I'm not sure things could get any worse...

But, I've probably just jinxed myself. This will be me tomorrow, "Oh! THAT's how this will get worse...." I'm trying hard to laugh at that statement, but...not yet, perhaps. Instead, I think I'll just cry, but that would make me look not so competent to all the denizens of this computer lab (I'm the on-duty consultant right now).

So I'll just blog about it instead. I've been having an incredibly difficult time dealing with a certain professor who is in charge of the psych pool. He's isn't allowing me to use the pool for my class assignment, and he's being very unreasonable about it as well. My fav prof approved the project; and technically, I have IRB approval for it, but he won't budge. So I've been dealing with him through emails and he is so blunt, harsh, and condescending in his emails. Almost every time I read a response from him, I feel like I've been slapped on the wrist. I usually have to back away, collect myself, then formulate a well-crafted response, ingratiating myself to him. It totally strips my ego. But, today a glitch happened and we both blew things way out of proportion. I finally responded by slapping him on the wrist in my email. But, he didn't take so kindly to it, and requested a meeting with me to talk about it. The problem is, I don't know if he wants to meet to reprimand me or to clear the air. But, whatever's going on, he indicated that he enjoys working with me and thought we had a good working relationship. I don't know where he got that idea; I think working with him has been incredibly difficult. But, anyways...

The other problem is that I stupidly left things until the last minute with the grant proposal. I was vaguely aware that I would need someone from the university to handle the final product, insert special codes, and throw in some signatures for good measure. But, when I tried to contact them last minute, I got someone who had never even heard of the NRSA and thought that everything goes through faculty members. So I tried talking to my advisor and again, I let my mouth do too much talking and put that foot right back in that mouth. My poor advisor just humored me, but this has not been a good day for appropriate responses on my part. So she told me to contact another person, who responded to me by saying that basically I'm not eligible to apply for the grant because this is not a combo Ph.D./M.D. and I'm not from an underrepresented group. So I searched the PAs again and thought I had found something that indicated I was eligible. Ugh! I cannot even explain how I felt. I thought that my small sliver of hope that I could obtain my own funding was gone, and that I was grasping for answers because everyone else seemed so incompetent. It was horrible. But, I have an appointment with her and she seems to have agreed with me that I'm eligible to apply. Apparently, I'm the first brave soul from this university to try applying for a federal predoctoral fellowship. Oh, help me God.

To top it all off, I'm not even finished with the grant proposal. I've been stymied by crazy statistical problems. I guess that's what happens when you try to write about a sophisticated statistical technique in which you've never even taken a class. Even worse, the literature suggests curvilinear relationships, and complicated interactions among the variables. So I'm going to have to describe a procedure that I will do to deal with nonlinear data. And it turns out that it's a special case that is so unusual that most people don't even attempt it. Once again...Oh, help me God.

If that wasn't enough, I tried putting through the paperwork for the neuropsych externship again. (Why, oh why do I load myself up with extra work that I don't get paid for!) But, when I tried contacting the neuropsychologist about fulfilling the requirement for demonstrating training in infection control (whatever that is), he insisted that the university was supposed to provide that...again. Can we stop passing the ball people? So I took it upon myself to figure it out...again. I came up with a Red Cross course in preventing disease transmission, but it's not offered until next month. Yep, what more could possible delay this? At least I get to decline the Hepatitis B shots that would have cost me $300, and would have taken four months to complete. Sigh...

To reiterate, I'm not sure things could get any worse...

Still plugging away...

Too tired to say anything more...I'm just here, somehow managing....yep, managing, yep, yep, yep.

Happy Thanksgiving

Time spent away with family was just what I needed. I stayed up 'till 2am talking with my little sister last night and it was so nice to reconnect with her. And it seems like we've been playing board games non-stop. We have two board games that I'm sure very few are familiar with: The Farming Game and Acquire. The Farming Game is probably almost as old as I am. We got it in a feed store when we lived on a dairy back when I was a small child. It was actually designed by a farmer to represent what it is really like to live life as a farmer. I know it sounds silly, but we really love that game; it's so quirky and cute. The other game, Acquire, is a made up of square pieces on a grid. The idea is that the pieces represent hotel chains and the purpose of the game is to form and merge hotel chains and hold majority stock in your hotels. It's very strategic, but still requires a little luck, depending on the pieces you draw. Every time we play, the game is different, and it's very addictive.

