Am now a first-class Gmail citizen! Gmail has offered me invitations to send out to others. I am truly one of the elite. Take that, asshole Professor!

I went to a community college job fair yesterday and I have to say that it seemed like a gigantic waste of time. I drove about 45 minutes to get there and I actually blow-dried my hair that morning and borrowed my sister's nice suit so I would look professional. All that happened was that the people I spoke to gave me information/application packets that I've already downloaded off the internet. No one even wanted to take my CV/resume that I printed out on super-qaulity paper. Maybe job fairs were worth while in the pre-internet days...

High School Reunion!

My 10-year high school reunion is coming up. Wow, am I really that old already? When I see high school and college kids, I still sort of think, I'm one of you. But I'm really just invisible to them. When I was in high school, people in their twenties weren't even on my radar. So this reunion is in April and I need to lose several pounds, get a fantastically exciting job and marry my hot boyfriend (he does really exist but we're not married) before then. Hmmmm, I think I have my work cut out for me. I wasn't expecting to show up as a grad school drop out. I kind of want to go because I'm curious what people are up to. Ironically, I'm more interested in the people I didn't know very well. I've kept in touch with 4 people who are awesome but most of the people I hung out with were pretty lame (in retrospect, obviously) so I don't really give a shit what they're up to. The people organizing the reunion are using this company called Great reunions and the flier/invitation they sent me has all these lame drawings that are supposed to represent high school I guess. But I went to this really small school and a lot of these don't apply to us. We didn't have a gymnastics team, or a track team (I don't think so anyway.) Its pretty generic. Seriously, I can't believe there's a company that just organizes reunions. Hmmm...

Bitter? Who's bitter?

The thing I really wonder about is this: if graduate school is supposed to be about growth and scholarship and all that, then why does it just destroy you? I used to have self confidence. I used to believe in myself but now I feel worthless. I’m afraid that everything I ever do will end like this, an enormous mess of failure. Deep inside I am certain that I can’t actually do anything. On the outside I know this is ridiculous. Of course I’m capable of all kinds of things. But deep down, I just feel broken. If graduate school is hell, then I should be ecstatic about leaving. Well, I am, sometimes. But sometimes I feel like a dog slinking away with its tail between its legs.

But no! I won't let my professor put me down. I'm better than that. Just because you don't have a PhD doesn't make you a lesser person or a stupid person, right? Just keep telling yourself that and one day you'll believe it... No! I was like Cinderella's stepsisters trying to squeeze their feet into the glass slipper (or the ivory tower.) Now I can stretch my wings. I will find happiness without a doctorate. Plenty of happy people don't have PhDs. Actually, most of the people I know who do have PhDs are miserable and stressed out. Take my professor - he must be decaying inside to behave the way he has. All the professors and post-docs I know seem pretty unhappy even though they are at one of the top universities in the nation. I know I'd rather be doing something else so I should just go do it. Life is too short to be this unhappy.

Anyone for Gmail?

What is the deal with this whole Gmail thing? I got an invitation to start a Gmail account from someone whom I hardly know, and now I feel sort of special, truly one of the online generation. Oh I am one of the elite, a part of this Gmail experiment. But not totally elite, because I didn’t get any invites to send to other people. So I’m actually a second-class Gmail citizen.

Leaving graduate school.

I’ve decided to drop out of graduate school. I’ll leave with a Masters and I try to tell myself that still means something, but often I feel like a failure. I looked like such a great candidate on paper when I applied. Then I got here and I chose to work with the wrong professor. What a horror, what a mistake. He is evil incarnate. I know I’m not the perfect graduate student, but how can I succeed with a professor who just makes me feel like dirt? My closest friends and family are worried about me and I’ve been worried about me, too. I don’t think crying every day is healthy. There must be a better world out there and I’m determined to find it. Isn’t there anyone else out there who left a PhD program without the PhD? I just feel so sad and alone. Angry, yes, and so alone. The majority of my classmates will make it through, even though they’re unhappy, too. But they’ll make it and I won’t.

When I told him (my professor) that I was leaving because I would rather teach then do research, he seemed supportive at first, but our last conversation ended with him insulting me and telling me that I had been a waste for the past 3.5 years. I know I shouldn’t take his insults to heart, but it was terribly hurtful. And that may well be our last conversation ever. It makes me sad that he would want to end things by hurling insults at me. I just said okay and walked out of his office. I wanted to respond in kind but I also wanted to look back and be proud of my behavior in the face of such spitefulness. I hope this bitterness will fade. I hope I can look back on these years without hurting quite so much.

So what is the next chapter? I have to find a job, a real job. But I still have a class to teach this semester – the only highlight of this misery. Today after discussion section, one of my students told me that I did a good job teaching protein purification. Well, I may be the shittiest scientist ever, but at least I can feel good about something. I can explain gel filtration chromatography and SDS-PAGE.