Couch 67 - Keep calm, carry on, and have a cup of tea.

(((( Granite ))))

Afternoon couch. I am sitting with the kiddos who didn't want to outside, so I decided to hop on PC. T went well this morning. T and I discussed why I had an interest in taking online psychological tests over Thanksgiving weekend. I said mainly because I wad bored. She said that was weird because most people hate them. She said she was disappointed to find out they were online because it makes the test less valid when it is given in a clinical setting.

I gave her the coasters, she liked them and laughed at them. She said her other psychologist friends would be jealous. I also took my whole cat family in today to show her. She said she wad glad I brought them in.

She said she saw a change in my affect too from the last time she saw me and asked if I felt any different. So I guess my mom was right about being different.

Well, I am just checking in. I will catch up tonight.

I kinda like trees with just lights. If you like it the way it is, I say leave it!

I'm glad your T liked the coasters, squirrel! It was a really nice idea for a gift.

Dear Madame T.

I pay you $140 a session. Explain to me how that makes you the boss.

Nice tree!

Cool! Thanks, I hope I get to attend the lecture too. Would be pretty great!

I must say I think it's really nice that there are other people here who are really into science! I really like talking about it so I hope it's ok if I keep doing so. If you don't mind my asking, are you still studying or are you doing some sort of work in biochemistry (or something else)?

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm trying to watch it over the internet (I don't have a TV) but it's not really working properly, which is too bad.

Thank you!!! Looking at the picture again, I noticed that my college graduation picture is in the foreground. Oops...

I'm not sure if I like it or not. Half of my family wants to leave it but I'm wondering if they are just being lazy. Lol

You should see my dad's tree I estimate that he has about 300-400 different ornaments on it.

There are a few sciencey types on here. Not all post to the couch, but they're out there. Granite can tell you all about Yersinia, eh Granite ?

I am a postdoc (cue sad music). Just trying to get my training done and my work published so I can move on with life. That's not totally true -- I do like my work, but a postdoc is not a great position to be in. I have something of an academic tale of woe, but it's not too bad. The guy I work for now is ok and the work is pretty cool. My training is in biochemistry, and that's how I really see myself, but I do a fair amount of work with cells. Actually, I went back to your old post and saw you asked what I liked about being a *biochemist*, which isn't quite the same question. One thing I like is that I don't have to kill any animals! I don't look down on that type of research, but I know I don't have it in me to do it myself. I'll take dishes of cells and tubes of liquid, thanks!

I'm doing psychiatric research now, which is simultaneously really cool and really challenging, because the cells and tissues and diseases are complicated, and we know so little.

I believe you said you're still studying? Are you doing medical training?

I don't think I have that many but there are some really special ones that I'm starting to think really needs to be on the tree or it just won't be Christmas.
Did you put up a tree and is it super decorated? Do you have "special" ornaments?

Tell me about it..... I really need to write that conference abstract, like right now. (Deadline on Sunday. When I was a PhD student my supervisor would wield the cat o' nine tails and make sure I got things done. Not so now.)

I would say that he does have many "special" ornaments in addition any time he takes a trip he always comes back with at least 5 ornaments (if not more), sometimes when he can't find an ornament for a place he was he buys a key-chain and uses that in place.

Yersinia as in the bacteria? Has something to do with the plague, right? That's all I know (or think I know at least).

You said you're a postdoc now and that you're doing psychiatric research. I must say that sounds pretty interesting but why isn't being a postdoc a great position to be in? What would you like to do?

Yes, I'm still studying. I don't know how common it is where you live but over here it's very common to take a few years off between graduating high school and starting to study for your bachelor's degree. That's what I did. Took a few years off. Anyway, I started studying quite recently so I'm still studying to get my bachelor's. After that I'll go on to get a master's degree and then, hopefully, a PhD (I think my dream would be to get my PhD at the institution for neuroscience, but we'll see). Not sure what you mean by "medical training" but I'm studying biomedicine which, over here, is pretty much like studying to become a doctor only you don't do any clinical work or anything (just to be clear: I won't become a medical doctor). So far I've studied quite a lot of chemistry (organic, physical, inorganic and biochemistry) and right now I'm studying anatomy. I'll be studying a lot of cool things during the coming years. Things such as cellular and molecular biology, physiology, pathology, neurobiology, pharmacology, immunology, genetics, histology etc. Very long answer to a short question. Just excited about it all (though it's certainly not the easiest thing to study).

What did you study, Mastodon (if I may ask)?

So, it's really a hobby for your dad? It sounds like he's a serious collector. That's really cool. I seem to only collect mental issues. Lol

HAHA yeah he is a serious ornament collector, in the same way I am a serious Shot Glass collector, I have only been collecting Shot Glasses for just over 6 years and I already have 128 of them.