However, I do plan to return home tomorrow afternoon so that I can get back to work. I have an incredible amount of work to do in such a short amount of time. My little sister said one thing that made me laugh, though. She's been observing the grad students in the research lab where she works, and she decided that she doesn't really want to go to grad school because the grad students put in such long hours, then take extra work home at night, and seem so stressed out all the time. Plus, she said that she doesn't like school as much as I. Oh, I laugh! Yes, even though I complain about how swamped I am and how stressful this all is, I love it and couldn't imagine myself doing anything else. I really do love school.

But, alas, the scholarly community will really lose out if my little sister decides not to join the ranks.

Sigh...........................

I feel like I'm just barely keeping my head above water.

I'm seriously exhausted. My brain has stopped working. My mind swarms with all the things I must juggle. Lately, my research has suffered a great deal of scheduling mishaps that totally sap my energy and frustrate me. I'm the one who has to patch it all up when things come falling apart. Participants fail to show up and then want to reschedule with me. Participants show up when they aren't supposed to and then want to reschedule with me. Participants forget that they have class and then want to reschedule with me. Participants call me at 11:45pm to say they can come the next day, oh, and by the way, sorry for calling so late. No problem, man, it's not like I'm asleep anyways.

Then my research assistants don't show up to test the participants. But, I have to test a my own participant. And I have to call my other research assistant to test my participant. And then another research assistant is late and I have to prep her participant before I can get to my own participant, who should have been tested by my other assistant who failed to show up. In all honesty, I think I forgot to let her know that she had participants for those times. Sometimes I wonder whether I bring this all upon myself or if these are freak accidents that keep happening to me. I don't know, but I can't possibly be this incompetent.

And in the midst of it all, I have to push forward a contract between my university and the hospital where I'll be doing my neuropsych internship. There's so much going back and forth; nobody knows what's required and who's supposed to be doing what. Sigh, I have to get all these shots tomorrow and run around getting signatures.

And in the midst of all that, I have not been able to put together a very simple, short IRB application to start running pilot tests on a new study. And I have to finish programming my paradigm in Superlab, let alone write a new program for this study. I even have to take care of the technical issues in the lab by contacting and scheduling the tech person around all the testing (and believe me, there are very few hours in a week that someone is NOT testing a participant). And let's not even get started on the fact that my grant proposal has blown to pieces and the deadline is looming. Plus, I need to start coding data so that I can ensure that the rest of the participants will be balanced across conditions in one of my studies. And I still have to write a test review, create a survey, collect data, and conduct a factor analysis on the survey for one of my classes.

And another participant left a message wanting to reschedule with me because he had class during our testing session this morning. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is the semester over yet? Whimper...

Dissertatin'

Well, my advisor sent another copy of the dissertation with her own comments. I was so intrigued that I spent a bunch of time reviewing her comments and making my own replies. Then I sent it back to her with feedback for both my advisor and the grad student who wrote the dissertation. And I thought this was going to be at the bottom of my To Do list. Sigh...

So now I've decided to lay aside the grant proposal and do my reading for class tomorrow instead. This reading is going to kick my butt. I can feel it already. Sigh....

Arrrrrrgh!!!!!!!

I decided to change up my design on the grant proposal to make the model experimental/ between subjects rather than correlational/within subjects. But, now I can't figure out what the model is supposed to look like!!! Argh!!!!!

Does anyone out there know what an experimental SEM model with two mediational variables, two experimental conditions, and one pre/post condition is supposed to look like?Beats me....

I'm surprised I'm still functioning. I went to bed at 9:30pm last night because I was so worn out from the insane week I had. The previous post was just an inkling of what the rest of my week was like. By Thursday night, I was feeling deathly tired as I worked in the computer lab. I was so glad my coworker showed up, even though he didn't have to be there. He took care of the lab, while I rested on the couch.

Man, so many things have happened that I just simply can't process it all and now I'm wracking my brain to make this grant proposal work! When will the insanity end?

