Waiting for spring

Sorry for dropping off the edge of the earth. Been busy, and nothing new or interesting to say, really.

Managed to schedule my committee meeting. Painful. Ow. Anticipate future pain, at approximately annual junctures. Ow ow ow.

Alternately trying to avoid and shamefully indulging in the gossip flying thick and fast around the lab. Yikes! A lot of it tends to be of the "wtf is the boss thinking" type, which...seems obvious, most of the time? Or maybe I've just been reading too many blogs and now have an inside scoop on the PI perspective. Or maybe I'm deluding myself. *cough* Either way, my meetings with the boss have been going pretty well, so as far as I know I'm doing things right. And I will try not to gossip too much. I promise.

Finished one milestone in my work, which means I've switched gears and started working on another aspect of the project while I wait for stuff to happen. There have been several false starts on that front (ie: pretty much all of last week going to waste, le sigh) but this is normal, especially for new students, yadda yadda yadda. I know the drill.

...but there have definitely been times when an experiment goes kablooie and one labmate looks at me funny, "wow, I've never seen data that horrible before," and I mope around for a couple hours before finding out that another labmate had trouble with that technique all the time when they were starting out. Arg.

So far though, I've been able to keep the "gah I suck at this" stress level at a (low!) basal level.

So, question for the Internet! What should I blog about? Why student seminars suck? Why journal club is awesome? What I wish someone had told me when I first joined the lab? Also, what is it with people not using referencing software? Isn't that horribly, awfully painful? Gah! My kingdom for an Endnote license.

Ok, goodnight now. Lots of science to do tomorrow. May your gels have the clarity of a summer brook, and all your reactions run to completion. Minion out.