Three Strikes

Yesterday was a day of three strikes...
Strike 1 - I have a graduate student who is not engaged in work. A clockwatcher, the student leaves promptly at 5 pm every day and arrives at 9 am on the dot. Research is not a 9-5 job, rather it needs to happen in patches and it's best not to leave when you are in the middle of a thought or experiment. You get out of research, what you put into it. Yesterday, I arrived at work at about 7:40 am. I walked past their office and noticed the light on (it is usually not on when I arrive). I looked in and was excited to see the student there working. I thought, maybe the seminar speaker yesterday brought things around for the student or maybe it was just figured out. I got to my office and downloaded my email and found that my excitement was totally unfounded. The early arrival was simply to "make up" the time since 3:30 would be the end of the day. What? What? What? There was also no explanation as to why this was happening.
Strike 2- Space and money = power in academia. Oh, and maybe rank factors in. I have none of these. Well, I guess I should say that I currently have space but that won't last long due to some complicated factors that mean that I can't stay in my current space. I had thought I had found a solution that would work perfectly. I even had a verbal agreement going back a few months and that was reaffirmed recently. But no - over the last week it has come crumbling down. This is making me very stressed out because it means that I will be letting down my students (they need space to do their research and research to get their degrees) and (of less importance), it will be very hard to get tenure. Have I made a giant mistake?
Strike 3- I got a wonderfully impersonal email at exactly 5 pm yesterday that said my recent grant submission is NOT funded.
Three strikes! I am not doing any work today!

If you were wondering...

what the blooms would look like, here is the first one that appeared this week. They only last for about 12 hrs, but luckily each pod has more than one bloom (usually three) and I have 5 pods on this plant and 4 on the other. Usually they open in the morning, but this one opened sometime while I was at work and was gone the next morning.

This plant is really easy to make more plants from. I have already given away two (that have 3 bundles each). A bundle comes from the pod once all the blooms are finished. I stuck this in water and once roots were growing, planted it. One of the ones that I gave away has already bloomed multiple times this year.

(I'm not sure if my terminology is technically correct about the plants.)

I'm melting, melting, melting (ALA Wicked Witch)

A lovely weekend and I made myself get outside for a long run on Saturday! It was sunny and warm (no jacket required) and the scenery was beautiful.

Now, everything is melting and from beneath that blanket of white appears something that is brownish-green and hairy. What is the foreign species? Oh, grass you say... it's been a while.

Getting back out there...

So after a long hiatus (and recovery?), it seems that I have found 3 appropriate guys to date. I saw one for the first time tonight (guy one), tomorrow I will see a guy for the second time (yes, the guy I wrote about a bit ago, this is shocking because I am the one date wonder), and Saturday, I might be meeting another (third) guy for the first time. (I hope they will all end up with more appropriate nicknames in the future, but this will have to do for now.)

The first date exceeded my expectations (does this mean my expectations are too low?). Guy one is great - has been since I first started corresponding with him. He is not "in science," (though he has done some science-y things in the past) but is definitely smart enough to talk with me about science things. This makes me happy. He is pretty liberal - which also makes me smile. And he makes me laugh - which is very important.

That is all for now. Possibly more in the future or possibly not.

Two secrets (or confessions)

I some times indulge in reality TV. I used to watch Survivor back in the day. But last night I watched the Bachelor final. I had a mini crush on Jason, but I think I'm cured after the craziness that happened. I also am fascinated by the Biggest Loser, though I don't know why. I often watch it while I'm at the gym... is that weird?

I had been eating a lot of chocolate. I have stopped cold turkey. I think it was making me feel a little off. It was either cutting out chocolate or starting to do Pilates (and trying yoga) that seems to have solved my problem.