Dare I say it....

The lack of posts have stemmed from the constant mental debate I've been having with myself.
Due to some personal reasons, I'm questioning whether or not I want/need to push through for the PhD or call it a day with a masters degree.  And no...the reasons do not include A) being pregnant or B) failing my qualifying exams as I haven't taken them yet.

A lot of it stems from my perspective on what I want to do once I leave grad school.  I've never wanted to go into academia and teach....and I know those jobs are difficult to get anyway.  I always figured I'd go in industry.  But, it has become more and more apparent that I don't need to run the show.  In fact, I'd rather not be the person staying up until 3am writing grant renewals.  In addition to this, sometimes focusing on a big picture isn't my forte.  I do enjoy problem solving or trouble shooting experiments....

So, much to the derision of some, I'm seriously wondering if busting my ass for the PhD is worth it...if really all I want is a simple technician job.  I still want to be heavily involved in science, but I don't think I want to drive the bus.  I'd rather be somewhere in the back, consulting the map and helping out when the driver gets lost.

Lab book hell

I always say I'm going to change.  I'm going to do things properly this time....

And in the end I spent 2-3 hours compiling bits of paper and cut up protocols to paste into my lab book...trying to make sense of what I meant when I scribbled something down.  And then it just looks 10x worse in my left-handed scrawl.

But we all know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  And I don't even follow that road all the time....so it is no wonder to find myself having spent 3 hours working on my lab book again.

Of course the last phrase reminds me of a scene from Four Rooms:

"If the simple fact that I didn't want your bloated, 

dead body lying out on the floor is love, then no 

wonder we find ourselves as we are at this very 

moment."

But I digress....

I wish I could figure out how be better about the whole lab book thing. I think I need to go with the 

binder approach I've seen in a collaborator's lab.  And my chicken scratch is horrid.  Seriously...

I think anyone would much rather see typed pages than this crap.  I'll leave the original scrawled 

versions for posterity, and the typed ones for actual use.