Venting Thread- Vent about anything.

[ERR_Alpha]

If these issues are coming up now, what's going to happen when you're on the job market?

My boyfriend and I take things one step at a time... Try not to worry about post docs, jobs, and relocating until we know exactly what we're dealing with.

[pianocognition]

I suppose I should be grateful that thesis drama keeps me from worrying about my applications. After receiving prospectus approval and IRB approval, a professor who is not on my committee discovered glaring errors in my research design. We have an "emergency" meeting on Monday to come to a resolution. I am extremely grateful because all of these professors are passionate about my project, are brilliant, and want to help me succeed.  I know that can be unusual. However, I really wish these errors had been noticed by my committee BEFORE I sent it off in my PhD application! My thesis chair keeps telling me not to freak out and that these things are minor corrections. They don't seem minor to me.

[juiceboxrampage]

I know what you mean. An uncertain future is putting a strain on my relationship. We've been together since junior year of high school, and I get the feeling that people assume we will break up because we're so young, but we've always been mature individuals and I just don't see it that way. I hope this works out for you! The east coast and CA are probably the only two places I'd want to live, personally - maybe one of you will have a change of heart! I'm totally biased on that, though...

 

Yeah, it's hard to play the waiting game right now. We could wind up ANYWHERE in the country right now! And he has to put his career on hold because he has no idea where we're going to wind up. I'm glad you and your partner are working things out!

 

My boyfriend and I have been together since high school, and I moved to the midwest for grad school, while he is working in our home state in New England. Two and a half years in and we're still doing ok. It is a bit weird because most of my lab mates are married and living with their spouses, but it hasn't discouraged me.

 

I think LDRs are doable when the right sort of relationship and individual personalities are involved. It does help to have a reunion goal though. I want to move back to New England once I finish my Ph.D. anyways, so that is my plan unless my boyfriend is interested in moving elsewhere. I plan to be flexible with my career choices to make it work. 

 

Wow, that's encouraging to hear. My partner hiked the Pacific Crest Trail last year (as in he walked from Mexico to Canada), so we did the long distance thing for several months. I feel like we handled it pretty well, but 4-6 years for a PhD is a lot different than 4-6 months for a hiking trip!

 

I do remember at my undergrad graduation, there was a PhD student graduating whose partner had been living in another country the whole time. His partner was at graduation and they looked so incredibly happy together. It was cool to see.

 

 

My situation is similar to this. Before we got married, my husband told me he'd go anywhere I was accepted. At the time, I was applying to schools in places he didn't mind much. Two years and (almost) a masters degree later, my research interests have changed a bit and every year a different set of POIs are looking for students. Of the 7 places that I applied to, he is only interested in one. It's near the top of my list, but it isn't my first choice. He periodically reminds me that he doesn't want to live in Tennessee or North Carolina. So pretty much of I get accepted to my dream school, it will be his personal hell. On the other hand, he hasn't been to any of these places except North Carolina, and even that was limited exposure when he was in the marines. So he really has no idea if he'll like or dislike anywhere.

 

Yes I think my partner is jumping the gun a little on where he thinks he wants to live, but that may just me hoping for the best! I hope things work out for you two.

 

If these issues are coming up now, what's going to happen when you're on the job market?

 

Probably the same thing! I mean we don't fight about it at all. I don't think this is going to end our relationship because we can't handle the strain. We are super supportive and loving about it, but we just have different opinions about where we want to live. I think our issue right now is the fact that we're so young and we haven't been dating for THAT long. So neither of us wants to give up our dreams for such a recent partner at our age, because that feels weird and unhealthy.

 

I think it's a different story for folks who have been dating longer or who are married -- there's that expectation of a commitment there. Right now, my partner and I are trying to decide if we want to change our life dreams and goals for each other, which is hard. The commitment feels a bit forced and rushed rather than chosen.

[jujubea]

I hate how my partner and I have such conflicting interests right now. I want to go to grad school in California. He wants to move to the east coast. If I get into my dream schools, he's stuck living in an area he hates. If I don't get in anywhere, he gets to pick where we live and we get to follow his dream. My worst case scenerio is his best case scenerio, and vice versa.