New Prof doesn't think he can give me a stipend after all. But, he thinks he can move money around for my project. I've decided to ask him to co-sponsor me on this NIH-NRSA proposal and hopefully I can get this grant. Sigh...

I talked to my biology contact and figured out how much this might cost. Then I talked with my advisor and informed her of what I've been doing. She was all concerned about the other SEM project I was going to do with her. Don't worry Advisor! I'll do that project, too. Then she finally sent the dissertation that I asked her to send, once she understood that I wanted to do the same thing for my dissertation. As it turns out, this dissertation is by a grad student that was in my cohort during my Master's program. One more reminder that my academic detour has left me trailing behind others. But, my advisor strongly hinted that she would like my feedback on her dissertation so that she can incorporate that into her own feedback. Ha, ha, my advisor makes me laugh. No, I'm not being facetious this time. It really does make me feel better that my advisor sought out my feedback on another grad student's dissertation, when I'm not even at the dissertatin' stage yet.

Now if only I could find the time to actually do that.

I made it through the day; Now my brain is fried

This has been one whirlwind day. I drove in early to meet with a new research assistant (shall I call her Research Assistant #3?) to show her how to test participants. But, she called me half an hour before to say that she was going to be late because she had an asthma attack. So I told her that would be fine. When it was time to test the participant at 9am, she wasn't there, but her participant was. Unfortunately, I was scheduled to test a different participant at that time, who had not shown up yet. Luckily, Research Associate #1 saved the day and offered to test my participant so that I could start testing this participant, who had a class in 45 minutes and couldn't afford to wait for Research Assistant #3. So I tested the participant, but Research Assistant #3 never showed up. I just managed to get the participant through the whole testing session with two minutes to spare. Then I checked my email and voicemail and discovered that Research Assistant #3 was at the doctor's office because her asthma attack had gotten serious. So I got Research Associate #1 to test the next participant and I waited for the next participant that Research Assistant #3 was supposed to test. Urgh! He never showed up, though. So then I looked up articles for the next hour before I had a large group testing session at 11am.

Amazingly, a large group of people were waiting to sign up for a study just 10 minutes before my large group testing session. So I recruited the people for my study and many of them actually headed up to the room where I was to hold the study. I was grateful for the extra people, except that when I handed out the packets, I was just short of the number of packets I needed. So I raced back downstairs and grabbed a bunch of questionnaires, but the office was out of scantrons!! I asked the administrative assistant for more scantrons and she joked about charging me because technically, scantrons are not supposed to be used for research purposes. Then I tried printing off the consent form over the wireless connection to the printer in the lab, but it wouldn't work, even though it worked fine yesterday!!! So I left my laptop with the consultants and ran back upstairs to give the questionnaire to the participants, so they would have something to do while I tried to get the rest of the packets printed. By the time I made it back up to the room, some people were ready to leave and they needed my signature on a participation slip. So I spent the next half hour frantically signing participant slips and organizing turned-in packets. Argh! In the midst of all this, my work replacement called me and I found out he hadn't clocked in for me because he thought I had already clocked in. I had asked him to fill in for me in the computer lab because I needed to schedule the large group testing session during my work hours. Urgh!!

So I raced back downstairs and left all the materials in my second office (I like to take over offices and make them mine, hehehe). Then I ran back up to the lab and left my other stuff in order to run to the library and grab some coffee and a muffin because I was starving. When I got there, a huge line had formed, but I only had 10 minutes before class started. So I got out of line and asked for change from the librarian. Then I ran back to my building and bought a Snickers, my lunch for the day. I wolfed down the Snickers and headed upstairs for my class. Phew!! I was shaking from exhaustion and sucrose depletion. But, class was awesome. I was thoroughly entertained and found many opportunities to tease Fav Prof and Research Associate #1. Research Associate #1 got a few good teases back at me, too Ahhh! Every class should be this laid back.

After class, I asked Fav Prof if I could speak to him. But, he had a faculty meeting to attend, so I walked with him there and talked with him about my project. He was surprised that my project was going to utilize structural equation modeling. I just saw this brief look of surprise flicker over his face when I told him. From then on he referred to the project as a pilot project. He, he, he, but in my mind this is going to be much more than a pilot project. Watch out!! I'm here to accomplish the unthinkable!!! So the main point is that he was favorable towards the project, was willing to be an advisor on the comps project, and was going to read my proposal and get back to me. I still need to talk with him about the number of participants that I need before I can make the budget for New Prof.

