Monochrome Spring

I possibly lost the love of my life due to immaturity and poor decision making. I know it's my fault, but it's difficult to come to terms with the consequences. All I can bring myself to do anymore is sit at home and play games until 2am; doing poorly in classes, not keeping up with assignments for my advisor, etc. And I can't talk to anyone about it to help me feel better, because, in the end, I'm the bad guy. I just want to scream at everyone and tell them to forgive. I feel like I'm going to hate myself for the rest of my life.

I love R and use R for all of my analyses. But, like you, my biostatistics courses uses SAS, which is extremely frustrating. I try to do all of my homework in R because he doesn't require proof that we used SAS. But I hate having to teach myself R when the entire class gets taught in SAS. It takes more time out of my day. Even my advisor was confused as to why we were learning SAS in an ecology/evolution based statistics course.

I didn't turn 21 until a few months into my PhD program. I don't bring up my age with anyone, because I don't think it really matters. If anyone tries to make you feel badly about your age, remember that you're ahead and they are probably insecure/jealous. But on the opposite end of the spectrum, don't try to get a bunch of attention for your age, because that won't win you friends either. No one in my program really cares about age, because we all respect each other for research over anything else. But we also recognize that a 21 year old is at a very different spot in his/her life than a 30 or 40 year old. The biggest difficulty is finding other people in your program at similar life stages and being able to form relationships outside of work/school.

You can often use university computers to access statistical software. That is what I do when I need to run homework in SAS.

My stats class uses SAS and it's annoying me to no end. Also, I was sick the first week of classes and am still catching up. However, I already have my 3-4 projects for my PhD pretty much set (need to write formal proposals but ideas are approved by advisor) and my committee prepared.

I spend $200/mo for a single person. This gives me about $30 for groceries (this goes far if I get things in bulk like rice, vegetables, fruits, etc.) and $20 for eating out each week. It doesn't seem like much, but I never feel like I'm struggling for food and I always have money in the budget to go out when friends or labmates want to.

This is a question that you should direct to the graduate admissions secretaries for your specific department. It will also matter what the sub-scores are, depending on what kind of program you are going into. Masters vs. PhD. Hard science vs. humanities. Etc.

Ecology is a weird subfield. The applicant-POI relationship is the biggest factor for getting accepted. Some of your programs probably have a requirement that you have a POI willing to take you already, contingent on funding. Keep in contact with them. Let them know what you are up to and that you are still interested. Ask them about recruitment weekends and such. It goes a long way.

I love when parents don't get that you can't just take off time whenever. Like, my research takes place in Costa Rica, so my family expects me to take time off while I'm in Costa Rica, doing research, to hang out with them. Okay. Cool. Not like I'm living off university funding to do that.

Parents are the best right? Another tidbit, because I'm feeling extra ranty: I went out at about midnight and asked my mom if it was okay for me to make some mac n cheese. Nope. Not allowed to eat at midnight, because "it's not normal".

I bought a ticket home early because I want some me time. I'm going to live my life and if other people don't like it, too bad. I'm really tired of everyone making judgement calls on other people's lives when it's really none of their business. Edit: Just got yelled at because I asked my mom would share the stuffing she was making (which is 4 servings worth). How dare I ask to eat with my mother!

I've been spending my winter break at my mom's house. Worst. Break. Ever. We had no celebration for Christmas. No gifts. No meal. Power went out. On top of that, the fridge broke, so we have no good food. And I'm not allowed to leave the house because heaven forbid I borrow the car and see any friends I've been missing. I have literally sat inside without interacting with anyone other than my mom for the entire break. We didn't even go see family because she didn't book the plane tickets in time. And I've been playing a lot of video games over break to relax after a stressful semester. But all my mom does is bitch at me and with her friends whenever I play. I'm sorry I'm relaxing and enjoying my hobby? Whenever I go out to the living room with her, she is on her computer or watching some show I don't care about. Maybe if we were going to do something together, I'd be cool with taking a break from playing and go hang out with her. But I don't feel obligated to just sit around and do nothing, waiting for her to engage in conversation. I can't wait to go back to school, simply because I don't have to see her. On a similar note, if I have nothing new to report every single fricking week, she gets pissed off at me. I'm sorry that when she asks what are you up to and I say "reading and thinking" that it's true. My life is consistent. Get over it. GAHHH! I hate people and I want to be a hermit. Let me enjoy my hobbies, and I will come out to tell you when something important happens.

I have a linkedin, academia.edu, and researchgate, but I don't ever update them. I link them to the Weebly personal website that I update regularly. There are a lot of labs in my subfield that use weebly, so I don't feel like it's unprofessional.