State of me
Sep. 19th, 2008 21:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI'm feeling pretty good.
I dealt with a bunch of administrative and orientation stuff this week, culminating in the department retreat today -- I got to hear about current research projects and hobnob with the rest of the department over lunch. I've also talked a bit more with Dr. Rowhani.
The upshot is that I start in the lab on Monday. Hopefully I can get something of a head start before classes start on Thursday... Dr. Rowhani (I should ask him whether I can call him Adib like everyone else) is pretty laid back on what hours I work (his comment was "you have two and a half years to do a project; I know you'll be here.") He's also mellow about mp3 players and dress codes, and has assured me that he keeps his lunch in a corner of the cold storage locker when the fridge fills up, so I could do the same. I think we'll get along.
He doesn't expect me to get much done in the first two weeks, and he won't be breathing down my neck even after that. Whew.
I had been feeling a bit panicky this week, but after today I'm much more calm. I've met a lot of my colleagues in the lab now -- and that's what they are, colleagues. Not classmates, not teachers; even Dr. R is more of a senior colleague/manager than a classroom prof, so he commands less formality and a different kind of respect. I had told myself that grad school would be more like a job, but it's finally soaked in now.
It feels a bit like the transition between high school and college was, and that's a good thing.
I'll be a researcher. Golly.
I'm also feeling pretty decent because I finished deepening the trench out front -- the 18-inch trench between the lawn and the front strip that has been nearly two years in the making. I'll see about fitting the plastic root barrier into it tomorrow and filling it in, and then we'll be ready (finally!) to run irrigation pipe. It might actually get landscaped before I retire. Hallelujah!
I baked a giant loaf of sandwich bread -- the second attempt came out beautifully. I'll have sandwiches for work. :)
So, yeah, things seem to be going well.
I dealt with a bunch of administrative and orientation stuff this week, culminating in the department retreat today -- I got to hear about current research projects and hobnob with the rest of the department over lunch. I've also talked a bit more with Dr. Rowhani.
The upshot is that I start in the lab on Monday. Hopefully I can get something of a head start before classes start on Thursday... Dr. Rowhani (I should ask him whether I can call him Adib like everyone else) is pretty laid back on what hours I work (his comment was "you have two and a half years to do a project; I know you'll be here.") He's also mellow about mp3 players and dress codes, and has assured me that he keeps his lunch in a corner of the cold storage locker when the fridge fills up, so I could do the same. I think we'll get along.
He doesn't expect me to get much done in the first two weeks, and he won't be breathing down my neck even after that. Whew.
I had been feeling a bit panicky this week, but after today I'm much more calm. I've met a lot of my colleagues in the lab now -- and that's what they are, colleagues. Not classmates, not teachers; even Dr. R is more of a senior colleague/manager than a classroom prof, so he commands less formality and a different kind of respect. I had told myself that grad school would be more like a job, but it's finally soaked in now.
It feels a bit like the transition between high school and college was, and that's a good thing.
I'll be a researcher. Golly.
I'm also feeling pretty decent because I finished deepening the trench out front -- the 18-inch trench between the lawn and the front strip that has been nearly two years in the making. I'll see about fitting the plastic root barrier into it tomorrow and filling it in, and then we'll be ready (finally!) to run irrigation pipe. It might actually get landscaped before I retire. Hallelujah!
I baked a giant loaf of sandwich bread -- the second attempt came out beautifully. I'll have sandwiches for work. :)
So, yeah, things seem to be going well.