Okay, so then I tested one more participant and called it a day at 5pm. Sigh! Now all I can do is sit here and stare into space, collecting myself from the insanity that was my day.

Another Surprising Twist

I just got an email from my former advisor over the weekend. He was sending out another rewrite of an article that I have authorship on (4th out of 5 authors! Yes! I'm doing good...I'm also being facetious again). He's been having some difficulty getting it published, which is unusual because of how novel it is to conduct the same study on ERP and fMRI and examine whether the results are consistent. (For those of you who are interested, you can do source localizations on ERP data to find the area in the brain where the waveform originated and compare that to the activation area from the fMRI results. You'd think this would be cool enough for journal editors, right?)

So I thought to myself, "What a wonderful opportunity to get my former advisor to review my NRSA proposal!" So I spent all Saturday making insightful comments and tracking changes to the document he sent me in order that he might reciprocate with as much effort on my paper as well. Of course, I wanted to do what I could to contribute to the writing of the article (gotta earn that 4th authorship, ya know! Well, I analyzed the fMRI data, so that's why I get authorship.).

I just thought this was such funny timing that my former advisor popped up out of the blue right when all of these things have been dovetailing together for my comps project/NRSA proposal. My proposal is actually partially based on research I did with my former advisor. I'm simply looking at a different population and using a different paradigm and method of analysis. Okay, now it doesn't sound so similar. But, I am looking at affect and cognition and particularly cortisol and dopamine levels. My former advisor had an interesting theory about stress and dopamine. So he would be able to critically evaluate my section on psychopharmacology, which no one else around here could do. Yep, things are getting more and more interesting.

Next week, I shall rope in Fav Prof to be the methodology expert, and re-establish my contact in the Biology Department, who will provide the facilities and assistance with the immunoassay analyses.

Breakneck Speed

Yep, I decided to take up New Prof's offer to basically include him as an advisor and potentially get funding from him. Although, when I talked with him today, there seemed to be a little less assurance that he would be able to fund me. I think he was just exaggerating a little yesterday to impress me or something like that. So we'll have to see what's going to happen. But, he seems like he's up to the challenge. And it seems like he would actually commit to advising me; whereas, I have to push for and seek out advising from most other people around here. It seems to have already had some profound effect on me in terms of causing me to feel like there's somebody interested and invested in what I accomplish short and long term. And therefore, I'm working much harder on this than I would have otherwise been doing. Interesting....

He was also very excited when I said that I'd be interested in co-teaching with him next semester. It was actually very comical. He was searching on his computer for something to send me and simultaneously telling me something about class. It reminded me that I wanted to mention the co-teaching thing to him and as soon as I did, he dropped everything and faced me with a big smile on his face, saying "Really!!! What do you want to teach?!?!" I laughed, as I always do. But, it was very funny. I think he enjoys teaching. He's won tons of teaching awards, so it will probably be very good for me to learn from him. He wanted to immediately go talk to the Department Chair about seeing whether there might be some money for me to co-teach with him. I'm not sure how that's going to work out, especially since I seem to be requesting a lot from the Department Chair lately. But, it seemed like I had just made New Prof's day. Ha, ha!! We might work on Child and Adolescent Psych together. He decided to go topical rather than chronological just to shake things up. This will be great!

Now if I can only manage to remain sane next semester as I juggle a Neuropsych externship, three classes, co-teaching, and three research projects. No wonder New Prof thought I was doing more than most faculty here. It's just cause I'm insane. No sane person would take on this much. Hmm...something's gotta give....

Opening up old wounds

Ugh...today was a rough day. It started out fine with testing a particularly interesting undergrad. I miss those days in undergrad when I used to surround myself with interesting characters and talk into the wee hours of the morning. When people grow older, they seem to lose that sense of carefree silliness. Responsibility sets in, and conversation seems to lose it's spark. Anyhow, that's not what I wanted to talk about.

