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Halek

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Everything posted by Halek

  1. I wasn't sure if this was positive or venting, but it feels more positive? I'm finishing "field season" (I ran an REU for an indigenous community for the summer) on saturday and I didn't expect to be this sad to leave? While I've missed home and my cat, I've met wonderful people here. While it looks like my professors grants are focused on other areas, I really want to come back here and do research someday.
  2. I've been in the field almost a month (a month this upcoming weekend). I'm tired, questioning why I'm doing this, and I miss my cat. I wanna go home. I still have one more month to go.
  3. I'm working with an native american tribe this summer and they had a conference on planing and ecology for indigenous people last week. My coworkers being who they are, I had no choice but to come. Even though sometimes I felt awkward as one of the only white people, it was honestly a life changing experience. I'm now reconsidering how ecologist view the world. Everything in ecology is so centered on competition, and now I'm starting to wonder if that is actually just a reflection on cultural values (ie everything in the west is based on competition, so we have come to understand our environment based on those values) and passing it off as some objective reality. It's a hard question to grapple with. And I'm sure whatever idea this leads to won't be popular with other ecologists. But I'm excited for this journey, and I'm thankful for everyone at the institute for allowing me to participate!
  4. Guy who asked me out suddenly today, while I'm at work (while I'm in the field I'm working for the tribal college, considering I'm a random white woman who just kinda got dropped in their department, it's been a pretty good experience actually!) and says that he wants to talk some more about "thing from last week", so me turning him down basically. I managed to convince him to wait until I got off work. But now he's messaging me again and I'm honestly exhausted from field work. I feel like a bitch, but I also didn't ask for this timing. I also get the feeling I'm never not going to be exhausted in the field. Trying to learn about a new (to me) culture is mentally exhausting, even though it feels like I'm doing nothing most of the time. And I really don't have the energy to give to this that I know he wants. Which is part of why I turned him down a week ago. But positive side: field work hasn't completely imploded on its self, so hurray!
  5. Oh yeah I totally agree with the leading on thing! It's why I didn't let the situation draw out. I actually had a situation similar to yours right when I was leaving working as a tech and going into grad school (so last summer). The situation turned so abusive I no longer consider the person a friend and I've honestly just started to really seriously heal from it. That's also why I knew it wouldn't work, because with how early I am in healing from that, I need to feel really secure if I were to go into a relationship right now.
  6. Update: I turned him down. It was the right thing to do. But I also feel horrible because I REALLY want to be in a relationship. But I know that a relationship with him wouldn't be healthy for me. I'm so tired I can barely move. And I don't know if it's from the field work or from him. I should be reading some Ethnographies but I feel like I just need to sleep.
  7. Of course a guy that I was starting to consider a friend tells me that he has a crush on me the second day I'm halfway across the country for field work. Of course I read this message at midnight after a day of meetings with the indigenous group I'm working with and several hours of my advisor telling me that I need to make a strong, close relationship with someone and feeling like I'm not socially outgoing enough for that. Of course, this same thing also happened when I moved away from my previous job to go to grad school. Of course, the guy just got out for a long term relationship. Why does it feel like people aren't interested in being with me until I leave? Why can't people want to have relationships with me while I'm actually in an area? Why do they always have to time this for when I'm at my most vulnerable and insecure? Seriously. I was just getting over the last time this happened.
  8. I'm tired to defending my adulthood to people. I worked in the "real world" before coming to grad school, you can't just take my "adult" status away from me like that. But the more I defend the more it's used against me, like a teenager saying they're an adult. I'm 24 year old, I live separate from my parents, I'm financially independent, I actually live on the opposite side of the continent from any sort of support network. I'm pretty sure I'm an adult. And yet, at least once every few weeks, I gotta have this same argument again and again.
  9. Sometimes it feels like I don't belong in grad school because I don't like to get drunk and I don't really smoke.
  10. I was sharing a meme about how smokey the bear is propoganda (I work in fire ecology and anthropology) with some friends. I thought it'd get some questions. I was not expecting my friend who had made a video game for the DNR to call me a liar, try to send me the emails of people who run smokey the bear in Michigan, and say that she doesn't trust academia. Everyone is now saying that the meme was "clearly" a bad choice, even though people have sent more obviously controversial things to the chat. I'm prepared for people to disagree with my research. I'm not prepared to be attacked by people that I thought were safe around. I no longer feel comfortable sharing what I'm going to spend the next six years of my life researching with my friends and I'm angry and sad about it.
  11. Halek

