One of my fellow labmates is, at this moment, conducting a loud conversation on the phone....with the phone on LOUDSPEAKER. Come on. Seriously?

Ding dong, the witch is dead…..

….ok, not dead, but out of my day-to-day life at least, which is pretty fantastic.

So I’ll admit it. I’m a bad, unreliable blogger.

For the past couple of months, my own research has been going slower and slower, and then I hit the inevitable completely insurmountable brick-wall. Advisor A and I were barely communicating. Despite all the crap Ad A has been throwing my way over the past months, deep down I was hoping that everything would work out, that I wouldn’t really need to implement an escape plan.

But, in our last meeting together when I tried to talk to her about how I was feeling completely and utterly stuck, she told me that her role as an advisor was to ‘stand on the sidelines and occasionally cheer, not provide conceptual or content advice’. If I had more than one study idea, Advisor A suggested that I run them all, and work out which one was best on my own.

I walked out of her office, for the first time really knowing that I couldn’t go on anymore if she was going to remain my supervisor. I could try, wasting more time and money in the process, but ultimately I would never finish my dissertation. After that last meeting it felt like it was only a matter of time before her supervisory relationship with me completely broke down.

So, Boss returned and I started making appointments with the appropriate graduate coordinators, administrators and potential new supervisors.

Telling Advisor A that I no longer wanted to be her student was tough. I really had no idea how she would react to the news. I was half expecting her to yell and throw things (most likely at me), and I was sure that it would be a bitter and hostile end to a pretty shocking experience with her. As I knocked on her door, I felt almost queasy.

She had her head in her hands as I walked into her office, and was lamenting that she was having an absolutely horrible day (I should note that it was only 9:30am, which is a bit early to be making such statements, but that is beside the point). I had carefully chosen my words to try and make what I was saying as least confrontational and personal as possible. As the words were coming out of my mouth, I saw her complete demeanour change. She went from slouching to sitting up straight and her expression went from all twisty and angry to almost one of relief. At the end of my spiel, she actually smiled at me. I couldn’t believe it. Then she started talking, and admitted that her supervision of me had been much less that satisfactory, she wished me all the best, gave me a little pat on the shoulder and ushered me out of her office.

Out of all the scenarios, her behaving in a dignified and professional manner was not even close to what I imagined.

And now I’m free. And it feel like someone has taken off my blinkers, and things that were impossible two weeks ago are almost possible.

Boss asked me whether I could see myself doing work in his area of expertise, and offered to take me on. I was surprised and honoured.

So all in all, things are slowing falling into place. I now have to start again. Although Boss and Advisor A’s research interests do overlap to a certain extent, they come from theoretically distinct points of view. I’ve jumped fence into Boss’s camp, and as a result, am saying goodbye old plan and reading and reading and reading hoping to come up with something new. Starting again is not where I expected to be at this point in time, although the extra spring in my step and new found motivation both tell me that it was the right thing to do.

I have a big presentation to give in the next few weeks and I have spent the whole day avoiding it. It is very time consuming trying to think of things to do that don’t involve the one thing you actually have to do. However, at this late point in the day I think I have exhausted all other avenues and the reality is I am going to have to at least start this damn talk. The thought that members of the department will be invited isn’t even enough to scare me into starting, which along with the fact that I am already planning in my head what DVD I am going to watch tonight, is bad news for my presentation.

Urgh...

I'm sick. I hate being sick, but I took the day off uni yesterday and it was really nice to just mooch about my room in a feverish haze knowing that I was going to get a long weekend. Ha - that's me, always looking on the bright side!

My Boss called from Europe today, and I had a really great chat to him. He always says such thoughtful and measured comments in regards in Advisor A. He reminded me of the importance of knowing when to leave a (bad) situation, and when it's worth fighting to stay.