 

I can feel him trying to be oversupportive when I talk about my dream schools. And he can tell that I'm trying to cushion the blow of being potentially rejected by reaffirming that it's better for him. We're just in this weird phase where we're both like, "No, sweetie, let's do the thing YOU want to do. I'm so stoked for you even though it sucks for me. No, really, this isn't my own personal hell on earth, because I'm just so selfless and happy for you."

 

I feel like me going to grad school might end in us splitting up, which would be a real bummer. And I feel overdramatic talking about it, because it's not like at age 22 I think I'm going to marry this guy I've been dating for only a year, but it still sucks.

 

Sorry if this is harsh, but, if you don't think you're going to eventually get married (or otherwise engage in a lifelong, monogamous,, committed relationship until death do you part), you should end the relationship.

You are wasting precious years of each other's lives otherwise.

I know it's hard, especially if you really love him. But when you know it's not marriage material, you really should cut each other loose. It's painful but you will ultimately be happier.

Edited January 25, 2015 by jujubea

[shadowclaw]

Sorry if this is harsh, but, if you don't think you're going to eventually get married (or otherwise engage in a lifelong, monogamous,, committed relationship until death do you part), you should end the relationship.

You are wasting precious years of each other's lives otherwise.

I know it's hard, especially if you really love him. But when you know it's not marriage material, you really should cut each other loose. It's painful but you will ultimately be happier.

I think you may have misinterpreted what juiceboxrampage was saying. I don't think she meant that she has no intention of ever marrying him. I interpreted it as she's young and has only been with this guy for a year, so she had no idea if she's going to marry him because she's not at that point in her life or the relationship yet to know.

[1Q84]

People who leave the cap off whiteboard markers. Is it that hard to put the cap back on each time after you use it? Just leaving the cap off ONCE on a brand new marker ruins it completely. AGH! Whenever I go into a classroom and see one sitting in the tray with the cap off, I get a mini-stroke.

[shadowclaw]

I'm so sick of snow. I used to like it when I had an SUV with 4-wheel drive, but since switching to a car, snow has become my enemy. There's always way more snow at my house than at any of the jobs I've had as well as at school. I live at a higher elevation. Worse yet is that I'm over an hour away from my current school, and sufficiently farther north that there are days where it's a blizzard at home and raining at school. I just want to move south already. But I know I'll miss this place, even with all its stupid snow.

[Guest]

Dealing with mail-in transcript issues for one my schools, aaaaah! It was for a January 15th deadline. Not to worried about it since most schools do not even start the application process strictly on 15th. But, I hope that the 'incomplete' status on my application will change by this week. I just re-mailed the the darn thing today...Why does one school have to be complicated :2.

[FoggyAnhinga]

I'm so sick of snow. I used to like it when I had an SUV with 4-wheel drive, but since switching to a car, snow has become my enemy. There's always way more snow at my house than at any of the jobs I've had as well as at school. I live at a higher elevation. Worse yet is that I'm over an hour away from my current school, and sufficiently farther north that there are days where it's a blizzard at home and raining at school. I just want to move south already. But I know I'll miss this place, even with all its stupid snow.

 

Speaking of blizzard, NYC is about to be hit with one of the worst blizzards in the city history as many of you might know, so I guess I'll have to deal with nastiness for the time being while waiting for the schools to respond this makes me even more impatient during this waiting game, since I really hope to end up somewhere with a milder climate lol

[shadowclaw]

Speaking of blizzard, NYC is about to be hit with one of the worst blizzards in the city history as many of you might know, so I guess I'll have to deal with nastiness for the time being while waiting for the schools to respond this makes me even more impatient during this waiting game, since I really hope to end up somewhere with a milder climate lol

Yes, the local meteorologists have been trying to decide if we will be hit by the edge of this storm. The general consensus so far is that only the eastern counties of PA will be hit... which means me! Thank God that only means 6 inches or so, not the 2+ feet I've seen predicted for NYC and Boston. I'm still hoping that it will stay in Jersey, because I have things to do at school tomorrow and I don't want to be stuck home.