    State College, PA

    Avoid the area directly south east of downtown, this is where the frat houses are so it's quite a bit louder. I live on Westerly Parkway and I've seen some houses for rent over in this area, but that could be the "by room" situation that you mentioned. Overall, the area by the high school is nice and quite. I walk in, another member of my cohort bikes in, and several take the bus. So depending on how you like to commute you can make anything work at this distance.
  12. My advisor just gave me a mock qualifying exam during lab meeting. I blanked on a concept that she helped bring from animal behavior to anthropology. She's on the panel that does my actual oral portion of the exam. I know that the way qualifying is structure is to just keep poking until they find something you don't know, and I still home a month to study, but I just feel really embarrassed and exhausted. I know I need to study more but now I have a headache from the whole thing.
  13. My advisors daughter who I'm working with on a project doesn't communicate with me and goes directly to my advisor, which makes me look lazy and also makes me feel useless. I had no choice in this collaboration and will be very happy when she graduates and moves on.
  14. While group therapy is really helpful, it also wipes me out for the rest of the day emotionally and it makes it difficult to get work done. That being said, if you need help, therapy is really helpful guys.
  15. One of my professors assigned a 25 minute presentation on a paper 2 days before it was due. Thanks man.....I totally didn't have other stuff to get done plus plans that I'm trying to already fit in this weekend.
  16. I finally decided to talk to my friends about how lonely and isolated I feel and how I can't be the only one who plans social events that I can participate in remotely. I was met largely was awkward silence. I know that it makes them feel bad. But this is the exact reaction I expect and it sucks. You can't keep saying you'll be there for me, but then mean in a "we can drive 4 hours and meet each other in the middle" kinda way. Long distance friendships exist. But I can't be the only one putting time and energy into it. And it doesn't help when you ignore me when I bring up these problems. I know we aren't face to face so it's easy to do. But it just demonstrates my point how how I feel isolated. I know it makes you feel bad when I bring these things up. But I can't pretend to be happy with the situation indefinitely.
  17. I ended up accepting the nomination to be the go-between between the ecology students and general grad school. While I'd love to be president in the long term, I don't have a lot of connections within the department yet so maybe next year when I feel a little better connected (hurray first year student problems)
  18. Two people (I'm assuming in my cohort) nominated me for two ecology grad student association positions (one of them being president). I'm both flattered and horrified and unsure if I should accept the nominations.
  19. I'm starting to meet people in the Anthropology department, I might be teaching half of the new cohort how to play dnd, and I'm going to visit old friends next weekend~ Also research stuff is slowly moving forward. Which is both exciting and terrifying.
  20. A few days ago I was feeling so much better about the relationship not working out and also grad school stuff. Today basically completely reversed all that. I just want to feel comfortable for a little bit. That'd be nice.
  21. I ended up dropping in on a meeting an undergrad was having with my advisor about life after college. I ended up talking to her for an hour. After, my advisor said I did a good job. I'm really happy that I was able to give her some really honest advice.
  22. I learned that my advisor went through the same relationship drama when she was in her first year of her phD that I'm going through now. Is the drama getting better? No. It's getting worse. Somehow. But it makes me feel better to know that someone has been in my position and has gotten through it. Even if she did say that she almost quit.....
  23. I remembered that Hamilton exists. This was my writing music back for my capstone in undergrad and also seems like perfect "angry about relationships" music. Thank you, Lin Manuel Miranda. You've made and PhD student sing while writing in lab.
  24. Turns out he has had a girl friend back where he's at at least since last weekend. I didn't hear this from him. God I have so little emotional energy to give I want someone to respect it. I feel like my trust has been completely betrayed. We agreed that we'd talk about this and it seems like he even forgot that we discussed that. I timed this so badly. Research expectations from my adviser are amping up. Everyone in my cohort seems totally okay with being only interested in research all the time. And I just wanna curl up in a ball and cry.
  25. Nope. It's not gonna work. God damn it. This is the closest I've ever gotten to a real relationship. Damn it.
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