Secretly I wanted him to say ‘ditch Advisor A’s sorry ass and come over to my research group’ but I know that for him, politically within the department and professionally, it’s not that easy. Taking the place of ex-Advisor B was a generous step for him, and I can’t ask for anything else. I’ve always found the thought of someone swooping in and ‘rescuing’ me, without having to take any risks myself, excruciatingly tempting. But part of this kafuffle is working it out on my own, otherwise I guess the whole experience would have been worthless. Damn, I hate responsibility!

A glimpse at freedom

I felt a little bit shaky when I opened up my Inbox this morning and found an email from the postgrad-student mediator. My first thought was that Advisor A has had enough with me and was attempting to leave. But alas alack - it seems that Advisor A was only in a bit of a panic over her behaviour regarding the meetings at Rival Uni and thus emailed the mediator a ‘progress report’ on her supervision of me. He proceeded to forward the email to me, and ask me how I think/feel about the emerging situation. I bluntly told him that I can’t see myself continuing with Ad A as my primary supervisor, whether the break comes now or in the next few months, it is enevitable.

As I was writing these words to him the realisation that I would no longer have to deal with this crazy woman was so exciting. It has been almost 2 years of drama with Advisor A and the thought of an Advisor A-less world is indeed a bright and shiny one.

Get back in my corner Advisor A!

Advisor A replied, which is a small miracle within itself. The gist of her response was that a) she doesn’t feel the need to keep me up-to-date on her relationship with Rival Uni whether or not the seminars are directly related to my research; b) As ex-Advisor B helps organise these special collaborative meetings, and she no longer is my co-advisor, she doesn’t want me there; c) Rival’s application was rejected because it was too similar to mine – which is precisely the problem I have been trying to have heard for the past 9 months.

What I took most offence at in Ad A’s email was her blatant untruths. Actually, maybe a better way of saying that is that many of the things she uses in her defence contradict things she has said to me in the past. I have no idea what is true or not true from her anymore.

Boss says the most important thing in an advisor is not that they are in your exact research field, or that they like you, rather it is that they are in your corner. They stand behind you, extol your virtues to visiting scholars, fight on you behalf for research space and resources, stand up for you in committee meetings, and generally try to make the experience as fulfilling as possible given the restraints on their own time and resources.

I feel that Ad A is going out of her way to make this more difficult for me, that if push comes to shove she has no qualms in shunting me to the side in favour of others. The fact that she would knowingly organise a seminar in my broad research area and better still, invite a specialist to speak on a topic that my first study is directly investigating, without informing me, is completely disheartening, and just shows how far out of my corner she really is.

Dear Advisor A,

I understand that [my research field] group meetings between [Home uni] and [Rival Uni] have been going ahead for the last couple of months. I was unaware that these collaborative meetings were occurring and am concerned that you did not think to include me in these meeting. I believe that one of the outcomes of our meeting with [mediator] was that you would continue to provide me with networking opportunities, and links to the other research in my field going on at [Rival Uni]. Why was I not invited to these meetings?

Also, I realise that [Rival] has been having difficulty gaining approval to conduct her research with [special population], I trust that your request today for my successful application does not mean that you are passing along my application to her.

Regards,
psychphd

**************
As evidenced by the above email, which is merely the most recent problem in a long list of ongoing issues with Ad A, things are continuing to deteriorate. Although Boss has taken the place of Ad B (only after some intensive mediated meetings with Ad A, myself, the postgrad coordinator and of course a mediator), he is out of the country for 2 months, and as a result Ad A is back to her old tricks. The way I see it I either quit my PhD or quit Ad A. I can't imagine myself doing anything other than research. This is my passion, so although it's probably the harder option in the short run. I think I have to leave Ad A. Now if only Boss were in the country I would do it now, but with both him away, and the postgrad coordinator, I think I'll have to stick it out for a few more months. I wonder what Ad A will surprise me with next.

It's gotten to the point where I am no longer surprised by how she treats me. I am a hard worker, and I am committed to this research. I don't know why she is making this so difficult.