[ERR_Alpha]

Yes, the local meteorologists have been trying to decide if we will be hit by the edge of this storm. The general consensus so far is that only the eastern counties of PA will be hit... which means me! Thank God that only means 6 inches or so, not the 2+ feet I've seen predicted for NYC and Boston. I'm still hoping that it will stay in Jersey, because I have things to do at school tomorrow and I don't want to be stuck home.

Being from NY I'm used to snow... Here in central PA we get a few inches and everyone loses their minds. Although I do dislike snow after living my whole life in the Northeast

[wuglife427]

Group project is going pretty much exactly as I expected. Blerg.

[FoggyAnhinga]

Being from NY I'm used to snow... Here in central PA we get a few inches and everyone loses their minds. Although I do dislike snow after living my whole life in the Northeast

 

Speaking of seeking warmth, I actually lived for several years in Florida, and I remember how I was beyond ecstatic to move there (I was living in the Pacific Northwest at the time) since I'd be surrounded by beach, palm trees, year-round warm weather (maybe except for brutally hot/humid summers), snorkeling/scuba hotspots, etc. While living down there I never thought I'd come to realize this but the year-round warm weather kind of got tiring (at least for me)... it wasn't long until I realized that I really did miss distinct seasons (especially during fall and winter, which in Florida felt more like May or June in the northern states lol). It's interesting how a bunch of my friends back in the Pacific Northwest were extremely jealous that I moved to Florida and were talking about how they want to move there permanently, but I guess you never know unless you live there for a certain period of time. I don't regret living down there at all, but I don't think I'll choose FL as my permanent home state if I have a choice (that's just me though). 

[shadowclaw]

Being from NY I'm used to snow... Here in central PA we get a few inches and everyone loses their minds.

Avoid Ohio. I drove through on I-80 to and from Indiana, and it snowed maybe two inches over the course of the day. Traffic was stopped or moving at 10 mph across the entire state and every few miles, there was a car on its roof our nose down in a ditch.

[-hermes-]

Oh gosh. It seems like my SO and my parents have told EVERYBODY that I'm applying to PhD programs. Way to increase the pressure tenfold, guys. 

[shadowclaw]

Dear mailman,

Thank you for putting the junk mail into the mailbox and dropping my W-2 forms into the snow. I think it's especially awesome that you then ran over them with your car and ground them into the snow really well.

[MidwesternAloha]

I'm frustrated that I have two interviews during one week. The SAME WEEK I just found out my husband gets to come home from his military assignment.

[geographyrocks]

I'm so pissed right now and I have nothing to direct my anger towards.  Somehow, I came down with the flu which turned into bronchitis which turned into walking pneumonia with a side of sinus infection.  I have been sick for 17 freakin days now.  I can barely complete my schoolwork because my head is pounding.  Antibiotics have done nothing.  All other medicine has done nothing.  And I refuse to continually miss class, but when I tell my professors about my situation they look at me like I'm crazy and say I shouldn't be in class.  But if I cancel, I feel like I look like a slacker.  I'm really starting to worry that I have something serious.  I need a punching bag that looks like a germ.  I would punch the crap out of that thing in between my lung-busting coughs.  I would punch it right in it's stupid, replicating face! 

[GeoDUDE!]

I've said this before to people, but this isn't the 1980's. I shouldn't have to use a command prompt to do stats. GUI's were developed for a reason. 

 

 

A defense of the command line (and programming languages).

 

Maybe in fields where you don't have to deal with big data GUI's are OK, but you are sacrificing flexibility for  convenience with GUIs. And even thats a stretch, since once you write a program (and if you do it well) you have it forever, and just have to press one button to get it to work.

 

I couldn't do the statistics I need to do with SAS or excel, there are just too many calculations and too many data points for it to run efficiently. Try loading millions-billions of data points in SAS or Excel, not to mention actually doing work.  I dont want to wait days for calculations when I can do them in minutes in Matlab.

 

R was actually made as a free alternative to Matlab, which is great.  Matlab was made to be an easier (but still very flexible) alternative to Fortran.  The difference between fortran and Matlab is fortran is computationally faster but Matlab is easier to use. They both can "do" the same things. 