I wandered into the kitchen area, looking for leftover free food from yesterday's faculty/staff luncheon (yes, I raided the food yesterday; what do you expect? I'm a grad student.). But, I found none. Instead, I ended up talking to one of the new faculty members who's office was nearby. I've been paying close attention to this faculty member (as I do with everyone) and I suspected that he was sizing up the graduate students. He's the one who called me smart, if you remember that post (I don't remember it, otherwise I'd link to it. But, it's pretty self-explanatory.). Well, I also suspected that he was trying to get me to work with him, perhaps because he wants to work with smart grad students. I, on the other hand, was not so keen to be tied down on someone else's line of research. If you remember, I sometimes get confused and think I'm already a professor. I like being here because I have a lot of freedom to do my own thing, as long as it doesn't require funding, then I'm a wee bit restricted in what research I can do.

As it turns out, New Prof, (yes, we'll call him New Prof, because, well, he's new) likes to be very candid, and cut through the pleasantries, and straight into the heart of things. So we talked about the "just-do-what-I-need-to-do-to-get-my-Ph.D." grad student mentality around here and the lack of an academic culture of intellectual curiosity. Sigh...these are the kinds of things that foster the ugliness of academic pride and egotism. But, I fell right into it. It was also quite clear that New Prof wanted to push my buttons and take the conversation in directions that, mercifully, no one else around here has done. Everyone else has taken my return at face value and not questioned me about why I came back. Either they are not interested, or they have satisfied themselves with the explanation that Cognitive Neuroscience was too "technical" for me. But, New Prof saw through everything and suspected that there was something more going on under the surface. He's quite right, of course, let's just say that it was under unhappy circumstances that I left my previous program.

So now my emotions are very raw. As I walked out of that office, everything from the past came flooding back, and I had a hard time remaining composed for my next class. I sat through the class without saying a word, just nodding and shifting around in my seat, hoping class would be over soon, and I could go get food and find solace in my office.

But, I was right about one thing. New Prof did want me to work with him, even though he actually told me he thought I was smarter than him, and that it would be a real challenge for him to advise me (strange thing for a prof to say, he's not a typical prof, that's for sure). Well, he said he had plenty of funding for me to work with him. But, when I balked at the idea of working with him because, clearly, I want to do my own research, he said that I could just find something I wanted to do that fit into his area and it would be fine. I didn't take the bait, yet, but indicated that I would think about it.

I've been thinking about it, and I have a project in mind that needs funding, so I might propose it to him and see what he says. But, there's one stipulation...No more pushing my buttons!!!!!

Search terms again

To all the people coming here searching for information on Structural Equation Modeling and downloading Lisrel, I just want to say, "Thanks!" It makes me laugh to know that you are finding yourself on a blog page when you are looking for helpful information. Perhaps one day I will actually post helpful information for you instead of randomly dropping these terms in my posts. He, he.

Heck, maybe I'll be nice...try this site.

Slightly Overwhelmed

Socially overwhelmed, that is. But, mostly angry. Angry at people. Angry at my advisor, who didn't tell me that my application to use the psych research pool had been sitting in her box for a week. A week that I had been waiting, patiently, as I watched the psych pool line up to sign up for other peoples' research. Research Associate #1 told me today that his application request had been returned to him in one day. I'm experiencing pangs as I write this. I could have been signing people up last week, but I didn't know that I could. I just can't begin to describe how much it bothers me to have to depend on others who consistently flake out on me. Just last week, Research Associate #2 failed to show up to her testing session and I had to try to test two people at once. But, that doesn't even begin to touch the angst I'm feeling about this situation.

See, I go way back with my advisor. I started working with her as a freshman. But, I always felt like I couldn't depend on her, and I had to make my own way. I got a little egotistical about it, too; I'd think I knew more than her. Silly me, how could I possibly know more than an established full professor? Then I left. But, I came back and started right back up with her. During the time I was gone, I worked out my narcissism issues. And I thought things would be different this time if I just changed my attitude. But, I think that this incident caused everything in the past to flare back up again. I was once again at the receiving end of her flakiness, and it cost me some time, resources, anything. It just cost me. And I feel once again that I can't depend on her, for even something as small as communicating to me the contents of her mailbox if it pertains to me. Sigh...