My very first rejection

Well, my very first paper has been rejected, although I am not really all that surprised. I was re-reading it the other day and thinking that Good General Journal would be foolish for giving it the 'revise and resubmit' stamp. It simply wasn’t good enough. All the issues that the reviewers suggested were lacking I had originally included and Advisor A removed out in her final, somewhat brutal, edit. This is the same paper that Ad A appropriated first authorship. Once I realised that my own work wouldn’t even have my name first, I decided to give up fighting for what I saw as crucial to the paper’s conceptual coherence.

Secretly, I feel vindicated that the paper was given the big fat brush off. Although my smug glow soon wore off when the reality hit. Now I will have to re-write the paper and Ad A will resubmit with her name still tauntingly first.

Although, I guess there is now no reason why I shouldn’t bring up the authorship issue again. But I have to balance it with the fact that I will have to work with this woman for many years to come. This is a moment when I have to take psycgirl’s advice and pick my battles, and the answers to the questions she logically asks all point to the fact that I probably should fight this one.

The friend zone

[but first a brief preface:
I've been a lazy blogger lately, although I have been writing potential posts in Word I can't publish them. I just kept pondering why I wanted to start this blog, and whether it is relevant, both to myself and any others who stumble across it.

And what is it that I want to write about – do I limit it to talk about grad school only, what about my meagre social life, should that be mentioned? But I realised I couldn’t really separate the two, especially as an increasing amount of my time is spent at uni (and the fact that the majority of my non uni friends have fled the country!). Then there is always the fear that I will be ‘outed’, which means that sometimes I can't be as honest as I would like.

But I find that there is something calming about writing a post and publishing it. Almost like a sensation that now what I have written is ‘out there’ it is no longer solely my own. I have admitted it, and shared it. And it most certainly feels different from simply writing it in a Word document and leaving it on my computer. So I will continue my infrequent postings…]

**************************

Advisor A and I, brought together by the Advisor B debacle, have slipped into something that has sent alarm bells screeching and sirens sounding ‘retreat retreat’ over again in my head. I think we are becoming….friends.

I know that this is a bad bad idea, and that it is a messy way to do a PhD if one is ‘friends’ with ones advisor. But like me, Ad A is relatively new, and I am her first PhD student. In fact, she finished her phd less that four years ago. I just have the feeling that we are both learning as we go along. Now I don’t know whether that is an advantage, in that she is relatively young, and open to new ideas, or whether it is a disadvantage because she has little experience in the role of supervisor, and hasn’t really got an established lab or research team. But I knew all this before, and her research specialty was exciting enough for me to outweigh these possible disadvantages.

But the fact that we have moved steadily away from a professional relationship and into what can only be termed the ‘friend zone’ is alarming me. I am fully aware that it is a fake friendship because there will always be a power differential but I feel that there is little I can do to reign the relationship in. I don’t feel I can exactly say to her ‘Ad A, as much as I am intrigued by your fiancé/mother/best friend, can we please get back to talking about my research’. She would be hurt, and then angry. I know, I’ve tried to steer her back on topic before – she didn’t reply to my emails for two weeks! Where does psychology find these intelligent yet precious academics?

Goodbyes

I have said goodbye to many friends this year, as they pack up and leave for the other side of the world. Some are planning on coming back, while others have a one way ticket. I guess its that point in our lives where we have all finished our undergraduate degrees and worked for a while, and are asking what next?, and from that making some decisions for the long-term. I chose to start a doctoral degree, while the majority of my friends are looking to further their careers overseas.

A close friend that I met in my first year of university left today. She rang me from the airport this morning for one final goodbye and I felt so overwhelmed with sadness that another friend was leaving. It feels as though everyone else is moving forward in their lives, but because I am ‘still at uni’ I have somehow been left behind a little bit. I am still living the lifestyle of a student while my friends working a nine-to-five job in the city have moved on from that.

