More PhD drama

[jebbypal]

Man, brian and his friend only think their show they are contemplating will be a comedy. Anyway, woke up determined yesterday and talked w/ youhai...albeit later than I expected since he was having major convo w/ secretary first and then phone call after. But eventually we had our heart to...well whatever he has in his chest.

Soo...here's the deal. Yeah, he thinks I'm a basket case. Am I? Do I strike anyone like that? I owned up to the fact that I had been incredibly depressed but I can't seem to make him understand that I really do believe that was mostly fallout from all my family problems this last year combined w/ the daily frustration of a project that refused to work and our frelling dysfunctional lab. He actually asked me if I had given any thought to taking meds! Not that there is anything wrong w/ medicine, but seriously, can no one get it through their heads how lucky I am that even my allergy pill (which does contain cornstarch) doesn't cause me to have daily IBS?? And the fact that corn does cause me to have mood swings? In fact I almost wonder if that is part of my funk last year was that it was the FIRST year in which I didn't have daily epinephrine surges since I'd finally stopped taking the rutting asprin w/ corn in it? I mean your body get used to it and it does do things to your mind.

Anyway, I digress. I stayed calm and determined the entire time I was in his office. Actually felt like a grown up. In retrospect I was probably way too honest but I really don't know another way to be most of the time and I can't ever predict well enough what other's line of thought are going to be (unless I'm trying to lie about something specific and then I'm damn good). He thinks I'm 2-3 years from graduation even if I stay in his lab which I can only pray is not true..cause I'll stick around till brian is gone (which may be as much as 2 years) but after that it's adios baby unless all I have to do is write. Did get him to say that if I decide to stay in the lab that he'll support that decision although we will have to work out the details of what that entails.

Sooo...no decisions yet although I'm still leaning heavily on the side of staying. Went to look at the web page of faculty yesterday and got that sick hopeless feeling though it dissipated so long as I didn't focus on it. Really, I don't know what it is, but just looking at the picture of a scientist and I feel so much loathing. I dunno if it's because they all have this same egotistical, nervous smirk or what. Not to mention that the one thing Penn is famous for is academic in breeding. Seriously, if it's yale, harvard, stanford, I can understand it. I just have no clue as to why anyone would go to penn undergrad, med school, and/or phd and still want to stay and make their career. Or why Penn encourages it so much---well actually I know that one. It's this frigging issue that penn has that they are so superior even though they really are what amounts to the Votech of the Ivy leagues (no insult to votechs intended). I mean, fine, Children's Hospital, yes it is first rate. EVerything else, there are so many places close that are sooo much better -- Hopkins, NYU, Beth Israel, Harvard, Yale, even Princeton.

So what is youhai's 2 cents as to what I should do? He's is soooo pushing the Master's option. You wanna know why that cracks me up so much? The reason he pushes it is because it seems like I don't enjoy what I do and if you are going to do this, you really should enjoy it. Gods, the man is so fucking delusional. Every single person in that lab is so fucking miserable. I can think of maybe 2 postdocs that I'm not sure of that might actually really love this so much that they can't think of what they'd rather do. Others, it's something to do in between spending time w/ their family or other pursuits or something they pursue because they can't speak the language well enough to do anything else. Well there is rua, he loves it and is good at it. But that's it. Seriously. No one in that lab enjoys it. I'm just the only one who ever tried to talk about it. I'm the only one to make the mistake of being honest at my own fucking birthday party.

Not to mention the idiot has no fucking clue about the employment industry. Told me I'd have an easier time finding a job as a master's. BS. Most places hire even phd's as their fucking techs. And for the writing I want to do, it's a must. Yeah, I coud go be a glorified executive assistant maybe as a master's. But even then since I don't have medical experience, my choices are limited. beginning to think I so screwed myself by not deciding to go to medical school.

So yeah...options 2 and 3 still suck. Basically, the devil you know for the one you don't. I'm still not ruling out going to a new lab because when I honestly assess my situation I know I still can't trust Youhai. The man plays the game constantly and always maintains face...but the tune always changes the second you leave his office.

