Ah, sometimes I don't know what I'm doing. :) Would life really be too simple if I had some general sense of direction?
Well, here are the latest developments....Work has been especially frustrating for the past year, however for a large portion that year year the frustration I was feeling at work was buffered by the happy thoughts of an upcoming wedding and all the planning details. Then the honeymoon was over as they say and I realized I was really unhappy at work. I started looking around at new potential jobs but realized it would be a huge disadvantage to change jobs since I am intending to use my current lab to finish my Master's thesis. In any case, something needed to give, and when push came to shove I decided having 2 bosses who both worked for TOSH instead of three bosses (one of which works for another company) would improve the quality of my worklife. So about a week ago the four of us (my three bosses and I) had a sit-down and informed boss #3 I was no longer interested in working for him. Holy stress-ball! Although beforehand I joked that I was "having my meeting with the Bob's" like on Office Space, it was one of the least comfortable experiences of my short work career. In the end I have one less boss and really hope I didn't ruin a friendship in the processs.
Other life-stuff...married life (2 1/2 months in) is awesome. Jason and I had figured out how living together and being stressed together worked before the actual wedding, so now that the stress of wedding planning is gone, everything has been wonderful. Jason was a huge help in the process of figuring out what to do with my work situation, and I really felt thankful for having a refuge to come home to. Like my mom says "I picked a good one" :)
Kiki the cat continues to entertain. We've discovered she will only play fetch with twist ties. Although she doesn't seem to have a preference on twist tie color to type, she will not play fetch with zip-ties, hair ties, rubber bands, or most anything else I can think of. The only issue with the twist ties is that I've been forced to get the industrial heavy-duty kind because she likes to chew on them when she's not fetching them and I don't want her to eat a lot of plastic and/or a piece of wire. (EEeee!) Jason enjoys having a cat only when the cat does uncoordinated things, like falling off window sills or sliding across the linoleum. Even with her excessive number of toes and claws, Kiki remains very soft footed--she seems that she's rather jump onto something and slide back off instead of actually putting out her claws....a nice feature if she's jumping up on your lap but makes for some funny jumping episodes if her judgement isn't quite right ;)
We're in the middle of another large data collection at work. I've recruited all of the participants which is one of my favorite parts of the job. We had an amputee sprinting study this spring and the group we have now is an intact group of athletes matched to the amputees based on gender, top running speed, age, height, and weight. They are all kids I've personally worked with or trained, so it's fun to have them in the lab. A lot of them are amazing athletes and just genuinely nice kids.
School starts up again in less than a month. I can potentially use the data we are collecting now on my thesis, if I would just get my a** in gear and do my lit review so I know what the research question I'm trying to answer will be. My class-load shouldn't be too difficult--I'm taking two "real" classes and an online class. Ironically, my biomechanics class scares me the most--physics has never been my strongest suit. On the up-side, my advisor teaches the class, so hopefully I will get to know him better and Bill (one of my bosses) has a Ph.D. in Biomechanics so I should have homework help.
I think that's a summary of current life. I hope everyone reading this is well. Be in touch anytime!
Steph~