Research training wheels

Everything was plodding along at a manageable hectic pace, but somehow I went to sleep one night last week with everything under control and woke up to chaos.

Boss’s projects are all coming together at the same time, which of course means my work load has doubled – and it isn’t even especially remarkable work. For example, today I learnt the ins and outs of mail merge. Exciting stuff all round. But recruitment has to be done, and eventually I’ll have to start the long process of recruitment for my own work and learning the way that someone other than Advisor A approaches it is actually of surprisingly practical use.

However, because I am putting in extra hours for Boss, Advisor A is getting frustrated at my lack of progress on my own research. She has always expressed a certain amount of disapproval at the fact I work for Boss, and now feels she has a legitimate reason to vocalise those reservations a little louder than usual. But I do see (and am worried) that I am letting my research take the back seat. My university tries to deter research students from getting involved in large projects removed from their own research, but doing work with Boss is the only hands on research experience that I am getting. I mean, how does the department expect me to conduct ‘good’ research when I have little of my own practical experience, further coupled with a limited time (and budget).

So that is how I am justifying working with Boss, both to myself and Advisor A. A little lost time on my phd now is probably going to save me time in the future. But that doesn’t really help temper my current state of sleep-deprivation unfortunately.

A few weeks ago I got a frantic phone call from a mother whose daughter was doing psychology 1001 and failing. I'm not teaching this semester so I am still not quite sure how she got my number. She spoke to me at length about how her daughter wasn’t applying herself to her studies, how she took time off between high school and beginning university and as a result was struggling getting back into the studying routine. Reluctantly I agreed to do some one-on-one tutoring for her daughter, Claire. She gave me her daughter’s number and with much gratitude finally hung up. By this stage I was already mentally shifting my week around to try and work out how to fit her in. I understand how hard it can be to adapt to university life, and work out the best way to study, and I naively thought that I could do a little good and help out a student in need. Plus, during my undergrad years I always felt a little smug at my studying methods, and was happy to be able to pass them along.

I called Claire, and she reiterated that she was failing and that she really needed some help. However arranging a time was a little troublesome as apparently ‘it's really hard to maintain a social life and keep up with first year psychology’. That maybe true, I said to her, but it is important to work out your priorities. She agreed, and after much deliberation she finally found some time to spare. She was worried however that she wouldn't recognise me and asked for a description of what I look like 'short-ish....brown hair....' was all I could say. Well, she said taking charge, I'm blonde and 5'9. Just what I thought, I chuckled to myself.

Ten minutes before she was due to arrive, Claire calls me on the phone. She was running late, would it be alright if we pushed back the time by one and a half hours. I apologised, saying that I had a meeting for the rest of the afternoon. Thus ensued a painful 10 minutes of her deliberating what other time would best suit her. She eventually settled on a time, only then checking that it suited me too.

15 minutes before the lesson was to start, I got the call I was expecting. She had lost the piece of paper with my location, and incidentally, she also forgot to bring her books and written work to university today, ‘is it still worth me coming for a lesson?’ she asks. I told her that it was up to her, and she jumped at the out I gave her, agreeing that it would be a better use of HER time if she came prepared. I didn’t try to organise another time. She tried to mention it, I said to email me, and left it at that.

Does she seriously think that I have all the time in the world to wait until she is ready to get her act together? I just hope her mother won’t call me again – that woman was almost impossible to get off the phone!

I'm not pissed off at all really, the opposite, I'm bemused by the whole thing. I do wonder, however, if she'll attempt to arrange another time. Third time lucky - but lucky for her or lucky for me, I'm not quite sure?!

McFreaky

I was driving on the main road a few days back, and had this in the passenger seat of the car behind me. I had to stifle a scream – so very strange and unexpected. When I turned around to double check I wasn’t hallucinating, McFreaky gave me a slow wave. I’m not sure why, but the whole thing was at once chilling and hysterically funny.