But where to go? Moreover the question also becomes, where would take me? I mean I really have to face facts, I have 9 more months of a training grant and then I'm not even sure if I'm eligible for another one from NIH because I cant remember how long I was on the rheumatology TG. I think I was on it for 2 so basically after that point my entire bill would have to be footed by my PI.

Brian has tried to convince me that I have a skill set that could be valuable/useful to a lab in specific areas but at the same time all it kind of makes me realize is how much I have always had him fooled. Not to mention I haven't used that skill set in ohh...3 years now and it's very very very dusty. Plus if I changed labs I so would want to change to a lab where i had to deal w/ mice a minimum to keep my allergies at bay.

Siiighh.. Yeah, so I can't decide. Everyonce in a while this voice that reminds me how much I've longed for a 9-5 job that i can leave at the end of the day and attempt to work on novels or something says why not the master's. But then I hear all of brian's conversations about how the economy is fixing to go bust any day now and I know I'd have absolutely no financial security.

So yeah, no frelling clue. If anything the conversation w/ youhai just made me doubt my decisions so much more. Do I want to stay only because it's what I know? I am the queen of making bad decisions in order to stay w/ the familiar. Of course, I also made a collosally huge bad decision in deciding to go to Penn in the first place just based on idea I shouldn't stay w/ familiar (although I would never in a million years change it unless I knew brian and I would meet under other circumstances).

Frell. And brian. Thank god he got a little rage back yesterday although i have no clue how long that will last. I honestly didn't discuss all of youhai's convo w/ him simply because I was afraid it would drain all of that. It's bad when you really hope that your best friend is pissed off all the time simply so he won't be quite so depressed. Sadly for him it's not only the lab. He's absorbed basically what used to also set off my mid-winter funks -- the idea that the world is so clusterfucked and most people are such shitholes that what's the use in even trying anything. Thank god I've reached a point at which at least in my own brain I can argue w/ him (though I'm not brave enough to test my logic out loud yet cause I don't want to be sucked down the black hole again). The truth of the situation is what i've always known since I met him...hell he's told me himself in not so many words, brian has a serious personality disorder that odds are isn't really treatable through meds. And it only gets worse as he gets beaten down though he has gotten a lot better at controlling his rage (though mostly because he's too depressed to have the energy for it). The boy really just wasn't made for civilization. Or maybe most guys really are like him and most of his friends they just drink/rut that part of themselves into oblivion.

Of course, all of this is really feeding my theory that one of the reason so many people have children in their early 20s is that it gives them something to focus on and shut out the outside world. i don't know if that's true or not. But sometimes it seems like it is.

Ahhh well....I did basically tell youhai that if I stay I'll start going to therapy..which let me tell you, if I stay i'll need. I also think it might not be such a bad thing since I do realize my support network is pretty much royally frelled -- I have to edit myself w/ my parents so I don't contribute to my mother's heart attacks while recieving every piece of bad news that occurs in OK and TX. Brian and I's bitch sessions to each other about the lab only feed our depressions (hence why we broke up in the first place. The depression feeding as friends is actually less than it is when we are dating). My RL friends sorta understand but are always too quick to offer easy solutions that may or may not be realistic due to their unfamiliarity w/ the realities of grad school. Honestly, I get the most emotional relief out of bitching to my flist because I at least get it off my chest w/out worrying about hurting anyone (please, leave me to that delusion if I do inflict pain...just avoid my angst in the future..or defriend me if necessary).

So thanks to each of you for listening and offering your kind hugs always. Not to mention how much I love being distracted by everyone's fandom squeeing and fandom drugs:) My flist, always the bright spot in my day. *hugs*

Comments

[neroli66.livejournal.com]

~HUGS~

Good for you for staying calm and focused during the talk, and being on meds is not so bad. I was on Paxal for a year...of course, they are going to need to find one that works for you, ie. no corn. Which could be tricky at best.

But therapy, if you can find someone you can talk to, is very helpful...even more than the drugs, IMHO.