On the twelfth day of Whinemas, the troll gods sent to me...

12 months I've wasted

• it all comes full circle - this is what I have to show for the past year's worth of gift #1, the huge lack of motivation. I officially joined the lab almost a year ago with big dreams of building on the results I'd already got in my rotation and maybe even publishing something. Ha! Instead, I may have just scraped my way back to the exact same point I was at last year. Except that my motivation is even lower so I'm not so optimistic about turning this into a publication any time soon (although my advisor still has high hopes). I really can't believe the year is practically over. What have I done with all that time? This blog is my biggest achievement for the year (actually, that does make me feel a little better, although surely my thesis proposal should have ranked higher). The department forwarded on an email today asking for applications to write the grad student whine column for Nature next year and I had fleeting thoughts about applying, but sadly, I'm being unfair by characterising it as a whine and I don't think monthly reports on my lack of progress would be of interest to anyone. In any case, the link in the email took me to the nature jobs site, where I found even more to demoralise me. Here are some "Lab rules to live by" from Gillian Wu:
  

  "Always make a list of what is most important for today and do it. Don't let anything get in your way."

  "I make graduate students do the first draft of a paper and tell them I want to see it in a week — no extensions."

  "You should be able to turn to page 59 in your lab notebook and tell me what you did that day."

  These rules are perfectly reasonable, but I'm horrified by the thought of someone asking that of me, because I don't think I can do it. I'm even more horrified at my reaction. I know I picked an advisor who's incredibly nice and easy going because I was too scared of dealing with the really demanding professors, but maybe it would have been good for me to have someone refuse to put up with my apathy. This way I just feel extra guilty for letting down my advisor when he's so nice about it.

11 plates to pipette
10 fingers freezing
9 emails waiting
8 grumpy x-mates
7 laptop symptoms
6 hours of daylight
5 doomed mice
4 sentences
3 sad tales
2 blistered heels
and a huge lack of motivation