career, garden and misc. updates

so the last few weeks have been quite the emotional, career related, roller coaster ride for me.  I finally lost it, broke down and told NewAdvisor how miserable I was on Sunday.  Oddly, though I cried profusely, the whole thing went A LOT better than I thought it was going to with advise like:

• yeah, there is a time when the fun of learning the new stuff wears off and you get totally miserable in a postdoc (ie, NewAdvisor went through a similar period)
• don't worry about getting the HD foundation proposal done this minute, they gave you til like May.  so don't stress
• It will be better when you are done with all the writing and you can focus on the science
• its easier to compartmentalize and not feel guilty about taking the rest/relaxation time you need when you are the boss and aren't responsible to anyone for immediate results/papers/etc.
• sometimes you just need to say "I'm going to take this Wed. afternoon and plan x trip"

As I have finally finished and sent off a draft of the last paper from the grad lab to the man in charge, I'm almost finished making my NIH proposal into the HD foundation proposal and there are few other major writing projects on the agenda for the near future I will soon be able to "get back to the science" and hopefully also to the fun of it.  We are also planning a small camping trip south of Savannah next weekend (a great suggestion from one of my labmates) that will hopefully function as a nice and needed break from the lab/guilt.  I have been taking the proposal transformation slow and trying not to  fret about it too much, but I'd still like to get it over with asap.  Am also meeting with an thesis committee member next week for lunch to discuss how he does the academic life and how if can be  different from the main examples i've had here at Tech.  Tejas is still on the job market, and I'm sure that is contributing some to the stress (not that having him in Cali, Seattle, NYC, etc. for a yr w/o me is going to make me less stressed), but what can you do?

I may have gotten a little overly excited about the recent warmth we've been experiencing, and so planted a bunch of stuff that will need to be brought in every night for the next 5-6 days so that it doesn't freeze ( i planted some lettuce, radishes, arugula and broccoli!). Also, the squirrels seem to enjoy the soil too much and I'm not sure any of my broccoli seeds are left now.  I will need to put something over top of the containers to keep them out!  I also planted some tomato and cucumber seeds in a little germinator thingy. the cucumber has already started to sprout! I may have to post a picture of it soon.  I really wanted to plant some purple potatoes, but I think they will have to wait until we have a little bit more space :(  oh well.  its all just really an experiment anyway, not like we will be getting a massive harvest out of the ONE each of broccoli, tomato and cucumber plants i've started and the ONE each string bean bush and chili pepper plants I'll be planting in a few months.

In other odd news:

I received a facebook message from VELVET asking me how i'm doing.  how the heck am I supposed to respond to THAT?  right now i'm going with NOT responding.