The balancing act

In a surprising move, I managed to get out of bed on Thursday and go into uni and even managed to be semi-productive. I gave myself the goal to work til 3pm, but the thought of going home and mooching was so depressing I managed to work until 6pm. And then I did the whole thing again on Friday and then again on Saturday.

I’m relieved to say things aren’t looking nearly as bleak as they did a mere four days ago. There is definitely a seductive quality about sitting at your desk and working and pretending that there is no chaos going on in your head. Although, it did manage to seep through at times, and I found myself just sitting, staring at the screen and it took a gargantuan amount of self control to keep going and not curl up under my desk and take a long nap.

I am aware of the fine line I am treading between doing productive work and doing productive work to avoid ‘real life’. It’s a struggle I’ve had for a long time now and I am genuinely puzzled by those fellow students that manage to balance it all. There is one practically brilliant grad student, who is literally the poster-child of the psychology department. He is constantly being showered in accolades, and is often the subject of departmental emails congratulating him on his most recent success. The point of mentioning poster-child is that he is normal. He comes in late, laughs and fools around and, by the sounds of it (is it my fault I overhear him on the phone?!), has a pretty active social life. How does he do it??

The descent continues…

I’m trying desperately hard to roll with the punches but today was unfortunately the icing on the bitter cake I’ve been eating all year. The Boy and I are over. And the timing could not have been worse. He was the only thing at the moment that was keeping me sane, and forcing me to get out of bed in the mornings. The war between Advisor A and B and my thesis debacle didn’t faze me as much as it would have because I felt I had a secret weapon - someone to go out with and laugh about the absurdities of the psychology department, someone to go out to dinner with after another dreadful day at uni and tell me that it is not the end of the world.

I don’t really know what to do with myself anymore. I don’t know how much more I can take. I just want to scream out that this is so unfair. Boy was the one pursuing me, and I was the cautious one, aware of the very real chance that I would get hurt. But in the last week I felt enough was enough, time to just let go and go with the flow. And the sad thing is that I was really enjoying myself. For the first time in a long time my research wasn’t my only occupying thought. I felt excited at the fact that I could share things with someone, and even better, have someone share things with me. The whole relationship thing felt all at once attainable. It seems especially cruel that I got to have a tiny taste, and then have it all collapse around me. And I don’t want to have to say that I should have run when I had the chance.

My worst-case scenario situation is now, in all its melodrama, my reality. My thesis topic is back up in the air, after months of work, and to add insult to injury, just when I was starting to get excited about Boy, it too is over. The theme of my pity party is ‘why me, why now’.

The problem that now faces me is that I don’t want to go back to being the untouchable research machine that had no need for a life outside of university. Living like that was lonely, and the sacrifices too high. I’m going to need to dig deep to sort this all out, and not go back.

The Descent

Just when I feel that I have my footing on this whole phd/research thing, the rug gets pulled out from under me. I presented my three year research plan at Rival’s Uni last week. Advisor A and B were there, as well as Rival and a cast of characters associated with my area of research. I thought my talk went well. Although I did feel that Advisor B asked a few too many difficult questions, and even one downright rude one, but at the time I was so intent on answering coherently I didn’t realise that it was probably inappropriate for him to grill his own student in front of the other members of staff.

Rival didn’t say much during the meeting, toward the end, however, when everything was winding up, she mentioned that she would like us to review her new protocol. We looked at it, and my stomach just dropped out. It was completely revamped from her initial programme, and now followed a pattern closely related to a major portion of my research plan. Now, the presentation that day was merely a formality; my research area was common knowledge at Rival’s Uni even months prior to the day’s meeting. Advisor A and I could hardly contain ourselves, and accusations began to fly across the room. I wasn’t sure if I was going to lose control and throw my book at Rival’s head or lose control and cry. It was horrible. I just felt ill. In the end I could see that we weren’t going to get anywhere, and suggested we reconvene the following week. As we were walking out I could hear Ad A sternly tell Ad B that there was no way her student was going to be able to continue in that line of research.

