I am happy to report that I have purchased a new espresso maker. Much simpler and more importantly, smaller, than my poor deceased machine, which I have now taken apart with little result. This new gadget is not even really a gadget, just a stove-top espresso makes, but I am very excited to wake up tomorrow morning and not have to rush through my morning just to get to the nearest coffee-shop before my headache kicks in. :)
I have been thinking - since yesterday - that so far, this year has presented me with some substantial challenges, which is a good thing, well, it's good if I succeed. I think it's good to stop - not only at New Year's time - and look back and kind of summarize and analyze some of the recent happenings in one's life. There was the big physical challenge: the marathon, which I succeeded in finishing after a less than ideal training period. Physically, it was the single hardest thing I have done to date. It was also quite a tough emotional challenge - maybe this is not something that often gets put into this category, but to me, as someone who is not always the most emotionally stable (maybe that's just called being a woman), it really does fit well - trying to stay grounded and rational through some big emotional and very irrational roller-coasters. I think I did pretty well on that front too. I am not sure about this next one though...
This Friday I am leaving for Lisbon, Portugal, to go to a science conference. I was very excited all the way up until yesterday, when my adviser decided - well, I can't even say decided because he is so passive aggressive in everything he does that he didn't even say it straight out - not to go, which is bad because he is an invited speaker and his talk is a week from tomorrow and it is way too late to reorganize the meeting schedule and it would look really bad on him if he just canceled, so he came up with the perfect solution that involves the least amount of work for him: I can give his talk instead! This might not sound like such a big deal, but it is! It's a faculty talk, meaning it's long, and it's at an international conference in front of the leading scientists in the field, who know the literature and current trends in research like the back of their hands. And there will I be, a young grad student, thrown in the middle of all this. I guess this is 2009's intellectual challenge for me - not that being in grad school, writing a paper and making some big decisions about trying to change careers aren't enough for a year!
I am trying to look at this positively - after having an anxiety attack yesterday - and thinking about how great this will look on my resume (will it?) and if it goes well, then I can make a good impression on people in the field, which might be very useful at some point in my life (but what if it goes terribly?) and after all, I like presentations (but not in front of an international audience with the creme de la creme of the field) and I am still going to be in Lisbon and the weather will be amazing and my parents will be there (my Mom's shoulder to cry on potentially) but it can still go really terribly. Ok, back to being positive... sunny, warm Lisbon and seeing my Mom and Dad... that's about all the positive things I can think of right now.
But, for my adviser, in his last email he wrote to me with 9 different PowerPoint presentations attached to it so I can put together the talk (he could have at least organized them!) he wrote on the bottom: "Thanks, and PS: you will make my wife very happy." No joke. I am not even trying to figure out what that means.
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