I'm a linguist, and got my PhD in English linguistics. Now I work 75% at a resource centre for academic language, where I meet with students who want feedback or help with their academic writing, or with oral presentations, in English. It's fun, challenging, and varied, but it does eat rather a lot of time. (I also teach oral proficiency in English to international students. That's mostly pronunciation exercises.) The remaining 25% is where I keep intending to do my own research....

Tomorrow morning I'll listen to a group of pharmacology students give oral presentations in pharmacodynamics, and give them feedback. I should learn a lot from that :-)

Wow!!! That's a lot of shots! What do you prefer to fill those shot glasses with? I was a vodka girl before I developed a little alcohol issue and decided to go dry for a while. Vodka vodka vodka

Yep, Yersinia pestis is the plague. Granite once told me a funny story about Yersinia during her college studies, maybe she'll repeat it if she sees this.

I guess I phrased it "medical training" because I know it gets approached differently in different countries. Some start it as early as university -- in the US, you aren't really in medical training until medical school. So I figured I would be general . I'm glad you're so excited about it and I hope you can keep that excitement!

The postdoc is a rough place to be in mostly because you have very few rights, very little power, and in most cases, a very small salary (luckily, I get paid well for my position). At least as a student, you enrolled in an institution and have some amount of protection from having a bad advisor -- not so as a postdoc. The upside is that I can leave at will, unlike in grad school, where a small committee of people basically decide when you're done. But I can also be fired at will.

I'm lucky to have a boss that isn't abusive and isn't just using me for cheap labor (postdocs are cheaper than students, because they don't have tuition, and have the bonus of being pre-trained). Still, I don't always think he's right or has my best interest in mind, but there is no mechanism in place for me to do anything about that. In this "publish or perish" world, I am stuck between my dissertation advisor (who is sitting on the work I did as a grad student, basically because it doesn't matter to him whether it gets published or not and he doesn't feel like working on it), and my current postdoc mentor (who doesn't have a very good grasp on what's going to get us published and keeps trying to push me to prioritize projects that will takes years to complete, rather than going for lower-hanging fruit, even though he needs pubs as badly as I do). My lack of first author publications has prevented me from getting an actual job -- I would like to end up in biotech or pharma. So I'm basically stuck here treading water, because I don't have the currency I need to move forward.

In science, this is what sucks about being a postdoc. As a PhD student, you are highly dependent on your advisor -- as a postdoc, it can be even more critical. I'll work as hard as I can, but my fate is really in the hands of only a couple of people. If neither of them helps me publish, I basically end up nowhere. 28 years of education, only to have Starbucks declining to hire me.

Don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but this really is what the PhD world is like. You have a LOT of time to figure that out, though, so don't let the difficulty of it stifle your dreams. I still have hope. But sometimes I sit in my husband's office at lunch and cry about how my career has no future.

Oh yeah, that's right. I've asked you about it before but I didn't remember the answer until you told me again just now (sorry). There's one resource centre for academic language at my university as well. Sounds similar to what you're doing and I've only heard good things about it so I think it's cool that you do what you do.

What kind of research are you doing?

That sounds quite tough, indeed. Sorry you're having such a hard time! So what do you think it would take to get a you a job in biotech or pharmacology? I mean, you said you have to publish things but how much do you actually need to publish to get a decent job? I'm sort of new to all of this and I'm only an undergraduate at the moments so I don't really know how everything works yet. Also, isn't it weird that your dissertation advisor is "sitting on the work" you did as a grad student? Isn't he supposed to help publish that?

I'm only an undergrad and I'm already worried about my future career. I don't think it's easy to get a really nice job in biomedicine unless you're really good but it's the only thing I want to do so I'll have to do my utmost to be as good as possible.

it was so much worse then I thought ,I really thought my T had no idea I showed up but I was so wrong .in fact I knew she was angry when the chair was back in the fing corner and how she said hello. and then so it seems we have a lot to talk about . it was so stern I knew she was mad I just wanted out of there . I said what .and then she said the sectary said you were very upset last week .I think we need to talk about that .she was bootamp T on steroids .I knew I fed up . I said no we doint and she said then why are you here ?I said good question and said I need to cleave now and got out of my chair and she started demanding that I not leave .I had the door open and got scared what she would do if I left she usually let me leave ..so much she said I am sitting her stunned and almost paralyzed. she doesn't want me taking the Xanax and wants me to see the pnp they have there if I feel I need meds. I didn't ask for these meds and don't want to see another peoson

neutrino, I'll have to get back to you about my research - I just discovered that I need to catch a bus at 7am tomorrow so it's bedtime for me!

(((granite))) I'm so sorry it was so horrible. Thinking of you. wikid, I hope you're ok. And Jersey too, also. Hugs to all except stopdog who gets a not unfriendly nod.