Wow, I suck

I have been struggling through 3 pretty time-consuming projects at work. You would think though that I might have a minute to blog. Apparently not! Finally, I breathe. And this is what's gonna come out.

So for an update on CrazyGradStudent. Well. I found out he is clinically depressed. He is on meds though, they work sometimes, other times they don't. I happened to be on the receiving end of the time that they were not working. He is seeing a therapist. He blamed ME for how he felt in his life. Which made me feel oh so great about myself. Ha. But I am a smart girl. I know that someone like him just wants attention. Good or bad. As long as someone is paying attention, he feels worthwhile. It's really a sad situation. Grad school is not all roses and gummi bears. So to top it off with clinical depression, it is hard. I did end up having a talk with him. Can you believe that when I confronted him about his email, he said this: "Well, when was the last time, besides when I had my surgery, that you asked me how I was doing?!!" Oooooh, I almost flipped a shit. So that's when I laid it all out for him. I told him that it WAS NOT my responsibility to make him feel good about himself or his life. I told him that only he could help himself. That he will only get what he gives (I.E. The same question could be asked of him, he did not go out of his way to ask me how I was doing either). I also asked him to get help for his problems. I also reminded him that he has two, great, understanding advisors who will gladly help him out. And I ended it. Never again will I speak to him about this. Nor will I give him the satisfaction of my attention. Nope. Not for me.

As for more sciency stuff. I got this kit to look at DNA methylation. The free trial kit worked fine. The second trial kit did not (I ordered the 200 sample kit before learning this). Now I have a kit to do 200 of these things, and am wondering if I will waste more time not being able to repeat the procedure. If I can't do it again, I will be calling these bastards up and asking for our money back. I will then have to start all over and find another kit. If anyone out there happens to look at this stuff, any help is appreciated. But man, that was a waste of my freakin' time! I am crossing my fingers that that second kit was just a bad lot. And hopefully, this lot works beautifully and my source of anxiety is eliminated.

Other experiments are going swimmingly. I am making progress. I don't have enough for a paper yet. But I have 3-4 projects going that will all result in a first author paper. One project is fairly straightforward and might not produce "exciting" data, but it will produce worthwhile data which will be publishable. The other 2 projects are a little more risky so to speak, but could pay off big time. And it's pretty interesting shit if I do say so myself.

I have so much more to say. But I need some time to sort things out. All these ideas on blog posts but so little time to articulate them. Coming soon. How's everyone doing out there?