The other thing that set me over the edge was an email I received from a participant. She wanted to know whether today's session that she signed up for was the follow-up to one study or if it was for the other study. Because she decided that she didn't want to come to the other study, but she still wanted to do the follow-up. Please, where is your tact? I'm so tired of dealing with participants who either don't show up or who pull rude things like this, expecting me to bend over backwards to accommodate them. Why can't I just have all the good students who want to help me out by participating? She never showed up.

I don't want to go through the hassle of collecting data anymore. I just want data. Give me data to play with. That's all I want. Is that too much to ask?

Submitted!

Yes! I just submitted the NSF graduate fellowship application with hours left to spare! I hope now that my transcripts, GRE's, and reference letters make it in on time in the coming month. Feels nice to be done and it was a good experience. I probably should have gotten my advisor to look at my application, but I guess I waited too long to get it done. This was kinda a baby application for me. The big kid application is going to be the NIH NRSA application next month. It actually resembles a real grant application for which Ph.D. level peoples apply. Now onto all the work I pushed aside in order to get this done in time. When will I ever learn that procrastination is not a particularly good idea?

This is a good day.

Church was awesome today. Pastor talked about the importance of getting into the presence of God. I totally agreed with everything he said, which probably explains why church was so good (kidding, people!!). But, again, it was something I needed to hear, because even though I already agreed with it, I wasn't practicing it quite so much in real life. Which might explain why I haven't been expressing the joy of the Lord as much lately either. So I'm ready to get my butt in gear now...

Which reminds me...did you know that the deadline for the NSF graduate fellowship is tomorrow?!? Yeah, me neither!!! Okay, so maybe I might have known and maybe I'm just a procrastinator...

Amazingly enough, I actually had fun preparing my project statement yesterday (and you all know how important it is for me to think of this sort of thing as fun...). But, my living room absolutely exploded with these stacks of paper that are stapled together and chock full of words strung together into meaningful sentences. I haven't quite figured out what they are for. Perhaps I should read them.....hmmmm.....yeah, that might be it.

Anyhoo, I think I'm really interested in this subject. I'm writing this grant on diet restriction and how it affects working memory. In addition, I plan to assess cortisol and dopamine levels, both of which are altered in anorexia, and also have effects on cognitive functioning. What does all this have to do with Educational Psychology, you might ask? I dunno. But, yesterday I decided to throw in emotion and make it a structural equation modeling study. Yes, so now those reviewers had better be impressed and give me funding because my study is going to be totally cool.

Well, I had better get back to work. Those grant applications don't write themselves, you know.

Well, this was an interesting week...

Read: "Well, this was an INSANE week." But, actually, it did have some "interesting" moments and I'll recount those in the order of how highly they load on the Interestingness factor. Ahhh, I'm such a nerd.

1) Moment in which Research Associate #1 calls me a dork in class.

My reaction was far more interesting, but I'll start at the beginning...Favorite Prof and another student had gotten into a debate about whether two different sets of behavior could be considered two separable phenomena or if one was a subset of the other (simply different levels of analysis of the same phenomenon). The student seemed to be getting a little annoyed at the prof, so I thought it would be fun to diffuse the situation by suggesting it was an empirical question. I did not, of course, use those words; instead, I implied it by suggesting we write items for each and see if a resulting factor analysis yielded one or two factors. Two seconds pass by in which everybody kinda looks at each other and nobody responds. So then Research Associate #1 calls me a dork with a definite inflection in his voice, suggesting perhaps that he was trying to emphasize the massive dorkiness of my statement. So now everybody responds by laughing hysterically and we've fully diffused the situation (not that it actually required diffusing anyways). But, I respond by pretending to get angry at him. I may have nudged him forcefully on the arm a couple of times. And I do remember stating something to the effect of, "Argh! Every time I say something smart, he tries to invalidate me." Favorite Prof jokes that he does that because he's a male. And, looking a little freaked out, Research Associate #1 states that it's his defense mechanism. Oh! Joy! I had great fun with that situation, but I felt I had to do some damage control and reassure Research Associate #1 that I was not actually angry at him.

2) Moment in which I inadvertently set up Slightly Egotistical Prof to use me as a target for a demonstration of the difference between hostile and instrumental aggression.

