Douchebag Intrusion

One of the wonderful things about the holidays is meeting friends of friends of friends at holiday parties.

Unfortunately, the transitive property does not apply, so the people two layers of friends removed... might assume they are automatically your friends, too.

I seem to keep running into these business/salesguy types who, for whatever reason, are

a) surprised to meet a girl PhD scientist
b) hitting on me (despite the presence of Mr.PhD)
c) not remotely attractive or charming
d) trying to tell me that I need to "figure out what I want to be when I grow up"
e) think they're much older than me, when in fact they are not
f) might even go so far as to tell Mr.PhD how lucky he is

Part (d) by far annoys me most. I think it's mostly because I look young, and because of that, most normal people don't understand that 5 years PhD + 8 years postdoc = I'm already pretty much all "grown up".

And when they ask me about my career, I say well you know I had pretty much figured out what I wanted to do, and that hasn't necessarily changed. And I try to hint that it's a much longer conversation than I want to have at a party. And I attempt to change the subject and/or go talk to someone else ASAP.

I'm not sure how they think they're helping me by giving me these lectures, or why on earth they think I would be completely honest about something deeply personal with a perfectly drunk perfect stranger. Or if this is just an extended part of (b).

And here I'm trying to be polite because, you know, friends of friends or whatever. Otherwise I would just tell them to fuck off.

Mostly I try to laugh and shake it off, because it's happened to me enough times now that I'm familiar with the type who does this, and I don't take it personally because I'm pretty sure they do it to everyone, all the time.

Also, when we walk away and Mr.PhD simply says, "I hate that guy! He's the textbook definition of a douchebag!"

That always makes me laugh.

Don't think so much.

This last week or so I've been trying to stay in Work Mode and out of Self-Aware Mode.

Work Mode has been going along just fine. I'm getting things done. I have very specific, task-oriented goals in mind.

Only problem is that a friend came into town this weekend whom I haven't seen in a while.

Inevitably the questions are all about where I am with my life.

Which I'm not too happy about.

So I am trying hard to stay out of Self-Aware Mode. I think I have to stay in this particular sewage pipe until I can ride it into the ocean. So there's not much point in thinking about how much it stinks.

But it's hard when I finally take the time to get caught up on reading my favorite grad student blogs, and they're all graduating.

Where am I? Wishing I were getting on with my life, instead of stuck in the same sewage pipe.

Life vs. work

Well, life marches on. Another friendship peters out, as we grow our separate ways.

This is one of those friends from grad school who went to industry.

She has a love/hate relationship with her job (better than the hate/hate she felt in grad school), is looking to get a new job and move away, and puts almost all of her spare time into competitive sports.

I've been kind of sad the last couple of days about being forced to face that we're just in different places with our lives, but today I am trying not to worry about it. As with most of my friends who are far away, we'll always be like family (in a good way!).

I'm trying not to look at it in the context of having had this happen already with all my other good friends from grad school, and amazingly, right this second I'm not bothered that I don't have any new close friends to fill the void while I'm still stuck here.

***

Actually I am in an oddly good mood, mostly because it's hard for me to be depressed when things are progressing at work.

Yes, the data monster was fed this week, so I am happy!!!

I love the part where I have so many ideas for what to do next that I get to sit and bask in the decision, where all the experiments I can think of will give me some new insight, it's just a question of which one to do first. What to do, what to do...

And I am torn about how to spend my last few precious days of 'vacation' - finish cleaning the house? Plan experiments in anticipation of the new semester? Watch movies (I want to see the new one with Will Smith) before everyone at work and the associated guilt and stress comes back in full force?

***

This is going to be one of those years where a New Year's celebration doesn't fit with how things feel. It feels wrong to start a new year in the middle of winter. It's too early to me, to get into the spirit of 'new beginning' and making new resolutions- I'm still struggling with the ones from the last few years! Maybe I'll celebrate Spring instead, when we get there...?

Still, this year sucked, so I am feeling some relief, however superstitious, about the whole switch to '08.

Even numbers, an extra day in February, maybe a new (woman?) President?!

So yes, I'm hoping against all logic that next year will be better.

Mostly I'm impressed that I'm still capable of feeling hope!

The human spirit... not a rational thing. I was talking to a friend the other day about the psychology of winning/losing, which I found very interesting. He said it has been shown that people hate winning all the time (boring) or losing all the time (depressing). Apparently, to keep people motivated and happy, you have to have some of both.

I think this is something The Powers That Be should take into account.

Soon. Please. Thanks.

I guess for me doing experiments is enough of a gamble, you make your hypothesis and then you roll the dice.

Contrary to some models of motivating the worker bees, I don't agree that we need to keep our personal lives in a state of arrested development while we do it.