What a mess. I know that there is bound to be someone, somewhere, doing similar research to me, it is just inevitable. I don’t flatter myself that I am coming up with truly remarkable studies, but it is a different matter when that other person is at a close-by university and shares an Advisor with you.

Advisor A thinks it best to;
(a) relinquish aspects of my plan to Rival, and concentrate on a more focused area. Now in theory, this is fine and will probably result in a tighter thesis. But practically, I just want to scream out that Rival should do her own fricken research. I struggled to come up with that comprehensive plan for the next three years, and now I am basically being asked to split it with Rival. Can’t she do her own work for once?? Is that too much to ask?
(b) replace Advisor B as co-advisor with someone else, preferable Boss (if he’ll take me). This is an aspect that I am happy about actually, Advisor B wasn’t contributing to anything much to do with me, and by removing her from the equation, I am severely limiting the amount of help I will have to give to her students, which might mean that my work will remain my work (which in itself is a pretty novel concept at the moment)!

The problem is that I am so unmotivated to continue. And I’m worried because I haven’t done any work in the past days, I haven’t gone this long without so much as reading a paper in many many months. I was going to go in today and try and do a couple of hours, but I couldn’t muster the energy even to leave the house. I know the signs, and am experiencing an almost epic internal battle against the descent into bleakness. I’m almost too tired to fight it. Tomorrow will be the make or break day. If I manage to survive tomorrow and catch a new wave of motivation I think I’ll be alright.

Damn this is hard.

Exhaustion

I worked for Boss today. Normally when I know I am being paid for the work I do I work extra hard, because somehow I feel that I need to prove to both myself and Boss that I am worth the fortnightly payslip in my pigeon hole. But today, I just couldn’t muster the extra energy that I expect from myself. I didn’t even feel guilty when I spent most of the afternoon laughing with my lab mate. I just don’t have any internal resources left to give a damn, I feel stretched to capacity. The thought that I have to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again is almost stomach-churning.

But I will wake up tomorrow morning, have the same breakfast I have everyday (avocado on whole-grain toast) and go to uni, because giving up is simply not an option, no matter how tempting spending the day under the blankets in bed appears.

My internet connection was down today and, as it was a Saturday, there were no tech staff to help out. As a result I did a great amount of work in a relatively short amount of time. I should consider disconnecting my internet more often.

Run

I saw Boy again the other night, and despite my best efforts he found out something about me which I have been trying to keep secret for a very long time. And I’m scared because I am vulnerable and open to criticism, and at any point this can end and I’ll be right back to where I was. And now that I have had a brief window into what it is like with someone, I don’t think I can go back to doing everything alone. Way back in my undergrad days, I made a choice. I chose to focus on my work, sacrifice everything else, and become the best I could possibly be. I got to where I am today alone, without the support of any ‘significant’ other. Now that I could potentially have it, I am scared I won’t be able to cope anymore, once it inevitably fades out. I already feel I’m splitting my focus, I’m worried the only reason I have my edge is because my research is my one priority.

Hence the title; I want to put on my sneakers and run as fast as I can in the opposite direction, before it is too late. I want to run and run and run. But I won’t be able to do that without regret, and I wasn’t happy before anyway. So I am stuck in a bind – open up to something new and scary that has every potential to hurt or continue the way I have been, hard working and alone. Right now, I want to run, back to the lab, back to my lit review, and back to control.

Directions

My Boss gave me some sage advice a few months ago, he said to me to be careful of becoming a ‘mini Advisor A’. At the time I didn’t really understand the warning. But I can see, now that I am a tiny bit further down the track, how easy it is to just follow in your advisor’s footsteps, using measures, paradigms and analyses that they have been using for many years before. I don’t want to tread the same worn path as Advisor A, but with time (and recruitment) restraints, I have had to acquiesce, for now, to her forceful nudge in the direction she feels most comfortable with. When I told Boss of this outcome, he just chuckled knowingly and said there was plenty more time to develop my research in a different direction later on. I just feel like a little bit of a cop out.

