8 days

That's how much time off I get per year. Not all at once, not even two days in a row. Nope. There are eight national holidays, that I get off. Let's see if I can come up with a complete list:
-New Year's day
-MLK day
-Washington's birthday
-Memorial day
-July 4th
-Labor Day
-Thanksgiving
-Christmas day

And in the lucky year 2009, July 4th is on a Saturday, so make that 7 days. Plus I didn't stay at home on Washington's birthday, which makes that 6 days. That's a whooping 25% vacation cut! (In 2010, July 4th will be on a Sunday, which means another 12.5% reduction in days off for the year 2010.)

Wait, I know what you're thinking: "Isn't everyone supposed to get, you know, a few days of vacation? Or maybe just a stay-cation in these rough economic times? Perhaps a long weekend? What about some family time around Christmas? Perhaps visiting some family over Thanksgiving (taking off Black Friday)?"

Excellent questions. I'm glad you brought those things up. After being told that any request for vacation would be met with the reminder that anyone can be "fired" (they don't call it that in grad school, they call it Master's degree), I got the following answers: No. No. No. No. and. No. Does that answer your questions?

I sure hope it does, because that's all the answer(s) I got. It's gonna be a loooong summer, I can tell already.

Full speed ahead

From the moment I got up today to the moment I go to sleep I will not have had any idle minutes (seconds probably). I jumped up with the first sound of my alarm and it was go, go, go all day with school/work, house, dinner at someone's house, picking out a sink and sink accessories at the store, laundry, brushing teeth, and very soon it's back to bed.

I had about 10 uninterrupted minutes of silence and idleness today, but that was in the waiting room of a doctor's office, so it wasn't like I was enjoying myself or sitting in the yard gazing at the greenery. It was the anticipation of awkwardness and uncomfortableness, so I was glad I only sat there for ten minutes.

Maybe tomorrow will bring a little bit more rest.

What real people do

I have this picture in my mind of what real people do.

Real people get up at the same time every day and eat breakfast.
Real people dress appropriately for work.
Real people eat lunch.
Real people go home at around the same time every day.
Real people eat dinner.
Real people have some leisure time in the evening.
Real people go to bed at a decent hour.
Real people do the dishes regularly.
Real people buy new clothes when their old ones are worn-out.
Real people spend some time with friends and family regularly.
Real people have hobbies that they tend to on a regular basis.

I don't do most of those things on any sort of regular basis. I get up at a different time each day and I eat at random times throughout the day. I don't do things a little bit or moderately. I either do them right and right now, or I don't do them at all.

People pick up a hobby. I decided to learn how to play the piano, and memorized entire leaflets of piano notes within a few months.

People have a plant or two. I planted about 30-some different plants, herbs and vegetables when I decided I wanted a plant.

I'm either going 180 mph or not at all. My car's roof is taped up with shiny, silver plumbing tape and an extra-thick black trash bag. I wear the same five shirts over and over and over again, and I've had most of them for at least 3 years. I buy multiple pairs of my favorite pants so I can wear them more often (read: every day). I probably own about 150 shirts and 50 pairs of pants/skirts/shorts, and I'm pretty sure that most of them haven't been worn more than a couple of times, if that.

Someone recently told me that my picture of real people is unrealistic. Hardly anyone has a routine that they follow to the t, and most people have a certain degree of chaos in their lives. I just feel that my life is more chaos than routine.

I have a feeling that owning a house and having a real, physical place to call home may help with the chaos in my life. I hope it doesn't make me boring.

Tired

This week has been just one thing: tiring. I wake up tired, I go to bed tired, and in between I just work, work, work, and then work some more.

I have a big presentation at school tomorrow, and the preparations for it have been exhausting (mentally), and when I'm not preparing for the presentation I'm trying to get things in order at the house, and when I'm not doing either of those things I'm out trying to find some part to some thing in the house that needs fixing. I also have another project due Friday, and by the looks of it, it won't get done unless I pull an all-nighter tomorrow. Judging by my current state, that will not happen, which means I'll be working on that over the weekend. And on Monday I start work in my permanent "lab home" for the next 4 or so years.

I'm tired.

Brand-new, adorable and clueless

I'm one of those things. The 2-day old baby I held for an hour this morning is the other two things.

A friend of mine had a beautiful baby girl with a beautiful old-fashioned-newly-revived name. One of the perks of working in/right next to the hospital is being able to sneak out of the lab to go visit new babies, and I couldn't get enough of the perfect little 6 pound bundle of adorableness. Mom and baby were doing well so the visit was all smiles and oooh's and aaah's and awww's. Plus, brand-new baby and I share a birthday, which makes her extra special.

Clueless is me. Until graduate school I was an excellent student, getting mostly A's. In graduate school my grades are still good, but I just feel like I know next to nothing! In college I almost always understood the lecture material and any reading I did. Now, on a good day, I understand about a third of what people say around me. They speak in acronyms and super secret science lingo and when everyone nods in agreement or makes appropriate gestures and facial expressions, the last thing I want to do is ask what they're talking about. I usually have a pad of paper on my desk with lists of words and questions that I google and look up in books. Most of the time this results in more words being added to my list and more google searches, which means more words on the list, and... you get the idea. However, ever so slowly, my command of the super secret science lingo is improving. I understand more words, terms, techniques and theories now than I did two months ago, and I like it. I no longer feel like the village idiot, but more like a clueless passerby who accidentally wandered in.

And now I'm going to wander out. The wonderful world of kitchen remodeling is waiting for me at Lowe's...

The more you know...

I've had a cold for almost 3 weeks, accompanied by swollen lymph nodes, intermittent sinus pain and almost constant fatigue. Colds are supposed to last one week, or seven days. It has been well over two weeks, and I'm feeling almost worse than I did when this whole thing started. Some days my cold symptoms are very minor, but the swollen lymph nodes have been persistent.

Unfortunately I have a slight penchant for paranoia, especially when it comes to being sick. Headache? Brain tumor. Neck pain and a slight fever? Meningitis. Swollen lymph nodes? Lymphoma or a benign growth at best. Stomach pain? Appendicitis. You get the idea.

I'm pretty sure I am a little more overly concerned about my physical well-being than the average person. Maybe it's because I tend to be a little bit unlucky (broken bones, two orthopedic surgeries, post-surgical infection, but that's another post altogether), or maybe I just spend too much time thinking about myself. I think my discovery of Google about 10 years ago has only fueled this paranoia, as the Internet's answer to every search for a set of symptoms seems to be "you'll probably die young, writhing in pain".

My PhD program is located at a medical school, and some of the material and classes are medically oriented (some of my classes are in the medical school curriculum). Every time I hear or learn about a new disease I make sure I don't have it. So far I haven't self-diagnosed myself with anything awfully terrible, that is, until this lymph node thing. A visit to student health is probably in my near future, but I'm pretty sure they get their fair share of "I learned about this disease...".

So today is spent wishing I was more ignorant, because sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.