Up, up, up and down.

That has been the mood swing pattern every day for the last two or three months. Unless I don’t get out of the house during the day. If I don’t get out you can aptly describe the mood as down, down, and holy hell could you get any more down? This is the main cause for the lack of blogging.

Today I got another rejection letter. This one was from the city. Telling me that I was (wait for it. Hold your breath) NOT QUALIFIED. Right. Well I hate to tell the city here that I have been going to school for ten fucking years doing exactly what they described in their job posting. And I am sorry that they have some cheap-ass way of making people write essays that can’t quite hit on their qualifications… that they are more interested in whether candidates can name the make and model of every scientific instrument that they have ever touched.

Which leads me to my next rant. Why is that places like DeVry can place their graduates after they finish? And yet, when you have paid out your ass to get a Ph.D., you get nothing. No help. Maybe someone will look at your resume and say, “It looks good. I would hire you.” Which would be great if you wanted to be the assistant to the career counselor. But what about, “Here are some places to apply.” You don’t even have to hand me the job. Just help me figure out where I can fit. Where I might be happy. Because I apparently don’t know the answer to that anymore.

And nothing makes this worse than the fact that no matter how you feel during the day, the panic sets in when your head hits the pillow. And you decide that the best remedy to that is to come to the computer and blog. I tell you something… it really isn’t getting me any closer to some zzzz’s.

YES THERE IS!

I am finished. I now have my Ph.D. in Environmental Chemistry.

But I am trying to get a loaf of bread together… so we’ll celebrate later, k?

So I sent out my first version of my dissertation. A 112 page volume that chronicles my 5 years’ worth of research. With a huge table of contents and list of figures.

And then….

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had nothing to work on. Sure I could clean my house. But that was it! I was going to get out the sewing machine. But first I figured I would do a load of laundry and go through the mail.

And that was enough time for one of my committee members to review the chapters and send me a critique back.

And here I am with work to finish. I am kind of glad. But he wants me to add a whole chapter. Which is as bad as it sounds, but not as bad as it sounds. It is hard because I have to take things that I have already said twice in this work of art and write it yet a third different way. But I will manage. And I will send out a new version to my other two signees. One of whom is my advisor.

The hardest part of the this process (besides getting Word to do what I want it to do and coming up with unique and creative thoughts to describe my work) had been getting other people’s input. I knew that one of my committee members was going to be out of town this weekend and that his input was going to come by Tuesday. But my main advisor isn’t responding to my emails, so I don’t know if he is out of town too.

HELLO! I am not getting a vacation here!!!

Just kidding. This is my own fault for procrastinating.

Well, it is back to the grind for me. Nothing too exciting. I am already anxiously awaiting the end of the semester so that I can get another job. I do have to say that I am excited about research. I have a really cool project that I am going to work on with a student involving lees and barrels. I have made some good progress today and will meet with the student on Wednesday to begin the outline.

I am just about done with editing the second paper for submission. I haven’t heard from any of my cohorts… I wonder what is going through their heads. I should email them. I wil ltry and take care of that on Wednesday. I just wanted to contact them with the completed documents. No such luck. Perhaps I will get to it tomorrow night. One can hope, huh?

I have been waking up every day this week with the feeling that big things are going to happen to me. Big things like getting a real job, finishing school, getting a dog, getting married. Now, I know that I think about those things happening all of the time, but lately, it has been a different feeling. Like the feeling of being tied to an out of control tractor trailer and I am doing everything I can to keep up. I know that I am going to be beat by the time the truck runs out of steam, but I know that I will be really happy when it does.

It seems that lately I don’t really take very long breaks from work. In the past five years I took A LOT of time off. Going to graduate school was a full-time adventure, but no one checked in on me. I had a meeting once a week and I had to have something done. That was it. And what I had to have done varied GREATLY in the amount of time it took to produce the work. But lately, namely when I started working at this institution, I have found myself sitting down more often to my disseration. I keep lists of things to do and I actually check things off.

So I am going to keep hoping that these big things are in my close and emminent future. Which isn’t to say that I have somehow become comfortable with my life. I am still strangely sad about things that I shouldn’t be. I just saw pictures of some old college friends at a marathon and it make me miss so many people it almost hurt.

you schedule a 2 hour manicure-pedicure, right? HA!

Did I ever say I had any work ethic? I think not.

But I swear I will get something done today. Right after I look up a restaurant in the Bay Area for me to meet my cousin.

And after I bail on a few phone meetings related to my research.

HA! Again.