Old Friends

I meet up with an old friend today. We did many undergraduate courses together, but in our final year the competition and interdependence between us had become too intense and I felt I had no other choice but to distance myself from her – and as a result be forced to stand on my own two feet. I had a great year meeting new people, but I know that she struggled a bit, and I did feel guilty about that. But there was no way that I could have continued the friendship with her at that time.

Seeing her today went much better than I expected. Although, I have seen her in the last year, things were strained between us at best and obviously uncomfortable at worst. Today, however, was different. I felt we both presented ourselves as we are, there was no pretence and no undercurrent of competition that was such an big part of our friendship before. I felt as though we both finally saw the other for who we were today and not what we had been through in the last ten years of friendship. It was really nice, I enjoyed her company. Our issues with life have always seemed to mirror each others, and today was no exception and we had an raw and honest conversation and appraisal of our current situation. It was refreshing to spend time with someone that knows my past, but whose view of me wasn’t too clouded by it. All in all, seeing her again was a lovely end to an otherwise rainy and boring day.

Anger, Frustration, Disappointment

On anger;
I feel unfathomable rage today. It is so powerful I feel it inside, a hot rod of anger just beneath my rib cage. I am surprised by the power of it all. I just want to scream, and shout and throw things. Instead I took a big breath, put my ipod on as loud as I could bare and went for a jog, uphill. The anger is passing, but its allies, in the form of frustration and deep-seated dissatisfaction, are still lingering, refusing to budge, clouding my vision and making me snap at my innocent flatmates.

My anger on the most part is directed at myself. Sometimes I get so sick and tired of being me, living constantly with my hang-ups. I just need to shake it off. I can see myself making life harder than it needs to be right now, I am just not quite sure how to settle.

On frustration;
I opened my inbox today to receive an email from a good journal saying that an article has been submitted with myself as co-author. Advisor A had submitted my work with herself as first author, before I could muster the confidence to confront her about it. I know for a fact it was wrong of her to do so. This is not an ambiguous situation where either one of us could have justifiably been first, it was very clear cut, my name should have been first. It was very visibly my work. In the end I know it was my choice to put off talking to her about it until it was too late. But I felt that it was better to keep the peace between us, than start bringing up authorship issues so soon in my phd. But the frustration I feel at the whole situation is still unfortunately very real, and for the time being refuses to shift. I will not have the opportunity to publish as first author again for a while. It would have been nice to have that paper, my baby, with my name first. Boss just keeps telling me to let it go, not to let this spoil things. I am trying, but I get so angry every time I think about it.

On disappointment;
I spent the day today at uni, I spent my whole Saturday sitting in an empty building, in front of a computer, alone. I did do work, and I have crossed many things off the long task-list, but it’s not enough. Somewhere along the way, just doing well is no longer enough. I never thought I would be in this situation, both the good and bad. Doing a phd at my relatively young age is exciting and I am grateful for the opportunities afforded me, but by my age I was hoping to have had other things too.

I worked hard to get where I am, I sacrificed things, but I also worked hard because it let me avoid all the things I didn’t want to think about. But now as I embark on another 4 years, I realise that uni is almost all I have. Which is why, I suppose, I invested so much drama into poor Boy. All of a sudden I realised that I had a chance for something different, new and exciting.

I feel stuck in a deep deep rut, and all I can say is that at least my research is going well, which is precisely the problem.

Infinity

I had a chat with Advisor A today about Advisor B (who is from a different department). For once I felt like she was on my side and my experience with academia has shown me how important that is, at least at my uni. In fact, she was pretty appalled by Ad B’s behaviour, and she said she didn’t realise how bad things with her had got. I just feel so relieved that we are on the same page, now I feel I can concentrate a little bit more on my research and a little less on the Machiavellian antics of the staff.