Now I'm in another class with a different prof, heretofore titled, "Slightly Egotistical Prof." We're discussing how to define terrorism; don't ask me how that relates to this class on research issues in development. This time I'm the one who gets into a debate with this prof about the difference between hostile and instrumental aggression. We have different understandings of the term and I basically stated that I did not consider him the authority on the subject and that I taught it differently in one of my classes (Oops! I set up a situation in which it was my word against his. Not a good idea when the prof has been consistently displaying tendencies towards egotism.) So he responds by stating that he's done research and published on the topic, but I've just taught a class. Oy! I laugh and make exaggerated motions of "Whoa! Okay there! I totally understand where you're going with this." But, he tries to assure me that he was just using that moment as an example of hostile, reactive aggression; he wasn't actually trying to attack my credibility. But, he did try to make sure that I knew he was right by getting some definitive handbook during the break and pointing out a passage in the book that supposedly supported his side. I sort of continued to bait him by saying that I thought the passage was a little vague and that I'd look up the original source that was cited in the passage. Ahhh, I think I'm getting a little too big for my britches.

3) Moment in which I tell Slightly Egotistical Prof's class how Research Associate #1 called me a dork in our other class.

Ahh, I couldn't help myself. Since we were talking about aggression, I brought up how I had "slightly nudged" Research Associate #1 after he called me a dork. We had a good time again allowing Research Associate #1 to defend himself, and pretty much laughing about the situation.

4) Moment in which Slightly Egotistical Prof and I end up discussing a new topic as the rest of the class talks amongst themselves.

I don't know how it happened, but we were having two students present on their topics and it was now Research Associate #1's turn to facilitate the discussion on his topic (which overlaps with my own past research). He started by doing a demonstration of the Tower of Hanoi with two of the other students who were not familiar with the task. I tried very hard not to take over his presentation, but I had more knowledge of past research on the task than he. So I directed my explanations toward Slightly Egotistical Prof while Research Associate #1 was distracted into explaining the task further to one of the students. Then Research Associate #2 started talking with the other student who didn't know about the task and we basically had three different conversations going on at the same time for the rest of the class period. But, it was quite fun to discuss the task with Slightly Egotistical Prof. We really got into it and talked for quite some time, and then he realized that we needed to wrap up the class. So Slightly Egotistical Prof summarized our conversation for the rest of the class and we called it good. Basically, Research Associate #1 didn't have to defend his articles and ideas against Slightly Egotistical Prof like the first student had to.

5) Moment in which I forget that I am still just a grad student and chat with Fav Prof and Slightly Egotistical Prof as if I was their peer.

We started "chatting" about the person who interviewed for a faculty position here (some people might call it academic gossip, but since I don't engage in academic gossip, we'll call it "chatting"). I had had a chance to talk for 5 minutes with the applicant about fMRI. The applicant did not agree that fMRI could be a useful tool for understanding brain function because of poor external validity, and because of that whole "correlation does not imply causation" thing. He sounded like a social constructivist, so I became instantly biased against him. But, I didn't try to seriously debate with him about it because the Department Chair was standing there and I thought I should be nice and go easy on the applicant. But, I was not so nice and easy on the applicant in my "chat" with the profs, because I thought he did not sound intelligent. However, one of the profs thought that the applicant was just dumbing himself down and making statements that would be consistent with the flavor of this university and department. Grrr! The prof thought that we should bring him here and that I should get a new advisor, preferably the new prof we're bringing in, which might be this guy. The other prof stated that I don't fit here, either. So it seemed that both of them had formed some impression of me that included that idea that I was rather intelligent and that my needs were not being fulfilled by the department or by my current advisor. Oy!! So I looked up the applicant online and discovered that he has a paradigm named after him. You know you're somebody when you have your own paradigm. But, alas, I'm just here to have fun, do my own research, and graduate with a Ph.D. I don't really have these crazy ambitions like I used to and I try not to exceed Slightly Egotistical Prof in the Egotism arena (but after having read this post, you might suggest that I start calling myself Slightly Egotistical Grad Student. He, he).

So I just want to have fun in this program and not take myself too seriously.