Thumbs up?

Well, this picture accurately reflects my attitude about my job these days. Normally I would have been devastated by what I learned regarding my employment this week, but now that I have a new attitude about work in general, I'm really just taking things in stride.

Here are some of the changes:
1) Whenever my position becomes permanent, it will cap out at a salary I find completely unacceptable.
2) #1 would have been Okay, if I hadn't also learned that I will no longer be responsible for conducting original research.

I also learned that I scored a whopping 58 on my midterm, which is most embarrassing but hey, I gotta come clean on just how poorly I'm doing this semester in this class. Actually, I'm feel more burned out than distracted more because I've got about 5 or so balls I'm juggling in the air right now. Luckily for me, my prof is going to let me make up my exam and is also going to help me get a gig where I can do some ID research, but I'll have to kick some serious ass from this point forward. And I think I can now that once very significant "distraction" is pretty much behind me.

Needles to say I don't have anything to report MCAT study wise and will now need to concede that I've got too much on my plate right now to focus on that the way I need to. Once I'm done with classes in May, I'll be better able to do what I know I'm capable of doing as far as studying is concerned.

Well this is gonna be a short post because I had an absolutely exhausting week and I need to finally get some rest!

There's pain, then there's REAL pain, THEN THERE"S PAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They say there's no pain like that a woman experiences while in labor. Well I say that at least there's adequate relief for labor and it's called an epidural. No, I learned this week that there IS a pain worse than labor and it's called "dry socket" pain.

I mentioned earlier this week that about my need to have a wisdom tooth removed and I should know based on the last 3 or so medical issues that I've dealt with in the past 2 years, that I should change my name is Murphy's Law because I NEVER heal "normally", LOL!!! So after 2 straight sleepless and pain filled nights that even a regular dose of Percoset could treat, I finally went back to my dentist for treatment for what I already knew was a dry socket. And let me say that 5 minutes after treatment, I heard the hallelujah chorus singing as loud as the sun was bright!!!

Moral of the story here is that it was STUPID of me to wait so long to have a wisdom tooth removed because apparently the older you are, the worse the potential complications are. And it's not like I haven't had great dental insurance either, I'm just so terrified of going to the dentist. Well I can assure you now that THAT is gonna change (of course, I said the same thing 15 years ago after I had root canal work) but this time is different. This time, the pain is worse than labor and I don't want to have to go through this again. Problem is, it's probably too late because the tooth next to the abscessed, infected wisdom tooth may need a root canal. SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!!!! So, I've been home from work all this week so far because the pain meds, which didn't work, cause me to hallucinate (and talk to myself) so working with sharp blades and cutting is completely OUT of the question!!! But now that I have the pain under control, I'll work on my grant proposal and the presentation I have to do at work from home today and tomorrow and sometime this weekend, I'll go into the lab and cut a few slides for staining next week.

So to everyone out there who is or aspires to be a Dentist, I think you're all a bunch of sadistic SOB'S!!!!!!!!! Just kidding, there's nothing in the world better than having a great dental practice you can go to for treatment!!! :)

When it rains, it typhoons, LOL!!!

So much for me using my Spring break to catch up on MCAT review, LOL!!! Work was great but every other aspect of my life was pretty much a wreck! From an abscessed, impacted wisdom tooth, to haggling with car dealers on purchasing another car, this week and next is gonna leave me lite about 3K. But I don't complain because I have the means to handle my financial business without missing a meal or a bill. God truly is good!!!!

I'm still waiting on conformation of my division disassociating from bully PI as well as my Assist. Prof. position and like I said before, I'll need BOTH to be in play in order for me to commit long term to this position. I still find being a service oriented lab a huge pain in the ass, but it really has been a tremendous learning experience. Of course, the biggest let down is the fact that I can't really work on my research project because I don't have time and because we haven't replaced the slickster we hired last month yet. What this does do though is let me know just how difficult getting a dissertation out my current gig would be, excluding the classes I have to take!!! That said, I often wonder if just a regular 'ol lab position would be better which is why I haven't yet ruled out leaving.

Well this is gonna be a short post because I'm STILL exhausted from last week and need a nap before I hit the books later this evening! :)

Oh where or where did my physics review go?

Well it's pretty much gone to hell in a hand basket, LOL!!! I've pretty much given up on Physics, at least for now, because making scores of 6-8 do a number on my self-esteem. So I decided to move on to Chemistry and my confidence was promptly increased when I scored a "10" on the first section without even reviewing it, including 2 passages where I got all the answers correct!! So today, I'm going to review the material from Chapter 1, take an AMCAS exam on that particular section, then see how it goes score wise!

