. I no-showed on a 9:00 a.m. subject I was supposed to be running. In this lab, this is (very reasonably) a cardinal sin. I woke up, checked my voicemail, turned over in my bed and started pounding on it, cursing at myself. I was pissed off. I've always been a little disorganized and absent minded. Before this year, it never really caused too many problems. But it's making me feel shit about myself, lately - I've been missing important meetings, classes . . . and now this subject . . . and I feel like I'm establishing a terrible reputation as a flake. Which is eating me up. So, I'm trying to fix things - establish a routine that includes checking my iCal calendar daily, have it send me email reminders, have those forwarded to my cell phone (yay redundancy). Get to bed early, get enough sleep, get in to the office by 9:00, daily.

I'm unhappy with my disorganization, but I'm also unhappy, more generally, with my low productivity. I gave my first-year talk last week on the strength (heh) of 3 pilot subjects. My advisors didn't seem to voice too many concerns about this, and in general the talk seemed well recieved. But. Tanya followed me, presenting her first year project, which involved testing a total of 100+ subjects on like four different experiments in a sequence, digging deep into her subject. Adult subjects, a lot easier to get. But. Fuckin' A.

It bothers me that I'm not working up to my own standards, and yet I'm receiving very little outside criticism. It makes me wonder. It makes me feel insecure.

posted by Miles 10:46 AM