Even in my dreams grad school is ruining my life.
I have been in school for 22years. I have been a student for 22 years. It is the past 5 years that has really taken a toll on me. It might not be grad school itself, but maybe just getting older while watching your life not proceed in the forward direction (it's just kind of wading [treading in place] in general, that has made me tired with it all. As much as I complain, I really do like lab work and science...I would just like to be rewarded for my hard work once in a while...take a vacation for two weeks...get paid more...that sort of thing.
Anyway, I have my TRAC (thesis research advisory committee) next week and have been slowly preparing my write up and presentation. Last night I have a dream so vivid (yet so mundane) that it startles me and wakes me up due to hysterical crying. I dreamt there were all kinds of problems with getting to my TRAC meeting- PC to Mac conversion problems, the computers in lab and all the servers crash (therefore erasing and losing all my recent data and notes), my committee cannot approve of my project since:
A. I have not handed in my write up (because of the computer problems stated above)
B. They find me incompetent to answer questions (but it is because I am crying from losing all my data)which they have asked me to do in Korean (and I am so upset that I do not know how to say tumorigenesis in Korean).
C. They do not approve of my usage of the dogfish as an animal model. (I remember telling them in my dream that the dogfish is an evolutionary conserved animal of amphibian origins which has rudimentary stem cell development and vestigial ears [this really means nothing]).
In the end I am told I cannot graduate and that they, and my own PI, are appalled, really HORRIFIED, that I could even be considered a PhD candidate. I am hysterical and decided that this is devastating but I have to do my math problem sets and the laundry. I wake up and my eyes are encrusted with salt. This is at 4am. I could not go back to sleep. So I lay there, hoping that the write up I sent my mentor wasn't going to get ripped apart- but it probably will. And, OH NO! I left the gym clothes out on the clothes line and it is raining...All the while Mike is sleeping like a baby. How nice it must be to sleep so peacefully.
The mundane world is very scary.
Anyway, I have my TRAC (thesis research advisory committee) next week and have been slowly preparing my write up and presentation. Last night I have a dream so vivid (yet so mundane) that it startles me and wakes me up due to hysterical crying. I dreamt there were all kinds of problems with getting to my TRAC meeting- PC to Mac conversion problems, the computers in lab and all the servers crash (therefore erasing and losing all my recent data and notes), my committee cannot approve of my project since:
A. I have not handed in my write up (because of the computer problems stated above)
B. They find me incompetent to answer questions (but it is because I am crying from losing all my data)which they have asked me to do in Korean (and I am so upset that I do not know how to say tumorigenesis in Korean).
C. They do not approve of my usage of the dogfish as an animal model. (I remember telling them in my dream that the dogfish is an evolutionary conserved animal of amphibian origins which has rudimentary stem cell development and vestigial ears [this really means nothing]).
In the end I am told I cannot graduate and that they, and my own PI, are appalled, really HORRIFIED, that I could even be considered a PhD candidate. I am hysterical and decided that this is devastating but I have to do my math problem sets and the laundry. I wake up and my eyes are encrusted with salt. This is at 4am. I could not go back to sleep. So I lay there, hoping that the write up I sent my mentor wasn't going to get ripped apart- but it probably will. And, OH NO! I left the gym clothes out on the clothes line and it is raining...All the while Mike is sleeping like a baby. How nice it must be to sleep so peacefully.
The mundane world is very scary.
posted by hkim at
8:22 AM
4 Comments:
last night I dreamt I was in a fight with a man--he might haven't be a plainclothes ninja--and the only weapons we had were cracked CDs. For some reason I Was immaciated and weak, and even when I stabbed him I could not get the CD to pierce his skin. It went on and on, exhausting. The night before, I dreamt I lost Igal and Olga's baby to a colony of fire ants, and then I was in a sewere in New York, trying to get my iPod to work like a compass underground, and stumbling upon dead bodies and severed arms, while the rush hour crowd came to and from the trains.
All of which seems preferable to your dream. Sorry mang. You're almost done, tho.
By
dan, At
11:29 AM
Oh man. Dreams of frustration. Your dreams are so much more interesting than mine...
However, speaking of cracked CDs-
In college there was this box we got of Christianity related goods (Testamints, root beer, a WWJD bracelet) which had a CD of Christian rock music called No Lies. Anyway, we would often throw this CD at each other whenever the other was being bad. It hit the cinder block walls many times and never cracked. It also didn't get scratched. We figured it was because it was blessed, unlike my Jane's Addiction CD which scratched immediately when it was mistaken for the NO Lies CD and thrown. Eventually the No Lies CD broke, but it took a very long time to acheive this.
By
hkim, At
11:42 AM
seriously? :oO (that's supposed to be an open-mouthed, kind of in-awe smiley face)
By
dan, At
2:05 AM
while in nepal i had this dream where i went to florida with alex (from rutgers) to visit tom and helen (dc friends). but once we got there we had to park and then swim a really long time in order to get to the apartment. i lost track of alex and couldn't find my way, so i was forced to buy an apartment in order to be shown the way. once i was there in the apartment, there were some nepalis in the apartment playing cards or something. but then i had to leave, and had to swim back and once i got back, i went skiing, but my boot wouldn't fit into the binding. i was in full ski garb, and people were walking around in shorts. then, along the side of the trail, the group leader came walking up with a machete, moved some dirt around, sliced at a plastic bag in the ground and took out his food. apparently that was where his bear bag was.
i wrote bits and pieces of this dream down as soon as i woke up cuz it was really weird.
By
paducci, At
11:08 AM
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