My restlessness and general sense of uneasiness has multiplied over the last two days, and I know the cause. I went on a date, against all my better judgement I let myself begin to contemplate a future where I wasn’t doing everything by myself, where I had someone to share things with.

I’ve watched my friends go in and out of good and bad relationships, while my life has been the stable one. Without the emotional turbulence of having a key someone else in my life, I felt all my problems to be either my own doing, or out of my control. After a messy break-up and a gruelling course-load, not having high expectations with respect to finding someone just seemed like a clever way to survive. But within a few days I have lost my finely tuned equilibrium, and I feel unsettled, both because I have no idea where this ‘relationship’ is heading and due to my surprisingly melodramatic approach to the whole situation. I’m supposed to be a level headed cynic and instead I am feeling wretched over almost nothing.

I need to get a grip, and fast.

Unfocused jitters

I've been feeling uncomfortably restless for the last few days, and I can't quite pin-point why. I’ve never been good with change. I like to have everything planned out in my head. I guess things have just been really different lately.

After my productive Friday, I hit a definite lull in efficiency (to put it mildly). I had an extra few hours today, with last minute cancelled meetings, and I just couldn't focus. When I found myself drifting in and out of my office-mate’s conversation to their real estate agent, I gave up and went home. It’s been a sluggish day. I have good intentions, but I just can’t translate that to actual advances. Advisor A is not the type of person to give direction and support, which leaves me feeling a little aimless. Although, if I am realistic about what I expected the first few months to be, I knew that I would struggle with the structured-less-ness of it all. When (if) I have my great!idea and a from that a detailed research plan, I hope things start to get a little easier.

In more positive news, my abstract was accepted to be presented at a conference. My very first one. I am torn between excitement and blind fear.

Welcome productivity, please stay

I finally feel like I had a productive day. It has taken me a lot longer than I thought to get back into the swing of things. I feel quite capable of devoting hours of effort to solve Boss’s questions, but when it comes to my own research I have no trouble putting it to one side. But finally today I spent many many hours at uni, in my office, working hard. And it felt really good, I had a sense of accomplishment as I walked out to go home that I don’t feel after a good day working for Boss. Now I remember why I am doing this. But juggling other people's work with my own is going to be a recurring theme for me I think.

I just don't know the rules yet; What can a grad student reasonably demand from their advisor? Can a grad student reasonably say no to the requests of other academics? Is it just plain stupid to help a fellow grad student whose research program is in an area identical to ones own, or is it just good manners? Is it common for an advisor to take first name authorship of a students work? I need a manual for bamboozled new research students.

The nerve

I’m not quite sure how to vent the frustration I feel at the various academics I work with that claim to be committed to collaborative research but in reality use what they can from students without giving due credit. I know that this is a common complaint among grad students, and as I read the horror stories I always thought that it would never happen to me. But my naivety has well and truly worn off as I realise I am in the thick of it now with both Advisor A and Advisor B.

The prep I did last year, adapting a methodology, recruitment procedures, pilot studies, the whole thing was just handed over to Advisor B to be used by her students, specifically Rival, who is working on research in an area that is scarily similar to mine. An area that I first explored in my previous research. This is where the mask of collaboration really annoys. If Rival was providing a new perspective, or a new methodology then I would be accepting of the blatant appropriation of my work. But this is just not happening. Instead I find myself providing support to Rival at my own cost. I just can’t say no. Sadly, I feel completely powerless.

The beginning...

I have been dithering about writing a blog for too long, and today just seemed like the right time to start. I should be busy trying to begin the long haul that will be my phd research, but seriously, how do you even begin to pace yourself for what is going to be years and years of work? The analogy from psycgirl about grad school being 'a marathon, not a sprint' makes me think that I am still in the stretching phase, still getting limbered up, I haven't even begun the race.