From the Inside of an Hourglass

Cheesy title. Whatever, I actually put that after writing this whole thing (except this part -- getting cyclic, aren't we) and still no proper inspiration for it.

Basking awhile in post-submission bliss -- you know, that negative side of the rewarding feeling after submitting a result to your boss, that makes you want to slack for a while... okay, not so little while... So here I am blogging from my lab again. (Sure hope my sup never gets here, though he has caught me on MSN before, har.)

Just heaved a file binder (of hardly read research papers) back into the overhead drawer, and got a good laugh (discreetly, of course) from suddenly remembering Daya mentioning, during our group project many many years ago, that he had this thick Java manual at home that would kill a rat (or some other generally despised species that I don't remember precisely) if used to smack it. Now in his case I'm sure he didn't make that the purpose of the book's existence, and in my case I don't have rats to smack, but can't say these papers serve a more useful purpose (yet) either.

On another news... my sup has just told me to stop responding to this other student who's been asking for help in implementing the method in our published work. He'd seen our correspondence and decided I'd given enough help the first time, and that in the long run it would only be a time sink for me. That student had only to gain, I had only to lose, and in research there should only be gain-gain partnerships, he said. That mutualism symbiosis we learned about in grade school Biology, eh.

Thankful to him for pointing that out and of course I'd prefer saving my time (so I can waste it on something like this), though I sort of feel bad since I think I've received much help myself in the course of learning. Thought this kind of situation should be less pronounced in the academic world than along corporate ladders as I've heard, but I guess everyone pays the same price for time anywhere. Ah well, maybe balance is again the key? Altruism only when you can afford it?

Got another issue of time-splitting that would surely sound ridiculous after I put it down. So we have this musical coming up next week and there were rehearsals this last two holidays, but I'd been drowning in work (that granted the above post-submission bliss) so I'd skipped them, much to the chagrin of our conductor. So of course I shouldn't miss the next practice this Wednesday night.

If you know me and my semi-obsession of American Idol you'll already see the problem. =PPP And Sunday is the concert itself so no hope for the encore either. Get my priorities right, Yesie told me, then she added that, well, maybe my priority is American Idol. I'm close to deciding that, you know. =D But let's hope my sense of responsibility doesn't ditch me tomorrow night. (And so lengthens the list of people I hope never get here. Har.)