Friday, July 3, 2009

Be careful what you ask for....................

I don't know who said the above, but truer words were NEVER spoken. So far things are going well with my new gig but in less than my first month, I've already had to practice the art of avoiding talking about people I don't know, side step some obvious politically motivated conversations, remind a student who removed items from he lab without my consent that there's a new sheriff in town. Unfortunately, the person I took over from was a disaster where political savvy is concerned, and I find myself putting out many of the fires he started. Overall though, I'm getting along great with my supervisor but then again, I can't think of a smart Pathologist I've never been able to get along with, LOL!!

Of course there's the responsibility for being in charge which on paper seems obvious until you realize just how much work being in charge really is. If I have a question, I must find my own answers. Duh!! Then there are the perks like free training and attendance at meetings! Gotta love travel on someone else's dime!

I also met with a student whom I designing experiments for and that meeting went pretty well. Turns out she's doing some work in apoptosis which was my area of research just before I left the NIH, so I'm enjoying the work because I'm so interested in it. I've also had to make tact my middle name as in the situation where the graduate student in his haste to get his slides, took it upon himself to enter the lab after hours, go through my office to the lab which has the hood where his slides were drying. Now for anyone reading my blog on a regular basis you're probably thinking I lit the poor guy up like a Christmas tree but I didn't. In professional settings I tend to almost always show much more discretion with my words that I do in cyberspace, plus there's not much that could happen on a job that would make me risk my professional reputation. But you can be sure I did let him know that what he did wasn't acceptable. I thought I was being nice letting him know a day early when his slides would be ready for pick up, but in the future I won't do that until I'm ready to send the material out of the door.

Health wise, I'm still on the slow road to getting back to 100% and I find myself still needing to either take a 2 hour nap everyday or retire early for the evening. Needless to say, since I started working more than the 10 hours/week I thought I was going to be working, there haven't been many home cooked meals. I'm hoping to catch upon that this weekend, or I may decide to just a long nap instead, LOL!!!

MCAT studying is still in progress and I've resolved myself to the fact that I'm going to take the remainder of the year to complete the 1 year chemistry course rather than trying to do it all this summer. Speaking of school, I'm also pretty sure that my graduation date will probably be May 2010 just to accommodate the increased hours I'll need to work and quite frankly, I don't wish to blow my straight "A" trend.

Overall, I can't complain about life these days and I remain continually thankful for all that God has blessed me with.

1 comment:

  1. Hi there! Enjoy it as usual! Drop me a line when you get a chance! - lpressley130

    ReplyDelete