So I had a not entirely bad day. It started wrong. I have this deal with a friend that I have to be out of bed by 12. Some days she'll text me but not so much lately because I was doing ok. Yesterday (by the way if you're reading this forgive me if I repeat myself my memory is shit these days) it wasn't really intentional. At 12 I hit snooze on my phone, which should be 10 minutes. I wake up and wonder what time it is because it seemed longer than 10 minutes. It was 12:40.. oops. Today I didn't care. I slept until 1, but I did manage to get to school before 2.
It actually didn't feel so bad today. Where I've been going is this computer lab for graduate research students. It has like 8 computers maybe. It's been empty the last few days. Today I had a couple other students come in. The initial conversation was the same. Hi. How are you. I say I'm reading articles. They ask if I'm studying for my qualifiers (the PhD students have a big paper that goes with their qualifying exams). I say no.
I am (I realize I haven't explained this before) working on my masters (M.S.) degree in Biology. There are multiple options in grad school. You can do a PhD, and you have to take a sort of oral test and a paper to actually be a PhD candidate. If you fail, you either quit or switch to doing a masters. I started as a masters student. I have no desire to do a PhD now because I really just want to work in a lab. I don't want to be a professor. Masters students have 2 options. You can do research and write a thesis or you can do what is considered a "literature review" which means you read a LOT of articles and write a paper about the topic and all you've read. I started as a research/thesis student. It made me very crazy, and it went wrong.
My project was changed 3 times. The 1st was pretty much identical to another student in the lab, and I really wasn't given any experiments related to it. The 2nd basically involved some random DNA my mentor had. She said it promoted RNA export from the nucleus. I honestly presented a paper that said it didn't do that (she claimed they didn't do every possible test). I was finally given this mutant virus to work on. It was a decent plan, but the cells everyone worked on kept dying. We'd thaw them from the frozen stock, and within 2 weeks they'd be contaminated or dying. I lost over a year of time doing almost nothing because I had no cells. It wasn't just me. Everyone had that problem. Just some of the other students in our lab had other things to work on or other cells. My mentor professor blamed us. We had poor technique and were contaminating the cells, which is ridiculous when you consider how long we had all managed just fine. It turned out to be something with the media we used, but after 3 wasted semesters I gave up.
So the next part of the conversation is that I am working on a "professional paper" and trying to make an outline by the end of summer, which is true. They tell me that's a good idea. I actually feel decent. One discussed whether I was teaching in summer and fall and whether I had to be done by December. I am aiming to graduate in December, but it is possible I will graduate next May. Either way, I am working.
The part that kind of upset me is that while I and another student were on the computers this professor came and talked to us. He's nice. He actually sort of knows my problems. He and the other girl there were discussing different languages and what phrases they know. (I know only bits of spanish and latin). I said at some point I was impressed he knew so much. He said it had to do with a scientist's brain and ability to remember things. We went into a discussion about remembering names, which I was relieved to know I wasn't the only one terrible with. The issue is that I used to remember random things. My memory is absolute shit now. I forget what people tell me or what I tell them. I forget things I'm supposed to do. I at times forget what actually happened and what I dreamed happened. I seriously think alcohol as damaged my brain. My therapist says it's reversible, but it really upsets me. Besides the tremors, I have to be extra careful driving even when fully sober because I will space out or get distracted. I had to start writing things down because I know I'll forget them. It really bothers me.
I did go to AA today. Some guy brought a puppy.. and it's amazing how puppies make everything ok
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