I'm on "spring break" from school, although when you work a demanding job full-time, there really is no Spring break! But at least I can take time this week to catch up on my MCAT studying because I'd really like to take the exam by August of this year. My thinking at this point is to get the damn test out of the way ASAP, then focus on getting my GPA back up to at least a 3.7 (took a hit with one of my grades last Fall). As some of you may know, a 3.5 in grad school just isn't impressive especially given the fact that I finished my first Master's in Chemistry with a 3.75.

I also had a girl's nite out Friday and went to a place called Busboysandpoets in DC and had a blast!! The food was good, the ambiance was even better, and it was just nice to get out among female adults and have a good time. I think I got in at around 1:30AM and I hadn't that where I wasn't around family in over 10 years!!! When you're a working Mom you forget just how important it is to do fun things for yourself! So yeah, we're gonna make that a habit at the very least, every 2 months or so!!!

Well, it's an especially beautiful day with surprisingly warm temps outside today in Metro DC, so we're planning to spend a good amount of time outside!! Hope you enjoy your day today as well!!! :)

Crazy, crazy, week!

This was perhaps the craziest week in my employment history that only indirectly involved me. So it turns out an offer had already been made to the only guy that was interviewed for the position in my lab, and let me state on the onset, that I voiced my concern about ONLY interviewing ONE person. But because BullyPI had the most powerful vote as the person funding the position, that is what was done. So when dude told me on his first day that he was going to work his old job part-time (after bitching about it in the interview) and on the second day that his old employer had offered him 35K to stay (Yep you read that right), I knew a bad decision had been made. Not only that, I found out when I just happened to run into a colleague from my old job that dude had interviewed with them too, so I surmised the reason he wanted us to give him one month before he could start was to see if they would offer him a gig and I DID tell my Supv. this before he started. But before I could tell my boss I thought he was going to quit soon (I had a midterm on Tuesday night) he resigned the position first thing on Wednesday morning. Now I hate to be a person who says I told you so, but in this case I did, LOL!! Dude was a bachelor's in Business admin major and didn't even have a two year degree much less a BS (for a job that required one?), so I never trusted that an academic environment was a good fit for a person so interested in the business side of science. I had pressed for someone trained primarily in histology but Bully PI saw all the other things he could do her eyes got big, and she decided that he would work 50/50 for her and me. The problem of course, is that she didn't tell HIM this until the day he showed up.

At the end of the day, it became clear that he played ALL of us, making his old job think he was leaving so they would offer him more to stay and on that note, I'm not going to knock the game of a person not even 30 years old making almost 100k without a damn degree!!! But what I am going to knock is how absolutely triflin' it is to lie your way into making more money. Pathology is a VERY small world which is evident because I found out about another job he was interviewing for, so I know between that and karma it's just a matter of time before his bull$hit catches up with him. But the other part of this is that I have no idea how much of an impact meeting with BullyPI on his first day had on him because he asked me what it would be like to work for her and told me he didn't get a good vibe after meeting with her. So perhaps that her acerbic personality combined with the bait and switch $hit she pulled on the guy, didn't work so well after all!!!!

So on top of all of that drama, I'm told on Wednesday that I would not be getting the salary increase I was promised and that my position wouldn't become permanent until January, which would be the 3rd delay!!! I also learned that the new guys salary was dangerously close to mine (and I'm STILL trying to figure out how da' hell a guy with out a degree and 7 years of experience is offered a salary close to mine, with my 17 years of lab experience and soon to be 2 Masters degree's??? Hate to tell ya' , but this could ONLY happen to a white male, women and minorities need not even think about it). So I decided that day that I had seen enough, and I started looking for gigs elsewhere. I made crystal clear my displeasure with the entire new guy situation and how BullyPI handled things.

Well today my Supv tells me she's going to push for a salary increase, to make my position permanent ASAP and to make me an Assistant Research Professor since another person with a Master's was just promoted to that position. Given that I hadn't slept well in the past 3 days, this was just the news I wanted and needed to hear because I had blown the dust off my CV and had started sending out a few. Now EVERYTHING must come through because if I have to deal with BullyPI in the future, it's gonna have to be when we're eye to eye professionally speaking, otherwise I'm out like a light bulb, LOL!!!