Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Mish and mash…match?

Ended up with reading and skimming a lot of articles in the Atlantic yesterday. (It’s called trying to work but failing miserably and realizing that going home and recuperate might be the best way of dealing with occasional sadness due to lots of work, not enough sleep and just the overwhelming feeling of “what on earth will I do soon?”). Ran into this article about settling and making decisions. It was interesting but I don’t really know what to think apart from a little feeling in my tummy thinking “rubbish”. Then again, I am stil in my early 30ies so according to the author this is what I should think…

I ended up going home and having a glass of wine and sleeping for 9 hours so I think it might have been a good plan.

Today has been a fairly good day, even productive in some ways. The paper we (I refuse to say I) submitted in May came back today; minor revisions and then accepted! Yey! That meant a bunch of statements/questions whereas half of them could be answered by saying “it is stated in the test but the result is not in that particular picture since it wasn’t significant” and “nice suggestions, however that particular experiment will take at least 4 months and will not give as much answer to our statement/hypothesis as the time spent”… kind of anyway. But I am sure we can answer them satisfactory and then there will be my first “real” (as in really mine) publication in my post doc.

If nothing else it gave me a good foot to start, I mean continue, writing my second article and get it all together.

Now I’m off for a small celebratory pint of beer. Tomorrow the “thank you emails” to the interview people will be sent. Have to work on them a little more though, more selling and less “thanks for being so nice of meeting with me and spending some time and money on me”… self assured… sure.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

England on SALE

SALE SALE SALE SALE.

my gosh, everywhere I look are these SALE signs. What's a poor girl, deprived of her cell phone and computer (read; all outside contact) to do when trying to relax and not think about the job interview yesterday? I know, go shopping!!!

No shoes so far. Good on me. The need for a few new books however can be discussed. As well as that t-shirt with the logo and Union Jack... but they were really nice, the books seemed good for the Atlantic flight tomorrow and there never will be an outofdate for a Union Jack, right?

And then the real strange buy, the nice pinkish/white coat in WOOL.... wit embroyderies on the sleaves... let's just say that I know I will move to colder places and then it will be used. And really, it was 70% of original pricing. And it was NoaNoa... what's a poor girl to do indeed?

And I guess I really shouldn't have gone into the Monsoon store with SALE and 70% off on the door. But the long dress was very flattering in the neckline. And I didn't buy the blue dress at NoaNoa eve nif it looked very good on me,not to mention that that one I could've worn in my present home town at this very warm moment. The long one, not so much... but maybe I am wrong?!

I forced myself to take a look at my bank account and realise exactly HOW MUCH I have spent. shheesh... haven't had a vacation in a long time. Haven't been in the UK in a really long while. Haven't really spent money on things that I will never use (I will use the coat later this fall), and like the clothes I bought before I went here (the so called "in a panicy state of mind before the job interview") these will all be added on to the clothing account for the year and then, all of a sudden, it doesn't look too bad. I can just say that I haven't bought that much clothes this year, nor last one.

And really, there are just that many washed out black tees a woman who wants to try and look professional and 'older' can have.

Some of the clothes does make me cringe on the "frumpy" factor but I think it is all in my head. (It's more correct to say that they are more 'mature' and not jsut tees with nice little logos and statements on. You know, the kind that could be argued to be more "teenager" or soemthing along those lines.) After all, none of the people I have talked to today or yesterday believed me when I said that I was a PhD since more than two years back..... well, the job interview people excluded I guess.Since my youthful apparence is working out, maybe it isn't a bad plan to work the more mature clothes..... time will tell I guess.

Time to go for English Tea and Scones!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Word/sentence of the day

welcome to join the lab for tea in the afternoon

I think this trip and interview will be very good for me and my view of science. If nothing else, I might really remember that this Big Institute and my department isn’t necessary how research is done everywhere in the world. That is, it doesn’t have to be rude, harsh and ruthless with a bunch of egos who battle the world and each other with knives in the back and hidden agendas. Then again, that is the way of the world so why not in science?

But I have to say, even if the world might be harsh and science may be ruthless, with tea in the afternoon, all can be handled well.

Tata for now.