 

The real reason GUI's were developed is so people could do simple tasks without having to learn much. As a researcher, you should be thinking further ahead imo, or else you will be seriously limiting the questions you can tackle in the future. I taught a matlab based geophysics course last quarter, and on the first day I gave them a speech (they didnt know matlab at all) about how they will discover a new, quantitative side of themself through learning matlab. All of a sudden, statistics on large data sets is easy. All of a sudden its easy to get numerical solutions to equations that have no solution.  All of a sudden its easy to plot anything in whatever quantity you want. All of a sudden its possible to load any type of data in any type of format.  All of a sudden you have an entire community constantly developing new features that are being added into the language's library every day. 

 

Another thing I want to mention is that eventually, if you use the computer enough, a GUI actually becomes reasonably slower. On OSX, I almost completely live in the command line. I can type faster than I can click (around 130 wpm). There are tons of single button shortcuts you can create. 

 

This isn't actually meant to be directed at you shadow claw, but my frustration with people in general who are completely dismissive of learning analytical techniques. Sorry I am using the literal "you", instead of "people".

 

Even if you never have to do this, chances are you will collaborate with someone who does (or want to  use one of their scripts) and you will need to learn how to use it to be an effective scientist (or journal article reviewer). 

 

/rantoff

Edited January 29, 2015 by GeoDUDE!

[jujubea]

I'm so pissed right now and I have nothing to direct my anger towards.  Somehow, I came down with the flu which turned into bronchitis which turned into walking pneumonia with a side of sinus infection.  I have been sick for 17 freakin days now.  I can barely complete my schoolwork because my head is pounding.  Antibiotics have done nothing.  All other medicine has done nothing.  And I refuse to continually miss class, but when I tell my professors about my situation they look at me like I'm crazy and say I shouldn't be in class.  But if I cancel, I feel like I look like a slacker.  I'm really starting to worry that I have something serious.  I need a punching bag that looks like a germ.  I would punch the crap out of that thing in between my lung-busting coughs.  I would punch it right in it's stupid, replicating face! 

 

Dude, you have walking pneumonia, that is serious!

[FinallyAccepted]

I'm so pissed right now and I have nothing to direct my anger towards.  Somehow, I came down with the flu which turned into bronchitis which turned into walking pneumonia with a side of sinus infection.  I have been sick for 17 freakin days now.  I can barely complete my schoolwork because my head is pounding.  Antibiotics have done nothing.  All other medicine has done nothing.  And I refuse to continually miss class, but when I tell my professors about my situation they look at me like I'm crazy and say I shouldn't be in class.  But if I cancel, I feel like I look like a slacker.  I'm really starting to worry that I have something serious.  I need a punching bag that looks like a germ.  I would punch the crap out of that thing in between my lung-busting coughs.  I would punch it right in it's stupid, replicating face! 

 

Really. Do it.

http://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/products/pneumonia-petri.html

[geographyrocks]

Dude, you have walking pneumonia, that is serious!

I've always figured that if I could still walk, it wasn't serious. I should probably reevaluate that since I know this feeling guilty for missing class is all in my head.

I just need to repeat to myself: "it's pneumonia. You're allowed to miss class for pneumonia."

[jujubea]

I've always figured that if I could still walk, it wasn't serious. I should probably reevaluate that since I know this feeling guilty for missing class is all in my head.

I just need to repeat to myself: "it's pneumonia. You're allowed to miss class for pneumonia."

 

No way dude, look it up. It's the name given to the seemingly incurable strains of pneumonia, you know, those not responsive to antibiotics or other conventional treatment. That's serious! 

It also belies the patient's state because apparently you "look" fine, but feel like garbage. 

[MidwesternAloha]

No way dude, look it up. It's the name given to the seemingly incurable strains of pneumonia, you know, those not responsive to antibiotics or other conventional treatment. That's serious! 

It also belies the patient's state because apparently you "look" fine, but feel like garbage.

And I'm the minority student who has cancer and no immune system and doesn't want to catch that from you lol

[busybeinganxious]

Over dinner every night, my kids ask if I've heard anything from schools yet.  I reply "Nope, not yet."  They answer "You'll get in Mom!"  I respond "Thanks honey." while thinking "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"   

 

They're great kids, and I know I should be grateful they care what's going on...I am, but geeez...talk about pressure.  Nothing worse in the world than letting down your kids.