(Pictures by Dave McKean from The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman)

Thursday, February 02, 2006

grumble grumble stomp stomp

I know Wednesday is over, but I'm feeling incredibly whiny so feel free to skip this post unless you're in the mood for infantile tantrums.
So I said in the email to my therapist last week that the thing I'm most concerned about lately is my complete lack of motivation in lab. I saw the meds person this week and after asking me what kind of medication I wanted to try (how should I know? I'm not the doctor, or whatever equivalent she is!) she put me on wellbutrin. After my last experience with medication I'm not hoping for much, but any slight improvement would have to help.
I've been complaining about not doing any work and arriving at 11.30am etc for quite a while now and it just keeps getting worse. After the "effort" of getting here, I feel like I need to hide and just read blogs for a while before doing anything, but that usually turns into hours of endlessly refreshing bloglines. I'm barely doing a single 15 minute task per day (usually postponed until after everyone else starts leaving).
On Monday, my advisor wanted to go over some data with me, that I didn't have ready, but he was running late from meetings with other people. So did I prepare my data while I was waiting? Of course not. Then when he ran out of time and postponed until the next day, did I do it on Tuesday? Wednesday? Today? Of course not. Luckily, he seemed to forget about it until today when he asked for actual slides to show at a meeting tomorrow. Did I learn from last time he needed slides and I was here until 3am? Of course not. But I'm too grumpy to cope with fiddling around too much so I just threw something together by 7pm.
Everything just seems like too much effort. I'm constantly fighting the overwhelming desire to just go home and hide in my room. This week just staying here until the earliest I could reasonably go home, even though I've done nothing but read blogs, has been a struggle. Opening a file feels like an achievement, so then I need a break, then figuring out what I'm doing with the file takes too much effort and I give up. I spend the entire week hanging out for the weekend so I can spend it in bed (I'm still counting grocery shopping towards keeping my resolution to leave the house).
Reading about people being excited about their work keeps making me wonder if I should just give up, since I'm not enjoying this. But I'm pretty sure I'd be just as unmotivated whatever I did. I've fantasised about taking leave of absence (a couple of students in the year below me have just done this), but since it would require me to leave the country, that seems like too much to deal with, too.
Everyone else being all busy and interested in their experiments is just making me feel grumpier, too, and then I feel bad for being surly and sullen when I could be helping since I'm not doing anything useful. Overly Verbose Student kept wanting to show me all the fancy new tricks he figured out with the software I was using and one of the techs wanted to chat and I just wanted to yell "stop talking to me!" but instead I was just passive-aggressively silent. OVS actually came back to apologise for maybe seeming like he was criticising what I was doing and I couldn't even explain it wasn't his fault I'm so sulky.
I feel especially bad for the tech I started out working with. We used to be working on the same project, but because she actually spends her time here working, I wasn't really doing my fair share. Lately though, she's been finishing some stuff I started last year while I went on with new stuff and her stuff is going into the next paper so she's been spending a lot of time discussing ideas with my advisor. Plus she wrote in her blog about how she's getting the hang of thinking critically and designing experiments and stuff, when I can't even read a paper lately, let alone analyse it. I keep turning into a little brat whose jealous of all the attention she's getting. It doesn't help that she's applying for grad school and keeps getting acceptances and interviews now. I'm happy for her because she is very nice and definitely deserves it, but it's just making it more obvious how much I suck in comparison.
I hate being so grumpy and I especially hate taking it out on other people. I hate that the effort it takes to even think about my project is enough to stop me trying. I hate that I'm barely interested, even though it really is a very cool project. I hate that I'm going to be here forever (at least until they kick me out). I hate that I'm being so self-indulgent and whiny. I should just do some frickin' work.

5 Comments:

At 8:55 PM, Blogger BrightStar (B*) said...

oh, I'm only excited about my work for like two seconds, and then opening a file feels like an achievement again, so I know a bit about how this feels.

I really don't know what it takes to do work some days... when you find out the secret, let us all know.

I hope that these feelings are temporary for you.

 
At 12:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am so sorry but can totally empathize. My advisor emailed me today about my diss. I really ought then to have worked on it. Did I? Nope, Truly, I could bang out a proposal in a coupel of days, but do I? Nope.

For what it's worth, wellbutrin is known for giving people more energy. I'm tempted to go on it for that reason, but I'm not med compliant or doctor appointment compliant enough to do so.

I totally hate everyone who has good stuff going on right now. I promise to only blog about really sucky stuff for as long as you need :)

 
At 1:01 PM, Blogger Lucy said...

Thanks, B*. If I find the secret, I'll let you know. These feelings have been around, but getting worse for a year or more so it doesn't exactly feel temporary.
Shrinkykitten, I'm sorry you can empathise. I did most of my proposal in the two days after it was actually due... I'm hoping the pills do something, but I forgot to take it this morning, so I'm not helping. Likewise, you can hang out here if you want to avoid reading anything happy or uplifting :) Thanks.
I have more grumbling, too. After I posted last night my advisor called to ask about what I'd sent him and made me miss the shuttle bus I'd been waiting half an hour for. Plus the first years sent out a sickeningly enthusiastic proposal for a new journal club.

 
At 11:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh my god. I hate enthusiasm. And people. And emails. And clubs. All of it. Hate it. Like puppets though.

I also love rqompocb.

 
At 11:45 PM, Blogger Lucy said...

:) Puppets are cool. Of course, I had to reply and say I'd join the stupid club, because everyone else is and I definitely need to learn the stuff, but now I'm just going to not read anything until the last minute and then daydream my way through the meetings. I might get a few free meals, though.

rqompcb is cool. Also, mnjnvol

 

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