Every year we write Individual Development Plans in grad school. It's part of being on NIH grants or something. Classified into career goals and specific goals and annual goals and all different categories.
The thing I need to work on the most is fear
the thing I WANT to work on the most is fear
I am afraid
like legitimately afraid of so so many things
walking and talking to myself to write down on a sticky note a question to ask
preparation still took me probably an hour for a 5 minute task
this is why i can't use my time efficiently
and that will improve my career the most
by allowing me to communicate
network
reach out to other scientists
talk to my PI
(Of course I did not write that on my IDP. I wrote things about professional goals and improving my writing ability and my ability to communicate my research as well as my ability to develop a project and other such reasonable goals.)
I wrote this first part months ago when I was actually filling out my IDP but it never turned into a full post.
Because I can plan experiments decently well, over short and mid-term ranges of time. I had a thesis proposal relatively well thought out, if not written yet. I had preliminary data. I can edit my scientific writing into something which is very consistent with how an early graduate student should be writing (there's struggles with transitions, which all my writing and presentations have, but enough copies and those can be added). The hard part--where you pick a project--was already painfully done over a horrible few weeks of crying long long long ago.
But now that my thesis project--or at least what was to be my thesis project--has been apparently already done--I have to restart.
Which also wasn't planned
not part of my plan
But that's science
And at least I found out now only a year into it instead of in two or three years when it's published and I'm halfway through a thesis that's already been done
but...
still...
Restart the awful awful part of finding and choosing a project from the infinite possibilities of things that can be done in zebrafish development. I'm still in the same lab, but I have to switch my focus to something almost completely new, so that not even my months of reading will be all that helpful in writing up my thesis proposal.
All new
completely new
and absolutely terrifying
try not to panic
or to spend all day writing scripts to talk to my PI so that by the time I get to one where I am able to ask for help, he isn't in his office anymore
Literally
can't
ask for help
because I don't know how to ask for help
instead I spent all day trying to write a script down to ask for it and by the time it finished I missed him and writing the word panic down in different shapes (as you can see at the top of the page)
And my apartment has unopened envelopes piling by table and dishes piling on the stove and counter and my dog gets walks and that is about it in things get managed. My fridge has milk and cheese in it and that's it.
...
There are small pieces everywhere of my life. They all turned into bits and pieces.
We've been doing puzzles in lab in the break room. Little pieces slightly different shades of blue to sort through and put back together. That's the sort of thing I know how to do. That's the sort of thing I know how to sort through and rearrange and fix. You have all the time you need to sort and organize the pieces by color and shape and slowly put them back.
But real life has time limits. And you can't lie out all the pieces on the ground in order until they match up. The pieces of real life don't sit and wait there until I can sort out where they go. The longer real-life pieces wait, the farther they fall out of place and the harder they are to put back together.
I know this is jumbled and messy and doesn't really make sense. But lots of everything is messy and jumbled and doesn't make sense and full of fluff and stuff and mess so that's the state of being anyway.
Labels: asking for help, coping mechanism, grad school, me
